Monday, November 23rd, 2020
Today absolutely nothing happened. Other than for my daily pool visit I did not leave the house. I am still recovering from the shock of yesterday’s shopping experience! Somehow, I have a sense that it will stay this way; stay home, stay safe, but still anxious about dinner with our pod. Given EM sleeps at their house and their daughter at ours though it seems rather silly though.
Work was also largely uneventful; with the exception of another very early start. The first call being at 6:00 I had set the alarm for 5:30 to give myself time to be alert; though I was not alert enough to turn the speaker on my phone on and kept thinking it was eerily quiet as I kept pressing the volume button.
The most exiting event is yet to come – the making of another batch of Christmas cookies.
The news feed has been dominated by vaccine news and it is good news all around. The news everyone has been waiting for: the vaccine developed by AstraZeneca-Oxford is 62% effective with a two full shots and 90% with a half shot followed by a full shot. The company however, does not expect quick regulatory approval in the USA as their trials were conducted in the UK and Brazil. They are however seeking approval to conduct phase3 trials of their one and a half shot combination in the USA now. Please, where can I volunteer?
The AstraZeneca vaccine is different to the ones of Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna have developed and all three are different from traditional vaccines. https://apple.news/AvHvaDMcvSMWcOSyzSjqgWA. All three vaccines have one thing in common they use messengers; Pfizer/ BioNTech and Moderna use a never applied technology RNA, while AstraZenca-Oxford use DNA as messnegers. "In the past, vaccine makers typically used the virus itself or a fragment of the virus, often in a weakened or inactivated form, to inoculate recipients. But the new generation of vaccines use genetic instructions for making parts of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, the pathogen that causes Covid-19. All three candidates — Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna, and AstraZeneca-Oxford — deliver the instructions for making the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein, or the part of the virus that lets it enter human cells to begin with. And it’s these instructions that are injected, which human cells then use to manufacture parts of the virus, in essence coaching the immune system to fight off the invader should it arrive".
Best, AstraZenca can produce up to 3.0 billion doses in 2021. They have also pledged to do so at cost and not make a profit of the pandemic!
Now that three viable vaccines are here, the nightmare of distribution starts. From what I gather it is a major logistical challenge, especially because of the low temperature the vaccines must be kept at.
The 40 million doses which the USA will receive in December are just enough for 20 million people, not even 10% of the population. Apparently they will be distributed across States based on population size.
While the virus is spreading like a wildfire across the USA with 141k new cases reported yesterday to bring total infections to 12.7 million out of the global of 58.7 million cases, the White House is planning to host a series of super spreader events to celebrate the holidays. Parties for Thanksgiving Hanukkah and Christmas are planned to ensure numbers can continue to rise, though attendance is apparently voluntary. The administration is also providing guidance that people spend time with their elderly relatives as this may well be their last Thanksgiving.
If it were not so inherently irresponsible and stupid, it would be almost funny.