Coronavirus deaths are rising in nearly two-thirds of American states as a winter surge pushes the overall toll near 400,000. Health officials warn a new, highly contagious variant is spreading and will likely be the dominant version in the U.S. by March. https://t.co/JOjw6a7yVE
— The Associated Press (@AP) January 18, 2021
It's crazy how much more negative the news coverage of the buggy Healthcare dotgov rollout was than the news coverage of the completely fucked up vaccine distribution has been.
Reminder: Nobody died as a result of the website taking an extra couple of weeks to fix.
— Daily Trix (@DailyTrix) January 18, 2021
The US had +142,022 new confirmed cases of COVID-19 today, bringing the total to over 24.6 million. The number was likely reduced by the holiday. The 7-day moving average continued falling to below 211,000 per day. pic.twitter.com/s6XMqFonF8
— Patrick Chovanec (@prchovanec) January 19, 2021
I don't think it's an exaggeration–as we head toward 500,000 dead americans–that the covid response has been one of the greatest failures of any administration https://t.co/XMp1VaO6zT
— Gerry Doyle (@mgerrydoyle) January 19, 2021
More wanton vandalism, on his way out the door…
Trump has issued an Executive Order easing international travel restrictions, but Biden plans to reinstate them. https://t.co/laSoUZoRbr
— Patrick Chovanec (@prchovanec) January 19, 2021
======
Officials worldwide failed in the early pandemic response, according to a WHO panel. The report questions faulty assumptions, poor planning & sluggish responses that fueled a pandemic that has killed 2 million people & infected more than 95 million https://t.co/khNJNgtT8q
— delthia ricks ? (@DelthiaRicks) January 18, 2021
The world is on the brink of "catastrophic moral failure" in sharing COVID-19 vaccines, the head of the World Health Organization said on Monday, urging countries and manufacturers to spread doses more fairly around the world. https://t.co/YGxMpme2ty
— Reuters Health (@Reuters_Health) January 18, 2021
Map worth 1000 words pic.twitter.com/JGUIC4793F
— Amy Maxmen, PhD (@amymaxmen) January 18, 2021
Lunar New Year starts Febuary 12th — relatively late — this year:
China's latest COVID outbreak worst since March 2020 https://t.co/HVpOC7JaLe pic.twitter.com/syyvWyymPQ
— Reuters (@Reuters) January 19, 2021
Taiwan cancels major festival as domestic COVID-19 cases rise https://t.co/VpUYxaYsTY pic.twitter.com/X8wnjLlync
— Reuters (@Reuters) January 19, 2021
Students returning home may have caused 9400 secondary #COVID19 infections across the UK. A new model posits that each infected student who returned home produced, on average, ~1 secondary infection https://t.co/mq36UBYYN3 via @medical_xpress pic.twitter.com/8Rt09mxdPf
— delthia ricks ? (@DelthiaRicks) January 18, 2021
British hospitals use blockchain to track COVID-19 vaccines https://t.co/N30oXEllvC pic.twitter.com/y8rsTUqyly
— Reuters (@Reuters) January 19, 2021
Russia confirmed 21,734 new coronavirus cases Tuesday, bringing the total caseload to 3,612,800 https://t.co/bKTIaxKv9e
— The Moscow Times (@MoscowTimes) January 19, 2021
Australia says 'no' to tennis stars calls for quarantine change https://t.co/RI19ltKYwK pic.twitter.com/w8PEUkMWgf
— Reuters (@Reuters) January 19, 2021
Party town in the age of coronavirus: The pandemic is shaking the foundations of Dubai's economy with an unprecedented surge in daily virus cases but the glitzy, dreaming big city-emirate cannot afford to shut down. By @IsabelDeBre. https://t.co/MMVlPfAbjA
— AP Middle East (@APMiddleEast) January 19, 2021
======
Norwegian health officials now say the Pfizer vaccine is safe. The vax had been implicated in 33 deaths of nursing home residents, all extremely ill. Norwegian officials say the deaths appear to be unrelated to the shots. Some who died were terminally ill https://t.co/luEfYUopqT
— delthia ricks ? (@DelthiaRicks) January 18, 2021
Throwing the bus under the bus?! CVS and Walgreens Under Fire for Slow Pace of Vaccination in Nursing Homes – Kaiser Health News. #covid19, #longtermcare, #vaccinessavelives https://t.co/ZBHjDMy5Ab
— Irving Stackpole (@istackpole) January 18, 2021
South African variant:
Previous coronavirus infection may offer less protection from new variant https://t.co/xWjIj4nuUy pic.twitter.com/KvS9mI5hUp
— Reuters (@Reuters) January 19, 2021
40,401,540 COVID-19 vaccine doses have been administered globally. This is equivalent to 0.52 vaccine doses per 100 people. Data from OurWorldInData. https://t.co/zMEAULKJR1
— VaccineCounter (@VaccineCounter) January 18, 2021
======
The Los Angeles County Fire Department saw its COVID-19 positivity rate fall significantly after 75% of firefighters on the force received their first COVID-19 vaccine. https://t.co/qDe9EJrBo1
— ABC News (@ABC) January 19, 2021
Vaccination planning is a new undertaking with aims of reaching as many people as possible. Pop-up vaccine sites at churches are designed to help hard-hit communities https://t.co/SElNvnCHzp
— delthia ricks ? (@DelthiaRicks) January 18, 2021
Exhausted nurses in rural Yuma, Arizona, are regularly sending COVID-19 patients on a long helicopter ride to hospitals in Phoenix when they don’t have enough staff. Yuma County is the hardest-hit county in one of the hardest-hit states. https://t.co/C5MMt05n9N
— The Associated Press (@AP) January 18, 2021
If I had to pick between a lottery chance of having a treatable allergic reaction to an amazingly >95% effective vaccine or contracting an unrecognizable virus that hijacks genetic production inside my body and kills millions in miserable ICU deaths, I’d get the shot. thanks
— Matt Pearce ? (@mattdpearce) January 18, 2021
We will! We have! But failure to suppress the virus means all of this goes on longer!
I don't blame lockdowns for my crawling the damn walls. I blame entitled consumer dipshits who refuse to sacrifice and politicians who made isolating economically impossible for workers.
Fuck! https://t.co/2MiCNETT9X
— Zeddy (@Zeddary) January 17, 2021
Rebekah Jones released on bail (no ankle bracelet or internet ban):
Florida COVID-19 whistleblower turns herself in on felony computer charge https://t.co/iq5FoFMwAG pic.twitter.com/EMQKOPZ76X
— Reuters (@Reuters) January 19, 2021
From a scary thread:
if you’ve had a fever for more than three days, are feeling brain fog/confusion, and are having trouble breathing, please go to the hospital. if you’re having trouble breathing even without the other symptoms, go to the hospital. you don’t have a mild case of covid. it’s serious.
— Erika Heidewald Wants a Vaccine ?? (@erikaheidewald) January 18, 2021
someone on here has all those symptoms and someone told him to take nyquil and i about shit a fucking brick. i didn’t realize people don’t know to go to the hospital when their symptoms are that bad and i’m so sad it’s gotten like this
— Erika Heidewald Wants a Vaccine ?? (@erikaheidewald) January 18, 2021
NeenerNeener
Monroe County, NY yesterday:
300 new cases, back at mid-November levels. 774 hospitalized, 148 in the ICU. 802 deaths since last year. 33% of hospital beds available, 23% of ICU beds available. 6.6% positivity.
I don’t know if we’re actually getting a handle on the ‘rona or if there are data collection issues again.
sab
Re: CVS and Walgreens v local pharmacies: I was wondering the same thing. My dad’s large nursing home has lots of experience with giving vaccines to its residents, and it has used one particular excellent pharmacy to do so. Seems inefficient or outright nuts to force them to work through CVS and Walgreens when they already have the expertise in house.
Re: Allergic reactions. I have been getting flu shots for decades, and they always want you to hang around for a while afterwards to be sure that you will be near them if you need to be stuck with an epipen. Allergic reactions are rare, but the protocols for dealing with them have been in place for decades. This vaccine isn’t unique that way.
Ten Bears
It’s crazy how much more negative the buggy Healthcare dot gov rollout was than it had to be had it not been contracted out to a highest bidder in whose interests the rollout was completely fucked up.
YY_Sima Qian
On 1/18 China reported 106 new domestic confirmed, 80 new domestic asymptomatic cases.
Liaoning Province did not report any new domestic positive cases:
Beijing Municipality reported 1 new domestic confirmed & 1 new domestic asymptomatic cases, both at Daxing District in the southern part of the city. The confirmed case is a traced close contact already under centralized quarantine since 1/17. No information released on the asymptomatic case. 1 village at Shunyi District has been re-designated as Low Risk, but 1 village at Daxing District was elevated to Medium Risk. There are currently 6 villages at Medium Risk.
Hebei Province:
Hebei Provincial Health Commission reported 35 new domestic confirmed (13 previously asymptomatic) & 2 new domestic asymptomatic cases. 4 confirmed cases recovered and 3 asymptomatic cases were released from isolation. There are currently 800 domestic confirmed cases (8 critical, 20 serious, 634 moderate and 138 mild) & 168 domestic asymptomatic cases in the province:
Heilongjiang Province:
Heilongjiang Province reported 27 new domestic confirmed (10 previously asymptomatic) & 43 new domestic asymptomatic cases, all are F1 or F2 close contacts of previously reported positive cases, except the new cluster at Harbin’s Hulan District. There are currently 177 domestic confirmed (including 2 critical and 10 serious) & 276 domestic asymptomatic cases in the province.:
Jilin Province
Jilin Province reported 43 new domestic confirmed cases (36 previously asymptomatic) & 34 domestic asymptomatic cases, there are currently 83 confirmed (3 critical, 11 serious, 61 moderate and 8 mild) & 88 asymptomatic cases there.:
On 1/18, China reported 12 new imported confirmed cases, 11 imported asymptomatic cases:
Overall in China, 32 confirmed cases recovered, 8 asymptomatic cases were released from isolation and 60 were reclassified as confirmed cases, and 1,286 individuals were released from quarantine. Currently, there are 1,387 active confirmed cases in the country (274 imported), 61 are in critical/serious condition (2 imported), 811 asymptomatic cases (259 imported) and 2 suspect cases (both imported). 35,325 traced contacts are currently under quarantine.
On 1/19, Hong Kong reported 56 new cases, 1 imported and 55 domestic (23 of whom do not have sources of infection identified).
NotMax
Locally,
1) Demand for vaccinations on Maui continues to outpace supply, forcing a temporary suspension in securing new appointments for first doses at the Maui hospital.
Maui Health, which runs the vaccination clinic at the Maui Memorial Medical Center, has also postponed appointments for individuals that were seeking a first dose and had already secured an appointment between Jan. 17 and Feb. 7, 2021. Source
2) A woman who helped the deaf community follow what was happening with the coronavirus crisis has been taken by the disease.
Patty Sakal, 62, a veteran sign language interpreter and inspiring leader for the hearing-impaired community, died last week after contracting COVID-19.
In the last 10 months, she’s been a fixture at government news conferences, signing for the deaf to ensure they could also get vital information on the pandemic. Source
sab
@Ten Bears: I think they were much more concerned with the quality of the insurance product. They outsourced the website and had a mess. They kept the insurance product in-house, and within the limitations of the actual law it was pretty good.
I think they were pretty much limited on who they could hire for the website. Needed companies certified to do that kind of federal government work with security clearances etc. Definitely a problem how companies get on that short list, since an ability to actually do the job doesn’t seem to figure in.
OzarkHillbilly
Map worth 1000 words
Or just 7: “It’s great to be of European descent.”
That and “WTF is up with the Swiss?”
sab
@NotMax: That is so sad. Our Ohio signers for the governor have become sort of rock stars after all these months, even for the hearing.
sab
@OzarkHillbilly: My sister works in the US for a Swiss company, and she is horrified by their nonchalance about Covid safety in their Swiss offices.
OzarkHillbilly
@sab: I’ve never been requested to sit around after any vaccination including the flu vaccines. I’ve also never had a problem of any kind with one. Maybe you have?
Mary G
The OC had a much lower number of new cases today, at 1,448. Mondays are the lowest reporting days. Hospitalizations were down somewhat, but ICU availability is still 0.0%.
The mass vaccinations at Disneyland started and my housemate took her day client. She said it seemed very well organized and they were there about 90 minutes. One big problem – they only made the first appointment and you have to go back into the system to make the second one. Everyone has been trying and it’s like trying to get Beatles tickets. The client says they dump more appointments at 8 pm, so I’ll try then.
CarolDuhart2
Signed up for the Health Department.
No more info…and hoping for a more robust approach once the Trump denialists and footdraggers are gone and the Biden overachievers and workaholics take over.
sab
@OzarkHillbilly: No I haven’t had problems, and yes, you should have been requested to hang around.It’s a pretty standard protocol. I have gotten my shots at my doctor’s office and at four different pharmacies over the years and they all suggested it.
TS (the original)
@OzarkHillbilly:
My part of the world we are always asked to sit for 10 minutes before leaving the surgery (where we get the injection).
satby
Report from the vaccine rollout: I got the first dose of the Pfizer one yesterday. Very smooth process, a lot of ID verification, and you wait a couple of minutes with the nurse (they make it seem like they’re just finishing up paperwork, but they’ve got the epipens right there), then you’re directed to wait another 15 minutes in a socially distant arranged area, check out and done. Only have the usual sore arm I normally get from vaccines.
rikyrah
@satby:
?????
satby
@OzarkHillbilly: It is standard to have you wait at least 10-15 minutes, but I could see a busy pharmacy fluff on that. One reason I really don’t like getting immunizations at a CVS or Walgreens.
satby
Oh, and as part of the check out at my vaccination site, they set up the next appointment for two weeks away. Now to see if there’s vaccines to keep it. This was run by the county health department through a local hospital annex that’s closed due to covid.
Matt McIrvin
@sab: I have never once been asked to stay around at the pharmacy after getting a vaccination– only in these discussions of COVID vaccine have I heard about anyone doing it. The protocol seems to be unheard of here.
Raven
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/18/briefing/donald-trump-pardon-phil-spector-coronavirus-deaths.html?referringSource=articleShare
AndoChronic
Got the 2nd dose yesterday. Packs more of a punch for me than the 1st. This morning, body aches, headache, 100.2 temp. Manageable though. A nurse told me Arnica works well for shot site pain.
p.a.
When numbers aren’t down will Fox declare the Biden Admin a failure this Thursday, or wait ’till Friday? ?
ETA: I’ve never been asked/encouraged/required to wait around after my flu shot, always from megamart pharmacies.
Raven
The title of that article is
Underselling the Vaccine
I’m having trouble cutting and pasting on the iPad.
Raven
@OzarkHillbilly: They asked us to here and everyone complied while I was there.
Amir Khalid
Malaysia’s daily Covid-19 numbers. Director-General of Health Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah reports 3,631 new cases today at his media briefing, for a cumulative reported total of 165,371 cases. Dr Noor Hisham also reports 14 new deaths today, for a total of 619 deaths — 0.37% of the cumulative reported total, 0.49% of resolved cases.
39,464 active and contagious cases are currently in hospital; 238 are in ICU, 96 of them on respirators. Meanwhile, 2,944 patients recovered and were discharged, for a total of 125,288 patients recovered – 75.8% of the cumulative reported total.
Nine new clusters were reported today: Jalan Sungai Jelok prison in Selangor; Jalan Masjid in KL; Jalan Taruka, Taman Sayong Pinang, and Sri Gading in Johor; Rakut in Sarawak; Kebor Air in Terengganu; Kupang in Kedah; and Rantau Cempaka in Pahang.
3,624 new cases today are local infections. Selangor 1,197 local cases: 60 in older clusters, 217 in Jalan Sungai Jelok prison cluster, 607 close-contact screenings, and 313 other screenings. Sabah has 525 local cases: 29 in existing clusters, 371 close-contact screenings, and 125 other screenings. KL has 518 local cases: 210 in older clusters, 217 in Jalan Masjid cluster, 157 close-contact screenings, and 145 other screenings. Johor has 367 local cases: 99 in older clusters; 44 in Jalan Taruka, Taman Sayong Pinang and Sri Gading clusters; 118 close-contact screenings; and 106 other screenings.
Sarawak has 156 cases: 99 in older clusters, 217 in Rakut cluster, and 51 other screenings. Negeri Semilan has 139 cases: 66 in existing clusters, 47 close-contact screenings, and 26 other screenings. Perak has 135 cases: 37 in existing clusters, 54 close-contact screenings, and 44 other screenings. Kelantan has 133 cases: 28 in existing clusters, 82 close-contact screenings, and 23 other screenings. Penang has 124 cases: 44 in existing clusters, 45 close-contact screenings, and 35 other screenings. Melaka has 122 cases: 28 in existing clusters, 85 close-contact screenings, and nine other screenings. Kedah has 114 cases: 24 in older clusters, six in Kupang cluster, 51 close-contact screenings, and 33 other screenings.
Terengganu has 33 cases: six in older clusters, nine in Kebor Air cluster, 10 close-contact screenings, and eight other screenings. Pahang has 31 cases: five in older clusters, one in Rantau Cempaka cluster, 17 close-contact screenings, and eight other screenings.
Putrajaya has 11 cases, all close-contact screenings. Perlis has three cases: one close-contact screening, and two other screenings. And Labuan has one case, found in other screening.\
Seven new cases are imported. Three were reported in KL, two in Selangor, one in Sabah and one in Johor. They are arrivals from Egypt (three), Indonesia, Nepal, Ireland, and Mauritania.
The 14 deaths today are an 85-year-old man in Perak with diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, stroke, and chronic kidney disease; a 48-year-old man in Selangor with hypertension; a 63-year-old man in Kedah with diabetes and hypertension; a 64-year-old woman in Kelantan with diabetes, hypertension, and osteoarthritis; a 55-year-old man in sarawak with diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, and chronic kidney disease; a 74-year-old man in Selangor with diabetes, hypertension, and chronic kidney disease; a 62-year-old woman in Selangor with diabetes, hypertension, and chronic kidney disease; a 57-year-old man in Selangor with diabetes, hypertension, and chronic kidney disease; a 53-year-old man in Selangor with diabetes, hypertension, chronic kidney disease, and empyema; a 46-year-old woman in Selangor with diabetes, hypertension, and chronic kidney disease; a 71-year-old man in Johor with diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, and chronic kidney disease; a 72-year-old man in Johor with diabetes, heart disease, and chronic kidney disease; a 60-year-old non-Malaysian woman in Sabah, DOA with hypertension; and a 60-year-old non-Malaysian man in Selangor with diabetes, asthma, and chronic liver disease.
In other news, the states of Perak, Kedah, Negeri Sembilan, Terengganu, and Perlis –- all currently under conditional movement conrol order — will be placed under movement control orders for two weeks effective 22nd January. This leaves only Sarawak under recovery movement control orders.
OzarkHillbilly
@sab: @TS (the original): @satby: Maybe it’s just Misery protocol: “You asked for it, now you got it. The rest is on you.”
OzarkHillbilly
@Raven: It’s probably a moot point anyway. Things are so fucked up around here I probably can’t get it before the year 2525 anyway.
MagdaInBlack
@OzarkHillbilly: Oh crap. Now that’ll be stuck in my head. ?
Raven
@OzarkHillbilly: it’ll get cranked up!
debbie
@sab:
You can purchase bobbleheads of DeWine’s signer!
satby
@OzarkHillbilly: @Matt McIrvin: Probably the need to move people through the store “clinics” quickly have more to do with the no waiting than proper protocol. They have production quotas to meet. Health care shouldn’t be in the hands of corporations that routinely understaff their stores in the first place.
Amir Khalid
That world map predicting vaccine availability looks wrong, at least as far as Malaysia is concerned: the Ministry of Health says it will begin vaccinating healthcare and frontline workers in March, and hopes to get everyone by the end of the year. Malaysia should be in light green, not yellow.
Sloane Ranger
@sab: I had my flu shot last Wednesday here in the UK at my GPS surgery. I asked specifically if I needed to hang around for a while afterwards and the nurse said no.
OzarkHillbilly
@MagdaInBlack: It got stuck in mine so I decided to share. :-)
Suburban Mom
My daughter who works in a health care profession got her first dose of the Pfizer vaccine yesterday at a walk up setting in San Diego. She said the hardest thing was getting an appointment slot, which took all day, but the process once she arrived was smooth. Then she went out paddle boarding to minimize arm soreness. She was advised that if she couldn’t book an online appointment for the second dose she should just show up with her documentation from the first dose. That sounded a little shady to me but we’ll see how it goes. I’m hoping things get more organized soon. My mom has an appointment to get the first dose of the Moderna shot at her doctor’s office the end of this month.
sab
@debbie: I did no know that!
OzarkHillbilly
@satby: When I went for my 2nd shingles shot there was one other guy sitting there, no idea what for. By the time I finished up the paperwork and questionnaire, he was still the only other customer there. By the time the pharmacist finally came, he was still the only other person waiting. When I came out of the room after I got my shot… Well, you get the idea.
There was no need for quickness. It has occurred to me that maybe it was because of Covid social distancing, “Get em in, get em out.” but again, it was me and the old guy. That was it.
sab
@Sloane Ranger: She has your medical chart and knows your allergies?
debbie
@sab:
Should have thought to include a link.
Platonicspoof
I just noticed (or forgot) that there is a https://twitter.com/BadCOVID19Takes/with_replies thread, started last March. Deadly stupid stuff, but numerous people here have mentioned Covid-19 denier relatives and in-laws, so maybe useful (if it doesn’t make them worse?).
Just skimmed it, but for example:
See replies. Dated Jan. 15, 2021.
Just deadly stupid.
Citizen Scientist
Found out this weekend that two of my aunts, uncle, and cousin by marriage all have Covid. We tried to talk one aunt (former nurse who should know better) out of flying to PA for the holidays from AZ because of the risk; she did anyway and refused to quarantine (despite promising to do so). So, she got awarded with the virus and a delay in her trip back home. I’m guessing they all picked it up from the cousin’s son who may have gotten it from school.
sab
@debbie: Okay. I googled it.
Sloane Ranger
@sab: She had my medical information open on the computer and I noticed her checking it before she did the deed. She also asked me if I had any allergies.
Platonicspoof
@Amir Khalid:
The Amy Maxmen tweet doesn’t include a link to the E.I.U. article, but it appears the tweet refers to this article, which is brief and very general. No citations with the article.
Not helpful.
Sloane Ranger
Yesterday in the UK we had 37,535 new cases, bringing our total since the start of the pandemic to 3.4 million and change. The number of cases has reduced by about 1000 from the previous day and the rolling 7-day average is down 22.2%. These figures may still be affected by the weekend holdups. New cases by nation,
England – 34,134 (down @1000)
Northern Ireland – 640 (down @200)
Scotland – 1439 (up @80)
Wales – 1332 (up @160).
Deaths – There were 599 deaths yesterday within 28 days of a positive test and the rolling 7-day average has increased by 21.8%. Deaths by nation, 560 in England, 19 in Northern Ireland, 0 in Scotland and 20 in Wales. I suspect that there is a lag with Scotland reporting deaths as this is the 2nd day in a row they are reporting 0 deaths and, while I hope this is true, I think it unlikely – regretfully.
Testing – 417,329 tests were processed on Sunday, 17th January out of a capacity of 806,417. The rolling 7-day average for testing is now showing an increase of 2%.
Hospitalisations – Not updated since my last report.
Vaccinations – As of 17th January, a total of 4,062,501 people had received the 1st dose of a vaccine and 452,301 had received their 2nd dose.
General – A recent report shows that 1:10 people in the UK have coronavirus anti-bodies. There are variations across the UK with England having the highest rate and Northern Ireland the lowest. 16% of people in London have anti-bodies. As I write this, I am listening to a radio programme about employers forcing people to physically return to work, despite them being able to work remotely, failing to implement protective measures and telling them to ignore orders to isolate due to contact with a positive individual unless they demonstrate symptoms.
Also, Health Secretary, Matt Hancock is isolating after being pinged by the government app as having been in contact with someone who tested positive.
Suzanne
@NeenerNeener:
I think the first. I am in Allegheny County, PA, where they have been aggressively vaccinating in LTC facilities and hospitals. Our numbers are still too high, but are down about 50% from our peak. Given that around 40% of our deaths were coming from LTC facilities, it is sensible that we would see rates start to decline dramatically, which has indeed been the case so far.
Uncle Cosmo
He’s also probably never seen a virus that can hang around in the epithelium of the nasal cavity, where there’s next to no blood flow, without going any farther into the body. If that’s the COVID M.O. for asymptomatic (super)spreading, the vaccine will be next-to-worthless in stopping it – the immune system will be unable to reach it.
You know how you check that? You test for significant presence of COVID in the naval cavities of people who show a robust immune-system response to the virus (whether via vaccination or recovery from a prior case). I have not heard of a single research group that is looking at this. (But boy howdy do I hope I’m wrong.)
And should it happen that this is a problem, we should be searching for COVID-killing compounds benign to human noses and deliverable by nasal spray. I saw a report that a 0.07% solution of cetylpyridinium chloride killed SARS-CoV-2 in vitro. This stuff is already found in mouthwash[1] and at least one nasal spray[2] . Better candidates might surface if we looked for them[3].
In any case It might be worth doing a study of the effect of a regimen of nasal sprays with virus-killing components on the viral burden in the nasal cavity. It might just turn out that a few days of spraying is an important method of hammering down the transmission rate.
I will be the least surprised person on the planet if in 6 months’ time, with a majority of the country vaccinated, Public Health units across the nation are still playing whack-a-varss with outbreaks amongst the uninoculated (largely promoted by IGMFY idiots who get their second shot & throw their masks away, freedumb!). At that point maybe we (belatedly) start testing the recently vaccinated for lingering presence of COVID in the nose & give them a spray to use for a few days & maybe really hammer the transmission at last…
[1] I have a bottle of Fixodent Gum Care where 0.07% cetylpyridinium chloride is the active ingredient.
[2] Taffix, made in Israel, which may be going global as I post.
[3] Cf. this report from the UK, with λcarrageenan as the anti-virus agent.