Weekly coronavirus-related chat, questions, and minor updates - week of March 8

In the US, the CDC has released new guidelines for vaccinated people

Fully vaccinated people can:

• Visit with other fully vaccinated people indoors without wearing masks or physical distancing
• Visit with unvaccinated people from a single household who are at low risk for severe COVID-19 disease indoors without wearing masks or physical distancing
• Refrain from quarantine and testing following a known exposure if asymptomatic

They are defining “fully vaccinated” as two weeks after the second dose. (Or first dose for the J&J vaccine.)

Late-Stage Pandemic Is Messing With Your Brain

“We’re all walking around with some mild cognitive impairment,” said Mike Yassa, a neuroscientist at UC Irvine. “Based on everything we know about the brain, two of the things that are really good for it are physical activity and novelty. A thing that’s very bad for it is chronic and perpetual stress.” Living through a pandemic—even for those who are doing so in relative comfort—“is exposing people to microdoses of unpredictable stress all the time,” said Franklin, whose research has shown that stress changes the brain regions that control executive function, learning, and memory.

This describes me to a T:

I have a job that allows me to work from home, an immune system and a set of neurotransmitters that tend to function pretty well, a support network, a savings account, decent Wi-Fi, plenty of hand sanitizer. I have experienced the pandemic from a position of obscene privilege, and on any given day I’d rank my mental health somewhere north of “fine.” And yet I feel like I have spent the past year being pushed through a pasta extruder. I wake up groggy and spend every day moving from the couch to the dining-room table to the bed and back. At some point night falls, and at some point after that I close work-related browser windows and open leisure-related ones. I miss my little rat friends, but I am usually too tired to call them.

I just received my blind shot, CureVac phase 3. 50/50 of a placebo. And yet I'm so excited, and kinda proud to be part of the test group, feels like I'm actually doing something to help.

The vaccine rollout is awful in Belgium. They just announced, proudly, that they decided to delay the second pfizer shot and will be "vaccinating 65 year olds in April".

April.

Awful.

Brazil's Bolsonaro Denied COVID-19 Was a Problem. Now He's Embracing Vaccines. Here's What Changed.

Jair Bolsonaro is trying to shed his image as a “coronavirus denier”. Brazil’s far right president has spent the past year dismissing COVID-19 as “a little flu”, and railing against lockdowns. As recently as Mar. 4 he told Brazilians to “stop whining” about the country’s deaths from the virus, which have surpassed 270,000 – the second highest toll in the world after the U.S. Bolsonaro has dismissed offers from vaccine manufacturers to buy millions of doses, said he wouldn’t get a shot himself, and joked that Pfizer’s vaccine may “turn people into crocodiles.”

On Wednesday, though, the president struck a different tone. At a somber press conference in Brasilia, the first event where he has worn a mask in more than a month, Bolsonaro signed into law three new measures designed to speed up the purchase of vaccines. A week earlier, his government announced it was in advanced talks to purchase vaccine doses from Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson. “We are working and have been working tirelessly since the beginning in the fight against the pandemic,” he said. “We are an example to the world.”

But analysts say it is politics, not the growing death toll, that is driving Bolsonaro’s attempt to rebrand his pandemic leadership. Growing pressure from Brazil’s business community to act over the last few months was bolstered this week by the return of a major political rival to the national stage. On Monday, former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva – the popular leftist who was excluded from the 2018 election because of corruption charges – had his name cleared by Brazil’s supreme court, freeing him to run against Bolsonaro in 2022.

President Biden will announce tonight he's directing states to make vaccines available to all adults by May 1. There will also be a federal website by then. His goal is to bring the country “closer to normal” by July 4. Per administration officials.

https://twitter.com/jeneps/status/1370156100184633344

All Michigan adults will be eligible for a COVID-19 vaccine by April 5

Beginning Monday, March 22, any residents 16 years or older with disabilities or medical conditions that put them at higher risk of a serious cases of COVID-19 will be eligible for a vaccine, according to Friday morning, March 12, announcement from the governor’s office.

Additionally, all Michiganders 16 years and older will be eligible for a shot beginning Monday, April 5.

Loud exhale

Finally, the end it truly in sight. I know I won't actually get the vaccine on either of those days, but at least I'll be able to schedule something.

Rapid Covid tests sell out in Germany on first day

The German government is relying heavily on rapid tests to steer country through the next phase of the pandemic as citizens tire of coronavirus shutdowns but the pace of vaccinations remains sluggish.

From Monday, all Germans will be entitled to one free rapid test a week, carried out by a professional at pharmacies or designated testing centres.

Several manufacturers have also received regulatory approval for DIY tests meant for home use.

The goal is to give people more freedom after months of closures and limits on socialising, but experts have stressed that the quick tests are less reliable than standard PCR testing and that the usual hygiene precautions should be maintained even with a negative result.

Aldi is limiting the purchases to one packet per person, containing five tests for 24.99 euros ($30). The test is done with a nasal swab and delivers a result within 15 minutes.

Lidl's offer is similar and costs 21.99 euros.

Flooded with Hollywood and media workers, Pasadena cancels COVID-19 vaccine clinic

Pasadena officials on Tuesday canceled a COVID-19 vaccination clinic for senior citizens, grocery store employees and other essential workers after hundreds of people who were not eligible for the shots signed up for appointments.

People who did not yet qualify for the vaccine under state guidelines claimed about 900 of the 1,500 slots at a clinic that was designed for people older than 65 and essential workers who live or work in Pasadena, city spokeswoman Lisa Derderian said.

Many of the appointments were booked by people who worked in the media and in Hollywood, Derderian said, including at production companies, streaming TV services and news outlets and on the sets of soap operas.

[...]

The registration link for Thursday’s vaccination clinic had spread quickly. A warning in red letters, telling users not to forward the links, had failed to keep the links private.

[...]

Some patients said they thought they were eligible because the page included a drop-down menu that asked users to select their industry, including “Service — entertainment, performance.” A warning message in dark red letters, directly above the form, read: “Vaccine supply is limited. Before registering, please check to see if you are eligible to sign up.”

[...]

The Pasadena health department tries to improve its screening process by calling every person who lists an address outside the city on the registration form, Derderian said. Many are restaurant workers and grocery store employees who are eligible for shots and commute to the city for work, she said. Officials remind them to bring a pay stub, a letter from their employer or another form of documentation that shows they work within the city boundaries.

Calling 900 people within a few days to verify their eligibility or ask them not to come was just too much, Derderian said. The city decided to reschedule the clinic. No new date has been confirmed.

It seems like the form didn’t do much to help people decide if they’re eligible and just tried to get people to figure it out on their own, and they didn’t.

My Year of Nothing but Everything

Both the absence of a national health system comprehensive enough to accurately determine the number of high-risk individuals and medicine’s historic bias, rooted in white supremacy, which systematically under-diagnoses and underserves BIPOC individuals combine to uphold the mistreatment and erasure of disabled Americans. When this is over, there will be no recognition by our government of the scale of our community’s loss, just as there was no true appreciation of the scale of our existence before.

Denmark, Norway and Iceland suspend use of AstraZeneca Covid vaccine over reports of blood clots

Covid-19: Rapid testing available to all businesses in England

The tests are free until 30 June, and companies can register until 31 March.

The hope is that asymptomatic cases can be detected quickly, thereby preventing workplace outbreaks.

So far, more than 3,500 businesses have signed up to offer workplace testing programmes, the DHSC said, and more than 14,000 have registered their interest in offering rapid testing.

Citi Debuts Rapid At-Home Covid Tests to Branch Workers, Traders

Citigroup Inc. has begun providing certain branch workers and traders with at-home rapid Covid-19 tests as part of a larger study with a researcher at Harvard University.

The lender has so far invited 1,000 of its workers -- including branch employees in the Chicago area and traders in New York -- to participate in the pilot. Citigroup is hoping to make the testing available to all of its branch workers in the coming weeks, which would bring the total number of employees involved to more than 6,000.

[...]

For now, the study is limited to Citigroup. Since the tests being used aren’t yet approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Mina said he wants to see early results before inviting other companies to participate in the trial.

“The trial is just getting started but already we’re finding people who are infected before they would have been detected through symptom checks and they would have otherwise gone to work,” Mina said.

California to offer affordable rapid COVID tests to school districts returning to campus

The BinaxNow tests will be available to school districts and will provide results in 15 minutes, according to the California Department of Education, which is working to identify school districts that are interested in testing students.

The news comes after Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a school reopening deal that puts pressure on schools to get students back to their classrooms by April. Most school districts in the Sacramento region have announced reopening dates for the end of March or early April.

The antigen testing will cost $5 per student, more affordable than tests previously used by school districts. Schools can use CARES Act funds, but the state indicated it is trying to offer the testing free to schools in the future.

It will cost about $14 per student if school districts decide to test students twice a week. Daily testing could be possible, state officials said. The state has about 5 million BinaxNow tests in warehouses.

The tests are accurate and are 20 times cheaper than PCR testing, according to Dr. Charity Dean, co-founder of the Public Health Company. PCR testing often costs $100 per tests at sites.

The U.S. Is Sitting on Tens of Millions of Vaccine Doses the World Needs

Tens of millions of doses of the coronavirus vaccine made by the British-Swedish company AstraZeneca are sitting idly in American manufacturing facilities, awaiting results from its U.S. clinical trial while countries that have authorized its use beg for access.

The fate of those doses of AstraZeneca’s vaccine is the subject of an intense debate among White House and federal health officials, with some arguing the administration should let them go abroad where they are desperately needed while others are not ready to relinquish them, according to senior administration officials.

[...]

About 30 million doses are currently bottled at AstraZeneca’s facility in West Chester, Ohio, which handles “fill-finish,” the final phase of the manufacturing process during which the vaccine is placed in vials, one official with knowledge of the stockpile said.

[...]

As frustrations simmer, some European officials are blaming the United States. The European Council president, Charles Michel, said the United States, along with Britain, “have imposed an outright ban on the export of vaccines or vaccine components produced on their territory.” Asked on Thursday about the American supply of the AstraZeneca vaccine, Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, told reporters that vaccine manufacturers were free to export their products made in the United States while also fulfilling the terms of their contracts with the government.

But because AstraZeneca’s vaccine was produced with help from the Defense Production Act, Mr. Biden has to approve shipments of doses overseas. Such a move could have huge negative political repercussions as long as Americans are still clamoring for shots.