The German decision re AZ over 65’s is rather worrying.
What if it isn’t effective?
It's the absence of clinical data (its unusual to test drugs on the elderly until they've checked out ok on the young) because we've done in 9 months what typically takes 6 years - which means you have to decide either to:
- wait for clinical data, or - use your judgement based on other available data - in this case a peer reviewed paper in the Lancet showing the response in the elderly was very similar to that in the young.
Given Germany also has the Pfizer vaccine its not an unreasonable decision - it will be a tougher call for those without Pfizer/its infrastructure.
Wait for "perfection" or go with "good enough".
Given the number of dead 65+ year olds we have I believe "good enough" is good enough.
Of course Pfizer shared the exact same issue!
Yet to hear any explanation as to why there was insufficient data for AZ but there's sufficient data for Pfizer - when the Pfizer vaccine too had so few numbers in its own subsample that it could be literally totally ineffective or even negative in the elderly confidence interval.
Why care about the subsample confidence interval for one but not the other?
I don't think that question will (or perhaps should) be asked at this time. No point in trashing two vaccines instead of one. I've been surprised at the degree of tetchy Teutonic pride on display over this - perhaps it's simply favouring the 'German' vaccine.
See German report says insufficient data on the effectiveness of the Astra Zeneca vaccine on over 65's and suggesting that age range should not have it because of probable low resistance!!!! Put that in your pipe and smoke it. Help, they gave it to me on Monday!!!!
Did they actually say "probable low resistance"? How can they say that if there is no evidence on efficacy?
I think we are seeing with the vaccine response that old sore in the relationship of PB Leavers to the EU in their fruit-loop way: it's not enough for you to succeed; your friends must fail.
Yes, the gleeful reaction of europhobes to the EU's vaccine troubles has been quite intense. I've given it some thought and I think what we might be seeing is an example of something known in the football world, and indeed in wider society, as Stockport County Syndrome. The name derives from the tendency of the more fervent supporters of a small town, perennially struggling club to take great pleasure from the occasional defeat of their wealthy, big city rivals. All very understandable on a human level, and certainly nothing to overly chastize people for, but of course it changes nothing. When the excitement dies down a week or so later, it's BAU. There is still Man Utd. And there is still Stockport County.
I don't see a single person here "gleeful" that the EU is troubled.
I see a lot of people acknowledging the EU is troubled, right down to williamglenn calling for UVDL's resignation on the subject. I see other people trying to whatabout or downplay just how serious this is.
The EU aren't just failing to protect their own citizens, they're jeopardising us. The science and technology exists to eradicate this damned nasty bug but because they've chosen to cheap out on it instead its going to remain on our continent and risks mutation and reintroduction into this country.
I don't see a single person happy about that.
There is some glee. You can only see it if you're not feeling it.
Or if you're a paranoid fool who projects emotions onto others.
I see more anger than glee. With an element of "I told you so" at the worst.
Next time you criticise anyone should I use the word "glee" about your emotions at the time?
I detect not project. Sorry, Philip, you're not fooling me on this one. I have a persona for every poster and yours is Gareth Keenan (or more accurately Mackenzie Crook). This means I can see your face as you post and atm, with this EU vaccine debacle, the expression etched upon it is ... well, it looks like glee.
From the very process you yourself have just described, you seem neither to be detecting nor projecting, but fantasizing.
BTW, I generally really appreciate your posts, but I really don't get this one. My own image of Philip is clearly wrong, as I had him as a 60-something in my own mind, only to learn in the last few days, IIUIC, that he is in his 30s.
I think we are seeing with the vaccine response that old sore in the relationship of PB Leavers to the EU in their fruit-loop way: it's not enough for you to succeed; your friends must fail.
Yes, the gleeful reaction of europhobes to the EU's vaccine troubles has been quite intense. I've given it some thought and I think what we might be seeing is an example of something known in the football world, and indeed in wider society, as Stockport County Syndrome. The name derives from the tendency of the more fervent supporters of a small town, perennially struggling club to take great pleasure from the occasional defeat of their wealthy, big city rivals. All very understandable on a human level, and certainly nothing to overly chastize people for, but of course it changes nothing. When the excitement dies down a week or so later, it's BAU. There is still Man Utd. And there is still Stockport County.
I don't see a single person here "gleeful" that the EU is troubled.
I see a lot of people acknowledging the EU is troubled, right down to williamglenn calling for UVDL's resignation on the subject. I see other people trying to whatabout or downplay just how serious this is.
The EU aren't just failing to protect their own citizens, they're jeopardising us. The science and technology exists to eradicate this damned nasty bug but because they've chosen to cheap out on it instead its going to remain on our continent and risks mutation and reintroduction into this country.
I don't see a single person happy about that.
There is some glee. You can only see it if you're not feeling it.
Or if you're a paranoid fool who projects emotions onto others.
I see more anger than glee. With an element of "I told you so" at the worst.
Next time you criticise anyone should I use the word "glee" about your emotions at the time?
I detect not project. Sorry, Philip, you're not fooling me on this one. I have a persona for every poster and yours is Gareth Keenan (or more accurately Mackenzie Crook). This means I can see your face as you post and atm, with this EU vaccine debacle, the expression etched upon it is ... well, it looks like glee.
I don't pretend to entirely understand the mechanics behind this but if the shares are bouncing along at 100 times what they are really worth, isn't now exactly the time to short them? Why wouldn't even those hedge funds that have lost money so far just pile back in?
Something like 140% of shares are already out on loan, impossible to short at the moment.
You've just blown a fuse in my brain with that statement.
People have borrowed shares that don't exist?
Yes... kinda....here is a simple explainer of how that occurs. Its a bit like Gordon Browns double counting approach to spending.
I don't pretend to entirely understand the mechanics behind this but if the shares are bouncing along at 100 times what they are really worth, isn't now exactly the time to short them? Why wouldn't even those hedge funds that have lost money so far just pile back in?
It may well be but short term it is a game of chicken trying to make the shorters go bust.
I think we are seeing with the vaccine response that old sore in the relationship of PB Leavers to the EU in their fruit-loop way: it's not enough for you to succeed; your friends must fail.
Well that was the express intent of the EU during the entire Brexit negotiations.
They didn't just want us to fail, they DID THEIR BEST to make us fail.
!I’ll have done my job if, in the end, the deal is so tough on the British that they’d prefer to stay in the EU”. Michel Barnier
"They" haven't said anything of the sort. Peter Liese said it. Do you take everything Dennis Skinner or Bill Cash says in the HoC as "the UK says"?
The German Health Minister repeated today that any production constraints should hit everyone equally, i.e. supplies should be diverted from the UK. They are refusing to take responsibility for the consequences of their delay in signing the contract.
But how do we know that all the production shortfall is due to when contracts were signed?
Not all of it will be according to AZ. A lot of it is random, especially when starting out, as its not like making widgets or whatever so different facilities have experienced different delays. So there are bad luck delays, that have happened in both the UK and EU plants, delays from starting later and relative delays to the UK from having less capacity (due to less funding on the EU side).
The EU plants have had more back luck according to AZ. In addition the bad luck delays that happened in the UK also slow down the EU receiving doses as once we have been supplied with x million doses then some of the UK production goes to the EU.
Not "luck".
Accord to AZ the UK manufacturing faced the same delays but because the UK contract was signed for the UK three months earlier they've had three months more to fix the problems.
That the EU wasted three months before signing the contract, the manufacturing for the EU began three months late. That's not "luck".
From Soriots interview it is clear that in addition to the time delays the EU site experienced lower than expected yield in one of their main sites. Yes the EU wasted time in signing contracts and that is their fault, that does not rule out them experiencing bad luck further down the line, as they did.
“So maybe I need to give you a little bit of explanation as to how we manufacture those vaccines. Essentially, we have cell cultures, big batches, 1000-litre or 2000-litre batches. We have cell cultures inside those batches and we inject them with the virus, the vaccine, if you will. Then those cells produce the vaccine, it’s a biotechnology protection. Now, some of those batches have very high yield and others have low yield. Particularly in Europe, we had one site with large capacity that experienced yield issues."
I think you missed a bit.
'We've had also teething issues like this in the UK supply chain. But the UK contract was signed three months before the European vaccine deal. So with the UK we have had an extra three months to fix all the glitches we experienced. As for Europe, we are three months behind in fixing those glitches. '
I have not missed anything, I said the delays were a mix of:
Bad Luck - low yield in a big plant is bad luck Starting Late - as you keep re-iterating and I had already started Less Capacity
But low yield is not down to luck. The UK had the same yield problem and with time it is fixable.
The problem is the lack of time primarily.
If you head off on a long, complicated journey but leave yourself no time to tackle even a single (expected) distribution that's bad management not bad luck.
What do you think the word particularly means? Luck was not equal. It is not a big deal, the narrative that the EU did badly still holds! But they were unlucky too.
Luck was equal. The same issue hit both the UK and EU. The same problem. So that's not luck.
The only difference? Not luck, time.
So we are adding superior knowledge of vaccine yields to the head of AZ to your vast portfolio of expertise.
I don't pretend to entirely understand the mechanics behind this but if the shares are bouncing along at 100 times what they are really worth, isn't now exactly the time to short them? Why wouldn't even those hedge funds that have lost money so far just pile back in?
It may well be but short term it is a game of chicken trying to make the shorters go bust.
I think we are seeing with the vaccine response that old sore in the relationship of PB Leavers to the EU in their fruit-loop way: it's not enough for you to succeed; your friends must fail.
Well that was the express intent of the EU during the entire Brexit negotiations.
They didn't just want us to fail, they DID THEIR BEST to make us fail.
!I’ll have done my job if, in the end, the deal is so tough on the British that they’d prefer to stay in the EU”. Michel Barnier
"They" haven't said anything of the sort. Peter Liese said it. Do you take everything Dennis Skinner or Bill Cash says in the HoC as "the UK says"?
The German Health Minister repeated today that any production constraints should hit everyone equally, i.e. supplies should be diverted from the UK. They are refusing to take responsibility for the consequences of their delay in signing the contract.
But how do we know that all the production shortfall is due to when contracts were signed?
Not all of it will be according to AZ. A lot of it is random, especially when starting out, as its not like making widgets or whatever so different facilities have experienced different delays. So there are bad luck delays, that have happened in both the UK and EU plants, delays from starting later and relative delays to the UK from having less capacity (due to less funding on the EU side).
The EU plants have had more back luck according to AZ. In addition the bad luck delays that happened in the UK also slow down the EU receiving doses as once we have been supplied with x million doses then some of the UK production goes to the EU.
Not "luck".
Accord to AZ the UK manufacturing faced the same delays but because the UK contract was signed for the UK three months earlier they've had three months more to fix the problems.
That the EU wasted three months before signing the contract, the manufacturing for the EU began three months late. That's not "luck".
From Soriots interview it is clear that in addition to the time delays the EU site experienced lower than expected yield in one of their main sites. Yes the EU wasted time in signing contracts and that is their fault, that does not rule out them experiencing bad luck further down the line, as they did.
“So maybe I need to give you a little bit of explanation as to how we manufacture those vaccines. Essentially, we have cell cultures, big batches, 1000-litre or 2000-litre batches. We have cell cultures inside those batches and we inject them with the virus, the vaccine, if you will. Then those cells produce the vaccine, it’s a biotechnology protection. Now, some of those batches have very high yield and others have low yield. Particularly in Europe, we had one site with large capacity that experienced yield issues."
I think you missed a bit.
'We've had also teething issues like this in the UK supply chain. But the UK contract was signed three months before the European vaccine deal. So with the UK we have had an extra three months to fix all the glitches we experienced. As for Europe, we are three months behind in fixing those glitches. '
I have not missed anything, I said the delays were a mix of:
Bad Luck - low yield in a big plant is bad luck Starting Late - as you keep re-iterating and I had already started Less Capacity
But low yield is not down to luck. The UK had the same yield problem and with time it is fixable.
The problem is the lack of time primarily.
If you head off on a long, complicated journey but leave yourself no time to tackle even a single (expected) distribution that's bad management not bad luck.
What do you think the word particularly means? Luck was not equal. It is not a big deal, the narrative that the EU did badly still holds! But they were unlucky too.
Luck was equal. The same issue hit both the UK and EU. The same problem. So that's not luck.
The only difference? Not luck, time.
So we are adding superior knowledge of vaccine yields to the head of AZ to your vast portfolio of expertise.
Isn't that what the CEO of AZN said in his interview?
I don't pretend to entirely understand the mechanics behind this but if the shares are bouncing along at 100 times what they are really worth, isn't now exactly the time to short them? Why wouldn't even those hedge funds that have lost money so far just pile back in?
It may well be but short term it is a game of chicken trying to make the shorters go bust.
I think we are seeing with the vaccine response that old sore in the relationship of PB Leavers to the EU in their fruit-loop way: it's not enough for you to succeed; your friends must fail.
Well that was the express intent of the EU during the entire Brexit negotiations.
They didn't just want us to fail, they DID THEIR BEST to make us fail.
!I’ll have done my job if, in the end, the deal is so tough on the British that they’d prefer to stay in the EU”. Michel Barnier
"They" haven't said anything of the sort. Peter Liese said it. Do you take everything Dennis Skinner or Bill Cash says in the HoC as "the UK says"?
The German Health Minister repeated today that any production constraints should hit everyone equally, i.e. supplies should be diverted from the UK. They are refusing to take responsibility for the consequences of their delay in signing the contract.
But how do we know that all the production shortfall is due to when contracts were signed?
Not all of it will be according to AZ. A lot of it is random, especially when starting out, as its not like making widgets or whatever so different facilities have experienced different delays. So there are bad luck delays, that have happened in both the UK and EU plants, delays from starting later and relative delays to the UK from having less capacity (due to less funding on the EU side).
The EU plants have had more back luck according to AZ. In addition the bad luck delays that happened in the UK also slow down the EU receiving doses as once we have been supplied with x million doses then some of the UK production goes to the EU.
Not "luck".
Accord to AZ the UK manufacturing faced the same delays but because the UK contract was signed for the UK three months earlier they've had three months more to fix the problems.
That the EU wasted three months before signing the contract, the manufacturing for the EU began three months late. That's not "luck".
From Soriots interview it is clear that in addition to the time delays the EU site experienced lower than expected yield in one of their main sites. Yes the EU wasted time in signing contracts and that is their fault, that does not rule out them experiencing bad luck further down the line, as they did.
“So maybe I need to give you a little bit of explanation as to how we manufacture those vaccines. Essentially, we have cell cultures, big batches, 1000-litre or 2000-litre batches. We have cell cultures inside those batches and we inject them with the virus, the vaccine, if you will. Then those cells produce the vaccine, it’s a biotechnology protection. Now, some of those batches have very high yield and others have low yield. Particularly in Europe, we had one site with large capacity that experienced yield issues."
I think you missed a bit.
'We've had also teething issues like this in the UK supply chain. But the UK contract was signed three months before the European vaccine deal. So with the UK we have had an extra three months to fix all the glitches we experienced. As for Europe, we are three months behind in fixing those glitches. '
I have not missed anything, I said the delays were a mix of:
Bad Luck - low yield in a big plant is bad luck Starting Late - as you keep re-iterating and I had already started Less Capacity
But low yield is not down to luck. The UK had the same yield problem and with time it is fixable.
The problem is the lack of time primarily.
If you head off on a long, complicated journey but leave yourself no time to tackle even a single (expected) distribution that's bad management not bad luck.
What do you think the word particularly means? Luck was not equal. It is not a big deal, the narrative that the EU did badly still holds! But they were unlucky too.
Luck was equal. The same issue hit both the UK and EU. The same problem. So that's not luck.
The only difference? Not luck, time.
So we are adding superior knowledge of vaccine yields to the head of AZ to your vast portfolio of expertise.
I don't pretend to entirely understand the mechanics behind this but if the shares are bouncing along at 100 times what they are really worth, isn't now exactly the time to short them? Why wouldn't even those hedge funds that have lost money so far just pile back in?
Something like 140% of shares are already out on loan, impossible to short at the moment.
What are Gamestop saying in response to all this?
The execs are too busy diving into vaults full of money Scrooge McDuck style.
If the execs are smart they're surely trying to sell off as much of their own stocks as they can without drawing attention to it.
The German decision re AZ over 65’s is rather worrying.
What if it isn’t effective?
It's the absence of clinical data (its unusual to test drugs on the elderly until they've checked out ok on the young) because we've done in 9 months what typically takes 6 years - which means you have to decide either to:
- wait for clinical data, or - use your judgement based on other available data - in this case a peer reviewed paper in the Lancet showing the response in the elderly was very similar to that in the young.
Given Germany also has the Pfizer vaccine its not an unreasonable decision - it will be a tougher call for those without Pfizer/its infrastructure.
Wait for "perfection" or go with "good enough".
Given the number of dead 65+ year olds we have I believe "good enough" is good enough.
Of course Pfizer shared the exact same issue!
Yet to hear any explanation as to why there was insufficient data for AZ but there's sufficient data for Pfizer - when the Pfizer vaccine too had so few numbers in its own subsample that it could be literally totally ineffective or even negative in the elderly confidence interval.
Why care about the subsample confidence interval for one but not the other?
I 'think' but can't prove its because of the 95 % (reported efficacy of Pfizer) vs 60-70 % (AZ, with a messed up press release, and cocked up Phase III). Only reason I can see.
I think we are seeing with the vaccine response that old sore in the relationship of PB Leavers to the EU in their fruit-loop way: it's not enough for you to succeed; your friends must fail.
Yes, the gleeful reaction of europhobes to the EU's vaccine troubles has been quite intense. I've given it some thought and I think what we might be seeing is an example of something known in the football world, and indeed in wider society, as Stockport County Syndrome. The name derives from the tendency of the more fervent supporters of a small town, perennially struggling club to take great pleasure from the occasional defeat of their wealthy, big city rivals. All very understandable on a human level, and certainly nothing to overly chastize people for, but of course it changes nothing. When the excitement dies down a week or so later, it's BAU. There is still Man Utd. And there is still Stockport County.
I sincerely hope you're wrong. One of the selling points of Brexit was that we'd stop obsessing over everything the EU does and start start holding our own politicians to account with their newly granted sovereignty. I'm not seeing many signs of this yet: even now, some are more keen to boom about the EU's current Covid failings than they ever were about Boris's. It does make we wonder what these people really wanted out of Brexit.
I suppose it makes sense in that if the reason you voted Leave was you considered Brussels to be an incompetent bunch of unaccountable eurocrats, then you will be watching like a hawk for anything to confirm that opinion. But over time this really ought to subside. If it doesn't, and if people on the other side do the same, it would mean the EU question continues to dominate our politics even after Brexit. Like you, I hope not.
The German decision re AZ over 65’s is rather worrying.
What if it isn’t effective?
It's the absence of clinical data (its unusual to test drugs on the elderly until they've checked out ok on the young) because we've done in 9 months what typically takes 6 years - which means you have to decide either to:
- wait for clinical data, or - use your judgement based on other available data - in this case a peer reviewed paper in the Lancet showing the response in the elderly was very similar to that in the young.
Given Germany also has the Pfizer vaccine its not an unreasonable decision - it will be a tougher call for those without Pfizer/its infrastructure.
Wait for "perfection" or go with "good enough".
Given the number of dead 65+ year olds we have I believe "good enough" is good enough.
The Times now has the actual data (reported in the Guardian blog) - the sample of over-65s was 341 taking the AZ vaccine and 319 controls. There was ONE Covid case in each group, meaning that we are none the wiser, and the confidence interval is a ridiculous -1400 to +94 (with, if anyone cares, a median of 6.3%, compared with 70% for everyone else).
So the data does not support any conclusion for the over-65 sample - we only have the indirect evidence showing that the AZ vaccine acts similarly (which is not the same as being effective) in all groups. I think that "Use it and hope for the best" is perfectly defensible, as is "Only use it for under-65s where we know it works", and nobody should be snarky about either policy. What is crucial is that we knock on the head any suggestion that the data proves it's ineffective. There is simply inadequate data, not bad data.
I'd like to see Britain modify our policy to use Pfizer by preference for the elderly where the vaccinaiton point has both in stock, while still giving priority to getting everyone vaccinated. It's unfortunate as it turns out that we didn't order more of the Pfizer vaccine, but nobody expects Ministers or the NHS to be able to guess in advance what will work best.
See German report says insufficient data on the effectiveness of the Astra Zeneca vaccine on over 65's and suggesting that age range should not have it because of probable low resistance!!!! Put that in your pipe and smoke it. Help, they gave it to me on Monday!!!!
The data suggests that the effectiveness is about the same as for younger people so you shouldn't worry. The debate is because there wasn't a statistically significant subsample in the original trial.
I don't pretend to entirely understand the mechanics behind this but if the shares are bouncing along at 100 times what they are really worth, isn't now exactly the time to short them? Why wouldn't even those hedge funds that have lost money so far just pile back in?
It may well be but short term it is a game of chicken trying to make the shorters go bust.
I think we are seeing with the vaccine response that old sore in the relationship of PB Leavers to the EU in their fruit-loop way: it's not enough for you to succeed; your friends must fail.
Well that was the express intent of the EU during the entire Brexit negotiations.
They didn't just want us to fail, they DID THEIR BEST to make us fail.
!I’ll have done my job if, in the end, the deal is so tough on the British that they’d prefer to stay in the EU”. Michel Barnier
"They" haven't said anything of the sort. Peter Liese said it. Do you take everything Dennis Skinner or Bill Cash says in the HoC as "the UK says"?
The German Health Minister repeated today that any production constraints should hit everyone equally, i.e. supplies should be diverted from the UK. They are refusing to take responsibility for the consequences of their delay in signing the contract.
But how do we know that all the production shortfall is due to when contracts were signed?
Not all of it will be according to AZ. A lot of it is random, especially when starting out, as its not like making widgets or whatever so different facilities have experienced different delays. So there are bad luck delays, that have happened in both the UK and EU plants, delays from starting later and relative delays to the UK from having less capacity (due to less funding on the EU side).
The EU plants have had more back luck according to AZ. In addition the bad luck delays that happened in the UK also slow down the EU receiving doses as once we have been supplied with x million doses then some of the UK production goes to the EU.
Not "luck".
Accord to AZ the UK manufacturing faced the same delays but because the UK contract was signed for the UK three months earlier they've had three months more to fix the problems.
That the EU wasted three months before signing the contract, the manufacturing for the EU began three months late. That's not "luck".
From Soriots interview it is clear that in addition to the time delays the EU site experienced lower than expected yield in one of their main sites. Yes the EU wasted time in signing contracts and that is their fault, that does not rule out them experiencing bad luck further down the line, as they did.
“So maybe I need to give you a little bit of explanation as to how we manufacture those vaccines. Essentially, we have cell cultures, big batches, 1000-litre or 2000-litre batches. We have cell cultures inside those batches and we inject them with the virus, the vaccine, if you will. Then those cells produce the vaccine, it’s a biotechnology protection. Now, some of those batches have very high yield and others have low yield. Particularly in Europe, we had one site with large capacity that experienced yield issues."
I think you missed a bit.
'We've had also teething issues like this in the UK supply chain. But the UK contract was signed three months before the European vaccine deal. So with the UK we have had an extra three months to fix all the glitches we experienced. As for Europe, we are three months behind in fixing those glitches. '
I have not missed anything, I said the delays were a mix of:
Bad Luck - low yield in a big plant is bad luck Starting Late - as you keep re-iterating and I had already started Less Capacity
But low yield is not down to luck. The UK had the same yield problem and with time it is fixable.
The problem is the lack of time primarily.
If you head off on a long, complicated journey but leave yourself no time to tackle even a single (expected) distribution that's bad management not bad luck.
What do you think the word particularly means? Luck was not equal. It is not a big deal, the narrative that the EU did badly still holds! But they were unlucky too.
Luck was equal. The same issue hit both the UK and EU. The same problem. So that's not luck.
The only difference? Not luck, time.
So we are adding superior knowledge of vaccine yields to the head of AZ to your vast portfolio of expertise.
Isn't that what the CEO of AZN said in his interview?
CEO of VW: scum beneath our feet on account of the emissions scandal CEO of AZ: words directly from the bastard child of Plato and Solomon.
“Covid-denying conspiracy theorist, 46, dies with coronavirus after refusing to wear a mask or follow social distancing rules - as his heartbroken family pay tribute to 'brilliant artist'
Gary Matthews, 46, had been ill for around a week before getting positive test Shropshire artist, who was a 'Covid denier', died alone in his flat the next day Matthews 'suffered from asthma' and refused to adhere to pandemic measures“
I don't pretend to entirely understand the mechanics behind this but if the shares are bouncing along at 100 times what they are really worth, isn't now exactly the time to short them? Why wouldn't even those hedge funds that have lost money so far just pile back in?
That is what they are doing. There are still plenty of shares available to borrow (edit: apparently - as of Friday). But they are facing a concerted effort to keep them going up and to keep the short squeeze going. Up another 20% today.
It's like being at the casino and playing double your money on losses. Can you afford to keep the short on amidst the margin calls.
But yes, sanity says they will fall.
Either that, or by next week they will be making an all-paper bid for Facebook!
I don't pretend to entirely understand the mechanics behind this but if the shares are bouncing along at 100 times what they are really worth, isn't now exactly the time to short them? Why wouldn't even those hedge funds that have lost money so far just pile back in?
It may well be but short term it is a game of chicken trying to make the shorters go bust.
I think we are seeing with the vaccine response that old sore in the relationship of PB Leavers to the EU in their fruit-loop way: it's not enough for you to succeed; your friends must fail.
Well that was the express intent of the EU during the entire Brexit negotiations.
They didn't just want us to fail, they DID THEIR BEST to make us fail.
!I’ll have done my job if, in the end, the deal is so tough on the British that they’d prefer to stay in the EU”. Michel Barnier
"They" haven't said anything of the sort. Peter Liese said it. Do you take everything Dennis Skinner or Bill Cash says in the HoC as "the UK says"?
The German Health Minister repeated today that any production constraints should hit everyone equally, i.e. supplies should be diverted from the UK. They are refusing to take responsibility for the consequences of their delay in signing the contract.
But how do we know that all the production shortfall is due to when contracts were signed?
Not all of it will be according to AZ. A lot of it is random, especially when starting out, as its not like making widgets or whatever so different facilities have experienced different delays. So there are bad luck delays, that have happened in both the UK and EU plants, delays from starting later and relative delays to the UK from having less capacity (due to less funding on the EU side).
The EU plants have had more back luck according to AZ. In addition the bad luck delays that happened in the UK also slow down the EU receiving doses as once we have been supplied with x million doses then some of the UK production goes to the EU.
Not "luck".
Accord to AZ the UK manufacturing faced the same delays but because the UK contract was signed for the UK three months earlier they've had three months more to fix the problems.
That the EU wasted three months before signing the contract, the manufacturing for the EU began three months late. That's not "luck".
From Soriots interview it is clear that in addition to the time delays the EU site experienced lower than expected yield in one of their main sites. Yes the EU wasted time in signing contracts and that is their fault, that does not rule out them experiencing bad luck further down the line, as they did.
“So maybe I need to give you a little bit of explanation as to how we manufacture those vaccines. Essentially, we have cell cultures, big batches, 1000-litre or 2000-litre batches. We have cell cultures inside those batches and we inject them with the virus, the vaccine, if you will. Then those cells produce the vaccine, it’s a biotechnology protection. Now, some of those batches have very high yield and others have low yield. Particularly in Europe, we had one site with large capacity that experienced yield issues."
I think you missed a bit.
'We've had also teething issues like this in the UK supply chain. But the UK contract was signed three months before the European vaccine deal. So with the UK we have had an extra three months to fix all the glitches we experienced. As for Europe, we are three months behind in fixing those glitches. '
I have not missed anything, I said the delays were a mix of:
Bad Luck - low yield in a big plant is bad luck Starting Late - as you keep re-iterating and I had already started Less Capacity
But low yield is not down to luck. The UK had the same yield problem and with time it is fixable.
The problem is the lack of time primarily.
If you head off on a long, complicated journey but leave yourself no time to tackle even a single (expected) distribution that's bad management not bad luck.
What do you think the word particularly means? Luck was not equal. It is not a big deal, the narrative that the EU did badly still holds! But they were unlucky too.
Luck was equal. The same issue hit both the UK and EU. The same problem. So that's not luck.
The only difference? Not luck, time.
So we are adding superior knowledge of vaccine yields to the head of AZ to your vast portfolio of expertise.
Isn't that what the CEO of AZN said in his interview?
CEO of VW: scum beneath our feet on account of the emissions scandal CEO of AZ: words directly from the bastard child of Plato and Solomon.
How is that even comparable? You've completely gone off the reservation here.
I don't pretend to entirely understand the mechanics behind this but if the shares are bouncing along at 100 times what they are really worth, isn't now exactly the time to short them? Why wouldn't even those hedge funds that have lost money so far just pile back in?
It may well be but short term it is a game of chicken trying to make the shorters go bust.
I think we are seeing with the vaccine response that old sore in the relationship of PB Leavers to the EU in their fruit-loop way: it's not enough for you to succeed; your friends must fail.
Well that was the express intent of the EU during the entire Brexit negotiations.
They didn't just want us to fail, they DID THEIR BEST to make us fail.
!I’ll have done my job if, in the end, the deal is so tough on the British that they’d prefer to stay in the EU”. Michel Barnier
"They" haven't said anything of the sort. Peter Liese said it. Do you take everything Dennis Skinner or Bill Cash says in the HoC as "the UK says"?
The German Health Minister repeated today that any production constraints should hit everyone equally, i.e. supplies should be diverted from the UK. They are refusing to take responsibility for the consequences of their delay in signing the contract.
But how do we know that all the production shortfall is due to when contracts were signed?
Not all of it will be according to AZ. A lot of it is random, especially when starting out, as its not like making widgets or whatever so different facilities have experienced different delays. So there are bad luck delays, that have happened in both the UK and EU plants, delays from starting later and relative delays to the UK from having less capacity (due to less funding on the EU side).
The EU plants have had more back luck according to AZ. In addition the bad luck delays that happened in the UK also slow down the EU receiving doses as once we have been supplied with x million doses then some of the UK production goes to the EU.
Not "luck".
Accord to AZ the UK manufacturing faced the same delays but because the UK contract was signed for the UK three months earlier they've had three months more to fix the problems.
That the EU wasted three months before signing the contract, the manufacturing for the EU began three months late. That's not "luck".
From Soriots interview it is clear that in addition to the time delays the EU site experienced lower than expected yield in one of their main sites. Yes the EU wasted time in signing contracts and that is their fault, that does not rule out them experiencing bad luck further down the line, as they did.
“So maybe I need to give you a little bit of explanation as to how we manufacture those vaccines. Essentially, we have cell cultures, big batches, 1000-litre or 2000-litre batches. We have cell cultures inside those batches and we inject them with the virus, the vaccine, if you will. Then those cells produce the vaccine, it’s a biotechnology protection. Now, some of those batches have very high yield and others have low yield. Particularly in Europe, we had one site with large capacity that experienced yield issues."
I think you missed a bit.
'We've had also teething issues like this in the UK supply chain. But the UK contract was signed three months before the European vaccine deal. So with the UK we have had an extra three months to fix all the glitches we experienced. As for Europe, we are three months behind in fixing those glitches. '
I have not missed anything, I said the delays were a mix of:
Bad Luck - low yield in a big plant is bad luck Starting Late - as you keep re-iterating and I had already started Less Capacity
But low yield is not down to luck. The UK had the same yield problem and with time it is fixable.
The problem is the lack of time primarily.
If you head off on a long, complicated journey but leave yourself no time to tackle even a single (expected) distribution that's bad management not bad luck.
What do you think the word particularly means? Luck was not equal. It is not a big deal, the narrative that the EU did badly still holds! But they were unlucky too.
Luck was equal. The same issue hit both the UK and EU. The same problem. So that's not luck.
The only difference? Not luck, time.
So we are adding superior knowledge of vaccine yields to the head of AZ to your vast portfolio of expertise.
No we are adding reading comprehension.
'We've had also teething issues like this in the UK supply chain. But the UK contract was signed three months before the European vaccine deal. So with the UK we have had an extra three months to fix all the glitches we experienced. As for Europe, we are three months behind in fixing those glitches.'
Sturgeon is usually sure footed and competent. However criticising Johnson over a visit to Scotland seems a bit over the top and churlish.
Sturgeon isn't making these kind of photo op visits herself and chastised Prince William for doing so. So she is consistent. I suspect, unlike Johnson, Sturgeon doesn't enjoy them too much, so secretly relieved not to have to do them.
Johnson is damned if he does and damned if he doesn't. English leaders since the time of Charles I usually end up deciding to keep visits to Scotland short and infrequent. There doesn't tend to be much of an upside to doing more of them.
Charles 1st was Scottish.
Sturgeon is also quite happy to cross tiers when it suits her
I don't pretend to entirely understand the mechanics behind this but if the shares are bouncing along at 100 times what they are really worth, isn't now exactly the time to short them? Why wouldn't even those hedge funds that have lost money so far just pile back in?
Something like 140% of shares are already out on loan, impossible to short at the moment.
You've just blown a fuse in my brain with that statement.
People have borrowed shares that don't exist?
Naked short selling, it is called.
It is supposed to be illegal, but there are ways round that for market makers.
This whole thing kicked off when some people noticed that there were more shares shorted than actual shares. So if they hold onto the shares.... well the prices could go to... who knows.
Friday will be interesting, in a watch-from-a-bunker-outside-the-blast-radius kind of way
I feel like that statement can be interpreted in several ways and he probably knows it. The SNP probably agree Boris is an asset, of sorts, for Scotland to achieve certain things.
If he dropped the "et" bit he would have been more accurate
You don't agree that Boris is an asset to the independence campaign?
I don't pretend to entirely understand the mechanics behind this but if the shares are bouncing along at 100 times what they are really worth, isn't now exactly the time to short them? Why wouldn't even those hedge funds that have lost money so far just pile back in?
It may well be but short term it is a game of chicken trying to make the shorters go bust.
I think we are seeing with the vaccine response that old sore in the relationship of PB Leavers to the EU in their fruit-loop way: it's not enough for you to succeed; your friends must fail.
Well that was the express intent of the EU during the entire Brexit negotiations.
They didn't just want us to fail, they DID THEIR BEST to make us fail.
!I’ll have done my job if, in the end, the deal is so tough on the British that they’d prefer to stay in the EU”. Michel Barnier
"They" haven't said anything of the sort. Peter Liese said it. Do you take everything Dennis Skinner or Bill Cash says in the HoC as "the UK says"?
The German Health Minister repeated today that any production constraints should hit everyone equally, i.e. supplies should be diverted from the UK. They are refusing to take responsibility for the consequences of their delay in signing the contract.
But how do we know that all the production shortfall is due to when contracts were signed?
Not all of it will be according to AZ. A lot of it is random, especially when starting out, as its not like making widgets or whatever so different facilities have experienced different delays. So there are bad luck delays, that have happened in both the UK and EU plants, delays from starting later and relative delays to the UK from having less capacity (due to less funding on the EU side).
The EU plants have had more back luck according to AZ. In addition the bad luck delays that happened in the UK also slow down the EU receiving doses as once we have been supplied with x million doses then some of the UK production goes to the EU.
Not "luck".
Accord to AZ the UK manufacturing faced the same delays but because the UK contract was signed for the UK three months earlier they've had three months more to fix the problems.
That the EU wasted three months before signing the contract, the manufacturing for the EU began three months late. That's not "luck".
From Soriots interview it is clear that in addition to the time delays the EU site experienced lower than expected yield in one of their main sites. Yes the EU wasted time in signing contracts and that is their fault, that does not rule out them experiencing bad luck further down the line, as they did.
“So maybe I need to give you a little bit of explanation as to how we manufacture those vaccines. Essentially, we have cell cultures, big batches, 1000-litre or 2000-litre batches. We have cell cultures inside those batches and we inject them with the virus, the vaccine, if you will. Then those cells produce the vaccine, it’s a biotechnology protection. Now, some of those batches have very high yield and others have low yield. Particularly in Europe, we had one site with large capacity that experienced yield issues."
I think you missed a bit.
'We've had also teething issues like this in the UK supply chain. But the UK contract was signed three months before the European vaccine deal. So with the UK we have had an extra three months to fix all the glitches we experienced. As for Europe, we are three months behind in fixing those glitches. '
I have not missed anything, I said the delays were a mix of:
Bad Luck - low yield in a big plant is bad luck Starting Late - as you keep re-iterating and I had already started Less Capacity
But low yield is not down to luck. The UK had the same yield problem and with time it is fixable.
The problem is the lack of time primarily.
If you head off on a long, complicated journey but leave yourself no time to tackle even a single (expected) distribution that's bad management not bad luck.
What do you think the word particularly means? Luck was not equal. It is not a big deal, the narrative that the EU did badly still holds! But they were unlucky too.
Luck was equal. The same issue hit both the UK and EU. The same problem. So that's not luck.
The only difference? Not luck, time.
So we are adding superior knowledge of vaccine yields to the head of AZ to your vast portfolio of expertise.
Isn't that what the CEO of AZN said in his interview?
CEO of VW: scum beneath our feet on account of the emissions scandal CEO of AZ: words directly from the bastard child of Plato and Solomon.
How is that even comparable? You've completely gone off the reservation here.
Thanks for the post Mike. I suspect one of the reasons Governments are so twitchy about the vaccine rollouts is that it is likely to be one of those events - like Black Wednesday - that defines a Government for a long time to come in the eyes of the public. Get it right, like BJ looks to be doing in the UK, and you are likely to be forgiven a lot of sins. Get it wrong, as might be happening in the EU, and it leads people to fundamentally question the institutions in a way they never did before.
The German decision re AZ over 65’s is rather worrying.
What if it isn’t effective?
It's the absence of clinical data (its unusual to test drugs on the elderly until they've checked out ok on the young) because we've done in 9 months what typically takes 6 years - which means you have to decide either to:
- wait for clinical data, or - use your judgement based on other available data - in this case a peer reviewed paper in the Lancet showing the response in the elderly was very similar to that in the young.
Given Germany also has the Pfizer vaccine its not an unreasonable decision - it will be a tougher call for those without Pfizer/its infrastructure.
Wait for "perfection" or go with "good enough".
Given the number of dead 65+ year olds we have I believe "good enough" is good enough.
The Times now has the actual data (reported in the Guardian blog) - the sample of over-65s was 341 taking the AZ vaccine and 319 controls. There was ONE Covid case in each group, meaning that we are none the wiser, and the confidence interval is a ridiculous -1400 to +94 (with, if anyone cares, a median of 6.3%, compared with 70% for everyone else).
So the data does not support any conclusion for the over-65 sample - we only have the indirect evidence showing that the AZ vaccine acts similarly (which is not the same as being effective) in all groups. I think that "Use it and hope for the best" is perfectly defensible, as is "Only use it for under-65s where we know it works", and nobody should be snarky about either policy. What is crucial is that we knock on the head any suggestion that the data proves it's ineffective. There is simply inadequate data, not bad data.
I'd like to see Britain modify our policy to use Pfizer by preference for the elderly where the vaccinaiton point has both in stock, while still giving priority to getting everyone vaccinated. It's unfortunate as it turns out that we didn't order more of the Pfizer vaccine, but nobody expects Ministers or the NHS to be able to guess in advance what will work best.
My mum (83) has just had her 1st dose appointment through for this Saturday at a local pharmacy. I expect, given the location, that she will be getting the AZ jab. I've no concerns about that - I'd much rather she get a vaccine now than wait.
My point is, in trying to deal with this at pace, I don't think we really have the luxury to focus different vaccines on different demographics at the moment.
I don't pretend to entirely understand the mechanics behind this but if the shares are bouncing along at 100 times what they are really worth, isn't now exactly the time to short them? Why wouldn't even those hedge funds that have lost money so far just pile back in?
Something like 140% of shares are already out on loan, impossible to short at the moment.
You've just blown a fuse in my brain with that statement.
People have borrowed shares that don't exist?
Naked short selling, it is called.
It is supposed to be illegal, but there are ways round that for market makers.
This whole thing kicked off when some people noticed that there were more shares shorted than actual shares. So if they hold onto the shares.... well the prices could go to... who knows.
Friday will be interesting, in a watch-from-a-bunker-outside-the-blast-radius kind of way
The German decision re AZ over 65’s is rather worrying.
What if it isn’t effective?
Are we going to have to rejab millions of over 65s with the other vaccines?
Lockdown could really drag on... or worse. We lift lockdown and get a 3rd wave.
Bollox
It is extremely unlikely that the fall off in efficacy is as large as the limited data might imply. None of the other vaccines that produce similar immune repsonses suggest this, neither does antibody data, nor does the hospitalisation data, and finally experience does not suggest this to be the case either. Right now it makes complete sense to assume that a similar immune response will occur, and by taking this tiny risk we can save many thousands of lives.
Looking for evidence from SARS vaccines, I found this quote. It has not aged well:
New York, NY (February 22, 2020) "Seventeen years after the severe acute respiratory syndrome (Sars) outbreak and seven years since the first Middle East respiratory syndrome (Mers) case, there is still no coronavirus vaccine despite dozens of attempts to develop them. “Everybody is hoping that this can still be controlled, but the realistic chance that it can be controlled is low. So then what is going to happen is that this is going to spread worldwide,” said Florian Krammer, PhD, professor of microbiology at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai." — Florian Krammer, PhD, Professor, Microbiology, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai
I don't pretend to entirely understand the mechanics behind this but if the shares are bouncing along at 100 times what they are really worth, isn't now exactly the time to short them? Why wouldn't even those hedge funds that have lost money so far just pile back in?
That is what they are doing. There are still plenty of shares available to borrow (edit: apparently - as of Friday). But they are facing a concerted effort to keep them going up and to keep the short squeeze going. Up another 20% today.
It's like being at the casino and playing double your money on losses. Can you afford to keep the short on amidst the margin calls.
But yes, sanity says they will fall.
Either that, or by next week they will be making an all-paper bid for Facebook!
I don't pretend to entirely understand the mechanics behind this but if the shares are bouncing along at 100 times what they are really worth, isn't now exactly the time to short them? Why wouldn't even those hedge funds that have lost money so far just pile back in?
Something like 140% of shares are already out on loan, impossible to short at the moment.
You've just blown a fuse in my brain with that statement.
People have borrowed shares that don't exist?
Naked short selling, it is called.
It is supposed to be illegal, but there are ways round that for market makers.
This whole thing kicked off when some people noticed that there were more shares shorted than actual shares. So if they hold onto the shares.... well the prices could go to... who knows.
Friday will be interesting, in a watch-from-a-bunker-outside-the-blast-radius kind of way
A number of hedge funds have already being carried out on this one. Looks like the small man has given the Wall Street types a headache.
Scottish public sector pay: not the UK govt pay freeze, but minimum 3% increase for those on salaries up to £25k, with £750 cap. Those on higher salaries, +1% capped at £800.
SG offers councils £90m to let them freeze council tax, equivalent to a 3% rise.
Short-term reduction on Land and Buildings Transaction Tax to be ended as planned. First time buyer relief to remain in place.
£250 million over the next five years for green jobs workforce and additional woodland planting - courting Scottish Greens in a major way.
The German decision re AZ over 65’s is rather worrying.
What if it isn’t effective?
It's the absence of clinical data (its unusual to test drugs on the elderly until they've checked out ok on the young) because we've done in 9 months what typically takes 6 years - which means you have to decide either to:
- wait for clinical data, or - use your judgement based on other available data - in this case a peer reviewed paper in the Lancet showing the response in the elderly was very similar to that in the young.
Given Germany also has the Pfizer vaccine its not an unreasonable decision - it will be a tougher call for those without Pfizer/its infrastructure.
Wait for "perfection" or go with "good enough".
Given the number of dead 65+ year olds we have I believe "good enough" is good enough.
The Times now has the actual data (reported in the Guardian blog) - the sample of over-65s was 341 taking the AZ vaccine and 319 controls. There was ONE Covid case in each group, meaning that we are none the wiser, and the confidence interval is a ridiculous -1400 to +94 (with, if anyone cares, a median of 6.3%, compared with 70% for everyone else).
So the data does not support any conclusion for the over-65 sample - we only have the indirect evidence showing that the AZ vaccine acts similarly (which is not the same as being effective) in all groups. I think that "Use it and hope for the best" is perfectly defensible, as is "Only use it for under-65s where we know it works", and nobody should be snarky about either policy. What is crucial is that we knock on the head any suggestion that the data proves it's ineffective. There is simply inadequate data, not bad data.
I'd like to see Britain modify our policy to use Pfizer by preference for the elderly where the vaccinaiton point has both in stock, while still giving priority to getting everyone vaccinated. It's unfortunate as it turns out that we didn't order more of the Pfizer vaccine, but nobody expects Ministers or the NHS to be able to guess in advance what will work best.
My mum (83) has just had her 1st dose appointment through for this Saturday at a local pharmacy. I expect, given the location, that she will be getting the AZ jab. I've no concerns about that - I'd much rather she get a vaccine now than wait.
My point is, in trying to deal with this at pace, I don't think we really have the luxury to focus different vaccines on different demographics at the moment.
Ideal world AZN wouldn't even be approved. But we have to get anyway from thinking about this in terms of the individual. It isn't about that at the moment, it is about driving now infection and hospitalisations across the whole community, rather than maximum individual protection.
I don't pretend to entirely understand the mechanics behind this but if the shares are bouncing along at 100 times what they are really worth, isn't now exactly the time to short them? Why wouldn't even those hedge funds that have lost money so far just pile back in?
It may well be but short term it is a game of chicken trying to make the shorters go bust.
I think we are seeing with the vaccine response that old sore in the relationship of PB Leavers to the EU in their fruit-loop way: it's not enough for you to succeed; your friends must fail.
Well that was the express intent of the EU during the entire Brexit negotiations.
They didn't just want us to fail, they DID THEIR BEST to make us fail.
!I’ll have done my job if, in the end, the deal is so tough on the British that they’d prefer to stay in the EU”. Michel Barnier
"They" haven't said anything of the sort. Peter Liese said it. Do you take everything Dennis Skinner or Bill Cash says in the HoC as "the UK says"?
The German Health Minister repeated today that any production constraints should hit everyone equally, i.e. supplies should be diverted from the UK. They are refusing to take responsibility for the consequences of their delay in signing the contract.
But how do we know that all the production shortfall is due to when contracts were signed?
Not all of it will be according to AZ. A lot of it is random, especially when starting out, as its not like making widgets or whatever so different facilities have experienced different delays. So there are bad luck delays, that have happened in both the UK and EU plants, delays from starting later and relative delays to the UK from having less capacity (due to less funding on the EU side).
The EU plants have had more back luck according to AZ. In addition the bad luck delays that happened in the UK also slow down the EU receiving doses as once we have been supplied with x million doses then some of the UK production goes to the EU.
Not "luck".
Accord to AZ the UK manufacturing faced the same delays but because the UK contract was signed for the UK three months earlier they've had three months more to fix the problems.
That the EU wasted three months before signing the contract, the manufacturing for the EU began three months late. That's not "luck".
From Soriots interview it is clear that in addition to the time delays the EU site experienced lower than expected yield in one of their main sites. Yes the EU wasted time in signing contracts and that is their fault, that does not rule out them experiencing bad luck further down the line, as they did.
“So maybe I need to give you a little bit of explanation as to how we manufacture those vaccines. Essentially, we have cell cultures, big batches, 1000-litre or 2000-litre batches. We have cell cultures inside those batches and we inject them with the virus, the vaccine, if you will. Then those cells produce the vaccine, it’s a biotechnology protection. Now, some of those batches have very high yield and others have low yield. Particularly in Europe, we had one site with large capacity that experienced yield issues."
I think you missed a bit.
'We've had also teething issues like this in the UK supply chain. But the UK contract was signed three months before the European vaccine deal. So with the UK we have had an extra three months to fix all the glitches we experienced. As for Europe, we are three months behind in fixing those glitches. '
I have not missed anything, I said the delays were a mix of:
Bad Luck - low yield in a big plant is bad luck Starting Late - as you keep re-iterating and I had already started Less Capacity
But low yield is not down to luck. The UK had the same yield problem and with time it is fixable.
The problem is the lack of time primarily.
If you head off on a long, complicated journey but leave yourself no time to tackle even a single (expected) distribution that's bad management not bad luck.
What do you think the word particularly means? Luck was not equal. It is not a big deal, the narrative that the EU did badly still holds! But they were unlucky too.
Luck was equal. The same issue hit both the UK and EU. The same problem. So that's not luck.
The only difference? Not luck, time.
So we are adding superior knowledge of vaccine yields to the head of AZ to your vast portfolio of expertise.
Isn't that what the CEO of AZN said in his interview?
Yes. It's a very informative interview, worth a read for anyone who has not seen it yet.
Off topic more or less, does anyone knows what the new customs rules are for buying from private sellers in the EU on Ebay? I'm looking at a fairly pricey item in Potsdam but still a pretty good deal, having a wheen of VAT and customs charges whacked on it makes it a lot less good
You will be the importer of the product. Which means you will have to pay import VAT and tariffs (if appropriate), charges for the customs forms etc.
Don't forget that the Department for International Trade have advised UK companies that the solution to selling in the EU is set up a new business there. Same is true for over here - unless a company has imported the product, paid all the fees etc and then sold it to you, its all on you and they will charge you dollar.
Thanks, expected as much.
We do of course need to know what it is you're buying from Potsdam.
Tutima wrist watch, may not be now though
Not one of the Saxon range, one assumes.
No, but because they're the chunky boy style beloved of lower league footballers and tv chefs rather than the name.
At least they're not at the level of ghastliness recently purchased by that taste free zone McGregor.
How does he tell the time.....?
He removes his phone from his pocket and looks at the screen. Just like the rest of us.
I think we are seeing with the vaccine response that old sore in the relationship of PB Leavers to the EU in their fruit-loop way: it's not enough for you to succeed; your friends must fail.
Yes, the gleeful reaction of europhobes to the EU's vaccine troubles has been quite intense. I've given it some thought and I think what we might be seeing is an example of something known in the football world, and indeed in wider society, as Stockport County Syndrome. The name derives from the tendency of the more fervent supporters of a small town, perennially struggling club to take great pleasure from the occasional defeat of their wealthy, big city rivals. All very understandable on a human level, and certainly nothing to overly chastize people for, but of course it changes nothing. When the excitement dies down a week or so later, it's BAU. There is still Man Utd. And there is still Stockport County.
I don't see a single person here "gleeful" that the EU is troubled.
I see a lot of people acknowledging the EU is troubled, right down to williamglenn calling for UVDL's resignation on the subject. I see other people trying to whatabout or downplay just how serious this is.
The EU aren't just failing to protect their own citizens, they're jeopardising us. The science and technology exists to eradicate this damned nasty bug but because they've chosen to cheap out on it instead its going to remain on our continent and risks mutation and reintroduction into this country.
I don't see a single person happy about that.
There is some glee. You can only see it if you're not feeling it.
Or if you're a paranoid fool who projects emotions onto others.
I see more anger than glee. With an element of "I told you so" at the worst.
Next time you criticise anyone should I use the word "glee" about your emotions at the time?
I detect not project. Sorry, Philip, you're not fooling me on this one. I have a persona for every poster and yours is Gareth Keenan (or more accurately Mackenzie Crook). This means I can see your face as you post and atm, with this EU vaccine debacle, the expression etched upon it is ... well, it looks like glee.
Dare I even ask what my persona is?
I'd ask myself, but I'd be worried it might well be accurate.
I don't pretend to entirely understand the mechanics behind this but if the shares are bouncing along at 100 times what they are really worth, isn't now exactly the time to short them? Why wouldn't even those hedge funds that have lost money so far just pile back in?
Something like 140% of shares are already out on loan, impossible to short at the moment.
You've just blown a fuse in my brain with that statement.
People have borrowed shares that don't exist?
Naked short selling, it is called.
It is supposed to be illegal, but there are ways round that for market makers.
This whole thing kicked off when some people noticed that there were more shares shorted than actual shares. So if they hold onto the shares.... well the prices could go to... who knows.
Friday will be interesting, in a watch-from-a-bunker-outside-the-blast-radius kind of way
Well...
1. Most of the GME shorts have already exited the market So... 2. Most of the people buying now are attempting to drive out shorts that no longer exist And 3. It's quite possible for there to be more of the stock sold short than exists. One person borrows stock and sells it. The person who the stock has been sold to lends it out again.
It's going to be very ugly when a while bunch of Reddit traders see their paper profits (and their savings) disappear.
The German decision re AZ over 65’s is rather worrying.
What if it isn’t effective?
It's the absence of clinical data (its unusual to test drugs on the elderly until they've checked out ok on the young) because we've done in 9 months what typically takes 6 years - which means you have to decide either to:
- wait for clinical data, or - use your judgement based on other available data - in this case a peer reviewed paper in the Lancet showing the response in the elderly was very similar to that in the young.
Given Germany also has the Pfizer vaccine its not an unreasonable decision - it will be a tougher call for those without Pfizer/its infrastructure.
Wait for "perfection" or go with "good enough".
Given the number of dead 65+ year olds we have I believe "good enough" is good enough.
The Times now has the actual data (reported in the Guardian blog) - the sample of over-65s was 341 taking the AZ vaccine and 319 controls. There was ONE Covid case in each group, meaning that we are none the wiser, and the confidence interval is a ridiculous -1400 to +94 (with, if anyone cares, a median of 6.3%, compared with 70% for everyone else).
So the data does not support any conclusion for the over-65 sample - we only have the indirect evidence showing that the AZ vaccine acts similarly (which is not the same as being effective) in all groups. I think that "Use it and hope for the best" is perfectly defensible, as is "Only use it for under-65s where we know it works", and nobody should be snarky about either policy. What is crucial is that we knock on the head any suggestion that the data proves it's ineffective. There is simply inadequate data, not bad data.
I'd like to see Britain modify our policy to use Pfizer by preference for the elderly where the vaccinaiton point has both in stock, while still giving priority to getting everyone vaccinated. It's unfortunate as it turns out that we didn't order more of the Pfizer vaccine, but nobody expects Ministers or the NHS to be able to guess in advance what will work best.
Guernsey COVID update - the outbreak clearly has gone through two routes - a pub, and more importantly education. The largest cohorts of infected are school age children, followed by their parents. We've done the UK equivalent of 2 million tests in 3 days. And since the latest briefing was all done online, the CMO clearly has as crappy internet as I have!
Millions of doses of vaccines could be blocked from entering Britain from the EU within days, as part of Brussels’ response to a major shortage of doses among its member states
Should the UK be reliant on home-grown vaccines, the achievement of herd immunity through the vaccination of 75% of the population could be pushed back by nearly two months, according to analysis by the data analytics firm, Airfinity.
I don't pretend to entirely understand the mechanics behind this but if the shares are bouncing along at 100 times what they are really worth, isn't now exactly the time to short them? Why wouldn't even those hedge funds that have lost money so far just pile back in?
It may well be but short term it is a game of chicken trying to make the shorters go bust.
I think we are seeing with the vaccine response that old sore in the relationship of PB Leavers to the EU in their fruit-loop way: it's not enough for you to succeed; your friends must fail.
Well that was the express intent of the EU during the entire Brexit negotiations.
They didn't just want us to fail, they DID THEIR BEST to make us fail.
!I’ll have done my job if, in the end, the deal is so tough on the British that they’d prefer to stay in the EU”. Michel Barnier
"They" haven't said anything of the sort. Peter Liese said it. Do you take everything Dennis Skinner or Bill Cash says in the HoC as "the UK says"?
The German Health Minister repeated today that any production constraints should hit everyone equally, i.e. supplies should be diverted from the UK. They are refusing to take responsibility for the consequences of their delay in signing the contract.
But how do we know that all the production shortfall is due to when contracts were signed?
Not all of it will be according to AZ. A lot of it is random, especially when starting out, as its not like making widgets or whatever so different facilities have experienced different delays. So there are bad luck delays, that have happened in both the UK and EU plants, delays from starting later and relative delays to the UK from having less capacity (due to less funding on the EU side).
The EU plants have had more back luck according to AZ. In addition the bad luck delays that happened in the UK also slow down the EU receiving doses as once we have been supplied with x million doses then some of the UK production goes to the EU.
Not "luck".
Accord to AZ the UK manufacturing faced the same delays but because the UK contract was signed for the UK three months earlier they've had three months more to fix the problems.
That the EU wasted three months before signing the contract, the manufacturing for the EU began three months late. That's not "luck".
From Soriots interview it is clear that in addition to the time delays the EU site experienced lower than expected yield in one of their main sites. Yes the EU wasted time in signing contracts and that is their fault, that does not rule out them experiencing bad luck further down the line, as they did.
“So maybe I need to give you a little bit of explanation as to how we manufacture those vaccines. Essentially, we have cell cultures, big batches, 1000-litre or 2000-litre batches. We have cell cultures inside those batches and we inject them with the virus, the vaccine, if you will. Then those cells produce the vaccine, it’s a biotechnology protection. Now, some of those batches have very high yield and others have low yield. Particularly in Europe, we had one site with large capacity that experienced yield issues."
I think you missed a bit.
'We've had also teething issues like this in the UK supply chain. But the UK contract was signed three months before the European vaccine deal. So with the UK we have had an extra three months to fix all the glitches we experienced. As for Europe, we are three months behind in fixing those glitches. '
I have not missed anything, I said the delays were a mix of:
Bad Luck - low yield in a big plant is bad luck Starting Late - as you keep re-iterating and I had already started Less Capacity
But low yield is not down to luck. The UK had the same yield problem and with time it is fixable.
The problem is the lack of time primarily.
If you head off on a long, complicated journey but leave yourself no time to tackle even a single (expected) distribution that's bad management not bad luck.
What do you think the word particularly means? Luck was not equal. It is not a big deal, the narrative that the EU did badly still holds! But they were unlucky too.
Luck was equal. The same issue hit both the UK and EU. The same problem. So that's not luck.
The only difference? Not luck, time.
So we are adding superior knowledge of vaccine yields to the head of AZ to your vast portfolio of expertise.
Isn't that what the CEO of AZN said in his interview?
CEO of VW: scum beneath our feet on account of the emissions scandal CEO of AZ: words directly from the bastard child of Plato and Solomon.
How is that even comparable? You've completely gone off the reservation here.
Just that CEOs aren't always to be believed.
One was the CEO who oversaw a massive coverup that had a hand in thousands of negligent homicides. The other is one that has agreed to forgo profits on the single most important product they will make for the next decade. As I said, maybe time to reconsider your defensive attitude on this and take a step back. If the roles were reversed how would you be treating Boris and Gove at the moment?
Millions of doses of vaccines could be blocked from entering Britain from the EU within days, as part of Brussels’ response to a major shortage of doses among its member states
Should the UK be reliant on home-grown vaccines, the achievement of herd immunity through the vaccination of 75% of the population could be pushed back by nearly two months, according to analysis by the data analytics firm, Airfinity.
I don't pretend to entirely understand the mechanics behind this but if the shares are bouncing along at 100 times what they are really worth, isn't now exactly the time to short them? Why wouldn't even those hedge funds that have lost money so far just pile back in?
Something like 140% of shares are already out on loan, impossible to short at the moment.
You've just blown a fuse in my brain with that statement.
People have borrowed shares that don't exist?
Yes... kinda....here is a simple explainer of how that occurs. Its a bit like Gordon Browns double counting approach to spending.
Actually the Brown example is apposite. He was faced with a similar situation when he sold the UK's gold. Market makers had massively over shorted the metal relative to what was physically available to deliver at those hugely depressed prices. The market was eminently squeezable. What did that F8ckwit Brown do? He sold right at the bottom to help the bankers out of what was an increasingly desperate trade.
Of course, since then gold has gone up by almost a factor of ten. costing the UK a massive fortune. And yet some people still think we should listen to this idiot.
The German decision re AZ over 65’s is rather worrying.
What if it isn’t effective?
It's the absence of clinical data (its unusual to test drugs on the elderly until they've checked out ok on the young) because we've done in 9 months what typically takes 6 years - which means you have to decide either to:
- wait for clinical data, or - use your judgement based on other available data - in this case a peer reviewed paper in the Lancet showing the response in the elderly was very similar to that in the young.
Given Germany also has the Pfizer vaccine its not an unreasonable decision - it will be a tougher call for those without Pfizer/its infrastructure.
Wait for "perfection" or go with "good enough".
Given the number of dead 65+ year olds we have I believe "good enough" is good enough.
The Times now has the actual data (reported in the Guardian blog) - the sample of over-65s was 341 taking the AZ vaccine and 319 controls. There was ONE Covid case in each group, meaning that we are none the wiser, and the confidence interval is a ridiculous -1400 to +94 (with, if anyone cares, a median of 6.3%, compared with 70% for everyone else).
So the data does not support any conclusion for the over-65 sample - we only have the indirect evidence showing that the AZ vaccine acts similarly (which is not the same as being effective) in all groups. I think that "Use it and hope for the best" is perfectly defensible, as is "Only use it for under-65s where we know it works", and nobody should be snarky about either policy. What is crucial is that we knock on the head any suggestion that the data proves it's ineffective. There is simply inadequate data, not bad data.
I'd like to see Britain modify our policy to use Pfizer by preference for the elderly where the vaccinaiton point has both in stock, while still giving priority to getting everyone vaccinated. It's unfortunate as it turns out that we didn't order more of the Pfizer vaccine, but nobody expects Ministers or the NHS to be able to guess in advance what will work best.
My mum (83) has just had her 1st dose appointment through for this Saturday at a local pharmacy. I expect, given the location, that she will be getting the AZ jab. I've no concerns about that - I'd much rather she get a vaccine now than wait.
My point is, in trying to deal with this at pace, I don't think we really have the luxury to focus different vaccines on different demographics at the moment.
Ideal world AZN wouldn't even be approved. But we have to get anyway from thinking about this in terms of the individual. It isn't about that at the moment, it is about driving now infection and hospitalisations across the whole community, rather than maximum individual protection.
I don't actually agree with this. The data presented shows efficacy above 60% for over 18's. Four months ago we would have snapped the offering hand off for that. And don't forget - NO-ONE who received the vaccine needed hospital treatment. That's enough. The very high efficacy of the Pfizer vaccine has skewed perceptions of what the target needs to be.
Hard to work out who's had a worse week - German politicians or EU ones. If they decide they're unwilling to use AZ for over 65s then it'll set them back months. If they're seriously going to slow the vaccine rollout to a snails pace and offer pensioners no vaccine rather than give them the AZ then they're crazy. They won't be able to get Pfizer all across the continent with ease and have nowhere near enough of Moderna.
They are taking a pessimistic interpretation of the admittedly limited data and not approving the use of the vaccine for the very group that could benefit the most. That might be fine if this was any other disease, but right now that will almost certainly result in thousands of avoidable deaths.
The NHS emergency - grave and projected to be catastrophic without urgent action - surely had much to do with us approving the AZ vaccine at a lower than ideal confidence level on efficacy. Same thing applies to our decision to defer the booster and do more 1st jabs.
Perhaps Germany is not in quite such a crisis situation?
They might well be in a full blown crisis shortly if they don't get cracking with vaccination.
Yes. But what I mean is, if they were right now facing the same healthcare system meltdown as we are they might be more inclined to take shortcuts with the vaccination rollout. As it is, with where they are, and with their projected supplies of other vaccines, they have decided to play it more by the book.
I don't pretend to entirely understand the mechanics behind this but if the shares are bouncing along at 100 times what they are really worth, isn't now exactly the time to short them? Why wouldn't even those hedge funds that have lost money so far just pile back in?
It may well be but short term it is a game of chicken trying to make the shorters go bust.
I think we are seeing with the vaccine response that old sore in the relationship of PB Leavers to the EU in their fruit-loop way: it's not enough for you to succeed; your friends must fail.
Well that was the express intent of the EU during the entire Brexit negotiations.
They didn't just want us to fail, they DID THEIR BEST to make us fail.
!I’ll have done my job if, in the end, the deal is so tough on the British that they’d prefer to stay in the EU”. Michel Barnier
"They" haven't said anything of the sort. Peter Liese said it. Do you take everything Dennis Skinner or Bill Cash says in the HoC as "the UK says"?
The German Health Minister repeated today that any production constraints should hit everyone equally, i.e. supplies should be diverted from the UK. They are refusing to take responsibility for the consequences of their delay in signing the contract.
But how do we know that all the production shortfall is due to when contracts were signed?
Not all of it will be according to AZ. A lot of it is random, especially when starting out, as its not like making widgets or whatever so different facilities have experienced different delays. So there are bad luck delays, that have happened in both the UK and EU plants, delays from starting later and relative delays to the UK from having less capacity (due to less funding on the EU side).
The EU plants have had more back luck according to AZ. In addition the bad luck delays that happened in the UK also slow down the EU receiving doses as once we have been supplied with x million doses then some of the UK production goes to the EU.
Not "luck".
Accord to AZ the UK manufacturing faced the same delays but because the UK contract was signed for the UK three months earlier they've had three months more to fix the problems.
That the EU wasted three months before signing the contract, the manufacturing for the EU began three months late. That's not "luck".
From Soriots interview it is clear that in addition to the time delays the EU site experienced lower than expected yield in one of their main sites. Yes the EU wasted time in signing contracts and that is their fault, that does not rule out them experiencing bad luck further down the line, as they did.
“So maybe I need to give you a little bit of explanation as to how we manufacture those vaccines. Essentially, we have cell cultures, big batches, 1000-litre or 2000-litre batches. We have cell cultures inside those batches and we inject them with the virus, the vaccine, if you will. Then those cells produce the vaccine, it’s a biotechnology protection. Now, some of those batches have very high yield and others have low yield. Particularly in Europe, we had one site with large capacity that experienced yield issues."
I think you missed a bit.
'We've had also teething issues like this in the UK supply chain. But the UK contract was signed three months before the European vaccine deal. So with the UK we have had an extra three months to fix all the glitches we experienced. As for Europe, we are three months behind in fixing those glitches. '
I have not missed anything, I said the delays were a mix of:
Bad Luck - low yield in a big plant is bad luck Starting Late - as you keep re-iterating and I had already started Less Capacity
But low yield is not down to luck. The UK had the same yield problem and with time it is fixable.
The problem is the lack of time primarily.
If you head off on a long, complicated journey but leave yourself no time to tackle even a single (expected) distribution that's bad management not bad luck.
What do you think the word particularly means? Luck was not equal. It is not a big deal, the narrative that the EU did badly still holds! But they were unlucky too.
Luck was equal. The same issue hit both the UK and EU. The same problem. So that's not luck.
The only difference? Not luck, time.
So we are adding superior knowledge of vaccine yields to the head of AZ to your vast portfolio of expertise.
Isn't that what the CEO of AZN said in his interview?
CEO of VW: scum beneath our feet on account of the emissions scandal CEO of AZ: words directly from the bastard child of Plato and Solomon.
How is that even comparable? You've completely gone off the reservation here.
Just that CEOs aren't always to be believed.
Perhaps more accurately: Sensible CEOs will make sure that everything they tell you is true. The idea that any CEO will willingly tell you The (Whole) Truth is for the birds.
So- in this case, the AZ CEO was right not to recognise the 8 % figure- though it would have been interesting to know what he would have said had the German newspaper published 6 %. But he was also doing his job when he didn't volunteer the mathematically true point that "we simply don't know what the efficacy with oldies is, because the trial was too small".
Doesn't just apply to CEOs, of course. One of the curiosities of political chat is how easily we all (me included, I'm sure) can flip between rigorous fact-checking and utter credulity, depending on what helps us at that moment.
I don't pretend to entirely understand the mechanics behind this but if the shares are bouncing along at 100 times what they are really worth, isn't now exactly the time to short them? Why wouldn't even those hedge funds that have lost money so far just pile back in?
It may well be but short term it is a game of chicken trying to make the shorters go bust.
I think we are seeing with the vaccine response that old sore in the relationship of PB Leavers to the EU in their fruit-loop way: it's not enough for you to succeed; your friends must fail.
Well that was the express intent of the EU during the entire Brexit negotiations.
They didn't just want us to fail, they DID THEIR BEST to make us fail.
!I’ll have done my job if, in the end, the deal is so tough on the British that they’d prefer to stay in the EU”. Michel Barnier
"They" haven't said anything of the sort. Peter Liese said it. Do you take everything Dennis Skinner or Bill Cash says in the HoC as "the UK says"?
The German Health Minister repeated today that any production constraints should hit everyone equally, i.e. supplies should be diverted from the UK. They are refusing to take responsibility for the consequences of their delay in signing the contract.
But how do we know that all the production shortfall is due to when contracts were signed?
Not all of it will be according to AZ. A lot of it is random, especially when starting out, as its not like making widgets or whatever so different facilities have experienced different delays. So there are bad luck delays, that have happened in both the UK and EU plants, delays from starting later and relative delays to the UK from having less capacity (due to less funding on the EU side).
The EU plants have had more back luck according to AZ. In addition the bad luck delays that happened in the UK also slow down the EU receiving doses as once we have been supplied with x million doses then some of the UK production goes to the EU.
Not "luck".
Accord to AZ the UK manufacturing faced the same delays but because the UK contract was signed for the UK three months earlier they've had three months more to fix the problems.
That the EU wasted three months before signing the contract, the manufacturing for the EU began three months late. That's not "luck".
From Soriots interview it is clear that in addition to the time delays the EU site experienced lower than expected yield in one of their main sites. Yes the EU wasted time in signing contracts and that is their fault, that does not rule out them experiencing bad luck further down the line, as they did.
“So maybe I need to give you a little bit of explanation as to how we manufacture those vaccines. Essentially, we have cell cultures, big batches, 1000-litre or 2000-litre batches. We have cell cultures inside those batches and we inject them with the virus, the vaccine, if you will. Then those cells produce the vaccine, it’s a biotechnology protection. Now, some of those batches have very high yield and others have low yield. Particularly in Europe, we had one site with large capacity that experienced yield issues."
I think you missed a bit.
'We've had also teething issues like this in the UK supply chain. But the UK contract was signed three months before the European vaccine deal. So with the UK we have had an extra three months to fix all the glitches we experienced. As for Europe, we are three months behind in fixing those glitches. '
I have not missed anything, I said the delays were a mix of:
Bad Luck - low yield in a big plant is bad luck Starting Late - as you keep re-iterating and I had already started Less Capacity
But low yield is not down to luck. The UK had the same yield problem and with time it is fixable.
The problem is the lack of time primarily.
If you head off on a long, complicated journey but leave yourself no time to tackle even a single (expected) distribution that's bad management not bad luck.
What do you think the word particularly means? Luck was not equal. It is not a big deal, the narrative that the EU did badly still holds! But they were unlucky too.
Luck was equal. The same issue hit both the UK and EU. The same problem. So that's not luck.
The only difference? Not luck, time.
So we are adding superior knowledge of vaccine yields to the head of AZ to your vast portfolio of expertise.
Isn't that what the CEO of AZN said in his interview?
CEO of VW: scum beneath our feet on account of the emissions scandal CEO of AZ: words directly from the bastard child of Plato and Solomon.
How is that even comparable? You've completely gone off the reservation here.
Just that CEOs aren't always to be believed.
One was the CEO who oversaw a massive coverup that had a hand in thousands of negligent homicides. The other is one that has agreed to forgo profits on the single most important product they will make for the next decade. As I said, maybe time to reconsider your defensive attitude on this and take a step back. If the roles were reversed how would you be treating Boris and Gove at the moment?
You know me, Max, I like to see the technicalities.
Millions of doses of vaccines could be blocked from entering Britain from the EU within days, as part of Brussels’ response to a major shortage of doses among its member states
Should the UK be reliant on home-grown vaccines, the achievement of herd immunity through the vaccination of 75% of the population could be pushed back by nearly two months, according to analysis by the data analytics firm, Airfinity.
Millions of doses of vaccines could be blocked from entering Britain from the EU within days, as part of Brussels’ response to a major shortage of doses among its member states
Should the UK be reliant on home-grown vaccines, the achievement of herd immunity through the vaccination of 75% of the population could be pushed back by nearly two months, according to analysis by the data analytics firm, Airfinity.
Millions of doses of vaccines could be blocked from entering Britain from the EU within days, as part of Brussels’ response to a major shortage of doses among its member states
Should the UK be reliant on home-grown vaccines, the achievement of herd immunity through the vaccination of 75% of the population could be pushed back by nearly two months, according to analysis by the data analytics firm, Airfinity.
I find it completely ridiculous that this is under consideration by the EU, does no one there understand how integrated supply chains work? I mean they literally lectured us about it for 4 years on brexit and used the whole no deal threat to UK industry.
European based production relies on the UK supply chain the make vaccines and other products. If they put up an export ban the UK will retaliate in kind and then no one gets anything because they can't actually make anything without the UK supply chain.
I don't pretend to entirely understand the mechanics behind this but if the shares are bouncing along at 100 times what they are really worth, isn't now exactly the time to short them? Why wouldn't even those hedge funds that have lost money so far just pile back in?
It may well be but short term it is a game of chicken trying to make the shorters go bust.
I think we are seeing with the vaccine response that old sore in the relationship of PB Leavers to the EU in their fruit-loop way: it's not enough for you to succeed; your friends must fail.
Well that was the express intent of the EU during the entire Brexit negotiations.
They didn't just want us to fail, they DID THEIR BEST to make us fail.
!I’ll have done my job if, in the end, the deal is so tough on the British that they’d prefer to stay in the EU”. Michel Barnier
"They" haven't said anything of the sort. Peter Liese said it. Do you take everything Dennis Skinner or Bill Cash says in the HoC as "the UK says"?
The German Health Minister repeated today that any production constraints should hit everyone equally, i.e. supplies should be diverted from the UK. They are refusing to take responsibility for the consequences of their delay in signing the contract.
But how do we know that all the production shortfall is due to when contracts were signed?
Not all of it will be according to AZ. A lot of it is random, especially when starting out, as its not like making widgets or whatever so different facilities have experienced different delays. So there are bad luck delays, that have happened in both the UK and EU plants, delays from starting later and relative delays to the UK from having less capacity (due to less funding on the EU side).
The EU plants have had more back luck according to AZ. In addition the bad luck delays that happened in the UK also slow down the EU receiving doses as once we have been supplied with x million doses then some of the UK production goes to the EU.
Not "luck".
Accord to AZ the UK manufacturing faced the same delays but because the UK contract was signed for the UK three months earlier they've had three months more to fix the problems.
That the EU wasted three months before signing the contract, the manufacturing for the EU began three months late. That's not "luck".
From Soriots interview it is clear that in addition to the time delays the EU site experienced lower than expected yield in one of their main sites. Yes the EU wasted time in signing contracts and that is their fault, that does not rule out them experiencing bad luck further down the line, as they did.
“So maybe I need to give you a little bit of explanation as to how we manufacture those vaccines. Essentially, we have cell cultures, big batches, 1000-litre or 2000-litre batches. We have cell cultures inside those batches and we inject them with the virus, the vaccine, if you will. Then those cells produce the vaccine, it’s a biotechnology protection. Now, some of those batches have very high yield and others have low yield. Particularly in Europe, we had one site with large capacity that experienced yield issues."
I think you missed a bit.
'We've had also teething issues like this in the UK supply chain. But the UK contract was signed three months before the European vaccine deal. So with the UK we have had an extra three months to fix all the glitches we experienced. As for Europe, we are three months behind in fixing those glitches. '
I have not missed anything, I said the delays were a mix of:
Bad Luck - low yield in a big plant is bad luck Starting Late - as you keep re-iterating and I had already started Less Capacity
But low yield is not down to luck. The UK had the same yield problem and with time it is fixable.
The problem is the lack of time primarily.
If you head off on a long, complicated journey but leave yourself no time to tackle even a single (expected) distribution that's bad management not bad luck.
What do you think the word particularly means? Luck was not equal. It is not a big deal, the narrative that the EU did badly still holds! But they were unlucky too.
Luck was equal. The same issue hit both the UK and EU. The same problem. So that's not luck.
The only difference? Not luck, time.
So we are adding superior knowledge of vaccine yields to the head of AZ to your vast portfolio of expertise.
Isn't that what the CEO of AZN said in his interview?
CEO of VW: scum beneath our feet on account of the emissions scandal CEO of AZ: words directly from the bastard child of Plato and Solomon.
How is that even comparable? You've completely gone off the reservation here.
Just that CEOs aren't always to be believed.
Indeed, but you are comparing the CEO of a company convicted of committing a massive international world-polluting fraud to the CEO of a company that has just produced a potentially world-saving vaccine within a near impossible timeframe and is ramping up to give it at no profit to a significant proportion of the world's poor.
One important factor that was emphasised recently at the UK gov press conference is strong showing of AZ vaccine in reducing mortality and serious illness which is a different but related metric to lowering infections.
I don't pretend to entirely understand the mechanics behind this but if the shares are bouncing along at 100 times what they are really worth, isn't now exactly the time to short them? Why wouldn't even those hedge funds that have lost money so far just pile back in?
Something like 140% of shares are already out on loan, impossible to short at the moment.
You've just blown a fuse in my brain with that statement.
People have borrowed shares that don't exist?
Yes... kinda....here is a simple explainer of how that occurs. Its a bit like Gordon Browns double counting approach to spending.
Actually the Brown example is apposite. He was faced with a similar situation when he sold the UK's gold. Market makers had massively over shorted the metal relative to what was physically available to deliver at those hugely depressed prices. The market was eminently squeezable. What did that F8ckwit Brown do? He sold right at the bottom to help the bankers out of what was an increasingly desperate trade.
Of course, since then gold has gone up by almost a factor of ten. costing the UK a massive fortune. And yet some people still think we should listen to this idiot.
"But the gold" is the "but her emails" before "but her emails" was a thing.
Scottish public sector pay: not the UK govt pay freeze, but minimum 3% increase for those on salaries up to £25k, with £750 cap. Those on higher salaries, +1% capped at £800.
SG offers councils £90m to let them freeze council tax, equivalent to a 3% rise.
Short-term reduction on Land and Buildings Transaction Tax to be ended as planned. First time buyer relief to remain in place.
£250 million over the next five years for green jobs workforce and additional woodland planting - courting Scottish Greens in a major way.
That's not proper essential work, like being filmed emptying a wee box and that.
I don't pretend to entirely understand the mechanics behind this but if the shares are bouncing along at 100 times what they are really worth, isn't now exactly the time to short them? Why wouldn't even those hedge funds that have lost money so far just pile back in?
It may well be but short term it is a game of chicken trying to make the shorters go bust.
I think we are seeing with the vaccine response that old sore in the relationship of PB Leavers to the EU in their fruit-loop way: it's not enough for you to succeed; your friends must fail.
Well that was the express intent of the EU during the entire Brexit negotiations.
They didn't just want us to fail, they DID THEIR BEST to make us fail.
!I’ll have done my job if, in the end, the deal is so tough on the British that they’d prefer to stay in the EU”. Michel Barnier
"They" haven't said anything of the sort. Peter Liese said it. Do you take everything Dennis Skinner or Bill Cash says in the HoC as "the UK says"?
The German Health Minister repeated today that any production constraints should hit everyone equally, i.e. supplies should be diverted from the UK. They are refusing to take responsibility for the consequences of their delay in signing the contract.
But how do we know that all the production shortfall is due to when contracts were signed?
Not all of it will be according to AZ. A lot of it is random, especially when starting out, as its not like making widgets or whatever so different facilities have experienced different delays. So there are bad luck delays, that have happened in both the UK and EU plants, delays from starting later and relative delays to the UK from having less capacity (due to less funding on the EU side).
The EU plants have had more back luck according to AZ. In addition the bad luck delays that happened in the UK also slow down the EU receiving doses as once we have been supplied with x million doses then some of the UK production goes to the EU.
Not "luck".
Accord to AZ the UK manufacturing faced the same delays but because the UK contract was signed for the UK three months earlier they've had three months more to fix the problems.
That the EU wasted three months before signing the contract, the manufacturing for the EU began three months late. That's not "luck".
From Soriots interview it is clear that in addition to the time delays the EU site experienced lower than expected yield in one of their main sites. Yes the EU wasted time in signing contracts and that is their fault, that does not rule out them experiencing bad luck further down the line, as they did.
“So maybe I need to give you a little bit of explanation as to how we manufacture those vaccines. Essentially, we have cell cultures, big batches, 1000-litre or 2000-litre batches. We have cell cultures inside those batches and we inject them with the virus, the vaccine, if you will. Then those cells produce the vaccine, it’s a biotechnology protection. Now, some of those batches have very high yield and others have low yield. Particularly in Europe, we had one site with large capacity that experienced yield issues."
I think you missed a bit.
'We've had also teething issues like this in the UK supply chain. But the UK contract was signed three months before the European vaccine deal. So with the UK we have had an extra three months to fix all the glitches we experienced. As for Europe, we are three months behind in fixing those glitches. '
I have not missed anything, I said the delays were a mix of:
Bad Luck - low yield in a big plant is bad luck Starting Late - as you keep re-iterating and I had already started Less Capacity
But low yield is not down to luck. The UK had the same yield problem and with time it is fixable.
The problem is the lack of time primarily.
If you head off on a long, complicated journey but leave yourself no time to tackle even a single (expected) distribution that's bad management not bad luck.
What do you think the word particularly means? Luck was not equal. It is not a big deal, the narrative that the EU did badly still holds! But they were unlucky too.
Luck was equal. The same issue hit both the UK and EU. The same problem. So that's not luck.
The only difference? Not luck, time.
So we are adding superior knowledge of vaccine yields to the head of AZ to your vast portfolio of expertise.
Isn't that what the CEO of AZN said in his interview?
CEO of VW: scum beneath our feet on account of the emissions scandal CEO of AZ: words directly from the bastard child of Plato and Solomon.
How is that even comparable? You've completely gone off the reservation here.
Just that CEOs aren't always to be believed.
Indeed, but you are comparing the CEO of a company convicted of committing a massive international world-polluting fraud to the CEO of a company that has just produced a potentially world-saving vaccine within a near impossible timeframe and is ramping up to give it at no profit to a significant proportion of the world's poor.
Not exactly like for like.
It wasn't supposed to be a like for like. It was supposed to remind people that CEOs aren't the oracle at delphi when they are talking about their companies.
One important factor that was emphasised recently at the UK gov press conference is strong showing of AZ vaccine in reducing mortality and serious illness which is a different but related metric to lowering infections.
No one should give a stuff about infections. It's all about hospitalisations and mortality.
Millions of doses of vaccines could be blocked from entering Britain from the EU within days, as part of Brussels’ response to a major shortage of doses among its member states
Should the UK be reliant on home-grown vaccines, the achievement of herd immunity through the vaccination of 75% of the population could be pushed back by nearly two months, according to analysis by the data analytics firm, Airfinity.
I find it completely ridiculous that this is under consideration by the EU, does no one there understand how integrated supply chains work? I mean they literally lectured us about it for 4 years on brexit and used the whole no deal threat to UK industry.
European based production relies on the UK supply chain the make vaccines and other products. If they put up an export ban the UK will retaliate in kind and then no one gets anything because they can't actually make anything without the UK supply chain.
What you are saying is if they continue going very metal Cartman, not only won't they get an ipad, they won't even get a toshiba handybook.
Again- if evidence comes from the UK that AZ is effective in over 65's (of which I have no doubt), the German's can then agree to authorize based on the new evidence. The position they have taken is perfectly reasonable and open to change. As, by the way is that of the MHRA, should the other outcome occur.
One important factor that was emphasised recently at the UK gov press conference is strong showing of AZ vaccine in reducing mortality and serious illness which is a different but related metric to lowering infections.
No one should give a stuff about infections. It's all about hospitalisations and mortality.
Off topic more or less, does anyone knows what the new customs rules are for buying from private sellers in the EU on Ebay? I'm looking at a fairly pricey item in Potsdam but still a pretty good deal, having a wheen of VAT and customs charges whacked on it makes it a lot less good
You will be the importer of the product. Which means you will have to pay import VAT and tariffs (if appropriate), charges for the customs forms etc.
Don't forget that the Department for International Trade have advised UK companies that the solution to selling in the EU is set up a new business there. Same is true for over here - unless a company has imported the product, paid all the fees etc and then sold it to you, its all on you and they will charge you dollar.
Thanks, expected as much.
We do of course need to know what it is you're buying from Potsdam.
Tutima wrist watch, may not be now though
Not one of the Saxon range, one assumes.
No, but because they're the chunky boy style beloved of lower league footballers and tv chefs rather than the name.
At least they're not at the level of ghastliness recently purchased by that taste free zone McGregor.
How does he tell the time.....?
He removes his phone from his pocket and looks at the screen. Just like the rest of us.
Are we supposed to know who the bloke is? Is he one of us?
Off topic more or less, does anyone knows what the new customs rules are for buying from private sellers in the EU on Ebay? I'm looking at a fairly pricey item in Potsdam but still a pretty good deal, having a wheen of VAT and customs charges whacked on it makes it a lot less good
Don't bother. It's more hassle than it's worth now. The courier companies just make up charges at random. I bought about 100 quid worth of 2CV parts from the Netherlands and paid nearly 250 quid in various imposts on top.
I buy and sell a lot of Porsche parts on eBay and the game is now fraudlent values with the balance made up en noir. Recently bought a 991.2 GT3RS ECU and key set for "80 euros". Lol.
2CV? Does that mean you'll be heading to the country, with a dozen eggs and, erm, a top hat any time soon?
I've always had 2CVs since my time at university in France. I've currently got an '87 Spécial that's SORNed. I am putting it back on the road because it makes me feel some kind of way.
A friend is storing a 2CV in my barn. It is white. There was an ad for the 2CV where they did a take on the Italian Job. This is the white of the red white and blue they used for that ad.
I don't pretend to entirely understand the mechanics behind this but if the shares are bouncing along at 100 times what they are really worth, isn't now exactly the time to short them? Why wouldn't even those hedge funds that have lost money so far just pile back in?
It may well be but short term it is a game of chicken trying to make the shorters go bust.
I think we are seeing with the vaccine response that old sore in the relationship of PB Leavers to the EU in their fruit-loop way: it's not enough for you to succeed; your friends must fail.
Well that was the express intent of the EU during the entire Brexit negotiations.
They didn't just want us to fail, they DID THEIR BEST to make us fail.
!I’ll have done my job if, in the end, the deal is so tough on the British that they’d prefer to stay in the EU”. Michel Barnier
"They" haven't said anything of the sort. Peter Liese said it. Do you take everything Dennis Skinner or Bill Cash says in the HoC as "the UK says"?
The German Health Minister repeated today that any production constraints should hit everyone equally, i.e. supplies should be diverted from the UK. They are refusing to take responsibility for the consequences of their delay in signing the contract.
But how do we know that all the production shortfall is due to when contracts were signed?
Not all of it will be according to AZ. A lot of it is random, especially when starting out, as its not like making widgets or whatever so different facilities have experienced different delays. So there are bad luck delays, that have happened in both the UK and EU plants, delays from starting later and relative delays to the UK from having less capacity (due to less funding on the EU side).
The EU plants have had more back luck according to AZ. In addition the bad luck delays that happened in the UK also slow down the EU receiving doses as once we have been supplied with x million doses then some of the UK production goes to the EU.
Not "luck".
Accord to AZ the UK manufacturing faced the same delays but because the UK contract was signed for the UK three months earlier they've had three months more to fix the problems.
That the EU wasted three months before signing the contract, the manufacturing for the EU began three months late. That's not "luck".
From Soriots interview it is clear that in addition to the time delays the EU site experienced lower than expected yield in one of their main sites. Yes the EU wasted time in signing contracts and that is their fault, that does not rule out them experiencing bad luck further down the line, as they did.
“So maybe I need to give you a little bit of explanation as to how we manufacture those vaccines. Essentially, we have cell cultures, big batches, 1000-litre or 2000-litre batches. We have cell cultures inside those batches and we inject them with the virus, the vaccine, if you will. Then those cells produce the vaccine, it’s a biotechnology protection. Now, some of those batches have very high yield and others have low yield. Particularly in Europe, we had one site with large capacity that experienced yield issues."
I think you missed a bit.
'We've had also teething issues like this in the UK supply chain. But the UK contract was signed three months before the European vaccine deal. So with the UK we have had an extra three months to fix all the glitches we experienced. As for Europe, we are three months behind in fixing those glitches. '
I have not missed anything, I said the delays were a mix of:
Bad Luck - low yield in a big plant is bad luck Starting Late - as you keep re-iterating and I had already started Less Capacity
But low yield is not down to luck. The UK had the same yield problem and with time it is fixable.
The problem is the lack of time primarily.
If you head off on a long, complicated journey but leave yourself no time to tackle even a single (expected) distribution that's bad management not bad luck.
What do you think the word particularly means? Luck was not equal. It is not a big deal, the narrative that the EU did badly still holds! But they were unlucky too.
Luck was equal. The same issue hit both the UK and EU. The same problem. So that's not luck.
The only difference? Not luck, time.
So we are adding superior knowledge of vaccine yields to the head of AZ to your vast portfolio of expertise.
Isn't that what the CEO of AZN said in his interview?
CEO of VW: scum beneath our feet on account of the emissions scandal CEO of AZ: words directly from the bastard child of Plato and Solomon.
How is that even comparable? You've completely gone off the reservation here.
Just that CEOs aren't always to be believed.
Perhaps more accurately: Sensible CEOs will make sure that everything they tell you is true. The idea that any CEO will willingly tell you The (Whole) Truth is for the birds.
So- in this case, the AZ CEO was right not to recognise the 8 % figure- though it would have been interesting to know what he would have said had the German newspaper published 6 %. But he was also doing his job when he didn't volunteer the mathematically true point that "we simply don't know what the efficacy with oldies is, because the trial was too small".
Doesn't just apply to CEOs, of course. One of the curiosities of political chat is how easily we all (me included, I'm sure) can flip between rigorous fact-checking and utter credulity, depending on what helps us at that moment.
It's also true that subsamples aren't used that way. Which is why Germany have authorised Pfizer despite it having a negative through zero through to 100% confidence interval too.
A Scotch Unionist speaks, one of my 'fellow countrymen' which appears to be the preferred term on here
'Boris Johnson’s Scotland trip is a gift to the SNP
He’ll be at it again today. Mark my words. Or, rather, mark his. For Johnson will, as always, talk about the glories of the United Kingdom and all the support it has offered Scotland during this pandemic. There is the furlough scheme, of course, and there will be talk of the vaccine programme and the broad shoulders of the United Kingdom state and about how the army — now seemingly rebranded as the 'British army' — is supporting everything and it all shows how much better we are together.
Well, all of this could be true. It is possible to believe all of this in good faith while also recognising that it is a hopeless way of persuading those who need to be persuaded. For, implicitly, it asks them to believe that, perhaps uniquely, an independent Scotland would not have been capable of organising an employment support scheme or purchasing vaccines (albeit perhaps not as promptly as the UK has managed) or having soldiers to help set up vaccination centres or anything else. How have other countries coped without being part of the Prime Minister’s 'awesome foursome'?'
One important factor that was emphasised recently at the UK gov press conference is strong showing of AZ vaccine in reducing mortality and serious illness which is a different but related metric to lowering infections.
No one should give a stuff about infections. It's all about hospitalisations and mortality.
...which follow infections.
Not necessarily. A positive infection result would be given by someone asymptomatic (whether they've had the jab or not).
Off topic more or less, does anyone knows what the new customs rules are for buying from private sellers in the EU on Ebay? I'm looking at a fairly pricey item in Potsdam but still a pretty good deal, having a wheen of VAT and customs charges whacked on it makes it a lot less good
Don't bother. It's more hassle than it's worth now. The courier companies just make up charges at random. I bought about 100 quid worth of 2CV parts from the Netherlands and paid nearly 250 quid in various imposts on top.
I buy and sell a lot of Porsche parts on eBay and the game is now fraudlent values with the balance made up en noir. Recently bought a 991.2 GT3RS ECU and key set for "80 euros". Lol.
2CV? Does that mean you'll be heading to the country, with a dozen eggs and, erm, a top hat any time soon?
I've always had 2CVs since my time at university in France. I've currently got an '87 Spécial that's SORNed. I am putting it back on the road because it makes me feel some kind of way.
A friend is storing a 2CV in my barn. It is white. There was an ad for the 2CV where they did a take on the Italian Job. This is the white of the red white and blue they used for that ad.
Again- if evidence comes from the UK that AZ is effective in over 65's (of which I have no doubt), the German's can then agree to authorize based on the new evidence. The position they have taken is perfectly reasonable and open to change. As, by the way is that of the MHRA, should the other outcome occur.
For now, it's angels on pinhead stuff anyway - Germany has no AZ vaccine to use on its people yet, whatever their age. What they are doing is purely political cover for them having no vaccine to use.
One important factor that was emphasised recently at the UK gov press conference is strong showing of AZ vaccine in reducing mortality and serious illness which is a different but related metric to lowering infections.
No one should give a stuff about infections. It's all about hospitalisations and mortality.
...which follow infections.
And vaccination can result in a mild infection rather than a serious or deadly one.
A Scotch Unionist speaks, one of my 'fellow countrymen' which appears to be the preferred term on here
'Boris Johnson’s Scotland trip is a gift to the SNP
He’ll be at it again today. Mark my words. Or, rather, mark his. For Johnson will, as always, talk about the glories of the United Kingdom and all the support it has offered Scotland during this pandemic. There is the furlough scheme, of course, and there will be talk of the vaccine programme and the broad shoulders of the United Kingdom state and about how the army — now seemingly rebranded as the 'British army' — is supporting everything and it all shows how much better we are together.
Well, all of this could be true. It is possible to believe all of this in good faith while also recognising that it is a hopeless way of persuading those who need to be persuaded. For, implicitly, it asks them to believe that, perhaps uniquely, an independent Scotland would not have been capable of organising an employment support scheme or purchasing vaccines (albeit perhaps not as promptly as the UK has managed) or having soldiers to help set up vaccination centres or anything else. How have other countries coped without being part of the Prime Minister’s 'awesome foursome'?'
Not necessarily disagreeing with most of what you are saying but just one point.. It has always been the British Army. I have never in my life heard it referred to as anything other than 'The British Army'. There is no 'rebranding' at all. That is its name.
Only a matter of time now for the media to find an oldie that had the AZN vaccine and now is either very sick or died. They won't be able to help themselves getting such stories to then be able to ask difficult questions of UK government approach vs Germans.
A Scotch Unionist speaks, one of my 'fellow countrymen' which appears to be the preferred term on here
'Boris Johnson’s Scotland trip is a gift to the SNP
He’ll be at it again today. Mark my words. Or, rather, mark his. For Johnson will, as always, talk about the glories of the United Kingdom and all the support it has offered Scotland during this pandemic. There is the furlough scheme, of course, and there will be talk of the vaccine programme and the broad shoulders of the United Kingdom state and about how the army — now seemingly rebranded as the 'British army' — is supporting everything and it all shows how much better we are together.
Well, all of this could be true. It is possible to believe all of this in good faith while also recognising that it is a hopeless way of persuading those who need to be persuaded. For, implicitly, it asks them to believe that, perhaps uniquely, an independent Scotland would not have been capable of organising an employment support scheme or purchasing vaccines (albeit perhaps not as promptly as the UK has managed) or having soldiers to help set up vaccination centres or anything else. How have other countries coped without being part of the Prime Minister’s 'awesome foursome'?'
Didn't one person say fellow countrymen? And that makes it a preferred term?
You take it all a bit too seriously when you do the faked outraged 'north Briton/provincial' self referencing as though lots of people are doing it. I like to self pity as much as the next guy though, so you do you.
I don't pretend to entirely understand the mechanics behind this but if the shares are bouncing along at 100 times what they are really worth, isn't now exactly the time to short them? Why wouldn't even those hedge funds that have lost money so far just pile back in?
Something like 140% of shares are already out on loan, impossible to short at the moment.
You've just blown a fuse in my brain with that statement.
People have borrowed shares that don't exist?
Yes... kinda....here is a simple explainer of how that occurs. Its a bit like Gordon Browns double counting approach to spending.
Actually the Brown example is apposite. He was faced with a similar situation when he sold the UK's gold. Market makers had massively over shorted the metal relative to what was physically available to deliver at those hugely depressed prices. The market was eminently squeezable. What did that F8ckwit Brown do? He sold right at the bottom to help the bankers out of what was an increasingly desperate trade.
Of course, since then gold has gone up by almost a factor of ten. costing the UK a massive fortune. And yet some people still think we should listen to this idiot.
It wasn't a trade, it was what's called an OAFAS. A once and forever asset switch. Maintaining a theoretical P&L on that after the event is not meaningful unless you 'test track & trace' where the proceeds went, and further went, and then again went, and the interest, plus the compounding, and the FX fluctuations on different currencies etc etc etc. I mean, if gold plummets tomorrow, should we be saying, "Shit, Gordon Brown made us £x milllion today. Go Gordo!" Hardly.
The German decision re AZ over 65’s is rather worrying.
What if it isn’t effective?
It's the absence of clinical data (its unusual to test drugs on the elderly until they've checked out ok on the young) because we've done in 9 months what typically takes 6 years - which means you have to decide either to:
- wait for clinical data, or - use your judgement based on other available data - in this case a peer reviewed paper in the Lancet showing the response in the elderly was very similar to that in the young.
Given Germany also has the Pfizer vaccine its not an unreasonable decision - it will be a tougher call for those without Pfizer/its infrastructure.
Wait for "perfection" or go with "good enough".
Given the number of dead 65+ year olds we have I believe "good enough" is good enough.
The Times now has the actual data (reported in the Guardian blog) - the sample of over-65s was 341 taking the AZ vaccine and 319 controls. There was ONE Covid case in each group, meaning that we are none the wiser, and the confidence interval is a ridiculous -1400 to +94 (with, if anyone cares, a median of 6.3%, compared with 70% for everyone else).
So the data does not support any conclusion for the over-65 sample - we only have the indirect evidence showing that the AZ vaccine acts similarly (which is not the same as being effective) in all groups. I think that "Use it and hope for the best" is perfectly defensible, as is "Only use it for under-65s where we know it works", and nobody should be snarky about either policy. What is crucial is that we knock on the head any suggestion that the data proves it's ineffective. There is simply inadequate data, not bad data.
I'd like to see Britain modify our policy to use Pfizer by preference for the elderly where the vaccinaiton point has both in stock, while still giving priority to getting everyone vaccinated. It's unfortunate as it turns out that we didn't order more of the Pfizer vaccine, but nobody expects Ministers or the NHS to be able to guess in advance what will work best.
My mum (83) has just had her 1st dose appointment through for this Saturday at a local pharmacy. I expect, given the location, that she will be getting the AZ jab. I've no concerns about that - I'd much rather she get a vaccine now than wait.
My point is, in trying to deal with this at pace, I don't think we really have the luxury to focus different vaccines on different demographics at the moment.
Ideal world AZN wouldn't even be approved. But we have to get anyway from thinking about this in terms of the individual. It isn't about that at the moment, it is about driving now infection and hospitalisations across the whole community, rather than maximum individual protection.
I don't actually agree with this. The data presented shows efficacy above 60% for over 18's. Four months ago we would have snapped the offering hand off for that. And don't forget - NO-ONE who received the vaccine needed hospital treatment. That's enough. The very high efficacy of the Pfizer vaccine has skewed perceptions of what the target needs to be.
Yes, but 60% is very different to 95%. If you look at Israel and their experience with the Pfizer jab, they have seen - in total - something like just 12 cases of coronavirus in older people from one week after the second dose. And of those 12 cases, none had a fever above 38.5 degrees.
Unfortunately, Pfizer (and Moderna) availability is low right now. If I'd been the German government (or even the EU), instead of threatening, I'd have been paying the mother of all subsidies to try and get now mRNA vaccine capacity built.
You catch, as the saying goes, more flies with honey than with vinegar.
One important factor that was emphasised recently at the UK gov press conference is strong showing of AZ vaccine in reducing mortality and serious illness which is a different but related metric to lowering infections.
No one should give a stuff about infections. It's all about hospitalisations and mortality.
It's currently all about hospitalizations and mortality. Infection rates will however become more significant later on.
I don't pretend to entirely understand the mechanics behind this but if the shares are bouncing along at 100 times what they are really worth, isn't now exactly the time to short them? Why wouldn't even those hedge funds that have lost money so far just pile back in?
It may well be but short term it is a game of chicken trying to make the shorters go bust.
I think we are seeing with the vaccine response that old sore in the relationship of PB Leavers to the EU in their fruit-loop way: it's not enough for you to succeed; your friends must fail.
Well that was the express intent of the EU during the entire Brexit negotiations.
They didn't just want us to fail, they DID THEIR BEST to make us fail.
!I’ll have done my job if, in the end, the deal is so tough on the British that they’d prefer to stay in the EU”. Michel Barnier
"They" haven't said anything of the sort. Peter Liese said it. Do you take everything Dennis Skinner or Bill Cash says in the HoC as "the UK says"?
The German Health Minister repeated today that any production constraints should hit everyone equally, i.e. supplies should be diverted from the UK. They are refusing to take responsibility for the consequences of their delay in signing the contract.
But how do we know that all the production shortfall is due to when contracts were signed?
Not all of it will be according to AZ. A lot of it is random, especially when starting out, as its not like making widgets or whatever so different facilities have experienced different delays. So there are bad luck delays, that have happened in both the UK and EU plants, delays from starting later and relative delays to the UK from having less capacity (due to less funding on the EU side).
The EU plants have had more back luck according to AZ. In addition the bad luck delays that happened in the UK also slow down the EU receiving doses as once we have been supplied with x million doses then some of the UK production goes to the EU.
Not "luck".
Accord to AZ the UK manufacturing faced the same delays but because the UK contract was signed for the UK three months earlier they've had three months more to fix the problems.
That the EU wasted three months before signing the contract, the manufacturing for the EU began three months late. That's not "luck".
From Soriots interview it is clear that in addition to the time delays the EU site experienced lower than expected yield in one of their main sites. Yes the EU wasted time in signing contracts and that is their fault, that does not rule out them experiencing bad luck further down the line, as they did.
“So maybe I need to give you a little bit of explanation as to how we manufacture those vaccines. Essentially, we have cell cultures, big batches, 1000-litre or 2000-litre batches. We have cell cultures inside those batches and we inject them with the virus, the vaccine, if you will. Then those cells produce the vaccine, it’s a biotechnology protection. Now, some of those batches have very high yield and others have low yield. Particularly in Europe, we had one site with large capacity that experienced yield issues."
I think you missed a bit.
'We've had also teething issues like this in the UK supply chain. But the UK contract was signed three months before the European vaccine deal. So with the UK we have had an extra three months to fix all the glitches we experienced. As for Europe, we are three months behind in fixing those glitches. '
I have not missed anything, I said the delays were a mix of:
Bad Luck - low yield in a big plant is bad luck Starting Late - as you keep re-iterating and I had already started Less Capacity
But low yield is not down to luck. The UK had the same yield problem and with time it is fixable.
The problem is the lack of time primarily.
If you head off on a long, complicated journey but leave yourself no time to tackle even a single (expected) distribution that's bad management not bad luck.
What do you think the word particularly means? Luck was not equal. It is not a big deal, the narrative that the EU did badly still holds! But they were unlucky too.
Luck was equal. The same issue hit both the UK and EU. The same problem. So that's not luck.
The only difference? Not luck, time.
So we are adding superior knowledge of vaccine yields to the head of AZ to your vast portfolio of expertise.
Isn't that what the CEO of AZN said in his interview?
CEO of VW: scum beneath our feet on account of the emissions scandal CEO of AZ: words directly from the bastard child of Plato and Solomon.
How is that even comparable? You've completely gone off the reservation here.
Just that CEOs aren't always to be believed.
Indeed, but you are comparing the CEO of a company convicted of committing a massive international world-polluting fraud to the CEO of a company that has just produced a potentially world-saving vaccine within a near impossible timeframe and is ramping up to give it at no profit to a significant proportion of the world's poor.
Not exactly like for like.
It wasn't supposed to be a like for like. It was supposed to remind people that CEOs aren't the oracle at delphi when they are talking about their companies.
But it was at a level of logic that Myra Hindley was a female who was a psychopathic child-murderer and Florence Nightingale was a female, thus must also have been a psychopathic child-murderer
I don't pretend to entirely understand the mechanics behind this but if the shares are bouncing along at 100 times what they are really worth, isn't now exactly the time to short them? Why wouldn't even those hedge funds that have lost money so far just pile back in?
Something like 140% of shares are already out on loan, impossible to short at the moment.
You've just blown a fuse in my brain with that statement.
People have borrowed shares that don't exist?
Naked short selling, it is called.
It is supposed to be illegal, but there are ways round that for market makers.
This whole thing kicked off when some people noticed that there were more shares shorted than actual shares. So if they hold onto the shares.... well the prices could go to... who knows.
Friday will be interesting, in a watch-from-a-bunker-outside-the-blast-radius kind of way
Well...
1. Most of the GME shorts have already exited the market So... 2. Most of the people buying now are attempting to drive out shorts that no longer exist And 3. It's quite possible for there to be more of the stock sold short than exists. One person borrows stock and sells it. The person who the stock has been sold to lends it out again.
It's going to be very ugly when a while bunch of Reddit traders see their paper profits (and their savings) disappear.
The German decision re AZ over 65’s is rather worrying.
What if it isn’t effective?
It's the absence of clinical data (its unusual to test drugs on the elderly until they've checked out ok on the young) because we've done in 9 months what typically takes 6 years - which means you have to decide either to:
- wait for clinical data, or - use your judgement based on other available data - in this case a peer reviewed paper in the Lancet showing the response in the elderly was very similar to that in the young.
Given Germany also has the Pfizer vaccine its not an unreasonable decision - it will be a tougher call for those without Pfizer/its infrastructure.
Wait for "perfection" or go with "good enough".
Given the number of dead 65+ year olds we have I believe "good enough" is good enough.
The Times now has the actual data (reported in the Guardian blog) - the sample of over-65s was 341 taking the AZ vaccine and 319 controls. There was ONE Covid case in each group, meaning that we are none the wiser, and the confidence interval is a ridiculous -1400 to +94 (with, if anyone cares, a median of 6.3%, compared with 70% for everyone else).
So the data does not support any conclusion for the over-65 sample - we only have the indirect evidence showing that the AZ vaccine acts similarly (which is not the same as being effective) in all groups. I think that "Use it and hope for the best" is perfectly defensible, as is "Only use it for under-65s where we know it works", and nobody should be snarky about either policy. What is crucial is that we knock on the head any suggestion that the data proves it's ineffective. There is simply inadequate data, not bad data.
I'd like to see Britain modify our policy to use Pfizer by preference for the elderly where the vaccinaiton point has both in stock, while still giving priority to getting everyone vaccinated. It's unfortunate as it turns out that we didn't order more of the Pfizer vaccine, but nobody expects Ministers or the NHS to be able to guess in advance what will work best.
My mum (83) has just had her 1st dose appointment through for this Saturday at a local pharmacy. I expect, given the location, that she will be getting the AZ jab. I've no concerns about that - I'd much rather she get a vaccine now than wait.
My point is, in trying to deal with this at pace, I don't think we really have the luxury to focus different vaccines on different demographics at the moment.
Ideal world AZN wouldn't even be approved. But we have to get anyway from thinking about this in terms of the individual. It isn't about that at the moment, it is about driving now infection and hospitalisations across the whole community, rather than maximum individual protection.
I don't actually agree with this. The data presented shows efficacy above 60% for over 18's. Four months ago we would have snapped the offering hand off for that. And don't forget - NO-ONE who received the vaccine needed hospital treatment. That's enough. The very high efficacy of the Pfizer vaccine has skewed perceptions of what the target needs to be.
Yes, but 60% is very different to 95%. If you look at Israel and their experience with the Pfizer jab, they have seen - in total - something like just 12 cases of coronavirus in older people from one week after the second dose. And of those 12 cases, none had a fever above 38.5 degrees.
Unfortunately, Pfizer (and Moderna) availability is low right now. If I'd been the German government (or even the EU), instead of threatening, I'd have been paying the mother of all subsidies to try and get now mRNA vaccine capacity built.
You catch, as the saying goes, more flies with honey than with vinegar.
EU f##king with the Israelis vaccine supply...now that would get spicy.
A Scotch Unionist speaks, one of my 'fellow countrymen' which appears to be the preferred term on here
'Boris Johnson’s Scotland trip is a gift to the SNP
He’ll be at it again today. Mark my words. Or, rather, mark his. For Johnson will, as always, talk about the glories of the United Kingdom and all the support it has offered Scotland during this pandemic. There is the furlough scheme, of course, and there will be talk of the vaccine programme and the broad shoulders of the United Kingdom state and about how the army — now seemingly rebranded as the 'British army' — is supporting everything and it all shows how much better we are together.
Well, all of this could be true. It is possible to believe all of this in good faith while also recognising that it is a hopeless way of persuading those who need to be persuaded. For, implicitly, it asks them to believe that, perhaps uniquely, an independent Scotland would not have been capable of organising an employment support scheme or purchasing vaccines (albeit perhaps not as promptly as the UK has managed) or having soldiers to help set up vaccination centres or anything else. How have other countries coped without being part of the Prime Minister’s 'awesome foursome'?'
He does however sensibly tell the PM to ignore Sturgeon 'If she countenances a referendum she’d have considered illegal and substandard just two months ago, there is less need to engage with her at all, let alone on her terms.'
I don't pretend to entirely understand the mechanics behind this but if the shares are bouncing along at 100 times what they are really worth, isn't now exactly the time to short them? Why wouldn't even those hedge funds that have lost money so far just pile back in?
Something like 140% of shares are already out on loan, impossible to short at the moment.
You've just blown a fuse in my brain with that statement.
People have borrowed shares that don't exist?
Yes... kinda....here is a simple explainer of how that occurs. Its a bit like Gordon Browns double counting approach to spending.
Actually the Brown example is apposite. He was faced with a similar situation when he sold the UK's gold. Market makers had massively over shorted the metal relative to what was physically available to deliver at those hugely depressed prices. The market was eminently squeezable. What did that F8ckwit Brown do? He sold right at the bottom to help the bankers out of what was an increasingly desperate trade.
Of course, since then gold has gone up by almost a factor of ten. costing the UK a massive fortune. And yet some people still think we should listen to this idiot.
"But the gold" is the "but her emails" before "but her emails" was a thing.
I always find it funny that Brown sold gold for less than it was worth, and 3G spectrum for more, and you'd think it would all balance out.
One of the curiosities of political chat is how easily we all (me included, I'm sure) can flip between rigorous fact-checking and utter credulity, depending on what helps us at that moment.
Please don't see this as being got at; we all do it.
Off topic more or less, does anyone knows what the new customs rules are for buying from private sellers in the EU on Ebay? I'm looking at a fairly pricey item in Potsdam but still a pretty good deal, having a wheen of VAT and customs charges whacked on it makes it a lot less good
Don't bother. It's more hassle than it's worth now. The courier companies just make up charges at random. I bought about 100 quid worth of 2CV parts from the Netherlands and paid nearly 250 quid in various imposts on top.
I buy and sell a lot of Porsche parts on eBay and the game is now fraudlent values with the balance made up en noir. Recently bought a 991.2 GT3RS ECU and key set for "80 euros". Lol.
2CV? Does that mean you'll be heading to the country, with a dozen eggs and, erm, a top hat any time soon?
I've always had 2CVs since my time at university in France. I've currently got an '87 Spécial that's SORNed. I am putting it back on the road because it makes me feel some kind of way.
A friend is storing a 2CV in my barn. It is white. There was an ad for the 2CV where they did a take on the Italian Job. This is the white of the red white and blue they used for that ad.
I liked the full-page newspaper ads they had in the late 70s - "As many wheels as a Rolls-Royce"; "Central locking - from the driver's seat you can easily lock all the doors"; "Faster than a Porsche - at a top speed of 60mph, you can easily overtake a Porsche doing 40"
A Scotch Unionist speaks, one of my 'fellow countrymen' which appears to be the preferred term on here
'Boris Johnson’s Scotland trip is a gift to the SNP
He’ll be at it again today. Mark my words. Or, rather, mark his. For Johnson will, as always, talk about the glories of the United Kingdom and all the support it has offered Scotland during this pandemic. There is the furlough scheme, of course, and there will be talk of the vaccine programme and the broad shoulders of the United Kingdom state and about how the army — now seemingly rebranded as the 'British army' — is supporting everything and it all shows how much better we are together.
Well, all of this could be true. It is possible to believe all of this in good faith while also recognising that it is a hopeless way of persuading those who need to be persuaded. For, implicitly, it asks them to believe that, perhaps uniquely, an independent Scotland would not have been capable of organising an employment support scheme or purchasing vaccines (albeit perhaps not as promptly as the UK has managed) or having soldiers to help set up vaccination centres or anything else. How have other countries coped without being part of the Prime Minister’s 'awesome foursome'?'
Not necessarily disagreeing with most of what you are saying but just one point.. It has always been the British Army. I have never in my life heard it referred to as anything other than 'The British Army'. There is no 'rebranding' at all. That is its name.
Hasn't it normally simply been called "The Army", with the difference that the other two branches are "Royal [Navy|Air Force]"?
A Scotch Unionist speaks, one of my 'fellow countrymen' which appears to be the preferred term on here
'Boris Johnson’s Scotland trip is a gift to the SNP
He’ll be at it again today. Mark my words. Or, rather, mark his. For Johnson will, as always, talk about the glories of the United Kingdom and all the support it has offered Scotland during this pandemic. There is the furlough scheme, of course, and there will be talk of the vaccine programme and the broad shoulders of the United Kingdom state and about how the army — now seemingly rebranded as the 'British army' — is supporting everything and it all shows how much better we are together.
Well, all of this could be true. It is possible to believe all of this in good faith while also recognising that it is a hopeless way of persuading those who need to be persuaded. For, implicitly, it asks them to believe that, perhaps uniquely, an independent Scotland would not have been capable of organising an employment support scheme or purchasing vaccines (albeit perhaps not as promptly as the UK has managed) or having soldiers to help set up vaccination centres or anything else. How have other countries coped without being part of the Prime Minister’s 'awesome foursome'?'
Didn't one person say fellow countrymen? And that makes it a preferred term?
You take it all a bit too seriously when you do the faked outraged 'north Briton/provincial' self referencing as though lots of people are doing it. I like to self pity as much as the next guy though, so you do you.
Curses, I was just going to write a 2000 word treatise on PB's preferred term being fellow countryman.
Lighten up, you've no idea what really outrages me.
I think we are seeing with the vaccine response that old sore in the relationship of PB Leavers to the EU in their fruit-loop way: it's not enough for you to succeed; your friends must fail.
Yes, the gleeful reaction of europhobes to the EU's vaccine troubles has been quite intense. I've given it some thought and I think what we might be seeing is an example of something known in the football world, and indeed in wider society, as Stockport County Syndrome. The name derives from the tendency of the more fervent supporters of a small town, perennially struggling club to take great pleasure from the occasional defeat of their wealthy, big city rivals. All very understandable on a human level, and certainly nothing to overly chastize people for, but of course it changes nothing. When the excitement dies down a week or so later, it's BAU. There is still Man Utd. And there is still Stockport County.
I don't see a single person here "gleeful" that the EU is troubled.
I see a lot of people acknowledging the EU is troubled, right down to williamglenn calling for UVDL's resignation on the subject. I see other people trying to whatabout or downplay just how serious this is.
The EU aren't just failing to protect their own citizens, they're jeopardising us. The science and technology exists to eradicate this damned nasty bug but because they've chosen to cheap out on it instead its going to remain on our continent and risks mutation and reintroduction into this country.
I don't see a single person happy about that.
There is some glee. You can only see it if you're not feeling it.
Or if you're a paranoid fool who projects emotions onto others.
I see more anger than glee. With an element of "I told you so" at the worst.
Next time you criticise anyone should I use the word "glee" about your emotions at the time?
I detect not project. Sorry, Philip, you're not fooling me on this one. I have a persona for every poster and yours is Gareth Keenan (or more accurately Mackenzie Crook). This means I can see your face as you post and atm, with this EU vaccine debacle, the expression etched upon it is ... well, it looks like glee.
Excellent. So without wishing to push this too far, who in your view is the David Brent of PB?
The German decision re AZ over 65’s is rather worrying.
What if it isn’t effective?
It's the absence of clinical data (its unusual to test drugs on the elderly until they've checked out ok on the young) because we've done in 9 months what typically takes 6 years - which means you have to decide either to:
- wait for clinical data, or - use your judgement based on other available data - in this case a peer reviewed paper in the Lancet showing the response in the elderly was very similar to that in the young.
Given Germany also has the Pfizer vaccine its not an unreasonable decision - it will be a tougher call for those without Pfizer/its infrastructure.
Wait for "perfection" or go with "good enough".
Given the number of dead 65+ year olds we have I believe "good enough" is good enough.
The Times now has the actual data (reported in the Guardian blog) - the sample of over-65s was 341 taking the AZ vaccine and 319 controls. There was ONE Covid case in each group, meaning that we are none the wiser, and the confidence interval is a ridiculous -1400 to +94 (with, if anyone cares, a median of 6.3%, compared with 70% for everyone else).
So the data does not support any conclusion for the over-65 sample - we only have the indirect evidence showing that the AZ vaccine acts similarly (which is not the same as being effective) in all groups. I think that "Use it and hope for the best" is perfectly defensible, as is "Only use it for under-65s where we know it works", and nobody should be snarky about either policy. What is crucial is that we knock on the head any suggestion that the data proves it's ineffective. There is simply inadequate data, not bad data.
I'd like to see Britain modify our policy to use Pfizer by preference for the elderly where the vaccinaiton point has both in stock, while still giving priority to getting everyone vaccinated. It's unfortunate as it turns out that we didn't order more of the Pfizer vaccine, but nobody expects Ministers or the NHS to be able to guess in advance what will work best.
My mum (83) has just had her 1st dose appointment through for this Saturday at a local pharmacy. I expect, given the location, that she will be getting the AZ jab. I've no concerns about that - I'd much rather she get a vaccine now than wait.
My point is, in trying to deal with this at pace, I don't think we really have the luxury to focus different vaccines on different demographics at the moment.
Ideal world AZN wouldn't even be approved. But we have to get anyway from thinking about this in terms of the individual. It isn't about that at the moment, it is about driving now infection and hospitalisations across the whole community, rather than maximum individual protection.
I don't actually agree with this. The data presented shows efficacy above 60% for over 18's. Four months ago we would have snapped the offering hand off for that. And don't forget - NO-ONE who received the vaccine needed hospital treatment. That's enough. The very high efficacy of the Pfizer vaccine has skewed perceptions of what the target needs to be.
Yes, but 60% is very different to 95%. If you look at Israel and their experience with the Pfizer jab, they have seen - in total - something like just 12 cases of coronavirus in older people from one week after the second dose. And of those 12 cases, none had a fever above 38.5 degrees.
Unfortunately, Pfizer (and Moderna) availability is low right now. If I'd been the German government (or even the EU), instead of threatening, I'd have been paying the mother of all subsidies to try and get now mRNA vaccine capacity built.
You catch, as the saying goes, more flies with honey than with vinegar.
I don't disagree, but the AZ has a big advantage in ease of use, which is a huge advantage over the -70 degree storage and limited number of journeys of the Pfizer vaccine.
The next few weeks will be very revealing about AZ efficacy from one dose and in the over 65 year old cohort.
I don't pretend to entirely understand the mechanics behind this but if the shares are bouncing along at 100 times what they are really worth, isn't now exactly the time to short them? Why wouldn't even those hedge funds that have lost money so far just pile back in?
Something like 140% of shares are already out on loan, impossible to short at the moment.
You've just blown a fuse in my brain with that statement.
People have borrowed shares that don't exist?
Yes... kinda....here is a simple explainer of how that occurs. Its a bit like Gordon Browns double counting approach to spending.
Actually the Brown example is apposite. He was faced with a similar situation when he sold the UK's gold. Market makers had massively over shorted the metal relative to what was physically available to deliver at those hugely depressed prices. The market was eminently squeezable. What did that F8ckwit Brown do? He sold right at the bottom to help the bankers out of what was an increasingly desperate trade.
Of course, since then gold has gone up by almost a factor of ten. costing the UK a massive fortune. And yet some people still think we should listen to this idiot.
It wasn't a trade, it was what's called an OAFAS. A once and forever asset switch. Maintaining a theoretical P&L on that after the event is not meaningful unless you 'test track & trace' where the proceeds went, and further went, and then again went, and the interest, plus the compounding, and the FX fluctuations on different currencies etc etc etc. I mean, if gold plummets tomorrow, should we be saying, "Shit, Gordon Brown made us £x milllion today. Go Gordo!" Hardly.
Quite. The money went into treasuries & other interest bearing securities. Guess what became more & more valuable over the next decade as interest rates dropped & then the financial crisis hit?
Was it a bad time to sell gold? Sure. Did the country actually end up worse off overall? Well, that’s an entirely different question.
One important factor that was emphasised recently at the UK gov press conference is strong showing of AZ vaccine in reducing mortality and serious illness which is a different but related metric to lowering infections.
No one should give a stuff about infections. It's all about hospitalisations and mortality.
...which follow infections.
Not necessarily. A positive infection result would be given by someone asymptomatic (whether they've had the jab or not).
That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying hospitalisation are always caused by infections. Disrupting asymptomatic transmission is also valuable.
Comments
BTW, I generally really appreciate your posts, but I really don't get this one. My own image of Philip is clearly wrong, as I had him as a 60-something in my own mind, only to learn in the last few days, IIUIC, that he is in his 30s.
https://youtu.be/sH_F7mQIM0M
So the data does not support any conclusion for the over-65 sample - we only have the indirect evidence showing that the AZ vaccine acts similarly (which is not the same as being effective) in all groups. I think that "Use it and hope for the best" is perfectly defensible, as is "Only use it for under-65s where we know it works", and nobody should be snarky about either policy. What is crucial is that we knock on the head any suggestion that the data proves it's ineffective. There is simply inadequate data, not bad data.
I'd like to see Britain modify our policy to use Pfizer by preference for the elderly where the vaccinaiton point has both in stock, while still giving priority to getting everyone vaccinated. It's unfortunate as it turns out that we didn't order more of the Pfizer vaccine, but nobody expects Ministers or the NHS to be able to guess in advance what will work best.
CEO of AZ: words directly from the bastard child of Plato and Solomon.
Gary Matthews, 46, had been ill for around a week before getting positive test
Shropshire artist, who was a 'Covid denier', died alone in his flat the next day
Matthews 'suffered from asthma' and refused to adhere to pandemic measures“
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9196591/Covid-UK-Covid-denying-conspiracy-theorist-46-dies-coronavirus-refusing-wear-mask.html
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-55840764
'We've had also teething issues like this in the UK supply chain. But the UK contract was signed three months before the European vaccine deal. So with the UK we have had an extra three months to fix all the glitches we experienced. As for Europe, we are three months behind in fixing those glitches.'
Sturgeon is also quite happy to cross tiers when it suits her
https://twitter.com/ScotTories/status/1354780075124785160?s=20
It is supposed to be illegal, but there are ways round that for market makers.
This whole thing kicked off when some people noticed that there were more shares shorted than actual shares. So if they hold onto the shares.... well the prices could go to... who knows.
Friday will be interesting, in a watch-from-a-bunker-outside-the-blast-radius kind of way
My point is, in trying to deal with this at pace, I don't think we really have the luxury to focus different vaccines on different demographics at the moment.
Re-posting great article:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2021-01-26/will-wallstreetbets-face-sec-scrutiny-after-gamestop-rally-kke9fpzq
Looking for evidence from SARS vaccines, I found this quote. It has not aged well:
New York, NY (February 22, 2020)
"Seventeen years after the severe acute respiratory syndrome (Sars) outbreak and seven years since the first Middle East respiratory syndrome (Mers) case, there is still no coronavirus vaccine despite dozens of attempts to develop them. “Everybody is hoping that this can still be controlled, but the realistic chance that it can be controlled is low. So then what is going to happen is that this is going to spread worldwide,” said Florian Krammer, PhD, professor of microbiology at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai."
— Florian Krammer, PhD, Professor, Microbiology, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai
Scottish public sector pay: not the UK govt pay freeze, but minimum 3% increase for those on salaries up to £25k, with £750 cap. Those on higher salaries, +1% capped at £800.
SG offers councils £90m to let them freeze council tax, equivalent to a 3% rise.
Short-term reduction on Land and Buildings Transaction Tax to be ended as planned. First time buyer relief to remain in place.
£250 million over the next five years for green jobs workforce and additional woodland planting - courting Scottish Greens in a major way.
Rather like the "send in the gunboats" on French fishermen.
Inspectors using their inspection rights.
https://www.repubblica.it/cronaca/2021/01/26/news/interview_pascal_soriot_ceo_astrazeneca_coronavirus_covid_vaccines-284349628/
1. Most of the GME shorts have already exited the market
So...
2. Most of the people buying now are attempting to drive out shorts that no longer exist
And
3. It's quite possible for there to be more of the stock sold short than exists. One person borrows stock and sells it. The person who the stock has been sold to lends it out again.
It's going to be very ugly when a while bunch of Reddit traders see their paper profits (and their savings) disappear.
This reminds me of this: https://xkcd.com/1570/
Should the UK be reliant on home-grown vaccines, the achievement of herd immunity through the vaccination of 75% of the population could be pushed back by nearly two months, according to analysis by the data analytics firm, Airfinity.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/28/belgium-launches-investigation-of-astrazeneca-vaccine-plant?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other
A week behind bars for Rita Ora might encourager les autres. Won't happen. Has she even been fined?
Of course, since then gold has gone up by almost a factor of ten. costing the UK a massive fortune. And yet some people still think we should listen to this idiot.
Sensible CEOs will make sure that everything they tell you is true.
The idea that any CEO will willingly tell you The (Whole) Truth is for the birds.
So- in this case, the AZ CEO was right not to recognise the 8 % figure- though it would have been interesting to know what he would have said had the German newspaper published 6 %. But he was also doing his job when he didn't volunteer the mathematically true point that "we simply don't know what the efficacy with oldies is, because the trial was too small".
Doesn't just apply to CEOs, of course. One of the curiosities of political chat is how easily we all (me included, I'm sure) can flip between rigorous fact-checking and utter credulity, depending on what helps us at that moment.
https://twitter.com/owainpj/status/1354598288201297923?s=20
European based production relies on the UK supply chain the make vaccines and other products. If they put up an export ban the UK will retaliate in kind and then no one gets anything because they can't actually make anything without the UK supply chain.
Not exactly like for like.
As, by the way is that of the MHRA, should the other outcome occur.
https://twitter.com/JournoStephen/status/1354812112837611527?s=20
'Boris Johnson’s Scotland trip is a gift to the SNP
He’ll be at it again today. Mark my words. Or, rather, mark his. For Johnson will, as always, talk about the glories of the United Kingdom and all the support it has offered Scotland during this pandemic. There is the furlough scheme, of course, and there will be talk of the vaccine programme and the broad shoulders of the United Kingdom state and about how the army — now seemingly rebranded as the 'British army' — is supporting everything and it all shows how much better we are together.
Well, all of this could be true. It is possible to believe all of this in good faith while also recognising that it is a hopeless way of persuading those who need to be persuaded. For, implicitly, it asks them to believe that, perhaps uniquely, an independent Scotland would not have been capable of organising an employment support scheme or purchasing vaccines (albeit perhaps not as promptly as the UK has managed) or having soldiers to help set up vaccination centres or anything else. How have other countries coped without being part of the Prime Minister’s 'awesome foursome'?'
https://tinyurl.com/y24oj3wg
You take it all a bit too seriously when you do the faked outraged 'north Briton/provincial' self referencing as though lots of people are doing it. I like to self pity as much as the next guy though, so you do you.
I mean, if gold plummets tomorrow, should we be saying, "Shit, Gordon Brown made us £x milllion today. Go Gordo!"
Hardly.
Unfortunately, Pfizer (and Moderna) availability is low right now. If I'd been the German government (or even the EU), instead of threatening, I'd have been paying the mother of all subsidies to try and get now mRNA vaccine capacity built.
You catch, as the saying goes, more flies with honey than with vinegar.
Like they are achieving a high score in a computer game.
I liked the full-page newspaper ads they had in the late 70s - "As many wheels as a Rolls-Royce"; "Central locking - from the driver's seat you can easily lock all the doors"; "Faster than a Porsche - at a top speed of 60mph, you can easily overtake a Porsche doing 40"
https://twitter.com/SkyNews/status/1354815758857981955?s=20
Lighten up, you've no idea what really outrages me.
The next few weeks will be very revealing about AZ efficacy from one dose and in the over 65 year old cohort.
Was it a bad time to sell gold? Sure. Did the country actually end up worse off overall? Well, that’s an entirely different question.