Perhaps the BEST B1G Forum anywhere, here at College Football Fan Site, CFB51!!!

Germany is still spiking in cases, worse than they've ever had it before.  Area under the curve?  Hopefully it's two months, or less, and out.  The spike started early October.  I don't  get it, at all, some blame folks from the "east" coming in.

Poland had a lot of vax resistance.

I'm surprised with many vaccinated and many more with some resistance due to having had it earlier than it can still spread this fast.  Our resistance levels appear to be dropping off faster than we had hoped a few months back.

in the US we must be nearing 90% of adults with some resistance, which would make it tough to spread, if said resistance was fairly good.  My guess is while 90% have SOME resistance, for most it's fading.  And yes, it's now endemic and I don't see a whole lot to do about that.

If we actually tested as thoroughly every year, for flu and all of the coronaviruses that cause the common cold, I suspect we'd see similar case numbers. 

The difference with COVID19 of course, is that it sends higher numbers of people to the hospital/ICU/death.  

The vaccines have proven to be effective at minimizing the most severe of symptoms, and everyone that wants the vaccine has gotten it.

That's really the most we can do at this point.

I'm still curious about the seasonality, or lack thereof, of outbreaks.  I understand that being indoors more can promote spread, but the peaks occur almost randomly.

India had a bad outbreak and then two months later it was gone, with low vax rates.  Now Germany is spiking when they didn't spike last year this time.

The U.S. government will pay drugmaker Pfizer $5.29 billion for 10 million treatment courses of its potential COVID-19 treatment if regulators authorize it.

Pfizer asked the Food and Drug Administration on Tuesday to authorize emergency use of the experimental pill, which has been shown to significantly cut the rate of hospitalizations and deaths among people with coronavirus infections.

The FDA is already reviewing a competing pill from Merck and will hold a public meeting on it later this month.

The price for Pfizer’s potential treatment amounts to about $529 per course. The U.S. has already agreed to pay roughly $700 per course of Merck’s drug for about 1.7 million treatments.

Pfizer said Thursday the price being paid by the U.S. government reflects the high number of treatment courses purchased through 2022.

The drugmaker said it also has started rolling submissions for approval in several other countries and there are advanced purchase agreements with other governments as well.

On Tuesday, Pfizer signed a deal a with U.N.-backed group to allow generic drugmakers to produce low-cost versions of the pill for certain countries. Merck has a similar deal for its pill, which was authorized in Britain earlier this month.

Pfizer reported earlier this month that its pill cut hospitalizations and deaths by 89% among high-risk adults who had early symptoms of COVID-19.

The company studied its pill in people who were unvaccinated and faced the worst risks from the virus due to age or health problems, such as obesity.

awe what good, noble, nice guys Pfizer and Merck are. Only charging US gov't $529 a pill and $700 a pill respectively. Sweet hearts just coming up with drugs to help people out of the good of their hearts! 

just take the pill

follow the science

Yup, and here begins the slippery slope.