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From Absence to Shortage to Glut – Covid 19 Vaccines in Just Nine Months – politicalbetting.com
From Absence to Shortage to Glut – Covid 19 Vaccines in Just Nine Months – politicalbetting.com
Just fourteen weeks ago, at the beginning of November, there was scepticism from many about whether a Covid vaccine would be possible, even given the low bar (50% efficacy against moderate symptoms) set by the World Health Organisation and the FDA. And even if one of the vaccine candidates did work, could it be produced in volume?
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There’s now a big light at the end of the tunnel, and we get closer to the end every day.
https://news.sky.com/story/covid-19-vaccines-giving-67-protection-after-three-weeks-large-scale-research-shows-12217943
For climate change: less is better.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/feb/14/life-savers-story-oxford-astrazeneca-coronavirus-vaccine-scientists
Supply is obviously the main constraint at present, but soon it will be the infrastructure around actually getting it into arms. That will be an issue for quite a few countries, and not just in the developing world.
I was hearing yesterday that they may be able to freeze dry the two mRNA ones?
He's right. Stop moaning about it and play. Nothing wrong with a surface that challenges batsmen. It's just that we're used to seam pitches not spin ones. In this test India have outperformed England in batting and bowling.
The world is lucky that the UK and USA backed the experimental vaccines. Had we all done what Europe have done we'd still be waiting.
Amusing that Brown claimed to have saved the world, but in one way Johnson has actually done so.
Easter is surely the target. Squish the prevalence of the bug now, big release for Easter.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/feb/15/covid-damaged-small-businesses-brexit-uk-eu-trading
The government removes almost all restrictions in March.
Cases spike.
Then the government is too scared to remove them until summer is almost done.
No, I don't think they're that stupid. But that has to be the biggest risk.
Researchers said Sunday they have identified a batch of similar troubling mutations in coronavirus samples circulating in the United States. They've not only drawn attention to them; they've come up with a better shorthand for referring to them. They've named them after birds.
The mutations all affect the same stretch of the spike protein -- the knob-like extension on the outside of the virus that it uses to dock onto the cells it infects, the researchers wrote in a pre-print report. It's not peer reviewed yet, but researchers are rushing such findings online to share them quickly with other experts.
The genetic stretch that is mutated, or changed, is called 677. The various changes are so similar that the researchers think evolution favors these particular variants. And it's in a troubling place, said Vaughn Cooper, director of the Center for Evolutionary Biology and Medicine at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, who worked on the study. “ This stretch of Spike is important because of its proximity to a region key for virulence," Cooper told CNN via email.
Fine article, Robert (minor quibble... I’m not not sure the Manhattan Project comparison holds up. The science, production technology and much of the infrastructure behind even the mRNA vaccines was well characterised and in place before the pandemic began: that was certainly not true in any respect for the bomb and WWII.)
The Secret History of the Shadow Campaign That Saved the 2020 Election
https://time.com/5936036/secret-2020-election-campaign/
The democracy deep state ?
The Left would love to have us believe it's all because of the NHS.
Clearly there are a LOT of players in this from the UK side who deserve credit. Kate Bingham was instrumental from a business background: the kind of ball-busting no nonsense spending of public money like a risk investor that got the job done. The contrast there with the EU should make europhiles weep and weep. Others too played key roles, from Matt Hancock, the scientists (of course!), the MHRA who worked on data in line, unlike the EU who stupidly waited to assess it when it was all in at the end, to Steve Bates, Patrick Vallance etc.
But behind it all is Boris Johnson. Whether by serendipity or foresight he has overseen this country's most important success since the Second World War.
The previous fastest ever vaccine development was 4 years. This one took 9 months and the UK led the world in the rollout.
https://news.sky.com/story/covid-19-a-rare-and-resounding-success-how-the-uks-great-vaccine-gamble-paid-off-12216311
It's a stunning success story. I know the Boris haters loathe to be told the truth but they will have to simply face up to the fact, as have I. On this Boris has been brilliant.
I don't want to be a Dismal Jimmy but having the vaccine and being able to administer it rapidly to the whole population are two different, and complementary, things. We've got to go through the whole of the population that were vaccinated in the last couple of months again by early April, as well as starting on the next stage.
It's going to tie up a lot of people, and facilities.
We are globally leading the way. Stunning. And I'm really not a nationalist.
https://who-africa.africa-newsroom.com/press/coronavirus-africa-covax-expects-to-start-sending-millions-of-covid19-vaccines-to-africa-in-february
As the UK has one of the highest death rates per million in the world there's nothing too wrong about vaccinating its citizens first
Dates do matter. Not all days are created equal. Our hospitality industry is on life support at the minute and Easter through to August is the cash cow that sector depends upon.
Losing January is no big deal to be frank. Losing February it's a shame about Valentine's Day but not that important either. Spring and summer though they matter.
If I were the Chancellor I would be saying to the PM and Health Secretary "is there a set of restrictions tough enough we can implement now, in order to do a major relaxation of restrictions in time for Easter". Squish it hard now, aiming to reopen for Easter. No halfarsed fannying around in purgatory still incapable to relax for Easter because we haven't done the job now.
Does the virus survive this in this country? How will it continue to infect enough people to continue transmitting in our society? As some societies have shown, notably NZ and smaller places like the Channel Islands, you can keep the virus out by successful border controls. It does not spontaneously arise, it needs chains of transmission. If the vaccines are giving even 70% protection against infection (and therefore transmission) how does it spread? How does it survive?
Is it possible that by the end of May we will be counting the number of new cases in the 10s, rapidly falling towards zero? I really cannot see why not. We will need to be alert to remaining pools of the virus in children, in the unvaccinated, in travelers who have not been vaccinated and are carriers and we will need to be particularly alert to variants against which our vaccinated bodies will be less protected but I now believe this will be over. Thank goodness and Boris for that.
If I had a free choice, I’d have AZ first dose and Pfizer second dose.
Unfortunately, I’m just too young to volunteer for the study.
A hard and fast squishing of prevalence now with a fuller reopening of the economy by Easter if viable is best for healthcare and best for the economy.
The first priority needs to be to get the schools open. Then, after some time to see the reaction, we can look at hospitality.
Opening things before the virus is under control, and remember the vast majority of parents of school-age children have jet to be vaccinated, will simply blow it up again and put restrictions back in place through the summer - which is the really important time for the hospitality sector.
Trying to put dates on things is just a bunch of backbenchers making noises. All it does politically is sets the government up to fail.
Though LOL I find it very amusing some bitter and twisted individual has marked your post and mine you replied to as Off Topic. I wonder if that sad, twisted individual even read the thread header since it's quite literally on topic.
Imagine being such a partisan hack that you are irritated that a vaccine that will save the world has been developed with our support.
In Christmas we didn't have the vaccine in deployment and we also reopened the lockdown after just four weeks. Its already been in place longer than that. Our prevalence now is already lower than it was when came out of lockdown in the autumn - heck it might even be lower than when we went into lockdown then.
Plus on top of the lower prevalence now we have tens of millions vaccinated. Finally there's also another six weeks to go for the vaccine deployment and lockdown to last before Easter - that's a long time when we're deploying millions of vaccines a week and R is well below 1.
There is no reason to fail, it just means working hard at it. Its doable.
"They got states to change voting systems and laws and helped secure hundreds of millions in public and private funding. They fended off voter-suppression lawsuits, recruited armies of poll workers and got millions of people to vote by mail for the first time."
and
"a well-funded cabal of powerful people, ranging across industries and ideologies, working together behind the scenes to influence perceptions, change rules and laws, steer media coverage and control the flow of information. They were not rigging the election; they were fortifying it."
and some of that absolutely fails the most basic sniff tests.
And the only way to do that without risk is to only do it when the numbers are low enough that any increase in actual numbers of people ill is small.
Worse once we are out of this lockdown there is no way that a 4th lockdown is going to work.
the safe plan would be for pubs to open in mid to late April which is after Easter but before the May bank holidays.
It reminds me of Dan Maskell who used to defend the grass surface at Wimbledon by saying that the true greats can win anywhere in the world playing on any surface.
This is fabulous cricket, just a shock to those of us used to Headingly.
I simply think it will be out of Govt hands by mid-late March in terms of people starting to live, meet, socialise perhaps even work outside.
And there goes Kholi! Should be easier to finish them off now.
The call has gone out for 25% capacity or whatever and the normal method of opening 25% of the stands looks to have been broadly followed.
In my part of the world there are four or five vaccination centres (smallish ones - not super centres). There are plenty of additional suitable venues such as church halls, sports centres and so on. Could easily expand the # places offering the jab.
My concern is that the achievement of the 15m target means there will be no push with NHS to increase the rate further.
Cruise control from now on.
Ministers need to act on this and put up more stretch targets.
Some of the F1 circuits did it well last year, with groups of four or six well spaced along the stands.
I reckon we are looking at:
Easter: eating and drinking outside
May Day: open indoors with restrictions
Whitsun: complete freedom
BUT it depends on progress with the virus. If it continues to fall at the current rate (about 27% per week) we'll still be seeing a couple of thousand new cases a day at Easter.
Tim Spector in his ZOE briefing last week almost predicted a significant dropping-off in deaths this week, let's see if that happens.
Note that the invocation must be temporary and has to be voted through by Parliament every six months. I think (though I`m not sure) that the current six month period expires 30 March.
The legality of lockdown measures will I`m sure be scrutinised by the Covid Recovery Group and others over the next few weeks.
www.lawgazette.co.uk/legal-updates/why-did-government-not-use-the-civil-contingencies-act/5103742.article
https://twitter.com/alanferrier/status/1361216156766453762?s=21
Now I'm not a rigid "just end all restrictions by May" type. BUT I think we should have a timeline to plan for re-opening. Maybe 5 points on the road ahead for the next three months. The first of those points will be three weeks ahead. And we will know at least two weeks in advance that we'll go ahead with implementing that re-opening. For us not to go ahead will require things to have got materially worse than projections. The only way that happens is if people are dicks - and their actions get ahead of the opening schedule. So carrot and stick.
The purpose, stressed at the time, is that if we keep to the plan, then there should never again be any need for lockdowns - or even obtrusive restrictions on living your day to day lives. Foreign holidays are still outside these restrictions. That (and inward travel) will be kept under review but will be the very last to go - because of the risk of that being the vector that could undo all the good work.
But we could be seeing the endgame for Covid in this country.
But the whole point I'm making is we should be targeting to get the numbers low enough by Easter. Currently we're seeing numbers decrease by about 25-33% per week and its been accelerating not decelerating as the vaccine rollout continues.
If we can keep that going until the end of March then we could have a prevalence in the hundreds per day not tens of thousands per day.
https://twitter.com/ERCOT_ISO/status/1361215084010352644
Then we have my office in the former bank. Got that set up nicely yesterday, only using one room at the moment but it'll be a big improvement on the corner of my old dining room. The rest of the bank is either empty or storage for all our garage stuff that was too slippery to drag up the rear drive to the garage in the snow.
Huge huge potential. Also huge opportunity to spend flipping great wodges of cash* modernising the place. It is absolutely habitable, but needs listed-friendly double glazing, likely loft and floor insulation, a new eco boiler, likely solar on the garage (south facing double-length) roof etc. Happily the Scottish government makes cash available in the form of grants and long term interest free loans. McHuzzah!
*ok so dropping nearly £2k ordering a new telly doesn't help. But having spent £lots on solicitors, removal service, estate agents etc what does it matter?
Vaccine effect I think. Especially the vaccine of NHS and Care staff kicking in who were inevitably prime superspreaders.
As the vaccine rollout continues R should continue to be pressured down by the vaccine, instead of by restrictions. That is the endgame. Prevalence low enough and R lowered by vaccine and lockdowns will be history.
(Wonder who gets the reference)
I see Baker is asking for silly things.
Heck even in a none Covid winter we wouldn't have done anything this week due to the ice.
If England had been able to play a second spinner with decent control, and Root had not got out to a careless sweep, the match would have looked very different.
Bottom line is that irrespective of the toss, we were outplayed. And it also demonstrates how much more dependent on Root we are than India on Kohli.
Just a post to say I have not been entering the debates on here for a few days due to family health issues and other pressing matters but I have not been banned ( as far as I am aware) and do catch up the banter, but to be honest I do not have a lot of bandwidth at present
Incidentally at a point we do need to operate to a timescale and we are coming up fast to that point. Simply said a firm can't just be told "you can open" and that's it they turn the key and are trading the next day. Weeks of planning will likely be needed.
Especially since I do not think even an Easter opening would be an opening with all restrictions lifted - that's more likely June. Instead it might be a case of open but outdoors only in which case premises may need to invest to make that work.
Hindsight is 20:20.
He looked likethe best candidate to most people, by no means all in Labour, at the time.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/formula1/56030222
If so, I've heard that in other categories this has led to backmarker teams focusing on the sprint race to the detriment of the proper race, which could throw up some qualifying betting potential.
Case numbers no higher than X while hospital numbers are no higher than Y and ICU numbers no higher than Z with vaccination down to Group whatever completed (and ALL four must be met) mean that we'll try [insert single relaxation; eg schools back] and watch how R changes for two weeks before [insert next step with same metrics].
The error of giving specific dates and then finding out that the virus doesn't care about published timetables wouldn't be repeated.
Many thanks. Any tips for third test?
Interesting discussion on whether we should now be aiming to wipe the disease out (which means more lockdown and then total freedom) or go for a maintenance strategy (accept it's permanent, and take some precautions): https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/feb/14/coronavirus-covid-19-cost-price-life
I'm a big fan of the QALY approach but see its limitations here.