Wow that office manager should be reported to health authorities, Jesus.

Bottlenecks with qualified "stickers" and maybe a shortage of "sticks" in the near future may be what will what slows the process.

And now I get this stuff retweeted on my timeline...we are doomed

mark, I might suggest that "receptionist" != "medical professional".

Though I do like Brian's take on things, too.

I agree 100%, which is why I have a call in for the Dr to call me (they're still only doing televisits). I want to make sure that he knows that when people call his office requesting info on the vaccine they're getting batshit crazy as a response. In case it wasn't clear from my other post, I wasn't mentioning her response because I considered it valid info, rather because I thought it was very irresponsible for her to be giving that advice.

I didn't call looking for pro or con advice about the actual vaccine. I called to see if my ailments qualified me for 1b status. All the crazy talk was volunteered by her.

50% of the population are dumber than average

It's becoming pretty obv 2021will be one helluva year. Also 2020 is like catnip laced with crack for the paranoids, ahem, critical thinkers

Vaccine rollout kind of a ****show so far. The two dose regimen complicates things also. I've seen reports of multiple locations that have administered the first dose, but have no supply to give the second. I also saw that the UK is planning to only give one dose and delay the 2nd for 3 months, due to a current shortage and the new strain. Theory being that some protection for more people, is better than full protection for fewer people.

I suspect the US and other countries might take the same route and just start giving one dose to as many people as possible, and worry about dose 2 in a few months.

J&J vaccine is huge as it would be a 1-dose regimen if it passes clinical trials.

Probably not a licensed professional and thus probably nothing anyone could do about her. Unfortunate, because she's definitely in a position where she could do real damage.

Only 70% effective with one dose though.
That's so ****ed up to have to make that decision.

Here's hoping.

Covid claimed Mary Ann. Bastard.

i was reading about the new strain. it sounds like there is a chance things could get very bad

idk how reliable this info is, but the cliffs are that we could have tons of sick and dead, and disruptions in supply chains

https://www.commondreams.org/views/2...-covid-strains

Damn. Didn't realize you'd posted the poor receptionist's name. Sad.

new daily high for world deaths +14,744 (USA +3,880)

Was always going to happen off the back of Xmas, with the big lag over holidays.

I'd imagine we're going to see them go higher in mid January, unfortunately

updated for above time period per worldometers +15,121

FWIW, mark, I think your instinct to mention the receptionist to the doctor is correct.

One hopes that he is a person of science and would work to quell that craziness.

No, 62% isn't great, and AZ (I don't think the problem's with the Oxford research team) do seem to have buggered up the trials, so the regulators say they don't have the data to approve the half-dose plus full-dose regime that gives 95%.

But the vaccine's far cheaper than Pfizer's and doesn't have Pfizer's insane storage requirements (my local GP surgery simply can't keep the Pfizer vaccine), so it should be much easier to achieve a fair degree of coverage.

And, if you think the UK's bad, polls in France suggest that 59% of citizens will refuse a vaccine. Remember their president is suave civilised Macron, not orange obstreperous Trump. Everybody knows the French are odd, but I have no idea what's going on there.

The UK government's reasoning, on medical advice, is that medium-term immunity kicks in a couple of weeks after the first jab, and it isn't strictly necessary to give the second jab for about three months, so they're going to try and give more people the first jab. Which probably makes sense, but, of course, as it's the current UK government, you do wonder if they'll manage it properly and make sure the second jab is delivered.

That would be the silver bullet.

As roughly half of Americans would tell you now, and the other half would tell you in a month: please do not judge citizens of a country by their president.

French people have quite the history of rebellion and standing up to the man, so not surprising. Meanwhile in canada, land of the push overs, 69% plan on getting it (according to some poll)

https://www.google.com/amp/s/globaln...d-growing/amp/

Yes, but in this instance their natural umptiness seems a bit inadvisable.

That was sort of my point.

Yeah well this is false. The 90% half dose was tested on people under the age of 55 and a much smaller sample size. So it was just random as was stated many times by experts in the field. The vaccine is 62% effective.

Honestly the UK's strategy is dumb and a death trap. They will do one dose of Astrazeneca and then the other one within 12 weeks. First of all the vaccine is barely effective as is with two doses and it's going to give people a false sense of security after the first dose. Because hey supposedly it lowers the hospitalization rate also which again isn't really proven given the sample size.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/30/w...trazeneca.html

Second of all it has serious side effects and it wasn't properly tested on the elderly. Now they will vaccinate millions of elderly with it. If you would actually read what they sent out to the UK healthcare professionals.

https://www.gov.uk/government/public...ne-astrazeneca

It's basically a hail mary with a hope that it works out but if it doesn't well its going to be a disaster of epic proportions. I am very surprised that they are going this route it's not a third world nation.

Even if you are a third world nation you shouldn't gamble on Astrazeneca's current version and wait for the Astrazeneca+Sputnik V or J&J.

350,000+ Americans dead YTD

****ing hell.