Coronavirus Thread: Worldwide Pandemic

[wild100sboy]

Going to get my second tomorrow. I’m scared

I just had a sore arm and super tired that same night but nothing during the night and when I woke up

 

[Champion]

 

[nyknick]

 

[wire28]

Gonna be a hot summer. Stay safe out there y’all

!!

 

[nyknick]

Dubious doses

The Slovak regulatory agency reported that around 40 countries are using or planning to use Sputnik V, which is made in seven different locations in Russia as well as in plants in India and South Korea. But the vials of vaccine produced in different places and labeled Sputnik V are “only associated by the name,” according to the Slovak regulator.

“The comparability and consistency of different batches produced at different locations has not been demonstrated,” the Slovak regulator said, according to the New York Times. “In several cases, they appear to be vaccines with different properties (lyophilisate versus solution, single-dose ampoules versus multi-dose vials, different storage conditions, composition, and method of manufacture).”

 

[无名的]

Got my J&J yesterday. No side effects at all.

 

[Poetical Poltergeist]

Got my J&J yesterday. No side effects at all.

Spoiler

Just kidding bruh. Hope you don't have any.

 

[MushroomX]

I think it's not even up for debate, get the vaccine. This virus will keep on mutating. Brazil-variant will probably be the dominant strain by Summer. Just in time for the non-believers to get infected and get fukked up by the virus.

 

[John Reena]

She deserves to get her jaw broke

 

[FAH1223]

Howard Dean Pushes Biden to Oppose Generic Covid-19 Vaccines for Developing Countries

HOWARD DEAN PUSHES BIDEN TO OPPOSE GENERIC COVID-19 VACCINES FOR DEVELOPING COUNTRIES
The former progressive champion, who now works on behalf of corporate interests, joins the drug industry in arguing against sharing the intellectual property for low-cost vaccines.

HOWARD DEAN, the former progressive champion, is calling on President Joe Biden to reject a special intellectual property waiver that would allow low-cost, generic coronavirus vaccines to be produced to meet the needs of low-income countries. Currently, a small number of companies hold the formulas for the Covid-19 vaccines, limiting distribution to many parts of the world.

“IP protections aren’t the cause of vaccination delays,” Dean claimed in a column for Barron’s last month. “Every drug manufacturing facility on the planet that’s capable of churning out Covid-19 shots is already doing so.”

“Creating a new medicine is a costly proposition,” wrote Dean. “Companies would never invest hundreds of millions in research and development if rivals could simply copy their drug formulas and create knockoffs.”

Dean’s claim that global vaccine manufacturing is already at capacity is patently false. Foreign firms have lined up to offer pharmaceutical plants to produce vaccines but have been forced to enter into lengthy negotiations under terms set by the intellectual property owners. The waiver, however, would allow generic drug producers to begin copying the vaccine without delay.

Many of the manufacturing plants prepared to mass produce low-cost vaccines are centered in India, which has committed to supplying the poorest countries in the world. But the waiver petition, Dean wrote, “is unreasonable and disingenuous; it’s a ruse to benefit India’s own industry at the expense of patients everywhere. President Biden would be wise to reject it.”

The strident opposition to the waiver, which is supported by an international coalition of human rights organizations as well as a growing cohort of congressional Democrats, may surprise Dean’s liberal supporters. But while Dean boasts a long history of support for single-payer health insurance coverage and government intervention into lowering domestic drug prices, he has reversed his positions on virtually every major progressive health policy issue since moving to work in the world of corporate influence peddling.

Dean is not a registered lobbyist, though he works in the lobbying division of Dentons, a law and lobbying firm, and his rhetoric in the column follows the firm’s recent pattern of advocacy. Dentons touts its work on drug intellectual property issues, noting on its website that it has represented Pfizer and other firms in the recent past.

His official role is as a senior advisor to its government affairs practice focused on corporate health care clients, though as The Intercept has previously reported, he engages in almost every lobbying activity imaginable. In the past, Dean has argued that he is not a lobbyist but has declined to discuss what he does at the firm or the identities of his clients. Neither Dean nor Dentons responded to a request for comment from The Intercept.

The column references a proposal led by India and South Africa — joined by Kenya, Bolivia, Pakistan, and dozens of other countries — to request a temporary waiver of intellectual property rights over the creation of Covid-19 vaccines. The waiver to the World Trade Organization would allow unfettered access to the intellectual property and formulas necessary to retool factories and ramp up production of vaccines for the developing world, much of which is currently projected not to reach significant vaccination rates until as late as 2024.

Despite publicly funded research and huge infusions of government cash for the development and delivery of vaccines, drugmakers have carefully guarded their monopoly on the intellectual property rights and signaled to investors that they plan to soon hike prices. The pharmaceutical industry, including representatives of Pfizer, Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson, have pushed the Biden administration to oppose the intellectual property waiver petition and go further to even impose sanctions on any country that moves to manufacture vaccines without their express permission.

Dean, as The Intercept previously reported, moved through the revolving door after his time serving as Democratic National Committee chair to work for pharmaceutical and biotech companies, advising lobbyists during the Affordable Care Act debate on how to assist pharmaceutical firms with extended exclusivity protections on biologics, which are medicines made from living organisms, such as vaccines. He also serves on the board of the health care-focused investment fund Vatera.

In another recent column, again reflecting the interests of drugmakers, Dean wrote in favor of a last-minute regulation proposed by the Trump administration to narrow the government’s ability to lower the prices of certain pharmaceutical products financed with public money, a rule that could stifle any future attempt to rein in the costs of coronavirus vaccines.

“Without taxpayer support for early-stage research at universities,” Dean acknowledges, “drug companies would have never been in a position to create lifesaving vaccines so quickly.” But, he writes, echoing industry arguments that any form of price controls would stifle innovation, “drug companies won’t spend the billions of dollars it takes to commercialize federally funded research if there’s a risk the government will seize the fruits of their research.”

“He sorts of pops up whenever you argue against anything that would lower drug prices,” said James Love, director of Knowledge Ecology International, a nonprofit that works to reform intellectual property rights to expand access to medicine.

“It’s appalling because he’s introduced as a progressive; he still gets on ‘Rachel Maddow,’” said Love. “But he’s on the payroll. He’s not a registered lobbyist — he somehow finds a way not to register — but he’s sort of an influencer, he’s paid to influence the debate.”

He does always pop up when there’s proposals to lower drug costs

And the pursuit of endless profit will have this pandemic continuing

The mRNA vaccines are amazing and should be shared with the world

 

[jj23]

He does always pop up when there’s proposals to lower drug costs

And the pursuit of endless profit will have this pandemic continuing

The mRNA vaccines are amazing and should be shared with the world

Money changes people.

 

[Dillah810]

Study is not peer-reviewed yet, but still a little alarming...

South African variant may evade protection from Pfizer vaccine, Israeli study says

JERUSALEMJERUSALEM (Reuters) -The coronavirus variant discovered in South Africa may evade the protection provided by Pfizer/BioNTech's COVID-19 vaccine to some extent, a real-world data study in Israel found, though its prevalence in the country is very low and the research has not been peer reviewed.

The study, released on Saturday, compared almost 400 people who had tested positive for COVID-19, 14 days or more after they received one or two doses of the vaccine, against the same number of unvaccinated patients with the disease.

It matched age and gender, among other characteristics.

The South African variant, B.1.351, was found to make up about 1% of all the COVID-19 cases across all the people studied, according to the study by Tel Aviv University and Israel's largest healthcare provider, Clalit.

But among patients who had received two doses of the vaccine, the variant's prevalence rate was eight times higher than those unvaccinated - 5.4% versus 0.7%.

This suggests the vaccine is less effective against the South African variant, compared with the original coronavirus and a variant first identified in Britain that has come to comprise nearly all COVID-19 cases in Israel, the researchers said.

"We found a disproportionately higher rate of the South African variant among people vaccinated with a second dose, compared to the unvaccinated group. This means that the South African variant is able, to some extent, to break through the vaccine's protection," said Tel Aviv University's Adi Stern.

The researchers cautioned, though, that the study only had a small sample size of people infected with the South African variant because of its rarity in Israel.

RELATED COVERAGE

• VIDEO Pfizer less effective in S African variant: Israel

They also said the research was not intended to deduce overall vaccine effectiveness against any variant, since it only looked at people who had already tested positive for COVID-19, not at overall infection rates.

Pfizer declined to comment on the Israeli study.

Pfizer and BioNTech said on April 1 that their vaccine was around 91% effective at preventing COVID-19, citing updated trial data that included participants inoculated for up to six months.

Training nurse Sari Roos prepares a dose of Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine against coronavirus disease (COVID-19) to teach her air bubble technique in Laakso hospital in Helsinki, Finland March 11, 2021. Picture taken March 11, 2021.
REUTERS/ESSI LEHTO
They have been testing a third dose of their shot as a booster, and have said they could modify the shot to specifically address new variants if needed.

In respect to the South African variant, they said that among a group of 800 study volunteers in South Africa, where B.1.351 is widespread, there were nine cases of COVID-19, all of which occurred among participants who got the placebo. Of those nine cases, six were among individuals infected with the South African variant.

Some previous studies have indicated that the Pfizer/BioNTech shot was less potent against the B.1.351 variant than against other variants of the coronavirus, but still offered a robust defence.

VARIANT IS NOT WIDESPREAD

While the results of the study may cause concern, the low prevalence of the South African strain was encouraging, according to Tel Aviv University's Stern.

"Even if the South African variant does break through the vaccine's protection, it has not spread widely through the population," said Stern, adding that the British variant may be "blocking" the spread of the South African strain.

Almost 53% of Israel's 9.3 million population has received both Pfizer doses. Israel has largely reopened its economy in recent weeks while the pandemic appears to be receding, with infection rates, severe illness and hospitalizations dropping sharply.

About a third of Israelis are below the age of 16, which means they are still not eligible for the shot.

(Reporting by Maayan LubellEditing by Pravin Char and Frances Kerry)

South African variant may evade protection from Pfizer vaccine, Israeli study says | Article [AMP] | Reuters

 

[MushroomX]

Study is not peer-reviewed yet, but still a little alarming...
South African variant may evade protection from Pfizer vaccine, Israeli study says

Wouldn't be shocked if this is 100% true. While I trust the vaccine's safety, I don't fully trust that the Pandemic is a done deal once enough people get it. I just look at the world, and see Antibiotics becoming less effective. Life always finds a way no matter how much we try to control it, because while we are the dominant species, that doesn't mean we still get a free pass.

 

[FromBillionsCameOne]

Wouldn't be shocked if this is 100% true. While I trust the vaccine's safety, I don't fully trust that the Pandemic is a done deal once enough people get it. I just look at the world, and see Antibiotics becoming less effective. Life always finds a way no matter how much we try to control it, because while we are the dominant species, that doesn't mean we still get a free pass.

Imagine what the overuse of antibacterial products in just the past year has done to bacteria. Bacteria prolly looking at viruses on some hold my beer shyt. Humans are innately smart dumb mfs smh

 

[AquaCityBoy]

. Seems way TF too early for this, especially when other big events this year are either still going virtual or are trying for Q4 at the earliest.