Coronavirus

[BottenFieldofDreams]

Did you read about those Danish Mink? Terrifying. I can't even work up the spirit to do a Hamlet bit about it.

[BottenFieldofDreams]

Ugh. Fine, I'll just do the gimme: Somthing's rotten in the state of Denmark.

Someone draw me a picture of a Shakespearian actor holding a mink skull and I'll put more effort into it.

[stlouie_lipp]

Well, it was inevitable. Someone in our office tested positive this week. She was with her sister and brother-in-law over the weekend and learned they tested positive on Tuesday morning. She immediately went home and I had no close contact with her (or anyone else for that matter) and was only in the office a few hours this week and feel fine, but I took a test today anyway.

[heyzeus]

Big news from Pfizer this morning. Keep in mind it’s a press release and not peer reviewed data yet, but very promising.

[AWvsCBsteeeerike3]

Is Pfizer that one that requires storage at like absolute zero? Not to be a naysayer, but there's a lot of questions remaining.

[Jocephus]

[GeddyWrox]

Wife negative. Thankful but surprised. She had symptoms that sure seemed like it.

[Joe Shlabotnik]

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Wife negative. Thankful but surprised. She had symptoms that sure seemed like it.

My son is negative, still waiting on mine. My boss, who was tested last month, is out today with fever, chills, and headache.

[mikechamp]

It's a UK-based article, but given Pfizer has an agreement in place with the UK, it is still germane. Be warned: this article does not contain "everything" you need to know, just everything the writer knows.

Also, I still have questions, but will reserve those for another post.

Back to normal by Spring? Everything we know about the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine

The pharmaceutical giant Pfizer, working with German biotech company BioNTech, released an interim analysis on 9 November suggesting their vaccine is more than 90 per cent effective in preventing Covid-19.

With 40 million doses earmarked for the UK (10 million doses by the end of the year, with a further 30 million doses already ordered), the breakthrough could be instrumental in helping get Britain back to normal by Spring.

There are, however, logistical challenges, as the vaccine needs to be stored in ultra-cold storage at or below -80C.

Here is a round up of everything you need to know about the vaccine:

https://www.yahoo.com/news/back-normal- ... 26744.html

[mikechamp]

Here are my preliminary questions:

How long does immunity last with the vaccine?
I know they don't know that yet, and that's understandable. But it's a pretty important question to answer.

When they say 1.3 billion doses by the end of 2021, does "dose" mean an individual dose of the vaccine, or does it refer to the two doses one would need to achieve vaccination?
This is also pretty important, because if they are making 1.3 billion doses a year, and "dose" means a singular dosage, it will take roughly 10 years to produce enough doses for the world's population. That timeline also assumes no other boosters are needed, and it can be a vaccination process similar to smallpox or polio.

Have they seen any mutation(s) of the virus such that a COVID-19 vaccine would parallel a flu vaccine, whereby they would have to theorize/guess/determine which strain would be most prevalent in a given year and base the vaccine's formula on that?


Finally, and this isn't a question, but I'll keep raising this issue for the foreseeable future: I hope they keep studying the long-term effects of contracting COVID-19.