Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

[Hannibal]

It seems like Trump has built more miles of WALL in DC over the past week than along the Mexican border in 3 years!! Hyuck hyuck

There's a cartoon for that...

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[Jeff Buchanan]

AstraZeneka's AZD1222 vaccine, according to today's vaccine news, may be the first to reach the market with plans to manufacture a billion doses starting in August with distribution planned starting in September. This all depends on success of Phase I/II human trials now underway and large scale human trials to start in August as Phase III. Manufacturing will commence if current trials demonstrate safety, and will run concurrently with large scale human trials in Phase III to demonstrate efficacy. This phase/manufacturing concurrency is new to vaccine development. It usually takes years,not months to get to producing them.

AZD1222 is not a novel biologic like Modern'as vaccine. It is an attenuated adenovirus that contains benign antigens (bad guys) that appear to the human immune system as spike proteins that allow SARS-CoV-2 to attach to epithelial cells abundant in the respiratory tract. This causes the immune system to produces the antibodies (good guys) that prevent the RNA virus from entering the body's cells, hijack it's copiers and replicate. It's pretty much like your standard flu shot except this one is for SARS-CoV-2.

Moderna's vaccine, mRNA-1273, is a novel biologic vaccine that produces the encoding of the same SARS-CoV-2 spike protein (a prefusion stabilised form of the Spike (S) protein) that AZD1222 introduces directly by an attenuated virus. It's about 30d ahead of AstraZeneka in trials but I don't think they have a deal yet to move to production like AZ does. Anticipate that they will soon.

Its interesting how the two vaccines that appear to be the leading candidates for delivery to the US at scale and as early as September take two different pathways to produce either immunity or reduced COVID-19 symptoms in inoculated persons. While the winner of the race to get there first with a safe, effective vaccine can declare they won, it's not likely it will go down like that. That's because of the cooperative nature of the scientists and researchers developing these vaccines and that some of them are also the CEOs.

I've found that trying to keep track of the dozens of public agencies and private companies involved in vaccine development and how they are coordinating globally hard. It does appear that while governments with PH Departments (e.g, in the US the HHS, NIH and CDC) and NGO's like WHO may appear inept, if they get out of the way and let the scientists and researches collaborate through informal social professional networks among them that have emerged over the last decade, COVID vaccines - several of them - are going to happen a lot sooner than anyone thought they would. The CDC, as inept as they were back in January/February getting testing kits to where they were needed, when it comes to vaccines, the US HHS, NIH and CDC along with its included agencies (BARDA & NIAID) may come out smelling like a rose.

[Dr. Strangelove]

Trump's on a tear tonight, going after everyone he now hates. Lisa Murkowski is about to have career ended, per Trump

[Ghengis Jon]

She should ask for an autographed hard copy, suitable for framing.

[Dr. Strangelove]

GRAPHIC warning...Buffalo cops shove an old protester to the ground, he's obviously in critical condition with a severe head injury, and immediately start screaming profanity at the remaining protesters and force the only media person to get out of the area

[Dr. Strangelove]

Just saw where Buffalo’s police commissioner’s ordered an immediate internal affairs investigation into what happened.

EDIT: The two cops who appear to have shoved him have now been suspended

[Jeff Buchanan]

Morning news is droning in the background as my wife watches it and I don't. Protesters gathering in large crowds and re-opening too soon is allegedly behind a reported increase in new COVID cases in the US. I'll save my rant.

You can just about ignore any of the DIRE CONSEQUENCES headlines today. I'm likely as tired of reporting this here as you are of hearing me report it. You can, however, pay attention to this. Conclusions are obvious:

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[iam416]

Alexander has to be top 3. I know, I know -- some people dispute the highest of his accomplishments, but I think it's clear he was still a pioneer.

[Dr. Strangelove]

Jeff, the decline of the positive test rate has gotten very flat since mid-May. That despite testing more and more and more people every day. What does that suggest to you? I'm not saying DIRE CONSQUENCES btw. It could mean transmissibility has started slowly rising again OR it could also mean that there's a certain level of transmissibility we're just going to have to accept until there's a vaccine or herd immunity develops. And we've hit it.

[iam416]

DSL has just throw a stick of dynamite that will result in a 25,000+ word exploision. Fuck you, you fucking fuck.

I think we're probably seeing a slight rise but that our new awarness of social distancing has sort of flat-lined R(t) into something that is acceptable.

[Dr. Strangelove]

Sorry, but in my defense, Jeff may be currently preparing a careful weighing of the pros and cons of each member of the Cartwright family, including getting several Little Joe details confused with episodes of Little House on the Prairie

[Dr. Strangelove]

Unemployment actually dropped in May?? Wow

[AlabamAlum]

The phased re-opening.

[iam416]

Well, everyone was laid off in March/April. I mean, everyone. It's not hard to imagine people starting to go back to work in May. It's a relative measure, right? Bodhi is better than Dalton, but they're both shit and can't compare to Johnny Utah. The decrease is nice but we're still at Bodhi-esque 15-20% or whatever instead of the Johnny Utah-esque 2%.

Alternatively, is it possible the markets are going to end up more right than wrong on this? Is it possible that the Rhodesian binary choice of catastrophes ends up being overstated? Is it possible that Alabam"Alum" will owe Hannibal a groveling apology?

[iam416]

This really can't be ignored -- https://www.nationalreview.com/corne...ir-profession/ (commentary); https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Jyf...3ys1b7K1A/view (Letter)

1288 healtchare professionals signed a letter that openly ENDORSED protests during the pandemic because systemic racism is a greater health risk than Covid-19. They also neatly say the previous week's protests should still be condemned as an unnecessary risk and as rooted in, what else -- white nationalism. But, one has to ask -- if systemic racism is a greater health risk than Covid-19 then couldn't one at least argue that rampant unemployment is also a greater health risk?

One could ask that, but one would certainly not get an honest answer from these fucking clowns.

Even our own resident healthcare professional -- "Dr." Strangelove -- surely finds this letter utterly fatuous.