Lunchtime pandemic reading.
Standard disclaimer: this is a roundup of informative pieces I've read that interest me on the severity of the crisis and how to manage it. I am not a qualified medical expert in ANY sense; at best I am reasonably well-read laity. ALWAYS prioritize advice from qualified healthcare experts over some person on Facebook.
This is also available as an email newsletter at https://lunchtimepandemic.substack.com if you prefer the update in your inbox.
You are welcome to share this.
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David replied to yesterday's issue asking if I'll stop wearing a mask outside once I'm fully vaccinated. It depends. I will stop wearing the P100 heavy mask outside and switch to a regular cloth mask for most outdoor applications, probably, because I still want to create the perception in my community that wearing a mask outside is a commonplace and good thing. It doesn't cost me anything or cause me any harm or discomfort.
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Keep up your pandemic habits. "Hey y’all, friendly #publichealth reminder:
Keep washing your hands pretty thoroughly and regularly while singing your favorite Wu-Tang lyrics or whatever.
It prevents the spread of all sorts of non-pandemic infections as well."
Source:
Commentary: This is an important message; many of us spent the last year cleaning things more rigorously, and we saw things like cold and flu get whacked in the knees because of it. That's a good thing. Washing your hands, keeping things clean, using sanitizer - all these are habits we should keep doing. They don't cause harm, the cost is minimal, and the benefits are large.
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The Sputnik V vaccine (Russian) has issues. "First off, many may have heard that the Brazilian regulatory authorities had a hearing yesterday to see if this vaccine would be approved for use there. They have turned it down, for several reasons. (Update: here are their slides, in Portuguese). Among these are questions about the manufacturing and scale-up processes, which I have to say have not been very well documented for this vaccine. Readers may recall the reports from Slovakia about the authorities there getting what appeared to be completely different formulations of the vaccine all shipped together, so there is some room for clarity about how these processes are controlled. But the bigger news was that Anvisa, the Brazilian drug agency, said that every single lot of the Ad5 Gamaleya shot that they have data on appears to still have replication-competent adenovirus in it.
Which is why the news that the Sputnik vaccine contains replicating adenovirus was surprising and unwelcome. As mentioned, this is probably not going to cause big problems in its vaccinated population, but it’s a completely unnecessary risk. And if such a vaccine is going into tens of millions of people (or more), it seems certain that there will be some people harmed by this avoidable problem. If you’re going to make a replication-competent vaccine, make one and run the clinical trials with it, and if you’re asking for regulatory approval for a replication-incompetent one you shouldn’t show up with an undefined mixture of replicating and non-replicating viral particles instead. This sort of thing calls into question the entire manufacturing and quality control process, and I can see why the Brazilian regulators are concerned."
Source: https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2021/04/28/brazil-rejects-the-gamaleya-vaccine
Commentary: A replication-competent vaccine is basically a vaccine that has a live, functional virus in it. In this case, it's an adenovirus, not SARS-CoV-2, so it's still the case that you can't get COVID-19 from it, but you CAN get sick from it - and the last thing you need are two active infections in your body, if you got the vaccine with a live virus and COVID-19 at the same time.
To be clear, this ONLY affects the Russian Sputnik V vaccine. The Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine and the J&J Janssen vaccine also use adenoviruses, but they're neutralized. They cannot replicate or function; they're not alive. They're like cars with the engines removed.
And the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are mRNA vaccines, which means they have no virus of any kind in them, alive or dead. They instruct the body to recognize parts of the car, and that's it. That's part of the reason they're both so effective and incredibly safe.
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Vaccines effective even after one dose. "Monitoring the effectiveness of SARS-CoV-2 vaccination under routine public health use and specifically against severe outcomes in patients at higher risk, including older adults, is a high priority. In this multistate analysis of adults aged ≥65 years, receipt of an authorized COVID-19 vaccine was associated with significant protection against COVID-19 hospitalization. Effectiveness was 94% among adults who were fully vaccinated and 64% among adults who were partially vaccinated (i.e., onset of COVID-like illness ≥14 days after the first vaccine dose in a 2-dose series but <14 days after the second dose). These findings are consistent with efficacy determined from clinical trials in the subgroup of adults aged ≥65 years (4,5). Early reports from Israel have also documented the real-world effectiveness of SARS-CoV-2 vaccination, including among older adults (7,9). However, those postmarketing reports only represented the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. In the current report, Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccine products were equally represented, and approximately one half of the patients were aged ≥75 years, providing evidence of real-world effectiveness of both vaccines against an important measure of severe COVID-19 in older adults. Moreover, in assessing the impact of receiving only a single dose, no significant vaccine effectiveness <14 days after the first dose of a SARS-CoV-2 vaccine was detected. This suggests that bias is unlikely in the primary estimates of vaccine effectiveness from partial and full vaccination. This also highlights the continued risk for severe illness shortly after vaccination, before a protective immune response has been achieved and reinforces the need for vaccinated adults to continue physical distancing and prevention behaviors, such as use of face masks and recommended hand hygiene at least 14 days after the second dose of a 2-dose vaccine. The findings suggest that SARS-CoV-2 vaccines can reduce the risk for COVID-19–associated hospitalization and, as a consequence of preventing severe COVID-19, vaccination might have an impact on post-COVID conditions (e.g., “long COVID”) and deaths (2,10)."
Source: https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7018e1.htm?s_cid=mm7018e1_e
Commentary: It's important to say this:
GET YOUR FULL DOSE OF VACCINE.
If you're getting a 2-shot vaccine, be sure you get BOTH shots. That said, we know compliance on the second shot won't be as good; what's positive is that the vaccines are partially effective even after one shot.
But get both, for iron-clad coverage.
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India's second wave could have multiple causes. "Beyond the variants, scientists believe there are other, possibly more obvious factors that could be powering India’s deadly second wave.
India has just scraped the surface in terms of vaccinating its population, with less than 2 percent fully vaccinated. Experts also blame lax public behavior after last year’s first wave and missteps by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, such as recently holding large political rallies that may have spread the disease and sent a message to the people that the worst was over.
“There is a lot of jumping to conclusions that B.1.167 is the explanation for what’s happening,” said Jeffrey Barrett, director of the Covid-19 genomics initiative at the Wellcome Sanger Institute in Britain. “These other things are probably more likely to be the explanation.”
Preliminary evidence suggests that the variant is still responsive to vaccines, although slightly less so. India relies heavily on the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, which clinical trials show is less powerful than the vaccines made by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna and could perhaps be more easily thwarted by mutations.
Researchers say other factors could lead to more infections among young people, such as India’s schools, which had started reopening in recent months after the country’s first wave."
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/28/world/asia/india-covid19-variant.html
Commentary: India is in deeper trouble than ever with its pandemic wave. Again, check your supply chains - if India is in your supply chain of things you use in your home or business, know that the current pandemic wave will impact supply availability.
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The pandemic's lingering effects: gas shortages in America. "Millions of people stuck at home for more than a year are expected to hit the road for much-needed post-pandemic vacations this summer. Good luck finding gas.
Not that there's a looming shortage of crude oil or gasoline. Rather, it's the tanker truck drivers needed to deliver the gas to stations who are in short supply.
According to the National Tank Truck Carriers, the industry's trade group, somewhere between 20% to 25% of tank trucks in the fleet are parked heading into this summer due to a paucity of qualified drivers. At this point in 2019, only 10% of trucks were sitting idle for that reason.
"We've been dealing with a driver shortage for a while, but the pandemic took that issue and metastasized it," said Ryan Streblow, the executive vice president of the NTTC. "It certainly has grown exponentially."
Indeed, drivers left the business a year ago when gasoline demand ground to a near halt during the early pandemic-related shutdowns.
Jeff Lenard, spokesman at the National Association of Convenience Stores, said his members are very worried about what the driver shortage will mean for their deliveries, especially with demand for gas already back up to 97% of where it was at this time in 2019.
"I've talked to retailers, they say there could be places where there are brief outages," he said. "If they have no fuel, they have no business. People aren't going to stop in for a sandwich if you don't have fuel."
Vacation hotspots are most at risk of shortages, and there were some sporadic outages reported in Florida, Arizona and Northwest Missouri during the recent Spring Break period, said Tom Kloza, chief oil analyst for the Oil Price Information Service.
But even if only a few stations run out of gas, that could spark a run on gasoline as drivers will start topping off their tanks to avoid running dry down the road, said Kloza.
"Imagine the hoarding with toilet paper and topping off of gas tanks that we see after hurricanes and you can see what might happen," said Kloza.
The problem is made worse by the strong demand for gas, he added, which some forecast could top 10 million barrels a day for the first time ever at various points this summer."
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/27/business/summer-gasoline-shortage/index.html
Commentary: It would be prudent to have a gasoline can on hand, filled with gasoline and a stabilizer, safely stored (SAFELY STORED, I can't emphasize that enough) if you regularly use gasoline and it's plentiful where you are now.
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A reminder of the simple daily habits we should all be taking.
1. Always wear the best mask available to you when out of your home and you'll be around other people, even after you've been vaccinated. Respirators are back in stock at online retailers, too. Wear an N95/FFP2/KN95 that's NIOSH-approved or better mask if you can obtain it. If you can't get an N95 mask, wear a surgical mask with a cloth mask over it.
2. Get vaccinated as soon as you're able to, and fulfill the full vaccine regimen.
3. Wash/sanitize your hands every time you are in or out of your home for any reason.
4. Stay home as much as possible. Minimize your contact with others and maintain physical distance of at LEAST 6 feet / 2 meters, preferably more. Avoid indoor places as much as you can; indoor spaces spread the disease through aerosols and distance is less effective at mitigating your risks.
5. Get your personal finances in order now. Cut all unnecessary costs.
6. Replenish your supplies as you use them. Avoid reducing your stores to pre-pandemic levels in case an outbreak causes unexpected supply chain disruptions.
7. Ventilate your home as frequently as weather and circumstances permit, except when you share close airspaces with other residences (like a window less than a meter away from a neighboring window).
8. Masks must fit properly to work. Here's how to properly fit a mask:
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Common misinformation debunked!
There is no mercury or other heavy metals in the Pfizer mRNA vaccine. https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/12/09/1013538/what-are-the-ingredients-of-pfizers-covid-19-vaccine/
There is no genomic evidence at all that COVID-19 arrived before 2020 in the United States and therefore no hidden herd immunity:
Source:
There is no evidence SARS-CoV-2 was engineered, nor that it escaped a lab somewhere.
Source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2020/01/29/experts-debunk-fringe-theory-linking-chinas-coronavirus-weapons-research/
Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-0820-9
Source: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2020/05/anthony-fauci-no-scientific-evidence-the-coronavirus-was-made-in-a-chinese-lab-cvd/
There is no evidence a flu shot increases your COVID-19 risk.
Source: https://www.factcheck.org/2020/04/no-evidence-that-flu-shot-increases-risk-of-covid-19/
Source: https://academic.oup.com/cid/advance-article/doi/10.1093/cid/ciaa626/5842161
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A common request I'm asked is who I follow. Here's a public Twitter list of many of the sources I read.
https://twitter.com/i/lists/1260956929205112834
This list is biased by design. It is limited to authors who predominantly post in the English language. It is heavily biased towards individual researchers and away from institutions. It is biased towards those who publish or share research, data, papers, etc. I have made an attempt to follow researchers from different countries, and also to make the list reasonably gender-balanced, because multiple, diverse perspectives on research data are essential.
This is also available as an email newsletter at https://lunchtimepandemic.substack.com if you prefer the update in your inbox.