This year we kill it: Corona Virus Thread Mark II

[NichG]

Sure. That's going to vary a lot by person, I imagine. Age and other factors seem like they'd greatly affect risk tolerance.

Tolerance for this is gone. Most counties no longer have indoor mandates, and those that do are repealing them...and in any case noncooperation has become increasingly common, despite masking being nigh-universal earlier.

In practice, people sort of have to work. Some jobs are work from home, but most are not, and mine certainly isn't. I don't think most folks have the money to just not work for an arbitrary length of time. I suspect the primary outcome is just "risk tolerance lowers."

I suspect that any measure can only be maintained for so long before it outstays its welcome, and the more intrusive the measure, the shorter that time generally is. Lockdowns have largely ended, and remaining policies from that time are fading. Yeah, a tight fitted N95 is, by the numbers, the safe bet. I don't see many of those around, though. Masks are getting rarer, and where still worn, are chosen largely for comfort, not efficacy.

Well again, that sort of gets at my point. If I have to work in those bar conditions and don't want to (or am not allowed to) wear a tight fitting N95 mask forever, then the difference between 95% and 99.5% effectiveness is the difference between getting Covid every 5 years and possibly avoiding it for the entirety of my career. A 95% effective vaccine may not be enough protection for someone working in those conditions. If I'm working from home, live out in the woods, and would use online ordering for groceries and sundries anyhow, then maybe a 50% effective vaccine would be good enough.

There's also the thing where a lot of jobs which at one point were 'easy low-end job that pays barely enough to live on but is easy to get' are now 'hazardous job that pays barely enough to live on, and if you did get serious Covid on the job you'd end up financially worse than if you had just stayed unemployed'. Even if there are always going to be some people who have to take that risk because they have no choice, that may still leave those jobs understaffed in the long run if the only thing the employer can offer is 'just take the risks like everyone else'. And while I doubt major supermarkets are going to go under because of this, smaller businesses might not have the margins to just offer everyone higher pay to compensate for that risk. So a few percentage points of effectiveness could practically make a huge difference to many businesses there.

So, where's that lead? We can *try* a lot of boosters, but unfortunately, mandates have badly hurt the tolerance for that. This area was strongly pro-vaccine, but this has become...contentious. I think booster shots every six months would be a difficult option to persuade people to pursue. Other measures are also, at this point, a hard sell.

Well, even if there are hesitant, no reason to let their hesitancy set the pace for those who do want or need that additional protection.

I am a bit concerned that we're approaching a point where there is fairly little further that can be done to mitigate...well, anything, really. Perhaps pandemics ought to be approached differently somehow...and here I am of course speculating. Would a slower, but more comprehensive vaccine have been a better bet overall? You lose on the front end, but maybe gain on the back. Maybe. Variants are inherently challenging to predict.

The case of Bhutan is interesting. The synchronized their vaccination program, so they went from 0% to 60% vaccinated within a span of 2 weeks. Unfortunately, their data is pretty noisy (population of only ~800k), but it looks like they had a much steeper decline in Covid at the end of summer than other places saw, and they haven't had a followup wave yet. So there might be some value in synchronizing vaccinations.

But beyond that, I think the general thing that most of the world failed to do, but which made a big difference in places that pulled it off, is to take actions in advance of conditions getting bad, not in response to conditions getting bad. If you're going to use lockdowns or border closures or mask mandates or whatever, do it when you have 1 case per day and growing, not when it's already grown to 1000 cases per day. Don't relax those measures in response to the numbers slackening by a few factors of 2, wait until things are back down below the level where you actually initiated the measure.

And in general, I think a lesson for medicine and science is that we need to figure out a framework for how to integrate precautionary principle sorts of reasoning with scientific methodology. E.g. the usual statistical estimates are 'how likely does this evidence make our hypothesis relative to the null', but you can also use those tools to ask the question 'given the tradeoffs between two courses of action, how much does this evidence support taking one course over the other?'. Those are different questions, and I think we've made the mistake of equating them. E.g. maybe last year with the best evidence available we should have believed there was only a 5% chance Covid had aerosol transmission. But if we were making a decision between opening a window or not, where the cost of opening the window when Covid didn't have aerosol transmission was small and the benefit of opening the window if it did was large, then that 5% could still correspond to a 95% chance that the better option would be to open the window.

I do hope the tradition of more elbow room in lines and stuff lasts, at least. I kind of like the personal space bubble, and that seems generally useful against illness of any sort.

Similar, I hope at least tolerance of others masking sticks around and is seen less as 'this person has something to hide' and more as 'this person might be sick and couldn't stay home, and is trying to be considerate'

[Tyndmyr]

Well again, that sort of gets at my point. If I have to work in those bar conditions and don't want to (or am not allowed to) wear a tight fitting N95 mask forever, then the difference between 95% and 99.5% effectiveness is the difference between getting Covid every 5 years and possibly avoiding it for the entirety of my career. A 95% effective vaccine may not be enough protection for someone working in those conditions. If I'm working from home, live out in the woods, and would use online ordering for groceries and sundries anyhow, then maybe a 50% effective vaccine would be good enough.

Yeah, that's fair. Urbanization basically requires far more stringent anti-infection efforts. Rural areas seemed to generally get away with a lower overall level of mitigation/illness tradeoff.

Certainly there are jobs in which being masked is at least frowned upon. If it involves going into banks a fair bit, for instance.

There's also the thing where a lot of jobs which at one point were 'easy low-end job that pays barely enough to live on but is easy to get' are now 'hazardous job that pays barely enough to live on, and if you did get serious Covid on the job you'd end up financially worse than if you had just stayed unemployed'. Even if there are always going to be some people who have to take that risk because they have no choice, that may still leave those jobs understaffed in the long run if the only thing the employer can offer is 'just take the risks like everyone else'. And while I doubt major supermarkets are going to go under because of this, smaller businesses might not have the margins to just offer everyone higher pay to compensate for that risk. So a few percentage points of effectiveness could practically make a huge difference to many businesses there.

I theorize that at least part of the current worker shortage is caused by the different attitudes towards illness. Working while feeling crappy used to be a thing. Nowadays, you pick up a cough, and you probably stay home for two weeks, or at *least* until the test comes back negative. That is...mostly pretty reasonable in current circumstances, but as you say, jobs are definitely running into understaffing issues, and many of those jobs can't really afford to raise wages enough to make up for the additional costs to workers.

A lot of this gets expressed as inflation.

Well, even if there are hesitant, no reason to let their hesitancy set the pace for those who do want or need that additional protection.

I certainly wouldn't advocate less research, or not allowing people to take whatever mitigations they choose. You want boosters, go get boosters.

But from the point of stamping the disease out, persuasive power is ultimately limited, every six months is a big ask for boosters, and the logistics of covering the world with such a program are extremely difficult. Getting everyone in say, Africa vaccinated initially is already a project that is progressing slowly. The developing world is lagging behind already, if the logistical load is expanded to hitting every every six months, that is probably just not possible.

The case of Bhutan is interesting. The synchronized their vaccination program, so they went from 0% to 60% vaccinated within a span of 2 weeks. Unfortunately, their data is pretty noisy (population of only ~800k), but it looks like they had a much steeper decline in Covid at the end of summer than other places saw, and they haven't had a followup wave yet. So there might be some value in synchronizing vaccinations.

That's possible. It might lower risk of mutating around the vaccine, too.

But beyond that, I think the general thing that most of the world failed to do, but which made a big difference in places that pulled it off, is to take actions in advance of conditions getting bad, not in response to conditions getting bad. If you're going to use lockdowns or border closures or mask mandates or whatever, do it when you have 1 case per day and growing, not when it's already grown to 1000 cases per day. Don't relax those measures in response to the numbers slackening by a few factors of 2, wait until things are back down below the level where you actually initiated the measure.

Generally faster action is preferable, but there's a level below which it's hard to persuade people of the seriousness. You're also going to get some false alarms. If we'd locked everything down for say, Swine Flu, it'd have been largely unnecessary. Unfortunately, it's difficult to tell in advance which is the one that really needs it.

This is particularly troublesome for costly measures like lockdowns. You can't reasonably close things down every year or two.

Better early information might help distinguish which is which earlier, but that's a challenge as well. Covid happened to hide fairly well, so information was a bit delayed, China is...not very pro-transparency, and realistically, not everyone's gonna go to get tested for something that looks like a flu or something at first. It adds up to a fair bit of lag time.

Similar, I hope at least tolerance of others masking sticks around and is seen less as 'this person has something to hide' and more as 'this person might be sick and couldn't stay home, and is trying to be considerate'

Those would be nice. A little more latitude for those would be reasonable, and kindly in addition to helpful with the disease. I have to imagine there'll be at least some lingering social effects of the last couple years, I'm sure it'll be a fascinating topic for sociologists to study for quite some time.

[NichG]

Those would be nice. A little more latitude for those would be reasonable, and kindly in addition to helpful with the disease. I have to imagine there'll be at least some lingering social effects of the last couple years, I'm sure it'll be a fascinating topic for sociologists to study for quite some time.

One thing I'm curious about there is whether we'll start to see intentionally mask-wearing characters in TV and movies more frequently (and if that will vary by country or by genre). You certainly see it in media from countries where mask-wearing while ill has been normalized, even pre-Covid.

[warty goblin]

One thing I'm curious about there is whether we'll start to see intentionally mask-wearing characters in TV and movies more frequently (and if that will vary by country or by genre). You certainly see it in media from countries where mask-wearing while ill has been normalized, even pre-Covid.

That would require characters in movies to just get sick, which never happens. The only acceptable states for a film character are just fine, thrown through a brick wall (so just fine) or has a headache/cough, which means they have terminal cancer and will be dead by the end of the film.

[farothel]

That would require characters in movies to just get sick, which never happens. The only acceptable states for a film character are just fine, thrown through a brick wall (so just fine) or has a headache/cough, which means they have terminal cancer and will be dead by the end of the film.

Actually in the last season of NCIS (at least the last one here, I think it was 19) they were wearing masks, using plexi screens in interrogation and talking about being vaccinated. I don't know if there are others, but I guess soaps will have some of it as well (they had to wear masks during some of the filming, again, at least here).

[pendell]

So apparently there is a new variant out there -- AY.4.2 -- which is some 10-15% more infectious than Delta. However, latest modeling shows this is unlikely to change the current trajectory of COVID ebbing. Between vaccination and natural immunity, achieved at a cost of many deaths, the US is building quite a wall against the COVID strains.

https://www.statnews.com/2021/10/27/...virus-variant/

https://www.statnews.com/2021/09/20/...-season-looms/

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[pendell]

So now there's a vaccine patch which is apparently more effective than getting needled.

Like I said on social media, all to the good. Not only will it improve our delivery, it should also reduce vaccine hesitancy 'cause, c'mon, who likes being stabbed with needles! I sure don't , and I got shots for allergies regularly, once a week, in my teens. Got used to 'em, never liked 'em.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[sktarq]

But beyond that, I think the general thing that most of the world failed to do, but which made a big difference in places that pulled it off, is to take actions in advance of conditions getting bad, not in response to conditions getting bad. If you're going to use lockdowns or border closures or mask mandates or whatever, do it when you have 1 case per day and growing, not when it's already grown to 1000 cases per day. Don't relax those measures in response to the numbers slackening by a few factors of 2, wait until things are back down below the level where you actually initiated the measure.

And in general, I think a lesson for medicine and science is that we need to figure out a framework for how to integrate precautionary principle sorts of reasoning with scientific methodology. E.g. the usual statistical estimates are 'how likely does this evidence make our hypothesis relative to the null', but you can also use those tools to ask the question 'given the tradeoffs between two courses of action, how much does this evidence support taking one course over the other?'. Those are different questions, and I think we've made the mistake of equating them. E.g. maybe last year with the best evidence available we should have believed there was only a 5% chance Covid had aerosol transmission. But if we were making a decision between opening a window or not, where the cost of opening the window when Covid didn't have aerosol transmission was small and the benefit of opening the window if it did was large, then that 5% could still correspond to a 95% chance that the better option would be to open the window.

Generally faster action is preferable, but there's a level below which it's hard to persuade people of the seriousness. You're also going to get some false alarms. If we'd locked everything down for say, Swine Flu, it'd have been largely unnecessary. Unfortunately, it's difficult to tell in advance which is the one that really needs it.

This is particularly troublesome for costly measures like lockdowns. You can't reasonably close things down every year or two.

Better early information might help distinguish which is which earlier, but that's a challenge as well. Covid happened to hide fairly well, so information was a bit delayed, China is...not very pro-transparency, and realistically, not everyone's gonna go to get tested for something that looks like a flu or something at first. It adds up to a fair bit of lag time.

In this general subject I would recommend the book "Premonition" by Michael Lewis (published earlier this year)
While it does cover it from very much the people who were trying to get the system to react more early in this crisis it also covers why it was tough (like the swine flu and the 76 flu season) for the system to respond quickly. And that often has more to do with the incentives for the people making the decisions that the science backing up said choices.

[sihnfahl]

Got my Moderna booster today.

I apparently have a very aggressive immune system; 6 hours after the shot, started getting feverish. Again. 8 hours? The chills. Now? Full on 'Did I catch the flu, minus the nasal drip?'

Worth it? Probably. Less than 40% of my coworkers are vaccinated, and quite a few had to be sent home for suspected COVID, and a handful hospitalized. Including one who worked in the same room as I.

Since protection is expected to wane over time, I thought it best, despite the ... repeated side effects of the second dose, although only slightly muted thus far. (102 fever so far instead of 103... well, the night is young...)

[Rydiro]

Looks like the thread title is wrong, Corona is here to stay.

[Tyndmyr]

Looks like the thread title is wrong, Corona is here to stay.

Yeaaah, certainly isn't dying this year, at a minimum.

Got my Moderna booster today.

I apparently have a very aggressive immune system; 6 hours after the shot, started getting feverish. Again. 8 hours? The chills. Now? Full on 'Did I catch the flu, minus the nasal drip?'

Aw, I'm sorry to hear that, I hope it passes quickly.

[pendell]

I am the one who created the title; it was aspirational. And, really, except for the sudden outbreak of Delta, we are back on track to it becoming an endemic disease which we must guard against rather than an outbreak. So, again, except for the flareup of Delta things have gone about as well as could reasonably expected. Better , in fact. Who knew we could come up with vaccines so quickly?

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[warmachine]

So, what 'This year we kill it' meant was, not elimination of the disease, halting of out of control infection and creating endemic equilibrium. Just like seasonal flu, only more infectious and more virulent.

[pendell]

So, what 'This year we kill it' meant was, not elimination of the disease, halting of out of control infection and creating endemic equilibrium. Just like seasonal flu, only more infectious and more virulent.

Precisely. It's a disease very similar to the common cold or the flu in its infectiousness, though of course it is significantly more lethal. We were never going to wipe it out the way we wiped out smallpox or polio. We COULD, however, reduce it to an endemic disease against which we would get yearly shots, much like the flu in that respect, and while people will still get sick from it, we won't have hospital ERs overwhelmed with people on ventilators.

Sadly, I suspect the vaccine hesitant will continue to pay the price for their folly, but in ever decreasing numbers as COVID burns through its remaining human fuel :(.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[Draconi Redfir]

If only there was a vaccine, and safety measures people could take! ... oh wait!


I swear, the people who got vaccinated to eradicate Polio and Smallpox must be rolling in their graves.

[warmachine]

The vaccine hesitant will kill themselves too slowly. Covid only has an infection fatality rate of 1-2%, though heavily skewed to the elderly. Still enough of them to hike the reproduction rate and overload the hospitals every winter.

[Tyndmyr]

If only there was a vaccine, and safety measures people could take! ... oh wait!


I swear, the people who got vaccinated to eradicate Polio and Smallpox must be rolling in their graves.

Both of those vaccines had a far higher efficacy rate than what we're seeing for covid. Unfortunately, the eradication approach of those diseases is absolutely not on the table with current measures.

The southeast, which is generally more vaccine hesitant, happens to have low infection rates at present. It may be that they simply developed herd immunity faster as a result. Or it might be weather related.

[sihnfahl]

We were never going to wipe it out the way we wiped out smallpox or polio.

While there hasn't been a smallpox case in 40 years, there are still cases of polio. It's considered endemic in three countries; Pakistan, Nigeria and Afghanistan.
Fortunately, thanks to aggressive vaccination campaigns by the WHO and nationalities, it hasn't spread to neighboring countries.

Smallpox remains the sole disease we have stopped all cases of. Samples still exist, and some in surprising places.

The southeast, which is generally more vaccine hesitant, happens to have low infection rates at present. It may be that they simply developed herd immunity faster as a result. Or it might be weather related.

COVID-19 seems to be cyclical.

You get peaks and troughs. We're currently in a trough.

If you hit the covid tracking graph for Florida, for example... you'll see that in August, we had an absolute spike... and a decline. Just like we did in January. Spike, decline. And July 2020. Spike, decline.

If the pattern holds, I figure by February, we'll see a spike.

[Draconi Redfir]

Both of those vaccines had a far higher efficacy rate than what we're seeing for covid. Unfortunately, the eradication approach of those diseases is absolutely not on the table with current measures.

Even still, it was a plague that was hitting everyone and there was a fix for it that people took.

imagine living during the age of the Black Plauge or the Spanish flu, and someone comes in with a vaccine that's proven to work, and you decide not to take it. People would (Rightfully) think you were crazy! It's like choosing not to breathe!

[farothel]

Both of those vaccines had a far higher efficacy rate than what we're seeing for covid. Unfortunately, the eradication approach of those diseases is absolutely not on the table with current measures.

Those diseases were eradicated (or almost) by a vaccination campaign that lasted decades. We're only vaccinating for COVID for less than a year and there are regions that have not yet received any vaccines, so we're still far from getting rid of the disease. I also think that current thinking is to have it brought to the level of the yearly flu, or RSV, not fully eradicate. At the moment they're just trying to make sure the hospital system doesn't get overcharged with patients. And as I've seen studies published that unvaccinated are about 14 times more likely to have to go to the ICU then someone who is vaccinated (a bit less with people older than 75), vaccines do seem to help.

[Tvtyrant]

Those diseases were eradicated (or almost) by a vaccination campaign that lasted decades. We're only vaccinating for COVID for less than a year and there are regions that have not yet received any vaccines, so we're still far from getting rid of the disease. I also think that current thinking is to have it brought to the level of the yearly flu, or RSV, not fully eradicate. At the moment they're just trying to make sure the hospital system doesn't get overcharged with patients. And as I've seen studies published that unvaccinated are about 14 times more likely to have to go to the ICU then someone who is vaccinated (a bit less with people older than 75), vaccines do seem to help.

With Smallpox it only took 200 years, so expecting covid to happen at the same speed is slightly farfetched.

[Draconi Redfir]

somehow i was surprised to learn eradicating smallpox took 200 years. yet thinking on it, that makes a lot of sense.

suppose even if we are on the road to eradication, covid is going to be around for the rest of our lives in some form or another... hopefully we can at least get it manageable within five years like we did with the Spanish Flu. Roaring 20's 2.0 come on!

[pendell]

We have more tools in the box. Pfizer has a new antiviral which, according to Pfizer, reduces the risk of severe infection by 89%. Of course, that's what the company says and it requires independent testing before approval. But between this and the Merck antiviral we have more and more tools than just vaccines to fight this disease.

If we're very lucky, the final outcome of all this, aside from an endemic disease, will be a great deal more trust in mRNA vaccines with the results that we have more vaccines, against more diseases, faster.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[sihnfahl]

somehow i was surprised to learn eradicating smallpox took 200 years. yet thinking on it, that makes a lot of sense.

Well, considering the method of vaccination prior to the cowpox option, things were, shall we say, limited in production and distribution.

We have more tools in the box...

Note the price point. $700 for a course, or $140 a day. Which, as it's intended to be taken after symptoms start, is definitely better than a full hospital stay. Especially in the US. BUT!

Moderna's vaccine is going for $30 for the two shots. And would hopefully mean you'd never have to take the pills in the first place....

[warmachine]

As such treatments are an order of magnitude more expensive than even the expensive vaccinations, does this mean US health insurers will refuse to pay for those who refuse Covid vaccines?

[pendell]

As such treatments are an order of magnitude more expensive than even the expensive vaccinations, does this mean US health insurers will refuse to pay for those who refuse Covid vaccines?

That's a political question, I fear. I don't think health insurers mandate vaccination as a precondition of coverage for, well , anything at present. I'm not sure it's legal for them to do so.

There's a lot to say about the trajectory of health insurance in the US over the past decade but, forum rules. Probably not a question we can answer here or even speculate on.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[sihnfahl]

As such treatments are an order of magnitude more expensive than even the expensive vaccinations, does this mean US health insurers will refuse to pay for those who refuse Covid vaccines?

Legally, no. Health insurers can't penalize the unvaccinated.

However, they CAN incentivize by giving the vaccinated discounts, and use programs to reward those who reduce risks.

Now, here's the fun part. There are what are known as 'wellness programs', which are employer related programs to incentivize healthy living.

Delta, for example, has one where, if an employee is not vaccinated, they have to pay an additional $200 into their health insurance to cover the risks. Per month.

[Tyndmyr]

Even still, it was a plague that was hitting everyone and there was a fix for it that people took.

imagine living during the age of the Black Plauge or the Spanish flu, and someone comes in with a vaccine that's proven to work, and you decide not to take it. People would (Rightfully) think you were crazy! It's like choosing not to breathe!

People absolutely peddled remedies to both of those diseases, which they did swear would work. Thus the ol' "snake oil" terminology for fake cures. Some people took them, some people didn't, but unfortunately, the medical science of the time was...not great, and they most certainly did not bring about an end to either illness.

It gets into a complicated trust issue. It isn't enough to "know" something works. You have to consider how you know what you know, and if those sources are credible. If it's trusting the snake oil salesman, well...that won't do. It doesn't matter if that is "crazy", which I'm sure historically many people said about passing up all sorts of cures, it's about the chain of trust from whoever discovers the information to the person receiving it.

A salesman is clearly not a credible link. In many cases, media is also not seen as credible, and other people may be lacking in credibility as well. The modern world is too specialized for all of us to do our own covid studies, so it boils down to finding trusted information. In many cases, trust has deteriorated to the point that trusted information channels no longer exist.

Those diseases were eradicated (or almost) by a vaccination campaign that lasted decades. We're only vaccinating for COVID for less than a year and there are regions that have not yet received any vaccines, so we're still far from getting rid of the disease. I also think that current thinking is to have it brought to the level of the yearly flu, or RSV, not fully eradicate. At the moment they're just trying to make sure the hospital system doesn't get overcharged with patients. And as I've seen studies published that unvaccinated are about 14 times more likely to have to go to the ICU then someone who is vaccinated (a bit less with people older than 75), vaccines do seem to help.

Again, those studies are old. The resistance appears to exist, but it appears to decay fairly rapidly. In the UK, it looks like north of 70% of the deaths are now vaccinated people. That is still better results than the unvaccinated population, but only just.

If we did enjoy the 95% efficacy originally promised, and it lasted, then it'd be comparable to campaigns in which we were able to eventually achieve eradication. But with what we actually have, that does not seem possible. Perhaps a new vaccine will be made that works better and things will change. We can certainly approach it as we do the flu...but we have not yet eradicated the flu, and case for case, covid appears significantly more dangerous than the flu. A seasonal wave of covid will probably hit us somewhat harder than the seasonal flu does.

Perhaps this'll stimulate more research into addressing these sorts of threats? That's perhaps the most hopeful what if...certainly the flu has been studied for quite some time.

Note the price point. $700 for a course, or $140 a day. Which, as it's intended to be taken after symptoms start, is definitely better than a full hospital stay. Especially in the US. BUT!

Moderna's vaccine is going for $30 for the two shots. And would hopefully mean you'd never have to take the pills in the first place....

*eyeballs Modernas insane profits skeptically*

Corporate nonsense aside, and perhaps some sort of cost deal will be struck, no idea....it at least is only for people who are sick, whereas vaccines include the much larger non-sick population....and likely will have to add in cost for boosters as well. That makes it, well...closer? $700 for a course of pills does seem expensive for non-niche medicine, though.

I suspect it is likely that health insurers would pay this happily if it reduces overall cost of treatment, though. Hospital stays are quite expensive. Anything that shortens them ends up looking cost effective.

As for non-coverage, well...if coverage stops happening for unvaccinated people, those customers probably stop paying premiums. It'd be akin to having a netflix subscription that you never use. Sooner or later you'll get around to canceling it. If those companies take the long view, they probably do not want to lose a significant portion of their customer base.

The idea of some portion of the population being riskier than the rest is inherent to all insurance, and isn't a covid specific issue. Regardless of if it happens by cost premium or whatever, history indicates that these companies prefer to sell to as many customers as possible.

[Mystic Muse]

Well, I feel like my coworker caused the universe to go "hold my beer."

Coworker: "I survived cancer, I'm not going to die of COVID." As his reason for not getting vaccinated.

Half an hour later, we learn he was exposed to 3 people who tested positive.

Hope he ends up okay. Getting tested myself Friday just to be safe even though I'm vaccinated.

[sihnfahl]

*eyeballs Modernas insane profits skeptically*

192 million fully vaccinated in the US.

If even half are Moderna, that's 2.8 BILLION in revenue. Now add in all the countries that use Moderna as well.

They're not charging a lot -per dose-. It's the fact that folks need -so many doses-.

Or, in business terms, low margin, high volume.

$700 for a course of pills does seem expensive for non-niche medicine, though.

Not really. Remember, they are going to try to recoup their costs of R&D...