Neverending Covid-19 Coronavirus

Line cooks and bakers among the highest risk occupations for contracting Covid. It looks like these jobs either have no way for people to social distance practically and/or the ventilation system was not as good as it should be in these work places, but that's just my guess.

According to a new UCSF study, food and agricultural workers are at the highest risk of death from COVID-19 among working age Californians. The study, which analyzed deaths of essential workers between ages 18 to 65, found line cooks to be at the highest risk of all, more so than packaging machine operators, construction laborers and even nurses.

www.sfgate.com

UCSF study identifies job with highest risk of dying from COVID

According to a new UCSF study, food and agricultural workers are at the highest risk of...
www.sfgate.com www.sfgate.com

 
And more on the EU and vaccines.

The EU today passed a regulation instructing its customs authorities to block all COVID-19 vaccine exports to some 100 countries worldwide, unless they receive an export authorization from national governments in the EU.

EU officials told POLITICO the regulation would be published today and enter into force on Saturday.

"Today, the European Commission has adopted an implementing regulation making the export of certain products subject to an export authorization," trade chief Valdis Dombrovskis said at a press conference. "The challenges we now face left us with no other choice but to act."


Some 92 countries are exempt from the regulation, Dombrovskis said. An EU official specified these include the EFTA countries of Norway, Switzerland, Liechtenstein and Iceland, along with the Western Balkans, North African countries, and other Mediterranean countries such as Lebanon and Israel, as well as poor countries covered by the COVAX facility.

The United Kingdom, United States, Canada, Australia and other rich countries will however not be exempt, the official added.

While the decision to grant or refuse export authorizations will lie with member countries' governments, the European Commission will issue binding opinions, Dombrovskis said.

Crucially, the regulation will also force vaccine makers to disclose which countries they shipped vaccines to in the past three months. "Companies applying for export authorization will also have to provide information on their exports and export destinations, quantities and so on, for the period covering three months prior to entering into force of this regulation," Dombrovskis said. "So I think this will also help to shed a full light on export tendencies in recent weeks and months."

www.politico.eu

EU imposes vaccine export controls on rich nations from Saturday

‘No other choice but to act,’ says Valdis Dombrovskis.
www.politico.eu www.politico.eu
 
And given that these communities are at greater risk of mortality, this is so wrong.

Black and Latino Americans are falling behind in the nationwide race to get vaccinated against Covid-19, even in blue states and localities praised for championing racial equity during earlier phases of the pandemic.

So far, the U.S. has racial and ethnic data for only about half of the vaccine doses given. Among those, just 5 percent have gone to Black Americans and only 11 percent were given to Latino recipients, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. A POLITICO analysis of the available data suggests the disadvantaged and underserved communities are being bypassed, including in those states that have not yet publicly broken out data by race and ethnicity.
www.politico.com

Just 5 percent of vaccinations have gone to Black Americans, despite equity efforts

A POLITICO analysis suggests disadvantaged communities are being bypassed — even in blue states fighting disparities.
www.politico.com www.politico.com
 
This week the vaccination process has gone no better in Massachusetts.

Getting an appointment online was described as trying to buy tickets from Ticketmaster for a Beyoncé concert at a small intimate venue.

To make matters worse, those lucky enough to have already been able to get their first shot are finding it much harder if not impossible to make an appointment for their second shot.
 
RenegadeMonster said:
This week the vaccination process has gone no better in Massachusetts.

Getting an appointment online was described as trying to buy tickets from Ticketmaster for a Beyoncé concert at a small intimate venue.

To make matters worse, those lucky enough to have already been able to get their first shot are finding it much harder if not impossible to make an appointment for their second shot.
Click to expand...
This reminds me of the article I read yesterday. I'm not sure if MA is using the VAMS system from the CDC or has opted to try to cobble together their own, but it sort of sounds like they are trying to use the VAMS tool. As someone who was able to work for one of the most talented database developers in a public health setting--he took an access data base in the early 1990's and transformed it to the CDC gold standard for HIV surveillance--the only reason we can't do this with public health employees is because all of the money that the government should use to retain talent, is being wasted on contractors that don't deliver. They don't care because they aren't stuck working with the system after it's developed (unlike public health employees who have to deal with it every day).

So early in the pandemic, the CDC outlined the need for a system that could handle a mass vaccination campaign, once shots were approved. It wanted to streamline the whole thing: sign-ups, scheduling, inventory tracking, and immunization reporting.

In May, it gave the task to consulting company Deloitte, a huge federal contractor, with a $16 million no-bid contract to manage “covid-19 vaccine distribution and administration tracking.” In December, Deloitte snagged another $28 million for the project, again with no competition. The contract specifies that the award could go as high as $32 million, leaving taxpayers with a bill between $44 and $48 million.

Why was Deloitte awarded the project on a no-bid basis? The contracts claim the company was the only “responsible source” to build the tool.

To some watchdogs, VAMS is the latest example of a broken system for building government technology. Deloitte has a long history of making malfunctioning things for state and federal governments: most recently, it was in the news for charging states hundreds of millions of dollars for unemployment websites that did not work.

In response to questions about the flaws with VAMS, a Deloitte spokesperson sent a statement that the company was proud to support the vaccine campaign and “help end the covid-19 pandemic so that our families and communities can recover and thrive.” He did not address specific questions.

Deloitte may be representative of a broken system, but it’s certainly not alone. CGI Federal, for instance, has landed over $5.6 billion in federal IT contracts since getting fired after its disastrous development of the Healthcare.gov website.

www.technologyreview.com

What went wrong with America’s $44 million vaccine data system?

The CDC ordered software that was meant to manage the vaccine rollout. Instead, it has been plagued by problems and abandoned by most states.
www.technologyreview.com www.technologyreview.com
 
nolalady said:
Why was Deloitte awarded the project on a no-bid basis? The contracts claim the company was the only “responsible source” to build the tool.
Click to expand...
Holy fuck do I hate that excuse -- they did that shit during Iraq War Jr too, giving everything to Halliburton -- because it's such a self-fulfilling prophecy: "these guys are the only ones with the experience and expertise, so that's who we gave the contract to, so they're the only ones who work on projects of this scale, so no one else has experience or expertise with projects of this scale....".

The hard facts of the matter are, with big data being what it is, you should be able to bring this kind of project to *someone* else, they absolutely are not the only players in town. Of course, project management politics being what they are, it'll wind up in some huge IT conglomerate like IBM or Oracle and then it'll be trash forever, just like Deloitte.....
 
yukbon said:
Holy fuck do I hate that excuse -- they did that shit during Iraq War Jr too, giving everything to Halliburton -- because it's such a self-fulfilling prophecy: "these guys are the only ones with the experience and expertise, so that's who we gave the contract to, so they're the only ones who work on projects of this scale, so no one else has experience or expertise with projects of this scale....".

The hard facts of the matter are, with big data being what it is, you should be able to bring this kind of project to *someone* else, they absolutely are not the only players in town. Of course, project management politics being what they are, it'll wind up in some huge IT conglomerate like IBM or Oracle and then it'll be trash forever, just like Deloitte.....
Click to expand...
I have similar horror stories when the STI surveillance got a contractor system (they decided to move away from the home grown data bases to contractor systems) because there was no way to get data out the back end. If they didn't have a statistic or measure you want, you're SOL and they had no mechanism for exporting data so that you can feed it into your own programs. They have the data locked behind a system and the employees that need to use it, can't use it to do their jobs.
 
I think it was Norway that decided to start vaccinating anyone who was deemed an "essential worker", meaning cashiers, etc. got vaccines first, instead of targeting the elderly and at risk population. Their strategy might work to decrease the spread a lot faster than our approach.

This study provides evidence that the resurgent COVID-19 epidemics in the US in 2020 have been driven by adults aged 20-49, and in particular adults aged 35-49, before and after school reopening. Unlike pandemic flu, these adults accounted after school reopening in October, 2020 for an estimated 72.2% [68.6%-75.9%] of SARS-CoV-2 infections in the US locations considered, whereas less than 5% originated from children aged 0-9 and less than 10% from teens aged 10-19. The population mobility data, and the death data provided by state and city Departments of Health reveal heterogeneous disease spread in the US, with higher transmission risk per venue visit attributed to individuals aged 20-49 over distinct time periods, and younger epidemics with a greater share of individuals aged 20-34 among cumulated infections in the South, South-western, and Western regions of the US. Over time, the share of age groups among reported deaths has been remarkably constant, suggesting that young adults are unlikely to have been the primary source of resurgent epidemics since summer 2020, and that instead changes in mobility and behavior among the broader group of adults aged 20-49 underlie resurgent COVID-19 in the US in 2020. This study indicates that in locations where novel highly-transmissible SARS-CoV-2 lineages have not yet established, additional interventions among adults aged 20-49, such as mass vaccination with transmission-blocking vaccines, could bring resurgent COVID-19 epidemics under control and avert deaths.

AAAS

science.sciencemag.org science.sciencemag.org
 
This is one of a couple different studies that is yet again looking at increased viral load being a main predictor of spreading Covid. From my work with HIV patients, I know that if we suppressed viral load, the incidence of spread lessened. Could we control Covid in the same way?

In our study, the viral load of index cases was a leading driver of SARS-CoV-2 transmission. The risk of symptomatic COVID-19 was strongly associated with the viral load of contacts at baseline and shortened the incubation time of COVID-19 in a dose-dependent manner.
www.thelancet.com

Transmission of COVID-19 in 282 clusters in Catalonia, Spain: a cohort study

In our study, the viral load of index cases was a leading driver of SARS-CoV-2 transmission. The risk of symptomatic COVID-19 was strongly associated with the viral load of contacts at baseline and shortened the incubation time of COVID-19 in a dose-dependent manner.
www.thelancet.com
 
Reinfection rate in younger people--one study finds it at 10% which means that Corona is going to be with us for a while.

The finding stems from tracking nearly 3,250 young U.S. Marine recruits between May and October. Of those, 189 had previously tested positive for the SAR-CoV-2 virus. During the six-week study itself, 10% of those who had tested positive got reinfected.

medicalxpress.com

Study shows young COVID survivors can get reinfected

(HealthDay)—Being infected with the virus that causes COVID-19 is not a foolproof shield against reinfection, a small preliminary study warns.
medicalxpress.com medicalxpress.com
 
B117 is with us.

As of January of 2021, the highly transmissible B.1.1.7 variant of SARS-CoV-2, which was first identified in the United Kingdom (U.K.), has gained a strong foothold across the world. Because of the sudden and rapid rise of B.1.1.7, we investigated the prevalence and growth dynamics of this variant in the United States (U.S.), tracking it back to its early emergence and onward local transmission. We found that the RT-qPCR testing anomaly of S gene target failure (SGTF), first observed in the U.K., was a reliable proxy for B.1.1.7 detection. We sequenced 212 B.1.1.7 SARS-CoV-2 genomes collected from testing facilities in the U.S. from December 2020 to January 2021. We found that while the fraction of B.1.1.7 among SGTF samples varied by state, detection of the variant increased at a logistic rate similar to those observed elsewhere, with a doubling rate of a little over a week and an increased transmission rate of 35-45%. By performing time-aware Bayesian phylodynamic analyses, we revealed several independent introductions of B.1.1.7 into the U.S. as early as late November 2020, with onward community transmission enabling the variant to spread to at least 30 states as of January 2021. Our study shows that the U.S. is on a similar trajectory as other countries where B.1.1.7 rapidly became the dominant SARS-CoV-2 variant, requiring immediate and decisive action to minimize COVID-19 morbidity and mortality.
www.medrxiv.org

Genomic epidemiology identifies emergence and rapid transmission of SARS-CoV-2 B.1.1.7 in the United States

As of January of 2021, the highly transmissible B.1.1.7 variant of SARS-CoV-2, which was first identified in the United Kingdom (U.K.), has gained a strong foothold across the world. Because of the sudden and rapid rise of B.1.1.7, we investigated the prevalence and growth dynamics of this...
www.medrxiv.org www.medrxiv.org
 
This was our governors response to teachers' outcry when they moved people 65-69, who two weeks ago were priority 1c, to 1a, jumping over teachers (and others) in 1b. I don't think 70-74 was originally 1a either, but can't remember exactly.

“All evidence says we’ve got to keep the system that we have now, that is growing, is getting stronger and is getting stronger as long we have more vaccine,” the governor said Thursday. “We’ve got to keep that moving without interruption. Now is not the time to throw a monkey wrench into this system that will put the people who are in danger in even more danger. It would be an unconscionable thing to do that at this time.”

You can argue all day with facts and data if you want, but saying stuff like they want to "jump the line" and "that is unethical, immoral, and absolutely unacceptable” is just insane. How are you gonna change your published order and then say people are horrible for "wanting to jump ahead" when all they are doing is complaining that you changed the order by jumping people over them.

Not that we needed a reminder that SC has never respected teachers or education.
 
Speaking of teachers.

I was very frustrated when I heard in the last couple of weeks that the CDC's recommendation is it's safe to return to in person learning before teachers get vaccinated. The data shows that kids and teens learning in the classrooms do not cause super spreader events blah blah blah.

The CDC's focus and recommendation is to return to in person learning as soon as possible. And that waiting for vaccines for teachers is not one of the criteria that makes returning to in person learning safe.
 
dhodo said:
This was our governors response to teachers' outcry when they moved people 65-69, who two weeks ago were priority 1c, to 1a, jumping over teachers (and others) in 1b. I don't think 70-74 was originally 1a either, but can't remember exactly.

“All evidence says we’ve got to keep the system that we have now, that is growing, is getting stronger and is getting stronger as long we have more vaccine,” the governor said Thursday. “We’ve got to keep that moving without interruption. Now is not the time to throw a monkey wrench into this system that will put the people who are in danger in even more danger. It would be an unconscionable thing to do that at this time.”

You can argue all day with facts and data if you want, but saying stuff like they want to "jump the line" and "that is unethical, immoral, and absolutely unacceptable” is just insane. How are you gonna change your published order and then say people are horrible for "wanting to jump ahead" when all they are doing is complaining that you changed the order by jumping people over them.

Not that we needed a reminder that SC has never respected teachers or education.
Click to expand...
Gov Kemp of GA said much the same thing when they requested to have Teachers pushed up on the priority list. 3 teachers have died in one county here from Covid, two in the same week.

[sarcasm]"But everything is fine, guys, we're doing the best we can." [/sarcasm]
 
On a somewhat lighter note, I gave my parents the "Get vaccinated or else you're not seeing us for a long time" ultimatum. I convinced them to talk to their doctor about getting the Vaccine. I was still pretty worried, as they live in RURAL Georgia and I know for a fact their Optometrist is a right wing nut job (as he used to be my optometrist). But apparently their doctor is a real doctor and didn't just get the job from his pappy, because he convinced them to get the Vaccine. They're both over 65, so they're eligible now and I'm over the moon happy.
 
nolalady said:
Reinfection rate in younger people--one study finds it at 10% which means that Corona is going to be with us for a while.

The finding stems from tracking nearly 3,250 young U.S. Marine recruits between May and October. Of those, 189 had previously tested positive for the SAR-CoV-2 virus. During the six-week study itself, 10% of those who had tested positive got reinfected.

medicalxpress.com

Study shows young COVID survivors can get reinfected

(HealthDay)—Being infected with the virus that causes COVID-19 is not a foolproof shield against reinfection, a small preliminary study warns.
medicalxpress.com medicalxpress.com
Click to expand...
Not that I wasn't paranoid before, but things like this now, after having COVID are making me crazy. With so many people still just ignoring the basic things, mask/distance/wash your hands, as I mentioned before, it seems this will never end. Now with new mutations hitting those who have already been infected harder and more severe, I'm turning into a basket case.

Time has now become an issue, if we can't get the % needed vaccinated to hit heard immunity, everything is for nothing, we'll basically be starting from square one. My mother, who lives in Italy asks me every time we talk "Are Americans really that pig headed?".............yes.
 
AnthonyI said:
Not that I wasn't paranoid before, but things like this now, after having COVID are making me crazy. With so many people still just ignoring the basic things, mask/distance/wash your hands, as I mentioned before, it seems this will never end. Now with new mutations hitting those who have already been infected harder and more severe, I'm turning into a basket case.

Time has now become an issue, if we can't get the % needed vaccinated to hit heard immunity, everything is for nothing, we'll basically be starting from square one. My mother, who lives in Italy asks me every time we talk "Are Americans really that pig headed?".............yes.
Click to expand...
Please take care of yourself.

We really don't know what's going to happen with this, but from what I've been reading, these variants are being found in multiple places which might indicate that these mutations are natural evolution for the virus as it comes into contact with human populations. I read an article by a virologist that estimated that it will take us a full 7 years to finally be able to co-exist with covid (sort of like how we exist with the flu). The biggest thing to note about reinfections is that we really don't have enough information to say what is going on. I think there are a lot more reinfections than we are counting. Here's a good article from Scientific America that basically says that we don't really have the data to figure any of this out yet.

The message is similar for the wider society, said Dr. Bill Messer, an expert in viral genetics at Oregon Health & Science University in Portland, who has been pondering the cultural psychology of the covid response. Evidence suggests there may not be a clear-cut return to normal.

“The idea that we will end this pandemic by beating this coronavirus, I don’t think that’s actually the way it’s going to happen,” he said. “I think that it’s more likely that we’re going to learn how to be comfortable living with this new virus circulating among us.”
www.scientificamerican.com

Why the U.S. Is Underestimating COVID Reinfection

Many U.S. states aren’t rigorously tracking or investigating suspected cases of reinfection
www.scientificamerican.com www.scientificamerican.com
 
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