Neverending Covid-19 Coronavirus

Canada is about to join other countries in forcing returning travelers into hotel quarantine, at the travelers' cost. There has been a mandatory 14 day quarantine here for year, with big fines for failure to comply. But it's been hard to reinforce as people give themselves permission to circumvent them (though others have no problem reporting this behavior when it's noticed). The emergence of variants around the world as Canada is once again flattening its curve is precipitating this. But truth be told, some of the variants are already here and the damage may already be done (at least for the UK variant - there may still be hope to hold back the others).

 
And a potential new treatment! Mouse studies look promising.

SARS-CoV-2 viral proteins interact with the eukaryotic translation machinery and inhibitors of translation have potent antiviral effects. Here we report that the drug plitidepsin (aplidin), which has limited clinical approval, possesses antiviral activity (IC90 = 0.88 nM) 27.5-fold more potent than remdesivir against SARS-CoV-2 in vitro, with limited toxicity in cell culture. Through the use of a drug resistant mutant, we show that the antiviral activity of plitidepsin against SARS-CoV-2 is mediated through inhibition of the known target eEF1A. We demonstrate the in vivo efficacy of plitidepsin treatment in two mouse models of SARS-CoV-2 infection with a reduction of viral replication in the lungs by two orders of magnitude using prophylactic treatment. Our results indicate that plitidepsin is a promising therapeutic candidate for COVID-19.

AAAS

science.sciencemag.org science.sciencemag.org
 
nolalady said:
And a potential new treatment! Mouse studies look promising.

SARS-CoV-2 viral proteins interact with the eukaryotic translation machinery and inhibitors of translation have potent antiviral effects. Here we report that the drug plitidepsin (aplidin), which has limited clinical approval, possesses antiviral activity (IC90 = 0.88 nM) 27.5-fold more potent than remdesivir against SARS-CoV-2 in vitro, with limited toxicity in cell culture. Through the use of a drug resistant mutant, we show that the antiviral activity of plitidepsin against SARS-CoV-2 is mediated through inhibition of the known target eEF1A. We demonstrate the in vivo efficacy of plitidepsin treatment in two mouse models of SARS-CoV-2 infection with a reduction of viral replication in the lungs by two orders of magnitude using prophylactic treatment. Our results indicate that plitidepsin is a promising therapeutic candidate for COVID-19.

AAAS

science.sciencemag.org science.sciencemag.org
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It was a really long time ago, but my PhD was on translation, in particular eIF4E.
 
My wife was pretty sad last night... one of the reps she deals with regularly over the phone just died of COVID in Georgia. She spoke to him exactly a week ago and he was fine. It's just crazy you can go so quickly.
 
The vaccine rollout for seniors has been a complete shit show here in Massachusetts.

Until last week only healthcare professions and people considered high risk could get a vaccine. Last week they expanded it to all seniors.

However, to make an appointment to get a vaccine for seniors was such a burden it was a complete joke.

The only way to make an appointment at a vaccine clinic site as of this time is via the internet. A calling center is coming soon, maybe later this week. Many seniors don't have computers, so they had to rely on their children to make the appointments for them. The state website was described as nearly impossible to use giving you noting but a spinning wheel. Landing an appointment was like winning the lottery. For those who got appointments, it took hours of trying and chances are the appointments they got where not at the closest vaccination clinic. For example, one women has to drive her mother from the Cape to Springfield MA, more than 2 hours a way to get the vaccine because that was the only available option they could get. And this is a common story of people from the western part of the state having to drive out east and those out east having to drive out west. Just crazy.



This leads to another issue. Transportation. Many seniors don't have cars, don't drive or only drive locally. Not to mention many vaccination clinics require you to wait in your car until it is time for your appointment.

Vaccination centers in the cities where there is no parking available on site, thus not having the wait in your car option, saw seniors standing inline outside for up to 2 hours on the coldest day of the year this past Friday with temperatures in the single digits. Many appointments were abandoned yet the line still persisted for those who waited.

This week they hope to have a handle on the lines, reducing the number of appointments per day and telling everyone to not show up early.
 
RenegadeMonster said:
This leads to another issue. Transportation. Many seniors don't have cars, don't drive or only drive locally. Not to mention many vaccination clinics require you to wait in your car until it is time for your appointment.
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I remember being introduced to this problem when I was working for child special health services. We had a ton of problems finding parents reliable transportation to their children's appointments. I encountered this same problem again when working in private insurance with dialysis patients. Many of our dialysis patients would call an ambulance to get them to their appointment. One big problem we had in both communities was that there was the potential of large chairs or other mobility aides that might not always be able to be accommodated by a taxi or uber. Other problems included them relying on someone else for rides that couldn't make it, getting off of work to get to an appointment (or your ride getting off of work), and finding the money to pay for the ride. The assumption that people can get to appointments is a huge, and largely unrealistic assumption when you are talking about a large metro area. I hate it when people who don't have a background in community health are put in charge of community health initiatives like this. This is a huge oversight that anyone who has ever worked with low income communities wouldn't make.
 
RenegadeMonster said:
The vaccine rollout for seniors has been a complete shit show here in Massachusetts.
Click to expand...
It really has been a nightmare. Every one of my friends has had to do the legwork to get their parents appointments. And these are 75-80 year olds who use the internet in their daily lives. I cannot imagine the older crowds.

My in-laws in Kentucky both had their first vaccine last week. I'm not sure what their registration process was like in KY, but over Thanksgiving I spent 30 minutes (unsuccessfully) explaining the difference between internet and wifi to my mother-in-law, so it couldn't have been too difficult!

All that said, my parents are supposed to get their vaccine this afternoon. Hopefully this snow holds off.
 
My wife got her second shot on Friday at around 4:30 pm. (Moderna)
She was fine all night, and by morning we figured she was one of the people that didn't have any effects. But right around 3 pm Saturday it hit suddenly. Mild fever, 99.6 at the highest, and a little bit of nausea. She just laid down for the night (she has been recouping from knee surgery anyway) and by Sunday morning she felt fine. She has been in touch with coworkers after their second doses and it seems about 50/50 among them as far as the side effects from #2.
 
mgp said:
It really has been a nightmare. Every one of my friends has had to do the legwork to get their parents appointments. And these are 75-80 year olds who use the internet in their daily lives. I cannot imagine the older crowds.

My in-laws in Kentucky both had their first vaccine last week. I'm not sure what their registration process was like in KY, but over Thanksgiving I spent 30 minutes (unsuccessfully) explaining the difference between internet and wifi to my mother-in-law, so it couldn't have been too difficult!

All that said, my parents are supposed to get their vaccine this afternoon. Hopefully this snow holds off.
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My dad was able to get his last week which is a huge relief for me since he's a transplant patient. My mom couldn't get hers yet.
 
Next in things that I didn't think I needed to say...it seems that if you don't have a public health surveillance system in place to collect data, you don't really have the data you need to define the problem, let alone address the problem.

National data on COVID-19 testing is incomplete, "critical gaps in the medical supply chain" remain, and a lack of data has stalled delivering key resources to people who need it most, a nonpartisan federal watchdog, the Government Accountability Office (GAO), has found.

Why it matters: The findings come as the rise of more contagious variants ensures that Americans’ risk remains high, despite a three-week decline in the number of COVID infections in the U.S. A greater number of people are also dying from the coronavirus over less time.

What GAO found: Incomplete and inconsistent COVID testing data from states have hindered getting resources to areas and people that need it most.
www.axios.com

Federal watchdog finds lack of data, resources impede COVID response

"Critical gaps in the medical supply chain" remain, GAO's report found.
www.axios.com www.axios.com
 
My mom told me last night that one of her friends died of COVID, he was 58. But the way she said it was "Well, he had other issues, they're just calling it COVID"

I don't know how to talk to my parents anymore. They're resistant to safety practices, both refuse to get the vaccine. They're in their mid-60's.

My best plan is when my wife's family is all vaccinated, along with us, we'll take a bunch of pictures hugging and hanging out. Then when my mother tries to guilt me into doing the same, I'll refuse until they're vaccinated. I feel like it's my only course.
 
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
 
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