Philip Greenspun’s Weblog

“Coronavirus: Czechs facing up to COVID-19 crisis by making masks mandatory” (euronews):

Czechs, who have dug out their sewing kits in recent days to take part in a DIY drive to create their own protective face garbs, after a regulation issued on 18 March made it compulsory to wear either a surgical face mask or other mouth and nose-covering apparel when in public, one of the few countries in the world to issue such a demand.

On Monday evening (23 March), the government announced that restrictions of free movement and business closures, which were supposed to end the following morning, will remain in place for another week, until 1 April. Education Minister Robert Plaga has said that schools are likely to remain closed until the middle of May.

“Coronavirus: Czech Republic imposed a face mask requirement and the U.S should too.” (USA Today, April 4, 2020):

While the U.S. and other countries are debating the potential value of a universal face mask rule in combating the spread of coronavirus, here in the Czech Republic that debate was settled weeks ago: it absolutely works!

Last month, at the earliest appearance of Covid-19 cases in this central European country of 10 million, the Czech government was among the first on the continent to shut down all non-essential businesses, impose severe restrictions on public gatherings, and close its borders. This society quickly adopted the physical-distancing and hand-washing regimen that has now become standard all over the world. But what sets the Czech Republic apart from almost every other country in Europe was the decision two weeks ago to require everyone to wear a face mask covering the nose and mouth at all times outside the home.

Today, when I venture out to walk my dog, I rarely see anyone on the streets of Prague without a face mask. Despite the inconvenience and discomfort of having to breathe through a mask, it has become a badge of honor and a form of social bonding to have one’s nose and mouth covered. Wearing a mask is a signal of each person’s willingness to play his or her part in this epic battle against the pandemic. Those who defy the law by carelessly pulling down their masks to drink a coffee or smoke a cigarette are subject to a hefty fine and also run the risk of being confronted and ostracized by fellow citizens. The government has now banned cigarette smoking outside, for this reason. With few exceptions — there are fools everywhere — it appears that most people here have embraced the universal face mask rule with a philosophy of shared determination and collective responsibility for preventing the coronavirus from ravaging this country.

There are clear indications that the extreme measures being enforced here — particularly the universal face mask requirement — are keeping down the per capita numbers of those who have tested positive for coronavirus, compared to many neighboring countries such as Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and of course Spain and Italy. So far, the Czech Republic has had fewer than 50 deaths from Covid-19.

Last month, the Czech prime minister, Andrej Babiš, sent out the following tweet addressed to President Trump: “Mr. President… try tackling virus the Czech way. Wearing a simple cloth mask, decreases the spread of the virus by 80%! Czech Republic has made it OBLIGATORY for its citizens to wear a mask in the public. Pls retweet. God bless America”

As an American who is witnessing the positive developments taking place in this small, tightly knit, socially disciplined country where everyone now wears a protective mask, I hope he listens.

How well did the technocratically governed Czechs do in their science-following battle against a virus? They dominate the leaderboard in deaths per million tagged to COVID-19, above Belgium and Slovenia, i.e., #1 in the world (though Maskachusetts, New Jersey, New York, et al. would be above the Czech Republic if these U.S. states were independent nations).

Related:

• my photos from Prague (in 1993; example above)
• “Climate czar John Kerry caught going maskless on flight” (New York Post); Kerry’s response on Twitter: “If I dropped my mask to one ear on a flight, it was momentary. I wear my mask because it saves lives and stops the spread. It’s what the science tells us to do.“

Full post, including comments

Part of an email to family members from a PhD. in physical chemistry (like Angela Merkel!):

The mRNA vaccines (Moderna & Pfizer/Biontech) or viral-vector (vv) DNA vaccines (J&J, AZ/Oxford, Russian Sputnik vaccine, some Chinese vaccines) absolutely do inject foreign genetic material into our bodies and cells to produce the spike protein. Calling them a giant ‘genetic engineering’ experiment on tens of millions of people is appropriate and honest in my opinion, even if the manufacturers, governments and press don’t use that terminology for fear of a backlash against these vaccines. They are deliberately ignoring these scientific long-term questions, and would rather ‘sell us the vaccines’, due to their compelling short-term benefit-to-risk ratio, then call them a large-scale genetic engineering experiment on humans – but that’s what they are. (The AZ/Oxford and J&J vv-DNA vaccines use adenoviruses: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adenoviridae, with double-stranded DNA genomes).

I just wish some traditional vaccines were available today that use attenuated, non-viable SARS-CoV-2 virus itself to product the spike protein antigens so that my immune system can get trained! That would be so much less risky than injected mRNA or DNA into my body and cells, and hoping that this massive genetic engineering experiment on tens of millions of humans will not have any ‘off-target toxicities’, like the CRISPR genetic engineering experiments, which last years were shown to have fundamentally inevitable off-target affects in an inherently interactive 3D genome.

Another vaccine strategy would be to inject expressed spike proteins, if we can protect them from immediate degradation, rather than mRNA or DNA genetic code, as that would dramatically reduce the plausible, but unproven threat of genetic engineering on our germline, immune system or somatic cells. Note that neither of these vaccination strategies would prevent an immune overreaction with potentially increased autoimmune disease.

He recommends that anyone who has ever tested positive for COVID-19 and/or who has had a positive antibody test try to avoid getting stuck with the as-yet-unproven high tech vaccines. I’m not sure that this is practical given that governments may not allow the unvaccinated to leave their houses (but they’ll still be “free” to watch Netflix and Disney+). A more practical approach might to be travel to a country where one of the old-tech Chinese-developed vaccines is available. “Covid: What do we know about China’s coronavirus vaccines?” (BBC, January 14):

The Beijing-based biopharmaceutical company Sinovac is behind the CoronaVac, an inactivated vaccine. It works by using killed viral particles to expose the body’s immune system to the virus without risking a serious disease response.

By comparison the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines being developed in the West are mRNA vaccines. This means part of the coronavirus’ genetic code is injected into the body, triggering the body to begin making viral proteins, but not the whole virus, which is enough to train the immune system to attack. “CoronaVac is a more traditional method [of vaccine] that is successfully used in many well known vaccines like rabies,” Associate Prof Luo Dahai of the Nanyang Technological University told the BBC. “mRNA vaccines are a new type of vaccine and there is [currently] no successful example [of them] being used in the population,” Prof Luo adds.

Sinopharm, a Chinese state-owned company, is developing two Covid-19 vaccines, which, like Sinovac are also inactivated vaccines that work in a similar way.

Where to go? How about Dubai?

However, the United Arab Emirates, which approved a Sinopharm vaccine earlier this month, said the vaccine was 86% effective, according to interim results of its phase three trial.

Tried-and-true method Chinese vaccines are also approved in Serbia, Turkey, Ukraine, Hungary, the Philippines, and Indonesia.

Here’s your hotel in Turkey… (from a 2007 trip to Cappadocia):

(Turkey is open to Americans with a negative PCR test taken 72 hours prior.)

Related:

• “COVID-19 vaccine players will split $100B in sales and $40B in profits, with Moderna leading the way: analyst” (Fierce Pharma)
• We love our children so much we will give them an investigational vaccine

Full post, including comments

Among the middle-aged, the folks I know who are most afraid of COVID-19 are the least likely to have received it. I wonder if this is why we hear so much about people who are upset by the government-run vaccine programs (the same folks, of course, want the government to take over additional sectors of the economy).

One 40ish friend lives in Southern California, sends children to an in-person private school (public schools are closed, of course), and is a lockdown denier. Rather than wait in his bunker for an army of Latinx essential workers to deliver what he needs, he has been a habitual in-person Walgreen’s shopper during our year (so far) of “14 days to flatten the curve”. He left his phone number for the pharmacists in case they had any extra vaccine doses, received a call the next afternoon, and had a shot 30 minutes later. Friends who stayed in their bunkers clutching N95 masks? They got maxed out web sites, infinite hold times on phone calls, and no vaccine.

A friend in his 30s regularly attends in-person social gatherings. His circle of irresponsible Covid-spreaders includes a dentist. The dentist called him in January and said “I made an appointment for you to get a vaccine. Show up tomorrow at 11 am.” He did and he is now vaccinated.

Friends who have been volunteering for various charitable organizations, accepting the coronarisk of various in-person programs, have all been vaccinated as “essential workers” or “first responders” or similar. Friends who’ve been cowering while denouncing Trump on Facebook? No vaccine for them because they don’t fit any favored category.

Has this been a cruel twist of fate?

Full post, including comments

Consider the young American who doesn’t wish to become a test subject for a vaccine whose own manufacturer characterizes it as “investigational”. He/she/ze/they will still have all of the freedoms guaranteed to him/her/zir/them under the Constitution. It is simply that he/she/ze/they will not be able to work, leave the house, go into a store, get on a commercial airliner, eat at a restaurant, check into a hotel, etc.

From a vaccine-skeptical reader:

I’ve been thinking, since I now walk around in a Joe Biden sized mask, safety goggles and a winter hat, how easy it would be to find someone to take the vaccine on my behalf?

Vaccination sites can’t demand identification (“documentation”) because otherwise America’s 22 million (or maybe 29 million) undocumented wouldn’t be able to get vaccines.

Why wouldn’t it be practical to pay someone to get an additional vaccine and take home a vaccination certificate in an arbitrarily selected name? In fact, folks who are most enthusiastic about vaccines might be delighted to do this for a small cash payment. If two shots are good, maybe three or four shots are better. If there is some immunity from Moderna, why not add additional immunity from J&J?

What about requiring RFID chips as well? See Human RFID chips for coronaplague contact tracing can also sense temperature and #Science proves that I was right (about the need for RFID chips in humans for COVID-19 surveillance) and RFID chips in the necks of college students. If not already present, the RFID chip is inserted along with the first dose of vaccine. Then we can be sure that the person who claims to be vaccinated is actually the same person who was injected.

Leo and Mindy the Crippler seem happy with their chips:

Full post, including comments