Same people who bash trump and think hes responsible for killing 1m americans are the same people who went to Halloween parties this past weekend,

can you have it both ways or no?


biden says he won tshut down the economy or business but he will stop teh virus, how do we do that? whats his plan to do that? is it possible?

what do you guys think is reasonable

Howard,

A couple of things.

Does AZ have $1B to throw at the volunteers? I know you're just using those numbers as concrete examples, but assuming away whatever the payment needs to be in order to get a sufficient number of volunteers seems wrong.

Also, the volunteers getting the best medical treatment we can give them does not mirror the real world. If successful, all we've shown is that vaccine X is good for those people who have access to the best medical care available.

I'm not saying I dislike the idea of challenge trials. I think you're right that we can be overly cautious, and the price of that can be worse than the price of being 100% safe. I don't know where that line is, though.

Note I used the word 'price', but didn't mean it in a monetary sense. Just couldn't think of a better term.

I don't think so because the viral load wouldn't be the same, as well as a lot of other parameters. That's why you generally have a control group.

Lektor,

I agree that viral loads will be different. To the extent we have a clue about viral loads in the wild, I would imagine we would try to duplicate those. That said, I would think that many outcomes would yield useful efficacy information. Some would likely be ambiguous for at least the reason you suggest.

@golddog: the feds have spent several billion dollars premaking vaccines that are not yet through phase III, and the cost of the pandemic is in the trillions. I don't mean to be flip about it, but what's another billion or two in volunteer payments if we can speed up resolution of this thing by even a month?

I don't think we even know how to infect people to mimic real world infection. For all we know the load they decide to use and manner they choose to deliver it in the challenge trial might cause a 5% death rate with 40% severe long term complications or perhaps it's a load and delivery which almost never causes severe disease.

The way I look at it is if researchers and public officials want to do challenge trials the researchers and public officials themselves need to be first in line to try it out.

Buried in that story about mink extermination in Denmark is very worrying news (imo) of actual people being infected with a mutated strain. Would be problem for a vaccine.

Not only that but a mutation of the spike protein which almost all the vaccines are targeting.

I strongly disagree with your second paragraph. I suspect without knowing that if the feds offered a million per person, they'd have 100,000 volunteers overnight.

i vaguely remember hearing something about huge numbers of sharks dying cuz of covid. like they will be harvested for some kind of vaccine/treatment

2nd wave mutation incoming. wheeeee

new record daily deaths - +9,063 ....daily cases +570,934

Throwing a cocktail party seems highly efficient.

Wait your turn. If Chris Christie, my 83 yr old neighbor who should have died 10 yrs ago, and my sister, can live thru it I'll give it a go for a cool mil, tax free of course.

Eta:

Also, lol Howard at WAY underestimating the poors in USA #1. There were people in OTT willing to cut off digits for thousands of dollars. The # of people willing to risk a harsh flue for a million, as opposed to going on lockdown, would be in the 10's of millions.

We talking finger prices again?

COVID outbreak in my apartment building - but the management office doesn't say how many people or attempt any form of contact tracing. The only place I'm ever within 10 feet of anyone for more than 10 seconds is the gym (which has masks at all times rules) - leaning towards just getting tested to be safe I guess

People are the worst

This is very thoughtful of you, but it seems pointless unless you get tested at least once a week?

Definitely get tested if you have any symptoms. I had slight flu-like symptoms On Sept. 17, lost taste/smell on Sept. 19, tested positive on Sept. 20. Wasn't around anyone over that time except my husband. (Thought he already had it (positive antibody test), but he got sick and tested positive a week and a half later.)

I have no idea what the optimal decision is on that. I had a co-worker test positive. Ended up going to the CDC website and ran through their checker, it said that since I have no symptoms and didn't spend more than 15 minutes in close proximity I didn't need to. Self-isolated for several days to be on the safe side.

/shrug

I've been mildly sick (sore throat, earache, occasional runny nose) all week and I'm getting tested tonight. It was like 5x tougher to set up an antigen test as compared to the 2 antibody tests I've gotten this year. Doesn't seem optimal; get your priorities straight, Virginia!

Do you have to have flu like symptoms if you have covid19? I've been having shortness of breath all week but no flu like symptoms, i'm kicking myself for letting myself go all October and not taking care of my health, grr.

Seriously? Yes, if you have symptoms get ****ing tested. Jesus.


COVID-19 symptoms

If testing is readily available in your area then I definitely recommend getting one. Like in my case I'd probably bet myself -1200 to test negative but there's really little cost to finding out for sure.

120,000 cases today. Uh oh.

rip usa

It's almost like 98% of the population doesn't understand exponential growth.



The answer I've been hearing a lot from my idiot friends when I mention cracking 100k: 'Yah bro, but the deaths are WAY down. Like nobody is dying. I think it mutated to weaker and it's more like the flu now."

They say this sincerely with a straight face. I nod blankly.

It is so much worse than it was back in April/May and people just don't give a ****. It's only going to get worse.

Only positive I see is that mask use is way up so between that and some social distancing people are passing along smaller doses, so people are getting less severe cases?