Coronavirus (Covid-19)

[Daniel]

I know, huh. Read the room Michael Bay...

[ShyViolet]

I’m lost for words.


(And here I thought watching Outbreak again was scary and not really that appropriate right now...)

[Daniel]

It's like releasing a 9/11 movie mere months after it happened. Incredibly tasteless.

[ShyViolet]

I completely agree.

[Ben]

It’s like releasing a 9/11 movie on 9/12.

Darn it, though...there goes a treatment I was developing called "Covid-23".

[EricJ]

I know, huh. Read the room Michael Bay...

Apparently, he's only x-producing, so we can't make "Dystopian Michael Bay thrillers torn from today's headlines!" jokes about what happened to "The Island".

And yeah, Mike, read the room:
Unless you really ARE one of the crazy celebrity psycho-Trumpists (which we know exist after James Woods started shooting off his big mouth on Twitter), one week before the election is not a good time to start throwing around innocently clueless headline-cash-in thrillers about rebelling for freedom against Pandemic-era fascist lockdown states.
But then, this is Hollywood, where national headlines like 9/11 and the BLM riots are Things That Happen to Other Cities, and when it crosses the desert and happens in Los Angeles' sunny sanctum-sanctorum too, Hollywood thinks it's either the end of the world, or a new neato Marketing Trend that they can attach to old reliable storylines.

[ShyViolet]

How’s everyone been holding up?

[Randall]

I'm a little nervous about going into another shutdown, as our numbers are also increasing. But, I'm also ready if that happens. We cut back on spending this year, and I'd still work from home some (though it's a big financial hit for me to do so). And unlike last time, I'd be much better prepared for how working from home would work. And, of course, staying at home is safer than being at work, so that mitigates things somewhat. Or, it trades one anxiety for another, I guess.

Regardless, it'll be a long winter! We just got slammed with a blizzard that dumped almost two feet on us. Only last week, I was still cycling to work! Now we'll really be trapped inside for a while.

At least the vaccine news was promising this week. Hopefully we'll see an end (or at least a softening) to this craziness at some point in the next year.

[Daniel]

Yes, still a ways to go but it's a meaningful first step. 90% supposedly!

[Randall]

I hate to be the gloomy Gus, as it does sound promising so far, but... well, we must look at the science. (I work in health care, and am somewhat use to reading studies.) So far, fewer than 100 people in the whole study, including the placebo group, have gotten covid. That's out of nearly 44,000 participants. That's not much data to go on, really; it's just really early. We can extrapolate that so far about 85 or so placebo people got covid, and likely ten or fewer of those who got the vaccine contracted covid. While this is certainly promising, it is difficult to reach scientific conclusions just yet. With numbers that low, chance can be a huge factor. In fact, a couple of weeks earlier, Pfizer was talking about their study possibly being a failure, since so few people in it, in total, actually had gotten covid so far. In fact, it looked like they would need to possibly repeat the study. Their announcement last week sounded to me like a publicity ploy to get their stock going. (Announcing such early results is highly unusual as well.)

However.... the early news certainly leans far more good than bad. Hopefully, that 90% number holds up over the next few weeks of the study; that would be amazing. Actually, we should be ecstatic if the final number is even 70%.

[Ben]

Yes, exactly. The regular flu vaccine is only 67% successful, and there's a lot of stock put into that each year. And even after immunisation there are still unanswered questions...we will still be living with masks and personal distances for a while to come.

[ShyViolet]

Things are a little better in my area. We’re not in lockdown anymore, hopefully won’t be anytime soon. I’m only riding busses when absolutely necessary.

For about a month I had a mild cough, but just got tested last week and thank God it came back negative.

[Daniel]

That must have been nerve-wracking. Glad you're ok.

[ShyViolet]

Thanks Dan!

[Daniel]

Empty shelves again! Ah! Saw it on the news but it doesn't become real until you see it yourself. Good grief. I was able to get my though, so all was right with the world.