To completely eliminate it would be ideal, since even now betacoronaviruses do cause ARS in some people and are suspected as a factor in certain nervous and conjunctive tissue diseases. But we've succeeded to do so only once in history, with a far worse and more visible disease. And before the anti-vaxxers too...

If immunity from a vaccine or the disease itself isn't permanent but allows a milder but still contagious reinfection one or two years down the road (as it goes for the other coronaviruses), that's another path to making it endemic too, even if all current outbreaks are suppressed.

Are you using face mask, I don't think you are.

Face masks isn't a long term solution, we don't know when a Vaccine will arrive, I learned 2-3 days ago that the vaccine from Oxford/astrazeneca might not be good. In the Phase 1 trial all the monkeys actually got infected, we now know this after they made all the data public and they are running phase 2/3 simultaneously.

The mers/sars virus has been around for 17 years and no vaccine has still been develop for it, and even if it is immunity might only last 3-6 months anyway. We getting more signs that the covid virus will basically be like the cold virus, everyone will get infected by it once or twice per year when things go back to normal. But we will have better medicine though.

But it is accurate that in Germnay face masks are mandated in shops/public transportation, that why we are comparing Germany to Denmark/norway/Finland and probably soon Sweden to see how good face masks are. Our countries are pretty similiar.

Well our government don't often update our R number, I think it was updated today even though it says it was released June 12. Last update was in one of my previous post back in April/may. The R number has been below 1 for a good time, that was I has been trying to say, the increase in confirmed cases is because of extra testing in healthcare personal and testing for people with lighter symptons, the spread of the virus is declining.

We had some really good numbers today, 69 reported dead and 2889 new cases, this includes friday, saturday and sundays numbers. I was expecting over 4k new cases.

As for more young people getting infected is confirming one of my idea, that the fatality rate of this virus will decline to 0.2-0,3% from 1% based on those antibody tests.

If you can protect nursing homes better you can almost reduce the fatality rate by 50%, add in that the more vulnerable people will be extra careful we will see another decline in fatality rate. And with better remedies/medicine we will see another decline in fatality rate. There has been some talk about steroids from UK and plasma saving lives.

That's why I think Texas/Arizona/Florida will be fine, unless they overload their hospital system.

Our testing is a bit complicated, but from what I understand testing never stopped in Stockholm last week, they rolled out a new system last week where anyone can get tested without doctor/nurse approval or with any symptons. This was the first time we have done this in Sweden and the demand was just to high so they stopped testing that part. They still tests people with heavy symptons and randomly healthcare personal in Stockholm. Before we were just testing healthcare people, people with heavy symptons. And recently people with lighter symptons which happens in primary care (primärvården) which you mention in one of your previous post.

So no region stopped testing last week, this is why we might beat Germany soon in confirmed cases per capita. We are testing so much that when someone get sick he/she can just get tested and self-isolate.

For the charts you posted, we don't report numbers on weekends anymore and last friday was a holy day for us (midsummer) so no report last friday either.

SARS is extinct in the wild and MERS infect no more than a few dozen people every year. Besides, you can't exactly challenge people who have been vaccinated with these viruses since the fatality rate is so high. Covid-19, on the other hand, is relatively harmless to young, fit people (meaning you can use them as test subjects), and the rate of infection in countries like Brazil should allow for very extensive phase 3 observational studies in a short time.

Like I mentioned before, if the, say, AstraZeneca vaccine can neutralize the virus before it gets to the lungs, even if you get sick, then that's mission accomplished for the time being. Billions are on the line and the putative vaccines number in the hundreds already, so something will definitely get through before long.

Last Friday+Saturday+Sunday+Monday was 2833, so 2889 is still higher while last week had that computer glitch added...
Sweden's normal was at 2,000 cases for Friday+Saturday+Sunday+Monday (it's been on that level for 5 weeks straight)

You can spin it all you want but the spread is not declining.



Sure, younger people have a much lower risk of death, yet they still get sick and can infect others, especially now those states are opening up work places again. Plus they can infect their parents and grandparents.



Btw Sweden is #57 for tests per million, Germany #40, 38K per million in Sweden, 60K per million in Germany.



Face masks will have to do for now, a working vaccine will be found. Yep that Astrazenaca virus might not be the best one:

The researchers found a single dose of the vaccine prevented all six vaccinated monkeys from developing pneumonia, but did not prevent infection outright. Some scientists not involved in the study welcomed the results as promising, but others also raised concerns that, if the results were replicated in humans, those vaccinated would probably still be able to transmit Covid-19.

Some context

However, the paper’s co-author Neeltje van Doremalen, of Rocky Mountain Laboratory, suggested that the monkeys had been exposed to a far higher viral load than most humans would be in real life. “I think people don’t realise how much virus we challenge with and how amazing it is to see none in the lungs. After a single shot of vaccine,” Prof Van Doremalen said on Twitter.

Immunologist Florian Krammer also added: “None of the vaccines in development will work with one shot (that’s just not how vaccines work). This was after one shot. The lung was protected. Two shots might be pretty solid.”

However, award-winning virologist Paul Bieniasz, said: “To be honest, the magnitude of the immune responses in macaques is a little underwhelming – what will protection be like six or 12 months post vaccination?” It is “unlikely” any potential Covid vaccine will be able to stop infection and offer life-long protection, said Prof Babak Javid, a infectious diseases consultant at Cambridge University Hospitals.

And good news

Others welcomed the fact that the macaque trials had found no evidence of immune-enhanced disease – a phenomenon that sees vaccinated people who do become infected end up suffering more severe illness. The phenomenon is a hazard of vaccines for respiratory viruses, and was one of the main obstacles to a successful Sars vaccine. “This was a definite theoretical concern for a vaccine against Sars Cov-2 and finding no evidence for it in this study is very encouraging,”

There are 125 other candidates in development as well.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/science/coronavirus-vaccine-tracker.html

The mers/sars virus ran out of test bed when the virus was defeated. You can't do any efficacy tests (phase 3 trial) when nobody gets infected anymore! The vaccine wasn't needed anymore but work on the old vaccines have been picked back up.

Warning for tourists ignoring the border restrictions (using the loophole, traveling straight to Alaska for work/living)

https://calgary.ctvnews.ca/rcmp-issued-7-tickets-to-americans-found-in-banff-alta-over-the-past-week-1.4993704

RCMP Cpl. Deanna Fontaine told CTV News Sunday the U.S. citizens were located by police last week. Four of the $1,200 tickets were handed out on June 16 and two more on June 18. The six tickets were issued to travellers who had stopped near Lake Louise for long hikes in the park.

The border is still closed until July 21st (for now, can be extended again)

Under the rules set out by the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA), American citizens can travel through to Alaska provided they show they are travelling there for an essential reason, such as going home or going there for work.

According to the CBSA email, American citizens must:

• Remain in the vehicle as much as possible
• Avoid staying at a hotel
• If they need gas, pay at the pump
• If they need food, use a drive through
• If they need to use a rest area, use a mask and to be mindful of physical distancing and good hygiene practices

They got off easy:

While violating the province's health rules and receiving a $1,200 fine may be a stiff punishment, the penalty for lying to a border agent about the nature of their visit would be much worse. "Providing false information to a border services officer (BSO) upon entry to Canada is considered misrepresentation and has consequences," Callin said. "If you provide false immigration information or false information about the purpose of your travel, you may be denied entry and/or be banned from returning to Canada."

She says that anyone caught breaking the current border restriction would be considered to be violation of the Quarantine Act. That could lead to up to $750,000 in fines or six months in prison. If the visit ends up causing a risk of imminent death or serious bodily harm to another person, they would face up to $1 million in fines and a possible three-year sentence.

Here in the US over 31k new cases on a Monday... we haven't had that type of number since April for a Monday.

Bad news for the herd immunity strategists

https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/coronavirus/covid-19-immunity-might-not-last-long-for-asymptomatic-carriers-study-1.4995246

The study found that levels of antibodies were “significantly higher” in the symptomatic group during the acute phase, meaning the phase in which the virus is still present in the body. The researchers also noted that among the 37 asymptomatic patients, 21 developed damage in at least one lung, even though they exhibited no outward symptoms of the virus. The other 16 patients did not have any abnormalities.

Eight weeks after the patients left the hospital, researchers followed up with both groups and found the IgG levels in more than 90 per cent of symptomatic and asymptomatic patients had declined, with the median percentage decrease in both groups at more than 70 per cent. Additionally, 40 per cent of asymptomatic patients and 13 per cent of symptomatic patients had tested negative for the IgG antibody.

These declines are in contrast to similar research concerning the SARS and MERS outbreaks, which indicated that antibodies for these viruses can last more than two years and at least 34 months, respectively. This latest research could explain why some people have reported contracting the virus more than once.

Also problematic for the tragically slow antibody studies that are now taking place.

“Additional longitudinal serological studies profiling more symptomatic and asymptomatic individuals are urgently needed to determine the duration of antibody-mediated immunity.” The researchers also indicate that because the antibodies can decline quickly, that this study shows further need for a “timely” large-scale study of antibodies in order to get a fuller understanding of how many people have been infected with the virus.

I guess my wife and I will never find out whether we already had Covid-19 in Februari. Not that it matters if we can get re-infected again anyway by now. And how long will vaccines be effective?

We've succeeded twice technically, though the second, Rinderpest, was an animal disease. We're on the brink of eradication with Polio and Guinea Worm as well, though the pandemic will probably delay those campaigns by a few years unfortunately.

There have always been "anti-vaxxers", even in the early days of the first ever vaccine it was viewed by many with fear and rejection. During the smallpox campaign it was common for people not to cooperate with vaccination teams. A strategy the teams often used was to ask kids rather than adults if they had been or heard of any cases as the kids were more likely to say.

It's true that due to being less visible COVID-19 would be more difficult to eliminate than smallpox even with an effective vaccine, but it wouldn't be impossible.

Not surprised as I am in touch with a key-worker who tested positive when swapped and had symptoms months ago but no antibodies were found in their blood when they got tested recently. I wonder what this means for potential vaccines.

On another note, at this point, I am shocked and appalled how the only choices we have as communities are still the binary: "lock yourselves and watch your economy burn" or "reopen and watch the vaccine ravage your communities".

The situation is terrible in most countries around the world, and yet, no talks of COVID19 currency or debt forgiveness, basically the only way to alleviate the pressures of a lockdown and successfully bring the numbers down worldwide. The every man for themselves attitude has been disgusting to watch.

See, I would say most people who get infected get infected by family or other people you are close with for some time. But if a family member infects other family members or close friends it's easy to find all who got infected by a short time.

If I infect some guy in the bus then it will be much harder to even know that I infected that guy and that guy might infect even more until he knows that he has it.

That's why face masks make sense even if they only prevent me to infect some of those I don't know.

Most parts of Germany had very little or no new infections at all over the last week. But we had some huge outbreaks in very few areas. Like over 1500 infections in a slaughter house. That can happen and that will push the numbers a lot but it doesn't automatically mean that the whole country has bad numbers again nor does it mean that face masks don't work when almost all these infections happened between people who sit on each other the whole day.