I definitely missed that in the previous thread. I had understood that the SARS vaccine testing basically stopped when there weren’t any more people who had SARS. Didn’t know about the animal model work you reference. Do you have any cites you recommend to go read to learn more?
They’re trying to develop an RNA version of a vaccine so that might changes things going forward if it work.
Been thinking some more. There are two areas where I’m not sure things are sustainable: school and entertainment.
School, we know the issues about.
For entertainment, I know that it’s not required for life, but these are multiple multi-billion dollar industries involved. I don’t see how they’re going to be quiet being told they can’t make movies or TV or have lucrative live shows or play football for a year or more. I don’t see how anyone who works for them would either. As for the consumer, well, you can imagine (and it could have a negative effect on their willingness to make other sacrifices). But at the same time, since they are “optional” for life, I can’t see anyone in power really bending over backwards for them like they would banks.
The only solution there I can see is for all those companies and sports leagues to go overseas to countries that have things better handled, quarantine their people for as long as necessary, and proceed there. Hell, the lost revenue in the US might cause the feds to take more and better action.
(Then there’s the idea of my favorite hobbies, like gaming, and their venues going under completely, but that’s more of a personal thing,)
If it weren’t for those two things, I could see the current status quo going on as is for a long time to come without much bother.
I read an article by an epidemiologist a week or two ago, where he made the analogy of having “the hundred best hockey players all on the ice.” With all of them shooting at the goal, odds are good that one of them will score a goal (i.e., come up with a successful vaccine), but as others have said, while that amount of effort certainly increases our chances of a vaccine, it doesn’t (and cannot) guarantee it.
Thing is that different vaccine attempts are not of independent probability of success. If one causes antibody dependent enhancement or some excessive response the odds that another will goes up. Is this those hockey players on ice or asked to shoot a basket from mid court? We don’t know.
Anyway the course forward if no vaccine and if contact tracing is a bust is to develop and constantly revise a list of what is the most benefit for the least risk and to determine what level of disease can be lived with as we move forward, trying to better protect those at highest risk as we go.
Making movies not so hard. Sports with limited in person spectators possible.
Movie theaters where already kinda screwed before COVID happend. I would expect perhaps less ‘block buster’ must see on big screen movies, and more released to buy online and watch from home.
I’m scared things are going to have to get really, really bad before we are willing to address this in any systemic way, so the question of “what does 2021 look like” will be shaped by “How horrific was the last half of 2020?” We may be a lost generation, all shellshocked from a nightmare Fall. I hope not, but I fear it.
Are they? I worry about this a lot because there is HUGE pressure here to resume high school sports, especially football. They are already holding modified practices and workouts, and there have already been outbreaks where they had to cancel them–but others persist. It seems like every day I hear about this football team or that professional athlete testing positive. Outside seems to be pretty safe–but running around huffing and puffing on each other seems like it might be a big exception.
Looking at all these sports-related clusters really makes me feel like sports themselves provide a vector of transmission–and when they all start playing together, against other teams, they will pass it around. Even “no contact” sports have quite a bit of breathing heavily on each other.
It seems insane to me that I would be asked to teach in a face mask, to kids separated from each other by plexiglass, and to give up morning tutoring and after school clubs so I can do mask cleaning and temp checks, but we are going to have sports. What are your thoughts? It seems crazy to me, even with no crowds.
Manda I agree it’s totally crazy. But it’s also totally in keeping with the messed up priorities of so much of the USA.USA!! USA!!!
Idjits.
My WAG is it will look like it does today. We’ll limp along…not like we have much choice…and so will everyone else. Looking at the trend numbers and extrapolating (which is pretty worthless, but it’s something to do), we are looking at something between 400-500k deaths in a year. While that is pretty horrible, we are able to survive those levels of death now, wrt things like cancer and heart disease. The real issue will be the other effects, especially the secondary effects (i.e. who is dying will shift, and when they die will shift…and, of course, we’ll still get those other deaths too).
I’m not sure what else we could reasonable do at this point, to be honest. It’s clear that my fellow citizens, lead by that idiot in the white house, don’t want to stay in quarantine until a vaccine is developed…and, frankly, I seriously doubt we could even if we wanted too. The economy would fall apart, hell it’s on the cusp now, especially world wide. I think China, especially, is on the edge right now, what with their wonderful handling of this thing (and all the outbreaks that aren’t happening throughout the country, especially in the capital right now) AND floods AND their seeming desire to fight with every country they can. Europe isn’t in that much better a shape, and the knock on effects of China are and the US are going to cripple them more.
What I really worry about, however, is all the stuff that isn’t known about this disease. And what it might mutate into next. There are already some worrying indications that a more virulent form is out there, or might be out there…and I seriously doubt the worlds economy can survive even another lock down such as we recently were in, let alone something more.
What I often ponder these days when I can’t sleep at night is the fall of earlier civilizations. No civilization ever falls from just one thing. It’s always a series of events, a fall of dominos. What I see happening today is the toppling of several, and I wonder…how many more can we take before it call comes down? While people fight over petty politics or silly nationalism or stupid policies, the dominos are falling. Consider…we had the trade war(s), the pull back in alliances that had stood since the 40’s, the pushing of boundaries and attempts to assert regional dominance, then the Covid outbreak, the downturn in the global economy AND the idiotic oil wars, now we have an unstable world economic system, a regional power trying to continue to push against all it’s neighbors and what SHOULD be the leading country with a total idiot at the helm and injecting chaos into the system at every turn, with that world power deciding now is a great time to finally resolve centuries old wounds of injustice and racial hatreds as well as all sorts of other stuff like latent socialism/communism and class struggles. All we need, IMHO, is one more big event (super volcano, earth quake…hell, a meteor coming down in the wrong place at the wrong time and causing someone to panic) and I think it’s curtains. We go back to the joys of hunting and gathering or perhaps, if we are lucky, 19th century tech.
I was referencing professional sports and the big business that they are. Basketball has come up with a model that Fauci endorses even at this point.
The basic is really adapting what the porn industry did regarding potentially deadly infectious disease transmission. Now that industry tests per 14 day cycles and would shut down the whole industry until contact tracing is complete for a single positive HIV test. Pro sports could take advantage of rapid testing and even do it daily and likely have contact tracing systems set up to be done near instantaneously so games would rarely be at risk. Football helmets with full face shields are already available as well.
Even in a future that has safe effective and widely utilized vaccine(s) the risk will not be zero and of course some risk remains with any possible plan.
OTOH as you note, it really is not known what the risk is from playing the various team sports, given an assumed asymptomatic or even presymptomatic player. What it seems like and what it will end up being may not be the same thing. Like it or not, bad idea or not, in various regions High School sports, especially football, will happen over the next months and there will be cases of players getting diagnosed a day or so after a game. There will be a chance to find out if what it seems like is actually the case or not if those cases are then rigorously traced.
Making vaccines can be hard. And though the best minds are working on it, it may not happen that quickly. It may not be needed. It may not be available everywhere or used by everyone. I hope a vaccine is available tomorrow. It may never be available.
So when people say things won’t get back to normal until there is a vaccine, I disagree. But I also think they are giving a vaccine too much credit when so many unknowns remain.
My scenario is a vaccine that provides piddling protection, but “this is it” declaration is made, high risk people get it first; once that’s done, the mask and social distancing mandates won’t hold, they may not even hold until then.
There will be far fewer really old people if we never come up with a vaccine. COVID-19 kills them is huge numbers.
If no relief even in 2021, I think it will permanently lock in behavioral and economic changes in the US. Past 2021, I don’t believe even a partial return to “normal” will be possible.
I base this on the trends I’m seeing. (Disclaimer, just imho, I can’t provide cites or studies to all of this).
In my area, there’s substantial upgrading of backyards, homes, and building of pools, gazebos, sturdy fences and security upgrades. My wife runs a mortgage processing group, and says her workload is up, and she’s seeing loans for consistently further out (away from the city) with larger lots. Additionally, she says people are going closer to their limits (more expensive than before) based on debt-to-income and other factors. People seem to be spending more for at-home entertainment stuff.
I’m mildly into prepping (supply chain, not camo/ammo) and the websites/blogs I frequent report substantial increases in traffic. Some as much as 700% increase. Also, the various companies that provide long-term food and other SHTF products are frequently sold out now.
Gun sales are off the charts. The last 4 months have set records, and this year could be the highest of any in history. A lot of factors point to these being new, first-time purchasers. And the sales of shotguns and handguns are higher (as a percentage) than before. People are buying for defense, not sport.
Realtors outside the large cities are reporting substantial increase in sales. Mainly for homes exceeding commuting distance outside the city.
RV sales seem to be rising, and I can confirm it’s difficult to get a state park site anywhere for the next 3 months. Everything’s reserved.
America just got a close-up look at home-schooling, and it seems likely some percentage will decide it works out for them. Add in the possibility of random Covid-driven closures during the school year, and many around us are considering just home-schooling from here forward rather than flip-flopping as schools are inevitably shut down for outbreaks. Add work-from-home and this could increase a lot.
Looking at all this, I see America developing a siege mentality. They’re hunkering down, walling up, and turning inward. A substantial amount of current and future income is being earmarked for a life at home and self-controlled internal entertainment. This is very bad news for a lot of the entertainment economy. If this goes on a year, the restaurants, hotels and planes will never fill back up. A large subset of the population will have rearranged their lives to do without them.
I think Si_Amigo is probably right.
Younger generations aren’t going to give up on having a normal life indefinitely due to a virus that overwhelmingly affects the elderly.
It stopped effecting overwhelmingly only the elderly about six weeks ago.
That younger age cohort is now finding out what their behavioral choices brought about.
Yes, younger people are getting infected, but the disease is not even remotely as deadly when compared to the elderly population.
I wasn’t under the impression that anything had happened to make them change their minds.