COVID-19 Watch

Phase 3 trials are suddenly ending now because the large spike in cases makes it easier to gather statistically significant data. "The companies said that out of 170 cases of Covid-19, 162 were in the placebo group, and eight were in the vaccine group. Out of 10 cases of severe Covid-19, nine had received a placebo." That's amassingly effective, far better than I would have hopeed. It will take time, but the end of this nightmare may at least be in sight... https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/18/health/pfizer-covid-vaccine.html?referringSource=articleShare 

From the very start of the pandemic, the most important unknown was the number of mild or asymptomatic cases that were being missed by testing.  If the number of missed infections was high, then the disease was less deadly, and population immunity levels were higher.   If the number of missed infections was low, then the disease was more deadly, and population immunity levels were lower. We did our best to figure this out, and you can look back through my blog history to see how I wrestled with the question.  During the summer, cases simply did not rise at the rate I would have expected, and I began to ask questions like whether it was possible that cross immunity to other coronaviruses had created a large fraction of the population that had pre-existing immunity. I simply could not understand why cases weren't rising faster than they were (given our behavior). Yes, we saw cases go up in NEW locations that had not yet hade major outbreaks. But places with large outbr...