COVID-19 Outbreak Information Updates (Reboot) [over 150.000,000 US cases (est.), 6,422,520 US hospitilizations, 1,148,691 US deaths.] (6 Viewers)

Got another email from my son's high school last night. Another student tested positive, so there's another two week quarantine for everyone in contact (5 faculty, 55 students). This is the third time it's happened (two students, one teacher) in five weeks of school, but so far they haven't reported any transmission at the school.
 
What's your over/under date on when a typical American adult with health insurance and no conditions that make him or her a priority case in an average locality can get a vaccine?

That is a tough one. I think it will depend on how many people who are persistent and how many actually want to take a vaccine shot. Given your parameters, "typical American adult" (I will go with between 25-55 years old), with Health Insurance and no pre-existing conditions and average locality (not an area with a high or low infection rate).......AND willing to get a vaccine shot, requests it from their doctor or health facility, etc (maybe even a walk up at CVS)...... I will put the over/under for that at April 1, 2021. (I think Health Care workers, first responders, pre-existing condition people and "front line" essential workers will be earlier.)

I think it will probably/likely be earlier for many people in that group because I think there will be an initial surge in people who want to get vaccinated and then a group of people who cannot decide. After the initial group of "regular" people are able to get the vaccine, I think supply won't be the issue after a couple of week, it will be a demand problem.

A lot of this will depend on how many (If any) vaccines are approved and when. My best guess is two by Dec 31, 2020 and four total by Feb 28, 2021. If it gets to four, there should be well over 100 million doses overall available by mid March. That starts to really get into the "average" adult range.
 
Whether we learn much from this, who knows?

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That is a tough one. I think it will depend on how many people who are persistent and how many actually want to take a vaccine shot. Given your parameters, "typical American adult" (I will go with between 25-55 years old), with Health Insurance and no pre-existing conditions and average locality (not an area with a high or low infection rate).......AND willing to get a vaccine shot, requests it from their doctor or health facility, etc (maybe even a walk up at CVS)...... I will put the over/under for that at April 1, 2021. (I think Health Care workers, first responders, pre-existing condition people and "front line" essential workers will be earlier.)

I think it will probably/likely be earlier for many people in that group because I think there will be an initial surge in people who want to get vaccinated and then a group of people who cannot decide. After the initial group of "regular" people are able to get the vaccine, I think supply won't be the issue after a couple of week, it will be a demand problem.

A lot of this will depend on how many (If any) vaccines are approved and when. My best guess is two by Dec 31, 2020 and four total by Feb 28, 2021. If it gets to four, there should be well over 100 million doses overall available by mid March. That starts to really get into the "average" adult range.

Thanks, that seems fair.

But to go back to the need for a vastly enhanced testing apparatus, especially with the upcoming holiday season, I'm not sure just how much near to mid term relief the coming vaccines provides when cast against the damage.

Current 7-day average Covid deaths in the US is about 750 per day, and it's been fairly steady to a slight downslope since a second top in early August. If you take that further down to 700 per day, it still yields almost 75,000 deaths between now and January 1. And if you assume some additional reduction as vaccines and other treatments get rolled out, take it down to 500 per day after January 1, that's still another 46,000 deaths to get to April 1.

Based on this very rudimentary forecast, we're talking about another 120K-plus dead in America, and death isn't the only adverse result. Yes, for various reasons (as you point out) the trends have been favorable - but we also don't know if those will reverse as we get into winter with fewer opportunities for outdoor alternatives, and with higher-concentration activities like school and church, particularly as restrictions are coming down pretty quickly around the country.

I think there is a sense among some (not directing this at you, just using your informed response about the vaccine progress as a launching point) that we just need to keep doing what we're doing until we get these vaccines approved and distributed. But there's still so much wilderness (death and medical injury) between now and then. A truly competent rapid and reliable testing apparatus would just be so damned helpful.

Our babysitter is a second-grade teacher. She had to miss four days of school because she had symptoms on a Thursday night and didn't get her (negative) test results until the following Wednesday afternoon. This was just last week.
 
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A lot of this will depend on how many (If any) vaccines are approved and when. My best guess is two by Dec 31, 2020 and four total by Feb 28, 2021. If it gets to four, there should be well over 100 million doses overall available by mid March. That starts to really get into the "average" adult range.

My investor friend wants me to ask you which two candidates will be approved first and which two will be approved in February. He told me to tell you he won't blame you if your predictions are wrong.
 
My kids have been in in-person school since August 18. I have posted about the protocols they are using and how I think they're pretty good. We have a school Covid dashboard and as of today, almost six weeks in, we have one positive test, including staff. It's a 1st through 12th grade school.

I think a single case here and there with associated quarantines is a reasonable approach if that's how it unfolds. But once you get a confirmed transmission at the school (like what appears to have happened with yours), or a cluster, then it's a different ballgame entirely.
2 of our 3 go back to school Monday. The 3rd is a senior and has zero desire to go back....he only has 1 class. Our schools moved to a modified green this week and they opened it up for VLA students to come back before the 9 weeks were up. No issues at our school system so far so we're going to let them go back.
 
...
But to go back to the need for a vastly enhanced testing apparatus, especially with the upcoming holiday season, I'm not sure just how much near to mid term relief the coming vaccines provides when cast against the damage.
...
I think there is a sense among some (not directing this at you, just using your informed response about the vaccine progress as a launching point) that we just need to keep doing what we're doing until we get these vaccines approved and distributed. But there's still so much wilderness (death and medical injury) between now and then. A truly competent rapid and reliable testing apparatus would just be so damned helpful.

I agree with all that you wrote. I REALLY don't know what will happen once the vaccine(s) are out and being distributed. I think there will be an overall sigh of relief among many people, but does that lead to a very lax attitude among the general populace? I fear that it probably does. The USA is such a hodgepodge of various layers of government, quasi-government, private and health care related entities that I don't know if it is possible to get a true handle on this, absent much more draconian measures. The deaths will continue. What's the old Pirate Line, "The beatings will continue until morale improves"? I think that here, the deaths will continue... Morale will have nothing to do with it. Maybe a TOTAL shut down for a month would work? Maybe not. Parts of Europe are having issues now. At some point, and I know this is a contentious issue for many people, there is an aspect of herd immunity that starts to take hold. That may be one of the main reasons that NYC has been low in the last few months, besides the lockdown, they have some measure of herd immunity. (I know this issue is VERY controversial, the Science behind it is not exact in regard to this virus, but Sweden has gone their own way and it would be interesting if that was more widely reported. I don't think the Swedish model would have "worked" all that well in the USA, we are just way too fat and in bad shape.)

My investor friend wants me to ask you which two candidates will be approved first and which two will be approved in February. He told me to tell you he won't blame you if your predictions are wrong.

In order of approval, Pfizer, Moderna, AstraZeneca. Moderna will be a close second and has an easier distribution route, does not have to kept as cold (still very cold), and I think it will be pretty effective, if it works. It just seems like it will have a good response. The Pfizer vaccine has to kept REALLY cold. That makes distribution very hard.

Most of the money has already been made. The pure plays have run up very much, the more traditional companies, (Pfizer, Astra, JNJ, etc) it won't mean anything on the bottom line. I do have a friend of a friend who bought Novavax at about $7/share, it is now at $113 as I type this. My friend, who "had" a friend, didn't mention this to me. I have a friend who bought Moderna at around $25, he sold at $50, it is near $70 today. "Investing" in this is a risky business.

I am far more concerned and keyed into the health related aspects of this.

I am starting to "hope" and "plan" some trips next year. The earliest that I can foresee is May of 2021. I do have a friend who just got back from a trip to a few countries. I think he is kind of nuts, but they travel all the time and they took every precaution they could. Both guys are in great shape and young, but I think they are still nuts. I think they got tested more than once, maybe three tests total. They made it through ok. I can wait.
 
I wanted to point out that some had mentioned the virus isn’t nearly as deadly as once thought.

Well we (the US) just passed two milestones-

200,000 dead
And
7,000,000 cases

That is a rate of 2.85%.

Globally there have been 982,000 deaths and 32,321,000 cases

That is a rate of 3.0%

I recall 3% being used as the potential death rate so I would posit that the original projection was very accurate. Hardly a difference and certainly not “not nearly as deadly as once thought.”
 
It's also been reported that - CDC: Antibody tests show virus rates are 10 times higher than being reported


Reported coronavirus cases vastly underestimate the true number of infections, U.S. government data suggest, echoing results from a smaller study last month.

Two data sets from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published Tuesday — one in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine and another on the agency’s website, based on follow-up data — say true COVID-19 rates are more than 10 times higher than reported cases in some U.S. regions.

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________

If this is the case (and who the hell really knows a this point from day to day)....

Then the mortality rate is actually closer to ~0.3% and not ~3%

Just depends on what you believe when the CDC says it, and what they report, and when they report it....
 
Influenza’s mortality rate based on deaths compared to hospitalizations and extrapolated from there. That isn’t what the math above is showing.

That is a mortality rate based on total infections. I don’t have the time right now to review the math but obviously it will be higher than the overall rate of .3%
 
It's also been reported that - CDC: Antibody tests show virus rates are 10 times higher than being reported


Reported coronavirus cases vastly underestimate the true number of infections, U.S. government data suggest, echoing results from a smaller study last month.

Two data sets from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published Tuesday — one in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine and another on the agency’s website, based on follow-up data — say true COVID-19 rates are more than 10 times higher than reported cases in some U.S. regions.

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________

If this is the case (and who the hell really knows a this point from day to day)....

Then the mortality rate is actually closer to ~0.3% and not ~3%

Just depends on what you believe when the CDC says it, and what they report, and when they report it....

@Taurus been hammering at this this point for months. Like virtually since day one.
 

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