VirtualExile

A peer-reviewed study of a Stage 3 trial using the Russian "Sputnik V" COVID vaccine found it was >90% effective 21 days after the first shot.

Each vaccine that makes it across the finish line brings our world that much closer to a new normal :-)

Also, if we want to reduce the proliferation of new COVID variants, we need to vaccinate as many people around the world as possible, and then continue with annual booster shots for the new variants.  So we need a global COVID vaccine industry that has the capacity to manufacture and deliver 8 billion doses per year.  Reportedly, over 1 billion doses of the Russian vaccine have been ordered by over 50 countries, so Russia will be a big player in this global market.

Controversially, Russia did not wait until its Stage 3 data were publicly available or independently reviewed before pushing out its vaccine, both domestically and internationally.  Personally I wouldn't have accepted one of their jabs until now.

I don't expect the US to approve Sputnik V for use here, because of our long-standing geopolitical rivalry with Russia.

China has rolled out its own vaccine also, but I'm not aware of it having been peer-reviewed by a Western publication as yet.  They claim 79% efficacy.

The British AstraZeneca vaccine has been approved by the EU and UK, but not yet by the US.  AstraZeneca made some notorious mistakes in its earlier Stage 3 trials, so the US turned it down.  AstraZeneca started a new Stage 3 trial in the US, let's hope that one goes well.

And the J&J vaccine should be applying for US approval any day now, after the company released preliminary data last week.

Meanwhile in the US we've got the (German) Pfizer and (US) Moderna vaccines, steadily pumping along, 27 million people have received at least their first dose so far.

2021 is the Year of the Vaccine.

It's tough to justify expanding my Quarantine Bubble to add a play partner when COVID-19 cases are hitting new records both nationally and locally.  Everybody predicted we'd have another wave of infections after kids returned to school and now we're about to have the great social mixing bowls of Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year's Eve, which always fuel the spread of respiratory infections.  I've read about how many people are trying to choose their Thanksgiving Dinner "pods" carefully, but if you socialize with people who you aren't already living or socializing with, then you're adding to the chances of spreading the virus, and if you add up tens of millions of households doing what you're doing ... those chances add up.  Thousands of people will die because they gathered for Thanksgiving Dinner with family and friends.

And now two candidate vaccines have reported preliminary >90% efficacy.  So it sounds like there will be a payoff to avoiding the virus until I can get the vaccine, if the safety data are good.

A friend of mine who also likes to play with butt toys suggested that we have a virtual play session over Skype in the meantime, I might do that with him, but I won't get my next time to self until the weekend after this one, and his time to self may not always match mine.  I did greatly enjoy my time to self last night, I really wanted to extend it to two nights, but I have a lot of work to do tomorrow and I'm already taking Friday off to drive T to an outpatient procedure.  My sister is coming on Saturday, so after T's procedure on Friday I'll be cleaning house.

Prior to the procedure, T got a COVID-19 test on Monday -- he was negative.

My old dentist's office keeps making cleaning appointments for me that I do not want -- I'm still avoiding routine medical and dental visits, except for that one annual skin cancer check.

So, probably the biggest change since K moved is that I'm on the phone more with people and doing video chats with friends.  I haven't "replaced" him as far as either in-person social outlet or sexual outlet.  The Cum Deck is telling me not to have orgasms.

I haven't looked at the global numbers in months.  From a global perspective, there were never "waves" of COVID-19, it started killing people in late March, ramped up during April, and has killed about 5,000 people per day ever since.  Various countries have experienced waves, but globally the virus has spread steady as a ticking clock.

Normally, about 150,000 people die each day around the world, so this is only 3-4% of the total death rate.  Most people will die of something else.

Although I suspect most global COVID-19 deaths are not recorded as such, because the poor countries of the world can't effectively test, track, and trace this disease.  In the rich countries we're probably missing 1/3 of the COVID-19 deaths.

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A 28-year-old physician died of COVID-19 even though he was participating in a vaccine trial.  The scientists running the trial disclosed that he'd received a placebo as part of the control group.

Everyone is eagerly awaiting the first data dump from the Stage III trials, but there haven't been enough sick people yet to have a statistical judgment of vaccine effectiveness vs. placebo.

And we won't know for many months or perhaps years whether the vaccine will have lasting effectiveness.  Some scientists expect that we'll need yearly boosters, as with influenza.  But we simply don't know.

We do not know yet whether any of these vaccine candidates work, or how well they work, or for how long they work.

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Delivering a vaccine to the 8 billions will not be easy.  We've only ever eradicated one disease via vaccination -- Smallpox.  Every other disease we vaccinate against still exists, somewhere.

It's why I've said from the beginning that we're unlikely to eradicate COVID-19.  Too many people will remain unvaccinated, no matter the effectiveness level of the vaccine.

So when will we declare the emergency over and just move on with our lives?

The notorious H1N1 influenza of 2009 is still circulating, but NOBODY cares.  It's been one of the flu variants we vaccinate against every year since 2009.  It's still killing people.  But NOBODY cares.

So, come 2031, COVID-19 will still be circulating, still killing people, but NOBODY will care.  I'll come back to this journal entry in 11 years to check.  Somebody somewhere will die of COVID-19 every day in 2031, but NOBODY will care.  I swear.