Vaccinate Me, Baby, One More Time

With the rollout of the first vaccination programme in the United Kingdom, the BBC had a helpful comparison table stating the differences between the four primary options. It’s a small piece, but as I often say, we don’t necessarily need large and complex graphics.

A nice little comparison table

Since there are only four vaccines to compare and only a handful of metrics, a table makes a lot of sense.

But I wanted to take it a step further and so I threw together a quick piece that showed some of the key differences. In particular I wanted to focus on the effectiveness, storage temperatures (key to distribution in the developing world), and cost.

My quick take

You can pretty quickly see why the United Kingdom’s vaccine developed by Oxford University and produced by AstraZeneca is so crucial to global efforts. The cost is a mere fraction of those of the other players and then for storage temperature, along with Russia’s Sputnik vaccine, it can be stored at common refrigerator temperatures. Both Pfizer’s and Moderna’s need to be kept chilled at temperatures beyond your common freezer.

And in terms of effectiveness, which is what we all really care about, they’re fairly similar, except for the Oxford University version. Oxford’s has an overall effectiveness of 70%. (In)famously, it exhibited a wide range of effectiveness during trials of between just over 60% and 90%.

The 60-odd% effectiveness was achieved when using the recommended dosage. However, in one small group of trial participants, they erroneously were given a half-dosage. And in that case, the dosage was found to be far more effective, approximately 90%. And this is why we would normally have longer, wider-ranging trials, to dial in things like doses. But, you know, pandemic and we’re trying to return to some sense of normalcy in a hurry.

All that said, Oxford’s will be crucial to the developing world, where incomes and government expenditures are lower and cold-storage infrastructure much less, well, developed. And we need to get this coronavirus under control globally, because if we don’t, the virus could persist in reservoirs, mutating for years until the right mutation comes along and the next pandemic sweeps across the globe.

I know we’re presently all fighting about wearing masks, but when we get to having vaccines available to the public, let’s really try to not make that a political issue.

Credit for the original piece goes to the BBC.

Credit for my piece goes to me.

Covid-19 Update: 6 December

Once more we look at the Covid-19 outbreak in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, Virginia, and Illinois. And things are bad getting worse. I skipped last week because I was on holiday for Thanksgiving, but the data was perhaps not the most indicative of the current state of affairs at the time. But we now have a full week’s worth of data since the holiday, and like I said at the top, things are bad. Especially when we compare the charts below to where we were two weeks ago.

New cases curves for PA, NJ, DE, VA, & IL.

We look at new cases and we can see the impact of Thanksgiving on the shape of the curves. Note how in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and to a lesser extent Delaware, we see a sharp plateau with the average before a sudden resumption of positive results. That’s Thanksgiving for you. You can see a similar, though perhaps more pronounced pattern in Illinois and Virginia where both states actually saw their average rate of new cases per day fall over the holiday.

Illinois, however, had been trending downward before Thanksgiving, and it might be due in part to the lockdown imposed by the city of Chicago. Whilst unpopular, lockdowns are an effective way of tamping down rising rates of new cases—vital to maintain capacity at hospitals and intensive care units (ICUs).

Of course cities and states are slowly implementing their own new lockdowns now. Philadelphia has been in one for two weeks now. Of course, we would want to wait 2–4 weeks to see if the numbers of new cases begin to fall, but the big intervening factor here is that very same Thanksgiving holiday. Did people travel? Anecdotally, I can say that the rooftop deck of my building’s parking garage, which I can see from my flat, was empty but for about five cars including my own. So people definitely travelled and likely visited other households. Not great.

And that could set us back, because new cases lead to new hospitalisations lead to new deaths. I would say that we probably should not expect as many deaths as we saw in the spring, because we are no longer dealing with a new virus. We know how to treat it far more effectively. But we also see that people aren’t taking the most basic preventative measures: wear a mask, and stay isolated.

In Illinois we are seeing death rates in excess of what we saw in the spring. And Pennsylvania isn’t far behind what we saw in March and April.

Death rates in PA, NJ, DE, VA, & IL.

And so I am increasingly worried that we will see more death in the winter than we did in the spring. And it’s depressing because so much of it could be avoided. Wearing a mask isn’t 100% effective. And there’s no guarantee that the few people an isolated household interact with, e.g. the delivery guy, aren’t themselves vectors. But both measures are far more effective than only occasionally wearing a mask at a house party to celebrate the holidays because we won’t let the virus beat us and interfere with our way of life.

The virus doesn’t care and you and I are tired of it. Tired of isolation. Of wearing masks. The virus is out there, spreading, and making people sick. And a fraction of those people are becoming ill enough to warrant hospitalisation. And a fraction of those are dying.

The next several weeks are going to be awful.

But you know that now. And you can brace yourself.

Credit for the graphics is mine.

How Would the Covid-19 Vaccines Work

Over the last week or so, we have been receiving some encouraging news from the makers of three viable Covid-19 vaccines: Pfizer, Moderna, and AstraZeneca. All three have reported their vaccines as at least 90% effective. This doesn’t mean the relevant regulatory agencies have verified that data, but it’s better than injecting ourselves with bleach.

Keep this in mind, though, a full vaccination roll out will take months. Having 20–40 million doses is great, but the population of the United States is 330 million. The expectation is a return to normalcy will not really begin until the end of Q3 or beginning of Q4 2021.

This article from the Washington Post does a good job of explaining some of the next steps—and some of the significant logistical hurdles. They illustrate part of the process of shipping the Pfizer vaccine, which needs to remain cooled -70ºC. That’s -94ºF. A wee bit colder than most normal freezers operate.

The Post article also illustrates how the Pfizer/Moderna type of vaccine works—the Pfizer and Moderna tackle it one way whilst AstraZeneca tackles it via a second method.

The first steps in the process.

There’s a lot going on here, but I like the simplified approach the designers took. This whole situation is complicated, but here we see the process distilled to its most essential elements. And the restrained use of colour helps tremendously.

The vial and then needle are filled red, and that red colour carries through into the messenger RNA (mRNA) that is absorbed by the cells and ultimately creates the spike proteins used by the virus (not the virus itself).

Credit for the piece goes to Carolyn Y. Johnson and Aaron Steckelberg.

Covid-19 Update: 22 November

I have been taking and have yet to take a lot of holiday time this year. So apologies for the sporadic posting. But we’re working this week, because travelling to see family this year is a bad idea.

So the last Covid-19 update I posted was about a month ago. A lot has happened in the last month, like an entire election. But you really should go back a month and look at the charts for the five states I cover. At the time I said things were

Bad and getting worse.

I added that

while we are seeing dramatic rises in new cases, we are not yet seeing the rises in deaths that accompanied similar rises in March and April

And so let’s take a look at where we are now. First with cases.

New case curves for PA, NJ, DE, VA, & IL.

And now with those deaths.

Death curves for PA, NJ, DE, VA, & IL.

I mean…

This has all been so obvious for so long. And yet, I had to run two errands yesterday—timed so that I’d be running them whilst most of Philadelphia watched their football team and they must have played poorly from all the people yelling “c’mon” out their windows—and whilst the streets were fairly empty, about half of the people I passed either had their masks down, were doing that idiotic cover-the-mouth-but-not-the-nose thing, or—and this is the kicker—flat out had no mask on at all.

I’ll repeat what I said a month ago, things are bad and getting worse. But, maybe unlike a month ago, people will start taking this seriously. Because a month ago I wrote about how new deaths were not yet at the levels of the spring.

Well take a look at Illinois. They got there in just four weeks.

Pennsylvania? Halfway there.

New Jersey? Starting to rise a little bit faster now.

Virginia? Well Virginia has one of the odder death patterns I’ve seen—partly by their repeated cycling through backlogged data—but it’s clearly on the upswing now.

Delaware? It’s hard to see because the numbers are so small, but it’s also on the rise.

So please, just wear a bloody mask.

Credit for the piece is mine.

Covid-19 Update: 19 October

I took a holiday yesterday. To be honest, I’ll be taking a lot of short holidays as the year winds down on account of not taking any the first three quarters of the year. So expect quite a few quiet Mondays and Fridays in the next few months.

But back to Covid-19. I won’t have a lot to say in this weekly update, because I didn’t write anything last night when I made these. Suffice it to say that things are bad and getting worse. Although, things could also be much worse. And by that I mean, while we are seeing dramatic rises in new cases, we are not yet seeing the rises in deaths that accompanied similar rises in March and April.

Although it should be said that while still low, deaths have been rising. The easiest seen instance of that is in Illinois, below. You can see deaths are rising slowly upwards and the state is approaching 50 deaths per day. While that is still off from the peaks of 100+ earlier this year, that’s still too many people.

New case curves for PA, NJ, DE, VA, and IL.
Death curves for PA, NJ, DE, VA, and IL.

Credit for the pieces is mine.

Covid-19 Is Not the Flu Part Augh!

Yesterday, President Trump once again lied to the American public on his social media platforms. He falsely claimed that Covid-19 was nothing worse than the flu, which he falsely claimed sometimes kills more than 100,000 people. Once again we are going to look at the data comparing influenza to the novel coronavirus and the disease it causes, Covid-19. We are going to look at the president’s claim that Covid isn’t much worse than the flu, which sometimes kills more than 100,000 people.

I mean, I don’t know where else to begin. Over the last decade, not in any flu season has the flu killed 100,000 people. In the 2017/18 season, the CDC estimates the flu killed 61,000 Americans. But they also give a range where they feel with 95% confidence that the flu killed between 46,000 and 95,000 Americans. And that is the closest it’s come.

In fact, as of yesterday, Covid-19 has killed 207,000 Americans. That averages out to about 30,000 Americans per month. In other words, Covid-19 has killed each month the same number of people the flu kills in an entire (average) fly season.

And the worst part is that we still haven’t exited the first wave of the coronavirus, because we never got it under control in the first place.

I just don’t know how many more times we have to say this, but because the president keeps lying about it, I feel like I need to say, once again…

Covid-19. Is. Not. The. Flu.

Credit for the piece is mine.

Covid-19 Update: 28 September

Apologies for the lack of posting, work is pretty busy as we wrap some projects up. But here’s a look at the latest Covid data for Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, and Illinois. Normally we look at Virginia as well, but their site was down for maintenance and so there was no data to report.

When it comes to new cases, we have on the one hand places like New Jersey and Illinois, where new cases continue to rise. The rate is nowhere near as fast as it was in March and April, but the inclines are clearly there. Delaware has been up and down, but largely hovering around just shy of 100 new cases per day. Pennsylvania is a bit harder to tell because of some dramatic swings that have knocked the average around, but it does appear to be trending upward, though I’m not quite as confident in that as I am with New Jersey and Illinois.

New cases curve in PA, NJ, DE, and IL.

And then when we look at deaths, we generally have good news. Last week we were looking at Virginia and its working through a backlog of unreported deaths. That artificially inflated recent days, but also depressed deaths earlier in the pandemic. Beyond the old Dominion, however, deaths have remained fairly low. Only in Pennsylvania and Illinois do they hover around 20 deaths per day from the virus.

Death curves in PA, NJ, DE, AND IL.

Credit for the piece is mine.

Covid-19 Update: 21 September

Apologies for the lack of posting yesterday, but I wasn’t feeling well. I had some other things planned for today, but then some other things happened this weekend and then I took ill. But it’s still important to look at what’s going on with the pandemic, especially in the United States where it’s been disastrously handled by the White House.

As we approach 200,000 dead Americans, we still look at what’s going on in the tristate region alongside Virginia and Illinois. Specifically we compare last week’s post to this week’s post. Note that normally we look at Sunday data on Monday morning and today we’ll be looking at Monday data on a Tuesday. Both Sunday and Monday are reports from their preceding days, and so we are still looking at weekend reporting of figures. So we can expect them to be lower than workweek data.

New cases curves for PA, NJ, DE, VA, & IL.

If we compare the above chart to last week’s, we can see that Pennsylvania has decidedly reversed course. Whereas things had been headed down in terms of averages, I was worried about the days of daily new cases exceeding the average. Sure enough the average has caught up to the new cases and we’re seeing a rise in the average to levels not really seen since the summer.

New Jersey remains on the path of slowly increasing its numbers of new cases. Delaware looks to be heading back down after a small bump. We might be seeing the beginning of a decline in cases in Virginia, down from its long-running plateau of nearly 1000 new cases per day. And finally in Illinois, it’s not quite clear where things are headed at present. But for the one-day spike that raised the average, it seemed as if new cases had been in decline, but the end of that otherwise decline might have been an inflection point as the average may be trending back upwards again.

Death curves in PA, NJ, DE, VA, & IL.

Then when we look at deaths, well we see no real significant change in four of the states. But last week, we were saying Virginia was at a good spot with its latest surge cycle coming to an end. Well now look at that spike and deaths that are higher now than they were in the spring. If you follow my daily posts on social media, you’ll know that there’s a reason for this.

For the last week Virginia has been working through a backlog of deaths that were not entered into its electronic database. And so these deaths happened over the last several months. Consequently the rise, if there even is one, is not nearly as high as shown. But it also means that the earlier peaks may have been far higher than reported at the time.

Credit for the pieces is mine.

Covid-19 Update: 13 September

Apologies for the lack of posting last week. I’m on deadline for, well, today. Plus I had some technical difficulties on the server side of the blog. But it’s a Monday, so we’re back with Covid updates for Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, Virginia, and Illinois.

New cases curves for PA, NJ, DE, VA, & IL

The good news, such that it is during a global pandemic, is that in Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Illinois, the seven-day average appears to be lower than this time last week or, especially in Delaware’s situation, about to break. For the First State, I’m looking at those days prior to the weekend below the average line that, in combination with the weekend, will likely begin to push that trend downward, especially if we keep seeing fewer and fewer cases this week.

Unfortunately, some states like Virginia and New Jersey appear to be, not surging, but experiencing low and slow growth. Low and slow, while great for barbecue, is less than ideal during a pandemic. Granted, it’s better than the rapid infections we saw in March, April, and May, but it still means the virus is spreading in those communities.

Death curves in PA, NJ, DE, VA, & IL.

When we look at deaths from Covid-19 in these five states, the news is better. The only real significant level of deaths was in Virginia, but we can see that the latest little surge, which was at peak last week, has now all but abated, almost to a level not seen since the spring.

The other states remain low with, at most, deaths average about 20 per day. Again, not good, but better than hundreds per day.

Credit for the pieces is mine.

Covid-19 Update: 7 September

Yesterday was a holiday in the States, and so let’s begin this shortened week with a look at the Covid situation in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, Virginia, and Illinois.

If we compare this morning’s charts of yesterday’s data to last Monday’s, we can see some concerning trends.

New case curves in PA, NJ, DE, VA, & IL.

In Pennsylvania, that includes a rising trend. Anecdotally, that might be tied to the outbreaks in and around universities. We see rising trends in Delaware and Virginia as well, though some of Delaware’s new numbers might be tied to some cases that failed to initially make into the state’s digital database. And so as the state begins to enter them now, it artificially inflates the new case numbers.

Illinois had an enormous spike of cases from a backlog that the state entered, over 5,000 new case in that one day. That’s going to mess with the average trend given the size of the anomaly. So we’ll need to wait until later this week to see where the trend really is.

Then in terms of deaths, the most worrying state was Virginia which last week was mid-peak. But that appears to maybe be trending back down. Though the data we have does include two day’s of weekend numbers and Tuesday’s numbers, instead of the usual “rebound” will be more of the usual weekend depressed numbers.

Death curves in PA, NJ, DE, VA, & IL.

Credit for the pieces is mine.