"A vaccine against #COVID19 is in sight, with the announcement of the first interim results in large-scale trials showing the Pfizer/BioNTech candidate is 90% effective"
Pro: Amazing- if this holds true.
Con: Science by press release, let's see the data.
pps: While clearly very promising and exciting, best to see the final data on safety and efficacy.
ppps: "People from black and minority ethnic backgrounds appear to have been as well protected as everyone else, the company says."
Additional helpful details:
-Trial is enrolling 43000 people
-They've had 94 cases of #COVID19
-Much more covid in non-vaccinated group...less than 10% of those vaccinated diagnosed with covid
-Protection seen 7 days after 2nd dose of vaccine
-Goal is to enroll up to 164 cases
Current mood, when hearing these preliminary #COVID19 vaccine results...
"Sun is shining, the weather is sweet
Make you wanna move your dancing feet."
(Yes...still want to see final data)
Other key points:
1. Still need to see final data
2. Still need to adhere to public health measures (eg. masks, distancing, etc) for foreseeable future.
3. Still have significant logistics for implementation when a vaccine is approved
"Our findings suggest that environmental contamination leading to SARS-CoV-2 transmission is unlikely to occur in real-life conditions, provided that standard cleaning procedures and precautions are enforced."
2nd example: On a 10 hour flight, 1 person (also reported in business class) likely transmitted to 16 others, out of 217 passenger & crew. Proximity a risk.
Once again: "Face masks were neither recommended nor widely used on airplanes in early March"
Could there be something about business class that facilitates transmission (e.g. seating arrangement/air flow, lax mask use)? Is this a real issue vs reporting bias? Not sure.
Other examples of rather limited #COVID19 transmission on planes here 👇
TIME on train:
-Attack rate with 1-hour co-travel time is 0.25%, and with 7 hours 0.38%
PROXIMITY to case:
-Closer to index case = higher risk (shocker).
-3.5% attack rate if sitting next to case
-Attack rate drops significantly if >2 rows apart
This is the gold standard of how to effectively conduct contact tracing, especially in stigmatized populations (see below) bit.ly/2ZQpnJC
"...prejudice against homosexuality, gay men in South Korea...discrimination & stigmatization...often unwilling to reveal their sexual identity. Thus, the Seoul Metropolitan Government consulted sexual-minority groups to discuss ways to encourage testing among gay men."👍👍👍👍
"To conduct contact tracing for this outbreak, we used multiple forms of advanced information technology, including location data from mobile devices, credit card payment history,...
2/ Nobody is arguing that masks don't work at an individual level. They help reduce the probability of transmitting infection - we've known this long before #COVID19.
Proximity and duration of exposure to an infected person are key factors, especially in indoor settings...
3/ ...so put a mask on when going indoors in a public setting, especially one where you can't physically distance yourself from others, & especially in areas of #COVID19 transmission. Pretty straight forward.
But mandates for masking? Right now? In Canada? Not now. Maybe later.
1. "... the virus can be tracked all over the floor, as indicated by the 100% rate of positivity from the floor in the pharmacy, where there were no patients."
2. "half of the samples from the soles of the ICU medical staff shoes tested positive."
3/
Air samples tested:
-In ICU, positive test results in "14 samples positive of 40 samples tested
-2 samples positive of 16 samples tested on hospital wards