You don't know my wife, she has no faith in the medical system anymore dealing with it since she was about 10 years old. She avoids it at all costs, hence I wanted to get an anti body test (for myself) to see if she might have had it. There's no way I can convince her to get one, she doesn't see there's a point. Every time she (eventually) goes in, her blood pressure gets so high from the stress of going that they don't want to let her go in fear of a stroke.

And unfortunately she has been right so far, they almost killed her twice at the local hospital, while in the end all they do is send her home with antibiotics that screw up her system every time :/ Not easy to convince someone to put their life in the hands of people they have zero trust in. She is fully convinced going in is worse than sitting it out.

So I am very worried that she can catch it, since I know she won't be accepting help until it's time to call the ambulance... Anyway we're staying safe and isolated as much as possible while keeping an eye out on what's going on around us.


About the extra cancer deaths:
https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/coronavirus/delay-cancer-treatment-or-risk-covid-19-doctors-and-patients-weigh-the-risks-1.4984111

As elective surgeries and treatments resume, doctors and patients are wrestling with the risks of delaying treatment further, versus the risk of exposing cancer patients to COVID-19 in a hospital setting.

Not that clear cut, cancer patients are much more likely to die from Covid19.


Trump wants to resume his rallies, starting in Oklahoma coming Saturday in a 19K seat arena. To go you have to sign a waiver:

"By clicking register below, you are acknowledging that an inherent risk of exposure to COVID-19 exists in any public place where people are present," the campaign advised those signing up for the rally. "By attending the Rally, you and any guests voluntarily assume all risks related to exposure to COVID-19 and agree not to hold Donald J. Trump for President, Inc." liable for illness or injury.

...

I don't get why a vaccine would be so hard to make. Some of these companies are going some "high tech" route but wouldn't the easiest way would be to have something like smallpox inculcation or flu vaccine with inactive or weakened form of virus.

I mean how difficult can it be yet it must be because every year the stupid flu vaccine is almost always wrong in picking the strain that is going to be most severe for the season. I'm just going to keep doing what I did before this mess which was avoid most human beings to begin with. Starting work up again finally this week yet not worried because not many people in my area of manufacturing plant and we are required to wear masks and gloves.

It's not that simple. The flu vaccine is on a well oiled and time-tested yearly production line where its easy to just slot in the latest common strains. Smallpox vaccination uses a different but closely related virus that is harmless but produces antibodies compatible with smallpox.

With COVID-19, no vaccine exists for any virus in its family, so there's no pre-existing formula to piggyback on, and no known harmless relative that's closely related enough to confer immunity.

The main reason its taking this long is that extensive safety and efficacy testing is essential before a vaccine is widely administered, in order to make sure you're not rushing out something that causes negative side effects or doesn't work reliably enough.

And you're not even allowed to wear face masks as Trump doesn't want to get reminded of the virus...

Well I could have someone infected cough on surface and then wait hour or so then touch surface and do some face touching.  My exposure would be less than direct.  They say it is more of amount your body is exposed rather than just being exposed.  So someone who gets it from surface the body is exposed to far less viral load than someone breathing in tons of particles so they are more likely to be able to fight off virus more quickly.

The CDC even backpedaled about risk of exposure due to surfaces.  I wash my hands a decent amount even before all this shit but now they've turned almost everyone into hypochondriacs/OCD.

I was thinking that I fully support the waiving of corona rules at Trump rallies, but then I thought about all those innocent people that come into contact with them.

You're answering yourself with this comment.

You do not understand it because your knowledge of it is limited,and it is not only about making a vaccin that reacts positively with the virus but also about all the possible sideeffects and how efficiently massproduction can be implemented for it.

And who is funding it all and how will profits be split?

Lot of things we just do not know.

Making vaccine candidates is not that hard, there are plenty already being tested
https://www.raps.org/news-and-articles/news-articles/2020/3/covid-19-vaccine-tracker

Production is also already started before results
https://www.pharmaceutical-technology.com/news/astrazeneca-vaccine-supply-eu/

Commenting on the development of the vaccine, AstraZeneca said: “AstraZeneca recognises that the vaccine may not work but is committed to progressing the clinical programme with speed and scaling up manufacturing at risk.”

The tricky part is not to make people sick with a vaccine while building up effective anti bodies. The strain needs to be similar enough but not too close so people actually get sick. It's impossible to tell how much of a viral load each person can safely handle while still have enough to build up lasting effective immunity, so you need something that is not full blown sars-cov-2 but presents something that looks similar enough to your immune system.

Normally it takes years to test vaccine candidates for long term effects. Imagine giving everyone the same vaccine that has a little side effect to cause infertility in a couple years and you have Children of men! Luckily that's still in the realm of sci-fi and having lots of different vaccine candidates reduces the risk of messing up everyone. It's still a gamble to launch a vaccine without knowing what it can do in 10 years, but a better gamble than letting it go on for another 10 years. But first the short term effects need to be safe and proof to actually be effective enough to stop the virus.


This explains it all very well and the different types of vaccines being tested:

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/science/coronavirus-vaccine-tracker.html

Researchers around the world are developing more than 135 vaccines against the coronavirus. Vaccines typically require years of research and testing before reaching the clinic, but scientists are racing to produce a safe and effective vaccine by next year.

Genetic Vaccines: Vaccines that use one or more of the coronavirus’s own genes to provoke an immune response.
Viral Vector Vaccines: Vaccines that use a virus to deliver coronavirus genes into cells and provoke an immune response.
Protein-Based Vaccines: Vaccines that use a coronavirus protein or a protein fragment to provoke an immune response.
Whole-Virus Vaccines: Vaccines that use a weakened or inactivated version of the coronavirus to provoke an immune response.
Repurposed Vaccines: Vaccines already in use for other diseases that may also protect against Covid-19.



Some more research on D614G the mutation that seems to have taken over in Europe

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/12/science/coronavirus-mutation-genetics-spike.html

Dr. Choe, the senior author on the paper, said that the virus spikes with the mutation were “nearly 10 times more infectious in the cell culture system that we used” than those without that same mutation.

"This is a powerful experimental study and the best evidence yet that the D614G mutation increases the infectivity of SARS-CoV-2,” said Eddie Holmes, a professor at the University of Sydney and a specialist in viral evolution.

The mutation the researchers studied has predominated in Europe and in much of the United States, especially in the Northeast. They compared it to viruses without that mutation, like those found at the beginning of the pandemic in Wuhan, China.

Dr. Choe said that the results do suggest that biological factors played a role in the rapid spread of the D614G virus. “This mutation may explain the predominance of viruses carrying it,” Dr. Choe said. But other scientists cautioned that it would take significantly more research to determine if differences in the virus were a factor in shaping the course of the outbreak. Other factors clearly played a role in the spread, including the timing of lockdowns, travel patterns and luck, scientists argue.

Not yet peer reviewed and needs more investigating, but it could explain the difference in attack rate and speed at which the virus spread through Europe compared to Wuhan.

The problems with this are that even if you got a mild case, you'd still be at far greater risk of complications and death than from a vaccine, and you could infect others.

Before vaccination became available and widespread, a similar method to what you describe was used for smallpox; a tiny amount of infectious pus would be applied to a cut to induce the disease as this generally led to a milder case than breathing in airborne particles. Again though, it could still result in a deadly case and the inoculated person could still spread smallpox.

I highly recommend you do not attempt to inoculate yourself against COVID-19. There's a reason the practice was discontinued. It's not worth the risk.

What I don't understand is why don't they just jump one or two phases. I totally understand the risks but this is an unprecedented emergency. I mean, I would be more than willing to try a vaccine that has already gone through phase I and II, heck, give me even one that has gone through just phase I.