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Linux on Chromebooks — Can it really be used by software engineers
By: Almir Mustafic
Tags: Software Engineering, Linux, Software Development, Chromebook, Programming

As you might know some Chromebooks are released with a feature that allows you to enable Linux and it is currently in Beta version. This is definitely an attractive feature and I wanted to explore it a bit more and see what it’s like to live with for a few days.

In order to better judge the efficiency and usability of this feature, I did the following:

Bought Pixelbook Go Chromebook with i5 processor and 8Gb memory for my son’s school work and for myself to experiment :)

Enabled the Linux feature (Debian version)

Did the usual: sudo apt update, and sudo apt upgrade

Installed pip3 for Python

Installed AWS CLI and configured it to point to my personal AWS account

Installed Visual Studio Code and enabled VIM plugin

Installed PyCharm IDE and enabled VIM plugin

Also installed Dropbox

Before I got to the point of installing Java OpenJDK and IntelliJ IDEA, I wanted to see how this Chromebook and Linux do with some of the basic development tools listed above.

Command-line:

It is a pleasure to use the command-line interface. It feels very responsive. I tested a few of my Python programs and I can say that applications/programs running in a terminal are responsive. There is a Python script that I use to test the CPU and memory performance of any computer and it ran in 21 seconds. To give you a perspective, the same script runs in over 30 seconds on my 2016 Macbook Air and 26 seconds on my 2017 Macbook Pro 15". I know Linux is optimized for these type of things.

IDEs:

When it comes to IDEs, things are different. Visual Studio Code being a lightweight IDE did a relative good job, but the smoothness that you get on Windows and MacOS with VS Code is not there. PyCharm IDE did not do that well. I tried using it for a few days, but it is not responsive. I am not sure if PyCharm itself is like this on other pure Linux machines, but it definitely felt sluggish in this environment. If PyCharm was not usable for me, installing IntelliJ was not even an option at this point.

Conclusion:

If you plan to do HTML, Javascript, NodeJS, and Python using Visual Studio Code or plain VIM editor, then Linux on Chromebooks is an okay alternative to MacOS, but if you are used to using full IDEs and doing Java and other type of programming, I would recommend to hold off on the decision and stick to your MacOS or Windows or pure Linux machines. Yes, the lightweight nature of ChromeOS with Linux is definitely attractive for us engineers who care about efficiency (a healthy balance between the cost and usability), but I am not fully sold yet. I really wanted this to work because I gave away my 2016 Macbook Air to my daughter and I have been using AWS Workspaces as my personal development machine and have been looking for a cheaper non-subscription alternative. I think Google and ChromeOS team has done a good job in this Beta version and I am looking forward to this being more optimized.

Thank you for reading this article. Keep geeking out !

Almir Mustafic
Arrgh Permissions! Is There No Easy Way to Set Them?
By: Eric North
Tags: Installation, Linux, Open Source, Plugins, Openmediavault

This article walks you through how to install the resetperms plug-in for OpenMediaVault (OMV). This is a very handy plug-in especially if you copy large quantities of files into or out of a remote location and need to adjust permissions. As I read this back that is an awful lot of ‘in’s.

I will take resetperms any day of the week, as opposed to the awful kicking and screaming that inevitably occurs after I have copied tera-bytes of information only to find out that I do not have the necessary permissions to work with the files and folders on a different machine. Nasty business, that.

In order to install resetperms , the docs for OMV recommed using wget athough I did not use this preferred method as I was not able to install the plug-in.

Using the preferred method resulted in the following errrors:

Well well then.

Seeing a permission denied message when trying to work with my files is not what I want! What I want instead is more along the lines of:

GIF courtesy of Beeld en Geluid Labs on Giphy.

Setup

Thinking it had something to do with SSH, I attempted to install directly on the host machine but did not fare much better. It might have had something to do with me not enabling the root user during installation; call me crazy but I would rather leave this account disabled and only allow a very very select few of my users to upgrade to the Super User as required. I also tried to modify my DNS settings in resolv.conf as suggested by this post; unfortunately this did not work and I ended up having to re-boot the host! Post-host. That rhymes. There’s a poem about computers in here somewhere.

After several unsuccessful attempts I proceeded with OMV’s alternate method for installing plug-ins. I downloaded the relevant package from this link to a client computer and then uploaded it to OMV in the Plugins tab:

Once uploaded, I clicked Install then clicked yes when prompted.

If all went well the OMV-Extras plug-in should now be installed, horray!

Next I went to the OMV-Extras page and enabled the Extras repo , making sure to click save in the process.

I then attempted to install the resetperms plug-in. Back in the Plugins page, I typed ‘reset’ in the search bar then selected the check-box to install resetperms :

I clicked Install then clicked yes to complete the installation.

If all went well we should all have resetperms installed in OMV, congratulations!

Postscript

I wrote this article in the midst of setting up a new network-attached storage. At the beginning of this little journey I used OpenMediaVault but eventrully moved away from it in favour of good ole’ Bash scripting mixed with a dash of Python. More on this in other posts!

Do you have any experiences with OpenMediaVault? Good, bad or otherwise?
Docker : A Quick Tip. I have a lot of friends who are tired…
Tags: Sudo, Docker, Docker Command, Linux, Linux User Group

I have a lot of friends who are tired of typing sudo before docker command.Especially if you use Docker for testing and development on your local debian/ubuntu machine, you probably experienced of those messages.

Error while not using sudo before docker commands

You probably have tackled it out by using sudo before docker command. But it does not have to be that way always, right?

Yeah, this post is for you if you’re checking out Medium to figure out a solution to this condition.

Really???

YES This post will show you how to enter docker command without using sudo command on Ubuntu Linux machine.

Have Docker Installed ?

Docker is a most popular, open-source platform for developers and system administrators to build, run, and share applications with containers.

To check out whether your system is installed with Docker package, run the following command:

$ sudo docker -v

After running the above command you can view docker version installed on your system. If it is the case you are good to go.

User Groups in Linux

Linux is by default a multi-user system, thus user management is one of the fundamental tasks of a system administrator.In Linux, groups are nothing but the collection of users.

Groups in Linux are used to organize and administer user accounts.The primary purpose of groups is to define a set of privileges such as reading, writing, or executing permission for a given resource that can be shared among the users within the group.

You can view your user groups, by just typing groups command without any argument in your terminal.This will give you list of groups the current user is added to.

To run the docker command without sudo, we are going to add all non-root users who are supposed to access docker, in the docker group.

Alright, what is Docker group !

During the Docker package installation, a group called docker is created. When the Docker daemon starts, it creates a UNIX socket accessible by members of the docker group.

Add user to docker group

Run the following command to add the currently logged on user to the docker group:

add USER to the Docker Group

The usermod command allows us to add/edit groups that a user is in.

-a : add the user to the supplementary group(s).

-G : to specify the name of the group the user should be added to.

To activate the changes to groups, run the following command:

Now, you can view docker group by running the below command:

That’s it. What are you waiting for? Yes, Now you can run docker commands without sudo.

Thanks for reading the article. Hope you like it. If you want to get more exciting articles be a part of community, join us …
Kill a Process
By: Abhay Jain
Tags: Terminal, Command Line, Linux

If you want to kill a process using the command line, that can be performed by simple steps performed below.

STEP 1: Finding the PID

Case 1: Terminate the process of a particular program

Command: ps aux | grep “[n]ginx”

In the CMD, we have run a command which displays the process running with its PID (i.e. 12514 and 13262).

Decoding the command:

ps: Process Status

a: Show processes for all users

u: Display the process’s user/owner

x: Also show processes not attached to a terminal

grep: Globally search for a regular expression and print matching lines

Value in between the “….” is the name of the process you want to find.

Case 2: Clear a particular port

Command: sudo lsof -i :8080

In the CMD, we have run a command which displays the process running with its PID (i.e. 12514 and 13262).

Decoding the command:

sudo(superuser do): Allows programs to be executed as a root user

lsof: list open files

-i: interactive

After which you mention the port number(:8000).

STEP 2: Killing the Process

Command: sudo kill -9 12514

Decoding the command:

sudo(superuser do): Allows programs to be executed as a root user

kill -9: Terminates the process.

After which you write the PID(a number which shows after the username), which you want to terminate.
Linux Support 的 Video Capture Device: Cloner Alliance Flint 4KP Plus
By: Wan Leung Wong
Tags: Popos, Video Capture Hardware, Ubuntu, Linux, Broadcasting

Learn more. Medium is an open platform where 170 million readers come to find insightful and dynamic thinking. Here, expert and undiscovered voices alike dive into the heart of any topic and bring new ideas to the surface. Learn more

Make Medium yours. Follow the writers, publications, and topics that matter to you, and you’ll see them on your homepage and in your inbox. Explore
SQL Server on Docker
By: Indira Raghavan
Tags: Docker, Containerization, Sql Server, Linux

Ease of having containerized SQL server for isolated programming

Often programming teams use a single SQL server for their coding work. This limits how much a developer can find creative solutions for the problem at hand. What if we can isolate a copy specifically for the developer, and maintain the integrity of the SQL server for the rest of team? What if we do not need to install SQL server instance running on your local computer? SQL Server can be run on any platform by leveraging container technology. Let’s look at how to setup a SQL Server database inside of a Docker container.

Prerequisites:

Docker Desktop Powershell

Install docker desktop:

Let’s get started:

With the use of only 2 docker commands, we can have a localhost instance of SQL server to connect to.

The first command pulls mssql image to your local container.

The 2nd command creates a local DB with the name my-local-db. Now you can connect to the database using SQL Server management studio.

docker run -d -e "ACCEPT_EULA=Y" -e "SA_PASSWORD=Str0ngPwd" --name "my-local-db" -p 1433:1433 mcr.microsoft.com/mssql/server:2019-CU8-ubuntu-16.04 docker ps -a

As you can see, you have a container hosting your SQL DB, locally.

Connect to localhost:

To view your container images Visual Studio provides container window

To connect using SQL server management studio:

Now you can use this as a regular SQL Server, and execute CRUD operations. One thing to remember though, if the containers are removed, the data is lost. If you wish to use this as connection string in your applications:

"DbContext": "Data Source=tcp:localhost,1433;Initial Catalog=my-local-db;Persist Security Info=True;User ID=SA;Password=Str0ngPwd"

In Conclusion:

SQL Server can be run on any platform by utilizing container technology. We can drop and recreate tables, databases, functions, stored procedures. This is specially useful to debug docker DB related issues on pipelines. We can load the exact script used in pipelines for unit tests into the local DB and identify the issues with Unit test tasks.

For more SQL image versions and tags on docker: click here
Why rotating Docker logs is important — How to rotate Docker logs
By: Ishita Shah
Tags: Docker, Ubuntu, Linux, Log, DevOps

Docker Log Rotation

Are your docker containers taking all disk space? Are you facing issues like disk space is full while the only thing running on sever is docker container(s)

In this case, Docker log could be possibly taking all your disk space and you need to remove that. Manually removing logs can be a hectic job, so it is necessary that docker logs are rotated at certain intervals, In this blog, we will see how to configure the same.

Y ou first need to verify the exact reason for the disk usage issue, Run the below-mentioned commands to check if Docker is the one who is taking all disk space

SSH in your Linux machine Go to /var/lib/docker directory (Ubuntu) Run below-mentioned command

du -sch *

The output will look something like this

du -sch *

Here, if the total size is nearly equal to your disk space, Docker could be the reason for the problem. In this case, We need to set up the docker log rotation policy

Also, check if the containers directory is taking most space among all docker files and directories

Now, Let’s set up rules so docker can automatically rotate files when it exceeds a certain amount of file size and we will also customize how many such files can be generated

Go to /etc/docker directory Edit/Create daemon.json file and add the below-mentioned code

{

"log-driver": "json-file",

"log-opts": {

"max-size": "10m",

"max-file": "3"

}

}

Code Suggest that; Maximum 3 files, 10MB each can be created per container, after which old logs will be rotated (deleted)

Save this file and restart docker

service docker restart

Changes are now effective, but only for new containers, for old containers settinngs are not upgraded (you need to re-run old containers, to make it effective)

All your new containers will inherit these rules by default.

These are global settings for all docker containers on this machine, what if you want to override it for some docker containers for which may be a different log retention policy is required?

For that, you can add the below-mentioned configuration in the docker run command,

docker run --name mysql --restart always --log-opt max-size=10m --log-opt max-file=5 -v /my/own/datadir:/var/lib/mysql -p 3306:3306 -e MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD=my-secret-password -d mysql:5.6

using this way, this particular docker container will take max-size=10MB and max-file=5

Hope this helps you!!!

Connect with me for more such DevOps related blogs

Drafted on: 22nd December 2020

Written by,

Ishita Shah

https://identicalcloud.com/
Can we make a proxy server using Raspberry Pi and Linux? Let’s do it Lukasz 🤓
Tags: Proxy Server, Linux, Internet, Developers, Raspberry Pi

Can we make a proxy server using Raspberry Pi and Linux? Let’s do it Lukasz 🤓
[Linux] 시간 변경 명령어
Tags: Ntp, Programming, Linux, Ti̇me

Learn more. Medium is an open platform where 170 million readers come to find insightful and dynamic thinking. Here, expert and undiscovered voices alike dive into the heart of any topic and bring new ideas to the surface. Learn more

Make Medium yours. Follow the writers, publications, and topics that matter to you, and you’ll see them on your homepage and in your inbox. Explore
Nmap — How to Use It ?
Tags: Nmap, Security, How To, Linux

Let’s start

Perform port scan by specifying IP address

vagrant@vagrant:~$ nmap 192.168.123.123



#It is also possible to specify a range of #ip addresses for scanning

vagrant@vagrant:~$ nmap 192.168.123.123-130

Status Explanation

Option which we can use

I think that this tool is useful for problem solving, but please be aware that it can also be used dangerously.
- Mahesh Shroff
By: Mahesh Shroff
Tags: Pandemic, Vaccine, Covid, Corona

At 68, an enthusiast, raring for all things good, ever wanting to spew on matters that agitate sensibilities.. or on those that could make world a better place
“When this COVID mess is over, we need to get together!”
By: Anthony Lawrence
Tags: Masks, Vaccines, Friends, Covid 19, Family

“When this COVID mess is over, we need to get together!” I will bet that we all have had many similar conversations with friends and relatives. For me, the frequency of these has increased since the vaccine announcements, and some now suggest tentative dates.

I will need months to honor all these promises. The sheer number of engagements we have all planned will mean busy restaurants and mandatory reservations. Highways and parking lots will be more crowded, but we will welcome all that cheerfully.

Or will we? This morning, my mind took a pessimistic turn. Is it when or if?

Consider all the mask deniers we still have. Add that we don’t know how long the vaccine will remain effective and that the virus has already mutated and will mutate again. And then, of course, we have all the people who will refuse to be vaccinated.

Is it almost over?
Combatting the Rise of Anti-Vaxxers: Why Faith in Science is Necessary for a New Normal
By: Eshita Garg
Tags: Covid 19, Coronavirus, Vaccines, Science

I remember earlier this year, Dr. Fauci had noted that vaccines would be essential for dampening the effects of COVID-19. I have seen people claim that COVID-19 has a 99% survival rate, so why would I need a vaccine? I realize that the answer may not be as clear to the layperson who lacks a scientific background.

From case studies, it can be noted that although individuals with mild symptoms may survive from COVID-19, the long-term effects are unknown. Patients can develop medical complications that can directly target some of our most important organs like the lungs, heart, and brain. So, yes, of course, there is evidence that shows that the average young, healthy, and fit person will survive COVID-19 — perhaps they may be asymptomatic as well. However, can we say that there is enough evidence that surviving from COVID-19 would not translate into problems in the future? No, of course not. To understand the long-term effects, COVID-19 will have to be examined longitudinally for the next few decades. Hence, I thoroughly believe that without proper research studies, we cannot claim that simply surviving COVID-19 indicates that we will be okay in the future.

This brings me to my next point: herd immunity. Now, the concept of herd immunity is simple, yet I understand why there may be misunderstanding surrounding it due to mainstream media. Herd immunity is the resistance of a group to an attack by a disease to which a large proportion of the group is immune. Many individuals suggest that herd immunity can be established by people intermixing with one another and getting infected with COVID-19. However, this is not ideal. For one, populations are made up of individuals who are immunocompromised, older, or have other co-morbidities. We know that being part of this group, alongside having COVID-19, is an increased risk factor for poor outcomes, often which includes death. Additionally, research studies have shown that immunity towards COVID-19 re-infection seems to last approximately six months. This is definitely not indicative of having a protective effect, hence why vaccines come into play.

Herd immunity is often established with the use of vaccines. Vaccines create immunity without causing illnesses or resulting in complications. With herd immunity, we are able to protect the population from diseases, including those who cannot be vaccinated. In the past, vaccines have successfully controlled smallpox, polio, rubella, among many others. Experts anticipate that around 70% of the total US population, or 200 million, need to be infected with COVID-19 for herd immunity to be achieved. Now, if 200 million individuals were infected with COVID-19, this would drastically put a strain on our healthcare system. Thus, with vaccines, herd immunity can occur without overwhelming hospitals and severe health complications, which could otherwise occur with natural infection.
How Santa Got His Coronavirus Vaccine Before Christmas
By: Rui Alves
Tags: Christmas, Vaccines, Coronavirus, Health, Writing

Coronavirus Christmas

How Santa Got His Coronavirus Vaccine Before Christmas

Photo by Mike Arney on Unsplash

Children worldwide showed concern about Santa getting infected with Coronavirus before Christmas. This would be a worst-case scenario, as all the elves might also have to go into quarantine, along with Santa and Mrs. Claus.

What about Santa’s reindeer, Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner, Blitzen, and good old Rudolph? Unfortunately, there aren’t enough peer-reviewed studies about the possibility of contagion between Santa, elves, and reindeer.

Thus, the young ones were having trouble sleeping with their little hearts hacking from distress: — What if Santa gets sick? The dreadful idea haunting a lot of children’s minds.

Letters to Pfizer

Aspiring 6-year-old writer Calum Thornhill was among the concerned younglings who wrote to Pfizer CEO asking for a shipment of coronavirus vaccines to be delivered to the North Pole.

Dear Pfizer, I heard you made a new vaccine for coronavirus. Good job. Can you please send some to the North Pole for Santa and his elves? Please. We want to save Christmas and make all the kids happy.

Little Calum from Glanmire, Ireland, got a reply from Pfizers CEO:

To Finn and Callum, who sent these letters, you are kind, compassionate and thoughtful young boys, and I want you to know that we are doing everything we can to help bring hope to people around the world. And we will make sure to take care of Santa and his elves, too. — Albert Bourla, CEO Pfizer

Then Santa himself took the fast lane to the Sarsfield Hurling Club, in Glanmire, to meet with Callum and confirm that Pfizer had already made sure everyone back at the North Pole got the vaccine in time for Christmas.

No problem with deep freezing back home, Santa’s cold storage facilities can easily keep the vaccine at minus 70 degrees, and everyone will get their second shot by mid-January 2021.

A word of advice from Santa

Even after he got vaccinated, Santy followed all safety measures concerning respiratory etiquette and wore a mask while circumnavigating the planet. No sightings have been reported; thus, Santa did a tremendous job cloaking himself and upholding social distancing once again. Well done, Santy!

Santa Claus is now safely back home with Mrs. Claus, the elves, and the reindeer fast at work and already planning for Christmas 2021.
Hello, ScienceDuuude,
By: K P Vasudeva Rao
Tags: Immune System, Lymphoma, Covid 19, Vaccines

Hello, ScienceDuuude,

You have explained our body immune system as well as the origin of lymphoma in the simplest possible ways.

Apart from your profile photo( which shows how handsome you are), your explanation of all that goes in the making of the body immune system in a layman’s language is just superb. It reminded me of my medical school days, especially the second year MBBS, where we were taught pathology which featured the immune system also.

Duuude, I have just become your follower. Awaiting your next medical revelation.

Adios.
I am outraged that nobody is being vaccinated.
By: Corrado Rosca
Tags: Pandemic, Vaccine

I am outraged that nobody is being vaccinated. The governors need to make plans. The vaccine was invented 10 months ago and you morons made no plans until this week? It almost seems like Cuomo and Murphy don’t want the pandemic to end. Imagine that.
Turkish official says vaccine from China’s Sinovac is 91.25% effective
Tags: Covid 19, Health, Vaccines

An experimental Covid-19 vaccine developed by Chinese biopharmaceutical company Sinovac is 91.25% effective, a Turkish health official said on Thursday.

Dr. Serhat Unal, an infectious disease expert serving on Turkey’s medical board, said the finding is based on early results of late-stage trials in the country and added that the vaccine is safe.

CoronaVac is a so-called inactivated vaccine developed by Sinovac Biotech. Unal announced the initial results following randomized trials involving 7,371 volunteers.

Turkey’s Health Minister Fahrettin Koca said in the press conference the results were the first to be announced for CoronaVac. Media reports said Sinovac delayed announcing results from late-stage trials until January to consolidate data from other countries where trials took place. The efficacy rate announced by Turkey could not be immediately verified independently.

Koca said the first shipment of three million doses of CoronaVac will be dispatched to Turkey Sunday night and arrive Monday. The vaccines were initially expected to arrive after Dec. 11, but Koca said issues with permits caused the delay. Turkey has signed a deal for 50 million doses of the vaccine.

The health minister also said an agreement for the vaccine developed by Pfizer and BioNTech vaccine was close. He said Turkey could get 4.5 million doses until the end of March and would have the option buy up to 30 million doses.

Turkey has among the worst infection rates in the world, with a weekly average of about 22,000 confirmed daily infections. The total death toll is 19,115, according to official statistics.
BITO and the startup Tec4med Lifescience GmbH are developing digital high-performance transport boxes for sending corona vaccines
By: Pedro Gonçalo Ferreira
Tags: Vaccines, Tec4med, Darmstadt, Covid

The company BITO-Lagertechnik Bittmann GmbH from Meisenheim and the startup Tec4med Lifescience GmbH from Darmstadt are developing digital high-performance transport boxes for sending corona vaccines and other temperature-sensitive drugs.

By jointly developing a GDP-compliant transport system for vaccines and drugs in a wide variety of temperature ranges, the traditional company from the logistics industry and the young startup from Darmstadt have merged the two competencies from logistics, pharmaceuticals and the Internet of Things (IoT for short) and created a digital transport solution for the steadily increasing demands on the transport of medical goods.

Even before the pandemic, both companies had given extensive thought to the process optimization of their customers in the pharmaceutical industry. The currently very specific requirements of corona vaccine logistics confirm that this development path is being taken in good time, with both companies presenting their joint solution right on time for the global vaccination start: “The many years of expertise in logistics paired with our fresh, digital ideas from the pharmaceutical industry leave some Products are created ”, says Nico Höler CEO of Tec4med. The founder continues: “With our thermal high-performance solution for the ranges -80 ° C, 2–8 ° C and 15–25 ° C and running times of over 100 hours, we are pleased with a transport container that is not only thermally superior, but also to have developed an environmentally friendly and resource-saving reusable system. The seamless integration of the Internet of Things, which not only provides complete traceability of the supply chain in real time, but also a digital, theft-proof seal, sets us apart from all existing solutions on the market in terms of both thermal and security superiority. “

Christian Mohr, Product Manager of the Plastics Business Unit at BITO, confirms this common idea: “Due to the increasing demands of our customers when transporting vaccines or medicines around the world, many guidelines have to be adhered to in order to guarantee the perfect condition of the products at all times. With a clear focus on the customer and our users, we have created a holistic product that not only simplifies our customers’ processes, but also completely digitalises them in the era of Industry 4.0. “
Toledo Police chief voices disappointment with ODH vaccine decision
By: Jaden Jefferson
Tags: Covid 19, Vaccine, News, Local, Police

Toledo Police chief voices disappointment with ODH vaccine decision

Toledo Police Chief George Kral considers police officers frontline workers who should be next in line to get the vaccine. Jaden Jefferson ·Dec 24, 2020

COVID-19 vaccine / crime scene tape. (Pixabay | Jaden Jefferson)

TOLEDO, Ohio — Wednesday, the Ohio Department of Health announced that police officers will not be included in phase 1A of COVID-19 vaccine distribution, and that announcement has caused frustration among local law enforcement officials, including Toledo Police Chief George Kral.

Toledo Police Chief George Kral responds to the ODH’s decision.

Chief Kral says that officers engage with members of the community day and night, and at times their job requires them to be up close and personal with suspects.

Kral received support from Toledo Fire & Rescue Department Chief Brian Byrd:
There are millions of doses in the freezer.
By: Corrado Rosca
Tags: Vaccines

There are millions of doses in the freezer. Your governor and your president elect want to hold it back as long as they can.
A new strain of COVID-19, is it more sinister?
By: Rajneesh Dwivedi
Tags: Vaccines, Covd 19

A new strain of COVID-19, is it more sinister?

COVID-19 incidence overall has been declining in certain countries including India. But, on the other hand, several countries in Europe and the USA have seen a second spike in the disease. In certain countries, this second wave has been as damaging as the first one.

In this chaotic world of COVID-19, 20th December will be remembered as a black day. This was the day when UK prime minister Mr. Boris Johnson for the first time informed the public that a new strain of COVID-19 has been found in the UK. He also informed that it appears this virus has more infectivity that means it can spread faster than the previous strain.

With this news, panic gripped the whole world. Countries started suspending all flight operations to and from the UK. India also stopped flight operations between India and UK till 31st December 2020.

It also affected the financial market world over and the Indian Sensex plunged 1407 points, which is the biggest single-day fall since April 2020. That amounts to the loss of Rs. 6.6 trillion of investor’s money.

A king’s college London study has found that there could be six different types of COVID-19 virus. Each with a unique cluster of symptoms.

The new strain of virus may have been there in the UK for the last few months which U.K. scientists have named “VUI — 202012/01” includes a genetic mutation in the “spike” protein, which — in theory — could result in COVID-19 spreading more easily between people.

As of today, scientists believe that the present vaccine will be effective against this strain of the virus as well. And there is no evidence so far that this new strain causes more severe disease.

So far there is no conclusive evidence that a new strain has entered India but the government has been cautious and the scientists at the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research-Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CSIR-CCMB) have decided to take up the genome sequencing of samples collected from various parts of the country to check if they find any evidence of new strain in India.

Dr. Rakesh Rai. MS, FRCS, MD, CCT, ASTS fellow.

www.myvirtualhospital.com
How Long Will Protection From the Covid-19 Vaccine Really Last?
By: Elemental Editors
Tags: Vaccines, Coronavirus, Covid 19, Health, Science

Q: How long will protection from the vaccine last? Are we going to have to get the vaccine every year like the flu vaccine?

We won’t know how long a Covid-19 vaccine’s immunity lasts for a while — however long it takes to wear off in the first trial participants, at least. But [Saad] Omer [PhD, MBBS, director of the Yale Institute for Global Health, New Haven, Connecticut] said it’s not likely you’ll need it every year. While the virus does change, coronaviruses don’t change at the same high speed as flu viruses (which is the reason new flu vaccines are needed each fall). “It may be that we have to do repeat vaccinations and boosters for a while, but I’d be surprised if it’s an annual vaccine,” Omer said. Further, scientists already suspect immunity from Covid-19 infections might last years, and both mRNA vaccines led to higher antibody levels than seen in people who had recovered from Covid infections.

Read more below.
Vaccine Efficiency vs Efficacy
By: Dr Kajal Patel
Tags: Médium, Vaccines, Covid 19, Health, SEO

Effectiveness (effective ) vs Efficacy ! the key differences

The two terms used to describe how well a drug or vaccine works are often used interchangeably, but they are not actually the same thing

These are the most common confusing jargons we have heard in any field based on analysis

Now a days it’s part of our routine life ….all the vaccine have their or vaccine efficiency vs efficacy !

What is better on ground basis ?

Effectiveness or efficacy ! the key differences

Which vaccine is better more efficient or efficacy ?

Here are your answers…
Vacuna COVID-19 o el camino hacia el humano transgénico.
By: Jesus Jordan Parra
Tags: Vaccines, Humanity, Covid 19

My true vocation has always been the study, understanding and dissemination of the Truths of the ancestral Traditions.
First COVID-19 Vaccines given to frontline staff at DSHS Facilities
By: Department Of Social, Health Services
Tags: Covid 19, Vaccine, Western State Hospital, DHS

Chief Nursing Officer Jennifer Brown administers a COVID-19 vaccine to a Western State Hospital employee. Photo courtesy of WSH.

LAKEWOOD — Department of Social and Health Services employees eligible for the first round of COVID-19 vaccines got their first dose today, Wednesday, Dec. 23 at Western State Hospital.

DSHS worked with its partner agency, the Department of Health, to apply through the Emergency Use Authorization agreement approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration earlier this month to receive vaccine for staff who are at the greatest risk of exposure to the deadly virus.

Vaccines are voluntary for staff and DSHS leadership see this as the first step towards getting to the other side of this pandemic that has ravaged the world for the past 10 months.

“We are excited that we are able to provide this added layer of protection for our staff who are at the greatest risk of exposure to the virus due to their work,” said Cheryl Strange, Secretary for DSHS. “Our staff have been so resilient and dedicated to reducing the spread of the virus to our clients, themselves and their families. From the work by direct-care staff at our facilities, to our staff within our Aging and Long-Term Support Administration, ensuring individual providers have the right PPE to care for our clients and working to get staff at long-term care facilities vaccine doses; to our warehouse staff who are keeping track of every mask and bottle of hand sanitizer, making sure there’s enough to go around — I am honored and amazed every day to be a part of this team.”

Western State Hospital received 2,000 doses of the Moderna vaccine which will be shared among DSHS staff who work at the agency’s Behavioral Health Administration’s 24/7 facilities in Pierce and Thurston counties. DSHS also plans to administer vaccines to front-line staff at the agency’s 24/7 facilities overseen by its Developmental Disabilities Administration across the state as well as Eastern State Hospital.

“The effort to coordinate the rapid distribution and immunization of our high-risk staff at our facilities was no small task,” said Sean Murphy, DSHS Assistant Secretary for the Behavioral Health Administration. “I am proud of the teamwork that our nurses, pharmacy, infection control, logistics and command staff have demonstrated to get this massive endeavor off the ground.”

Despite the vaccine finally being available, DSHS will continue its efforts to reduce the spread of COVID-19 by continuing to use PPE, good hand-hygiene practices, social distancing and having staff who are able to telework continue to do so until at least June 2021.
What do we know till now about the new strain of covid-19 in the UK?
By: Vignesh Shenoy
Tags: Covid 19 Crisis, Vaccines, Coronavirus, Covid 19, UK

Credit: Richard Borge

The new strain of SARS-CoV-2 the virus which causes Covid-19 in the UK which has been called VUI 202012/01 is considered 70% more transmissible than the earlier ones according to the figures shared by UK prime minister Boris Johnson.

It has changed the genetic mutation in the spike protein which makes it easier to bind with our cells it carries 14 mutations which include 7 in the spike protein this is a relatively large number compared to the global one.

When was this new strain first discovered?

It was found in September and now it’s nearly 2/3rd of cases in December, mutations are common in the case of the virus but in this case, it is mutating rapidly and affecting the parts that are important to the virus and the ability of the virus to infect cells which makes it easier to spread among humans.

This may have been spread by a patient with lower immune power who couldn’t fight the virus and became the breeding ground for the virus to mutate. There is no evidence as of now that it is more deadly than the earlier ones.

There was a similar variant that was found in South Africa with some of the same genetic mutations but it’s unrelated to this one, but still many countries closed their borders with South Africa.

Has this happened before?

The D614G mutation and A222V of SARS-CoV-2 had been found in Europe in February.



Now the virus is spread across countries like Denmark, Netherlands Australia from the UK.

Earlier UK health secretary Matt Hancock had told that the virus was ‘out of control’ and parts of England will have the highest tier restriction until the vaccine roles out.

How many countries have band travel restrictions from the UK?

More than 50 countries have imposed travel restriction from the UK this includes India, Netherlands, Germany, China, Ireland, France, Belgium etc.

How will it affect Christmas?

25th December in tier 4 of England, you will not be able to meet people indoors unless you live with them or they are part of support bubble, You will be able to make Christmas bubble in tier 1,2,3 cities.

There are different rules for Christmas bubble if you live in Scotland, wales and northern Ireland.

Will the vaccine work?

There is good news that the vaccines will be effective at least for now against this new strain as vaccines train the immune system to attack the different part of the virus even if the part of the spike has been mutated.







But the virus is in the path of vaccine escape where the virus changes so it dodges the effect of the vaccine but the vaccine can also be updated.

source :



https://www.bbc.com/news/health-55388846



https://www.gov.uk/coronavirus
Another round of COVID-19 vaccines headed to the tri-county area by next week
Tags: Vaccines, Vaccination, Covid 19

The Tri-county area could see another round of COVID-19 vaccines as early as next Monday.

Monica Hendrickson, Peoria City/County Health Administrator, said currently 1,801 frontline workers in the area’s local hospitals have been vaccinated with the Pfizer vaccines.

Jennifer Hopwood, the Chief Nursing Officer at OSF Saint Francis Medical Center, said two-thirds of the vaccines have gone to OSF HealthCare and one-third went to UnityPoint Health.

“At OSF Saint Francis Medical Center and our surrounding OSF locations in Peoria, we were able to vaccinate about 10% of our workforce that comes into contact with patients,” Hopwood said. “We saw no individuals with significant reactions to the vaccine and overall the process went very smoothly.”

Hendrickson also said the Federal Retail Pharmacy Partnership begins next week which will allow direct vaccine shipments to nursing homes and long-term care facilities.

“We had worked throughout October and in November to make sure that our long-term care facilities that were eligible or registered, we did get the final report from the state as well as the CDC, none of our local entities were disqualified at all,” Hendrickson said. “That means that everyone that registered is on the program and so hopefully we will have vaccines in our long-term care facilities beginning on the 28th as well.”

Hendrickson said the area is currently in Phase 1 of its vaccine distribution plan. She said there are three tiers in this phase.

Tier 1 A: Healthcare professionals, including direct and indirect patient care.

Tier 1 B: Frontline essential workers and people older than 75-years-old.

Tier 1 C: Remainder of essential workers, people between the ages of 65 and 74-years-old, and people between the ages of 16 and 64-years-old with high-risk medical conditions.

She said the general public will have to wait until next year for vaccines.

“I think we’re hoping sometime, you know, in the spring or the summer,” Hendrickson said. “And by then we also hope that you’re going to see this vaccine in a lot of locations such as pharmacies, groceries. Not only you’re primary care provider so don’t be surprised if you go to Kroger one day and you’re able to get your COVID vaccine.”

Hendrickson also shared some positive news in regard to declining COVID-19 cases in the area.

“We’re starting to see a lot of our cases decreasing, transmission rates going down and that’s further seen by the fact that Region 2 for the past 10 days has seen our positivity drop under 12 percent,” Hendrickson said.

She also said the capacity for local hospitals has increased by more than 20% and the number of hospitalizations due to the virus is going down.

However, she did say fourteen residents in the Peoria area have died within the past 24 hours, and 44 people have died since last week.

She’s recommending the public continues to practice proper safety precautions going into the holiday season to avoid a potential super surge of COVID-19 cases.

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Pfizer BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine
By: Tasneem Adenwala
Tags: Covid 19, Pfizer, Vaccines

Important things we know about the Pfizer BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine

• From roughly 44000 participants, vaccine and placebo were administered 1:1 ratio, the vaccine participants demonstrated 95% efficacy in preventing COVID-19 in those without prior infection 7 days or more after the second dose.

• Partial protection from the vaccine candidate appeared as early as 12 days after the first dose.

• The vaccine has shown consistent results in people of different ages, races, BMI, and with various co-morbid conditions.

About the trial:

Pfizer conducted a randomized, observer-blinded COVID-19 vaccine trial for an mRNA vaccine named BNT162b2. The vaccine trial recipients will be followed up for two years to track antibody longevity and long-term side effects of the vaccine. The vaccine is dosed at a two-week interval. There are in total 6 visits and at the first two visits the vaccine was administered and blood is collected to check serum for preformed antibodies and the rest 4 visits are spaced at 4 weeks, 6 months, 1 year, and 2 years from the first dose, here only blood is collected to monitor serum antibodies.

The people enrolled in the trial have to maintain a digital diary of the symptoms. There are roughly 44000 people who have registered for the vaccine and various modifications were made to the trial as it kept increasing the study population such as including people below 16 years of age, representing minorities including African American, Hispanics, Native Americans, etc. Another update was to include people with Hepatitis B, Hepatitis C, obesity, and some other co-morbid conditions. The vaccine had uniform tolerability and efficacy in such a varied population.

How did they calculate 95 percent efficacy?

There were 36,523 participants and 170 cases of COVID-19 onset were observed at least 7 days after the second dose, 8 cases were from the vaccine group and 162 from the placebo group, corresponding to the 95 percent vaccine efficacy (CI 90.3–97.6).

The vaccine efficacy between the first and second doses is 54 percent (CI 29.5 -68.4).

Common Side effects and storage requirements:

Amongst the side effects of the vaccine most common ones are pain at the injection site, fatigue, and headache. There is not enough data for the safety of the vaccine in pregnancy and excretion in breast milk.

The vaccine vial has to be stored at -70 degree Celsius and during administration, it has to be thawed at room temperature for 30 mins, diluted and then administered. Once the diluted vaccine dosage is made it can be stored for 6 hours in a refrigerator at 2–8 degrees Celsius.
Corona Vaccine Will Not Reach Poor Countries Until 2022
Tags: China, Vaccines, Coronavirus, Covid 19, USA

Washington: Corona vaccination has been launched in a dozen countries, including the United Kingdom, the United States and Saudi Arabia, but a study has revealed that about a quarter of the world’s population is not expected to receive the vaccine by 2022. A study by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, published in the medical journal BMJ, found that corona virus vaccines would first be available in rich countries and then in poorer ones. It is feared that a quarter of the population will not have access to the corona vaccine by 2022. The study analyzed the pre orders, preparation stages, delivery difficulties and medical expertise of COVID 19 vaccines and unfortunately the poorest countries are facing all these difficulties while the prosperous countries in mid-November. 7.48 billion doses of vaccines from 13 different companies were allocated for them. Now, if all these vaccines are successfully used, the next batch will be ready by the end of 2021, for which companies will be able to produce 5.96 billion doses worth between $6 and 96$ per vaccine. Rich countries, representing only 14% of the world’s population, have already bought 51% of the vaccine. Thus, the poor, who make up 85% of the population, have no choice but to hope. It seems difficult for them to get the vaccine before 2022. In this regard, the role of the United Nations Corona Vaccine Monitoring Agency, Kovacine, is important, which will in any case face global pressure.