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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » COVID-19: It’s Not Your Fault

SystemSystem Posts: 12,169
edited May 2020 in General

imagepoliticalbetting.com » Blog Archive » COVID-19: It’s Not Your Fault

The most seductive words in the English language are it’s not your fault.

Read the full story here


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Comments

  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 119,675
    Oh yes it is.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 71,222
    Good summary
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 82,119
    I somehow doubt Witty and Vallance get stuck into this type of stuff in their SAGE meetings...

    https://twitter.com/Starcourse/status/1257277717944426497?s=20

    https://twitter.com/Starcourse/status/1257278835873251331?s=20

    https://twitter.com/Starcourse/status/1257278392354975746?s=20
  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 119,675
    FrancisUrquhart said:

    I somehow doubt Witty and Vallance get stuck into this type of stuff in their SAGE meetings...

    https://twitter.com/Starcourse/status/1257277717944426497?s=20

    https://twitter.com/Starcourse/status/1257278835873251331?s=20

    https://twitter.com/Starcourse/status/1257278392354975746?s=20


    Lock these bellends up and transport them to the Pitcairn Islands.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 123,139
    One conspiracy theory doing the rounds is the disease was designed to reduce China's pension costs given its ageing population, while crippling the West's economies via lockdown in the process
  • RobDRobD Posts: 59,935
    FrancisUrquhart said:

    I somehow doubt Witty and Vallance get stuck into this type of stuff in their SAGE meetings...

    https://twitter.com/Starcourse/status/1257277717944426497?s=20

    https://twitter.com/Starcourse/status/1257278835873251331?s=20

    https://twitter.com/Starcourse/status/1257278392354975746?s=20

    So it bombed then? :D
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 54,599
    TheScreamingEagles said:

    FrancisUrquhart said:

    I somehow doubt Witty and Vallance get stuck into this type of stuff in their SAGE meetings...

    https://twitter.com/Starcourse/status/1257277717944426497?s=20

    https://twitter.com/Starcourse/status/1257278835873251331?s=20

    https://twitter.com/Starcourse/status/1257278392354975746?s=20

    Lock these bellends up and transport them to the Pitcairn Islands.
    That's awfully harsh on the Pitcairn Islands.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 71,222
    Reposting from the previous thread as it's on topic.

    (FPT)
    Yokes said:

    Nigelb said:

    Yokes said:

    Nigelb said:

    Yokes said:

    Nigelb said:

    Yokes said:

    FF43 said:

    Yokes said:

    FF43 said:



    It seems unlikely that the Wuhan lab would do anything so detrimental to China's interest as deliberately releasing the virus into the local population. Virologists seem certain that Covid-19 has the characteristics of a naturally occurring virus originating in bats. The Wuhan was doing normal virological research into these viruses.

    Accidental release of the virus into the neighbourhoood is plausible given the proximity of the lab to the origin of the outbreak, but there doesn't appear to be any evidence for this.

    And there is no suggestion in the above that there is strong evidence of either.
    Yeah but if the baseline is that a naturally occurring virus being studied at the lab might have been released accidentally but probably wasn't, that may say more about the sources you quote and their "position of considerable knowledge" than the practices of the lab and those of Chinese authorities.
    Remember this is not a case of showing your hand, its not how it works. We don't know what raw information Western agencies have or how they have interpreted it and its unlikely to come out unless they can protect sourcing and methodology. If they can, then they will release it but how do you show say intercepts of logs of a computer for example. That's your source blown. How do you show intercepts of telephone conversations and so on.

    What I'm trying to do is suggest how this may go forward, because its likely to become a bigger story and source of conflict.

    Equally it doesn't take top secret intelligence to suggest that there was suppression at work. Not even the Chinese appeared to deny that they muzzled a doctor, who later died, that wanted greater attention to & warning of the severity of the situation. Also there are suggestions based on local reports that the death toll in Wuhan and wider Hubei was way way larger than the authorities stated. There are reports, on record, of concerns over the Wuhan site's bio security before this thing ever kicked off. There are stories that the EU has confirmed Chinese attempts at public disinformation in the West over SarsCoV2

    None of those is intelligence agency sourced but add them up and the you'd be asking what the fuck were the Chinese at and why.

    I will say this though, Western agencies try very hard to keep an eye on anything and anywhere that may be involved in dual-purpose activity. Its doubtful they'd not try to monitor the Wuhan facility and its doubtful they don't have some picture even if fragmented.

    The reports of concern about (one of) the Wuhan sites’ biosecurity included requests from the Chinese for help in improving it.
    The details are unclear, as the US hasn’t published those cables,

    One of the problems is that we’re nearly four years into a US administration almost as mendacious as the Chinese.
    I'd be interesting in understanding more about that Chinese request for help. Do you have a pointer to that published anywhere?
    It was in a WaPo story, not exactly slanted towards the Chinese:

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/04/14/state-department-cables-warned-safety-issues-wuhan-lab-studying-bat-coronaviruses/
    ... The Chinese researchers at WIV were receiving assistance from the Galveston National Laboratory at the University of Texas Medical Branch and other U.S. organizations, but the Chinese requested additional help. The cables argued that the United States should give the Wuhan lab further support, mainly because its research on bat coronaviruses was important but also dangerous.
    As the cable noted, the U.S. visitors met with Shi Zhengli, the head of the research project, who had been publishing studies related to bat coronaviruses for many years. In November 2017, just before the U.S. officials’ visit, Shi’s team had published research showing that horseshoe bats they had collected from a cave in Yunnan province were very likely from the same bat population that spawned the SARS coronavirus in 2003....
    Their slant doesn't concern me its the start point to understand more and find additional sources about the issues with the bio security.
    I get that. My point was that given the tenor of the story, that detail was perhaps unlikely to be fabricated.
    The concerns over Wuhan indeed Chinese labs in general working with notable pathogens appeared to have been well before the US government, who helped fund parts of the lab operations, sent their people over in 2018.

    There was concern over how Wuhan got through the accreditation process and that the Chinese labs working with the pathogens didn't have good history (some notable blunders handling SARS samples) . That wasn't governments though that was voices within the scientific community. In short it was a reputation that the labs were slack.
    True.
    But this appears to have been a worldwide problem dating back to the first SARS outbreak. And note that, unlike others deadly pathogens such as smallpox, SARS, and as late as March this year, SARS CoV-2, were permitted to be handled in much lower biosecurity level labs than the one at Wuhan - BSL2 rather than BSL4.

    Laboratory safety aspects of SARS at Biosafety Level 2.
    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15098644

    Laboratory Biosafety Recommendations for SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19
    https://www.labconco.com/articles/laboratory-biosafety-recommendations-for-sars-co


  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 71,222
    What looks like a very useful mouse model, from China...

    Rapid adaptation of SARS-CoV-2 in BALB/c mice: Novel mouse model for vaccine efficacy
    https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.05.02.073411v1
    Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) threatens global public health and economy. In order to develop safe and effective vaccines, suitable animal models must be established. Here we report the rapid adaption of SARS-CoV-2 in BALB/c mice, based on which a convenient, economical and effective animal model was developed. Specifically, we found that mouse-adapted SARS-CoV-2 at passage 6 (MACSp6) efficiently infected both aged and young wild-type BALB/c mice, resulting in moderate pneumonia as well as inflammatory responses. The elevated infectivity of MACSp6 in mice could be attributed to the substitution of a key residue (N501Y) in the receptor-binding domain (RBD). Using this novel animal model, we further evaluated the in vivo protective efficacy of an RBD-based SARS-CoV-2 subunit vaccine, which elicited highly potent neutralizing antibodies and conferred full protection against SARS-CoV-2 MACSp6 challenge. This novel mouse model is convenient and effective in evaluating the in vivo protective efficacy of SARS-CoV-2 vaccine....
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 42,226
    Well said @rcs1000 - even if it turns out to be true it is not a rational belief right now.
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 78,205
    I reckon yesterday was the first true sub 300 covid NHS England deaths day. We'll know if I'm right by the end of the month.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 71,222
    It’s comforting to make this someone else’s fault. ...

    It's a little more than just that - it's basically Trump's entire re-election strategy.
  • Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826
    Pulpstar said:

    I reckon yesterday was the first true sub 300 covid NHS England deaths day. We'll know if I'm right by the end of the month.

    Deaths seem to be falling roughly linearly rather than exponentially.
  • StockyStocky Posts: 10,222
    204 deaths today England v 369 same day last week.

    See:

    https://twitter.com/cricketwyvern/status/1257300183466962947/photo/1
  • SirNorfolkPassmoreSirNorfolkPassmore Posts: 7,152
    Nigelb said:

    It’s comforting to make this someone else’s fault. ...

    It's a little more than just that - it's basically Trump's entire re-election strategy.

    Absolutely right.

    I'm not saying both procedures in Chinese (and other labs) and the operation of wet markets aren't valid issues in the aftermath of this.

    But it's also very obvious indeed that it's extremely helpful to those struggling with questions about their own response to up the rhetoric on this.
  • FloaterFloater Posts: 14,207
    Why could a person working at said lab become infected due to unsafe working practices and it spread from there?
  • ThomasNasheThomasNashe Posts: 5,331
    Conor Burns ferchrissakes!! This is really basic stuff: page 1 of Parliamentary Ethics for Dummies. He compounds his error, of course, by being unable to distinguish 'stationary' from 'stationery' in his letter to the Parliamentary Commissioner.
  • Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826
    Floater said:

    Why could a person working at said lab become infected due to unsafe working practices and it spread from there?

    Indeed I'd think Occam's Razor is if it left the lab then it would have been via a human not a bat escaping with the virus.
  • JohnLilburneJohnLilburne Posts: 6,259
    While MERS has a zoonotic origin, it seems it likely comes from live camels. And I presume many places in China have wet markets, but virus research establishments are comparatively rare. It also could have been a failed attempt to engineer a bioweapon, or to engineer something else - a vaccine, or a benign virus to test vaccines on. A bat doesn't have to escape, it could have infected a human who then went shopping at the wet market, which could be notable only as a place for people to gather.

    I still think it likeliest that this has gone from bats to pangolins via the faecal-oral route and some people like eating pangolins, like with SARS1 and palm civets, but I think other possibilities and other origins for the pa demic, if not the virus, need to be considered.
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 78,205
    Philip_Thompson said:

    Pulpstar said:

    I reckon yesterday was the first true sub 300 covid NHS England deaths day. We'll know if I'm right by the end of the month.

    Deaths seem to be falling roughly linearly rather than exponentially.
    A linear decrease is superior to an exponential decrease ;)

    It means (If true) R(t) is falling. If there was a cluster of high r places (Hospital/care homes/normal homes) that have had the populations locally removed from the infection pool via local herd immunity, the local r drops so that might feed into a global r(t) drop.
  • SirNorfolkPassmoreSirNorfolkPassmore Posts: 7,152
    Philip_Thompson said:

    Pulpstar said:

    I reckon yesterday was the first true sub 300 covid NHS England deaths day. We'll know if I'm right by the end of the month.

    Deaths seem to be falling roughly linearly rather than exponentially.
    You wouldn't expect it to be.

    If the transmission rate is 1.2 per infected person (say) you'd get exponential growth. If it's 0.8 you don't get exponential decay. Indeed you don't get linear decay - you get logarithmic decay.
  • Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826
    FPT
    kinabalu said:

    Philip_Thompson said:

    kinabalu said:

    Philip_Thompson said:

    kinabalu said:

    "Boris" Johnson never fooled anyone. Priti Patel is a "social liberal".

    These are fabulous. But don't go thinking you can never top them. That way lies decline.

    I never said Patel is a social liberal I said she is more liberal than people give her credit for.
    I see. She is "more liberal than people give her credit for" albeit not a "social liberal". But is she still a social conservative? Most certainly think so. Both supporters and opponents alike think that. However it sounds like you think she is less conservative socially than people give her credit for. Is she fooling that base again, I wonder.
    No its not about fooling, its not all or nothing.

    I think Patel is a lot more liberal than David Cameron's Home Secretary was. She has been liberalising non-EU migration in a few areas and I can't see Patel sending "Go Home" vans into minority communities.

    Do you disagree with that?
    I think both Priti Patel and Theresa May are socially conservative. Boris Johnson, to the extent he has political convictions, is socially liberal. Thus in this regard Patel and May are more in touch with the Tory base and the Hard Brexit base than Johnson is. Patel is therefore fooling you but not the base. Johnson is fooling the base but not you. And neither of them, nor you, are fooling me.
    Patel's not fooling me. Home Secretary tends to (regardless of party) go to a social conservative, its part of the role that social liberals rarely become Home Secretary.

    I think Patel is a marked improvement on Theresa May from Cameron's days and anything is a marked improvement on May's days so I think this government is, even with Patel, an improvement there. I'd rather not go back to the vile nonsense of sending Go Home vans into ethnic minority communities - May should have been sacked after that and should never have been party leader.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 82,119
    More than 10 times as many people in Germany have likely been infected with the coronavirus than the number of confirmed cases, researchers from the University of Bonn have concluded from a field trial in one of the worst hit towns.
  • Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826
    FrancisUrquhart said:

    More than 10 times as many people in Germany have likely been infected with the coronavirus than the number of confirmed cases, researchers from the University of Bonn have concluded from a field trial in one of the worst hit towns.

    That's quite some iceberg!
  • StockyStocky Posts: 10,222
    Looking at Paton`s data - looks like from a peak of 862 deaths on 8/4 we are now down to 300 (maybe slightly under 300) per day (NHS England).

    While I`d say this gives government considerable scope when it looks to unwind lockdown at the end of the week, I think it will go very slowly and cautiously. Minor changes to come, I`d suggest.
  • NerysHughesNerysHughes Posts: 3,375
    Philip_Thompson said:

    FrancisUrquhart said:

    More than 10 times as many people in Germany have likely been infected with the coronavirus than the number of confirmed cases, researchers from the University of Bonn have concluded from a field trial in one of the worst hit towns.

    That's quite some iceberg!
    My guess is that it is the same here. I think its been here since November/December
  • Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826
    Why is the UK the biggest donor to finding a vaccine? Good that we are doing so, but why aren't others with bigger economies donating more too?
  • Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826
    NerysHughes said:

    Philip_Thompson said:

    FrancisUrquhart said:

    More than 10 times as many people in Germany have likely been infected with the coronavirus than the number of confirmed cases, researchers from the University of Bonn have concluded from a field trial in one of the worst hit towns.

    That's quite some iceberg!
    My guess is that it is the same here. I think its been here since November/December
    I very, very much doubt it. But I think that there are simply many more asymptomatic carriers.
  • CarlottaVanceCarlottaVance Posts: 60,216
    Carnival Cruise line extends cancellation of all cruises to July 31, plans to start some US homeport cruising August 1st. We'll see.....

    https://www.carnivalcorp.com/news-releases/news-release-details/carnival-cruise-line-announces-plan-phase-service
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 82,119
    As part of the island nation's reopening plans, Ardern and her Australian counterpart, Scott Morrison, will begin talks on a cross-Tasman 'travel bubble' between the two countries.
  • TimTTimT Posts: 6,468
    "Finding someone else to blame is human nature."

    Of all the cognitive biases, the attribution bias is my favorite. If you mess up, it's your fault. If I mess up, it's because circumstances.
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 32,601
    NerysHughes said:

    Philip_Thompson said:

    FrancisUrquhart said:

    More than 10 times as many people in Germany have likely been infected with the coronavirus than the number of confirmed cases, researchers from the University of Bonn have concluded from a field trial in one of the worst hit towns.

    That's quite some iceberg!
    My guess is that it is the same here. I think its been here since November/December
    I wouldn't be surprised if it was already in the UK in December.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 50,370
    edited May 2020
    Stocky said:

    Looking at Paton`s data - looks like from a peak of 862 deaths on 8/4 we are now down to 300 (maybe slightly under 300) per day (NHS England).

    While I`d say this gives government considerable scope when it looks to unwind lockdown at the end of the week, I think it will go very slowly and cautiously. Minor changes to come, I`d suggest.

    image

    usual caveats about last few days of data etc. Still surprisingly linear.

    Spreadsheet at

    https://drive.google.com/open?id=1ZIQAac0pm-Ihgw8wS45zfnAtjrJHJGS_
  • FeersumEnjineeyaFeersumEnjineeya Posts: 4,430
    Philip_Thompson said:

    Why is the UK the biggest donor to finding a vaccine? Good that we are doing so, but why aren't others with bigger economies donating more too?

    Where are you getting the figures from?
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 82,119
    Icelandic Recode guy given all the work they have done strongly believes CV was in the UK earlier than revealed by tests and much wider spread in the early days of reporting.
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 62,766
    RobD said:

    FrancisUrquhart said:

    I somehow doubt Witty and Vallance get stuck into this type of stuff in their SAGE meetings...

    https://twitter.com/Starcourse/status/1257277717944426497?s=20

    https://twitter.com/Starcourse/status/1257278835873251331?s=20

    https://twitter.com/Starcourse/status/1257278392354975746?s=20

    So it bombed then? :D
    Sound like the Owen Jone's Shadow SAGE. :lol:
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 78,205
    That work from home directive is going to go down better with some than others - my colleague is being driven mad working from home by her kids.
  • Nigel_ForemainNigel_Foremain Posts: 14,313
    Philip_Thompson said:

    NerysHughes said:

    Philip_Thompson said:

    FrancisUrquhart said:

    More than 10 times as many people in Germany have likely been infected with the coronavirus than the number of confirmed cases, researchers from the University of Bonn have concluded from a field trial in one of the worst hit towns.

    That's quite some iceberg!
    My guess is that it is the same here. I think its been here since November/December
    I very, very much doubt it. But I think that there are simply many more asymptomatic carriers.
    Says PB's resident eminent virologist.
  • BannedinnParisBannedinnParis Posts: 1,884
    Philip_Thompson said:

    Pulpstar said:

    I reckon yesterday was the first true sub 300 covid NHS England deaths day. We'll know if I'm right by the end of the month.

    Deaths seem to be falling roughly linearly rather than exponentially.
    I think a long tail is to be expected, you've also got differences in 'coverage' of different parts of the country.
  • AlistairAlistair Posts: 23,670
    Barak Obama is now 100/1 to be VP pick with Ladbrokes.
  • TimTTimT Posts: 6,468
    JohnLilburne said:

    While MERS has a zoonotic origin, it seems it likely comes from live camels. And I presume many places in China have wet markets, but virus research establishments are comparatively rare. It also could have been a failed attempt to engineer a bioweapon, or to engineer something else - a vaccine, or a benign virus to test vaccines on. A bat doesn't have to escape, it could have infected a human who then went shopping at the wet market, which could be notable only as a place for people to gather.

    I still think it likeliest that this has gone from bats to pangolins via the faecal-oral route and some people like eating pangolins, like with SARS1 and palm civets, but I think other possibilities and other origins for the pa demic, if not the virus, need to be considered.

    It is almost certainly not a bioweapon gone bad. But I like your bat to pangolin hypothesis. A recombination event in the pangolin could explain the bat backbone and the pangolin binding solution.
  • NerysHughesNerysHughes Posts: 3,375
    Philip_Thompson said:

    NerysHughes said:

    Philip_Thompson said:

    FrancisUrquhart said:

    More than 10 times as many people in Germany have likely been infected with the coronavirus than the number of confirmed cases, researchers from the University of Bonn have concluded from a field trial in one of the worst hit towns.

    That's quite some iceberg!
    My guess is that it is the same here. I think its been here since November/December
    I very, very much doubt it. But I think that there are simply many more asymptomatic carriers.
    There is a French Doctor who thinks that it was in France in that time.
  • tlg86tlg86 Posts: 26,176
    The ideal biological weapon kills the young, while leaving the infirm alone. Or, failing that, kills them all at the same rate. Something which barely affects those of working age, while hammering the retired sounds like an ideal way to solve the developed world’s dependency ratio problems, rather than a weapon of warfare.

    Is this true? It's not as though much of the world economy hasn't been shutdown anyway. If China wanted to hurt the West, this seems quite a good way to go about it.

    I highly doubt China would actually want to do that, but I don't think Robert's logic here is sound.
  • isamisam Posts: 41,118
    “ The most successful people I know never blame others, even when it’s others’ fault. If they hire someone who turns out to be a disaster, they blame themselves for making a bad hiring decision, not the person who was a disaster.“

    I had a discussion about this a decade ago with a work colleague. I said I did feel exactly the way Robert describes, everything ultimately is my fault, If I ask someone to do something and they do it badly, I should have asked someone better suited to it... they couldn’t see it - obviously I hadn’t explained it well enough!

    Why aren’t I one of the most successful people Robert doesn’t really know?!
  • BannedinnParisBannedinnParis Posts: 1,884
    Philip_Thompson said:

    FrancisUrquhart said:

    More than 10 times as many people in Germany have likely been infected with the coronavirus than the number of confirmed cases, researchers from the University of Bonn have concluded from a field trial in one of the worst hit towns.

    That's quite some iceberg!
    That is a reassuring iceberg!
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 78,205
    Alistair said:

    Barak Obama is now 100/1 to be VP pick with Ladbrokes.

    Isn't he ineligible ?
  • BannedinnParisBannedinnParis Posts: 1,884
    rottenborough said:

    RobD said:

    FrancisUrquhart said:

    I somehow doubt Witty and Vallance get stuck into this type of stuff in their SAGE meetings...

    https://twitter.com/Starcourse/status/1257277717944426497?s=20

    https://twitter.com/Starcourse/status/1257278835873251331?s=20

    https://twitter.com/Starcourse/status/1257278392354975746?s=20

    So it bombed then? :D
    Sound like the Owen Jone's Shadow SAGE. :lol:
    I have only just caught up with this and got the list of who was on it.

    "Well, this will not end well"
  • eekeek Posts: 28,405
    isam said:

    “ The most successful people I know never blame others, even when it’s others’ fault. If they hire someone who turns out to be a disaster, they blame themselves for making a bad hiring decision, not the person who was a disaster.“

    I had a discussion about this a decade ago with a work colleague. I said I did feel exactly the way Robert describes, everything ultimately is my fault, If I ask someone to do something and they do it badly, I should have asked someone better suited to it... they couldn’t see it - obviously I hadn’t explained it well enough!

    Why aren’t I one of the most successful people Robert doesn’t really know?!

    End of the day it's luck in timing.
  • Nigel_ForemainNigel_Foremain Posts: 14,313
    ThomasNashe said:

    Conor Burns ferchrissakes!! This is really basic stuff: page 1 of Parliamentary Ethics for Dummies. He compounds his error, of course, by being unable to distinguish 'stationary' from 'stationery' in his letter to the Parliamentary Commissioner.

    Typical of the low calibre non-entities that are put into positions of responsibility by the Johnson/Cummings government. What a numpty.
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 62,766
    https://lockdownsceptics.org/

    Is covering the NHS app this afternoon on his header (as well as other virus stuff).

    Good questions being asked about a 'honeypot' centralised database vs Apple/Google.

    Toby questions whether it will even work.

  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 82,119
    edited May 2020
    Not sure China deliberately wanting to damage the West conspiracy theory holds much water.

    Before CV, China were winning on a global stage without having to start any new wars. They have evolved from just a place for the West to make cheap crap to now a place the West relies on for so many things.

    In recent years, Chinese companies have been heavily investing in Western companies and also own a lot of the West debt.

    Totally torpedoing the Wests economy seems massively counter-productive.

    They didn't need to do anything, another 10-15 years of the rate of progress and they would easily be the worlds super power.

    Now, I think we are going to see a big shake up in some sectors, where governments are going to mandate that industries cannot be beholden to China factory output.
  • Morris_DancerMorris_Dancer Posts: 61,805
    Isn't Obama legally unable to be the VP pick?
  • isamisam Posts: 41,118
    Stocky said:

    204 deaths today England v 369 same day last week.

    See:

    https://twitter.com/cricketwyvern/status/1257300183466962947/photo/1

    Yesterday I had to explain to my football team on our WhatsApp group that the number announced by the govt each day isn’t the amount of people who died yesterday, and shared a graph showing the decline from the peak on 8th April... none of them had any idea, they were genuinely amazed, and kind of got angry that the govt had been ‘lying’. It seemed to weaken their resolve to obey the lockdown I must say.

    I thought everyone knew. Just shows the difference between the politically engaged and Joe public I think.
  • RobDRobD Posts: 59,935
    rottenborough said:

    https://lockdownsceptics.org/

    Is covering the NHS app this afternoon on his header (as well as other virus stuff).

    Good questions being asked about a 'honeypot' centralised database vs Apple/Google.

    Toby questions whether it will even work.

    I really hope they are looking into interoperability with other standards.
  • eekeek Posts: 28,405
    edited May 2020
    Pulpstar said:

    Alistair said:

    Barak Obama is now 100/1 to be VP pick with Ladbrokes.

    Isn't he ineligible ?
    Yep he cannot become president so it rather defeats the purpose of having a VP.
  • isamisam Posts: 41,118
    Pulpstar said:

    Alistair said:

    Barak Obama is now 100/1 to be VP pick with Ladbrokes.

    Isn't he ineligible ?
    Birther!
  • RobDRobD Posts: 59,935
    Morris_Dancer said:

    Isn't Obama legally unable to be the VP pick?

    He just wouldn't be in the line of succession.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 82,119
    isam said:

    Stocky said:

    204 deaths today England v 369 same day last week.

    See:

    https://twitter.com/cricketwyvern/status/1257300183466962947/photo/1

    Yesterday I had to explain to my football team on our WhatsApp group that the number announced by the govt each day isn’t the amount of people who died yesterday, and shared a graph showing the decline from the peak on 8th April... none of them had any idea, they were genuinely amazed, and kind of got angry that the govt had been ‘lying’. It seemed to weaken their resolve to obey the lockdown I must say.

    I thought everyone knew. Just shows the difference between the politically engaged and Joe public I think.
    Well the government themselves don't help with the chart they put out everyday at the press conference and of course the media have been absolute shit show on stats.
  • Nigel_ForemainNigel_Foremain Posts: 14,313
    isam said:

    “ The most successful people I know never blame others, even when it’s others’ fault. If they hire someone who turns out to be a disaster, they blame themselves for making a bad hiring decision, not the person who was a disaster.“

    I had a discussion about this a decade ago with a work colleague. I said I did feel exactly the way Robert describes, everything ultimately is my fault, If I ask someone to do something and they do it badly, I should have asked someone better suited to it... they couldn’t see it - obviously I hadn’t explained it well enough!

    Why aren’t I one of the most successful people Robert doesn’t really know?!

    Because you spend too much time blaming the EU for, well, everything. No doubt you will continue to do so for years after we leave. TheEU are the equivalent of the global conspiracy. The other answer to your question is that you possibly spend too much time on here. Admittedly not as much time as one other EU blamer I could name, but it might be part of your answer. On which subject, I'd better do some work!
  • eekeek Posts: 28,405
    rottenborough said:

    https://lockdownsceptics.org/

    Is covering the NHS app this afternoon on his header (as well as other virus stuff).

    Good questions being asked about a 'honeypot' centralised database vs Apple/Google.

    Toby questions whether it will even work.

    It's rare that I agree with Toby but I strongly suspect it won't.
  • TimTTimT Posts: 6,468
    tlg86 said:

    The ideal biological weapon kills the young, while leaving the infirm alone. Or, failing that, kills them all at the same rate. Something which barely affects those of working age, while hammering the retired sounds like an ideal way to solve the developed world’s dependency ratio problems, rather than a weapon of warfare.

    Is this true? It's not as though much of the world economy hasn't been shutdown anyway. If China wanted to hurt the West, this seems quite a good way to go about it.

    I highly doubt China would actually want to do that, but I don't think Robert's logic here is sound.

    I wrote a chapter in a book a couple of years back saying that the term biological weapon is ambiguous:
    1. Is it a weapon for use on the battlefield against enemy troops within a logical military dogma?
    2. Is it a weapon of territorial denial (e.g. by contaminating logistics hubs)
    3. Is it a weapon of assassination? (Georgi Markov)
    4. Is it a weapon of mass disruption/terror? (think Amerithrax letters)
    5. Is it a doomsday weapon?
    6. Is it a psychological weapon? (e.g. Saddam Hussein - we don't need it, we just need others to think we might).
    7. Is it a weapon of economic attrition? (e.g. Saddam's hunt for weapons to take out Iran's crops)

    Personally, I'd agree with Robert that COVID is useless in all categories because, while it might seem to do the job in some of those categories, China had no defence for it itself and had no way of knowing ahead of time whether or not it would differentially affect countries.
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 32,601
    "Social distancing orders for people to keep two metres apart to stop the spread of coronavirus is not based on any scientific research, a government adviser has said.

    Robert Dingwall, from the New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group (Nervtag), said the rule was 'conjured up out of nowhere'.

    The sociology professor at Nottingham Trent University said scientific evidence supports a one-metre gap, but the two-metre advice was a 'rule of thumb'."

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8256109/Social-distancing-two-metres-apart-based-figure-says-government-adviser.html
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 82,119
    edited May 2020
    Andy_JS said:

    "Social distancing orders for people to keep two metres apart to stop the spread of coronavirus is not based on any scientific research, a government adviser has said.

    Robert Dingwall, from the New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group (Nervtag), said the rule was 'conjured up out of nowhere'.

    The sociology professor at Nottingham Trent University said scientific evidence supports a one-metre gap, but the two-metre advice was a 'rule of thumb'."

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8256109/Social-distancing-two-metres-apart-based-figure-says-government-adviser.html

    Well given nobody even really knows how this thing is transmitted (or rather what are the highest probability routes for transmission), of course it is. It is clearly just based on the presumption, tell people to stay a long way apart, then if they get a bit closer, they are probably still far enough.

    And even then the science is far from settled. It really depends on small droplet vs large droplet transmission. If it is one, 2m isn't anywhere near enough. Basically anybody in an enclosed environment is in danger.
  • RobDRobD Posts: 59,935
    FrancisUrquhart said:

    Here's the thing, you see. Michael Gove has probably done more for Holocaust education and the Jewish community in Britain than any senior politician other than Gordon Brown. It's obvious to anyone why he would have read the work of a Holocaust denier.

    Owen Jones, on the other hand, was an actual cheerleader for Jeremy Corbyn - a man described by one of his own MPs as a "racist antisemite". If Jones had his way, that same Jeremy Corbyn would be in Number Ten right now.

    Twitter can be annoying, infuriating and sometimes plain pointless. But sometimes it can reveal truths. And in one stupid tweet last night, Owen Jones confirmed a truth about himself and his fellow hard left travellers: that their true ideology is hypocrisy.

    https://www.thejc.com/comment/comment/one-stupid-tweet-by-owen-jones-confirms-all-you-need-to-know-about-the-hard-left-1.499433

    It's similar to the student union at oxford banning works by white authors. Quite how they plan to learn without studying all aspects of society is beyond me.
  • AlanbrookeAlanbrooke Posts: 25,413
    FrancisUrquhart said:

    Here's the thing, you see. Michael Gove has probably done more for Holocaust education and the Jewish community in Britain than any senior politician other than Gordon Brown. It's obvious to anyone why he would have read the work of a Holocaust denier.

    Owen Jones, on the other hand, was an actual cheerleader for Jeremy Corbyn - a man described by one of his own MPs as a "racist antisemite". If Jones had his way, that same Jeremy Corbyn would be in Number Ten right now.

    Twitter can be annoying, infuriating and sometimes plain pointless. But sometimes it can reveal truths. And in one stupid tweet last night, Owen Jones confirmed a truth about himself and his fellow hard left travellers: that their true ideology is hypocrisy.

    https://www.thejc.com/comment/comment/one-stupid-tweet-by-owen-jones-confirms-all-you-need-to-know-about-the-hard-left-1.499433

    And Jezzas acolytes would be telling us the Jews caused Coronavirus
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    In 2017, a team from the Institute announced that coronaviruses found in horseshoe bats at a cave in Yunnan contain all the genetic pieces of the SARS virus, and hypothesized that the direct progenitor of the human virus originated in this cave. The team, who spent five years sampling the bats in the cave, noted the presence of a village only a kilometer away, and warned of "the risk of spillover into people and emergence of a disease similar to SARS".[19][22]

    In December 2019, cases of pneumonia associated with an unknown coronavirus were reported to health authorities in Wuhan. The Institute checked its coronavirus collection and found the new virus was 96 percent identical to a sample its researchers had taken from horseshoe bats in southwest China.[23]

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wuhan_Institute_of_Virology

    So the lab escape theory really requires no extra assumptions at all, or at least not the ones proposed in the header. We know for certain that the lab was investigating, and had a collection of, bat-borne CV. Nor does the theory require a bat to escape: it might have done, or a researcher might have smuggled one out to eat or to sell, but it's much more likely a researcher was unknowingly infected in the lab and took the virus home when s/he left for the night.

    We have two bat/human interfaces, market and lab. Arguments for market: more people, no biosecurity. Arguments for lab: large, dedicated collection of bat viruses. As for raw numbers of bats, who knows? Argument against lab: biosecurity. Counter argument to that: Chinese biosecurity is shit and was known to be shit years ago: https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1255805/coronavirus-wuhan-biosafety-lab-china-monkeys-sars-disease-virus-spt

    So it is unknowable. What would help is some numbers: how many live bats turned over per day in wet market, how many of those bats harbour coronavirus, vs how many people potentially exp[osed to how many CVs in lab. I don't even know, for instance, whether when you get a bat in a virology lab you harvest its viruses and knock it on the head, or keep it in a cage.

    Given the state of our knowledge I'd say it was 50/50 pending being given some numbers.

    We should stop conflating "lab escape" with "deliberately engineered" which is an insane idea.
  • JohnLilburneJohnLilburne Posts: 6,259
    NerysHughes said:

    Philip_Thompson said:

    FrancisUrquhart said:

    More than 10 times as many people in Germany have likely been infected with the coronavirus than the number of confirmed cases, researchers from the University of Bonn have concluded from a field trial in one of the worst hit towns.

    That's quite some iceberg!
    My guess is that it is the same here. I think its been here since November/December
    ZOE, the people doing the Covid tracker, reckon there are currently 288,000 people in the UK with symptomatic Covid, down from a peak of over 2,000,000 on 1April
  • TimTTimT Posts: 6,468
    Nigelb said:

    What looks like a very useful mouse model, from China...

    Rapid adaptation of SARS-CoV-2 in BALB/c mice: Novel mouse model for vaccine efficacy
    https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.05.02.073411v1
    Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) threatens global public health and economy. In order to develop safe and effective vaccines, suitable animal models must be established. Here we report the rapid adaption of SARS-CoV-2 in BALB/c mice, based on which a convenient, economical and effective animal model was developed. Specifically, we found that mouse-adapted SARS-CoV-2 at passage 6 (MACSp6) efficiently infected both aged and young wild-type BALB/c mice, resulting in moderate pneumonia as well as inflammatory responses. The elevated infectivity of MACSp6 in mice could be attributed to the substitution of a key residue (N501Y) in the receptor-binding domain (RBD). Using this novel animal model, we further evaluated the in vivo protective efficacy of an RBD-based SARS-CoV-2 subunit vaccine, which elicited highly potent neutralizing antibodies and conferred full protection against SARS-CoV-2 MACSp6 challenge. This novel mouse model is convenient and effective in evaluating the in vivo protective efficacy of SARS-CoV-2 vaccine....

    Wuhan did gain of function work on mouse models with coronaviruses ... Just saying ... :hushed:
  • isamisam Posts: 41,118
    Nigel_Foremain said:

    isam said:

    “ The most successful people I know never blame others, even when it’s others’ fault. If they hire someone who turns out to be a disaster, they blame themselves for making a bad hiring decision, not the person who was a disaster.“

    I had a discussion about this a decade ago with a work colleague. I said I did feel exactly the way Robert describes, everything ultimately is my fault, If I ask someone to do something and they do it badly, I should have asked someone better suited to it... they couldn’t see it - obviously I hadn’t explained it well enough!

    Why aren’t I one of the most successful people Robert doesn’t really know?!

    Because you spend too much time blaming the EU for, well, everything. No doubt you will continue to do so for years after we leave. TheEU are the equivalent of the global conspiracy. The other answer to your question is that you possibly spend too much time on here. Admittedly not as much time as one other EU blamer I could name, but it might be part of your answer. On which subject, I'd better do some work!
    I don’t blame the EU for anything, and never have. Read more carefully
  • isamisam Posts: 41,118
    https://twitter.com/cricketwyvern/status/1257287890603782147?s=21
  • RobDRobD Posts: 59,935
    isam said:

    Nigel_Foremain said:

    isam said:

    “ The most successful people I know never blame others, even when it’s others’ fault. If they hire someone who turns out to be a disaster, they blame themselves for making a bad hiring decision, not the person who was a disaster.“

    I had a discussion about this a decade ago with a work colleague. I said I did feel exactly the way Robert describes, everything ultimately is my fault, If I ask someone to do something and they do it badly, I should have asked someone better suited to it... they couldn’t see it - obviously I hadn’t explained it well enough!

    Why aren’t I one of the most successful people Robert doesn’t really know?!

    Because you spend too much time blaming the EU for, well, everything. No doubt you will continue to do so for years after we leave. TheEU are the equivalent of the global conspiracy. The other answer to your question is that you possibly spend too much time on here. Admittedly not as much time as one other EU blamer I could name, but it might be part of your answer. On which subject, I'd better do some work!
    I don’t blame the EU for anything, and never have. Read more carefully
    You're missing out, it's fun. :p
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 42,226
    FrancisUrquhart said:

    Here's the thing, you see. Michael Gove has probably done more for Holocaust education and the Jewish community in Britain than any senior politician other than Gordon Brown. It's obvious to anyone why he would have read the work of a Holocaust denier.

    Owen Jones, on the other hand, was an actual cheerleader for Jeremy Corbyn - a man described by one of his own MPs as a "racist antisemite". If Jones had his way, that same Jeremy Corbyn would be in Number Ten right now.

    Twitter can be annoying, infuriating and sometimes plain pointless. But sometimes it can reveal truths. And in one stupid tweet last night, Owen Jones confirmed a truth about himself and his fellow hard left travellers: that their true ideology is hypocrisy.

    https://www.thejc.com/comment/comment/one-stupid-tweet-by-owen-jones-confirms-all-you-need-to-know-about-the-hard-left-1.499433

    All hyper partisan politicals, right or left, require hypocrisy in order to operate. This is less true of Jones than most - who for example has been pretty good on antisemitism - whilst still being true of him.
  • Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826
    FeersumEnjineeya said:

    Philip_Thompson said:

    Why is the UK the biggest donor to finding a vaccine? Good that we are doing so, but why aren't others with bigger economies donating more too?

    Where are you getting the figures from?
    Sky News were broadcasting a conference where that was quoted.
  • RobDRobD Posts: 59,935
    edited May 2020
    Guido complaining that there are no economists on the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies.

    Does anyone want to break the news to him? ;)
  • TimTTimT Posts: 6,468
    TimT said:

    Nigelb said:

    What looks like a very useful mouse model, from China...

    Rapid adaptation of SARS-CoV-2 in BALB/c mice: Novel mouse model for vaccine efficacy
    https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.05.02.073411v1
    Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) threatens global public health and economy. In order to develop safe and effective vaccines, suitable animal models must be established. Here we report the rapid adaption of SARS-CoV-2 in BALB/c mice, based on which a convenient, economical and effective animal model was developed. Specifically, we found that mouse-adapted SARS-CoV-2 at passage 6 (MACSp6) efficiently infected both aged and young wild-type BALB/c mice, resulting in moderate pneumonia as well as inflammatory responses. The elevated infectivity of MACSp6 in mice could be attributed to the substitution of a key residue (N501Y) in the receptor-binding domain (RBD). Using this novel animal model, we further evaluated the in vivo protective efficacy of an RBD-based SARS-CoV-2 subunit vaccine, which elicited highly potent neutralizing antibodies and conferred full protection against SARS-CoV-2 MACSp6 challenge. This novel mouse model is convenient and effective in evaluating the in vivo protective efficacy of SARS-CoV-2 vaccine....

    Wuhan did gain of function work on mouse models with coronaviruses ... Just saying ... :hushed:
    Here's the paper: https://www.nature.com/articles/nm.3985
  • StockyStocky Posts: 10,222
    edited May 2020
    isam said:

    Stocky said:

    204 deaths today England v 369 same day last week.

    See:

    https://twitter.com/cricketwyvern/status/1257300183466962947/photo/1

    Yesterday I had to explain to my football team on our WhatsApp group that the number announced by the govt each day isn’t the amount of people who died yesterday, and shared a graph showing the decline from the peak on 8th April... none of them had any idea, they were genuinely amazed, and kind of got angry that the govt had been ‘lying’. It seemed to weaken their resolve to obey the lockdown I must say.

    I thought everyone knew. Just shows the difference between the politically engaged and Joe public I think.
    No - everyone doesn`t know - I`ve had similar conversations with people who think the deaths are much - much - higher than is actually the case. Some think the numbers are still rising (listening to BBC sometimes, I can`t blame them - and I`m not a habitual knocker of the BBC).

    That`s in terms of numbers. If you talk in percentages they believe you even less. Maths ignorance and believing what they read in the media, I think. The government have got a heck of a job in persuading people to go back to work. That over 99% survive the virus just isn`t appreciated by many out there - doesn`t sound as scary as "900 people died today".
  • Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826
    BannedinnParis said:

    Philip_Thompson said:

    Pulpstar said:

    I reckon yesterday was the first true sub 300 covid NHS England deaths day. We'll know if I'm right by the end of the month.

    Deaths seem to be falling roughly linearly rather than exponentially.
    I think a long tail is to be expected, you've also got differences in 'coverage' of different parts of the country.
    Yes that's what I'd expect, exponential declines would give a long tail but we're not getting that right now we're currently got linear declines it seems which is good news. Now that numbers are lower the rate of decline should be falling (exponential) but it doesn't seem to be.
  • CarlottaVanceCarlottaVance Posts: 60,216
    https://twitter.com/ian_a_jones/status/1257308849708527618?s=20
  • AlistairAlistair Posts: 23,670
    edited May 2020
    The Obama into 100/1 move was due to this batshit insane article

    https://twitter.com/thehill/status/1257050566817185792
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 82,119
    Jeremy Corbyn's conspiracy theorist brother, 73, leads his third anti-lockdown protest after claiming Covid is being used by the 'new world order' to inject Britons with MICROCHIPS

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8284129/Jeremy-Corbyns-brother-73-leads-anti-lockdown-protest-Covid-19-conspiracy-theory.html

    David Icke has been on the phone complaining that this guy is making him look too sane for his USP to enable him to flog his books.
  • Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826
    CarlottaVance said:

    https://twitter.com/ian_a_jones/status/1257308849708527618?s=20

    That's what I was just saying about linear rather than exponential decline it seems. From the peak it seems like its taken roughly 8 days per 200 deaths to fall off the daily rate. At this rate there could be no deaths by the middle of next week (not that I'm expecting that).
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 78,205
    edited May 2020
    Alistair said:

    The Obama into 100/1 move was due to this batshit insane article

    https://twitter.com/thehill/status/1257050566817185792

    Is it even possible? No.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 50,370
    Alistair said:

    The Obama into 100/1 move was due to this batshit insane article

    https://twitter.com/thehill/status/1257050566817185792

    I thought that actual legal opinion was that a VP has to be eligible to be president, in order to be elected to the position of VP?
  • Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826
    Alistair said:

    The Obama into 100/1 move was due to this batshit insane article

    https://twitter.com/thehill/status/1257050566817185792

    Constitution says no.
  • CarlottaVanceCarlottaVance Posts: 60,216
    Owen Jones is trending.....and not in a good way.....

    https://twitter.com/stephenpollard/status/1257285910883958785?s=20
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 78,205
    Philip_Thompson said:

    BannedinnParis said:

    Philip_Thompson said:

    Pulpstar said:

    I reckon yesterday was the first true sub 300 covid NHS England deaths day. We'll know if I'm right by the end of the month.

    Deaths seem to be falling roughly linearly rather than exponentially.
    I think a long tail is to be expected, you've also got differences in 'coverage' of different parts of the country.
    Yes that's what I'd expect, exponential declines would give a long tail but we're not getting that right now we're currently got linear declines it seems which is good news. Now that numbers are lower the rate of decline should be falling (exponential) but it doesn't seem to be.
    I get what you're saying but it's more normal to describe the decay graph you're describing as logarithmic rather than exponential.
  • RochdalePioneersRochdalePioneers Posts: 28,902
    Alistair said:

    The Obama into 100/1 move was due to this batshit insane article

    https://twitter.com/thehill/status/1257050566817185792

    What makes me laugh more isn't the idea of Hilldog being parachuted in, its the DNC holding a virtual convention where delegate after delegate avows and affirms that Biden is the Best Person to be the candidate. Against any other GOP candidate Biden would not be anywhere near the ticket for all the obvious reasons. Are the DNC still delusional enough to think that because Trump is So Hated they can run a geriatric dodgepot who falls asleep on TV sets whilst they interview him about his sexual abuse of power allegations?
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    I also don't see this as a blame allocation game, because it comes down to, it's the Chinese authorities to blame for running disgusting wet markets vs it's the Chinese authorities to blame for running insecure biolabs. As far as anyone else is concerned, we should have been better prepared irrespective of how it originated.
  • Sunil_PrasannanSunil_Prasannan Posts: 51,878
    Peak deaths across all settings (inc. care homes) was 1,172 on April 20th.
  • StockyStocky Posts: 10,222
    edited May 2020
    Sunil_Prasannan said:

    Peak deaths across all settings (inc. care homes) was 1,172 on April 20th.

    Is that just England? Can you provide a source or link for this?
  • Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826
    Nigel_Foremain said:

    Philip_Thompson said:

    NerysHughes said:

    Philip_Thompson said:

    FrancisUrquhart said:

    More than 10 times as many people in Germany have likely been infected with the coronavirus than the number of confirmed cases, researchers from the University of Bonn have concluded from a field trial in one of the worst hit towns.

    That's quite some iceberg!
    My guess is that it is the same here. I think its been here since November/December
    I very, very much doubt it. But I think that there are simply many more asymptomatic carriers.
    Says PB's resident eminent virologist.
    I make no pretensions to be a virologist but Occam's Razor makes it very, very unlikely to me.

    Given how contagious this disease is and how quickly it spreads and how quickly it can lead to a spike in deaths and hospital admissions then if this was here back in November then even if we didn't realise that is why people were sick why didn't we a spike in hospital admissions? Why didn't we see a spike in deaths? Why did early testing have over 95% test negative for so long? Why did we only see a spike in deaths a couple of weeks ago when the outbreak was known to happen?

    The idea that it was here in November but people weren't dying from it until March just seems illogical. Why were death rates unmoved from average (or ever down from average) over the whole winter until March?

    I'm no virologist and don't claim to be but I can read statistics and that just makes zero sense.
  • AlistairAlistair Posts: 23,670
    Is a former two terms president ineligible to be elected to Congress?
  • Sunil_PrasannanSunil_Prasannan Posts: 51,878
    edited May 2020
    FPT
    RobD said:

    HYUFD said:

    https://twitter.com/YouGov/status/1257245827002707968?s=20

    https://twitter.com/YouGov/status/1257245832522407936?s=20

    No Palpatine? Sad.
    Er, he's on 20% in the first tweet!
  • Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826
    Alistair said:

    Is a former two terms president ineligible to be elected to Congress?

    No. Only VP needs to be eligible to become President (I think).
  • NerysHughesNerysHughes Posts: 3,375
    FrancisUrquhart said:

    Andy_JS said:

    "Social distancing orders for people to keep two metres apart to stop the spread of coronavirus is not based on any scientific research, a government adviser has said.

    Robert Dingwall, from the New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group (Nervtag), said the rule was 'conjured up out of nowhere'.

    The sociology professor at Nottingham Trent University said scientific evidence supports a one-metre gap, but the two-metre advice was a 'rule of thumb'."

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8256109/Social-distancing-two-metres-apart-based-figure-says-government-adviser.html

    Well given nobody even really knows how this thing is transmitted (or rather what are the highest probability routes for transmission), of course it is. It is clearly just based on the presumption, tell people to stay a long way apart, then if they get a bit closer, they are probably still far enough.

    And even then the science is far from settled. It really depends on small droplet vs large droplet transmission. If it is one, 2m isn't anywhere near enough. Basically anybody in an enclosed environment is in danger.
    There is nothing definite with this virus. It will take decades of study to actually work out what has been going on with it and how it infects and affects people and what control measures actually worked and what didn't.
  • Richard_NabaviRichard_Nabavi Posts: 30,821
    SirNorfolkPassmore said:

    Philip_Thompson said:

    Pulpstar said:

    I reckon yesterday was the first true sub 300 covid NHS England deaths day. We'll know if I'm right by the end of the month.

    Deaths seem to be falling roughly linearly rather than exponentially.
    You wouldn't expect it to be.

    If the transmission rate is 1.2 per infected person (say) you'd get exponential growth. If it's 0.8 you don't get exponential decay. Indeed you don't get linear decay - you get logarithmic decay.
    As I've pointed out before, people don't die on a fixed day after infection. Therefore the decay period in the death distribution isn't just a delayed version of the new cases distribution: it's the latter overlaid with a (probably quite wide and flattish) distribution of the number of days between infection and death.
  • Sunil_PrasannanSunil_Prasannan Posts: 51,878
    FPT
    DecrepiterJohnL said:

    FrancisUrquhart said:

    Like masks, all these references to requiring hand sanitisers everywhere. Can you get hand sanitiser anywhere at the moment?

    Shopping news. I've just bought my first ever hand sanitiser from Sainsbury's. The last on the shelf. 50ml of Bulgarian germ-zapping goodness. No mention of viruses but there is alcohol in there. There is a space for the "best before" date but nothing has been stamped there.

    A very short queue to get in but the shelves seemed emptier than last week.
    You know soap and water can do the trick just as well?
  • tlg86tlg86 Posts: 26,176
    This Gove argument reminds of this from Peep Show (start at 2:20):

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yO3Gcb6Nyw4
  • Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826
    Pulpstar said:

    Philip_Thompson said:

    BannedinnParis said:

    Philip_Thompson said:

    Pulpstar said:

    I reckon yesterday was the first true sub 300 covid NHS England deaths day. We'll know if I'm right by the end of the month.

    Deaths seem to be falling roughly linearly rather than exponentially.
    I think a long tail is to be expected, you've also got differences in 'coverage' of different parts of the country.
    Yes that's what I'd expect, exponential declines would give a long tail but we're not getting that right now we're currently got linear declines it seems which is good news. Now that numbers are lower the rate of decline should be falling (exponential) but it doesn't seem to be.
    I get what you're saying but it's more normal to describe the decay graph you're describing as logarithmic rather than exponential.
    Exponential works for decay as well as growth.
This discussion has been closed.