Covid19 vaccine(s)? Science?

"...It’s better to get a cancer diagnosis from a radiologist than from a Ouija Board. It’s better to learn about the age of the universe from an astrophysicist than from a Rabbi. The New England Journal of Medicine is a more reliable source about vaccines than the actress Jenny McCarthy. These preferences are not ideological. We’re not talking about Fox News versus The Nation. They are rational, because the methods of science are demonstrably superior at getting at truths about the natural world.

I don’t want to fetishize science. Sociologists and philosophers deserve a lot of credit in reminding us that scientific practice is permeated by groupthink, bias, and financial, political, and personal motivations. The physicist Richard Feynman once wrote that the essence of science was “bending over backwards to prove ourselves wrong.” But he was talking about the collective cultural activity of science, not scientists as individuals, most of whom prefer to be proven right, and who are highly biased to see the evidence in whatever light most favors their preferred theory.

But science as an institution behaves differently than particular scientists. Science establishes conditions where rational argument is able to flourish, where ideas can be tested against the world, and where individuals can work together to surpass their individual limitations. Science is not just one “faith community” among many. It has earned its epistemological stripes. And when the stakes are high, as they are with climate change and vaccines, we should appreciate its special status."

— PAUL BLOOM

WHY should we trust science? Again, here's why.

CURRENT US COVID19 VAX CONTENDERS

We'll see.

UPDATE: SCIENCE BASED MEDICINE WEIGHS IN

"...Both vaccines also have a good safety profile so far. They have the usual vaccine side effects such as irritation at the vaccine site, fatigue, fever, and aches. So far no serious adverse events that would doom the vaccine. The FDA wants at least two months of safety follow up for at least half of the subjects enrolled in each trial, and this will happen by the end of November. Then the FDA will review the data and consider granting an emergency use authorization (EUA). Final approval will come later after the trials are complete. This means the companies will be able to start manufacturing and distributing millions of doses by the end of the year. Significant vaccination of the general population will likely not happen until the Spring of 2021, with life returning to normal by the Winter of 2021 if all goes well."

Some good news for a change.

BTW, I just checked JHU, 2.2 million new US Covid cases in November thru the 17th.

 

US CURRENT COVID MORTALITY

 

Charitably, assume that perhaps 25,000 of those losses were inevitable even given an actual A+ federal response effort.

ERRATUM

Pretty cool cover art. Click the imsge.

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Buckle up and batten down, America

"Cases, Cases, Cases" continued...

Friday, Nov 13th, 184,514 new Covid19 cases reported by JHU.

1,579,137 new cases since Nov 1st.

 

 

I keep having to re-scale my Y-axis.
 

We're probably not far from new state-level lockdown orders. My Governor Hogan has already ordered new scale-back measures. We're approaching 250,000 US Covid19 deaths—most of them avoidable given a concerted federal public health response.

It's all getting really tiresome. For everyone, I'm sure.

COVID-19 Is Out of Control. What Can We Do?

We need a one-two punch to knock the virus down and then keep it down.

Thomas R. Frieden

Former director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

The coronavirus is growing out of control. Deaths will likely increase to 2,000 people a day before the end of the year, and the virus will be with us for much of 2021 and possibly longer. Of the many failures of the outgoing administration’s handling of COVID-19, the most destructive has been its failure to communicate honestly and directly from the start. We can’t get our economy back on track and help millions of Americans emerge from extended crisis until we control the virus…

Good piece.

 

UPDATE, NOV 14TH CASES

1,745,692 new US cases thus far in November (1st thru 14th). We're 4.3% of world population, with 20.2% of confirmed cases, and 18.5% of fatalities.

NOV 14TH IN DC:

DISEASE VECTORS

Of the visible-enough faces (13), I count one mask (and zero social distancing). Hashtag #MillionMoronMarch.

UPDATE

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"Cases, Cases, Cases..."

Our first peak of US daily Covid-19 cases was reported on July 16th, at 77,259 (per JHU). A 2nd peak was recorded on Nov 10th—136,325.

Yeah, Mr. President-Reject, "we're rounding the turn. It's going away."

Trump never passed up an opportunity to mockingly slam the media for reporting on "cases, cases, cases." If we simply didn't report it, the pandemic wouldn't exist.

Below: From my Excel sheet, JHU data commencing Oct 1st.

My state (Maryland) and city (Baltimore) are announcing new public gathering snd travel restrictions as the incidence rate continues to rise significantly. We're 4.3% of world population have have 20% of the cases and mortality.

244 daze since my last hoops game. Have to continue to hunker down, I guess.

Everyone, try to stay safe and well.

UPDATE

At some basic level, Americans do seem to agree that the coronavirus is a major threat. Despite attempts to politicize and divide us on the pandemic, we are at least united in anxiety. In September, a survey of almost 4,000 Americans found that only 12 percent disagreed with requiring masks in public. Fully 70 percent wanted the government to do more to protect people, and only 8 percent wanted it to do less.

Since then, though, the government under President Donald Trump has done less. The U.S. has suffered the most documented coronavirus deaths in the world, by far. The Trump administration has continued to downplay and ignore the virus as its spread has accelerated in almost every region of the country. On Wednesday, the U.S. shattered the world record for daily coronavirus cases by topping 100,000 for the first time—only to break the record again each subsequent day until a Saturday high of 128,000. Field hospitals and makeshift morgues are appearing around the country. Daily death counts have risen to more than 1,000...

...If the nation’s public-health and scientific communities assume that the appeal of a quack was some transient aberration—something that will end when Trump is out of office, and that can be remedied with yet more facts—then the Biden administration will fail to reach millions of Americans, no matter how soundly it recites statistics. Its warnings and mandates will go unheeded and become fodder for charismatic outsiders who tell people what they want to hear...

JHU DATA FOR NOV 11TH

Round that turn, Donald.

ERRATUM

UPDATE

Click the image.

CASES, CASES, CASES, NOV 12TH

Depressing.

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Make America Sane Again

Click the image above for link.

Buckle up, America, gird yourselves for an onslaught of grammatically correct complete sentences expressing cogent policy proposals.

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US Covid19 new cases explosion

224,719 new US cases on Nov 4th and 5th combined. Two consecutive days above 100,000.

Hopkins graphic, US daily new cases:

On Oct 1st Hopkins reported 44,771 new cases.

I dropped some of these data into Excel and rendered a quick plot.

Current US death toll as of this posting is more than 235,000.

SCIENCE MAGAZINE EDITORIAL

My latest Science Magazine came today.

As if there were any doubt that U.S. President Donald Trump has no respect for scientists, he now refers to public health scholars as “Fauci and all these idiots.” That's how he's describing experts in virology, immunology, epidemiology, and infectious disease. Never mind that after recovering from coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), Trump suddenly became excited about future vaccines and “Regeneron,” which is what he calls monoclonal antibodies in general. (Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Inc. is probably thrilled to have achieved the product-brand status of Xerox and Kleenex, but Eli Lilly also has developed promising monoclonals, and more are in clinical trials.) Apparently, no one told the president that scientists from these same fields—many of whom live in “Democrat-run cities” or college towns and are immigrants who wouldn't be here under his policies—created these drugs and carried out the decades of science that made them possible. This paradox of loving the drug but hating the science is nothing new. It's just louder this time…

A recent survey from the Pew Research Center found that only 20% of the political right has “a lot” of confidence in scientists. Yet when folks at this end of the political spectrum get sick, they want the best treatments that secular academic medicine can provide. The consequences of this are profound and especially apparent in the COVID-19 crisis. The same politicians who are criticizing public health guidance are praising vaccines and antibodies without acknowledging that they come from the same principles and researchers as masks and social distancing…

—H. Holden Thorp, Editor in Chief

Recall he's not a Donald Trump fan.

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Showtime

Ugh.

Trump brings out the worst in everyone, supporters and critics alike. I unhappily include myself in the characterization.

TOTALLY UNDER CONTROL

I watched the entire documentary. You should too. Excellent, albeit depressing.

OTHER ELECTION DAY NEWS

Rounding the Turn...

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5, 4, 3, 2, 1...

My wife and I voted early by absentee ballots about two weeks ago, hand-delivered to our Election Board downtown Baltimore location. We've both gotten confirmation that our ballots were received and processed, and our votes recorded. 

Don't wait until Election Day if you can avoid it.

apropos, two recent reads of mine:

Sobering. What will we be thinking in a week?

OCT 30TH UPDATE

My latest Science Magazine arrived.

U.S. scientists use words like disastrous, damaging, and catastrophic to describe the performance of President Donald Trump during his 45 months in office, citing his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, his repeated public dismissals of scientific expertise, and his disdain for evidence. But there are other aspects of the administration's overall record that elicit a more positive response, including sustained funding for most research agencies and the high quality of many of the people he has chosen to manage those programs. On the eve of the 3 November presidential election, Science takes a close look at Trump's complicated legacy in science…

Haven't read this issue yet. Stay tuned.

OCT 31ST UPDATE

“…Trump’s psychology might be understood through the lens of the coronavirus itself. He has met a foe that he cannot bluff into submission or wear down with insults. A virus is a physical force, like gravity or fire. It has no intention. It is not alive, and it cannot think. It can only react to its immediate environment. It can thrive only when it can invade functioning, living cells nearby. The virus forces entry and makes thousands of copies of itself and, having no further use for the cell, destroys it and abandons the remains.

All of the flaws in Trump’s character and psychology have come to light through this virus. He reacts to immediate circumstances. He hijacks, pillages, and moves on. He has done this to America’s public-health institutions, which are wobbling and could topple under the continued weight of his negligence. He presides over a country where people are dying all around him, and he appears to see this only as a messaging issue.

If Trump were to win a second term, he has made clear how this pandemic would play out. He is to have no moment of revelation. Americans would continue to die by the thousands. The president would devote his time and energy not to lowering that number, but to denying its existence. He has said the virus would disappear, and he would cling to that narrative regardless of the body count. If we joined him in this ignorance, the pathology would be ours.” —James Hamblin, MD

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Will new SCOTUS Justice Amy Coney Barrett provide the Obamacare death vote?

SCOTUS will hear the latest Obamacare repeal case the week after the November 3rd election. The actual ruling will probably not come until many months thereafter.

For the record, that is not a literal quote, but an allusive snarky smack at her hardline "textualism" schtick.

I may have to write a new song, I guess. That one just tumbled out of my head in about 10 minutes the day SCOTUS upheld the PPACA in 2012.

Womens' reproductive rights are also now at significant risk, in light of Justice Barrret's "Personhood-at-Conception" views.

LOOKING BACK

My old 2009 health policy reform posts on another of my blogs

• The U.S. health policy morass
• Doing some basic health care reform math
• Foreign born Radical Communist Obama wants to kill Grandma and Grandpa
• Public Optional

Eleven years ago, when Obamacare was in the legislative oven (these posts likely have some "link rot" by now). I've been pondering this stuff for quite a while.

"You're going to have such great health care..."

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#COVID19: "We're rounding the corner. It's going away."

225,000 dead Americans were unavailable for comment.

UPDATE

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"You're going to have such great health care..."

JUST LEAKED: President Trump's healthcare plan. pic.twitter.com/jCTUF9TjoQ

— The Lincoln Project (@ProjectLincoln) October 23, 2020

See #ShowMeTheBill

I've been following Trump's BS on health care since he was a candidate. "...such great health care, at a tiny fraction of the cost..." Yeah, coming to a decade near you soon.

Right.

UPDATE, BERNIE ON TRUMP-BIDEN DEBATE #2

Word,

Update: During the 2nd Trump-Biden debate, the President again claimed that Covid19 is "going away," and that "we're turning the corner."

apropos, I just finished this illuminating book.

While he and his circle have regular, daily testing for coronavirus, he has done everything he can to hinder it for the rest of us and convince us the virus is not so bad. Beyond that, he has tried to destroy the Affordable Care Act (also known as Obamacare), which has insured tens of millions of people, made false promises about some imaginary health care policy that would guarantee insurance for preexisting conditions, imposed tariffs that hurt American consumers, tried to dismantle the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which has recouped billions of dollars for citizens scammed by financial institutions, and threatened cuts to Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security.

Res, Barbara A.. Tower of Lies: What My Eighteen Years of Working With Donald Trump Reveals About Him (pp. 139-140). Graymalkin Media, LLC. Kindle Edition.

Below, from The New Yorker: 

How Trump Became the Pro-Infection Candidate

Nine months into the pandemic, it’s a truism to say that America’s response has been politicized. Even so, with an election looming, the virus surging, and President Trump and others in government recently infected, our divisions now stand out with a startling, even brutal, clarity. There have always been two basic ways of looking at the coronavirus crisis. The first sees the minimization of death as a paramount goal; the second holds that significant death is inevitable and acceptable. Those who take the first view, including most medical and public-health professionals, advocate a temporary, science-driven restructuring of society, designed to save lives; those who take the second view, including the President and those in his circle, say that people die all the time, from car crashes, drug addictions, diseases, and the like, and argue that we don’t stop living to prevent them from dying. “Many people every year, sometimes over 100,000, and despite the Vaccine, die from the Flu,” the President tweeted, earlier this month, after he was discharged from the hospital. “Are we going to close down our Country?” (Twitter flagged the tweet as misinformation since, in fact, far fewer than a hundred thousand people die from the flu each year.)

There are different ways of holding the we-all-gotta-go-sometime view. Someone who grasps it lightly might incline a little more toward risk-taking than caution in her personal choices. But over the course of the pandemic, the President and many of his followers have come to cling to it tightly, even triumphantly, brandishing it as a kind of ideology… 

The U.S. is now entering what seems to be a new wave of infection; over the past week, the country saw, on average, more than sixty thousand new cases a day. In many states, covid-19 wards are filling up again, and some places are seeing record-high hospitalizations; the Midwest is experiencing its largest growth in cases since the start of the pandemic. According to some models, the U.S. could experience nearly four hundred thousand covid-19 deaths before the next President is sworn in. Despite all this, Trump would likely interpret reëlection as a validation of his approach. We could find ourselves living even more deeply in two incompatible worlds: a medical world, in which doctors, hospitals, scientists, and public-health professionals continue doing their best to grapple with the virus, and a political one, in which wishful thinking and pseudoscience rule. Of course, it doesn’t have to be this way. We could move, together, into a single, fact-based world—one in which we confront reality and work to improve it.

BREAKING:

Click the image.

ERRATUM: "R-NAUGHT" UPDATE

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Where is the love?

Vote on or (preferably) before November 3rd.

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