NON_POLITICAL China Coronavirus THREAD

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Zorba

Lifer
Oct 22, 1999
14,436
9,825
136
Texas is similar in that you can sign up at any "vaccine hub" in the state. Which is why I'm driving 3 hours each way to get my shots. The metro areas got shorted per capita on dose allocations and the wait lists are nuts. But if you're able and willing to take a little excursion you can get doses.
I signed my grandfather in law up for the wait list in Smith County (TX), no idea if it worked or what's happening.

The nice thing about Oklahoma is the sign up is state wide. When it's your phase you get a scheduling link, and can literally schedule anywhere in the state with an open slot. I think it's about as good of a system as you could hope for at the point, except the website feels thrown together.

A guy put together a scrapper site that will send alerts when new spots are added. Www.Vaccine-alerts.com
 

Zorba

Lifer
Oct 22, 1999
14,436
9,825
136
FYI the government is going to start shipping 1M vaccines a week to retail pharmacies for 2/11. CVS confirmed so far with 100 stores in CA to start.

https://www.cvshealth.com/news-and-...expands-community-access-to-covid-19-vaccines
I really don't think this is going to helpful. Just creates even more places you have to check. I think a unified front is significantly better than continual fragmentation, at least until there is enough stock to keep the local CVS stocked.
 

K1052

Elite Member
Aug 21, 2003
45,793
32,491
136
I really don't think this is going to helpful. Just creates even more places you have to check. I think a unified front is significantly better than continual fragmentation, at least until there is enough stock to keep the local CVS stocked.

Some places are going to be pretty far from where central hubs make sense. A certain number people just will never be able to go farther than their local pharmacy out of ability or desire. The plan is to steadily increase the doses available at retail pharmacies until it eventually is on demand like the flu shots.

Having interacted with so many of the signup sites I can def say that some are better than others. HEB for example has a really good one:

https://vaccine.heb.com/scheduler

Albertsons, Hyvee, Walgreens, etc are mostly trash where it's hard to see what's available. The state hubs are county run and are a pretty big mess with either incomprehensible schedulers or just where you fill out a form an wait with no uniformity between them.
 

Muse

Lifer
Jul 11, 2001
37,355
8,010
136
To circle back to the earlier discussion on why it is very difficult to expand vaccine manufacturing, particularly for the mRNA ones: https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2021/02/02/myths-of-vaccine-manufacturing
Excellent article. Well written, interesting, and with righteous attitude.

Edit: The 3rd comment to the article is scary:

DataWatcher says:
2 February, 2021 at 4:53 pm
We may have the whole year of 2021 left, but with mutations occurring at their current rate, I’m not sure we can wait that long. In just the past two months, we have discovered at least three mutations that are more contagious and possibly more virulent than the “original” virus that was our standard for the vaccine trials, and at least two of them appear able to evade immunity — meaning that most of the data from those trials need to have an asterisk appended to them, at best. The nightmare scenario is the development, through mutagenesis, of a virus as contagious as measles that then continues to mutate at a rate outpacing treatment and vaccine development.
 
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K1052

Elite Member
Aug 21, 2003
45,793
32,491
136
To circle back to the earlier discussion on why it is very difficult to expand vaccine manufacturing, particularly for the mRNA ones: https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2021/02/02/myths-of-vaccine-manufacturing

Interesting how step 5 (fill/finish) seems to be tripping up both companies too now with Moderna asking to squeeze more doses in vials and Pfizer partnering up for help. Would seem to indicate they can actually make more vaccine than they can readily prepare for shipment. Did they scale up their lipid + rna mixing infrastructure but forget what happens after that?
 

Exterous

Super Moderator
Jun 20, 2006
20,348
3,426
126
Texas is similar in that you can sign up at any "vaccine hub" in the state. Which is why I'm driving 3 hours each way to get my shots. The metro areas got shorted per capita on dose allocations and the wait lists are nuts. But if you're able and willing to take a little excursion you can get doses.
Glad you're able to get a shot but again I think of the people who don't have the time or means to do that. Or the time for constant screen refreshes in other states to find a spot. We've really screwed distribution up from an equity standpoint.
 
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Dec 10, 2005
23,922
6,738
136
Interesting how step 5 (fill/finish) seems to be tripping up both companies too now with Moderna asking to squeeze more doses in vials and Pfizer partnering up for help. Would seem to indicate they can actually make more vaccine than they can readily prepare for shipment. Did they scale up their lipid + rna mixing infrastructure but forget what happens after that?
I think it's important to read some of the linked pieces too - it provides much more insight into the process overall. From what I've read, there is a lot of stuff running at full tilt, but there are a lot of different choke points to slow stuff down, and a number of pieces aren't really plug-and-play. Pure speculation here: they may have been able to scale up lipid production, but if the RNA mixing relies on bespoke manufacturing tools, it could be difficult to get that quickly, even with the scaling up occurring throughout last year. Plus, on top of all the technical hurdles, there are tons of process control hurdles that must be followed as part of the GMP process. The last thing we want is a repeat of lax GMP protocols (see: compounding pharmacies killing some people a few years ago)>
 
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K1052

Elite Member
Aug 21, 2003
45,793
32,491
136
Glad you're able to get a shot but again I think of the people who don't have the time or means to do that. Or the time for constant screen refreshes in other states to find a spot. We've really screwed distribution up from an equity standpoint.

I think of them too. The rollout is pretty terrible and unfair.
 

uclaLabrat

Diamond Member
Aug 2, 2007
5,527
2,804
136
I think it's important to read some of the linked pieces too - it provides much more insight into the process overall. From what I've read, there is a lot of stuff running at full tilt, but there are a lot of different choke points to slow stuff down, and a number of pieces aren't really plug-and-play. Pure speculation here: they may have been able to scale up lipid production, but if the RNA mixing relies on bespoke manufacturing tools, it could be difficult to get that quickly, even with the scaling up occurring throughout last year. Plus, on top of all the technical hurdles, there are tons of process control hurdles that must be followed as part of the GMP process. The last thing we want is a repeat of lax GMP protocols (see: compounding pharmacies killing some people a few years ago)>
Yeah, from that article (and I've been reading lowes blog since I was back in grad school as an actual chemist) it sounds like the issue is the formulation step, not fill finish. If it does indeed use microfluidics, I have no idea if that is even scalable, you probably just have to go parallel processing.
 

Muse

Lifer
Jul 11, 2001
37,355
8,010
136
Watched some longish (13-15 minute) videos about "long haulers," "long-covid" sufferers. Makes me want to be even more careful to stay uninfected until I'm immunized by vaccinations.

There's a 60 Minutes Australia segment (didn't know they had one like the USA version), that was excellent, offered on Youtube, on long haulers. There are other long-covid videos, one deals with a NYC clinic that's seen over 1000 CV19 suffers who are experiencing lasting effects. Apparently most of these were 20-40 people, not the older you might expect, and most were never hospitalized. However, even with their relatively mild cases, they didn't get over the infection, it's persisted for months with no end in sight. Likely many of these people will suffer chronically for life. Here's a couple of zoom-type shots that are food for thought that I grabbed with print screen from the 60 Minutes Australia piece.
Covid-19 Long Haulers.jpgCovid-19 Long Haulers 2.jpg
 
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Roger Wilco

Diamond Member
Mar 20, 2017
3,849
5,674
136
The US reported over 5,000 deaths yesterday. Supposedly some of those deaths were backlogged due to the MLK weekend, but still.....that's crazy.
 

Muse

Lifer
Jul 11, 2001
37,355
8,010
136
FDA gearing up for booster approval process which will be similar to influenza vaccine process.
News yesterday (Network ABC) was that Moderna is saying they believe their vaccine confers immunity for a year. Pfizer hasn't...

I had my first dose of Moderna yesterday afternoon. So far, only reaction is arm soreness that started after about 7 hours.
The US reported over 5,000 deaths yesterday. Supposedly some of those deaths were backlogged due to the MLK weekend, but still.....that's crazy.
Heard total confirmed CV19 deaths in USA as of yesterday was 455K.
 

Muse

Lifer
Jul 11, 2001
37,355
8,010
136
The US reported over 5,000 deaths yesterday. Supposedly some of those deaths were backlogged due to the MLK weekend, but still.....that's crazy.
Heard total confirmed CV19 deaths in USA as of yeste
Welp. I'm gonna go buy some more toilet paper :p
Dr. Mike Hansen says when we get to 80% vaccinated we'll have herd immunity, which is the goal, and he's hoping that's by this FALL. He's pretty damn good at being objective about things medical. Check out his videos on YT.
 
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manly

Lifer
Jan 25, 2000
10,852
2,004
126
The US reported over 5,000 deaths yesterday. Supposedly some of those deaths were backlogged due to the MLK weekend, but still.....that's crazy.
Indiana reported a backlog of 1,500 so the real count for 2/4 is about 3600. The new infections curve is bending down and deaths will soon dip as well. However, it's much too early to celebrate as many experts are cautioning that the new strains can/will cause a 3rd wave in March/April.

Look at UK/Spain/Portugal/France for a preview of what a third wave can bring.