>NPR gaslights us that experts ‘knew all along’ that Covid-19 was airborne and ventilation and filtration were important ‘and now the public is catching on.’
Unless Anya Kamenetz is reporting, NPR's education coverage is constant gaslighting.
This wasn't the particular example I was looking for but you get the idea:
"Too much focus on learning loss
It is objectively true that over the last two years, kids have not experienced the same lessons they would have, if school had just been in person. But, I really think there's too much focus on that or on this idea of learning loss, whatever that means."
> We can’t use predictions to stay ahead because even if we had perfect predictions it would change nothing.
I happened to be chatting with a biologist friend yesterday, and we discussed exactly this (amusingly, at exactly the same time that the Bloom Lab was tweeting about their multiplexed vaccine idea). I think there's a potential novel path here that could be useful.
If we want to actually respond to new variants fast enough to be meaningful, as you've discussed before we'd need to buy into releasing vaccines that aren't fully tested. Perhaps you could get far enough to make a dent in a particular variant of concern by taking a new spike sequence, running a quick 2-week challenge trial, and then getting it out into manufacturing within a month of the sequence first being identified as "variant of concern". But the problem with moving that fast is if a new spike sequence happens to match another cell in your body, then it could be extremely harmful. (And worst-case, only extremely harmful to one sub-group). And as you note, you've already lost a lot of the window to make a difference.
So, rather than having to predict the next mutation accurately as the Bloom Lab notes we cannot do, perhaps one thing you could do (and this might help the FDA to get comfortable with increasing the speed of EUA approval) is to proactively many generate hypothetical spike sequences and run stage-1 style trials on these future-vaccines. This is kind of like GOF research, except in some sense the inverse; instead of synthesizing lots of new viruses trying to locate a more-deadly strain, you're just mapping out the space of potentially-safe/-unsafe vaccines without assessing whether there was GOF on those specific spike sequences. Since you're screening for adverse effects rather than measuring vaccine-specific efficacy, you can also potentially test multiple vaccine targets at once, using a grid methodology to increase coverage of the vaccine-space per test participant.
So in this way, one could potentially map out the safety space of millions of vaccine candidates, allowing us to move much faster when a given VOC appears that is "close enough" to a pre-tested vaccine target. I think this sort of thing could go some way to assuaging the fears the FDA has of accidentally sending out a Thalidomide vaccine booster. Of course, it doesn't address the downstream manufacturing/distribution challenges.
What levels of uptake would we see for monthly/quarterly/biannual/annual boosters in this model? I think you'd probably need to be something like >= quarterly frequency to be able to have the current-variant-specific benefit. And maybe there's a reason we couldn't go that frequently for other reasons. (Original antigenic sin?) Can a monthly Covid "new spike sequence top-up" vaccine be made to work for those that actually care about maintaining high levels of protection?
There are things you can do. The key step is realizing that the obstacle, as you realize, is not the science but the regulations - everything you'd like to do here is not allowed, the question is what you could perhaps get to be allowed that would at least help.
Kevin Drum points out that on Wednesday 7/13 the FDA gave the go-ahead on the Danish monkeypox vaccine, it was reported on 7/14, and he's kind of annoyed that nobody who went nuts about the original story has noticed.
While it is kind of dumb that it takes 2 days for the FDA to make the obviously-correct decision on something like this, it's a lot better than I expected. I'm pleasantly surprised.
My experience was that there was plenty of good information all along. I habitually ignore government and major media advice about anything, so I didn't particularly care what the policy guidelines were. I got vaccinated in January 2021 because I had read the clinical trial results, not because anyone told me to. I got the booster because it seemed like it helped. I took Paxlovid when I got COVID because I'd read about it and it seemed effective. It was.
The CDC.gov website had tons of good information and studies. I ignored the one-size-fits-all front page recommendations written by bureaucrats. That's not science. It's politics.
I've always been like this, so I never got particularly irritated about the lying. If you understand that major media and twitter, (sorry, Zvi, but I seem to do fine without it) are garbage (and always have been), you can get lots of good information to inform decisions.
I don't expect government, media, or health care systems to go out of their way to tell me what to do. That's my job. Reporters are not experts (typically they aren't very bright, either), and any media will always amplify stories that get attention rather than those that are true. Governments are controlled by elected officials who will do what they think advances their chances of reelection. Or, they like using power because they can. In any case, they aren't honest and won't help me. Why expect them to?
Getting upset at lying media is always about how "they lied to other people who aren't as smart as I am because I knew all along." It's never about being deceived personally. OK, well, if you weren't fooled, the correct information was out there. So what? It's exactly like the weird Russia collusion argument that somehow shitty facebook ads decided the 2016 election, with no proof anyone changed their vote because of it. "Disinformation" is always about other people who disagree with you. Whatever.
Surviving COVID is a personal responsibility. So is deciding when it's time to stop worrying about it. I stopped caring after my second shot when my odds of dying dropped to under 1/5000. No longer relevant. The truth is that a lot of things are not very important to people who have their shit together. Most big problems that media goes on about are easily avoidable if you accept that it's your problem to solve, not someone else's. Then, all of a sudden, it's easy.
>NPR gaslights us that experts ‘knew all along’ that Covid-19 was airborne and ventilation and filtration were important ‘and now the public is catching on.’
Unless Anya Kamenetz is reporting, NPR's education coverage is constant gaslighting.
This wasn't the particular example I was looking for but you get the idea:
"Too much focus on learning loss
It is objectively true that over the last two years, kids have not experienced the same lessons they would have, if school had just been in person. But, I really think there's too much focus on that or on this idea of learning loss, whatever that means."
https://www.npr.org/2022/01/28/1076178383/a-school-principals-blunt-warning-we-cant-pretend-the-pandemic-is-over
> We can’t use predictions to stay ahead because even if we had perfect predictions it would change nothing.
I happened to be chatting with a biologist friend yesterday, and we discussed exactly this (amusingly, at exactly the same time that the Bloom Lab was tweeting about their multiplexed vaccine idea). I think there's a potential novel path here that could be useful.
If we want to actually respond to new variants fast enough to be meaningful, as you've discussed before we'd need to buy into releasing vaccines that aren't fully tested. Perhaps you could get far enough to make a dent in a particular variant of concern by taking a new spike sequence, running a quick 2-week challenge trial, and then getting it out into manufacturing within a month of the sequence first being identified as "variant of concern". But the problem with moving that fast is if a new spike sequence happens to match another cell in your body, then it could be extremely harmful. (And worst-case, only extremely harmful to one sub-group). And as you note, you've already lost a lot of the window to make a difference.
So, rather than having to predict the next mutation accurately as the Bloom Lab notes we cannot do, perhaps one thing you could do (and this might help the FDA to get comfortable with increasing the speed of EUA approval) is to proactively many generate hypothetical spike sequences and run stage-1 style trials on these future-vaccines. This is kind of like GOF research, except in some sense the inverse; instead of synthesizing lots of new viruses trying to locate a more-deadly strain, you're just mapping out the space of potentially-safe/-unsafe vaccines without assessing whether there was GOF on those specific spike sequences. Since you're screening for adverse effects rather than measuring vaccine-specific efficacy, you can also potentially test multiple vaccine targets at once, using a grid methodology to increase coverage of the vaccine-space per test participant.
So in this way, one could potentially map out the safety space of millions of vaccine candidates, allowing us to move much faster when a given VOC appears that is "close enough" to a pre-tested vaccine target. I think this sort of thing could go some way to assuaging the fears the FDA has of accidentally sending out a Thalidomide vaccine booster. Of course, it doesn't address the downstream manufacturing/distribution challenges.
What levels of uptake would we see for monthly/quarterly/biannual/annual boosters in this model? I think you'd probably need to be something like >= quarterly frequency to be able to have the current-variant-specific benefit. And maybe there's a reason we couldn't go that frequently for other reasons. (Original antigenic sin?) Can a monthly Covid "new spike sequence top-up" vaccine be made to work for those that actually care about maintaining high levels of protection?
There are things you can do. The key step is realizing that the obstacle, as you realize, is not the science but the regulations - everything you'd like to do here is not allowed, the question is what you could perhaps get to be allowed that would at least help.
Kevin Drum points out that on Wednesday 7/13 the FDA gave the go-ahead on the Danish monkeypox vaccine, it was reported on 7/14, and he's kind of annoyed that nobody who went nuts about the original story has noticed.
https://jabberwocking.com/monkeypox-vaccine-is-on-its-way-from-denmark/
Ah. No one pointed this out at all except you, thanks.
While it is kind of dumb that it takes 2 days for the FDA to make the obviously-correct decision on something like this, it's a lot better than I expected. I'm pleasantly surprised.
My experience was that there was plenty of good information all along. I habitually ignore government and major media advice about anything, so I didn't particularly care what the policy guidelines were. I got vaccinated in January 2021 because I had read the clinical trial results, not because anyone told me to. I got the booster because it seemed like it helped. I took Paxlovid when I got COVID because I'd read about it and it seemed effective. It was.
The CDC.gov website had tons of good information and studies. I ignored the one-size-fits-all front page recommendations written by bureaucrats. That's not science. It's politics.
I've always been like this, so I never got particularly irritated about the lying. If you understand that major media and twitter, (sorry, Zvi, but I seem to do fine without it) are garbage (and always have been), you can get lots of good information to inform decisions.
I don't expect government, media, or health care systems to go out of their way to tell me what to do. That's my job. Reporters are not experts (typically they aren't very bright, either), and any media will always amplify stories that get attention rather than those that are true. Governments are controlled by elected officials who will do what they think advances their chances of reelection. Or, they like using power because they can. In any case, they aren't honest and won't help me. Why expect them to?
Getting upset at lying media is always about how "they lied to other people who aren't as smart as I am because I knew all along." It's never about being deceived personally. OK, well, if you weren't fooled, the correct information was out there. So what? It's exactly like the weird Russia collusion argument that somehow shitty facebook ads decided the 2016 election, with no proof anyone changed their vote because of it. "Disinformation" is always about other people who disagree with you. Whatever.
Surviving COVID is a personal responsibility. So is deciding when it's time to stop worrying about it. I stopped caring after my second shot when my odds of dying dropped to under 1/5000. No longer relevant. The truth is that a lot of things are not very important to people who have their shit together. Most big problems that media goes on about are easily avoidable if you accept that it's your problem to solve, not someone else's. Then, all of a sudden, it's easy.
The blog "DEAD MEN'S DONUTS" is _fantastic_ – thanks!