COVID-19/Coronavirus Information and Support Thread (see OP for useful links)

[Blitz24]

Here's something fun for UK folks; my wife came home from Tenerife before Christmas and had to fill out forms providing her address and contact details to ensure she was able to quarantine for 10 days after arrival. She arrived at the airport with her forms in hand and no matter where she tried to hand them in she was waved through and told not to worry about it. It doesn't exactly fill me with confidence that they're now expected to ensure that arrivals have negative Covid tests!

Sounds like the TSA.

 

[UKMikey]

AP: Pharmacist accused of spoiling vaccine has license suspended

https://apnews.com/article/wisconsi...irus-vaccine-87540a894f593cd9252772bd106aff8e

 

[Tired Tyres]

...While reading up on South Africa's response to the South African strain of this virus, something suddenly struck me as a bit odd.

We are finally getting vaccines rolled out, but what about the drugs to treat the ones already suffering from COVID19? I thought many pharmaceutical companies were hard at work figuring that out?

Not sure if it's just the media's attention currently focused on the vaccines since they are (somewhat) available now, or the research into the potential treatment aren't going well enough to report anything new. I dearly hope it's not the latter, especially when I read that this South African variant kind of resists the cocktail of drugs that the doctors had devised to soften the blow of COVID19 symptoms...

There was a story on BBC news a couple of days ago of someone in hospital taking something that is designed to treat people with covid. It's still in testing and there were warnings that drugs showing early promise don't always turn out to be any good.

 

[Daz555]

Our needle wielders are able to vaccinate a million people per week, so we should be able to vaccinate the entire country in 18 weeks. The current limiting factor is the delivery of the vaccines.

There also some supply line issues - simple stuff like not enough vials to store vaccines in!

 

[Joey D]

AP: Pharmacist accused of spoiling vaccine has license suspended

https://apnews.com/article/wisconsi...irus-vaccine-87540a894f593cd9252772bd106aff8e

Imagine throwing away your career and hundreds of thousands of dollars in school all because you're an idiot. This guy deserves everything he gets.

===

I'm finally scheduled to get my vaccine on the 21st. I had to jump through hoops, but I'm legitimately (and more important legally) in line. I'm also probably going to have to wait in my car 4-5 hours to get it, but I'd spend all day in my car if I had to if it meant I could be vaccinated. Hopefully, I get a second dose, but I'm not holding my breath on that because the US has just failed Logistics 101 and we've gone from rationing supply to just dumping it all with no plan on how to follow the drug manufacture's instructions. At least with one dose, I should be moderately protected and in the event I do get COVID, the early data suggests it'll be less severe.

We had one leader put it best to us the other day on the phone (and I paraphrase): "How can a country that's put rovers on Mars and men on the Moon not understand and solve the logistical challenges surrounding vaccine distribution?"

I tend to agree with that. Getting vaccines shipped and administered is a monumental task, but it's not an insurmountable one.

According to this dashboard from the NYT, the US has distributed 29.4 million vaccines as of yesterday, but only administered 10.2 million (32%) (3.2% of the population). That's not nearly good enough and I still point the finger solely at the slow rollout from the federal government and the mismanagement by state health departments. As of right now, all the health care systems in the area here have been told they are not going to receive any more shipments of the vaccine, and instead the health department is going to focus on mass distribution sites. That is ridiculous when most of the major health systems here have the freezers and the staff available to administer doses.

 

[UKMikey]

My mum's first jab is tomorrow at a local Muslim community centre which has been repurposed as an inoculation centre.

 

[kikie]

Good job.

 

[Samus]

UK Government at 9am this morning: The Brazilian variant of coronavirus is not in the UK as far as we are aware.

UK Scientists at 11am: "There are two different types of Brazilian variants and one of them has been detected and one of them has not."

 

[PeterJB]

UK Government at 9am this morning: The Brazilian variant of coronavirus is not in the UK as far as we are aware.

UK Scientists at 11am: "There are two different types of Brazilian variants and one of them has been detected and one of them has not."

Guess when the travel ban comes into effect...today! The government has known about this new variant for over a week and as usual they're too slow to react.

 

[Blitz24]

Guess when the travel ban comes into effect...today! The government has known about this new variant for over a week and as usual they're too slow to react.

Instead of looking towards New Zealand (another island country) for ways to battle COVID, the UK has decided the American model is the best one to follow.

 

[Samus]

Instead of looking towards New Zealand (another island country) for ways to battle COVID, the UK has decided the American model is the best one to follow.

The craziest one is that only on this coming Monday will we require everyone entering the country to provide a negative test before. Up to now anyone could just stroll in, no checks, just being told they have to isolate for 7-10 days. Three guesses how many people didn't bother. Oh and if you come from a 'low risk' country you don't have to bother anyway.

The death toll in this tiny island nation is scandalous. Absolutely scandalous. Per 1M people, we are indeed worse than you.

 

[UKMikey]

My mum's first jab is tomorrow at a local Muslim community centre which has been repurposed as an inoculation centre.

Gujurati Jains actually. She had the Pfizer jab alongside many safely distanced pensioners today. No ill effects.

 

[Sureboss]

Instead of looking towards New Zealand (another island country) for ways to battle COVID, the UK has decided the American model is the best one to follow.

Not defending the incompetence of politicians, but New Zealand is also in the the middle of nowhere (London is closer to Africa than Auckland is to Sydney), has incredibly low population density and isn't a transport hub...it's not a good comparison.

 

[Blitz24]

Not defending the incompetence of politicians, but New Zealand is also in the the middle of nowhere (London is closer to Africa than Auckland is to Sydney), has incredibly low population density and isn't a transport hub...it's not a good comparison.

I fully agree. A terrible comparison. I just find the shared incompetence between the two big Western nations appalling.

 

[Samus]

I fully agree. A terrible comparison. I just find the shared incompetence between the two big Western nations appalling.

It's interesting (in a sad way) that whilst the approaches have been very different (USA Do pretty much nothing at a national level vs UK doing the right thing at the wrong time and vice versa, several times) has resulted in largely the same results.

 

[Joey D]

I know people on GTP haven't told me I'm exaggerating how useless the government has been in all of this, but this place is definitely the exception. Here's just another example of how the US Federal Government is completely and utterly botching the vaccine distribution:

Despite Trump administration promise, there appear to be no more 'reserve' 2nd vaccine doses to release

I can only speak about Utah, but we are certainly feeling the impact of it here. It's not good and it's looking more and more likely that we will end up with just one dose for the time being. I guess being 50% protected is better than 0% protected, but that's not going to decrease the pandemic at all. It will potentially keep people from dying, but it won't put life back to normal again and it's certainly not going to make things "safe".

 

[Blitz24]

I know people on GTP haven't told me I'm exaggerating how useless the government has been in all of this, but this place is definitely the exception. Here's just another example of how the US Federal Government is completely and utterly botching the vaccine distribution:

Despite Trump administration promise, there appear to be no more 'reserve' 2nd vaccine doses to release

I can only speak about Utah, but we are certainly feeling the impact of it here. It's not good and it's looking more and more likely that we will end up with just one dose for the time being. I guess being 50% protected is better than 0% protected, but that's not going to decrease the pandemic at all. It will potentially keep people from dying, but it won't put life back to normal again and it's certainly not going to make things "safe".

I was talking about this to my close friend, and based on this news, I am dismayed that the pandemic will end anytime before early 2022 now.

 

[Joey D]

I was talking about this to my close friend, and based on this news, I am dismayed that the pandemic will end anytime before early 2022 now.

The good news is Johnson and Johnson should have approval for its vaccine by next month, which would introduce a third contender into the mix. I have no idea how much of the vaccine it's manufactured though. If they only have a few million doses that's not really going to do much. I'm also not sure what it takes to actually formulate the vaccine either. Some vacs can be manufactured relatively quickly while others take a really long time.

At any rate, given what our numbers are today in America we've administered 12,279,180 first doses to people over the course of 32 days. That works out to be 384,000 doses per day. Given that rate, we're looking at 583 days to vaccinate 70% of the country with the first dose. Things were speeding up, but now that the stockpile has dwindled, that daily administered number is likely to fall. Depending on how long the lull is, 2022 might even be a stretch and it'll be more than likely 2023 before we reach the level of 70% vaccinated. This also assumes that the vaccines we have continue to be effective, which they might not. It would be really disheartening to get 30% of the population vaccinated only for the process to begin again from square one.

It's looking more and more that we will achieve heard immunity before vaccination immunity, which means the hospitals are going to continue to be overwhelmed and people are going to continue to die.

 

[Danoff]

The good news is Johnson and Johnson should have approval for its vaccine by next month, which would introduce a third contender into the mix. I have no idea how much of the vaccine it's manufactured though. If they only have a few million doses that's not really going to do much. I'm also not sure what it takes to actually formulate the vaccine either. Some vacs can be manufactured relatively quickly while others take a really long time.

At any rate, given what our numbers are today in America we've administered 12,279,180 first doses to people over the course of 32 days. That works out to be 384,000 doses per day. Given that rate, we're looking at 583 days to vaccinate 70% of the country with the first dose. Things were speeding up, but now that the stockpile has dwindled, that daily administered number is likely to fall. Depending on how long the lull is, 2022 might even be a stretch and it'll be more than likely 2023 before we reach the level of 70% vaccinated. This also assumes that the vaccines we have continue to be effective, which they might not. It would be really disheartening to get 30% of the population vaccinated only for the process to begin again from square one.

It's looking more and more that we will achieve heard immunity before vaccination immunity, which means the hospitals are going to continue to be overwhelmed and people are going to continue to die.

J&J just ran into manufacturing issues that are going to push them back by a month on their timeline. They're on the hook for 100M doses by mid-year.

 

[UKMikey]

My mum has developed a mild fever. I'm hoping this is just a side effect of the vaccine. We'll see how things progress overnight.

 

[Touring Mars]

My mum has developed a mild fever. I'm hoping this is just a side effect of the vaccine. We'll see how things progress overnight.

Fingers crossed and best wishes for your Mum @UKMikey.

 

[Jezza819]

My mum has developed a mild fever. I'm hoping this is just a side effect of the vaccine. We'll see how things progress overnight.

Best wishes for your mum.

I was talking to a customer today at an establishment in our general area that we do a lot business with and he was telling me what has happened to one of his co-workers parents. I'm assuming both are in their mid 70's or so.

Father was feeling sick and he's one of these guys that just doesn't want to go to a doctor. Started feeling worse and family made him go. He tested positive for Covid. Now this is the part that I might not have straight but they were having trouble getting him a hospital room due to over crowding with Covid patients, he got impatient and they had him sign a release to go home to wait for a room. But a day or two later he started feeling much worse so they had to rush him back to the hospital (about a week ago now) and he's going downhill fast.

His wife also contracted Covid and is in the same hospital. The son had went back to work today just to have some sort of normalcy I guess and got a phone call around 10am today that his mother has also gotten much worse and they don't think she has only has days to live.

So that's both parents in very critical condition in less than two weeks after they were diagnosed.

 

[UKMikey]

Thanks for the good wishes @Touring Mars and @Jezza819. I hope that elderly pair pull through; that's a horrible situation for anyone to be in.

My mum's arm is in pain from the injection so she can't go to sleep yet. Hopefully this is only temporary.

 

[Joey D]

My mum has developed a mild fever. I'm hoping this is just a side effect of the vaccine. We'll see how things progress overnight.

This is by no means a medical assessment, but you should be able to rest easy knowing that your mom is likely OK. Fever and injection site pain has been the number one and two top side effects that I've seen in the reporting. Reports also say that these side effects typically last 24-72 hours.

If your mom is still feeling under the weather in the next day or so, she should probably give her doctor a call just to be safe though, or if her fever becomes severe. In the US we consider a high fever to be 101 or higher typically, I assume in the UK it's similar.

Probably best that she gets lots of rest and more importantly stays hydrated. I've heard varying schools of thought regarding Tylenol to reduce the fever and I'm not sure what the correct one is.

 

[UKMikey]

Thanks @Joey D, she drinks at least two litres of hot water a day so hydration isn't a problem.

 

[Famine]

In the US we consider a high fever to be 101 or higher typically, I assume in the UK it's similar.

No, we'd consider 101 to be dead and in the process of boiling away.

Probably best that she gets lots of rest and more importantly stays hydrated.

Advice straight from the EMH

 

[TexRex]

Rats. I wanted to make the conversion joke.

@UKMikey I seem to recall you posting a picture of her and some information, and she seemed like a pistol. Here's hoping she not only pulls through the fever and any other issues but also ends up being protected.

 

[Joey D]

No, we'd consider 101 to be dead and in the process of boiling away.

Advice straight from the EMH

Wait, you don't use Fahrenheit for body temp in the UK? I thought you guys only used Celsius for the weather? The UK has a confusing mix of metric and imperial units.

 

[UKMikey]

Rats. I wanted to make the conversion joke.

@UKMikey I seem to recall you posting a picture of her and some information, and she seemed like a pistol. Here's hoping she not only pulls through the fever and any other issues but also ends up being protected.

Yeah, she's tough as old boots. Things aren't worse this morning. Hopefully she's on the mend.

Fun fact: my mum was the first Catholic woman to be divorced in Singapore (in the 1960s from her abusive first husband). The Pope excommunicated her for her troubles so I was never christened. Probably a contributing factor in my lifelong atheism.

 

[PeterJB]

Wait, you don't use Fahrenheit for body temp in the UK? I thought you guys only used Celsius for the weather? The UK has a confusing mix of metric and imperial units.

We don't use Fahrenheit for anything.