BBC Radio Five Live is currently hosting a phone-in show about whether or not people should be "obliged" to take the Covid-19 vaccine. One person phoning the programme has called for people who refuse to take it to be "detained".
Nah, let natural selection get to work on the antivaxers.
Doesn't quite work though, does it? Most people who refuse the vaccine will not get seriously ill but may well transmit it to more vulnerable people who might (depending on the effectiveness of the vaccine).
It's also the case that the death toll from this virus is still well short of 0.1% of the population. I have no doubt it will exceed 0.1% eventually, possibly even reach 0.2% depending the speed with which a vaccine can be distributed, but the black death or Ebola this isn't.
We don't yet know if the vaccine prevents transmission.
Compulsion goes against the principle of consent. People are allowed to make bad decisions.
And should they, themselves have to live with the consequences of their bad decisions, or do we all have to?
We all have to do so. The freedom to make bad decisions is a fundamental freedom.
If we are only free to do what the government says, what sort of freedom is that?
Given the strong likelihood of an effective vaccine being available for large scale vaccination early next year, it now pretty clear that the failure to keep infection rates under control has cost many thousands of lives, and will cost many thousands more over the winter. https://twitter.com/Craig_A_Spencer/status/1326323517906968576
How do people without medical insurance come off if they need hospitalization for Covid? For normal things I've always understood they just go without, but if that carries through for Covid their hospitalization figures aren't comparable with ours, surely?
Students are going to be given travel windows in which to get home after testing. Universities are then to go entirely online so it appears that they won't be going back after the holidays. It looks to me as if the government has effectively abandoned students being at Universities on the basis that it is impossible to get the R rate down enough with them working at college or University.
And their education is going to hell in a handcart because of a disease that will seriously affect very, very few of them.
Also ignores the fact that not every student has a (permanent) home to go to.
Certainly not with proper wifi and a place to study in. I am so relieved that my son was not due to go to University this year but next. I feel desperately sorry for my nephew who started his degree at Dundee this year. First time away from home out in the big bad world that should have been able to tempt him with a cornucopia of delights away from his somewhat over protective mother.
Another thing I was wondering about this “students can all work online and from home” thing. Do universities not use books any more? Do students not need access to university libraries to obtain these books? Or is that all really old fashioned?
Of course there will be students in their first year who are lost and bewildered. Confronted with work of a level far higher than they are used to. Who in normal circumstances would be able to get through this with the shared experience of other students in similar position. Who would be able to find common cause with students of similar personality and disposition. You can’t do that from home. I’m afraid the dropout rate will be enormous. And, sadly, a rising tide of mental health problems and suicides as many of the usual outlets for those with problems are simply not available. And there will be nobody to spot the tell tale indicators that people are struggling.
Biden looked doddery even then...... I'm really not sure he's going to make the distance,
Trump was elected in 2016 because he wasn't Clinton. Biden was elected in 2020 because he wasn't Trump.
And the big difference between Clinton and Biden?
Politically they were both top members of Obamas administration. If Biden had run in 2016 his program would have been similar to Clinton's.
Clinton probably has a better record than Biden, though for sure both can be criticised.
Scandals : Clinton used the Clinton private server for government emails - which broke rules and reflects badly on her, but nowhere near as bad as the (admittedly fairly run of the mill) Hunter Biden influence peddling.
Clinton was a bit younger.
So I'm wondering what the big disadvantage Clinton had as a candidate. Can't think of any other blindingly obvious differences between them.
Given the strong likelihood of an effective vaccine being available for large scale vaccination early next year, it now pretty clear that the failure to keep infection rates under control has cost many thousands of lives, and will cost many thousands more over the winter. https://twitter.com/Craig_A_Spencer/status/1326323517906968576
How do people without medical insurance come off if they need hospitalization for Covid? For normal things I've always understood they just go without, but if that carries through for Covid their hospitalization figures aren't comparable with ours, surely?
Normally they get treated in a state facility, then get bankrupted by the bill, but under the US system they do get treated.
One thing that does stand out, the US system where a president who never won a popular vote can pack out the judiciary in such a partisan way, and the American way of doing a civil service with partisan appointments, the more bent the appointer the more bent the appointee, is absolute anti democratic rubbish that doesn’t allow for smooth transitions of power at all and for UK now to be copying it is just insane.
Kayleigh McEnany is nothing more than Lady Haw Haw - and Boris and Cummings want to copy the same idea, and people on this forum think it will improve communications!
Having a Press Secretary isn't a novel idea unique to Trump.
Trumpers are convinced its been stolen and that their legal challenges will remove the "illegal votes". When you look at the nature of these challenges - and the margin of victory for Biden - its clear these will fail and fail massively. Once it becomes clear that the results stand - results which people are convinced are fraudulent somehow - thats when the shooting starts. To answer @Mysticrose and her "is this Civil War" question - possibly
As for students, a mass rapid test followed by tight windows of departure sounds great on paper and will be a poorly organised disaster in reality. Students will travel home and take the pox with them with the inevitable results. "Online teaching only from 9th December" - I assume that is for the remainder of term and not into 2021? Universities need student income for accommodation as do private landlords. The government isn't going to cover that so either they send students back in January with the inevitable return of Chernobyl strength Covid hotspots or they try to force students to keep paying full whack for part teaching and full whack for accommodation they aren't allowed to live in.
Simon Marks (LBC Washington Correspondent) has just said on LBC that Trump's strategy in Georgia is to insist on the recount being done by hand.
The idea being that if it is done by hand it may not be possible to complete the recount by the time the Electoral College meets (in each state) on 14 December.
Who knows what would then happen but there would at least be a chance that Biden would not get Georgia's Electoral College votes. Even if Trump didn't get them either that wouldn't harm Trump as Trump's objective is just to stop Biden getting 270.
Why wouldn’t it be possible? Isn’t that just a question of resources?
Students are going to be given travel windows in which to get home after testing. Universities are then to go entirely online so it appears that they won't be going back after the holidays. It looks to me as if the government has effectively abandoned students being at Universities on the basis that it is impossible to get the R rate down enough with them working at college or University.
And their education is going to hell in a handcart because of a disease that will seriously affect very, very few of them.
Also ignores the fact that not every student has a (permanent) home to go to.
Certainly not with proper wifi and a place to study in. I am so relieved that my son was not due to go to University this year but next. I feel desperately sorry for my nephew who started his degree at Dundee this year. First time away from home out in the big bad world that should have been able to tempt him with a cornucopia of delights away from his somewhat over protective mother.
Another thing I was wondering about this “students can all work online and from home” thing. Do universities not use books any more? Do students not need access to university libraries to obtain these books? Or is that all really old fashioned?
Of course there will be students in their first year who are lost and bewildered. Confronted with work of a level far higher than they are used to. Who in normal circumstances would be able to get through this with the shared experience of other students in similar position. Who would be able to find common cause with students of similar personality and disposition. You can’t do that from home. I’m afraid the dropout rate will be enormous. And, sadly, a rising tide of mental health problems and suicides as many of the usual outlets for those with problems are simply not available. And there will be nobody to spot the tell tale indicators that people are struggling.
I think the need for actual physical books is much diminished by online resources but it will no doubt vary from subject to subject. The latter point is key. Even now, in my current job, I desperately miss the camaraderie that used to work in the Faculty Library where there was always a choice of people who were willing to act as a sounding board for you when you were stuck for the price of a cup of coffee. As a young student it would have been very, very difficult and our mental health services are threadbare at the best of times.
Its almost a sea of red with strips of blue where significant numbers of people actually live. Its a vivid demonstration of how the US is divided and how little common ground there is.
Town versus country, the UK is not that much different
Biden looked doddery even then...... I'm really not sure he's going to make the distance,
Trump was elected in 2016 because he wasn't Clinton. Biden was elected in 2020 because he wasn't Trump.
And the big difference between Clinton and Biden?
Politically they were both top members of Obamas administration. If Biden had run in 2016 his program would have been similar to Clinton's.
Clinton probably has a better record than Biden, though for sure both can be criticised.
Scandals : Clinton used the Clinton private server for government emails - which broke rules and reflects badly on her, but nowhere near as bad as the (admittedly fairly run of the mill) Hunter Biden influence peddling.
Clinton was a bit younger.
So I'm wondering what the big disadvantage Clinton had as a candidate. Can't think of any other blindingly obvious differences between them.
Except for the obvious....
She selected Mook to run her campaign and he’s a f*visit of the highest order?
The country of 5.5 million tested 3.6 million people, excluding small children and some senior citizens, over the first weekend in November, with those testing positive having to go into quarantine.
It repeated tests for just over 2 million over this past weekend when testing took place only in more affected areas, with the infection rate turning out to be much lower thanks to the earlier quarantine orders.
The scheme has been watched by other countries struggling with a spike in coronavirus cases.
Taking into account districts that were tested on both weekends, the infection rate dropped from 1.47% on the first weekend to 0.62% of those who took the test on the second weekend, Matovic told a news conference.
Including some additional tests done among police services, senior homes and companies, the second round returned 13,509 positive results.
"We are going into a tough winter," Matovic said. "We have an extraordinarily effective tool in antigen testing that cuts the share of infected people by 58%."
The testing was free and voluntary, but the government imposed a lockdown, including a ban on work commutes, on those who refused to take the test.
People have to carry around certificates saying they took the test and tested negative.
The scheme used antigen swab tests that return results within 15-30 minutes but are less accurate than standard laboratory PCR tests.The government has argued that while it was aware the tests may miss a sizeable proportion of those infected, it was still worth it and repeated testing narrowed that probability of falsely negative results...
Its almost a sea of red with strips of blue where significant numbers of people actually live. Its a vivid demonstration of how the US is divided and how little common ground there is.
Town versus country, the UK is not that much different
Biden looked doddery even then...... I'm really not sure he's going to make the distance,
Trump was elected in 2016 because he wasn't Clinton. Biden was elected in 2020 because he wasn't Trump.
And the big difference between Clinton and Biden?
Politically they were both top members of Obamas administration. If Biden had run in 2016 his program would have been similar to Clinton's.
Clinton probably has a better record than Biden, though for sure both can be criticised.
Scandals : Clinton used the Clinton private server for government emails - which broke rules and reflects badly on her, but nowhere near as bad as the (admittedly fairly run of the mill) Hunter Biden influence peddling.
Clinton was a bit younger.
So I'm wondering what the big disadvantage Clinton had as a candidate. Can't think of any other blindingly obvious differences between them.
Except for the obvious....
Nobody trusted her ?
These are all good guesses (although why do people trust Biden more than Clinton? I don't think I do). But there is something even more obvious that everyone is missing.
The country of 5.5 million tested 3.6 million people, excluding small children and some senior citizens, over the first weekend in November, with those testing positive having to go into quarantine.
It repeated tests for just over 2 million over this past weekend when testing took place only in more affected areas, with the infection rate turning out to be much lower thanks to the earlier quarantine orders.
The scheme has been watched by other countries struggling with a spike in coronavirus cases.
Taking into account districts that were tested on both weekends, the infection rate dropped from 1.47% on the first weekend to 0.62% of those who took the test on the second weekend, Matovic told a news conference.
Including some additional tests done among police services, senior homes and companies, the second round returned 13,509 positive results.
"We are going into a tough winter," Matovic said. "We have an extraordinarily effective tool in antigen testing that cuts the share of infected people by 58%."
The testing was free and voluntary, but the government imposed a lockdown, including a ban on work commutes, on those who refused to take the test.
People have to carry around certificates saying they took the test and tested negative.
The scheme used antigen swab tests that return results within 15-30 minutes but are less accurate than standard laboratory PCR tests.The government has argued that while it was aware the tests may miss a sizeable proportion of those infected, it was still worth it and repeated testing narrowed that probability of falsely negative results...
Has anyone seen any feedback on our Liverpool experiment (and I don't mean the one involving them being allowed to win the league again after 20 years)?
The country of 5.5 million tested 3.6 million people, excluding small children and some senior citizens, over the first weekend in November, with those testing positive having to go into quarantine.
It repeated tests for just over 2 million over this past weekend when testing took place only in more affected areas, with the infection rate turning out to be much lower thanks to the earlier quarantine orders.
The scheme has been watched by other countries struggling with a spike in coronavirus cases.
Taking into account districts that were tested on both weekends, the infection rate dropped from 1.47% on the first weekend to 0.62% of those who took the test on the second weekend, Matovic told a news conference.
Including some additional tests done among police services, senior homes and companies, the second round returned 13,509 positive results.
"We are going into a tough winter," Matovic said. "We have an extraordinarily effective tool in antigen testing that cuts the share of infected people by 58%."
The testing was free and voluntary, but the government imposed a lockdown, including a ban on work commutes, on those who refused to take the test.
People have to carry around certificates saying they took the test and tested negative.
The scheme used antigen swab tests that return results within 15-30 minutes but are less accurate than standard laboratory PCR tests.The government has argued that while it was aware the tests may miss a sizeable proportion of those infected, it was still worth it and repeated testing narrowed that probability of falsely negative results...
On the latter point - "The government has argued that while it was aware the tests may miss a sizeable proportion of those infected, it was still worth it and repeated testing narrowed that probability of falsely negative results..." - this is one of the things which has seen the medical establishment oppose the early rollout of mass screening. It is an absurdity.
If you are testing 50% of your population and only detect (say) 60% of those infected (and antigen tests are a great deal more accurate than that), you are still doing massively better than PCR, where even if you detect 100% of infections, you're only testing maybe 1-3% of the population for the same time and similar resources.
And the antigen tests will also catch those who are infected days earlier than PCR testing of symptomatic individuals.
Biden looked doddery even then...... I'm really not sure he's going to make the distance,
Trump was elected in 2016 because he wasn't Clinton. Biden was elected in 2020 because he wasn't Trump.
And the big difference between Clinton and Biden?
Politically they were both top members of Obamas administration. If Biden had run in 2016 his program would have been similar to Clinton's.
Clinton probably has a better record than Biden, though for sure both can be criticised.
Scandals : Clinton used the Clinton private server for government emails - which broke rules and reflects badly on her, but nowhere near as bad as the (admittedly fairly run of the mill) Hunter Biden influence peddling.
Clinton was a bit younger.
So I'm wondering what the big disadvantage Clinton had as a candidate. Can't think of any other blindingly obvious differences between them.
Except for the obvious....
Nobody trusted her ?
These are all good guesses (although why do people trust Biden more than Clinton? I don't think I do). But there is something even more obvious that everyone is missing.
Its almost a sea of red with strips of blue where significant numbers of people actually live. Its a vivid demonstration of how the US is divided and how little common ground there is.
Town versus country, the UK is not that much different
Though the gerrymandering in the US is quite something.
BBC Radio Five Live is currently hosting a phone-in show about whether or not people should be "obliged" to take the Covid-19 vaccine. One person phoning the programme has called for people who refuse to take it to be "detained".
Nah, let natural selection get to work on the antivaxers.
Really? Frustrating natural selection is pretty much your job description, if you think about it. Also, vaccines are pure homeopathy - take a tiny dose of the thing which does harm in the first place - and the government vaccine czar has thoughtfully warned us of the danger of freak harm from them. Broth all the way for me.
Homeopathy purports to be a treatment
Vaccines prime the host’s immune system to prevent or mitigate an infection
Its almost a sea of red with strips of blue where significant numbers of people actually live. Its a vivid demonstration of how the US is divided and how little common ground there is.
Town versus country, the UK is not that much different
Biden looked doddery even then...... I'm really not sure he's going to make the distance,
Trump was elected in 2016 because he wasn't Clinton. Biden was elected in 2020 because he wasn't Trump.
And the big difference between Clinton and Biden?
Politically they were both top members of Obamas administration. If Biden had run in 2016 his program would have been similar to Clinton's.
Clinton probably has a better record than Biden, though for sure both can be criticised.
Scandals : Clinton used the Clinton private server for government emails - which broke rules and reflects badly on her, but nowhere near as bad as the (admittedly fairly run of the mill) Hunter Biden influence peddling.
Clinton was a bit younger.
So I'm wondering what the big disadvantage Clinton had as a candidate. Can't think of any other blindingly obvious differences between them.
Except for the obvious....
Nobody trusted her ?
These are all good guesses (although why do people trust Biden more than Clinton? I don't think I do). But there is something even more obvious that everyone is missing.
More obvious than insulting voters and not bothering to campaign in the States she lost narrowly? More obvious than Biden heavily campaigning in the States he flipped?
Its almost a sea of red with strips of blue where significant numbers of people actually live. Its a vivid demonstration of how the US is divided and how little common ground there is.
Town versus country, the UK is not that much different
Though the gerrymandering in the US is quite something.
It is, but its a game all sides play. The US would be better off with real constituencies and less Balkanisation
Its almost a sea of red with strips of blue where significant numbers of people actually live. Its a vivid demonstration of how the US is divided and how little common ground there is.
Town versus country, the UK is not that much different
The UK is blue in towns as well as country.
It depends on macro or micro. In true blue East Leicester, Melton Mowbray returns Labour councillors etc.
BBC Radio Five Live is currently hosting a phone-in show about whether or not people should be "obliged" to take the Covid-19 vaccine. One person phoning the programme has called for people who refuse to take it to be "detained".
Nah, let natural selection get to work on the antivaxers.
Doesn't quite work though, does it? Most people who refuse the vaccine will not get seriously ill but may well transmit it to more vulnerable people who might (depending on the effectiveness of the vaccine).
It's also the case that the death toll from this virus is still well short of 0.1% of the population. I have no doubt it will exceed 0.1% eventually, possibly even reach 0.2% depending the speed with which a vaccine can be distributed, but the black death or Ebola this isn't.
We don't yet know if the vaccine prevents transmission.
Compulsion goes against the principle of consent. People are allowed to make bad decisions.
And should they, themselves have to live with the consequences of their bad decisions, or do we all have to?
We all have to do so. The freedom to make bad decisions is a fundamental freedom.
If we are only free to do what the government says, what sort of freedom is that?
Well, a second amendmenter might say that, and I might reply: freedom from the fear of masss shootings. Very difficult to enforce compulsory vaccination, though. I don't think anyone has ver tried it *on adults* because of the liberty issues involved. You can't physically inject people against their will, you can't prosecute 35% of the nation without the courts seizing up, and if you try to do it indirectly by not letting people get on a bus or into a cinema without producing a vaccination certificate you will run slap bang into discrimination/human rights legislation.
Students are going to be given travel windows in which to get home after testing. Universities are then to go entirely online so it appears that they won't be going back after the holidays. It looks to me as if the government has effectively abandoned students being at Universities on the basis that it is impossible to get the R rate down enough with them working at college or University.
And their education is going to hell in a handcart because of a disease that will seriously affect very, very few of them.
Also ignores the fact that not every student has a (permanent) home to go to.
Certainly not with proper wifi and a place to study in. I am so relieved that my son was not due to go to University this year but next. I feel desperately sorry for my nephew who started his degree at Dundee this year. First time away from home out in the big bad world that should have been able to tempt him with a cornucopia of delights away from his somewhat over protective mother.
Another thing I was wondering about this “students can all work online and from home” thing. Do universities not use books any more? Do students not need access to university libraries to obtain these books? Or is that all really old fashioned?
Of course there will be students in their first year who are lost and bewildered. Confronted with work of a level far higher than they are used to. Who in normal circumstances would be able to get through this with the shared experience of other students in similar position. Who would be able to find common cause with students of similar personality and disposition. You can’t do that from home. I’m afraid the dropout rate will be enormous. And, sadly, a rising tide of mental health problems and suicides as many of the usual outlets for those with problems are simply not available. And there will be nobody to spot the tell tale indicators that people are struggling.
I think the need for actual physical books is much diminished by online resources but it will no doubt vary from subject to subject. The latter point is key. Even now, in my current job, I desperately miss the camaraderie that used to work in the Faculty Library where there was always a choice of people who were willing to act as a sounding board for you when you were stuck for the price of a cup of coffee. As a young student it would have been very, very difficult and our mental health services are threadbare at the best of times.
My memory of University library even in the 80s was most people were there to study not borrow books, (apart from short loan). I wonder if any University library has statistics on the number of borrowings per book nowadays?
The country of 5.5 million tested 3.6 million people, excluding small children and some senior citizens, over the first weekend in November, with those testing positive having to go into quarantine.
It repeated tests for just over 2 million over this past weekend when testing took place only in more affected areas, with the infection rate turning out to be much lower thanks to the earlier quarantine orders.
The scheme has been watched by other countries struggling with a spike in coronavirus cases.
Taking into account districts that were tested on both weekends, the infection rate dropped from 1.47% on the first weekend to 0.62% of those who took the test on the second weekend, Matovic told a news conference.
Including some additional tests done among police services, senior homes and companies, the second round returned 13,509 positive results.
"We are going into a tough winter," Matovic said. "We have an extraordinarily effective tool in antigen testing that cuts the share of infected people by 58%."
The testing was free and voluntary, but the government imposed a lockdown, including a ban on work commutes, on those who refused to take the test.
People have to carry around certificates saying they took the test and tested negative.
The scheme used antigen swab tests that return results within 15-30 minutes but are less accurate than standard laboratory PCR tests.The government has argued that while it was aware the tests may miss a sizeable proportion of those infected, it was still worth it and repeated testing narrowed that probability of falsely negative results...
Has anyone seen any feedback on our Liverpool experiment (and I don't mean the one involving them being allowed to win the league again after 20 years)?
It sounds rather less massive or well organised than the Slovak experiment, but the initial results are interesting: City mayor Joe Anderson said 23,170 people have been tested since midday on Friday with 0.7% testing positive. Those testing positive had no symptoms, testers said. All residents and workers in Liverpool have been offered tests. There are 18 test centres - including Liverpool's Anfield stadium - and Mr Anderson said there had been a "great response" from people. Prime Minister Boris Johnson had urged all the city's 500,000 residents to take part, saying "do it for your friends, for your relatives, for your community" in a bid to drive the disease down"....
As I predicted, they are catching the presymptomatic (and presumably some asymptomatic) infected. A huge advantage over the PCR testing regime.
BBC Radio Five Live is currently hosting a phone-in show about whether or not people should be "obliged" to take the Covid-19 vaccine. One person phoning the programme has called for people who refuse to take it to be "detained".
Nah, let natural selection get to work on the antivaxers.
Doesn't quite work though, does it? Most people who refuse the vaccine will not get seriously ill but may well transmit it to more vulnerable people who might (depending on the effectiveness of the vaccine).
It's also the case that the death toll from this virus is still well short of 0.1% of the population. I have no doubt it will exceed 0.1% eventually, possibly even reach 0.2% depending the speed with which a vaccine can be distributed, but the black death or Ebola this isn't.
We don't yet know if the vaccine prevents transmission.
Compulsion goes against the principle of consent. People are allowed to make bad decisions.
And should they, themselves have to live with the consequences of their bad decisions, or do we all have to?
We all have to do so. The freedom to make bad decisions is a fundamental freedom.
If we are only free to do what the government says, what sort of freedom is that?
Choices shouldn’t be consequence free. Perhaps Slovakia’s example of locking down and quarantining test refusers might be a model?
BBC Radio Five Live is currently hosting a phone-in show about whether or not people should be "obliged" to take the Covid-19 vaccine. One person phoning the programme has called for people who refuse to take it to be "detained".
Nah, let natural selection get to work on the antivaxers.
Really? Frustrating natural selection is pretty much your job description, if you think about it. Also, vaccines are pure homeopathy - take a tiny dose of the thing which does harm in the first place - and the government vaccine czar has thoughtfully warned us of the danger of freak harm from them. Broth all the way for me.
Homeopathy purports to be a treatment
Vaccines prime the host’s immune system to prevent or mitigate an infection
There’s a fundamental difference
No it isn't, it is just saying the same thing twice.
I was joking, by the way. The relevant fundamental difference is two centuries of cast-iron evidence that vaccines work.
At what point, if ever, do GOP politicians wake up and realise that Trump is trying to take the whole system down with him (or stay in power on the basis that the whole system is invalid to choose the Country's leadership)?
Because fundamentally, the sort of claims he is spreading now jeopardise every elected official Democrat or Republican. Because the more he alleges that the election was unfair and stolen, not on the basis of actual evidence, but on the basis of alleged fundamental weaknesses in the electoral system which allow the "possibility" of fraud then it ceases to become party political. If the system is wide open to fraud, but there is no evidence of specific instances, then no election is safe. Whether Republican or Democrat controlled, whether Republican or Democrat elected. Remember "computer voting/counting" is not restricted to mail in ballots. Where it is used it covers ALL ballots cast...
Its almost a sea of red with strips of blue where significant numbers of people actually live. Its a vivid demonstration of how the US is divided and how little common ground there is.
Town versus country, the UK is not that much different
The UK is blue in towns as well as country.
Many people don’t want corrupt Tory or labour placement councillor, that’s why local government is more interesting than national when it’s actually contested.
BBC Radio Five Live is currently hosting a phone-in show about whether or not people should be "obliged" to take the Covid-19 vaccine. One person phoning the programme has called for people who refuse to take it to be "detained".
Nah, let natural selection get to work on the antivaxers.
Doesn't quite work though, does it? Most people who refuse the vaccine will not get seriously ill but may well transmit it to more vulnerable people who might (depending on the effectiveness of the vaccine).
It's also the case that the death toll from this virus is still well short of 0.1% of the population. I have no doubt it will exceed 0.1% eventually, possibly even reach 0.2% depending the speed with which a vaccine can be distributed, but the black death or Ebola this isn't.
We don't yet know if the vaccine prevents transmission.
Compulsion goes against the principle of consent. People are allowed to make bad decisions.
And should they, themselves have to live with the consequences of their bad decisions, or do we all have to?
We all have to do so. The freedom to make bad decisions is a fundamental freedom.
If we are only free to do what the government says, what sort of freedom is that?
Well, a second amendmenter might say that, and I might reply: freedom from the fear of masss shootings. Very difficult to enforce compulsory vaccination, though. I don't think anyone has ver tried it *on adults* because of the liberty issues involved. You can't physically inject people against their will, you can't prosecute 35% of the nation without the courts seizing up, and if you try to do it indirectly by not letting people get on a bus or into a cinema without producing a vaccination certificate you will run slap bang into discrimination/human rights legislation.
No airline travel without vaccination should do the trick. Good luck with your court cases there.
And, of course, unvaccinated you would probably not be allowed into hospitals for elective procedures, without first being tested.
I thought it was well understood among IT professionals that any computer voting system was “wide open to fraud and intervention”?
That really depends how it's designed. The US used to have astonishingly terrible systems, but it's got a lot better. In places that are doing it right, the computer is printing out the vote on a piece of paper, which the voter verifies, and also creating a digital record which is used for faster counts. This is probably often better than just writing on a piece of paper, as the printed paper is just as good as a hand-written piece of paper, but you also have a digital record that you can compare to raise the alarm if some of the paper ballots fell victim to a bizarre rodent infestation or whatever.
Talking of concessions, Neil Kinnock never formally conceded the 1992 election to John Major. He gave a speech to party workers at 5am on election night but didn't mention John Major or the election result directly. He just said people deserved better than what they'd got.
BBC Radio Five Live is currently hosting a phone-in show about whether or not people should be "obliged" to take the Covid-19 vaccine. One person phoning the programme has called for people who refuse to take it to be "detained".
Nah, let natural selection get to work on the antivaxers.
Doesn't quite work though, does it? Most people who refuse the vaccine will not get seriously ill but may well transmit it to more vulnerable people who might (depending on the effectiveness of the vaccine).
It's also the case that the death toll from this virus is still well short of 0.1% of the population. I have no doubt it will exceed 0.1% eventually, possibly even reach 0.2% depending the speed with which a vaccine can be distributed, but the black death or Ebola this isn't.
We don't yet know if the vaccine prevents transmission.
Compulsion goes against the principle of consent. People are allowed to make bad decisions.
And should they, themselves have to live with the consequences of their bad decisions, or do we all have to?
We all have to do so. The freedom to make bad decisions is a fundamental freedom.
If we are only free to do what the government says, what sort of freedom is that?
Well, a second amendmenter might say that, and I might reply: freedom from the fear of masss shootings. Very difficult to enforce compulsory vaccination, though. I don't think anyone has ver tried it *on adults* because of the liberty issues involved. You can't physically inject people against their will, you can't prosecute 35% of the nation without the courts seizing up, and if you try to do it indirectly by not letting people get on a bus or into a cinema without producing a vaccination certificate you will run slap bang into discrimination/human rights legislation.
No airline travel without vaccination should do the trick. Good luck with your court cases there.
How do you mean? There's already religions which decline all medical interventions (JW or 7th day adventists or something) and I can see their numbers growing. What is your answer to their claim they are being discriminated against on grounds of faith?
Where were the armed Trump supporters I was worried would stop voting in Pennsylvania and Michigan when Trump was still ahead? If they'd done that there was a chance the courts would have awarded Trump victory on the basis of the partial counts, and constitutionally that would have been that.
If his supporters weren't willing to risk their necks at a point when the barriers to victory were lower, why would they do so now?
BBC Radio Five Live is currently hosting a phone-in show about whether or not people should be "obliged" to take the Covid-19 vaccine. One person phoning the programme has called for people who refuse to take it to be "detained".
Nah, let natural selection get to work on the antivaxers.
Doesn't quite work though, does it? Most people who refuse the vaccine will not get seriously ill but may well transmit it to more vulnerable people who might (depending on the effectiveness of the vaccine).
It's also the case that the death toll from this virus is still well short of 0.1% of the population. I have no doubt it will exceed 0.1% eventually, possibly even reach 0.2% depending the speed with which a vaccine can be distributed, but the black death or Ebola this isn't.
We don't yet know if the vaccine prevents transmission.
Compulsion goes against the principle of consent. People are allowed to make bad decisions.
And should they, themselves have to live with the consequences of their bad decisions, or do we all have to?
We all have to do so. The freedom to make bad decisions is a fundamental freedom.
If we are only free to do what the government says, what sort of freedom is that?
Well, a second amendmenter might say that, and I might reply: freedom from the fear of masss shootings. Very difficult to enforce compulsory vaccination, though. I don't think anyone has ver tried it *on adults* because of the liberty issues involved. You can't physically inject people against their will, you can't prosecute 35% of the nation without the courts seizing up, and if you try to do it indirectly by not letting people get on a bus or into a cinema without producing a vaccination certificate you will run slap bang into discrimination/human rights legislation.
No airline travel without vaccination should do the trick. Good luck with your court cases there.
And, of course, unvaccinated you would probably not be allowed into hospitals for elective procedures, without first being tested.
BBC Radio Five Live is currently hosting a phone-in show about whether or not people should be "obliged" to take the Covid-19 vaccine. One person phoning the programme has called for people who refuse to take it to be "detained".
Nah, let natural selection get to work on the antivaxers.
Doesn't quite work though, does it? Most people who refuse the vaccine will not get seriously ill but may well transmit it to more vulnerable people who might (depending on the effectiveness of the vaccine).
It's also the case that the death toll from this virus is still well short of 0.1% of the population. I have no doubt it will exceed 0.1% eventually, possibly even reach 0.2% depending the speed with which a vaccine can be distributed, but the black death or Ebola this isn't.
We don't yet know if the vaccine prevents transmission.
Compulsion goes against the principle of consent. People are allowed to make bad decisions.
And should they, themselves have to live with the consequences of their bad decisions, or do we all have to?
We all have to do so. The freedom to make bad decisions is a fundamental freedom.
If we are only free to do what the government says, what sort of freedom is that?
Well, a second amendmenter might say that, and I might reply: freedom from the fear of masss shootings. Very difficult to enforce compulsory vaccination, though. I don't think anyone has ver tried it *on adults* because of the liberty issues involved. You can't physically inject people against their will, you can't prosecute 35% of the nation without the courts seizing up, and if you try to do it indirectly by not letting people get on a bus or into a cinema without producing a vaccination certificate you will run slap bang into discrimination/human rights legislation.
No airline travel without vaccination should do the trick. Good luck with your court cases there.
And, of course, unvaccinated you would probably not be allowed into hospitals for elective procedures, without first being tested.
Do you get an exemption if you are not medically fit to get a vaccination?
Its almost a sea of red with strips of blue where significant numbers of people actually live. Its a vivid demonstration of how the US is divided and how little common ground there is.
Town versus country, the UK is not that much different
Though the gerrymandering in the US is quite something.
It is, but its a game all sides play. The US would be better off with real constituencies and less Balkanisation
It's really not a game both sides play equally. There are, for example, several states with Democratic administrations which have introduced independent commissions for redistricting.
And the US might be better off with many things, but the Constitution strongly constrains what is possible.
Biden looked doddery even then...... I'm really not sure he's going to make the distance,
Trump was elected in 2016 because he wasn't Clinton. Biden was elected in 2020 because he wasn't Trump.
And the big difference between Clinton and Biden?
Politically they were both top members of Obamas administration. If Biden had run in 2016 his program would have been similar to Clinton's.
Clinton probably has a better record than Biden, though for sure both can be criticised.
Scandals : Clinton used the Clinton private server for government emails - which broke rules and reflects badly on her, but nowhere near as bad as the (admittedly fairly run of the mill) Hunter Biden influence peddling.
Clinton was a bit younger.
So I'm wondering what the big disadvantage Clinton had as a candidate. Can't think of any other blindingly obvious differences between them.
Except for the obvious....
Nobody trusted her ?
These are all good guesses (although why do people trust Biden more than Clinton? I don't think I do). But there is something even more obvious that everyone is missing.
As I've said before, I think relatability is the key difference, US presidential winners have long possessed a certain folksiness or laconicness, sometimes even a Forest Gump type quality. An "I could go for a beer" persona.
Even leaving aside outright sexism, that's a tough gig for a woman who has risen enough to become a presidential candidate. It's not impossible, the quality does exist in female politicians: Jess Philips or Liz Kendall come to mind, in a US context I know less, but AOC seems like she might have it. Hillary really didn't.
I thought it was well understood among IT professionals that any computer voting system was “wide open to fraud and intervention”?
That really depends how it's designed. The US used to have astonishingly terrible systems, but it's got a lot better. In places that are doing it right, the computer is printing out the vote on a piece of paper, which the voter verifies, and also creating a digital record which is used for faster counts. This is probably often better than just writing on a piece of paper, as the printed paper is just as good as a hand-written piece of paper, but you also have a digital record that you can compare to raise the alarm if some of the paper ballots fell victim to a bizarre rodent infestation or whatever.
A lot of the Republican rumours and disinformation are relying on widespread belief in electoral practices that are at odds with how the processes currently work. There has been an enormous overhaul of election processes and machinery over the last few years.
Where were the armed Trump supporters I was worried would stop voting in Pennsylvania and Michigan when Trump was still ahead? If they'd done that there was a chance the courts would have awarded Trump victory on the basis of the partial counts, and constitutionally that would have been that.
If his supporters weren't willing to risk their necks at a point when the barriers to victory were lower, why would they do so now?
His supporters have been quiet so far. But I think the risk is coming more from the executive, not in fact spontaneously from the grassroots, and his supporters. Now he's called them out to the streets on Saturday, and is also busy packing the government and defence bureaucracy with loyalists.
Trumpers are convinced its been stolen and that their legal challenges will remove the "illegal votes". When you look at the nature of these challenges - and the margin of victory for Biden - its clear these will fail and fail massively. Once it becomes clear that the results stand - results which people are convinced are fraudulent somehow - thats when the shooting starts. To answer @Mysticrose and her "is this Civil War" question - possibly
As for students, a mass rapid test followed by tight windows of departure sounds great on paper and will be a poorly organised disaster in reality. Students will travel home and take the pox with them with the inevitable results. "Online teaching only from 9th December" - I assume that is for the remainder of term and not into 2021? Universities need student income for accommodation as do private landlords. The government isn't going to cover that so either they send students back in January with the inevitable return of Chernobyl strength Covid hotspots or they try to force students to keep paying full whack for part teaching and full whack for accommodation they aren't allowed to live in.
My course has been online only for about a month already and the tuition fee is unchanged and neither is it likely to change. 🤷♂️ It would be lovely if it did though.
Where were the armed Trump supporters I was worried would stop voting in Pennsylvania and Michigan when Trump was still ahead? If they'd done that there was a chance the courts would have awarded Trump victory on the basis of the partial counts, and constitutionally that would have been that.
If his supporters weren't willing to risk their necks at a point when the barriers to victory were lower, why would they do so now?
BBC Radio Five Live is currently hosting a phone-in show about whether or not people should be "obliged" to take the Covid-19 vaccine. One person phoning the programme has called for people who refuse to take it to be "detained".
Nah, let natural selection get to work on the antivaxers.
Doesn't quite work though, does it? Most people who refuse the vaccine will not get seriously ill but may well transmit it to more vulnerable people who might (depending on the effectiveness of the vaccine).
It's also the case that the death toll from this virus is still well short of 0.1% of the population. I have no doubt it will exceed 0.1% eventually, possibly even reach 0.2% depending the speed with which a vaccine can be distributed, but the black death or Ebola this isn't.
We don't yet know if the vaccine prevents transmission.
Compulsion goes against the principle of consent. People are allowed to make bad decisions.
And should they, themselves have to live with the consequences of their bad decisions, or do we all have to?
We all have to do so. The freedom to make bad decisions is a fundamental freedom.
If we are only free to do what the government says, what sort of freedom is that?
Well, a second amendmenter might say that, and I might reply: freedom from the fear of masss shootings. Very difficult to enforce compulsory vaccination, though. I don't think anyone has ver tried it *on adults* because of the liberty issues involved. You can't physically inject people against their will, you can't prosecute 35% of the nation without the courts seizing up, and if you try to do it indirectly by not letting people get on a bus or into a cinema without producing a vaccination certificate you will run slap bang into discrimination/human rights legislation.
No airline travel without vaccination should do the trick. Good luck with your court cases there.
How do you mean? There's already religions which decline all medical interventions (JW or 7th day adventists or something) and I can see their numbers growing. What is your answer to their claim they are being discriminated against on grounds of faith?
That they are being discriminated against for being potentially infectious. The don't get to impose the consequences of their beliefs on others. I have little doubt that once the vaccine is broadly available, airline will require vaccination certificates - or you to pay to be tested before you board.
I thought it was well understood among IT professionals that any computer voting system was “wide open to fraud and intervention”?
That really depends how it's designed. The US used to have astonishingly terrible systems, but it's got a lot better. In places that are doing it right, the computer is printing out the vote on a piece of paper, which the voter verifies, and also creating a digital record which is used for faster counts. This is probably often better than just writing on a piece of paper, as the printed paper is just as good as a hand-written piece of paper, but you also have a digital record that you can compare to raise the alarm if some of the paper ballots fell victim to a bizarre rodent infestation or whatever.
A lot of the Republican rumours and disinformation are relying on widespread belief in electoral practices that are at odds with how the processes currently work. There has been an enormous overhaul of election processes and machinery over the last few years.
Its still difficult to look at a system where there are certified votes for none of the States 8 days after the election and in many cases still uncounted ballots and claim it is "working".
BBC Radio Five Live is currently hosting a phone-in show about whether or not people should be "obliged" to take the Covid-19 vaccine. One person phoning the programme has called for people who refuse to take it to be "detained".
Nah, let natural selection get to work on the antivaxers.
Really? Frustrating natural selection is pretty much your job description, if you think about it. Also, vaccines are pure homeopathy - take a tiny dose of the thing which does harm in the first place - and the government vaccine czar has thoughtfully warned us of the danger of freak harm from them. Broth all the way for me.
Homeopathy isn`t a tiny dose of anything - it`s just water. Absolutely cannot be compared to a vaccine.
They don’t even give you the magic water anymore. They sell sugar pills, that presumably were once dissolved in the magic water, and the water memory wave can survive evaporation and be imprinted on sugar. I wonder if they need to sucuss the water while it is evaporating (sucussion being the part after each 100:1 dilution where the water is shaken and banged on the table 100 times to “activate the vital energy” of the diluted substance according to homeopathy’s founder Hahnemann)
Its advocates claim that homeopathy was over 25 times more effective at treating the Spanish Flu than allopathic remedies (found that and lots more delights here http://chironhealthcare.com/homoeopathy-explained/ ), I think we ought to look into it. Interestingly, if you quack and say “allopathy” at the same time it sounds a lot like “proper medicine”.
Good morning everyone. To be fair to Trump, every Democrat and their dog, plus quite a lot of people on here having been banging on for four years that the 2016 election was corrupted in some way, probably by Putin. The only difference is that Mrs Clinton conceded and slunk away.
How many Democrats actually challenged the outcome of the election itself, though ? The cases are entirely different, so your ‘to be fair’ isn’t.
TBF (again) I rather expected to be picked up on that! However, many people argued for quite a while that it wasn't a 'fair' result because of illegal and covert intervention, so while the detail is indeed different the end result ....... that the result wasn't what the electorate would really wanted if the election hadn't been interfered with....... isn't.
That's not saying that I don't think Trump's behaving like a toddler who has had their toy taken away.Because he is. I only hope that after the Convention meeting on 12th December, when the Presidency is awarded to Biden that Trump accepts the position with a least a modicum of grace.
Good morning everyone. To be fair to Trump, every Democrat and their dog, plus quite a lot of people on here having been banging on for four years that the 2016 election was corrupted in some way, probably by Putin. The only difference is that Mrs Clinton conceded and slunk away.
How many Democrats actually challenged the outcome of the election itself, though ? The cases are entirely different, so your ‘to be fair’ isn’t.
Here's what I don't understand.
If Trump keeps on pushing these allegations, sooner or later there'll be public rulings - by Supreme Court judges he's appointed - that he's talking through his rear end. But no-one's properly investigated the Putin interference allegations, because Trump stopped the investigations - and anyway, most sensible allegations aren't that the 2016 election was invalid but that Trump was helped by a crook.
And the longer Putin refuses to acknowledge Biden, the greater the evidence that Trump is still being helped by a crook.
Which just adds to the evidence against Trump in the inevitable State court cases against him. Is Putin's real motive trying to ensure Trump's death in jail?
BBC Radio Five Live is currently hosting a phone-in show about whether or not people should be "obliged" to take the Covid-19 vaccine. One person phoning the programme has called for people who refuse to take it to be "detained".
Nah, let natural selection get to work on the antivaxers.
Really? Frustrating natural selection is pretty much your job description, if you think about it. Also, vaccines are pure homeopathy - take a tiny dose of the thing which does harm in the first place - and the government vaccine czar has thoughtfully warned us of the danger of freak harm from them. Broth all the way for me.
Fantastically ignorant post. Vaccines have no relation to homeopathy in any way.
Interesting wording on the market. If Trump refers to Biden being president after 21 January, does that count as conceding? Wording includes "acknowledges that he will not be president on 21 January" so - as others have pointed out - doesn't a tweet "from tomorrow Sleepy Joe will be president, even though he stole the election with fake votes. SAD!" on 20 January mean he concedes? I can see a fair chance of something like that, with more capital letters and less punctuation.
Trumpers are convinced its been stolen and that their legal challenges will remove the "illegal votes". When you look at the nature of these challenges - and the margin of victory for Biden - its clear these will fail and fail massively. Once it becomes clear that the results stand - results which people are convinced are fraudulent somehow - thats when the shooting starts. To answer @Mysticrose and her "is this Civil War" question - possibly
As for students, a mass rapid test followed by tight windows of departure sounds great on paper and will be a poorly organised disaster in reality. Students will travel home and take the pox with them with the inevitable results. "Online teaching only from 9th December" - I assume that is for the remainder of term and not into 2021? Universities need student income for accommodation as do private landlords. The government isn't going to cover that so either they send students back in January with the inevitable return of Chernobyl strength Covid hotspots or they try to force students to keep paying full whack for part teaching and full whack for accommodation they aren't allowed to live in.
My course has been online only for about a month already and the tuition fee is unchanged and neither is it likely to change. 🤷♂️ It would be lovely if it did though.
Why should online teaching be cheaper? In many ways it is more expensive to organise.
Pence doesn’t like him or the hand on the shoulder routine does he 😃
The way I read that image is that Mr Biden is praying for Mr Pence. The body language of both fit perfectly.
IIRC Pence is a former RC who became an Evangelical. Biden is a 'cradle Catholic' who has stuck with it, but accepts 'modern' social values. Pence doesn't.
Trumpers are convinced its been stolen and that their legal challenges will remove the "illegal votes". When you look at the nature of these challenges - and the margin of victory for Biden - its clear these will fail and fail massively. Once it becomes clear that the results stand - results which people are convinced are fraudulent somehow - thats when the shooting starts. To answer @Mysticrose and her "is this Civil War" question - possibly
As for students, a mass rapid test followed by tight windows of departure sounds great on paper and will be a poorly organised disaster in reality. Students will travel home and take the pox with them with the inevitable results. "Online teaching only from 9th December" - I assume that is for the remainder of term and not into 2021? Universities need student income for accommodation as do private landlords. The government isn't going to cover that so either they send students back in January with the inevitable return of Chernobyl strength Covid hotspots or they try to force students to keep paying full whack for part teaching and full whack for accommodation they aren't allowed to live in.
My course has been online only for about a month already and the tuition fee is unchanged and neither is it likely to change. 🤷♂️ It would be lovely if it did though.
Why should online teaching be cheaper? In many ways it is more expensive to organise.
Biden looked doddery even then...... I'm really not sure he's going to make the distance,
Trump was elected in 2016 because he wasn't Clinton. Biden was elected in 2020 because he wasn't Trump.
And the big difference between Clinton and Biden?
Politically they were both top members of Obamas administration. If Biden had run in 2016 his program would have been similar to Clinton's.
Clinton probably has a better record than Biden, though for sure both can be criticised.
Scandals : Clinton used the Clinton private server for government emails - which broke rules and reflects badly on her, but nowhere near as bad as the (admittedly fairly run of the mill) Hunter Biden influence peddling.
Clinton was a bit younger.
So I'm wondering what the big disadvantage Clinton had as a candidate. Can't think of any other blindingly obvious differences between them.
Except for the obvious....
Nobody trusted her ?
These are all good guesses (although why do people trust Biden more than Clinton? I don't think I do). But there is something even more obvious that everyone is missing.
As I've said before, I think relatability is the key difference, US presidential winners have long possessed a certain folksiness or laconicness, sometimes even a Forest Gump type quality. An "I could go for a beer" persona.
Even leaving aside outright sexism, that's a tough gig for a woman who has risen enough to become a presidential candidate. It's not impossible, the quality does exist in female politicians: Jess Philips or Liz Kendall come to mind, in a US context I know less, but AOC seems like she might have it. Hillary really didn't.
I think that's part of it, although there was a level of hatred aimed at Clinton that seemed disproportionate to the stated reasons - even among some of my left-leaning friends. For example, you may dislike Clinton because of her support for NATO intervention against Gadaffi when she was Secretary of State - but it is weird if you at the same time like Obama who was the guy who actually ordered the US strikes.
BBC Radio Five Live is currently hosting a phone-in show about whether or not people should be "obliged" to take the Covid-19 vaccine. One person phoning the programme has called for people who refuse to take it to be "detained".
Nah, let natural selection get to work on the antivaxers.
Doesn't quite work though, does it? Most people who refuse the vaccine will not get seriously ill but may well transmit it to more vulnerable people who might (depending on the effectiveness of the vaccine).
It's also the case that the death toll from this virus is still well short of 0.1% of the population. I have no doubt it will exceed 0.1% eventually, possibly even reach 0.2% depending the speed with which a vaccine can be distributed, but the black death or Ebola this isn't.
We don't yet know if the vaccine prevents transmission.
Compulsion goes against the principle of consent. People are allowed to make bad decisions.
And should they, themselves have to live with the consequences of their bad decisions, or do we all have to?
We all have to do so. The freedom to make bad decisions is a fundamental freedom.
If we are only free to do what the government says, what sort of freedom is that?
Well, a second amendmenter might say that, and I might reply: freedom from the fear of masss shootings. Very difficult to enforce compulsory vaccination, though. I don't think anyone has ver tried it *on adults* because of the liberty issues involved. You can't physically inject people against their will, you can't prosecute 35% of the nation without the courts seizing up, and if you try to do it indirectly by not letting people get on a bus or into a cinema without producing a vaccination certificate you will run slap bang into discrimination/human rights legislation.
No airline travel without vaccination should do the trick. Good luck with your court cases there.
How do you mean? There's already religions which decline all medical interventions (JW or 7th day adventists or something) and I can see their numbers growing. What is your answer to their claim they are being discriminated against on grounds of faith?
That they are being discriminated against for being potentially infectious. The don't get to impose the consequences of their beliefs on others. I have little doubt that once the vaccine is broadly available, airline will require vaccination certificates - or you to pay to be tested before you board.
Many airlines (and countries in the more clued up parts of the world) ALREADY require a negative PCR test within “X” hours before travel - eventually the rest will catch up. “Freedom” appears to also extend to “infect others” in some minds.
One thing that does stand out, the US system where a president who never won a popular vote can pack out the judiciary in such a partisan way, and the American way of doing a civil service with partisan appointments, the more bent the appointer the more bent the appointee, is absolute anti democratic rubbish that doesn’t allow for smooth transitions of power at all and for UK now to be copying it is just insane.
a least the US system only gives the (winning) incumbent two terms. though I reckon Donald would have tested that if he could (and still might)........
As most genuinely democratic places without term limits show, its damn hard even to make it to 10 years, so in practice lack of term limits does not hold them back.
BBC Radio Five Live is currently hosting a phone-in show about whether or not people should be "obliged" to take the Covid-19 vaccine. One person phoning the programme has called for people who refuse to take it to be "detained".
Nah, let natural selection get to work on the antivaxers.
Really? Frustrating natural selection is pretty much your job description, if you think about it. Also, vaccines are pure homeopathy - take a tiny dose of the thing which does harm in the first place - and the government vaccine czar has thoughtfully warned us of the danger of freak harm from them. Broth all the way for me.
Homeopathy isn`t a tiny dose of anything - it`s just water. Absolutely cannot be compared to a vaccine.
Its advocates claim that homeopathy was over 25 times more effective at treating the Spanish Flu than allopathic remedies (found that and lots more delights here http://chironhealthcare.com/homoeopathy-explained/ ), I think we ought to look into it. Interestingly, if you quack and say “allopathy” at the same time it sounds a lot like “proper medicine”.
There is an interesting theory that many Spanish Flu deaths were iatrogenic due to fatal overdose of Asprin. It is quite possible that some would have survived better with sugar water.
Biden looked doddery even then...... I'm really not sure he's going to make the distance,
Trump was elected in 2016 because he wasn't Clinton. Biden was elected in 2020 because he wasn't Trump.
And the big difference between Clinton and Biden?
Politically they were both top members of Obamas administration. If Biden had run in 2016 his program would have been similar to Clinton's.
Clinton probably has a better record than Biden, though for sure both can be criticised.
Scandals : Clinton used the Clinton private server for government emails - which broke rules and reflects badly on her, but nowhere near as bad as the (admittedly fairly run of the mill) Hunter Biden influence peddling.
Clinton was a bit younger.
So I'm wondering what the big disadvantage Clinton had as a candidate. Can't think of any other blindingly obvious differences between them.
Except for the obvious....
Nobody trusted her ?
These are all good guesses (although why do people trust Biden more than Clinton? I don't think I do). But there is something even more obvious that everyone is missing.
They aren't missing it nobody wants to say it. Biden is not a woman.
I think Trump will ultimately concede once all legal avenues open to him to push recounts and challenge ballots are exhausted, remember in 2000 Al Gore did not concede to George W Bush until 13th December and it is still only November 11th
My GOP to win the house bet is going to end up closer than it should have. Much closer.
Makes Trump's performance look even worse
I think it's a reflection of the different biases in the different systems. Which I think is something like...
Electoral College for President would be on a knife edge when the Democrats have a lead of ~2%. House of Representatives tipping point at ~4%. Senate tipping point at ~6%.
Good morning everyone. To be fair to Trump, every Democrat and their dog, plus quite a lot of people on here having been banging on for four years that the 2016 election was corrupted in some way, probably by Putin. The only difference is that Mrs Clinton conceded and slunk away.
That's a pretty massive difference, particularly when many of the legal challenges thus far have been tossed out as meritless and blatantly so, thus showing they were not made in good faith.
Yup ; not only that, but there's talk of him doing more, in that part of the bureaucratic machine. He's got his eye on some of the people who were assistants to Esper as well, as far as I understand it.
The only way I can imagine it is if Trump quietly leaves the White House and makes no comment on Biden's succession. Difficult to imagine Trump not commenting, or being quiet.
If he comments, he is bound to complain about what's happening, and how can he do that without acknowledging that the presidency is being taken away from him?
Conversely, if he claims he is still going to be president, how far can he go in that direction without laying himself open to a serious criminal charge?
Its almost a sea of red with strips of blue where significant numbers of people actually live. Its a vivid demonstration of how the US is divided and how little common ground there is.
Town versus country, the UK is not that much different
The UK is blue in towns as well as country.
Trump still won a lot of small towns as well as rural areas, it was the suburbs where Biden won this time and made the big gains and where Hillary had lost to Trump in 2016 (though in the US suburbia is defined very broadly and includes vast urban areas and a lot of what we in the UK would consider market towns or ex industrial towns)
Good morning everyone. To be fair to Trump, every Democrat and their dog, plus quite a lot of people on here having been banging on for four years that the 2016 election was corrupted in some way, probably by Putin. The only difference is that Mrs Clinton conceded and slunk away.
How many Democrats actually challenged the outcome of the election itself, though ? The cases are entirely different, so your ‘to be fair’ isn’t.
TBF (again) I rather expected to be picked up on that! However, many people argued for quite a while that it wasn't a 'fair' result because of illegal and covert intervention, so while the detail is indeed different the end result ....... that the result wasn't what the electorate would really wanted if the election hadn't been interfered with....... isn't.
That's not saying that I don't think Trump's behaving like a toddler who has had their toy taken away.Because he is. I only hope that after the Convention meeting on 12th December, when the Presidency is awarded to Biden that Trump accepts the position with a least a modicum of grace.
There's a simple and profound difference. While arguing that there was election interference, the Democrats still accepted the result. They subsequently pursued the legal remedy of impeachment - and the Mueller report pretty conclusively demonstrated that collusion of some kind took place - but they never hoped for, or even suggested the overturning of the election. Had Trump been successfully impeached, Pence would have become President.
Biden looked doddery even then...... I'm really not sure he's going to make the distance,
Trump was elected in 2016 because he wasn't Clinton. Biden was elected in 2020 because he wasn't Trump.
And the big difference between Clinton and Biden?
Politically they were both top members of Obamas administration. If Biden had run in 2016 his program would have been similar to Clinton's.
Clinton probably has a better record than Biden, though for sure both can be criticised.
Scandals : Clinton used the Clinton private server for government emails - which broke rules and reflects badly on her, but nowhere near as bad as the (admittedly fairly run of the mill) Hunter Biden influence peddling.
Clinton was a bit younger.
So I'm wondering what the big disadvantage Clinton had as a candidate. Can't think of any other blindingly obvious differences between them.
Except for the obvious....
Nobody trusted her ?
These are all good guesses (although why do people trust Biden more than Clinton? I don't think I do). But there is something even more obvious that everyone is missing.
They aren't missing it nobody wants to say it. Biden is not a woman.
Have you any evidence for that ? Surely it's for Jo to determine its own gender ?
Trumpers are convinced its been stolen and that their legal challenges will remove the "illegal votes". When you look at the nature of these challenges - and the margin of victory for Biden - its clear these will fail and fail massively. Once it becomes clear that the results stand - results which people are convinced are fraudulent somehow - thats when the shooting starts. To answer @Mysticrose and her "is this Civil War" question - possibly
As for students, a mass rapid test followed by tight windows of departure sounds great on paper and will be a poorly organised disaster in reality. Students will travel home and take the pox with them with the inevitable results. "Online teaching only from 9th December" - I assume that is for the remainder of term and not into 2021? Universities need student income for accommodation as do private landlords. The government isn't going to cover that so either they send students back in January with the inevitable return of Chernobyl strength Covid hotspots or they try to force students to keep paying full whack for part teaching and full whack for accommodation they aren't allowed to live in.
My course has been online only for about a month already and the tuition fee is unchanged and neither is it likely to change. 🤷♂️ It would be lovely if it did though.
Why should online teaching be cheaper? In many ways it is more expensive to organise.
Because it's wank.
Poor quality of higher education in the UK is certainly an issue. Not sure what the alternative is, as without the fees the Uni will go bust.
Productivity in terms of both quality and quantity has taken a massive hit in my workplace too.
Shortly I am to be doing Med School interviews online. Not totally convinced about that. It seems another step back for social equality. Will report back.
I think Trump will ultimately concede once all legal avenues open to him to push recounts and challenge ballots are exhausted, remember in 2000 Al Gore did not concede to George W Bush until 13th December and it is still only November 11th
That's likely true, but the ability to challenge is not a requirement and even if he wins some cases hes clearly abused the right given how many cases have been lost.
Good morning everyone. To be fair to Trump, every Democrat and their dog, plus quite a lot of people on here having been banging on for four years that the 2016 election was corrupted in some way, probably by Putin. The only difference is that Mrs Clinton conceded and slunk away.
How many Democrats actually challenged the outcome of the election itself, though ? The cases are entirely different, so your ‘to be fair’ isn’t.
TBF (again) I rather expected to be picked up on that! However, many people argued for quite a while that it wasn't a 'fair' result because of illegal and covert intervention, so while the detail is indeed different the end result ....... that the result wasn't what the electorate would really wanted if the election hadn't been interfered with....... isn't.
That's not saying that I don't think Trump's behaving like a toddler who has had their toy taken away.Because he is. I only hope that after the Convention meeting on 12th December, when the Presidency is awarded to Biden that Trump accepts the position with a least a modicum of grace.
There's a simple and profound difference. While arguing that there was election interference, the Democrats still accepted the result. They subsequently pursued the legal remedy of impeachment - and the Mueller report pretty conclusively demonstrated that collusion of some kind took place - but they never hoped for, or even suggested the overturning of the election. Had Trump been successfully impeached, Pence would have become President.
Trumpers are convinced its been stolen and that their legal challenges will remove the "illegal votes". When you look at the nature of these challenges - and the margin of victory for Biden - its clear these will fail and fail massively. Once it becomes clear that the results stand - results which people are convinced are fraudulent somehow - thats when the shooting starts. To answer @Mysticrose and her "is this Civil War" question - possibly
As for students, a mass rapid test followed by tight windows of departure sounds great on paper and will be a poorly organised disaster in reality. Students will travel home and take the pox with them with the inevitable results. "Online teaching only from 9th December" - I assume that is for the remainder of term and not into 2021? Universities need student income for accommodation as do private landlords. The government isn't going to cover that so either they send students back in January with the inevitable return of Chernobyl strength Covid hotspots or they try to force students to keep paying full whack for part teaching and full whack for accommodation they aren't allowed to live in.
My course has been online only for about a month already and the tuition fee is unchanged and neither is it likely to change. 🤷♂️ It would be lovely if it did though.
Why should online teaching be cheaper? In many ways it is more expensive to organise.
Spot on, Mr Eds idea that he would still vote for Trump now, but not afterwards if he stole the election is baffling but all too common. The whole point of stealing the election is to take permanent power, not to be bound by mere votes in the future.
I thought it was well understood among IT professionals that any computer voting system was “wide open to fraud and intervention”?
That really depends how it's designed. The US used to have astonishingly terrible systems, but it's got a lot better. In places that are doing it right, the computer is printing out the vote on a piece of paper, which the voter verifies, and also creating a digital record which is used for faster counts. This is probably often better than just writing on a piece of paper, as the printed paper is just as good as a hand-written piece of paper, but you also have a digital record that you can compare to raise the alarm if some of the paper ballots fell victim to a bizarre rodent infestation or whatever.
A lot of the Republican rumours and disinformation are relying on widespread belief in electoral practices that are at odds with how the processes currently work. There has been an enormous overhaul of election processes and machinery over the last few years.
Its still difficult to look at a system where there are certified votes for none of the States 8 days after the election and in many cases still uncounted ballots and claim it is "working".
But that is in part because you have a pre-determined view of what it means for the system to be "working". From the viewpoint of a norm (in the vast majority of countries outside the US) where power passes from one administration to another the instant the vote count is completed. Making time of the essence.
These conditions simply don't exist in the US and their laws don't require them, so you are judging them from a position of expectation that they don't set out to achieve. Of course, if a consensus emerges that media calls and the such like are no longer sufficient to accept the de facto winner of an election, and allow necessary processes to commence in a timely matter, then there will be increasing pressure to overhaul the speed of their electoral processes. But i don't think you can blame them for being slow at something that they are under absolutely no obligation (legal or by all precedent) to do differently.
Trumpers are convinced its been stolen and that their legal challenges will remove the "illegal votes". When you look at the nature of these challenges - and the margin of victory for Biden - its clear these will fail and fail massively. Once it becomes clear that the results stand - results which people are convinced are fraudulent somehow - thats when the shooting starts. To answer @Mysticrose and her "is this Civil War" question - possibly
As for students, a mass rapid test followed by tight windows of departure sounds great on paper and will be a poorly organised disaster in reality. Students will travel home and take the pox with them with the inevitable results. "Online teaching only from 9th December" - I assume that is for the remainder of term and not into 2021? Universities need student income for accommodation as do private landlords. The government isn't going to cover that so either they send students back in January with the inevitable return of Chernobyl strength Covid hotspots or they try to force students to keep paying full whack for part teaching and full whack for accommodation they aren't allowed to live in.
My course has been online only for about a month already and the tuition fee is unchanged and neither is it likely to change. 🤷♂️ It would be lovely if it did though.
Why should online teaching be cheaper? In many ways it is more expensive to organise.
Whether or not it is cheaper, Gallowgate chose a course offering in-person Teaching. Well organised online courses are good, but they suit some students better than others, and I think that if you can commit the time and get yourself to the right location, then in-person courses are better for most students than online ones.
I think anyone who pays good money for a service and then get offered a different service has a good reason to grumble.
The counter justification in Corona times, which the Berlin unis are giving, is that if the courses were not held online then the students would not be able to study at all. But our students pay a couple of hundred Euros, not almost 10 grand.
BBC Radio Five Live is currently hosting a phone-in show about whether or not people should be "obliged" to take the Covid-19 vaccine. One person phoning the programme has called for people who refuse to take it to be "detained".
Nah, let natural selection get to work on the antivaxers.
Doesn't quite work though, does it? Most people who refuse the vaccine will not get seriously ill but may well transmit it to more vulnerable people who might (depending on the effectiveness of the vaccine).
It's also the case that the death toll from this virus is still well short of 0.1% of the population. I have no doubt it will exceed 0.1% eventually, possibly even reach 0.2% depending the speed with which a vaccine can be distributed, but the black death or Ebola this isn't.
We don't yet know if the vaccine prevents transmission.
Compulsion goes against the principle of consent. People are allowed to make bad decisions.
And should they, themselves have to live with the consequences of their bad decisions, or do we all have to?
We all have to do so. The freedom to make bad decisions is a fundamental freedom.
If we are only free to do what the government says, what sort of freedom is that?
Well, a second amendmenter might say that, and I might reply: freedom from the fear of masss shootings. Very difficult to enforce compulsory vaccination, though. I don't think anyone has ver tried it *on adults* because of the liberty issues involved. You can't physically inject people against their will, you can't prosecute 35% of the nation without the courts seizing up, and if you try to do it indirectly by not letting people get on a bus or into a cinema without producing a vaccination certificate you will run slap bang into discrimination/human rights legislation.
No airline travel without vaccination should do the trick. Good luck with your court cases there.
How do you mean? There's already religions which decline all medical interventions (JW or 7th day adventists or something) and I can see their numbers growing. What is your answer to their claim they are being discriminated against on grounds of faith?
That they are being discriminated against for being potentially infectious. The don't get to impose the consequences of their beliefs on others. I have little doubt that once the vaccine is broadly available, airline will require vaccination certificates - or you to pay to be tested before you board.
Many airlines (and countries in the more clued up parts of the world) ALREADY require a negative PCR test within “X” hours before travel - eventually the rest will catch up. “Freedom” appears to also extend to “infect others” in some minds.
There are lots of countries that require proof of yellow fever vaccination from travellers from certain areas.
If you don't provide proof to your school that your child is vaccinated against measles in Germany you can be fined up to 2500 euros. It's also compulsory for teachers, medical staff, and some other workers.
So there is precedent for an element of compulsion for vaccination for public health reasons.
AFAIK some Jehovah's Witnesses refuse only blood transfusions. I believe competent adults' refusal of such treatment is usually respected.
But that's precisely why some people think it's rigged.
We, of course, know that what it really means is that there were people out there prepared to vote for Biden to get rid of Trump, but wouldn't put the Dems in complete control.
Democratic HK is dead. China must really have been spooked by the local elections (apparently they believed their own crap and were surprised at the result) and took action and ain't none in the world able to stop them. Poor bastards.
BBC Radio Five Live is currently hosting a phone-in show about whether or not people should be "obliged" to take the Covid-19 vaccine. One person phoning the programme has called for people who refuse to take it to be "detained".
Nah, let natural selection get to work on the antivaxers.
Really? Frustrating natural selection is pretty much your job description, if you think about it. Also, vaccines are pure homeopathy - take a tiny dose of the thing which does harm in the first place - and the government vaccine czar has thoughtfully warned us of the danger of freak harm from them. Broth all the way for me.
Homeopathy isn`t a tiny dose of anything - it`s just water. Absolutely cannot be compared to a vaccine.
Its advocates claim that homeopathy was over 25 times more effective at treating the Spanish Flu than allopathic remedies (found that and lots more delights here http://chironhealthcare.com/homoeopathy-explained/ ), I think we ought to look into it. Interestingly, if you quack and say “allopathy” at the same time it sounds a lot like “proper medicine”.
There is an interesting theory that many Spanish Flu deaths were iatrogenic due to fatal overdose of Asprin. It is quite possible that some would have survived better with sugar water.
Comments
If we are only free to do what the government says, what sort of freedom is that?
Of course there will be students in their first year who are lost and bewildered. Confronted with work of a level far higher than they are used to. Who in normal circumstances would be able to get through this with the shared experience of other students in similar position. Who would be able to find common cause with students of similar personality and disposition. You can’t do that from home. I’m afraid the dropout rate will be enormous. And, sadly, a rising tide of mental health problems and suicides as many of the usual outlets for those with problems are simply not available. And there will be nobody to spot the tell tale indicators that people are struggling.
I thought it was well understood among IT professionals that any computer voting system was “wide open to fraud and intervention”?
Ever heard of Bernhard Ingram? Or CJ Cregg?
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/nov/10/donald-trump-longshot-election-lawsuits
Trumpers are convinced its been stolen and that their legal challenges will remove the "illegal votes". When you look at the nature of these challenges - and the margin of victory for Biden - its clear these will fail and fail massively. Once it becomes clear that the results stand - results which people are convinced are fraudulent somehow - thats when the shooting starts. To answer @Mysticrose and her "is this Civil War" question - possibly
As for students, a mass rapid test followed by tight windows of departure sounds great on paper and will be a poorly organised disaster in reality. Students will travel home and take the pox with them with the inevitable results. "Online teaching only from 9th December" - I assume that is for the remainder of term and not into 2021? Universities need student income for accommodation as do private landlords. The government isn't going to cover that so either they send students back in January with the inevitable return of Chernobyl strength Covid hotspots or they try to force students to keep paying full whack for part teaching and full whack for accommodation they aren't allowed to live in.
Slovakia Says COVID Double-Testing Cut Number of Infections by More Than Half
https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2020-11-09/slovakia-says-covid-double-testing-cut-number-of-infections-by-more-than-half
Slovakia's coronavirus testing and quarantine scheme, running over the past two weekends, has helped cut the proportion of infections by more than half, Prime Minister Igor Matovic said on Monday.
The country of 5.5 million tested 3.6 million people, excluding small children and some senior citizens, over the first weekend in November, with those testing positive having to go into quarantine.
It repeated tests for just over 2 million over this past weekend when testing took place only in more affected areas, with the infection rate turning out to be much lower thanks to the earlier quarantine orders.
The scheme has been watched by other countries struggling with a spike in coronavirus cases.
Taking into account districts that were tested on both weekends, the infection rate dropped from 1.47% on the first weekend to 0.62% of those who took the test on the second weekend, Matovic told a news conference.
Including some additional tests done among police services, senior homes and companies, the second round returned 13,509 positive results.
"We are going into a tough winter," Matovic said. "We have an extraordinarily effective tool in antigen testing that cuts the share of infected people by 58%."
The testing was free and voluntary, but the government imposed a lockdown, including a ban on work commutes, on those who refused to take the test.
People have to carry around certificates saying they took the test and tested negative.
The scheme used antigen swab tests that return results within 15-30 minutes but are less accurate than standard laboratory PCR tests.The government has argued that while it was aware the tests may miss a sizeable proportion of those infected, it was still worth it and repeated testing narrowed that probability of falsely negative results...
It is an absurdity.
If you are testing 50% of your population and only detect (say) 60% of those infected (and antigen tests are a great deal more accurate than that), you are still doing massively better than PCR, where even if you detect 100% of infections, you're only testing maybe 1-3% of the population for the same time and similar resources.
And the antigen tests will also catch those who are infected days earlier than PCR testing of symptomatic individuals.
Vaccines prime the host’s immune system to prevent or mitigate an infection
There’s a fundamental difference
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-merseyside-54885261
It sounds rather less massive or well organised than the Slovak experiment, but the initial results are interesting:
City mayor Joe Anderson said 23,170 people have been tested since midday on Friday with 0.7% testing positive.
Those testing positive had no symptoms, testers said. All residents and workers in Liverpool have been offered tests.
There are 18 test centres - including Liverpool's Anfield stadium - and Mr Anderson said there had been a "great response" from people.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson had urged all the city's 500,000 residents to take part, saying "do it for your friends, for your relatives, for your community" in a bid to drive the disease down"....
As I predicted, they are catching the presymptomatic (and presumably some asymptomatic) infected. A huge advantage over the PCR testing regime.
I was joking, by the way. The relevant fundamental difference is two centuries of cast-iron evidence that vaccines work.
Because fundamentally, the sort of claims he is spreading now jeopardise every elected official Democrat or Republican. Because the more he alleges that the election was unfair and stolen, not on the basis of actual evidence, but on the basis of alleged fundamental weaknesses in the electoral system which allow the "possibility" of fraud then it ceases to become party political. If the system is wide open to fraud, but there is no evidence of specific instances, then no election is safe. Whether Republican or Democrat controlled, whether Republican or Democrat elected. Remember "computer voting/counting" is not restricted to mail in ballots. Where it is used it covers ALL ballots cast...
Whither democracy?
Good luck with your court cases there.
And, of course, unvaccinated you would probably not be allowed into hospitals for elective procedures, without first being tested.
If his supporters weren't willing to risk their necks at a point when the barriers to victory were lower, why would they do so now?
https://www.azmirror.com/2020/11/10/an-arizona-ballot-recount-they-are-rare-nearly-impossible-to-trigger/
And the US might be better off with many things, but the Constitution strongly constrains what is possible.
Even leaving aside outright sexism, that's a tough gig for a woman who has risen enough to become a presidential candidate. It's not impossible, the quality does exist in female politicians: Jess Philips or Liz Kendall come to mind, in a US context I know less, but AOC seems like she might have it. Hillary really didn't.
I have little doubt that once the vaccine is broadly available, airline will require vaccination certificates - or you to pay to be tested before you board.
Its advocates claim that homeopathy was over 25 times more effective at treating the Spanish Flu than allopathic remedies (found that and lots more delights here http://chironhealthcare.com/homoeopathy-explained/ ), I think we ought to look into it. Interestingly, if you quack and say “allopathy” at the same time it sounds a lot like “proper medicine”.
That's not saying that I don't think Trump's behaving like a toddler who has had their toy taken away.Because he is.
I only hope that after the Convention meeting on 12th December, when the Presidency is awarded to Biden that Trump accepts the position with a least a modicum of grace.
If Trump keeps on pushing these allegations, sooner or later there'll be public rulings - by Supreme Court judges he's appointed - that he's talking through his rear end.
But no-one's properly investigated the Putin interference allegations, because Trump stopped the investigations - and anyway, most sensible allegations aren't that the 2016 election was invalid but that Trump was helped by a crook.
And the longer Putin refuses to acknowledge Biden, the greater the evidence that Trump is still being helped by a crook.
Which just adds to the evidence against Trump in the inevitable State court cases against him. Is Putin's real motive trying to ensure Trump's death in jail?
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/10/091002132346.htm
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-us-2020-54871890
Electoral College for President would be on a knife edge when the Democrats have a lead of ~2%.
House of Representatives tipping point at ~4%.
Senate tipping point at ~6%.
The only way I can imagine it is if Trump quietly leaves the White House and makes no comment on Biden's succession. Difficult to imagine Trump not commenting, or being quiet.
If he comments, he is bound to complain about what's happening, and how can he do that without acknowledging that the presidency is being taken away from him?
Conversely, if he claims he is still going to be president, how far can he go in that direction without laying himself open to a serious criminal charge?
You really need to work harder than that when doing the 'just asking questions' kind of defence when you can pretend it isn't a defence of him.
They subsequently pursued the legal remedy of impeachment - and the Mueller report pretty conclusively demonstrated that collusion of some kind took place - but they never hoped for, or even suggested the overturning of the election. Had Trump been successfully impeached, Pence would have become President.
Productivity in terms of both quality and quantity has taken a massive hit in my workplace too.
Shortly I am to be doing Med School interviews online. Not totally convinced about that. It seems another step back for social equality. Will report back.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-54899171
These conditions simply don't exist in the US and their laws don't require them, so you are judging them from a position of expectation that they don't set out to achieve. Of course, if a consensus emerges that media calls and the such like are no longer sufficient to accept the de facto winner of an election, and allow necessary processes to commence in a timely matter, then there will be increasing pressure to overhaul the speed of their electoral processes. But i don't think you can blame them for being slow at something that they are under absolutely no obligation (legal or by all precedent) to do differently.
I think anyone who pays good money for a service and then get offered a different service has a good reason to grumble.
The counter justification in Corona times, which the Berlin unis are giving, is that if the courses were not held online then the students would not be able to study at all. But our students pay a couple of hundred Euros, not almost 10 grand.
https://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/national-party-news/311099-skeptical-70000-black-voters-abstained-from
It's not the Democrats doing any rigging.
If you don't provide proof to your school that your child is vaccinated against measles in Germany you can be fined up to 2500 euros. It's also compulsory for teachers, medical staff, and some other workers.
So there is precedent for an element of compulsion for vaccination for public health reasons.
AFAIK some Jehovah's Witnesses refuse only blood transfusions. I believe competent adults' refusal of such treatment is usually respected.
We, of course, know that what it really means is that there were people out there prepared to vote for Biden to get rid of Trump, but wouldn't put the Dems in complete control.