Shanghai Disneyland will close in effort to contain coronavirus

There's an interesting phenomenon and learning around that: If you restrict freedom of movement in certain ways, you gain freedom to do otherwise risky things, like get sweaty and play basketball with other sweaty people. I know Hollywood (and TV in New York) is making it work. It's a little jarring to see the SNL stagehands looking like they work in a Covid ward though.

Testing was done daily from the NBA and protocols on film/television productions are handled by 'Covid Compliance Officers' now. They follow a basic set of procedures agreed upon by IATSE. So it makes total sense that it has been working on productions and large scale events like the NBA. Some of the requirements make the job a little harder but its worth it for people to be back at work.

99er said:

Testing was done daily from the NBA and protocols on film/television productions are handled by 'Covid Compliance Officers' now. They follow a basic set of procedures agreed upon by IATSE. So it makes total sense that it has been working on productions and large scale events like the NBA. Some of the requirements make the job a little harder but its worth it for people to be back at work.

Something that Shanghai should have had.

You should read a newspaper or something. China, all of it, has had fewer cases than the US has had this week.

Shanghai Finds A Local Covid Case After Months of No Infections

As we discussed months ago, authoritative governments (particularly those without any regard for rights of its citizens) have a big advantage in pandemics. Big difference between you tested postive, so please go home and self isolate for 2 weeks and you tested positive, so we are taking you now to an isolation facility where we will force you to stay until we think its ok for you to leave.

Yeah, we're all well aware of that. We were calling out new guy for not knowing what he was talking about.

Sooooo...umm.....any thoughts on these potential vaccines?

Pretty exciting efficacy numbers, but the production ramp is not going to be fast. The messenger RNA vaccines in particular are going to be rough to distribute with the sub-zero temperature requirements. Still, to develop something that effective, that fast, and likely that safe, is pretty incredible.

Great news on the vaccines. Especially Pfizer. Safety data is expected in the next week or two. Distribution of number of vaccines required will be a challenge in terms of pure logistics. Super frozen vaccines will be a much bigger challenge. Significant portion of the world will likely be precluded from distributing such a vaccine because they lack the infrastructure needed. Plus double doses are required. Other vaccines in development only need to be refrigerated.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/18/business/coronavirus-covid-vacci...stics.html

Effectiveness of Pfizer vaccine is a big plus because it should reduce the percentage of people who need to take it to still be effective overall. I would expect there will be a lot of people hesitant to take the vaccine.

Vaccine news goes beyond Covid. Cancer vaccines and targeted therapies based on mRNA technologies are now within realm of possible.

https://www.modernatx.com/pipeline/therapeutic-areas/mrna-personali...o-oncology

Also interested in Bamlanivimab.

If it's good enough for Trump, it's good enough for me. 😉

GoBucks89 said:

I would expect there will be a lot of people hesitant to take the vaccine.

Sigh. From my perspective, this is going to be the biggest hurdle. From my understanding, we need 80%.

So how’s this whole thing play out? Really promising vaccine expected to be distributed is announced a couple days after election. Timeframe to roll out puts it a little after new president takes office. New president says look how good I did. Presidents had nothing to do with vaccine. President takes credit???

The new president is not a narcissist and defers to experts, so, no, that's not what's going to happen.

I'm not sure what the election and Trump/Biden have to do with anything at this point (with regards to the vaccine). Although to Jeff's point, after four years of virtual insanity (see what I did there) it is going to take some getting used to not having a political leader who is not an egomaniac.

The timeframe for vaccine allocation, production, and rollout has never faltered. What does stick out is this 90% effectiveness rate...interesting to see if that changes a bit in the coming week as the final Phase 3 data points come in.

Nothing has changed if you have actually listened to the experts. Vaccine by the end of 2020....rollout prioritized by need...and nothing really back to normal until mid to late 2021.

EDIT: Gonch I can't read your link. Some lame crap about subscription.

OhioStater said:

EDIT: Gonch I can't read your link. Some lame crap about subscription.

Really? Just a Post article about Bamlanivimab being approved for use and how it's in the same family of medication as what Trump got.

Wonder why I'm not getting hit with a paywall?

Ooooh, Black Betty
Bamlanivimab

So just because I'm bored and supposed to be working: What do you all think accounts for the huge upswing in case numbers (and trailing but also definitely rising deaths)? Is it really from schools starting and it did actually take two months for the transmissions to propagate? Is it the cold weather driving people indoors? Is it political rallies or something to do with the election? Or just complacency (again)?

Yes.

Anecdotally?

Complacency. 100%.

The difference I'm seeing in people, what I'm hearing about happening in the wife's hotel lobbies, the 90 minute wait at the restaurant we got curbside at last weekend...it's stunning in comparison to even a couple months ago.

People just stopped. (which is probably a whole subgenre of reasons in itself)

Ohio went from early example to "holy ****" levels of cases. We have counties now with a 7 day rolling average of 400 or 500 or more per 100k. It's insane.

And the timing? Ugh. I think the holiday (Halloween, Thanksgiving, Xmas) season plays a part too in people lowering their guard, wanting to be normal and nice and soon enough...getting together.

The rise in numbers is about to collide with Thanksgiving gatherings and an awful lot of people are going to be getting dead grandparents for Christmas this year.

Just my anecdotal observations from Texas: I think much of the surge is due to school going back and the accompanying extra-curricular activities. Just for example, my wife is a teacher and her district saw a 45% jump in new staff and student cases yesterday. Now they are still at well less than 1% of the 9500 staff and students, but that kind of increase over a number of days gets you into much higher numbers very quickly. Football games are cancelling or postponing left and right. There's a lot of talk about schools going online only between the 2 holidays and possibly into January, but I have not heard of any local districts pulling the trigger just yet. During the spring and summer, I knew of a few casual acquaintances that tested positive and didn't really have anyone that I would say is close to me test positive until my brother did in late-July. Right now, I know at least a half dozen people that are close to me that are currently sick or just getting over it.