WTF :2019-nCoV NovaCoronaVirus Thread

[Dr Mordrid]

Many Democrats are supporting this given her dodging of the 1976 law, and her refusal to cancel her po!icy of using nursing homes for recovering CoVid-19 patients - putting the most delicate of us at risk.

If, under the 1976 law, she needs to go to the legislature for an extension approval it can make the policy change a condition for passage - and 1/3 of Democrats are on board for killing the policy.

https://www.freep.com/story/news/politics/2020/09/12/group-tops-400-k-signatures-repeal-gretchen-whitmers-virus-powers/5780148002/

Group tops 400K signatures to repeal Gov. Gretchen Whitmer's virus powers

LANSING, Mich. — Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, faced with lawsuits challenging her use of emergency powers to fight the coronavirus, could continue to prevail in court.

But she may be unable to stop a Republican maneuver that would rescind a 75-year-old law that has enabled her to issue and lift COVID-19 restrictions unilaterally. A ballot drive said Friday it was in the "home stretch" after collecting more than 400,000 signatures in just two months. Its goal is 500,000.

If at least 340,000 signatures are deemed valid by the state elections board, the GOP-controlled Legislature would likely repeal the 1945 law rather than let it go to a 2022 public vote. The Democratic governor could not veto the initiated bill. A 1976 law, which requires legislative approval to extend a state of emergency, would remain intact.
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[Umfriend]

How does that work? If you get enough signatures there will be a referendum? The quote makes it seem as if some 400K signatures are enough to led state congress repeal the law.

[MultimediaMan]

That varies from State to State: the Election Board (or The State's Department of State) handles the voting. A true Referendum will place the question on a ballot, subject to judicial approval/review as defined by the State's individual laws on Referendums. In some states it is very tightly defined, others hardly at all...

Going OT a little (with a Cautionary Example): In California the Public Referendum is actually part of the State Constitution "4th. Pillar of Government"; As California has repeatedly demonstrated, Referendums are not always a good thing ... California law is like a Greek Tragedy after some referendums: many are declared unconstitutional because they are not fair (Constitutionally Flawed). However, some tend to stand the test of time: "Proposition 13" (hugely popular and arguably necessary at the time), led to "Ballot-box budgeting" is the poison pill which will eventually destroy that state financially unless repealed (which the legislature CANNOT DO). It was enacted over 40 years ago and has been a cancer for that state ever since. Every administration and legislature ever since was essentially crippled on how they could raise revenue fairly. This has led California to enact some legally insane laws and questionable policies to try and generate revenue to cover it's expenses. It's one of the reasons I left that State 30 years ago.

[Dr Mordrid]

How does that work? If you get enough signatures there will be a referendum? The quote makes it seem as if some 400K signatures are enough to led state congress repeal the law.

Michigan has quite robust direct democracy provisions in our State Constitution and legal code. Citizen petition drives can,

Recall (remove) elected officials
Pass legislation
Repeal legislation
Amend legislation
Amend the State Constitution
Repeal an amendment to the State Constitution
Invoke a State Constitutional Convention to write a new Constitution, and set an election to approve or reject it.

Depending on the initiative, signatures are gathered over 30-180 days then the signatures are validated by a non-partisan State Board of Canvassers. Petitioners try to gather more than the minimum number of signatures required to cover any signs which fail muster. Registered voters only.

For repealing legislation 8% of the votes cast in the last State election (2018) are required, this time 340,047 signatures. They have 400,000 and hope to exceed 500,000 by the time limit.

Once the Canvassers approve the petitions and certify the count it goes to the legislature for a vote, or it can be placed on the next State ballot (2022.)

In this case it'll go the quicker route; a vote by the State Legislature (House and Senate), where it is likely to pass. Both houses are controlled by Republicans, and there is Democratic support.

Once the Legislature approves the 1945 law's repeal that's it - the Governor has no veto.

The 1976 law will become the standard (as it always should have been), meaning the Legislature gets a say over her edicts, and State of Emergency extensions must survive a vote by the Legislature.

[Dr Mordrid]

A Federal judge in the Western District of PA has declared business shutdowns, gathering size limits, and stay-at-home orders unconstitutional.

Not the last we'll hear of this (it'll be appealed federally, and the MI Supreme Court is also hearing this).

Found a law office which posted specifics the news media omitted.

https://blog.princelaw.com/2020/09/14/federal-judge-rules-pa-covid-restrictions-unconstitutional/

In a decision just issued in County of Butler, et al. v. Governor Wolf, et al., Judge William Stickman, IV of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania has ruled that

(1) the congregate gathering limits imposed by Defendants’ mitigation orders violate the right of assembly enshrined in the First Amendment;

(2) that the stay-at-home and business closure components of Defendants’ orders violate the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment; and

(3) the business closure components of the Defendants’ orders violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment."
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[Dr Mordrid]

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/09/18/moderna-expects-to-make-20-million-doses-of-coronavirus-vaccine-by-2020-end.html

Moderna expects to make 20 million doses of coronavirus vaccine by 2020 end

KEY POINTS

• Moderna said it is on track to produce 20 million doses of its experimental coronavirus vaccine by the end of the year.

• The drugmaker is maintaining its goal of readying 500 million to 1 billion doses in 2021.

• Moderna had enrolled 25,296 participants out of a planned 30,000 in its late-stage study as of Wednesday.
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The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention anticipates that 35 million to 45 million doses of vaccines from the first two companies to receive authorization will be available in the United States by the end of this year.

Moderna plans to seek emergency authorization for its vaccine’s use in high-risk groups if it proves to be at least 70% effective, its chief executive officer told Reuters earlier this week.

[Dr Mordrid]

The US's Pfizer & Germany's BioNTech report their vaccine, which started Phase 3 in July, may be ready in October.

Again; Moderna's reporting if their mRNA vaccine shows 70% efficacy in October they're going to request emergency authorization for high-risk groups.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2020/09/25/moderna-pfizer-are-covid-vaccine-stocks-a-buy-as-markets-await-efficacy-data/#3636bfe813de

[UtwigMU]

I had Pfizer in my stocks watchlist in February - I was thinking pharma stocks will go up but hard to guess which one would be a winner. It's a nice dividend stock without benefits of vaccine but risky if they don't come up with innovations constantly.

[Dr Mordrid]

Operatoon Warp Speed appears to be a medical Manhattan Project with military organization, security and logistics.

Interesting about the "state actors who don’t want us to be successful in this"

https://www.statnews.com/2020/09/28/operation-warp-speed-vast-military-involvement/

New document reveals scope and structure of Operation Warp Speed and underscores vast military involvement
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Operation Warp Speed’s central goal is to develop, produce, and distribute 300 million doses of a coronavirus vaccine by January — and the military is intimately involved, according to Paul Mango, HHS’ deputy chief of staff for policy. It has already helped prop up more than two dozen vaccine manufacturing facilities - flying in equipment and raw materials from all over the world. It has also set up significant cybersecurity and physical security operations to ensure an eventual vaccine is guarded very closely from “state actors who don’t want us to be successful in this,” he said, adding that many of the Warp Speed discussions take place in protected rooms used to discuss classified information.
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[NOTE: a SKIF - Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility]
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“This is a massive scientific and logistical undertaking,” said Mango. “We are weeks away, at most, a month or two away from having at least one safe and effective vaccine.
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[Dr Mordrid]

Moderna mRNA-1273 Phase 1 data; older patients.

Phase 3 is ongoing

https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2028436?query=featured_home

Safety and Immunogenicity of SARS-CoV-2 mRNA-1273 Vaccine in Older Adults

List of authors.

Evan J. Anderson, M.D., Nadine G. Rouphael, M.D., Alicia T. Widge, M.D., Lisa A. Jackson, M.D., M.P.H., et al.,

for the mRNA-1273 Study Group*

September 29, 2020
DOI: 10.1056/NEJMoa2028436
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RESULTS

Solicited adverse events were predominantly mild or moderate in severity and most frequently included fatigue, chills, headache, myalgia, and pain at the injection site. Such adverse events were dose-dependent and were more common after the second immunization. Binding-antibody responses increased rapidly after the first immunization. By day 57, among the participants who received the 25-μg dose, the anti–S-2P geometric mean titer (GMT) was 323,945 among those between the ages of 56 and 70 years and 1,128,391 among those who were 71 years of age or older; among the participants who received the 100-μg dose, the GMT in the two age subgroups was 1,183,066 and 3,638,522, respectively. After the second immunization, serum neutralizing activity was detected in all the participants by multiple methods. Binding- and neutralizing-antibody responses appeared to be similar to those previously reported among vaccine recipients between the ages of 18 and 55 years and were above the median of a panel of controls who had donated convalescent serum. The vaccine elicited a strong CD4 cytokine response involving type 1 helper T cells.

CONCLUSIONS

In this small study involving older adults, adverse events associated with the mRNA-1273 vaccine were mainly mild or moderate. The 100-μg dose induced higher binding- and neutralizing-antibody titers than the 25-μg dose, which supports the use of the 100-μg dose in a phase 3 vaccine trial. (Funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and others; mRNA-1273 Study ClinicalTrials.gov number,*NCT04283461. opens in new tab.)
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[Dr Mordrid]

Michigan's State Supreme Court has overturned Gov. Whitmer's executive orders. The ruling was requested by a US Federal Court Judge hearing a challenge to her actions.

2 decisions,

1) a 1945 law allowing governors to declare an emergency and issue unilateral orders was declared unconstitutional; it violates the updated 1963 State Constitution on grounds of Separation of Powers (no legislative involvement.)

Vote: 4-3 along party lines, but this law is being repealed by citizens petition anyhow.

2) Governor Whitmer violated the 1976 emergency powers act by issuing 180 unilateral orders over several months when at most the declaration can last 28 days. After that the legislature must be involved and approve extensions of the emergency.

Vote: 7-0, a shutout.

This is a Really. Big. Deal. as other State Supreme Court's & AG's could use it as a precedent - all having constitutions based on the Separation of Powers.

https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/michigan/2020/10/04/after-high-court-decision-michigan-ag-not-enforce-covid-orders/3616380001/

After high court decision, Michigan AG will not enforce COVID orders

Attorney General Dana Nessel will no longer enforce Gov. Gretchen Whitmer's executive orders after the Michigan Supreme Court ruled Friday that one of the laws underpinning the orders was unconstitutional.

Nessel's decision comes as Whitmer's team has argued that her orders would stay in effect for 21 days after the ruling, a reference to a 21-day period in which parties can ask for reconsideration.

But opponents have said the 21-day rule doesn't apply to rulings issued in response to a federal certified question as was the case in Friday's Supreme Court decision.

Further, the language of the order, clearly calling all orders issued after April 30 to be unconstitutional seems to support immediate effect.
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[UtwigMU]

How is everyone and their country doing.

Here we have masks inside and bars closed from 10pm to 6am. Gyms are open, schools are open, they quarantine classes with cases. The number of cases is higher than in spring already because first people attending Ramadan in Bosnia, Kosovo and then people returning from their holidays in Croatia brought cases back. Since there is 3x as much testing the number of hospitalized is not yet where it has been and not many dead either. So the actual number of cases is probably smaller but getting to where it has been.

There is still furlough and government sponsored part time work, so economic drop is not as bad. But since government has already borrowed they are in a pinch. Either tighten lockdown and affect economy or go for limited measures that don't seem to be working.

People for the most part are going normally about their shopping, restaurants and commute rush hours are what they were.

[VJ]

Poland has record number of new cases (around 2500 per day; pop. 40M), still quite low compared to many countries but the trend is up. Several regions are considered red zones, others orange at others at risk of becoming one. It is not fully clear to me which restrictions an orange/red zone imposes (we are neither at the moment), but even for us it is still: masks in public transport and shops, limitations on weddings, etc. Everything is open though (gyms, cinema, theatre, schools, bars, ...). For sure in red zones one has to wear masks everywhere and there are more restrictions on gatherings.
Traffic for sure is less, as many companies allow for remote work.

Belgium has over 3000 cases per day (Belgium has 1/4 of the population of Poland, pop. 11M), so quite high and also increasing. Measures in Belgium are still a mess, with quite unclear regulations. Cultural events are forbidden (since March!), mask requirement differs a lot per region. They try to focus on limiting people's contacts (e.g. that you are alllowed 5 close contacts), but it is such a mess and so restrictive that it is impossible to keep track. There are closing hours for restaurants and bars, but I'm unclear of the details.

We were hoping to go to Belgium in November (we keep postponing the date), to visit my family... finally... haven't seen them since Christmas and they were not able to attend my wedding. To be able to play on short term changes, we were planning to go by car: we don't need much preparation to start going, and it is possible in one go (1400 km), although we would try to find a hotel or so on the Polish side of the German border. So I'm keeping track of what is happening in Belgium, Netherlands, Germany and Poland. So far it does not seem prudent to go, but November is still a month off...

[Dr Mordrid]

Michigan (population 10M) has 900-1,100 cases a day and usually less than 10 deaths, often only 2-5. Our Rt has been running about 0.98 to 1.03, depending on if the youngsters have had another enormous beach/boat/fraternity party or protest.

[UtwigMU]

Orange and red mean you can only travel abroad if you have completed test in EU within last 48h. Without the test you need to quarantine for 10-14 days upon arrival. For orange in Schengen there is no quarantine. For orange elsewhere there is. Germany put some of our regions on red/orange list. We have Poland on green list and some western EU regions on red list.