Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Hey Washington Post, “Democracy Dies in Darkness” was supposed to be a warning, not a mission statement.

Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege.

Let the trolls come, and then ignore them. that’s the worst thing you can do to a troll.

I’m starting to think Jesus may have made a mistake saving people with no questions asked.

Yeah, with this crowd one never knows.

Republicans don’t lie to be believed, they lie to be repeated.

Come on, media. you have one job. start doing it.

… riddled with inexplicable and elementary errors of law and fact

Dumb motherfuckers cannot understand a consequence that most 4 year olds have fully sorted out.

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

They love authoritarianism, but only when they get to be the authoritarians.

Washington Post Catch and Kill, not noticeably better than the Enquirer’s.

They are not red states to be hated; they are voter suppression states to be fixed.

“Can i answer the question? No you can not!”

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

Not all heroes wear capes.

We are builders in a constant struggle with destroyers. keep building.

Trump’s cabinet: like a magic 8 ball that only gives wrong answers.

Dear media: perhaps we ought to let Donald Trump speak for himself!

Quote tweet friends, screenshot enemies.

This country desperately needs a functioning fourth estate.

Trump should be leading, not lying.

Dear Washington Post, you are the darkness now.

Compromise? There is no middle ground between a firefighter and an arsonist.

You are here: Home / Healthcare / COVID-19 / Pandemic Reading: Real vs. ‘Miracle’ Vaccines

Pandemic Reading: Real vs. ‘Miracle’ Vaccines

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Laurie Garrett is really pessimistic — but she spells out her reasons:

True to the president’s word—or threat, perhaps—the United States government is preparing to roll out a COVID-19 vaccine on, or before, Nov. 1, even though none of the more than 150 vaccines in the research pipeline worldwide have completed Phase 3 safety and efficacy clinical trials. In its mad sprint to Election Day, the White House has funneled billions of dollars into drug companies and ordered government agencies to execute their public health duties at breakneck speeds that defy credulity. Like most experts closely watching these developments, I have no confidence that a safe, effective vaccine will be ready for use by Halloween. Worse, I can no longer recommend that anyone retain faith in any public health pronouncements issued by government agencies…

Extracts from a long thread –

… Even if a vaccine is proved to be safe and effective, rolling out a new one correctly is no small thing. It requires lots of coordination across multiple state and federal agencies that play a pivotal role in evaluating the science behind it, as well as among academia and the public and private sectors. All that requires public trust. If millions of Americans are going to voluntarily agree to have someone inject something into them to prevent a disease they don’t already have, they need to have faith in the agencies that put the effort together and in the government backing it. So for the vaccine to appear in such short time and for Trump to get the credit, he’ll need people to trust the experts at the FDA, the CDC and other regulatory agencies he has spent so much of his presidency publicly denigrating or undermining. Given the usual time required for developing a vaccine — which includes enrolling tens of thousands of volunteers to receive two doses of the vaccine or a placebo a month apart and then waiting to see if they become infected — and the fact that Trump has delegitimized so much of that process, producing a vaccine that a large share of Americans are willing to trust and receive does not seem realistic for the fall…

And one final thread, from someone in the trenches:

Reader Interactions

184Comments

  2. 2.

    dmsilev

    Several drug makers developing #Covid_19 vaccines plan to issue a public pledge not to seek government approval until the shots have proven to be safe and effective, an unusual joint move among rivals.

    It’s a hell of a thing when a bunch of pharma companies have more credibility than the FDA on the whole “is this drug safe?” question.

  3. 3.

    dmsilev

    Also, under the “who could possibly have predicted that? Oh yes, nearly everyone” category,

    We estimate that over 250,000 of the reported cases between August 2 and September 2 are due to the Sturgis Rally. Roughly 19 percent of the national cases during this timeframe. https://t.co/6tCCV6aXYf
    — Andrew Friedson (@FriedsonAndrew) September 6, 2020

  6. 6.

    germy

    For every news article about how a family decided to have a cookout & now 74 people connected to attendees have coronavirus, there should be 100 about how a company reopened & forced workers to choose illness or loss of income, causing incalculable spread.

    — Rachel Stark (@syntactics) September 7, 2020

  7. 7.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @dmsilev:  What’s next? Porn producers telling young women that they should stay in school and really consider, I mean, take some time and really think about the pros and cons of breast implants.

  9. 9.

    Barbara

    @Omnes Omnibus: Manufacturers make most of their money in the U.S. but they operate globally.  They actually have a vested interest in the reputation that the FDA has for strict regulatory controls.  They know that there is no use telling Trump to back off his determination to have some kind of October surprise, because he is indifferent to the interests of anyone or anything that might conflict with his own, and they hope to outlast him one way or another.

  10. 10.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Barbara: Can you explain the “Who’s on first?” question next.  It seems to lead to a lot of confusion when it turns out the person playing first base simply has the comparatively unusual surname of Who.

  11. 11.

    raven

    A friend has been living in the dorm here. She felt like things were going pretty well the first week and now she moved back home because it’s so widespread. YMMV

  12. 12.

    Jeffro

    @germy: exactly.  It’s September 8th!  For some strange reason, we didn’t make it back into church (or almost anywhere else) “by Easter”…for some strange reason, half the country’s preK-12 schoolkids are at home “learning” through their computer screens…for some strange reason, mask-wearing is controversial.

    I don’t give a crap about a vaccine…we don’t need a vaccine to crush this virus.  We just need leadership.

  13. 13.

    trollhattan

    Kiddo is wrapping up college week three, has been tested twice and I’m not sure what the protocol is going forward. Fingers and toes crossed it continues to work.

  14. 14.

    Frankensteinbeck

    All about like I expected.  A vaccine is possible because there are damned few viruses you can’t make a vaccine for, and a vaccine will be ready vastly faster than normal because the entire world is throwing in behind the effort, but ‘vastly faster’ is still pretty damn slow and too slow to do any good for Trump.  Also Russia’s vaccine was a hoax and if by a miracle a real one is ready before November 3rd, Trump will fuck it up.

  15. 15.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    Also Russia’s vaccine was a hoax and if by a miracle a real one is ready before November 3rd, Trump will fuck it up.

    Source? My understanding is that while Russia is a hell hole, they know how to make vaccines even if they probably cut corners here

    and a vaccine will be ready vastly faster than normal because the entire world is throwing in behind the effort,

    Imagine how much humanity could achieve if we single-mindely put our collective efforts to work on more problems/projects more often

  16. 16.

    Barbara

    @Omnes Omnibus: Pharmaceutical manufacturers have the most fearsome lobbying infrastructure in U.S. politics.  Better than the COC.  I have no doubt that they are focusing on trying to keep the Senate in Republican control but they have to live with the executive. They are protected by the FDA’s reputation and try to use their regulatory influence to work the refs behind the scenes, not in full view of the public.

  18. 18.

    Eolirin

    My fear is we need not just leadership but also a less insane population. Those Sturgis Rally numbers are terrifying. I don’t think we can realistically stop things like that. Losing the election is only going to make the rejection of covid precautions worse on the right.

    edit: You had your whole email address in the name field, which I assume was not intentional. I removed the excess and approved your comment.

  20. 20.

    Kay

    Trump’s Kosovo show: No big deal
    Sloppy White House package does little to advance dialogue and comes at a high price.

    Guffaw. Every single time.

    When people are lying conmen they are lying conmen in everything. The Trump people aren’t lying conmen 99% of the time but NOT 1% of the time. In fact, they lie so much no one in their right mind should give them the benefit of the doubt on anything. They lost that credibility as a consequence of lying all the time- that’s the reason most people don’t lie constantly. They know they will lose credibility. If we keep giving it to the Trump people we’re not making them pay the price they should pay.

  22. 22.

    Barbara

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): I don’t know if it’s a hoax but the press releases seem to be in conflict with some of the reported data on such topics as the level of antibodies in comparison to individuals who have recovered from the disease.  It’s possible that the “hoax” part of the vaccine is the announcement that it was ready, because everything I have read subsequent to the announcement is that, after a few high profile inoculations, it is undergoing Phase III trials, like all the other vaccines currently development.

  25. 25.

    Eolirin

    @Jeffro: I don’t think leadership is enough. Too much of the population here is anti science and actively hostile to necessary public health measures.

    Those Sturgis Rally numbers are horrifying and those sorts of events are going to be nearly impossible to stop and only more likely to happen in larger numbers as a direct response to losing the election

    Effective vaccination at high levels is the only way out of this for us, and it’s going to be a heavy lift with the antivaxxers and right wing ratfuckers doing their best to convince people not to get them.

  28. 28.

    Brachiator

    Like most experts closely watching these developments, I have no confidence that a safe, effective vaccine will be ready for use by Halloween. Worse, I can no longer recommend that anyone retain faith in any public health pronouncements issued by government agencies…

    This is the sad consequence of Trump’s ignorance. I expect a vaccine or some other miracle cure to be announced in October. And Trump will fire any CDC or FDA health official who stands in his way.

    There was some Republican governor who blasted “so called experts.” I’m still confused about who the alternative is supposed to be.

     

    ETA. This is not just a US thang. In the UK Conservative MP Jacob Rees Mogg once dismissed economists’ concern about BREXIT by claiming that you could get these “experts” to say anything.

  29. 29.

    The Moar You Know

    Source? My understanding is that while Russia is a hell hole, they know how to make vaccines even if they probably cut corners here

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): your understanding is incorrect.

    I will refer to you to Derek Lowe, an bit of an expert on vaccines (he’s a pharma chemist)

    The Russian Vaccine

    TLDR:  it’s a hoax

    Also, anyone can make a vaccine.  Shit, I could make one in my kitchen.  I just need some COVID virus, which would be problematic for me and my neighbors, but I could make one and it would provoke an immune response.  It would also probably not work, and probably kill quite a few people who got it.  Which is about where the Russian “vaccine” is.

  30. 30.

    SFAW

    @Barbara:

    My snark detection meter broke at least four months ago.

    Not to worry, Omnes’s humor-production algorithm broke long before that. Comes from his Cheesehead being about two sizes too small.

  31. 31.

    The Moar You Know

    Source? My understanding is that while Russia is a hell hole, they know how to make vaccines even if they probably cut corners here

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): your understanding is incorrect.

    I will refer to you to Derek Lowe, an bit of an expert on vaccines (he’s a pharma chemist)

    The Russian Vaccine

    TLDR:  it’s a hoax

    Also, anyone can make a vaccine.  Shit, I could make one in my kitchen.  I just need some COVID virus, which would be problematic for me and my neighbors, but I could make one and it would provoke an immune response.  It would also probably not work, and probably kill quite a few people who got it.  Which is about where the Russian “vaccine” is.

  33. 33.

    Redshift

    The sad thing is, based on these articles, it seems entirely possible Trump could announce a vaccine before the election, and even claim victory for Operation Warp Speed (not legitimately, but who would really care?) But it seems like he’s too fixated on “I need a good economy to win so everyone go back to work” and too stupid to grasp that anything that happens in October/November is too late to have an economic effect on the election.

  34. 34.

    The Moar You Know

    Source? My understanding is that while Russia is a hell hole, they know how to make vaccines even if they probably cut corners here

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): your understanding is incorrect.

    I will refer to you to Derek Lowe, an bit of an expert on vaccines (he’s a pharma chemist)

    The Russian Vaccine

    TLDR:  it’s a hoax

    Also, anyone can make a vaccine.  Shit, I could make one in my kitchen.  I just need some COVID virus, which would be problematic for me and my neighbors, but I could make one and it would provoke an immune response.  It would also probably not work, and probably kill quite a few people who got it.  Which is about where the Russian “vaccine” is.

  38. 38.

    Brachiator

    @Redshift:

    But it seems like he’s too fixated on “I need a good economy to win so everyone go back to work” and too stupid to grasp that anything that happens in October/November is too late to have an economic effect on the election.

    He doesn’t have to improve the economy. It would be enough for him to claim that he singlehandedly saved America.

  39. 39.

    SFAW

    @Jeffro:

    we don’t need a vaccine to crush this virus.  We just need leadership.

    No, we DO need a vaccine. A virus won’t get “crushed” without one, although the impact can be mitigated/minimized through various measures.

    [NB: I guess theoretically, it could eventually disappear without a vaccine — if getting it confers re-infection immunity, and if everyone (more or less) in the world gets it.]

  40. 40.

    PenAndKey

    @Redshift: “I need a good economy to win so everyone go back to work”

    He needs a good economy to win, and his financial backers and ideological allies need workers to keep bringing in the money. That’s the root of all of this. The idea of forcing schools to open in a pandemic, the drive to gut state shutdown orders like the GOP did here in Wisconsin, the push to delegitimize mask wearing and strict health responses of any kind, it all stems from those two motives.

  41. 41.

    VeniceRiley

    @germy: Yes many countries in Africa know how to take special care when there is some pandemic or other about.  But I haven’t seen any speculation on the prevalence of Ivermectin use there.  It’s showing up in some trails as very effective against covid severity

  44. 44.

    Calouste

    @Brachiator: He’s just speaking from experience. The tiny, tiny flaw Rees Mogg and Johnson have in their argument is that they think just going to Oxford as they have, rather than years of actual hard work and experience, makes you an expert, and they themselves are certainly willing to say anything.

  45. 45.

    mali muso

    @germy: THANK YOU!  My husband’s family is in W. Africa, and it’s fascinating to see how many of the countries in the “lesser developed” world have managed to keep this under control by just following basic public health protocols.  Certainly having had a few bouts with ebola has helped build those systems, but it doesn’t have to be some kind of super high tech endeavor.  Testing, contact tracing, isolation, transparency.  Way too complicated for ‘Merica.

  48. 48.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Brachiator:

    It would be enough for him to claim that he singlehandedly saved America.

    When you say “enough for him”, do you mean “enough to satisfy his small mind”?

  49. 49.

    Redshift

    @Brachiator:

    He doesn’t have to improve the economy. It would be enough for him to claim that he singlehandedly saved America. 

    But that’s my point – he doesn’t seem to realize that. He keeps talking about a vaccine being available, and his administration is telling states to be ready to vaccinate in November 1, whereas the most we’re likely to have is an announcement that a vaccine exists and is ready to go into production.

  50. 50.

    gvg

    Well my sister the doctor said we could actually have a valid vaccine by November. There are several phase 3 vaccines. they could be proven by November. The ramping up of production ahead of time is just hugely wasteful of money, but if it was done, could mean we are ready to produce and distribute which ever one works best.. Its not impossible they all work, but maybe not a high percentage…like say 50%.  The phase 2 should have weeded out harmful effects, what we are looking for is if it works. this virus is bad enough that we may settle for a week vaccine to get time to find a better one. The financial waste of doing it this way isn’t as bad as what the virus has done to the economy not to mention deaths.  Apparently all of the prospects need the cold storage being asked for.

    Yes this might change future vaccine science.  My aunt told me that my Vietnam Vet uncle’s surgeon told her at the time that the war caused so many wounded that the medical teams learned alot and tried a lot of things in the urgent now that benefited the rest of us later.  He has plastic veins I understand in his body which was new then. That was kind on an interesting conversation I still remember. The war was still a bad idea.

    I’m skeptical that any Trump administration can coordinate anything good or complicated. He’ll screw it up I’m sure. Probably by getting impatient and promoting another quack cure scam.

  51. 51.

    Brachiator

    @Calouste:

    The tiny, tiny flaw Rees Mogg and Johnson have in their argument is that they think just going to Oxford as they have, rather than years of actual hard work and experience, makes you an expert

    Hell, they think that they are masters of the universe because they went to Eton as school kids.

  52. 52.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @PenAndKey:

    The “best” part of forcing schools to reopen is that it will only make the epidemic in the US worse. In the last few weeks of the campaigns. It’s like saying “clap louder!” was their strategy all along…

    Oh, wait it totally was

  53. 53.

    Jeffro

    @SFAW: right!

    Or (per mali muso at #42):

    many of the countries in the “lesser developed” world have managed to keep this under control by just following basic public health protocols. Certainly having had a few bouts with ebola has helped build those systems, but it doesn’t have to be some kind of super high tech endeavor. Testing, contact tracing, isolation, transparency. Way too complicated for ‘Merica.

    Don’t get me wrong: I want a vaccine as much as anyone.  But with enough testing/tracing/isolating, leadership, and commitment, we could crush this thing before a vaccine arrives.

  56. 56.

    Gin & Tonic

    @gvg: My dear wife, who has been a clinical pharmacist in a hospital setting on and off for decades, took an informal poll of her colleagues last week. Precisely zero percent of them will be taking a vaccine this fall (if one is available.)

  57. 57.

    Brachiator

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):

    It would be enough for him to claim that he singlehandedly saved America.

    When you say “enough for him”, do you mean “enough to satisfy his small mind”?

    No. I mean it might be enough to move some people to vote for him.

    Note that I am not saying that it would win him the election. But he would cause some people to forgive his incompetence and stupidity with respect to the pandemic.

    It’s kinda simple. Success matters. It doesn’t matter how you get there.

  58. 58.

    RaflW

    As if we didn’t already have a 20,000 reasons to hate Trump, what he is doing to US confidence in vaccines will have terrible consequences for at least a decade, maybe an entire generation.

    I’m absolutely aghast.

  59. 59.

    germy

    @Brachiator:

    Yes. I wrote in there years ago that "a false meritocracy breeds mediocrity". These days we're seeing the serious geopolitical consequences of this — of the untalented spoiled children of the rich dominating politics and political media. Bad for truth and democracy.

    — Sarah Kendzior (@sarahkendzior) March 13, 2019

  60. 60.

    Redshift

    @gvg: Yeah, a lot of what is now emergency medicine came out of medics improvising during Vietnam. One thing I recall was the discovery that transfusing saline could prevent shock while waiting for a blood transfusion.

    Medicine advances during wars, but that still doesn’t mean they’re a good thing.

  61. 61.

    Shalimar

    @Frankensteinbeck: From an article I can’t find from a few days ago, Russia’s vaccine is a minor adaptation of an existing vaccine. It is highly likely to be harmless as far as side effects go, but highly unlikely to actually be effective.

  62. 62.

    VeniceRiley

    If they make a vax avail to heathcare workers I will take it the second it is available.  But I would be willing to volunteer for clinical trials.  That is the risk calc … If you would do a clinical trial, then the only difference taking an early release EUA vax is that you’d be assured you are not getting placebo.

    I’m hoping there will be preventatives and treatments that make C19 less of a big deal by then. But it doesn’t look like anyone is throwing all the wallets at those.  They’re concentrating on hospitalizations.

    Things like this should be warp speeded: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200908005196/en/Diomics-Aims-Nose-Coronavirus-Vaccines-Nasal-Spray

  63. 63.

    Jeffro

    @Redshift: He keeps talking about a vaccine being available, and his administration is telling states to be ready to vaccinate in November 1, whereas the most we’re likely to have is an announcement that a vaccine exists and is ready to go into production.

    So, here’s the argument, I guess:

    • even though I called it a “hoax”, and
    • even though I dismantled the office that helps prepare us for pandemics, and
    • even though I started calling for states to re-open and have people in church by Easter, and
    • even though I mocked mask-wearing (and still do!), and
    • even though I am doing NOTHING to get our country up to the level of testing we need, and
    • even though I want school-age kids back in school regardless of what that does to them, or to the spread of the virus, and
    • even though I’m encouraging people to NOT vote by mail during a pandemic, to include having my minion wreck the USPS, and
    • even though me and my party are the ones holding up extended UI relief, and
    • even though all I can seem to do these days is golf, hold daily “press conferences” where I make up shit about Joe Biden, and encourage more violence in the streets of America’s cities…

    ...vote for me, because a vaccine’s coming, and won’t four more years of me be great after that???

  64. 64.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Brachiator:

    Note that I am not saying that it would win him the election. But he would cause some people to forgive his incompetence and stupidity with respect to the pandemic.

    It’s kinda simple. Success matters. It doesn’t matter how you get there.

    Those people must need help to dress and feed themselves, then, because I don’t think incompetence that results in the deaths of hundreds of thousands should be rewarded just because one thing was done right, as if it erases everything that came before. It’s not like Trump did any of the hard work making the vaccine

    It’s like somebody thinking they deserve a medal for the bare minimum of human decency after being an horrendous asshole

    I’m not arguing with you. I understand your point. I just hate that some people are that stupid and gullible

    I had a Trump 2020 mask wearing customer come through my line a few weeks back, talking with another customer about how she was “tired of politics.” She then began taking about the “terrorist” Trump took out a year ago and how much of an evil man he was. That somebody she knew in Croatia couldn’t believe how controversial his killing was in the US; that the reaction there was completely different.

    I tried to correct her and say that it was an Iranian general that was killed. Didn’t have the chance to say that while he may have been a bad person, he was still a general of a sovereign nation that we were not at war with and it was illegal to kill him. She didn’t seem perturbed and was friendly afterwards

  65. 65.

    Jeffro

    @Gravenstone: ??  If we could test/trace/isolate well enough, we’d get the Ro down below 1, and it would die out.

    A vaccine will be super-helpful but is not necessary.

  66. 66.

    Immanentize

    @gvg: It is possible, possibly — but no phase 3 trial anywhere has demonstrated efficacy.  Maybe safety in the short term.  But saline solution is safe.

    For efficacy, people inoculated must be exposed to the virus in the wild and demonstrate better resistance than those in same conditions with a placebo.  We are months from that type of analysis, even at warp speed. Antibodies produced by the vaccine must be shown to connect to actual immunity in the world.  Not hypothetical ‘could maybe create some immunity.’ The latter is all we will have by the end of this year.

    (Unless they start purposefully infecting, say, black soldiers somewhere, say, in Alabama?)

  67. 67.

    Brachiator

    @Barbara:

    The current vaccine candidate is based on a vaccine that they had previously made for a different virus, I can’t remember which one.

    The problem is that Trump doesn’t understand science. He doesn’t understand statistics or probability or basic math. He has never made an intelligent decision about the pandemic, or a reasonable recommendation.

    He is desperate to look like a hero with respect to the pandemic.

  69. 69.

    Jeffro

    @Brachiator: He is desperate to look like a hero with respect to the pandemic.

    Yup, completely.

    “It will all blow over/fade away by summer”

    “It’s 15 cases, which will be down to zero very soon”

    “It’s a hoax, a Democrat hoax”

    He was afraid of spooking the stock market.  Then he was afraid of admitting he screwed up the initial response.  Then our nominee started proposing all the right responses to the pandemic, so he has to stick to his guns and do the opposite.

    Now he’s left praying (ha!) for a miracle and will invent one if he has to…he knows his GOP enablers will go along with it and his voters are morons.

  70. 70.

    Ken

    @Frankensteinbeck: if by a miracle a real one is ready before November 3rd, Trump will fuck it up

    “The entire stock of the vaccine is in this warehouse. If I’m not elected, I will order it destroyed on November 4.”

  71. 71.

    Immanentize

    @Ken: Derek Lowe points out what I was saying above.  A lot of action worldwide, but not one shred of efficacy evidence yet from any phase III trial.  The hospitals in the Boston/East Mass region are not expecting any vaccine to be available to front line workers before next Spring (the end of the flu season).  Jes sayin’

  72. 72.

    Hoodie

    @Immanentize: Added to this, the two US Stage III candidates are both mRNA vaccines, which is a technology that has never been used for widespread vaccines.   They have demonstrated the ability to provoke an immune response in Stage II, but that’s a far cry from providing sufficient confidence to innoculate tens of millions of people.   Short-circuiting approval on those would be mindnumbingly stupid and short sighted.  Of course, Trump will jump at the opportunity.

  74. 74.

    Roger Moore

    @Peale:

    Hoax vaccine to prevent a hoax virus.

    Something like that.  Trump has consistently treated COVID as a PR problem rather than a public health problem, and rushing a vaccine is just more of the same.

  75. 75.

    BruceFromOhio

    @Hoodie:

    … the two US Stage III candidates are both mRNA vaccines, which is a technology that has never been used for widespread vaccines. They have demonstrated the ability to provoke an immune response in Stage II, but that’s a far cry from providing sufficient confidence to inoculate tens of millions of people.

    I keep seeing Will Smith hanging upside down, watching the sun set.

  76. 76.

    sdhays

    It still surprises me sometimes that Dump is as stupid as he is. He has the timing right – good news on a vaccine might swing a few stupid voters right before the election without giving them time for their stupid euphoria to be crushed by reality again. But because he has no impulse control, he has already ruined any benefit he could get from that. Now, if he does make an announcement on Halloween, most of the coverage will be centered on whether or not the announcement is a lie and politically motivated.

  77. 77.

    Wolvesvalley

    I’d guess that no vaccine could be released before November 3, for these reasons:

    1. Trump has destroyed the credibility of any release before that date. No matter how vigorously it was asserted that the vaccine had passed all possible tests and its safety and efficacy had been confirmed, it and its company would be forever tainted by suspicion that the protocols had been skimped and the release was motivated by political considerations and/or greed.
    2. ALL subsequent products developed by that pharma company would be tainted by similar suspicion. No company wants to risk that.
    3. The lawsuits over adverse results would be catastrophic. I know there is a law and a fund designed to protect pharmaceutical companies from financial damage in the event of harmful effects of vaccines, but I doubt it would protect any company that was shown to have behaved recklessly in releasing a vaccine.
  78. 78.

    Roger Moore

    @Barbara:

    They actually have a vested interest in the reputation that the FDA has for strict regulatory controls.

    This.  As long as the FDA is recognized for having strong regulatory controls, other countries are willing to accept their regulation in lieu of regulating directly.  That means a US based manufacturer only has to deal with one regulator, one set of inspections, etc.  If that trust is lost, any American company that wants to deal internationally will be faced with satisfying numerous different regulators, which will be harder and more expensive.  It might even be tough enough that it would be more practical to move manufacturing to a country with a trusted regulator just to avoid the hassle.

  79. 79.

    Ken

    @sdhays: most of the coverage will be centered on whether or not the announcement is a lie and politically motivated.

    “Jared Kushner, whom Mr. Trump named as acting director of the FDA and CDC in October, said that the vaccine was completely safe, in disagreement with the three previous directors of the agencies whom Trump fired in September and October.”

  80. 80.

    sherparick

    A slightly different subject, but since it is a story set in John Cole’s neck of the woods where workers won despite the odds, you should check out Professor Erik Loomis “This Day in Labor History Thread” on the strike in in Pressed Steel Car Company strike at McKees Rocks,, Pennsylvania.  Remember, our Liberal secret power is memory & history:

    https://twitter.com/ErikLoomis/status/1303341158312095749

  81. 81.

    Gravenstone

    @Jeffro: Tell that to the countries across the globe who have mounted credible and effective efforts against the virus, yet are constantly dealing with flare ups each and every time they start to relax. Only an effective vaccine (or group of them) will truly quash this thing. The alternative is of course natural herd immunity, with the corresponding tens (hundreds?) of millions dead along the way. Even then, it’s likely to be an endemic illness for a very long time afterwards.

  82. 82.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):  “Take all that money we spend on weapons and defenses each year and instead spend it feeding and clothing and educating the poor of the world, which it would pay for many times over, not one human being excluded, and we could explore space, together, both inner and outer, forever, in peace.” -Bill Hicks

  83. 83.

    Roger Moore

    @Eolirin:

    My fear is we need not just leadership but also a less insane population. Those Sturgis Rally numbers are terrifying. I don’t think we can realistically stop things like that.

    Part of the job of leadership is to tell people no when they’re trying to do something stupid.  Governor Noem could have cancelled the rally if she had the guts to do it, but she cared more about bringing in money and maintaining the narrative that COVID is under control than she did about protecting her citizens.

  84. 84.

    sdhays

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): I had a Trump 2020 mask wearing customer come through my line a few weeks back, talking with another customer about how she was “tired of politics.”

    LOL. “Tired of politics”, but going to the trouble of plastering your face with political signage. These people.

  85. 85.

    Jeffro

    @Gravenstone:

    Um, ok, I will tell them…would a mass e-mail be better, or just an open letter or something?

    It. is. technically. possible. to. crush. the virus. without a vaccine.  Is it the best or easiest way?  Nope.  Is it do-able?  Yup.

    So hey…have a great day!

  86. 86.

    debbie

    @Gin & Tonic:

    Just got back from a doctor’s appointment. No one in that office will be taking it either. Also, this is the first year they haven’t been after me to get a flu shot. Yikes!

  89. 89.

    catclub

    @debbie: Also, this is the first year they haven’t been after me to get a flu shot. Yikes!

     

    They have certainly been after me to get it. Now!  I preferred to get it later, since supposedly your peak immunity comes after about a month and peak flu season is dec-feb.  But I got it already.

  90. 90.

    Yutsano

    @debbie: I’ve been told to get a flu shot, but not until late September or early October. So it’s possible your doctor is waiting until then like mine is.

  92. 92.

    germy

    This thread on Trump:

    It's almost impossible to believe he exists. It's as if we took everything that was bad about America, scraped it up off the floor, wrapped it all up in an old hot dog skin, and then taught it to make noises with its face.— Anthony Citrano (@acitrano) September 7, 2020

    I mean in its own way it's a miracle. Sure, it's the most tragic kind of miracle and it may very well cause the death of the American experiment. But still, if you step back and behold it with cosmic indifference you cannot help but be almost awestruck.— Anthony Citrano (@acitrano) September 8, 2020

    It's like the inverse feeling of standing at the rim of the Grand Canyon. In both cases you're struck numb. "How can this thing be‽ It is incalculable." But rather than a soaring sense of awe, you feel an equally powerful well of dark gravity, your soul being eaten by despair.— Anthony Citrano (@acitrano) September 8, 2020

  93. 93.

    Roger Moore

    @Jeffro:

    If we could test/trace/isolate well enough, we’d get the Ro down below 1, and it would die out.

    This works, but it has problems.  It was completely successful at stopping SARS, for instance.  But it’s much harder to completely eradicate a virus once it’s spread worldwide.  Even if you think you’ve eliminated it, there’s a worry that it will become established in some area where the public health system isn’t as good and then spread again as soon as people let their guard down.

  95. 95.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Roger Moore:

    True. Although wild polio was recently eliminated in Africa. So was smallpox 40 years ago. It’s doable, it just takes a concerted, global effort

  97. 97.

    Kay

    @germy:

    I do think it’s an existential threat, though. Anyone who kidded themselves that “the institutions” would hold up under Trump bet wrong. They are collapsing. They’re barely staggering along now- 4 more years and every one of them will be gone.

    It’ll be a shithole country. This is for all the marbles. If we lose it’s a very different and much worse country. I feel so much guilt for what we did to younger people. We really handed them a much, much worse country than we received. We did a bad job.

  98. 98.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @sdhays:

    I know, right? I’ve even seen gaudy-ass Trump-themed jewelry women wear, like pins. I act noticeably more aloof when dealing with customers who wear Trump/Back the Blue/Thin Blue Line merch but in a plausible deniability sort of way

  99. 99.

    Bill Arnold

    Has anyone noted that phase III clinical trials will find evidence for efficacy (or not) more quickly if the infection rate in the trial population is higher?
    This is a motivation for increasing infection rates or avoiding NPIs that would reduce infection rates. It’s a heavy accusation, but one has to assume the possibility that it is true. Various pushes which have the side effect of increasing the infection rate also make the population more suitable for phase III trials.

  100. 100.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Roger Moore:

    Neither of those was eradicated just with public health measures; they both had highly effective vaccines.

    Sorry, I forgot to mention the vaccine part. Yes, it will take a highly effective vaccine to kill COVID-19. That won’t be for a few more years though

  101. 101.

    germy

    @Kay:  I used to feel sorry for myself because I came of age (graduated college and entered the full-time workforce) just as Reagan got in  and the GOP began its long, forty year experiment.

    But I feel more sorry for my young adult offspring who are trying to make their way in this new world.

  102. 102.

    Roger Moore

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): 
    The key is that Jeffro was arguing that we don’t need a vaccine because public health measures are enough. It is possible to eradicate a virus purely with public health measures- it happened with SARS- but that was a special case because we caught it before it had a chance to spread worldwide. Once it’s really spread it’s theoretically possible to stop it just with public health measures but probably not practically possible.

  103. 103.

    rp

    @germy: That’s a great description of trump. I’ve said to friends many times that Trump is the living embodiment of ALL of the seven deadly sins. It doesn’t seem possible for one person to be so terrible in so many ways, but here we are. If I were a religious person I could be persuaded that he’s the actual antichrist.

  108. 108.

    Immanentize

    @Bill Arnold: I thought about this — but not as a conspiracy idea.  It is possible some UK/Euro countries are doing stage III testing in the US rather than Canada because infection rates are higher.  But even in the highest provable infection rate areas, the infection rate is still hovering around 20%. And that’s horrible, but it’s not the 80+% needed for any real blanket infection rate.

    Wait until people have to be back inside.

  109. 109.

    Immanentize

    @Kay: I may have already mentioned told that back at the beginning of the primary season I asked my son why so many young people chose to support Bernie — an old angry white guy. He said simply, “we have a lot to be angry about.”

  110. 110.

    Cameron

    @catclub: My RN sister and her husband got their flu shots about a week ago.  I asked why so early, and she said this year it was recommended to get them earlier.  Figure I’ll get mine tomorrow or Thursday.

  112. 112.

    catclub

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Yes, it will take a highly effective vaccine to kill COVID-19.

     

    Flu vaccines are never ‘highly’ (+90% immune success) effective. Flue vaccines mutate too rapidly and there are multiple strains in the wild.

    I expect Covid19 vaccines to be similar in effectiveness.

  114. 114.

    Kay

    @Immanentize:

    I listen to them and it worries me. There’s so much ambivalence about decisions they have to make- my sense is they feel planning won’t matter, that it’s so chaotic and fraught with risk for them that planning becomes a kind of fantasy.

    My youngest son’s (former) girlfriend (they’re still friends) was the kind of young person that is supposed to guarantee success- a really good student, hard working, focused. She was a freshman in college last year. Her whole life is upended. Her college opened but she didn’t go back because she (probably wisely) believed they would be closing anyway. So she’s back at her parents house, doing online courses, which bore her and make her sad. 13 years of careful planning and busting ass to end up in med school and she’s kind of wandering around, directionless. I mean, we REALLY failed this person! We didn’t provide her the minimum to get where she wants to go and she asked for so little! She asked for “functioning”- the rest she took care of.

  115. 115.

    Ohio Mom

    One of the things I learned recently is why the childhood diseases such as measles, mumps, etc., affected children.

    Its because the living adults had already been exposed in their childhoods and had immunity. The viruses were always in the background until a new cohort of children presented itself and then each of the viruses could take off again. Fresh meat.

    I had all of the childhood diseases except for polio (got in on the ground floor with the vaccine) and somehow, mumps (for which I was vaccinated against as an adult).

    I have dim memories of lying in my darkened bedroom, with a high fever and feeling terrible for one of them. Now I am in awe that my mother lived through three children getting what, four or five childhood diseases each? I’d be a nervous wreck, knowing how dangerously sick my child was. I would hardly be able to function.

    If we don’t get a vaccine and we have to manage until Covid burns through the world, I can imagine a similar future for children not yet born.

    But I am confident there will be a vaccine, though maybe not all that soon. And then there will be lags and outbreaks until the entire world is vaccinated. It’s going to be a very long haul.

  116. 116.

    Bill Arnold

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):

    Source? My understanding is that while Russia is a hell hole, they know how to make vaccines even if they probably cut corners here

    Russia announced success after completing phase II trials, and their doing half-assed phase III by rolling out the vaccinations to 30000 people first and presumably will adjust if there are problems encountered during this phase. Not wrong, but their pitch was lying, trying to win the vaccine race basically.

  117. 117.

    VeniceRiley

    https://www.biospace.com/article/fda-action-alert-possible-covid-19-action-and-mallinckrodt-s-terlipressin/
    Money quote

    More likely, and eagerly anticipated, Regeneron Pharmaceuticals is expected to have data from clinical trials of its two-antibody cocktail against COVID-19 sometime in September. In a second quarter reporting conference call, George Yancopoulos, the company’s chief scientific officer, said the plan was to share “initial virology and biomarker data from the treatment studies by the end of September with clinical outcome data to follow as enrollment progresses.”
    In an August scientific article, the cocktail was able to “almost completely block establishment of virus infection,” in rhesus macaques and hamsters. A Phase III trial of the cocktail, REGN-COV2, launched on August 4, so it’s possible there will be data that might prompt the FDA to issue an EUA, although, again, October is more likely.

  118. 118.

    taumatugo

    @Barbara: They are a cartel buying influence through political donations legalize bribery and a mega beneficiary of corporate socialism.

  119. 119.

    Immanentize

    @Kay: Well my son is finally launched — at school, but his courses are all online (just part of the unlucky of his draw although maybe safer).  We chatted last night — he figures, not counting sleeping, he is spending 8-10 hours a day in his dorm room having classes, studying, doing his assignments.  He is doing fine but says his math class is tiring and requires periods of intense attention surrounded by long stretches of boring presentation — in zoom of course.  His room is like 8×12.  He has a roommate.  They raised their beds so they could put their desks under them so they could have enough room for a couch in their space.  He is adapting, certainly — but to what?  For what?

  121. 121.

    Roger Moore

    @catclub:

    FWIW, it sounds as if the thing that makes the flu really bad is that it can cross with itself if anyone gets infected with two strains at the same time, resulting in new strains cropping up regularly.  COVID hasn’t shown any signs of doing the same kind of thing.  It seems to mutate fairly slowly and at a relatively regular pace.

  122. 122.

    geg6

    @germy:

    I don’t have kids, but I, too, came of age at the same time and felt the same way.  We late Boomers/GenXers had a rougher time than our older siblings/relatives/neighbors did and I thought it was terrible.  But I really feel for my students for the last 20+ years.  Everything has gone to shit and I don’t know that we can fix any of it.

  123. 123.

    JPL

    @Kay: This!     Social Security and the Post Office are barely hanging on.   Next comes school choice in the republican stimulus bill.

  124. 124.

    Brachiator

    @Immanentize:

    He is doing fine but says his math class is tiring and requires periods of intense attention surrounded by long stretches of boring presentation — in zoom of course.

    In the UK a rapper who used to be a teacher appeared on a British panel game show and was asked by one of the guests, who had kids at home, about online home instruction.  The rapper suggested that instead of trying to duplicate an 8 am to 4 pm school day, the parents do shorter lessons and let the kids relax.

    I don’t know how the college online instruction is done, but if feedback is allowed, maybe the instructors could consider rethinking how they do the instruction. I have done remote seminars for tax professionals, and we break the sessions up, have regular breaks and try to keep them relatively short. In house instruction is set up differently.

    His room is like 8×12. He has a roommate. They raised their beds so they could put their desks under them so they could have enough room for a couch in their space. He is adapting, certainly — but to what? For what?

    Short answer. We are lucky that we understand a bit more about pandemics and can do these small, even if stressful things, to help ourselves and others.

    I am a hard headed optimist. For various reasons, I had done reading about plagues and pandemics before this. We are not praying to the gods and hoping that we don’t fall ill.  We have not shut down all universities like in the days of Newton and moved to the countryside (if we could afford it).  We are trying to adapt and learn and adapt some more.

    But I don’t say that we have it easy compared to previous generations. It is tough on the people now, today, especially kids and young people who have never had anything like this happen to them before.  But so far, even despite the stupid actions of some of us and some of are officials, we may get through this and have a better tomorrow.

    As that wise philosopher Sir Richard Starkey MBE once sang.

    Got to pay your dues if you wanna sing the blues
    And you know it don’t come easy

  125. 125.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @catclub:

    I expect Covid19 vaccines to be similar in effectiveness.

    Based on what?  There is no sign that Covid19 mutates at the rate influenza does, nor does it have the wide breeding pool of existing strains to do so and get around a vaccine.

  126. 126.

    scav

    @Immanentize: He’s learned and is learning to adapt, to roll with the punches, to live and live as well as possible with what actual (rather than TV-stereotye) life throws at one.  It started before college for him, no? But still all good. He’ll likely have better sea-legs for what’s coming than many of us who’ve only experienced more sheltered lives where budgeting and laundry were the big non-academic skills picked up as freshers.

  128. 128.

    Kay

    @Immanentize:

    He is adapting, certainly

    Maybe it’s good. Maybe they’ll need to be much, much tougher then we were, you know, navigating a wholly corrupt freak show country that operates almost exclusively on conspiracy theories and lies.

  129. 129.

    Brachiator

    @Roger Moore:

    The key is that Jeffro was arguing that we don’t need a vaccine because public health measures are enough.

    This seems unlikely. Scotland had been very successful in suppressing the virus, but consider this recent BBC News story.

    New coronavirus cases have been detected in every mainland health board area in Scotland in the past 24 hours.
    There have been 176 positive tests across the country since Monday, including 91 in NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde – where visiting restrictions are in force.

    First Minister Nicola Sturgeon also said that three people had died after testing positive for the virus.

    This is the highest number of deaths by that measure since 30 June, she said.

    As well as the 91 cases in the Greater Glasgow area, 32 were detected in NHS Lanarkshire and 16 in NHS Ayrshire and Arran.

    The remainder were spread across the other mainland health boards – although there were no new cases in the Western Isles, Orkney or Shetland.

    Human beings are social animals, and it appears that the virus rather quickly spreads again whenever we start to open things up again.

    Director of public health for NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde, Dr Linda de Caestecker, warned that the rise in cases in some local authorities could be driven by the hospitality industry.

    She said: “When we examine the rate per 100,000 population it is highest in West Dunbartonshire where many cases relate to family gatherings and parties.

    “The next highest rate is in Glasgow city where more cases are associated with visits to bars and restaurants.”

    In the US, around 35% of movie theaters are still closed, there are no or very few sporting events that admit spectators, theme parks have shortened hours. And the places that are open have taken some measures to restrict the total number of visitors and observe social distancing rules. And this is just a couple of segments of the recreation and leisure industry that has slowed down.

    And yet there are these fantasies that even with a vaccine of unknown effectiveness we will soon be able to simply get back to normal. We just have to do the best we can, but also be prepared to adjust to a very different social environment.

  130. 130.

    taumatugo

    @Kay: The sad reality and unavoidable conclusion are that the previous generation always fails the younger generations since when the older generations hold power their decisions are biased to what would most likely benefit them in the here and now. Not everyone is benefited, mind you, mainly those that share an affinity of race, gender, and geographical proximity. In our country baby boomers, the greatest “me – mine” generation complete abandoned the future of the country by supporting lower taxes at the expense of defunding education, funding endless war, supporting de facto zipcode segregation, ignoring healthcare access and affordability, supporting brutal and excessive policing, and abandoning and opposing a well funded higher education. A toxic combination of greed, xenophobia, and racism that has the young paying a hefty price.

  132. 132.

    Barbara

    @germy: This is an interesting comment, and though I think to some extent it has ever been thus, it seems that a number of trends have reinforced the ratio of the mediocre rich to the truly talented, whatever their origin.

    My daughter is visiting this week and we have been taking turns choosing movies to stream.  We saw North by Northwest on Sunday (great as always) and then she asked us to watch Knives Out last night.  I had read about it but not seen it.  Social commentary on just this issue (mediocre rich people who feel entitled to their privilege) wrapped up in a very elaborate yet tongue in cheek riff on the game of Clue.

  133. 133.

    Kay

    Patrick Chovanec
    @prchovanec
    · 4h
    Once upon a time, we were concerned by Bill Clinton having a brief, undetermined meeting with Obama’s AG on an airport tarmac. Now the White House is apparently getting advanced briefings on investigations into people on its “enemies list”, and leaking info from them openly.

    Well, Patrick, it isn’t hard to figure out what happened. The standards are much, much lower. What we do about that is in question, but the fact that the standards are lower is no longer in doubt. Do they stay so low? Do they go lower still? Do they go back up? Those are the questions. Documenting the decline probably isn’t sufficient because everyone who isn’t blind or delusional knows they’re lower by now.

  134. 134.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Immanentize:

    Well, they’re alright when they’re not going “Democrats and Republicans are the same party serving the neoliberal agenda so voting doesn’t matter. Also, Obama was a warmonger and don’t forget Standing Rock happened under his watch. Blue MAGA lol”

    Admittedly, that’s not all of them, but I’m sometimes disgusted by how politically naive many are

  135. 135.

    Brachiator

    @taumatugo: 

    The sad reality and unavoidable conclusion are that the previous generation always fails the younger generations since when the older generations hold power their decisions are biased to what would most likely benefit them in the here and now.

    Horse puckey. There is always a continuity of generations. And we have lowered the voting age to 18 and even to 16 in some countries. And what happens? Younger people, often rightly, live their lives, party, complain about their parents and the older generation and don’t vote in droves, leaving the boring shit of maintaining society to the busybodies who are into that civic duty thing, or who have their ideological axes to grind.

    And young people can be just as greedy, racist, xenophobic and deplorable as anyone else. We human beings are slow learners.

  136. 136.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Brachiator:

    I don’t know how the college online instruction is done, but if feedback is allowed, maybe the instructors could consider rethinking how they do the instruction.

    Many years ago, I recall reading something by Marvin Minsky on teaching. The gist (I may have some details wrong) was that if you took a physician/surgeon from 100 years ago and dropped them in a modern OR, they would have a vague idea of what was going on, but would be unable to actually contribute, or even understand half of what was going on. But if you took a teacher from 100 years ago and dropped them in a modern classroom, everything would be familiar to them. Probably somewhat exaggerated for dramatic effect, but the basic point is there.

  137. 137.

    sdhays

    @Brachiator: And yet there are these fantasies that even with a vaccine of unknown effectiveness we will soon be able to simply get back to normal. We just have to do the best we can, but also be prepared to adjust to a very different social environment.

    This is something that is going to be a problem once vaccines start to become a reality. The media has done its typically mediocre-at-best job of reporting the challenges that will remain once vaccines that are safe and effective exist, and Dump et al have latched onto it as a magic cure. Even once we have a reasonably effective vaccine, it’s still going to be a long hard slog. I don’t think we’ll make it if somehow Dump remains in office – I think COVID-19 will still be a thing in 2024 if there’s an election.

    How will people respond to discovering that “there’s a vaccine” still means a long time before it’s actually available and longer still before things actually are safe to get back to normal?

  138. 138.

    Brachiator

    @Gin & Tonic:

    The gist (I may have some details wrong) was that if you took a physician/surgeon from 100 years ago and dropped them in a modern OR, they would have a vague idea of what was going on, but would be unable to actually contribute, or even understand half of what was going on.

    You’re very likely right. And yet my brain tells me that 100 years ago was 1920. When I consider the actual date it doesn’t seem so long ago. I think a doctor from that time might at least be able to catch up conceptually to some things going on.  Maybe even a doctor from 200 years in the past.

    But your larger point is spot on.

    But if you took a teacher from 100 years ago and dropped them in a modern classroom, everything would be familiar to them. Probably somewhat exaggerated for dramatic effect, but the basic point is there.

    Hell, you might be able to take a teacher from ancient Greece and he or she might be able to figure out what was happening in a lecture hall very quickly. And Aristotle would chuckle to see that he was still being taught.

    But it would be wild to have a philosopher sit at home with a kid and watch that kid flip open a laptop and start a Zoom instruction session.

  139. 139.

    PenAndKey

    @Immanentize: I may have already mentioned told that back at the beginning of the primary season I asked my son why so many young people chose to support Bernie — an old angry white guy. He said simply, “we have a lot to be angry about.”

    I’m 35, born at the tail end of 1984, and technically on the old end of the Millennial generation. I’ll admit, Sander’s whole “angry progressive” persona is very appealing to me at a gut level and the only reason I rejected him in favor of Warren and then Biden in the primaries is because, once I dug past the initial impressions he, struck me as disingenuously ineffective at actually accomplishing the things he preached. It’s one thing to be angry and just rant, but if I’m going to always be angry (*cue Bruce Banner quote here*) I’d prefer to back someone who can actually do something about it. That requires incrementalism, so that’s what I’ll back. Not because it’s what I want, but because my lizard brain preferred solutions aren’t fit for polite company.

    My 4-years younger brother has never known anything but the Bush II and on federal government. He’s never seen effective Democratic rule and, as a result, he doesn’t have that visceral “it was better until you jerks took over” gut instinct or any idea of the sausage factory requirements of real legislative change. So, of course, he’s swayed by the guy saying all the right words without a care if they’re practical. Meh.

  140. 140.

    Brachiator

    Here is a hopeful sign. Ethics from Big Pharma

    A group of nine vaccine developers has announced a “historic pledge” to uphold scientific and ethical standards in the search for a coronavirus vaccine.
    The firms, including Pfizer and Merck, said they would only apply for regulatory approval after vaccines went through three phases of clinical study.

    It comes amid global debates about the safety of vaccines made this year.

    US President Donald Trump has said he wants one available in the US before November’s election.

    No vaccine has yet completed clinical trials, according to the World Health Organization (WHO) – leading some scientists to fear the search for a vaccine is being politicised, and public trust could be damaged.

    In their pledge, the nine biopharmaceutical firms did not mention Mr Trump but said they believed their action would “ensure public confidence” in the development of any inoculation.

    They pledged to “always make the safety and well-being of vaccinated individuals our top priority”.

    Other signatories were industry giants Johnson & Johnson, BioNTech, GlaxoSmithKline, AstraZeneca, Moderna and Novavax.

    “Together, these nine companies have collectively developed more than 70 novel vaccines that have helped to eradicate some of the world’s most complex and deadly public health threats,” the statement added.

    Nearly 180 vaccine candidates are being tested around the world, the WHO says.

    The organisation has said it does not expect a vaccine to meet its efficacy and safety guidelines in order to be approved this year because of the time it takes to test them safely.

     

  141. 141.

    Kay

    The city is gripped by a gun-violence epidemic, but only about 20 percent of shootings have ended with an arrest, according to a Post analysis of NYPD data through late August.
    Historically, the NYPD’s so-called shooting clearance rate has hovered around 30 to 33 percent, department officials have said.

    We could justify reforming policing based on their incredibly low clearance rate alone. They’re not very good at solving crimes and it isn’t just NY. Chicago’s clearance rate is 30% too.
    Whatever it is they’re doing with those giant budgets it isn’t solving crimes. Everyone talks about replacing them with social workers but that’s ambitious- we could also just replace them with police who solve crimes. NOT actually doing a great job, even under their definition of their job.

  143. 143.

    taumatugo

    @Brachiator: leaving the boring shit of maintaining society to the busybodies who are into that civic duty thing, or who have their ideological axes to grind.

    Is the natural course of life in general, but it doesn’t preclude elders looking out for the future of the country that happens to be their children instead of promulgating laws that create for example a pipe from school to prison, opposing the legalization of marijuana, opposing free college education, opposing quality, and affordable childcare, and opposing accessible and affordable healthcare. You are right that young folks are smart and take notice of how the funds flow effortlessly to the well to do starving needed government support for the have less.  A young person may rightfully ask, what has my country has done for us, the young people?

  144. 144.

    Jeffro

    @Brachiator: actual quote o’ mine

    It. is. technically. possible. to. crush. the virus. without a vaccine.  Is it the best or easiest way?  Nope.  Is it do-able?  Yup.

  145. 145.

    Brachiator

    @Jeffro:

    It. is. technically. possible. to. crush. the virus. without a vaccine. Is it the best or easiest way? Nope. Is it do-able? Yup.

    Thanks for this. Still not doable. The evidence from Scotland alone suggests otherwise.

  146. 146.

    taumatugo

    @Brachiator: This is a preventive strike and a backhanded criticism of Sputnik 5 and the Chinese vaccines that are most likely to come to the market before the US Pharma cartel. The US pharma cartel has made an attempt to clear themselves to call the Russian and Chinese efforts unethical if they beat them to the market. Nothing to do with ethics and everything to do with profits.

  147. 147.

    Chief Oshkosh

    @dmsilev: And some of the posts there are just pathetic — demanding to know the impact of the BLM protests on Covid spread. The authors only had to remind them about a dozen times the those analyses had already been done and published. These are the same morons who whine that publishing the negative effects of Gatherings of Goobers (e.g., Sturgis, religious ceremonies, sporting events, etc.) is politicizing the pandemic.

    If only it would just take them and leave the rest of us alone.

  148. 148.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @taumatugo:

    Anybody who uses the phrase “US pharma cartel” unironically should not be taken seriously. Also Russia and China are run by totalitarian regimes that lie all the fucking time. They absolutely should not be trusted

  149. 149.

    Roger Moore

    @Kay:

    Do they stay so low? Do they go lower still? Do they go back up? Those are the questions.

    Obviously the real world answer is that the standards stay low or go lower when there’s a Republican in power but they go back up where they were under Obama or higher when it’s a Democrat.  If it weren’t for double standards, political reporters wouldn’t have any standards at all.

  150. 150.

    Brachiator

    @taumatugo:

    A young person may rightfully ask, what has my country has done for us, the young people?

    I still kinda like JFK’s challenge from 1961. Young people age 16 and older can pitch in.

     

    The US pharma cartel has made an attempt to clear themselves to call the Russian and Chinese efforts unethical if they beat them to the market. Nothing to do with ethics and everything to do with profits.

    Are Russia and China following accepted standards? Do they allow independent verification of their procedures?

    Are Russia and China making enough vaccine for everybody? Would you take the Russian vaccine?

    Your cynicism is interesting.  But it is also testable.

  151. 151.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Brachiator:

    Are Russia and China following accepted standards? Do they allow independent verification of their procedures?

    Are Russia and China making enough vaccine for everybody? Would you take the Russian vaccine?

    Your cynicism is interesting.  But it is also testable.

    Exactly. This is like how a certain segment of the left conveniently ignores all of the bad shit nations like China and Russia do but hyper-focuses on the US’ fuck-ups and corruption

  152. 152.

    Roger Moore

    @Kay:

    It would also help if we had police who didn’t get butthurt and refuse to do their jobs any time it’s suggested that they maybe should be held accountable.  I don’t know if we should defund the police, but I’m very strongly behind eliminating police unions.

  153. 153.

    Robert Sneddon

    @Brachiator: The recent increase in cases in Scotland has been put down to mostly infection via home visits and family connections rather than hospitality venues like pubs and clubs. There was a major outbreak in Aberdeen a few weeks ago that was definitely attributed to pubs and clubs — Aberdeen was locked down hard, all shops, pubs, restaurants etc. closed for about two weeks and that stopped the spread after about 250 people were infected. The most notable part of that outbreak was a group of eight football players who all came down with COVID-19 after going out pubbing together against team rules and government advice. The football clubs have taken this to heart under the threat of competitive play and even team training being banned and I’ve not heard of any more slip-ups like that since then.

    The big worry for the government is if the reopening of schools kicks off a wider spread of COVID-19 in the community. They’ve been open for 100% attendance five days a week, no remote teaching, for three weeks now and as yet there’s no clear sign of that causing problems. The Scottish government really wants the schools to remain open for social reasons but they’re willing to shut everything down again if necessary. The schools opening was only decided on after scientific advice was taken though, I should point out.

     

    Topping everything off the Universities are restarting round about this period. Scotland gets a lot of foreign students coming to study at its world-renowned centres of excellence like Edinburgh and St. Andrews and that is causing its own problems, of course.

  154. 154.

    Roger Moore

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):

    Also Russia and China are run by totalitarian regimes that lie all the fucking time.

    As opposed to the USA, which is currently run by a would-be authoritarian whose government lies all the time.  The Chinese at least appear to be [ETA:] halfway competent and not in a rush caused by the need to look good for the upcoming election.

  155. 155.

    Aleta

    Today I got an unsolicited voter registration application in the mail addressed to my dog. (Name/address already entered on the form.)   “Acc to our review of publiclly avail;able records, you may not be reg to vote … We will review the publicly available voter file in 8 weeks to see if you have sent your form. …”

  156. 156.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Roger Moore:

    That’s not the same thing. Trump is (hopefully) temporary and he wasn’t legitimately elected in the first place. Xi and Putin aren’t going anywhere anytime soon in all likelihood; much of their populations have swallowed the kool-aid. The vast majority of Americans have not. We have an (imperfect) democratic tradition. Neither China or Russia have had one.

  157. 157.

    Kay

    @Roger Moore:

    I think this is different. In many ways I think there’s two groups of people- those who think this is “within normal” and those who think it isn’t. The deficit double standard and the email double standard are usual R v D stuff, but this level of corruption? It’s a new and much lower broad ethical standard that has now become accepted and normalized. There’s just no way to get around it- if you have lower standards you’ll have a worse country and that has in fact happened. We weren’t just keeping the standards (the ‘norms’) for our health – they’re a measure of quality. There are real and immediate consequences for lowering them.

  158. 158.

    J R in WV

    A good friend of mine, who was a Bio/chem major while I was a CS major in the long ago, now works for a pharma firm that conducts clinical trials for other pharma firms that develop drugs/vaccines. Flies to Brazil, France, London, other places I don’t recall to teach locals the parameters of the current specific clinical trial, how to administer the meds being tested, how to track data for the clinical trial at the same time.

    I haven’t asked yet about Covid drug/vaccine testing, there is a level of secrecy around specific trials, but I’m sure I can get good advice about what to do & when. Have been good friends for ~40+ years now…

  160. 160.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @taumatugo:

    This COVID-19 vaccine candidate from Russia joins two other adenovirus-vectored COVID-19 vaccine candidates, which have been reported in randomised trials in The Lancet, and an mRNA vaccine candidate reported in a non-randomised trial. Similar to these studies before it, Logunov and colleagues’ studies are encouraging but small. The immunogenicity bodes well, although nothing can be inferred on immunogenicity in older age groups, and clinical efficacy for any COVID-19 vaccine has not yet been shown. A wide portfolio of early COVID-19 vaccine candidates will hopefully provide more successful vaccines that are broadly protective across risk groups and that increase the global availability of what will be a precious limited commodity.

  161. 161.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Kay:

    standard that has now become accepted and normalized.

    I’m not sure this is the case. Who has accepted it?

  162. 162.

    taumatugo

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Just as the Western world governments are by no stretch of the imagination completely trustworthy, the same amount of skepticism applies to Russia and China. Yet we are more than less circumscribe to our pro-western propaganda and immediately are told by the MSM and big pharma Russia’s vaccine is dangerous, risky, unethical, hacked, stolen without making any attempt to hide their journalistic double standards when it comes for example to the announcement of Astrazeneca of proceeding to development w/o concluding with stage 3 testing, just as the Russians. How is the same different for one and not the other? Is all about profits and our constant naiveté.

  163. 163.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @taumatugo:

    when it comes for example to the announcement of Astrazeneca of proceeding to development w/o concluding with stage 3 testing, just as the Russians. How is the same different for one and not the other?

    Because Trump and hacks are in charge, that’s why

  164. 164.

    taumatugo

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): From the Lancet study: Expecting a vaccine to result in less than complete neutralisation is not inherently wrong but sets the bar low and makes it easier to claim neutralising activity. In Logunov and colleagues’ studies, however, the threshold for neutralisation was set high in two regards: the inoculating viral dose was large, and no arising cellular damage was allowable. Essentially, the assay was set at full neutralisation. This high bar implies these researchers took an a-priori risk that their vaccine might fail the test. It did not. It remains to be seen if other manufacturers will set a similar high standard.

  165. 165.

    Barbara

    @taumatugo:  It is not just big Pharma that has expressed concern about foregoing phase 3 trials and many of those same people are just as worried about this issue with domestic vaccines. FFS.

  166. 166.

    CarolDuhart2

    @Redshift: Too late period.  We could have way more than 50% already in the hopper by October 15th, and massive early voting already underway.

    This is example 999 of how out of touch Trump really is. October surprises worked back in the 60’s when only a handful of people voted earlier than October 15th, no states voted by mail or early voted.   A vaccine announcement would come too late, and nobody thinks that Biden would stop any developments if he won.  So the incentive to vote Trump instead of Biden wouldn’t be there either.

  167. 167.

    Jay

    @Roger Moore:

    there are some basic ideas behind “defunding the Police”

    On average, Police “services” costs comprise 75% to 90% of the Civic Budget. That’s before liability claims being settled. In NYC, $68 million was paid out in 2019, and based on all the KKKop Riots and Criming during Covid, 2020 will probably push liability claims well past $200 million and will probably be a major cause of another NYC Bankruptcy.

    Police Clearance rates for all crimes, are well below 30%, so what ever the Police are policing, it’s not crime. In many jurisdictions, Police are the key “taxation” stream for the Municipality, through tickets, forfiture, bail, fees, basically, “highway robbery” and slave catching.

    The defunding of Schools, Mental and other Health Services, Unhoused Services, Civic Revitalization, Public Services all have come at both an expense to Policing, and an opportunity. Due to budget costs, NYC is slashing services, laying off critical staff, and hiring more Cops.

    As an expense, Police are now doing work that was previously done by well trained, unarmed, more empathetic staff, from Health and Wellness checks, though Welfare services, to even Children and Family services, none of which they are properly trained for, are equipped for, emotionally or tactically.

    So of course, their response to an Unhoused Encampment is not to provide social services, medical services, welfare services but instead, Clearances and the destruction of the Unhoused property, ( food, water, tents, mobility, medicine, sleeping and cooking gear, heating, etc) which is critical to their survival.

    They are tasked with Health and Wellness checks, so of course, they roll SWAT and go in shooting.

    Defunding the Police is not just about “defunding the Police”, it’s primarily about taking the bloated budgets that the Cops always blow  through, ( often criminally), and investing that money in Civic Services,  along with Decriminalization, ( not just drugs) and leaving the Police having to just deal with Crime. Real Crime, not Broken Windows BS.

    It’s also about bringing Restorative Justice into the Criminal System.

  169. 169.

    Brachiator

    @Robert Sneddon:

    The recent increase in cases in Scotland has been put down to mostly infection via home visits and family connections rather than hospitality venues like pubs and clubs. There was a major outbreak in Aberdeen a few weeks ago that was definitely attributed to pubs and clubs

    Thanks very much for the additional detail. I try to follow some of the international summaries, but essential info can be flattened or omitted.

    But I think that various media and health officials are trying to be consistent when discussing and comparing types of social related outbreaks.

    The Scottish government really wants the schools to remain open for social reasons but they’re willing to shut everything down again if necessary.

    I read one set of stories before schools opened that suggested that some officials were looking at things as a reductive either/or. “Either we open bars or schools.” I think this is wrong. You have to try to accommodate all the ways that people, young and old, interact socially.

    The schools opening was only decided on after scientific advice was taken though, I should point out.

    Scientists are still learning and adjusting their advice. And maybe psychologists and other social scientists need to get involved as well. The understandably exasperated Los Angeles health official said this recently:

    “We do not need to wait for a vaccine to slow the spread; we just need for every single person to do the right thing,” Ferrer said. “It is nonsense to believe that parties and gatherings are essential for our well-being; parties and gatherings lead to unnecessary exposures and make it that much harder to lower the rate of community transmission so that our children can get back to school and employees back to work.”

    This is nonsense, and even though I greatly respect this official, I would note the obvious, that social gatherings are absolutely essential for our well being. Even orangutans, our primate cousins mix social gatherings periods of solitary living. Being social is in our genes.

    Topping everything off the Universities are restarting round about this period. Scotland gets a lot of foreign students coming to study at its world-renowned centres of excellence like Edinburgh and St. Andrews and that is causing its own problems, of course.

    Because I can be goofy, I also wondered about the great golf courses in Scotland.

  170. 170.

    CarolDuhart2

    @sdhays: It won’t be easy.  Having something available is not the same as getting it to everybody, especially at a price point that enables everyone to get it.   And in the meantime until we get more than 80% immunization or even higher, there can still be new infections.  That doesn’t even include the people who will still be in recovery or rehabilitation who will need ongoing care.

  171. 171.

    Another Scott

    Speaking of poison pills… https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/515478-pelosi-schumer-warn-gop-coronavirus-bill-headed-nowhere

    The two congressional Democratic leaders, in a joint statement, said the pared-down Republican bill is “headed nowhere.”

    “Senate Republicans appear dead-set on another bill which doesn’t come close to addressing the problems and is headed nowhere. If anyone doubts McConnell’s true intent is anything but political, just look at the bill. This proposal is laden with poison pills Republicans know Democrats would never support,” Pelosi and Schumer said, referring to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).

    McConnell is preparing to force a vote as soon as this week on a forthcoming pared-down GOP coronavirus proposal.

    […]

    Instead, the Senate GOP proposal is expected to be significantly smaller than the previous GOP package. McConnell didn’t release a price tag for the forthcoming bill, but it is expected to be at least $500 billion — half of the $1 trillion package Republicans previously unveiled in late July.

    The bill does not include another round of stimulus checks or Democratic priorities like more money for state and local governments, who have seen their tax base dry up as the coronavirus forced businesses to close.

    Pelosi and Schumer argued that McConnell was forcing the vote in a move to protect vulnerable incumbents, something GOP sources have acknowledged is at the forefront of his mind as he fights to hold on to the majority in the upper chamber.

    […]

    Let the Bothsidering begin!!1

    Grr…

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  173. 173.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Aleta:

    Today I got an unsolicited voter registration application in the mail addressed to my dog. (Name/address already entered on the form.)   “Acc to our review of publiclly avail;able records, you may not be reg to vote … We will review the publicly available voter file in 8 weeks to see if you have sent your form. …” 

    Welcome to Chicago.  We’re happy you chose to call our city (now also (too) your city) home.  Sorry for your loss.  I hope your pooch lived a good and long life.

  174. 174.

    Jay

    3 months into a new civil rights movement, the Seattle Police Department continues using pepper spray despite repeated denunciations by city officials and an ordinance forbidding them to. Nobody in city government has the ability to make them stop. “Reform” is a sham. https://t.co/elMsBvkBcj— Shaun Scott ?? (@eyesonthestorm) September 8, 2020

  175. 175.

    Aleta

    @mrmoshpotato:   It’s a dilemma, legally speaking, because he is extremely susceptible to bribes AND he’s 5 years short of his 18th birthday, a date that is unknown.

  176. 176.

    Jay

    Salt Lake City police shot an unarmed 13-year-old autistic child in a mental health crisis after his mom called 911 to get him help. This incident demands a full investigation. There’s no reason an armed officer should be responding to calls like this. https://t.co/deRTSjuzUE— Julián Castro (@JulianCastro) September 8, 2020

  178. 178.

    Jay

    @Aleta:

    Snausages?

    Begging bits?

    Freeze dried Chicken?

    Dried Duck Breasts?

    technically not a “bribe for a vote” in some of the Chitown Wards,……

  179. 179.

    Jay

    Whoa. After days of protests in Rochester over the killing of Daniel Prude, mayor Lovely Warren just announced entire Rochester police department command staff, including the chief of police, is resigning.— Paul McLeod (@pdmcleod) September 8, 2020

  180. 180.

    jl

    Thanks for an informative post. I tend not to trust the private big pharma sector, but it this case I can see why they would make a public pledge of no monkey business in approvals. There have been too many cases of vaccines that have not worked as anticipated. Sometimes the vaccine is dangerous and shouldn’t be used at all, sometimes the vaccine is fine, but needs to be used in a different way than anticipated, sometimes the vaccine is fine but has some unanticipated features that mean clinical protocols and public health surveillance needs to be changed to accommodate the unexpected features. Any of those outcomes from a rushed covid-19 vaccine would very probably cause big problems in their whole line of vaccine business, especially with the way our incompetent US news media loves sensational and inaccurate covid-19 headlines. Trump may find it hard to believe, ‘not nice to him’ or a Deep State plot, but Trump’s BS gimmicks to get re-elected just are not worth that much to the industry.

  181. 181.

    Darkrose

    @catclub: The UC system has made it a requirement for faculty and staff to get flu shots this year, even for those of us who aren’t currently working on campus.

  183. 183.

    dopey-o

    @Jeffro:

    It. is. technically. possible. to. crush. the virus. without a vaccine. Is it the best or easiest way? Nope. Is it do-able? Yup.

    Thanks for this. Still not doable. The evidence from Scotland alone suggests otherwise.

    Viet Nam. Hong Kong. New Zealand. Not a perfect record,  but several orders of magnitude better than USA and Sweden. No vaccine, but a population who take public health seriously.

  184. 184.

    PenAndKey

    @Brachiator: This is nonsense, and even though I greatly respect this official, I would note the obvious, that social gatherings are absolutely essential for our well being. Even orangutans, our primate cousins mix social gatherings periods of solitary living. Being social is in our genes.

    Being social absolutely is in our genes, but this is decidedly a case of “suck it up, because the alternative is this crap continues and many of you will die or lose loved ones”. I was always raised with the rule do what you have to, then what you want to.

    These are not normal times. The idea that our instinctive need for social gatherings trumps the whole not dying part may be fodder for sociology papers down the line, but nobody is going to die because they can’t go to the bar

    @Another Scott:

    That entire bill is an insulting giveaway to businesses that does absolutely nothing for actual tax payers. Which, of course, means that establishments like FTNYT will, of course, declare opposition to it is both sides in action.

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