Regent Watercooler! Off topic and non-cruise discussion here!

[greykitty]

You mean the Cutter batches?  If I recall right, the Salk shots were administered widely beginning in 1955 or so, and it was 1960 for the Sabin 'sugar cubes'.  The Salk vaccine was effective, and who knows how many thousands of cases of polio were avoided in the years between the two vaccines. I still remember my mom literally kneeling and thanking God for the vaccine.  I didn't understand it at the time, but sure do now.

 

Salks’ polio vaccine used an inactivated virus and was licensed for public use hours after clinical trial results were announced in 1955. Some lots from one of the production labs, Cutter Laboratories, contained the live virus, leading to tragic results. The Cutter batches were pulled from the market, while vaccines from other labs continued to be safely administered.

 

This link has what I found to be an easy to understand for us non-medical folks comparison of Salk vs Sabin.

https://poliovaccinenhd.weebly.com/salk-vs-sabin.html

 

[TrulyBlonde]

4 minutes ago, greykitty said:

You mean the Cutter batches?  If I recall right, the Salk shots were administered widely beginning in 1955 or so, and it was 1960 for the Sabin 'sugar cubes'.  The Salk vaccine was effective, and who knows how many thousands of cases of polio were avoided in the years between the two vaccines. I still remember my mom literally kneeling and thanking God for the vaccine.  I didn't understand it at the time, but sure do now.

 

Salks’ polio vaccine used an inactivated virus and was licensed for public use hours after clinical trial results were announced in 1955. Some lots from one of the production labs, Cutter Laboratories, contained the live virus, leading to tragic results. The Cutter batches were pulled from the market, while vaccines from other labs continued to be safely administered.

 

This link has what I found to be an easy to understand for us non-medical folks comparison of Salk vs Sabin.

https://poliovaccinenhd.weebly.com/salk-vs-sabin.html

 

Very interesting. I was in the Sugar Cube era and remember getting them in elementary school. 

[greykitty]

Yep, I remember being absolutely delighted by the sugar cubes.  Again, didn't realize why mom was so emotional - or why the nuns in my parochial school were so incredibly vigilant about each of us students getting our vaccine.  No one talked back to Sister Mary Catherine back then - parents or kids! LOL

[Camillus112]

I don't even remember how the polio vaccine was administered to me... but I do remember Sister Agnita!

[Wendy The Wanderer]

10 hours ago, greykitty said:

I’m appreciative of my health and safety.  And glad I can support even in small ways those who don’t have the same blessings I take for granted.  

 

Me too, and well said.

 

I too am enjoying my blessings.  Perfect early summer weather, a nice place to live, lots of food.  I'm feeling very, very lucky.  As for Covid Festivals, not sure what that is.  But if you're talking about the marches happening all over the world in support of equality, then I'm fully in support.  If you're talking about people flauting social distancing rules, then, a big boo to them!

[TrulyBlonde]

19 minutes ago, Wendy The Wanderer said:

 

Me too, and well said.

 

I too am enjoying my blessings.  Perfect early summer weather, a nice place to live, lots of food.  I'm feeling very, very lucky.  As for Covid Festivals, not sure what that is.  But if you're talking about the marches happening all over the world in support of equality, then I'm fully in support.  If you're talking about people flauting social distancing rules, then, a big boo to them!

I am talking about the walking petri dish, (Covid Festival) of people flaunting the social distancing rules. We, along with most of you, I will assume have been following the protocols for close to 3 months to keep ourselves, our communities, and our families safe. We all would like to travel again and I pray this will not set us back to square one. 

Also, the cruise companies do not need another setback either or we may not have any ships to cruise on.

[Wendy The Wanderer]

18 minutes ago, TrulyBlonde said:

I am talking about the walking petri dish, (Covid Festival) of people flaunting the social distancing rules. We, along with most of you, I will assume have been following the protocols for close to 3 months to keep ourselves, our communities, and our families safe. We all would like to travel again and I pray this will not set us back to square one. 

Also, the cruise companies do not need another setback either or we may not have any ships to cruise on.

 

Yes, I thought you were probably talking about "covidiots", those who are flouting the rules. Canadians are very good at following rules generally, so it's mostly good here in Toronto, but there are some.  Callow youths on bicycles, young unconcerned princesses walking down the middle of the sidewalk tapping their phones, joggers.  I do a bit of a dance when I walk down the street, for sure.  

 

But in general, everybody is being so good about this, I can't believe it.  And the people who serve us, at the drugstore, the liquor store, the brewery and the supermarket are all wonderful, and we're very grateful for them.

Edited June 7, 2020 by Wendy The Wanderer

[SusieQft]

1 hour ago, bissel said:

SusieQ, would they put out a vaccine without people being tested? How much time is  usually allowed after those trials before being out for general use?

 

No, they would not put out a vaccine without a clinical trial, i.e. testing it on people.  As far as I know, the efforts to speed up the COVID-19 vaccine involve Fast Track, Breakthrough Therapy, and Priority Review, as described at the bottom of the page at https://www.fda.gov/drugs/development-approval-process-drugs .  These all involve eliminating time consuming layers of red tape, but not eliminating clinical trials.

 

The other thing that can speed it up is to start manufacturing before the clinical trial is completed and before approval is obtained.  This is a huge risk for the drug company, because if the trial is not successful they have wasted many millions (billions?) of dollars.  In the normal course of business, the company would not start manufacturing until they knew the drug/vaccine was approved by the FDA.  This is happening now because governments and charities are helping to cover the financial risk of manufacturing the product before we know if it can be sold.

 

2 hours ago, bissel said:

How much time elapsed before Sabin fixed the Salk vaccine? How long did it take to realize the problem with the Salk vaccine?

 

The Salk vaccine was supposed to be made with killed polio virus.  The problem came along when one batch was contaminated with virulent live polio virus.  This was a manufacturing problem, and only affected one batch.  But that batch caused more than 200 case of polio and 11 deaths.  I think they found out about the problem very quickly, because if people were injected with live polio virus they would have gotten sick without any significant delay.  We not only have to be concerned about testing, but also manufacturing.  Not only that, but waiting a few months, as some on this forum have said they plan to do, would not necessarily protect them if something like this were to happen again.  Hopefully, however, we have learned from past mistakes and have better safeguards against this now.

 

The Sabin vaccine did not "fix" the Salk vaccine.  Salk and Sabin were rivals, both working separately on two different vaccines.  The Sabin vaccine is a live virus vaccine and causes about a dozen cases of polio each year.  The live virus in the Sabin vaccine is significantly weakened from the wild polio virus, so those cases are probably not as severe as those caused by the bad batch of the Salk vaccine.  I'm not sure if that number can be extrapolated back to its introduction in 1962, but if so it would be about 700 cases overall.  The Sabin vaccine became the standard because it was cheaper to produce, and because it is given orally and therefore much easier to administer.

 

You can read more about the Polio vaccines at https://www.history.com/news/8-things-you-may-not-know-about-jonas-salk-and-the-polio-vaccine .

[bissel]

Excellent summary!

[Bellaggio Cruisers]

 

Life is not just about weathering the storm but learning how to dance in the rain....

[bissel]

Sheila, love the new photo of you and your husband!

[Travelcat2]

2 hours ago, SusieQft said:

 

No, they would not put out a vaccine without a clinical trial, i.e. testing it on people.  As far as I know, the efforts to speed up the COVID-19 vaccine involve Fast Track, Breakthrough Therapy, and Priority Review, as described at the bottom of the page at https://www.fda.gov/drugs/development-approval-process-drugs .  These all involve eliminating time consuming layers of red tape, but not eliminating clinical trials.

 

 

 

 

 

I agree with you in terms of drugs being approved in the past.  However, this government wants this out ASAP and plans on not following some of the reviews that you mention above.  They are doing clinical trials right now.  There is no one alive that has lived through a pandemic (if there is anyone still around, they were babies in 1918).  So, in the case of this pandemic, prior rules are apparently being set aside in favor of getting the vaccine to to the public.  

 

I’m sure that you and other doctors are shaking their heads about how the vaccine trials are being handled but the hope is that it will save millions of lives.  

 

Note:  Some clinical trials have taken so long in the past that other countries are years ahead of the U.S.  My daughter had a disk replaced in her neck about 5 years ago in a clinical trial in Beverly Hills  (this is needed by more and more people that text all day).  Other countries had been doing the procedure for years.  It is now available in the U.S. In several more years, disks in your back will be replaced (saying goodbye to lower back pain). Is is important to note that this procedur  is available now in other countries.

Edited June 7, 2020 by Travelcat2

[SusieQft]

TC, are you still planning to fly to England for the vaccine if you can get it faster that way?  Or are you coming around to the idea that maybe the normally slow process in the US is not so bad after all?

 

They are definitely not going to release a vaccine in the US without clinical trials.  Whether or not those trials will be short-changed is, I suppose, not totally clear.  If they are, IMO it is more likely due to human error and over-enthusiasm rather than by the design of the trials.  But I still think that the plan is to achieve rapid release of the vaccine by cutting the red tape (evaluation and approval of each step along the way, including clinical trials) and manufacturing before approval.  If it fails to be approved, the advance manufacturing would then be a wasted investment.

 

It is very hard to know what to trust when supposedly respected medical journals publish fraudulent studies for political purposes.  I am referring to the now withdrawn Lancet paper that argued against the use of Hydroxycloroquine.  It can be the wild west out there, and it makes it very hard to make informed decisions.  Politics and medicine/science do not mix well.

Edited June 7, 2020 by SusieQft

[Travelcat2]

1 hour ago, SusieQft said:

TC, are you still planning to fly to England for the vaccine if you can get it faster that way?  Or are you coming around to the idea that maybe the normally slow process in the US is not so bad after all?

 

They are definitely not going to release a vaccine in the US without clinical trials.  Whether or not those trials will be short-changed is, I suppose, not totally clear.  If they are, IMO it is more likely due to human error and over-enthusiasm rather than by the design of the trials.  But I still think that the plan is to achieve rapid release of the vaccine by cutting the red tape (evaluation and approval of each step along the way, including clinical trials) and manufacturing before approval.  If it fails to be approved, the advance manufacturing would then be a wasted investment.

 

It is very hard to know what to trust when supposedly respected medical journals publish fraudulent studies for political purposes.  I am referring to the now withdrawn Lancet paper that argued against the use of Hydroxycloroquine.  It can be the wild west out there, and it makes it very hard to make informed decisions.  Politics and medicine/science do not mix well.

 

It is interesting that you bring up Hydroxycloroquine as it was "almost" approved in this country for Covid-19.  That would have been one heck of a mistake.  

 

I still believe that the vaccine being developed by Oxford is safe.  Whether or not we go to England (not just for the vaccine), depends upon whether or not our November and January cruises are canceled (hope not).  We definitely need to get out of the country for a bit.  

 

Totally agree about how difficult it is to make informed decisions and that politics and medicine/science do not mix well.  My DH and I were just discussing this over an early dinner (that he cooked).  What appears to be factual one day ends up not being factual the next.  The cases of COVID-19 keep going up yet we are opening our cities/states.  The one thing that we have noticed is that, even though numbers of new cases are going up dramatically, the number of hospitalizations and deaths are not going up as much as they were previously.  I have no clue why this is but find it interesting.

 

I meant to ask how things are going in Las Vegas now that casino's have reopened?  Are crowds returning?  

[Bellaggio Cruisers]

4 hours ago, bissel said:

Sheila, love the new photo of you and your husband!

Thanks so much. I just found it when going through some papers. It was taken several years ago at my niece’s wedding. 
sheila

[SusieQft]

5 minutes ago, Travelcat2 said:

I meant to ask how things are going in Las Vegas now that casino's have reopened?  Are crowds returning?  

The casinos have only been open (some of them) for a few days, and the traffic has been very thin.  The Las Vegas economy is very susceptible to any economic downturn, even without the added complication of social distancing and health risks.  We will probably be one of the last places in the country to recover, as that is the usual pattern with any challenge to the economy.  I have heard Nevada unemployment numbers as high as 33% recently.   Hopefully that has started to come down as we move through the reopening.

 

On the other hand, if California stays locked down, maybe more Californians will want to come and enjoy a short vacation in the free state of Nevada for a while.  Time will tell.

[cruiseluv]

On 6/6/2020 at 6:15 PM, TrulyBlonde said:

Who is happy today to be sitting in their comfy home, reading CC, and talking about positive things like a cruise.  I am very happy to not be at one of the Covid Festivals that are going on Nationwide.

 

If its what I think it means, in my city we've had one every day for over a week, some even  had  fireworks! They didnt seem like much fun, so I didnt attend. 

[cruiseluv]

7 hours ago, Wendy The Wanderer said:

 

Yes, I thought you were probably talking about "covidiots", those who are flouting the rules. Canadians are very good at following rules generally, so it's mostly good here in Toronto, but there are some.  Callow youths on bicycles, young unconcerned princesses walking down the middle of the sidewalk tapping their phones, joggers.  I do a bit of a dance when I walk down the street, for sure.  

 

 

 

Just curious, if a person is participating in a march for social justice, where they're "flouting" the rules...are they "covidiots" too? Or only people that went out to the beach, on their boat, etc, etc to have a good time?  I ask, because where I live we've had marches every day , with people on top of each other, no social distancing, many without masks , screaming at the top of their lungs ( we've been told that's conducive to spreading the virus), but I notice no criticism of that , with respect of the virus. 

[cruiseluv]

6 hours ago, Bellaggio Cruisers said:

 

Life is not just about weathering the storm but learning how to dance in the rain....

 

Sheila, love that, and also that lovely picture!

[freddie]

Wendy - One sort of "Covid Festival" or "Covid Party" that has occurred in our state is an assembly of people who deliberately practice no social distancing or other precautions whatever, in the belief that group exposure will lead more quickly to "herd immunity".  In such gatherings, there is a focused emphasis upon (and, unbelievably enough, desire for) contagion.   Of course, it appears that these parties are attended primarily by people who cannot read any message on social media that contains words of more than two syllables.

 

Clearly, these people are not likely to among those whom we meet on Regent cruises; but they might infect us or our fellow cruise passengers with their reckless and insane contagion during our regular social and commercial interactions.

 

Lordie, I just recognized that I have posted on a sticky of which I had protested the creation.  Oh well, live goes on and on and on.   

Edited June 8, 2020 by freddie

[cruiseluv]

1 hour ago, freddie said:

 

Lordie, I just recognized that I have posted on a sticky of which I had protested the creation.  Oh well, live goes on and on and on.   

 

LOL!! Don't worry, I did too!

[TrulyBlonde]

9 hours ago, cruiseluv said:

 

If its what I think it means, in my city we've had one every day for over a week, some even  had  fireworks! They didnt seem like much fun, so I didnt attend. 

Yes, I thought of you when I saw that massive Festival going on in Philadelphia. Now we will all wait patiently for 14 days to see what the outcome of their firework display brings. Logic makes me think it will not be good.

I also read that one of the cities is asking the partygoers to isolate for 14 days and to get tested. When they go for the tests they will not be asked if they participated. If not asked, how do they do contact tracing?

Prayers to all.

[Wendy The Wanderer]

23 hours ago, freddie said:

Wendy - One sort of "Covid Festival" or "Covid Party" that has occurred in our state is an assembly of people who deliberately practice no social distancing or other precautions whatever, in the belief that group exposure will lead more quickly to "herd immunity".  In such gatherings, there is a focused emphasis upon (and, unbelievably enough, desire for) contagion.   Of course, it appears that these parties are attended primarily by people who cannot read any message on social media that contains words of more than two syllables.

...

Thanks for the explanation, Fred.  We apparently aren't experiencing this strange social phenomenon.  I really had no idea.

 

23 hours ago, cruiseluv said:

 

Just curious, if a person is participating in a march for social justice, where they're "flouting" the rules...are they "covidiots" too? Or only people that went out to the beach, on their boat, etc, etc to have a good time?  I ask, because where I live we've had marches every day , with people on top of each other, no social distancing, many without masks , screaming at the top of their lungs ( we've been told that's conducive to spreading the virus), but I notice no criticism of that , with respect of the virus. 

 

Don't know.  The marches here have been well-attended but peaceful, and almost everybody I've seen was wearing a mask and/or keeping their distance (we had the first major march last week come right by our condo.)

 

[SusieQft]

6 minutes ago, Wendy The Wanderer said:

The marches here have been well-attended but peaceful, and almost everybody I've seen was wearing a mask and/or keeping their distance (we had the first major march last week come right by our condo.)

You are very lucky.  That is not the case in many cities across the US, where the activities in the streets would much more accurately be described as "riots" than "peaceful."
.

[Wendy The Wanderer]

37 minutes ago, SusieQft said:

You are very lucky.  That is not the case in many cities across the US, where the activities in the streets would much more accurately be described as "riots" than "peaceful."
.

Yes, we are watching.