We Have Gotten Some Pretty Good News On The Corona Front Recently, All Things Considered

I want to do this from time to time moving forward, but it's incredibly important to know that I am in no way, shape or form trying to politicize any of this bullshit. I'm going to link shit from Fox, CNN, Yahoo, NYT, Hannity and others SO LONG AS IT'S THE FORWARDING OF SCIENTIFIC INFO, which I feel like this specific topic explicitly is.

My point in doing so is to try my damnedest to get the "good" news regarding the pandemic to the people so we can better gauge, even if it's just a little bit, of when sports are going to come back in full. This falls into that category.  This is from the National Institute of Health via CNN:

Volunteers who received Moderna’s Covid-19 vaccine had positive early results, according to the biotech company, which partnered with the National Institutes of Health to develop the vaccine.

If future studies go well, the company’s vaccine could be available to the public as early as January, Dr. Tal Zaks, Moderna’s chief medical officer, told CNN.

Moderna has vaccinated dozens of study participants and measured antibodies in eight of them. All eight developed neutralizing antibodies to the virus at levels reaching or exceeding the levels seen in people who’ve naturally recovered from Covid-19, according to the company.

“It shows that not only did the antibody bind to the virus, but it prevented the virus from infecting the cells,” said Dr. Paul Offit, a member of the NIH panel that’s setting a framework for vaccine studies in the US.

Excellent news! And again, it's direct quotes from those working on developing a vaccine. Not he said/she said/left/right/red/blue/donkey/elephant bullshit. All outlets from Fox to CNN are reporting the same findings on *some* things, and this is one of them. Sounds like progress is being made which obviously means the economy will eventually start to flow again, sports will come back, people can pay their bills, and "normal" is the standard again. It's not complete doom like some people want and are begging to happen.

Now I have to iterate that this is a marathon, not a sprint. Dr. Nevan Krogan, virus expert, partook in an AMA on Reddit yesterday morning. He equated it to being in "the 2nd inning of a baseball game" as far as finding a cure/vaccine/curbing of the virus. Here are two direct quotes from the AMA:

In response to a user asking Dr. Krogan how the scientific community is sharing their info:

In the history of science, I think it’s safe to say, there’s never been such collaboration across different disciplines -- across different institutions around the world, and between academia and pharmaceutical companies. At every level, collaboration is unprecedented. And in terms of sharing data, there’s mechanisms in place where you can get out information as quickly as you can collect it. For example, biorxiv.org. Also, we never filed for any intellectual property on anything that we found. We got the information out as quickly as possible. This type of open sharing in science has become very prevalent in this pandemic, which has been fantastic. — NJK

The WHOLE WORLD is working on squashing this thing, and they're not protective of the info they're finding. They're working as one cohesive team, which is awesome to hear. Not trying to make a penny on their work, just trying to stomp this thing out like the goddamn cockroach it is. 

In response to a user asking Dr. Krogan if we can reopen society before a vaccine is found:

I truly believe that by the end of 2020, there will be a cocktail of drugs that could be used and will be successful… at the end of the day there may be a drug or a cocktail of drugs for those that just got infected, and one for those who are on respirators, ones experiencing cytokine storm, compared to when you’re just starting to get symptoms. So the more we understand about the virus, the more insightful we will be about treatments… I’ve said a number of times, I believe there will be a treatment or a cocktail of treatments by the end of 2020. So I hope to God we have something by then. I think it’s better to be optimistic. I truly think something will come by the end of the year. —NJK

More excellent news that complements the CNN info that started this blog on NIH's findings from last week. One expert, at the very least, thinks we will have a combo of drugs that can curb the virus until a vaccine is found, if that ever happens. Think HIV; we don't have a vaccine for it, but have drugs that can at least curb it, and those drugs have saved/extended the lives of millions. 

Then we have two democratic governors saying it will more than likely be safe for pro sports teams to host sporting events sans fans, which is a nice 180 from just a week or 10 days ago:

Governor Newsom of CA:

and Governor Cuomo of NY:

These two are working closely with different health organizations, so they wouldn't spew this kinda shit if testing wasn't readily available to the entire populace or if playing a baseball game at Dodger or Yankee Stadium would put more people in harms way.  

And speaking of testing, it looks as if we officially have more tests available than suspected infections, per covid19.healthdata.org:

And that was a major area of contention on pro sports coming back; that it wouldn't be fair for the general public to not have testing readily available to them but athletes can get a test every day if needed. Now it looks like that's no longer an issue.

Now I'm just a smut blogger/radio/podcast host. Call me naive; I probably am. But I think positivity could go a long way in trying to get through this shit. I wouldn't be surprised if someone smarter than me can disprove everything I said because I fell victim to believing #FakeNews CNN and Fox. If that's the case, I apologize. Just throwing all of this out there because I think it's good info.