Coronavirus

[mikechamp]

AW:

Yes, if I remember the info from my last physical correctly, the Vit D "normal" range is 30-100. I was at the 30 number, and my physician recommended I take a supplement to get >30. I was also having my physical in early March, when my sun exposure had been low due to winter. If I had it scheduled for May-August, I am confident I would be much higher due to all the outdoor activities I partake in.

[AWvsCBsteeeerike3]

Thanks, Mike.

If I remember right, 20 minutes of direct sunlight to a limb in the summer provides enough sunlight to release the daily allotment (or whatever) of vit d in the body.

That stat may be totally made up, but I heard it somewhere. Regardless, I don't think it takes a lot of sunlight. The main issue is during the winter months, the sunlight isn't as strong and as such sitting in direct sunlight all day won't cause the release of any vit d.

The human body is amazing.

Anecdotally, I've been taking a multivitamin for as long as I can remember and it includes 125% vit d. Then, during the summer months I never showered when getting out of the sun (to let it soak it, no idea if that works or not) much to the chagrin of Mrs. AW. Regardless, when I had my blood tested in late August, I was at 80. The doc didn't seem concerned which makes sense given the range you quoted.

[mikechamp]

AW:

I too have taken a multivitamin daily for decades. It has my daily allotment of Vit D, yet I was still on the low end of the range in early March. I guess if I was someone who didn't take that multivitamin, I wouldn't even get into the range. Clearly, my diet (which I consider to be good, but not great) isn't providing much of a boost over the multivitamin.

Good point about the winter sun being at such a lower angle that the benefits aren't the same. Now that we are past the equinox in the northern hemisphere, it's probably supplement season.

[mikechamp]

Not trying to get anyone more depressed. Just trying to temper expectations.

Also not trying to pat myself on the back, but there is further confirmation of my napkin math about the challenges of vaccine distribution.

Vaccine will 'not return life to normal in spring'

Even an effective coronavirus vaccine will not return life to normal in spring, a group of leading scientists has warned.

A vaccine is often seen as the holy grail that will end the pandemic. But a report, from researchers brought together by the Royal Society, said we needed to be "realistic" about what a vaccine could achieve and when. They said restrictions may need to be "gradually relaxed" as it could take up to a year to roll the vaccine out.

There are questions around raw materials - both for the vaccine and glass vials - and refrigerator capacity, with some vaccines needing storage at minus 80C.

"Even when the vaccine is available it doesn't mean within a month everybody is going to be vaccinated, we're talking about six months, nine months... a year," said Prof Nilay Shah, head of chemical engineering at Imperial College London. Prof Shah estimates vaccinating people would have to take place at a pace, 10 times faster than the annual flu campaign and would be a full-time job for up to 30,000 trained staff. "I do worry, is enough thinking going into the whole system?" he says.

And Dr Andrew Preston from the University of Bath warned that vaccine hesitancy seemed to be a growing problem that had become embroiled in anti-mask, anti-lockdown ideologies. "If cohorts of people refuse to have the vaccine, do we leave them to fend for themselves or have mandatory vaccination for children to go to schools, or for staff in care homes? There are lots of difficult questions."

https://www.bbc.com/news/health-54371559

[Popeye_Card]

Not to bring politics into this thread, but I did chuckle during the debate on Tuesday when Trump bragged that the military was primed and ready to distribute up to 200,000 vaccines per day.

Sounds kinda impressive. Until you start doing the math and realize it would take 4.5 years to vaccinate the US population at that rate, and that's if it is just a single dose.

[planet planet]

Patriots QB Cam Newton has now tested positive for coronavirus. More NFL games likely to be canceled.

[mikechamp]

Here's an in-depth look at the logistical challenge of vaccine distribution:

The quest to make a global vaccine in 12 months

The process used to create a vaccine in a laboratory is different to the one used for bulk manufacturing by the pharmaceutical industry in order to immunize people.

We already manufacture billions of doses of vaccines every year, from the annual influenza jab to the combined measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) immunization. The 2009 swine flu pandemic, which saw the death of hundreds of thousands of people, lead to approximately three billion doses of flu vaccines being produced and delivered within six months.

As part of the parallel development process, manufacturing facilities are already being built around the world, ahead of any vaccine being approved. This carries a significant financial risk, as there is a chance that certain vaccines may not be approved. It is only through enormous financial investment, such as $10bn (£7.85bn) for Operation Warp Speed, a US government initiative, that these facilities can be built in advance.

To bulk manufacture a vaccine, it is not a simple case of scaling up the process used in a laboratory. This is because it is analogous to baking a cake: if a recipe worked well for a small cake, tripling the ingredients may result in a cake that is burnt at the edges yet soggy in the middle. Similar issues are found in bulk vaccine manufacturing. “Processes that work well at a small scale in a test tube or petri dish often don’t behave in a predictable way in larger quantities,” explains Bryan Deane, director of new medicines and data policy at the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry.

Vaccines are generally supplied inside small glass vials. While it may seem surprising that glass is a limited resource, the glass used in vaccine vials is of a special type called borosilicate. It is highly resistant to temperature change and has low chemical reactivity, thereby minimizing potential contamination from the vial. Given the colossal demand Covid-19 is generating for additional vials, this may constrain the number of vaccines that are initially available.

Of course, just having the vaccines is one thing, but keeping them safe and secure is another. Most vaccines need to be refrigerated, but some being developed for Covid-19 need to be stored in temperatures as low as -70°C (-94F) or -80°C (-112F). These kind of temperatures are commonly found in research laboratories, but many medical centers do not have such facilities. In order to solve this cold storage problem, distribution companies such as UPS and DHL are building colossal freezer farms around the world, capable of storing millions of vaccines at -80°C (-112F), in order to have the appropriate facilities in place for when the vaccine is distributed.

There is also what is known as the Last Mile Problem. Distribution to major cities is fairly easy, due to them having transport hubs. However, getting it to smaller towns and remote villages, especially in developing countries, will be much more difficult.

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/2020 ... -12-months

[pioneer98]

A rare fun story from the pandemic

'It has been absolutely insane': Trading card industry has boomed during pandemic

I paid $105 for my two boxes. To purchase those same two boxes now would be roughly $283, a little less if you worked the eBay system.

So what happened between the end of April and the beginning of October to more than double the prices of those boxes? It’s not like Cal Ripken, Jr. — the prize rookie card in the 1982 Fleer set (I did find one!) — did anything to significantly up the value of those cards. And though the 1987 Donruss is packed with rookies — Bo Jackson, Barry Bonds, Barry Larkin, Will Clark and Greg Maddux — nothing particularly interesting happened with any of those guys in the past few months.

You know the answer to that question, obviously: The coronavirus pandemic happened. People across the country — and the world — stayed home for days, weeks and months, and they looked for ways to pass the time without physically interacting with the outside world. There’s only so much Netflix a person can watch.

Old passions were rediscovered as people rummaged through basements or attics and dove headfirst into nostalgia, searching for happiness. A sizable segment of the population found its baseball/trading cards, and after thumbing through and sorting old collections, the fire ignited once again — and people looked to add.

And with that sudden influx of interest — and money — the trading card market exploded.

“Sales numbers are the best that they have been in the past decade,” said Emily Kless, communications manager for Topps, who declined to offer specifics because Topps is a privately owned company. “It’s been an upward trend. Topps was coming off one of its best years in the past decade (in 2019). So while we do see this rekindled interest in baseball card collecting, we were coming off an incredibly strong year to begin with.”

[Michael]

My mom got it. She found out because she was going to have surgery. She's in her 70's and has lung issues. This sucks.

[cardsfantx]

so she's asymptomatic?