Good morning!!!!

[lostcreekranch]

Good Morning. It's a balmy 22° this morning with light NW winds at 6 mph. Our high is forecast to get to 40° this afternoon .. our first time above freezing since last Thursday. It's supposed to be 22° tomorrow morning and that should be last morning below freezing for a while.

The recent freezing rain, we had, took away most of our snow and replaced it with ice covered grass.

Like others, we've had no mail deliveries since last week. Same for FedEx and UPS. Maybe the Post Office needs to change their motto?

I really hope they don't screw up the vaccinations. Moderna was "tested" with 2nd vaccination 28 days after first. Phyzer was "tested" with a 21 day delay for 2nd shot. There's zero "testing" for the effects of a longer delay in 2nd vaccination. Changing the protocol for "political" purposes .. to boost results .. is just wrong.

No big plans for today. Our food / water situation is still in good shape.

It sound like grocery stocks are slim due to delays in deliveries. Same issues with gas stations not getting fuel deliveries. Both will likely cause at least short term "hoarding" of supplies .. think toilet paper.

Hope everyone stays warm and safe.

Prayers to all.

 

[daugen]

for the most part Texans can't drive on dry roads

gosh if they can drive those UTV's at 60mph I think they are doing pretty well...

 

[RedNeckGeek]

RNG have been wanting chili for two days now have all ingredients but one and it is not made anymore. Do you have a good recipe you could share?

No recipe here, as I just throw what I have on hand into the pot. But the usual ingredients include an onion, many cloves of garlic, and chipotle peppers in adobo sauce, all chopped and sauteed in the Instant Pot. Then some sort of beef, chunked into 1" cubes, also sauteed. I usually use a top sirloin roast of a couple pounds weight, but tritip and chuck work just as well, as do some of the tougher cuts of venison. Then two of the big (16 oz.?) cans of chopped tomatoes, and a can of tomato puree. Oh, and a couple bottles of stout or porter beer, a handful of ancho chili powder, and a pinch of cumin. A little goes a long way with cumin. You might want to add salt; I try to stay away from the stuff. I added dried red kidney beans to this last batch, after soaking them overnight and rinsing well. Sometimes I use powdered onion and garlic, yesterday they were fresh. This morning I might put in a couple drops of liquid smoke; I'll taste it first and see what it needs. Sometimes I'll thicken it with some maize mixed with water; not sure if I have any on hand for this batch, so I could use corn starch or wheat flower if it needs it. Cooking wise, I just set the Instant Pot for Slow Cook and let it rip overnight. What I don't eat the first day gets divvied up into 12 oz. portions and frozen in quart ZipLoc bags. Usually get about ten bags a batch, each of which makes a nice individual serving. Leave out the beef, and I think even Don would be happy with this recipe.

 

[txdon]

"They are saying now that the second shot may not be necessary and might stop it to get more people vaccinated."

Who is the "they" Don?

"A single dose of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine offers 92.6% efficacy in new calculations based on data submitted to the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), researchers report.
Together with previous findings that a single Moderna vaccine dose provides 92.1% efficacy against SARS-CoV-2 infection, investigators propose it is time to defer the second dose to extend protection to more people through single-dose mRNA vaccinations.
Danuta M. Skowronski, MD, of the British Columbia Centre for Disease Control in Vancouver, Canada, and Gaston De Serres, MD, PhD, of the Quebec National Institute of Health, Quebec City, Canada, authored a letter published February 17 in The New England Journal of Medicine.
Other experts disagree, however, saying more data are needed before diverting from the two-dose regimen evaluated in clinical trials. They also point out that the FDA granted emergency use authorization based on the two-dose studies.
Sticking With the Studies


Dr Dial Hewlett Jr
"One of the things we should consider here is that when these vaccines are tested in clinical trials, they are tested under specific circumstances. In this case, two doses were used to achieve the efficacy. The studies did not actually look at just giving one dose and trying to just go with that," Dial Hewlett Jr, MD, medical director of the Division of Disease Control at the Westchester County Department of Health in White Plains, New York, said today during a media briefing, sponsored by the Infectious Diseases Society of America.

Dr Matthew Zahn
Matthew Zahn, MD, who also spoke during the IDSA briefing, agreed. "The CDC has worked really hard at putting a premium on adhering to what the known science is, and the trials looked at two vaccine doses separated by less than 6 weeks.
"That's really why we've maintained that recommendation. From my side, I think that makes a great deal of sense," said Zahn, medical director in the Division of Epidemiology and Assessment, Orange County Health Care Agency, Santa Ana, California.
In their correspondence, the authors report they examined documents submitted to the FDA from 2 weeks after the first dose up to the second immunization. They note that "even before the second dose?the vaccine] was highly efficacious."
Do Two Doses Extend Protection?

Even if efficacy from one dose exceeds 90% at first, how long that protection persists without a second dose remains an open question, said Hewlett, who is also a member of the National Medical Association COVID-19 Task Force on Vaccines and Therapeutics.
"We don't have any trial data saying the vaccines will be just as effective if you lengthen the time between the two doses," said Zahn, who also serves as a liaison representative to the CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices.
Other researchers reported an efficacy of 94.8% against SARS-CoV-2 after two doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine in a previous study. The same report estimated a single-dose efficacy of 52.4% between the first and second doses, "but in their calculation, they included data that were collected during the first 2 weeks after the first dose, when immunity would have still been mounting," note Skowronski and De Serres.
"There may be uncertainty about the duration of protection with a single dose, but the administration of a second dose within 1 month after the first, as recommended, provides little added benefit in the short term, while high-risk persons who could have received a first dose with that vaccine supply are left completely unprotected," they note.
"It may be true that in the short run, one dose might be effective," Hewlett conceded, "but we don't know how long that this protection will last, and is the second dose going to be adding to that?" He explained that many public health officials want to simplify vaccine administration, but "before we can support this, we are going to have to have data that looks at this."
Skowronski and De Serres conclude their letter by stating that "given the current vaccine shortage, postponement of the second dose is a matter of national security that, if ignored, will certainly result in thousands of COVID-19-related hospitalizations and deaths this winter in the United States hospitalizations and deaths that would have been prevented with a first dose of vaccine."
Skowronski has disclosed no relevant financial relationships. De Serres reported grant support from Pfizer for an unrelated study of meningococcal antibody seroprevalence.
N Eng J Med. Published online February 17, 2021. Correspondence
Damian McNamara is a staff journalist based in Miami. He covers a wide range of medical specialties, including infectious diseases, gastroenterology, and critical care. Follow Damian on Twitter: @MedReporter."

New Data Boost Calls for Single COVID-19 Vaccine Dose

 

[buckeyefarmer]

My guess is a bad capacitor.

 

[lostcreekranch]

"A single dose of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine offers 92.6% efficacy in new calculations based on data submitted to the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), researchers report.
Together with previous findings that a single Moderna vaccine dose provides 92.1% efficacy against SARS-CoV-2 infection, investigators propose it is time to defer the second dose to extend protection to more people through single-dose mRNA vaccinations.
Danuta M. Skowronski, MD, of the British Columbia Centre for Disease Control in Vancouver, Canada, and Gaston De Serres, MD, PhD, of the Quebec National Institute of Health, Quebec City, Canada, authored a letter published February 17 in The New England Journal of Medicine.
Other experts disagree, however, saying more data are needed before diverting from the two-dose regimen evaluated in clinical trials. They also point out that the FDA granted emergency use authorization based on the two-dose studies.
Sticking With the Studies


Dr Dial Hewlett Jr
"One of the things we should consider here is that when these vaccines are tested in clinical trials, they are tested under specific circumstances. In this case, two doses were used to achieve the efficacy. The studies did not actually look at just giving one dose and trying to just go with that," Dial Hewlett Jr, MD, medical director of the Division of Disease Control at the Westchester County Department of Health in White Plains, New York, said today during a media briefing, sponsored by the Infectious Diseases Society of America.

Dr Matthew Zahn
Matthew Zahn, MD, who also spoke during the IDSA briefing, agreed. "The CDC has worked really hard at putting a premium on adhering to what the known science is, and the trials looked at two vaccine doses separated by less than 6 weeks.
"That's really why we've maintained that recommendation. From my side, I think that makes a great deal of sense," said Zahn, medical director in the Division of Epidemiology and Assessment, Orange County Health Care Agency, Santa Ana, California.
In their correspondence, the authors report they examined documents submitted to the FDA from 2 weeks after the first dose up to the second immunization. They note that "even before the second dose?the vaccine] was highly efficacious."
Do Two Doses Extend Protection?

Even if efficacy from one dose exceeds 90% at first, how long that protection persists without a second dose remains an open question, said Hewlett, who is also a member of the National Medical Association COVID-19 Task Force on Vaccines and Therapeutics.
"We don't have any trial data saying the vaccines will be just as effective if you lengthen the time between the two doses," said Zahn, who also serves as a liaison representative to the CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices.
Other researchers reported an efficacy of 94.8% against SARS-CoV-2 after two doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine in a previous study. The same report estimated a single-dose efficacy of 52.4% between the first and second doses, "but in their calculation, they included data that were collected during the first 2 weeks after the first dose, when immunity would have still been mounting," note Skowronski and De Serres.
"There may be uncertainty about the duration of protection with a single dose, but the administration of a second dose within 1 month after the first, as recommended, provides little added benefit in the short term, while high-risk persons who could have received a first dose with that vaccine supply are left completely unprotected," they note.
"It may be true that in the short run, one dose might be effective," Hewlett conceded, "but we don't know how long that this protection will last, and is the second dose going to be adding to that?" He explained that many public health officials want to simplify vaccine administration, but "before we can support this, we are going to have to have data that looks at this."
Skowronski and De Serres conclude their letter by stating that "given the current vaccine shortage, postponement of the second dose is a matter of national security that, if ignored, will certainly result in thousands of COVID-19-related hospitalizations and deaths this winter in the United States hospitalizations and deaths that would have been prevented with a first dose of vaccine."
Skowronski has disclosed no relevant financial relationships. De Serres reported grant support from Pfizer for an unrelated study of meningococcal antibody seroprevalence.
N Eng J Med. Published online February 17, 2021. Correspondence
Damian McNamara is a staff journalist based in Miami. He covers a wide range of medical specialties, including infectious diseases, gastroenterology, and critical care. Follow Damian on Twitter: @MedReporter."

New Data Boost Calls for Single COVID-19 Vaccine Dose

Lots of "speculation" with few "facts".

 

[daugen]

it all sounds good RNG except the liquid smoke. Go easy on that stuff ...

The European Food Safety Authority, the health arm of the European Union, has conducted a series of investigations
to determine the safety of liquid smoke flavorings derived from different types of hardwood.

A large driver in these investigations lies in the fact that liquid smoke contains polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs),
a family of chemical compounds. A handful of its members been linked to carcinogenic effects and DNA damage.
For example, Primary Product AM 01, a flavoring derived from burning beechwood, is considered a safety concern
due to findings that it might cause DNA mutations when consumed.

Liquid Smoke: The History Behind a Divisive Culinary Shortcut - Eater

 

[Looking4new]

Be careful out there. I lived in Grand Prairie and FW for 6 years and for the most part Texans can't drive on dry roads. I-30 would be a grid lock if someone was changing a flat tire on the off ramp.

That sounds like Toronto.

 

[rswyan]

My guess is a bad capacitor.

Potentially a cheap fix if so ... :thumbsup:

 

[txdon]

Even though it's garbage day since the driveways are slick ice (except for mine - I shoveled snow) no one can put the garbage out till it melts. Almost as bad as reporting about warming centers that no one could get to because of the iced roads. And then there is a HEB commercial on TV - why advertise when you have empty shelves?