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Silencing Us – politicalbetting.com

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  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 54,503
    Is Italy really both seizing vaccines destined for export, on the same day as banning their use domestically?

    What a total and utter clusterf***, let’s hope no Brits are planning to holiday in Europe this summer...
  • EndillionEndillion Posts: 4,976
    rcs1000 said:

    Leon said:
    How many German politicians have shares in BioNTech?
    Oh come on @williamglenn.

    Other than us, how many developed countries - outside of the EU - are actually using AstraZeneca today?

    I can think of one: Canada.

    Who else?

    Is everyone in BioNTech's pocket?
    They do have super, duper, humungously deep pockets.

    Also, excluding the UK and EU from "developed" countries doesn't leave all that many. It's really just the US, Australia, NZ, Japan and S Korea who aren't. The latter three don't have anything like as much of a pressing need as most of the EU - and the US has lots of home grown options.

    Oh, and Switzerland. Whatever.
  • MattWMattW Posts: 22,983
    Pulpstar said:

    MaxPB said:

    I’ll admit to being slightly underwhelmed by today’s vax numbers. I’d hoped to be well north of 350k today, paving the way for a 650k later in the week. We’ve got a lot of catching up to do after a very slow early March.

    I don't think there's any need to worry. The cavalry is just over the hill, in about 20 days we're going to get deliveries of Novavax and Moderna, the former will dwarf our Pfizer deliveries very quickly as we have bought 100% of domestic capacity until all 60m doses are delivered and Novavax are a specialist vaccine company unlike AZ who had little to no expertise in the field when they got the Oxford deal. It's a bit like Gandalf arriving with the Rohirrim after 5 days in the battle of Helm's Deep, we know he's on the way and ultimately will lead us to victory.
    I'm fascinated as to which one I'll be getting.
    Interesting that you choose Helm's Deep, not the Pelennor Fields.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 54,503
    MaxPB said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Leon said:
    How many German politicians have shares in BioNTech?
    Oh come on @williamglenn.

    Other than us, how many developed countries - outside of the EU - are actually using AstraZeneca today?

    I can think of one: Canada.

    Who else?

    Is everyone in BioNTech's pocket?
    Obviously that isn't the case, however, there does seem to be a convenient overabundance of caution in Europe over the AZ vaccine that isn't being applied to Pfizer despite having an identical rate of side effects and identical rate of post vaccination blood clots (which is, unsurprisingly.

    It really does seem as though the countries of the EU have decided to "suffocate" AZ as Mario Draghi put it so eloquently a couple of weeks ago. They're getting their revenge by purposefully muddying the waters for the AZ vaccine and trying to tarnish AZ's reputation. It's really the only explanation that makes sense right now.

    Australia is rolling out AZ btw, successfully too.
    Meanwhile the SII is gearing up for a billion AZ does for the Covax effort, just as the third-world WhatsApp conspiracy theorists really get going with quoting senior EU politicians saying it’s not safe.
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 53,752
    Floater said:
    This is rapidly moving from manslaughter caused by incompetence to outright bloody murder. Politicians making deliberate decisions to kill large numbers of people. In Scotland, at least, a reckless indifference as to the consequences of your actions is sufficient for it to be murder. No problem. No problem at all.
  • BromBrom Posts: 3,760
    justin124 said:

    IPSOS has Labour polling quite well, just the Tories are polling even better!!!!

    38% is historically good for Labour, it's just unfortunate the Tories are currently so far ahead

    IPSOS has Labour polling quite well, just the Tories are polling even better!!!!

    38% is historically good for Labour, it's just unfortunate the Tories are currently so far ahead

    38% is not a bad vote share for Labour - particularly in the context of Scotland having knocked circa 2% of the party's GB vote share relative to pre-2015.This is a higher level than achieved at elections by Callaghan,Foot, Kinnock, Millband, and Brown. Moreover, Blair only managed 36% in 2005 whilst Wilson matched 38% in Feb 1974.
    45% is good for the Tories - but likely to be flattered by the pandemic vaccination bounce.
    This poll implies 23 Labour gains from the Tories on the basis of UNS.
    I agree 38% is not bad, though their average over the past month is 36% and it appears to be following a downward trend.
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 78,081
    I wonder if Boris will end up having the Astra vaccination....
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 57,031
    Endillion said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Leon said:
    How many German politicians have shares in BioNTech?
    Oh come on @williamglenn.

    Other than us, how many developed countries - outside of the EU - are actually using AstraZeneca today?

    I can think of one: Canada.

    Who else?

    Is everyone in BioNTech's pocket?
    They do have super, duper, humungously deep pockets.

    Also, excluding the UK and EU from "developed" countries doesn't leave all that many. It's really just the US, Australia, NZ, Japan and S Korea who aren't. The latter three don't have anything like as much of a pressing need as most of the EU - and the US has lots of home grown options.

    Oh, and Switzerland. Whatever.
    The point is that there is enormous - largely unwarranted - scepticism about the AZ vaccine, going all the way back to the initial release of efficacy data. Remember this, all the way back in November: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/25/business/coronavirus-vaccine-astrazeneca-oxford.html

    Or this, from last September: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/19/health/astrazeneca-vaccine-safety-blueprints.html

    Or this: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2261092-do-oxford-astrazeneca-covid-19-vaccine-results-stand-up-to-scrutiny/

    How about this from the trial in India: https://www.bmj.com/content/371/bmj.m4734
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 54,503
    rcs1000 said:

    Leon said:
    How many German politicians have shares in BioNTech?
    Oh come on @williamglenn.

    Other than us, how many developed countries - outside of the EU - are actually using AstraZeneca today?

    I can think of one: Canada.

    Who else?

    Is everyone in BioNTech's pocket?
    UAE are using it.
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 51,483
    edited March 2021
    Sandpit said:

    MaxPB said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Leon said:
    How many German politicians have shares in BioNTech?
    Oh come on @williamglenn.

    Other than us, how many developed countries - outside of the EU - are actually using AstraZeneca today?

    I can think of one: Canada.

    Who else?

    Is everyone in BioNTech's pocket?
    Obviously that isn't the case, however, there does seem to be a convenient overabundance of caution in Europe over the AZ vaccine that isn't being applied to Pfizer despite having an identical rate of side effects and identical rate of post vaccination blood clots (which is, unsurprisingly.

    It really does seem as though the countries of the EU have decided to "suffocate" AZ as Mario Draghi put it so eloquently a couple of weeks ago. They're getting their revenge by purposefully muddying the waters for the AZ vaccine and trying to tarnish AZ's reputation. It's really the only explanation that makes sense right now.

    Australia is rolling out AZ btw, successfully too.
    Meanwhile the SII is gearing up for a billion AZ does for the Covax effort, just as the third-world WhatsApp conspiracy theorists really get going with quoting senior EU politicians saying it’s not safe.
    Since January, the person in charge of GAVI is the former President of the EU Commission, José Manuel Barroso...
  • eekeek Posts: 28,257
    Sandpit said:

    MaxPB said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Leon said:
    How many German politicians have shares in BioNTech?
    Oh come on @williamglenn.

    Other than us, how many developed countries - outside of the EU - are actually using AstraZeneca today?

    I can think of one: Canada.

    Who else?

    Is everyone in BioNTech's pocket?
    Obviously that isn't the case, however, there does seem to be a convenient overabundance of caution in Europe over the AZ vaccine that isn't being applied to Pfizer despite having an identical rate of side effects and identical rate of post vaccination blood clots (which is, unsurprisingly.

    It really does seem as though the countries of the EU have decided to "suffocate" AZ as Mario Draghi put it so eloquently a couple of weeks ago. They're getting their revenge by purposefully muddying the waters for the AZ vaccine and trying to tarnish AZ's reputation. It's really the only explanation that makes sense right now.

    Australia is rolling out AZ btw, successfully too.
    Meanwhile the SII is gearing up for a billion AZ does for the Covax effort, just as the third-world WhatsApp conspiracy theorists really get going with quoting senior EU politicians saying it’s not safe.
    That’s the real problem here - those who are anti-vaccination for any reason have plenty of “evidence” to proof their point.

    The damage here isn’t the 1785 deal that mentioned below its potentially millions across the third world
  • Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826
    rcs1000 said:

    Leon said:
    How many German politicians have shares in BioNTech?
    Oh come on @williamglenn.

    Other than us, how many developed countries - outside of the EU - are actually using AstraZeneca today?

    I can think of one: Canada.

    Who else?

    Is everyone in BioNTech's pocket?
    India?

    Australia but then the Italians pinched their doses?

    Much of the developing world via Covax?

    Lots of countries are.
  • EndillionEndillion Posts: 4,976
    DavidL said:

    Endillion said:

    Struggling to care about this one, and failing miserably.

    Throughout my lifetime, I cannot remember a single protest that accomplished anything other than to irritate everyone who couldn't get out of its way. They aren't some magical hugely important central plank of our democracy; they're an escape valve for people who can't accept that they lost the argument at the last election. They're a blight to the rest of us and the police are far too indulgent of them.

    A million or thereabouts marched for foxhunting, against the Iraq War, against Brexit, against austerity, etc. Other than minor second order impacts to London's economy, there was no discernible effect, nor did I ever seriously expect there to be. So why should I care if those rights are impeded?

    The poll tax was overturned because people started rioting, not orderly protesting. And if the government ever does go full-on fascist and start cancelling elections, do I really think even ten million people chanting and waving placards is going to make the slightest bit of difference? No. So, why do I care?

    I really don't agree. I have very rarely ever taken part in protests but it would be absurd to argue that they do not change the conversation and way people think about things.

    If you think about the protected characteristics in the Equality Act, gender, race, disability, sexual orientation the general public's views have changed massively over my lifetime and this has largely happened due to protest. Even views on sexual reassignment are changing in part as a result of protest.

    Topics such as global warming and the environment have largely been kept in the news by protest. This is how democracy works. And this is a good thing that should not be overly restricted as it would be by this bill even if it can be annoying.
    I agree it's a nice theory. I cannot honestly say I see how it works in practice.

    Global warming was front page news for years before XR came along - it sells papers, because fear is an excellent motivator. The Independent had some variant of "we're all going to die from climate change" as a front page headline very other day for years. The recent round of protests has resulted from it being high up the news agenda for so long, not the other way round - look at how much oxygen was given to the likes of Greta Thunberg.

    As to the Equality Act: really? I can't recall a single physical protest that related in any way to that particular piece of legislation, or any of its predecessors. I could probably argue that public attitudes have changed so much precisely because of a general lack of hippies chanting loudly in our streets, in favour of more sociable and productive forms of persuasion. But I have spent almost zero time thinking about that one, so I won't. Yet.
  • And now France
  • CarlottaVanceCarlottaVance Posts: 60,216
    Fecking "mental" would have been my description:

    https://twitter.com/PoliticsForAlI/status/1371481799944192009?s=20
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 54,503

    OT the Gambling Commission is looking for a new boss.

    Neil McArthur, Chief Executive of the Gambling Commission, has announced that he will be leaving the organisation after nearly 15 years. He joined the Commission in 2006 and was General Counsel before rising to the role of Chief Executive in 2018.
    https://www.gamblingcommission.gov.uk/news-action-and-statistics/news/2021/Gambling-Commission-CEO-announces-departure.aspx

    Let us hope the next chief knows something about betting and is not obsessed by age checks.

    Football Index fallout, after they approved what many commentators could see was a Ponzi scheme?
  • MattWMattW Posts: 22,983
    edited March 2021
    Leon said:

    MaxPB said:

    I’ll admit to being slightly underwhelmed by today’s vax numbers. I’d hoped to be well north of 350k today, paving the way for a 650k later in the week. We’ve got a lot of catching up to do after a very slow early March.

    I don't think there's any need to worry. The cavalry is just over the hill, in about 20 days we're going to get deliveries of Novavax and Moderna, the former will dwarf our Pfizer deliveries very quickly as we have bought 100% of domestic capacity until all 60m doses are delivered and Novavax are a specialist vaccine company unlike AZ who had little to no expertise in the field when they got the Oxford deal. It's a bit like Gandalf arriving with the Rohirrim after 5 days in the battle of Helm's Deep, we know he's on the way and ultimately will lead us to victory.
    If we do 20 days at ~400,000 (or more) a day (which seems very plausible on he rumours) we will do another 8-10m adults, on top of the 24m done already. 50% of the country will be vaxxed, at least. Another surge after that means herd immunity by May?
    Quite a bit closer than that imo.

    Half of adults is a little under 27 million. As you say, currently 24 million done, of whom 1.6m have had 2 doses.

    Target is about 48 million adults at 90% acceptance. Which means that half at 90% acceptance are already done.


  • Time_to_LeaveTime_to_Leave Posts: 2,547
    They won’t mind exporting then.
  • FPT
    Sandpit said:


    Its the leased line element I don't understand. In England I had 100Mbps fibre. Yes it would slow below that, but was regularly up at 100. Here, a leased line talks about 10Mb/s speeds - at that kind of speed stuff slows down! I don't get it, why is 10Mbps even a stable constant 10Mbps speed any good and why bother with a vastly expensive fibre just to be that slow?

    They’re very different products. A leased line is designed for an ultra-stable and reliable business platform, will have enterprise-grade (expensive!) equipment at both ends, and more likely to used for moving small amounts of data in both directions.

    The bank would use it for the connection between the branch and the head office mainframe transactional computer over a VPN connection, which has to stay up 99.99% of the time and not lose any data on the way.

    A consumer fibre line, on the other hand, is designed for moving large amounts of data in one direction, using cheap equipment, and with no guarantee of either reliability or download speed.

    The trick is to try and find out where the other end of the cable goes, probably from BT. Sadly, it probably ends up in a corporate data centre somewhere, from which there’s no chance of a regular home broadband connection without a massive installation charge (five figures).

    Ask your neighbours what they use for internet and ask that provider for service, mentioning the old fibre you found. As others have said, also register an interest with Starlink for when their satellite service goes live.
    Fibre to the Cabinet is available - just annoying that the super fast fibre wire is likely to stay redundant. Have got Sky at home (next door to the office) - wifi runs 15-20Mbps slower than the access line speed even if you stand right next to it. So we can get a business broadband / phone connection in here, its just annoying that its not as fast as it could be .
  • EndillionEndillion Posts: 4,976
    rcs1000 said:

    Endillion said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Leon said:
    How many German politicians have shares in BioNTech?
    Oh come on @williamglenn.

    Other than us, how many developed countries - outside of the EU - are actually using AstraZeneca today?

    I can think of one: Canada.

    Who else?

    Is everyone in BioNTech's pocket?
    They do have super, duper, humungously deep pockets.

    Also, excluding the UK and EU from "developed" countries doesn't leave all that many. It's really just the US, Australia, NZ, Japan and S Korea who aren't. The latter three don't have anything like as much of a pressing need as most of the EU - and the US has lots of home grown options.

    Oh, and Switzerland. Whatever.
    The point is that there is enormous - largely unwarranted - scepticism about the AZ vaccine, going all the way back to the initial release of efficacy data. Remember this, all the way back in November: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/25/business/coronavirus-vaccine-astrazeneca-oxford.html

    Or this, from last September: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/19/health/astrazeneca-vaccine-safety-blueprints.html

    Or this: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2261092-do-oxford-astrazeneca-covid-19-vaccine-results-stand-up-to-scrutiny/

    How about this from the trial in India: https://www.bmj.com/content/371/bmj.m4734
    Yes, I agree they stuffed up the trial. The US has no reason to rush in because they have options, and APAC has no reason to because they don't have thousands of people who will die if they don't. Neither applies to the EU, so the argument they're motivated by reasons other than the science (and let's face it, the UK is currently conducting a much more convincing trial than the one that approval was based on) makes sense. It's much more likely to be Brexit related than due to financial incentives, but still...
  • TimTTimT Posts: 6,468
    edited March 2021
    This does not seem right. Say France is having 1/2000 of its population infected each day (25k/50m for round numbers), of the 100k not vaccinated today, we'd expect 50 to get COVID. Of those, maybe 1 would be expected to die.

    I agree with the underlying sentiment of the analysis, but you do yourself a disservice if you can't do the maths correctly.
  • isamisam Posts: 41,118
    edited March 2021

    IPSOS has Labour polling quite well, just the Tories are polling even better!!!!

    38% is historically good for Labour, it's just unfortunate the Tories are currently so far ahead

    Jezza got 41%, and his critics say that doesn’t matter because the Tories got 43% thanks to him being Labour leader

    So where does 45/38 leave Sir Keir and his army of excuse makers?
  • philiphphiliph Posts: 4,704
    Leon said:
    I'm so worried. How do I get my AZ removed?

    The insanity is of a new order not seen before.

    Those that have had a vaccine feel liberated and full of hope. It changes the mood of a community, family, workplace or country.

    A lot of very silly people on that fog bound continent.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 54,503
    MaxPB said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Endillion said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Leon said:
    How many German politicians have shares in BioNTech?
    Oh come on @williamglenn.

    Other than us, how many developed countries - outside of the EU - are actually using AstraZeneca today?

    I can think of one: Canada.

    Who else?

    Is everyone in BioNTech's pocket?
    They do have super, duper, humungously deep pockets.

    Also, excluding the UK and EU from "developed" countries doesn't leave all that many. It's really just the US, Australia, NZ, Japan and S Korea who aren't. The latter three don't have anything like as much of a pressing need as most of the EU - and the US has lots of home grown options.

    Oh, and Switzerland. Whatever.
    The point is that there is enormous - largely unwarranted - scepticism about the AZ vaccine, going all the way back to the initial release of efficacy data. Remember this, all the way back in November: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/25/business/coronavirus-vaccine-astrazeneca-oxford.html

    Or this, from last September: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/19/health/astrazeneca-vaccine-safety-blueprints.html

    Or this: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2261092-do-oxford-astrazeneca-covid-19-vaccine-results-stand-up-to-scrutiny/

    How about this from the trial in India: https://www.bmj.com/content/371/bmj.m4734
    And yet the real world data from the UK is absolutely first rate, the issue here is absolutely a political one rather than medical. Politicians of Europe have decided that AZ delivering to Brexit Britain as a priority and not the EU is beyond the pale and are now trying to "suffocate" AZ and it's business. Obviously it's not going to work because there isn't anything wrong with the vaccine and all they're really doing is harming their own people and economies. Still, it's about what I've come to expect from them.
    If all they were doing was harming their own, it wouldn’t be quite so bad.

    They’re also badly undermining Covax and the global effort to get the world vaccinated, thus prolonging the pandemic everywhere by months if not years, at a cost of millions of lives and trillions of dollars.
  • CarlottaVanceCarlottaVance Posts: 60,216
    News of German authorities’ decision to suspend the use of the AstraZeneca vaccine until further studies have been carried out, has spread like wildfire throughout Germany, with the leading tabloid Bild, referring to it as ‘shock news’ that had ‘fallen like a hammer’ on Germany and would have a massive impact on the already sow vaccine roll out in Germany.

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2021/mar/15/coronavirus-live-news-astrazeneca-finds-no-evidence-of-blood-clot-risk-as-netherlands-suspends-vaccine?page=with:block-604f7d3c8f0860686c6faa23#block-604f7d3c8f0860686c6faa23
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 53,752
    MattW said:

    Pulpstar said:

    MaxPB said:

    I’ll admit to being slightly underwhelmed by today’s vax numbers. I’d hoped to be well north of 350k today, paving the way for a 650k later in the week. We’ve got a lot of catching up to do after a very slow early March.

    I don't think there's any need to worry. The cavalry is just over the hill, in about 20 days we're going to get deliveries of Novavax and Moderna, the former will dwarf our Pfizer deliveries very quickly as we have bought 100% of domestic capacity until all 60m doses are delivered and Novavax are a specialist vaccine company unlike AZ who had little to no expertise in the field when they got the Oxford deal. It's a bit like Gandalf arriving with the Rohirrim after 5 days in the battle of Helm's Deep, we know he's on the way and ultimately will lead us to victory.
    I'm fascinated as to which one I'll be getting.
    Interesting that you choose Helm's Deep, not the Pelennor Fields.
    It was the battle of Helm's deep that made the competition about who was to accompany me to the next LOTR film quite so intense in my family. My wife would never believe it was only 5 days long, never.
  • philiphphiliph Posts: 4,704
    MaxPB said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Endillion said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Leon said:
    How many German politicians have shares in BioNTech?
    Oh come on @williamglenn.

    Other than us, how many developed countries - outside of the EU - are actually using AstraZeneca today?

    I can think of one: Canada.

    Who else?

    Is everyone in BioNTech's pocket?
    They do have super, duper, humungously deep pockets.

    Also, excluding the UK and EU from "developed" countries doesn't leave all that many. It's really just the US, Australia, NZ, Japan and S Korea who aren't. The latter three don't have anything like as much of a pressing need as most of the EU - and the US has lots of home grown options.

    Oh, and Switzerland. Whatever.
    The point is that there is enormous - largely unwarranted - scepticism about the AZ vaccine, going all the way back to the initial release of efficacy data. Remember this, all the way back in November: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/25/business/coronavirus-vaccine-astrazeneca-oxford.html

    Or this, from last September: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/19/health/astrazeneca-vaccine-safety-blueprints.html

    Or this: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2261092-do-oxford-astrazeneca-covid-19-vaccine-results-stand-up-to-scrutiny/

    How about this from the trial in India: https://www.bmj.com/content/371/bmj.m4734
    And yet the real world data from the UK is absolutely first rate, the issue here is absolutely a political one rather than medical. Politicians of Europe have decided that AZ delivering to Brexit Britain as a priority and not the EU is beyond the pale and are now trying to "suffocate" AZ and it's business. Obviously it's not going to work because there isn't anything wrong with the vaccine and all they're really doing is harming their own people and economies. Still, it's about what I've come to expect from them.
    Can we get RAF to drop leaflets to the citizens of Europe?
  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 119,482
    edited March 2021
    As policy screw ups with the potential resultant deaths this has to be a screw up as Boris Johnson's repeated failures to lockdown earlier or shut the bloody border.

    All they have to do is look at the UK at the successful roll out of the AZN vaccine.

    Do they know something we don't?

    Have they got a bad batch or something?
  • SlackbladderSlackbladder Posts: 9,772
    Italy as well.

    Madness. They'll be stuck with COVID all summer.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 49,984
    TimT said:

    This does not seem right. Say France is having 1/2000 of its population infected each day (25k/50m for round numbers), of the 100k not vaccinated today, we'd expect 50 to get COVID. Of those, maybe 1 would be expected to die.
    The true rate of COVID is always greatly in excess of the numbers found through testing.

    A more accurate method would be to look at the profile of those entering hospital and dying of COVID. We know that the vaccinations stop this almost completely.....
  • Time_to_LeaveTime_to_Leave Posts: 2,547
    edited March 2021
    Imagine you’re on the AZ board. You have a fiduciary duty to an Anglo-Swedish firm. Where are you now going to invest? Madness. The Swedes have to speak out don’t they?
  • Time_to_LeaveTime_to_Leave Posts: 2,547
    edited March 2021
    Duplicate - deleted.
  • MaxPB said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Endillion said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Leon said:
    How many German politicians have shares in BioNTech?
    Oh come on @williamglenn.

    Other than us, how many developed countries - outside of the EU - are actually using AstraZeneca today?

    I can think of one: Canada.

    Who else?

    Is everyone in BioNTech's pocket?
    They do have super, duper, humungously deep pockets.

    Also, excluding the UK and EU from "developed" countries doesn't leave all that many. It's really just the US, Australia, NZ, Japan and S Korea who aren't. The latter three don't have anything like as much of a pressing need as most of the EU - and the US has lots of home grown options.

    Oh, and Switzerland. Whatever.
    The point is that there is enormous - largely unwarranted - scepticism about the AZ vaccine, going all the way back to the initial release of efficacy data. Remember this, all the way back in November: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/25/business/coronavirus-vaccine-astrazeneca-oxford.html

    Or this, from last September: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/19/health/astrazeneca-vaccine-safety-blueprints.html

    Or this: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2261092-do-oxford-astrazeneca-covid-19-vaccine-results-stand-up-to-scrutiny/

    How about this from the trial in India: https://www.bmj.com/content/371/bmj.m4734
    And yet the real world data from the UK is absolutely first rate, the issue here is absolutely a political one rather than medical. Politicians of Europe have decided that AZ delivering to Brexit Britain as a priority and not the EU is beyond the pale and are now trying to "suffocate" AZ and it's business. Obviously it's not going to work because there isn't anything wrong with the vaccine and all they're really doing is harming their own people and economies. Still, it's about what I've come to expect from them.
    How anyone could even start to defend the EU and their member's behaviour over the last three months regarding the initial A16 threat, the clear intent to discredit AZN, and apparently have served papers on the UK over NI today and are threatening us with the ECJ

    This is not going to end well for the EU or it's member states when their populations realise how their leaders have prejudiced lives across Europe in a perceived witch-hunt over a pharmaceutical company

  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 70,892
    Leon said:

    Nigelb said:

    Leon said:

    Some excellent points, as ever - but again, written at such length it loses impact. A shame.

    I see you haven't entirely escaped the malign influence of Twitter.
    In this case on your attention span.
    Possibly some truth in that. In fact I believe this is scientifically proven: human attention spans have shortened with the advent of the Net.

    On the other hand lockdown has got me back reading long books, day in day out, a good habit I had lost.

    I just don't want to read long books on PB.
    They're hardly that.
    @Cyclefree has knocked out several articles recently, some of which simply wouldn't have been posted had she spent a couple of days polishing them. FWIW, I don't begrudge the few minutes they take to read.
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 38,683
    Sandpit said:

    MaxPB said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Endillion said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Leon said:
    How many German politicians have shares in BioNTech?
    Oh come on @williamglenn.

    Other than us, how many developed countries - outside of the EU - are actually using AstraZeneca today?

    I can think of one: Canada.

    Who else?

    Is everyone in BioNTech's pocket?
    They do have super, duper, humungously deep pockets.

    Also, excluding the UK and EU from "developed" countries doesn't leave all that many. It's really just the US, Australia, NZ, Japan and S Korea who aren't. The latter three don't have anything like as much of a pressing need as most of the EU - and the US has lots of home grown options.

    Oh, and Switzerland. Whatever.
    The point is that there is enormous - largely unwarranted - scepticism about the AZ vaccine, going all the way back to the initial release of efficacy data. Remember this, all the way back in November: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/25/business/coronavirus-vaccine-astrazeneca-oxford.html

    Or this, from last September: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/19/health/astrazeneca-vaccine-safety-blueprints.html

    Or this: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2261092-do-oxford-astrazeneca-covid-19-vaccine-results-stand-up-to-scrutiny/

    How about this from the trial in India: https://www.bmj.com/content/371/bmj.m4734
    And yet the real world data from the UK is absolutely first rate, the issue here is absolutely a political one rather than medical. Politicians of Europe have decided that AZ delivering to Brexit Britain as a priority and not the EU is beyond the pale and are now trying to "suffocate" AZ and it's business. Obviously it's not going to work because there isn't anything wrong with the vaccine and all they're really doing is harming their own people and economies. Still, it's about what I've come to expect from them.
    If all they were doing was harming their own, it wouldn’t be quite so bad.

    They’re also badly undermining Covax and the global effort to get the world vaccinated, thus prolonging the pandemic everywhere by months if not years, at a cost of millions of lives and trillions of dollars.
    I don't know if it will have any real effect. So far there doesn't seem to be any uptick in vaccine hesitancy outside of Europe. One thing about the majority of European media not being in English is that the stories don't spread as quickly or widely in Africa and Asia, it's an inbuilt firewall against this stuff. I also think having the Oxford University name attached to it as well as continued unquestioning support from the WHO will ultimately be worth more than what's happening in Europe.

    I think most people look at the shitfest in Europe and recognise it as something isolated to the EU.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 54,952
    edited March 2021
    TimT said:

    This does not seem right. Say France is having 1/2000 of its population infected each day (25k/50m for round numbers), of the 100k not vaccinated today, we'd expect 50 to get COVID. Of those, maybe 1 would be expected to die.

    I agree with the underlying sentiment of the analysis, but you do yourself a disservice if you can't do the maths correctly.
    You may be wrong as well. France has an astonishing CFR of 25%. Of every case reported, and resolved, a quarter die

    This suggests a lot of milder cases being untested and unreported, and/or they are very reluctant to close a case

    Nonetheless that will skew your figures higher?

    https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/france/

    Either way, if AZ is suspended across the entire EU (and that is basically the case now) that means millions of jabs will not happen as planned. Millions of jabs not happening will surely mean thousands of deaths and hospitalisation that WILL happen
  • Richard_TyndallRichard_Tyndall Posts: 32,370
    Yet another excellent header from Cyclefree. Agree with everything she writes here.

    What the Government forgets is that if they stop the right of people to protest legally then they will be inviting them to protest illegally. And they will, in increasing numbers and with the support of a significant section of society.

    They also forget that although they are currently in power they will not be forever. And the assumption that it is either themselves or the party opposite, in its current form, who will form a Government in 10 years time is a very dangerous one. Before asking any law involving the freedoms of the public one should always ask how they would look in the hands of someone less scrupulous than the current Parliament?
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 78,081
    Leon said:

    TimT said:

    This does not seem right. Say France is having 1/2000 of its population infected each day (25k/50m for round numbers), of the 100k not vaccinated today, we'd expect 50 to get COVID. Of those, maybe 1 would be expected to die.

    I agree with the underlying sentiment of the analysis, but you do yourself a disservice if you can't do the maths correctly.
    You may be wrong as well. France has an astonishing CFR of 25%. Of every case reported, and resolved, a quarter die

    This suggests a lot of milder cases being untested and unreported, and/or they are very reluctant to close a case

    Nonetheless that will skew your figures higher?

    https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/france/

    Either way, if AZ is suspended across the entire EU (and that is basically the case now) that means millions of jabs will not happen as planned. Millions of jabs not happening will surely mean thousands of deaths and hospitalisation that WILL happen
    France CFR is 2.2%

    Cases 4,071,662
    Deaths 90,429
  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 119,482
    edited March 2021
    My father has asked a question, anyone have an answer?

    What is going to happen to the EU citizens due their second AZN vaccine?

    These people are going to be in limbo and terrified for all the wrong reasons.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 54,952
    Pulpstar said:

    Leon said:

    TimT said:

    This does not seem right. Say France is having 1/2000 of its population infected each day (25k/50m for round numbers), of the 100k not vaccinated today, we'd expect 50 to get COVID. Of those, maybe 1 would be expected to die.

    I agree with the underlying sentiment of the analysis, but you do yourself a disservice if you can't do the maths correctly.
    You may be wrong as well. France has an astonishing CFR of 25%. Of every case reported, and resolved, a quarter die

    This suggests a lot of milder cases being untested and unreported, and/or they are very reluctant to close a case

    Nonetheless that will skew your figures higher?

    https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/france/

    Either way, if AZ is suspended across the entire EU (and that is basically the case now) that means millions of jabs will not happen as planned. Millions of jabs not happening will surely mean thousands of deaths and hospitalisation that WILL happen
    France CFR is 2.2%

    Cases 4,071,662
    Deaths 90,429
    Not of cases closed: ie "with an outcome". Recovered or died. See Worldometer.

    This is surely some statistical anomaly or French quirk, of course. But it does muddy the water
  • Richard_TyndallRichard_Tyndall Posts: 32,370
    edited March 2021
    Leon said:

    TimT said:

    This does not seem right. Say France is having 1/2000 of its population infected each day (25k/50m for round numbers), of the 100k not vaccinated today, we'd expect 50 to get COVID. Of those, maybe 1 would be expected to die.

    I agree with the underlying sentiment of the analysis, but you do yourself a disservice if you can't do the maths correctly.
    You may be wrong as well. France has an astonishing CFR of 25%. Of every case reported, and resolved, a quarter die

    This suggests a lot of milder cases being untested and unreported, and/or they are very reluctant to close a case

    Nonetheless that will skew your figures higher?

    https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/france/

    Either way, if AZ is suspended across the entire EU (and that is basically the case now) that means millions of jabs will not happen as planned. Millions of jabs not happening will surely mean thousands of deaths and hospitalisation that WILL happen
    Leon you tried this a few weeks ago and were as wrong then as you are now.

    Based on those Worldmeter numbers the CFR is (90,429/4,071,662)x100

    or 2.2%
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 54,503

    FPT

    Sandpit said:


    Its the leased line element I don't understand. In England I had 100Mbps fibre. Yes it would slow below that, but was regularly up at 100. Here, a leased line talks about 10Mb/s speeds - at that kind of speed stuff slows down! I don't get it, why is 10Mbps even a stable constant 10Mbps speed any good and why bother with a vastly expensive fibre just to be that slow?

    They’re very different products. A leased line is designed for an ultra-stable and reliable business platform, will have enterprise-grade (expensive!) equipment at both ends, and more likely to used for moving small amounts of data in both directions.

    The bank would use it for the connection between the branch and the head office mainframe transactional computer over a VPN connection, which has to stay up 99.99% of the time and not lose any data on the way.

    A consumer fibre line, on the other hand, is designed for moving large amounts of data in one direction, using cheap equipment, and with no guarantee of either reliability or download speed.

    The trick is to try and find out where the other end of the cable goes, probably from BT. Sadly, it probably ends up in a corporate data centre somewhere, from which there’s no chance of a regular home broadband connection without a massive installation charge (five figures).

    Ask your neighbours what they use for internet and ask that provider for service, mentioning the old fibre you found. As others have said, also register an interest with Starlink for when their satellite service goes live.
    Fibre to the Cabinet is available - just annoying that the super fast fibre wire is likely to stay redundant. Have got Sky at home (next door to the office) - wifi runs 15-20Mbps slower than the access line speed even if you stand right next to it. So we can get a business broadband / phone connection in here, its just annoying that its not as fast as it could be .
    The fibre you found is much more likely to be “super reliable” and “super expensive” in configuration, rather than “super fast”.

    Test the line speed of the home connection by plugging in a computer to to router with a network cable, rather than with wifi. If the router has moved with you, it might be worth resetting it or changing the wifi channel to eliminate local interference. Depending on the router and computer, a single wifi-connected device might not be able to make the quoted line speed under any conditions - try running two at the same time!
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 51,483
    MaxPB said:

    Sandpit said:

    MaxPB said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Endillion said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Leon said:
    How many German politicians have shares in BioNTech?
    Oh come on @williamglenn.

    Other than us, how many developed countries - outside of the EU - are actually using AstraZeneca today?

    I can think of one: Canada.

    Who else?

    Is everyone in BioNTech's pocket?
    They do have super, duper, humungously deep pockets.

    Also, excluding the UK and EU from "developed" countries doesn't leave all that many. It's really just the US, Australia, NZ, Japan and S Korea who aren't. The latter three don't have anything like as much of a pressing need as most of the EU - and the US has lots of home grown options.

    Oh, and Switzerland. Whatever.
    The point is that there is enormous - largely unwarranted - scepticism about the AZ vaccine, going all the way back to the initial release of efficacy data. Remember this, all the way back in November: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/25/business/coronavirus-vaccine-astrazeneca-oxford.html

    Or this, from last September: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/19/health/astrazeneca-vaccine-safety-blueprints.html

    Or this: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2261092-do-oxford-astrazeneca-covid-19-vaccine-results-stand-up-to-scrutiny/

    How about this from the trial in India: https://www.bmj.com/content/371/bmj.m4734
    And yet the real world data from the UK is absolutely first rate, the issue here is absolutely a political one rather than medical. Politicians of Europe have decided that AZ delivering to Brexit Britain as a priority and not the EU is beyond the pale and are now trying to "suffocate" AZ and it's business. Obviously it's not going to work because there isn't anything wrong with the vaccine and all they're really doing is harming their own people and economies. Still, it's about what I've come to expect from them.
    If all they were doing was harming their own, it wouldn’t be quite so bad.

    They’re also badly undermining Covax and the global effort to get the world vaccinated, thus prolonging the pandemic everywhere by months if not years, at a cost of millions of lives and trillions of dollars.
    I don't know if it will have any real effect. So far there doesn't seem to be any uptick in vaccine hesitancy outside of Europe. One thing about the majority of European media not being in English is that the stories don't spread as quickly or widely in Africa and Asia, it's an inbuilt firewall against this stuff. I also think having the Oxford University name attached to it as well as continued unquestioning support from the WHO will ultimately be worth more than what's happening in Europe.

    I think most people look at the shitfest in Europe and recognise it as something isolated to the EU.
    I'm slightly worried that it might somehow spill over and affect the COVAX rollout. The EU has been desperately trying to claim the credit for it, with their diplomats even suggesting that AZ vaccines delivered from South Korea had come from the EU. It's scandalous.
  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 119,482
    edited March 2021
    Conspiracy theorists fantatists are going to love this.

    https://twitter.com/rcolvile/status/1371486955352043522
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 38,683
    TimT said:

    This does not seem right. Say France is having 1/2000 of its population infected each day (25k/50m for round numbers), of the 100k not vaccinated today, we'd expect 50 to get COVID. Of those, maybe 1 would be expected to die.

    I agree with the underlying sentiment of the analysis, but you do yourself a disservice if you can't do the maths correctly.
    Surely there is a CFR differential in those eligible for the vaccine right now given that AZ has been approved for use in all ages in France and is being rolled out to older age groups first.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 70,892
    rcs1000 said:

    Leon said:
    How many German politicians have shares in BioNTech?
    Oh come on @williamglenn.

    Other than us, how many developed countries - outside of the EU - are actually using AstraZeneca today?

    I can think of one: Canada.

    Who else?

    Is everyone in BioNTech's pocket?
    South Korea, I think.
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 38,683
    Nigelb said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Leon said:
    How many German politicians have shares in BioNTech?
    Oh come on @williamglenn.

    Other than us, how many developed countries - outside of the EU - are actually using AstraZeneca today?

    I can think of one: Canada.

    Who else?

    Is everyone in BioNTech's pocket?
    South Korea, I think.
    Australia as well, NZ are expecting their first doses soon too and will roll it out.
  • RogerRoger Posts: 19,854
    edited March 2021
    The excellent Stephanie Flanders on why Brexit is ruining our economy and why notions of replacing the EU with the USA is ridiculous. We'd need at least four USA's

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000t1y3/newsnight-12032021
  • felixfelix Posts: 15,163

    My father has asked a question, anyone have an answer?

    What is going to happen to the EU citizens due their second AZN vaccine?

    Does people are going to be in limbo and terrified for all the wrong reasons.

    To deny them the second dose would require a new word in the dictionary to replace 'clusterfuck'. Maybe there could be a PB competition........
  • algarkirkalgarkirk Posts: 12,485
    alednam said:

    CycleFree is right to say that this government has sought at all stages to avoid scrutiny and challenge. He omits to say that Downing Street has appointed a Press Secretary apparently willing to go to the lengths of a Trumpian Press Secretary to ensure that the Prime Minister himself avoids scrutiny or challenge.

    Not quite. This government may want to rearrange the processes of communication, and we shall have to wait and see, I don't suppose they intend to make like any easier for its critics.

    There are two massive places for scrutiny and challenge. They are called Parliament and Elections. If either of those processes fail then the voters, MPs and Lords can only look at themselves. What on earth is the official opposition for?

    At a secondary level, I don't find any lack of scrutiny and challenge in the press (see for example The Guardian every day), radio and TV, online generally, PB and Twitter. What effect it has is of course a matter for voters, MPs and Lords. Back to the point above.

  • Richard_TyndallRichard_Tyndall Posts: 32,370
    Leon said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Leon said:

    TimT said:

    This does not seem right. Say France is having 1/2000 of its population infected each day (25k/50m for round numbers), of the 100k not vaccinated today, we'd expect 50 to get COVID. Of those, maybe 1 would be expected to die.

    I agree with the underlying sentiment of the analysis, but you do yourself a disservice if you can't do the maths correctly.
    You may be wrong as well. France has an astonishing CFR of 25%. Of every case reported, and resolved, a quarter die

    This suggests a lot of milder cases being untested and unreported, and/or they are very reluctant to close a case

    Nonetheless that will skew your figures higher?

    https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/france/

    Either way, if AZ is suspended across the entire EU (and that is basically the case now) that means millions of jabs will not happen as planned. Millions of jabs not happening will surely mean thousands of deaths and hospitalisation that WILL happen
    France CFR is 2.2%

    Cases 4,071,662
    Deaths 90,429
    Not of cases closed: ie "with an outcome". Recovered or died. See Worldometer.

    This is surely some statistical anomaly or French quirk, of course. But it does muddy the water
    That is not how it works. It is calculated by cases vs deaths. Not outcomes vs deaths.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 54,503
    MaxPB said:

    Sandpit said:

    MaxPB said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Endillion said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Leon said:
    How many German politicians have shares in BioNTech?
    Oh come on @williamglenn.

    Other than us, how many developed countries - outside of the EU - are actually using AstraZeneca today?

    I can think of one: Canada.

    Who else?

    Is everyone in BioNTech's pocket?
    They do have super, duper, humungously deep pockets.

    Also, excluding the UK and EU from "developed" countries doesn't leave all that many. It's really just the US, Australia, NZ, Japan and S Korea who aren't. The latter three don't have anything like as much of a pressing need as most of the EU - and the US has lots of home grown options.

    Oh, and Switzerland. Whatever.
    The point is that there is enormous - largely unwarranted - scepticism about the AZ vaccine, going all the way back to the initial release of efficacy data. Remember this, all the way back in November: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/25/business/coronavirus-vaccine-astrazeneca-oxford.html

    Or this, from last September: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/19/health/astrazeneca-vaccine-safety-blueprints.html

    Or this: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2261092-do-oxford-astrazeneca-covid-19-vaccine-results-stand-up-to-scrutiny/

    How about this from the trial in India: https://www.bmj.com/content/371/bmj.m4734
    And yet the real world data from the UK is absolutely first rate, the issue here is absolutely a political one rather than medical. Politicians of Europe have decided that AZ delivering to Brexit Britain as a priority and not the EU is beyond the pale and are now trying to "suffocate" AZ and it's business. Obviously it's not going to work because there isn't anything wrong with the vaccine and all they're really doing is harming their own people and economies. Still, it's about what I've come to expect from them.
    If all they were doing was harming their own, it wouldn’t be quite so bad.

    They’re also badly undermining Covax and the global effort to get the world vaccinated, thus prolonging the pandemic everywhere by months if not years, at a cost of millions of lives and trillions of dollars.
    I don't know if it will have any real effect. So far there doesn't seem to be any uptick in vaccine hesitancy outside of Europe. One thing about the majority of European media not being in English is that the stories don't spread as quickly or widely in Africa and Asia, it's an inbuilt firewall against this stuff. I also think having the Oxford University name attached to it as well as continued unquestioning support from the WHO will ultimately be worth more than what's happening in Europe.

    I think most people look at the shitfest in Europe and recognise it as something isolated to the EU.
    Sadly there’s evidence of the Russians, seeing vaccines as second only to oil in their potential to generate hard currency, are making sure that the AZ disinformation campaigns get going quickly in the third world.
  • Time_to_LeaveTime_to_Leave Posts: 2,547

    MaxPB said:

    Sandpit said:

    MaxPB said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Endillion said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Leon said:
    How many German politicians have shares in BioNTech?
    Oh come on @williamglenn.

    Other than us, how many developed countries - outside of the EU - are actually using AstraZeneca today?

    I can think of one: Canada.

    Who else?

    Is everyone in BioNTech's pocket?
    They do have super, duper, humungously deep pockets.

    Also, excluding the UK and EU from "developed" countries doesn't leave all that many. It's really just the US, Australia, NZ, Japan and S Korea who aren't. The latter three don't have anything like as much of a pressing need as most of the EU - and the US has lots of home grown options.

    Oh, and Switzerland. Whatever.
    The point is that there is enormous - largely unwarranted - scepticism about the AZ vaccine, going all the way back to the initial release of efficacy data. Remember this, all the way back in November: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/25/business/coronavirus-vaccine-astrazeneca-oxford.html

    Or this, from last September: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/19/health/astrazeneca-vaccine-safety-blueprints.html

    Or this: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2261092-do-oxford-astrazeneca-covid-19-vaccine-results-stand-up-to-scrutiny/

    How about this from the trial in India: https://www.bmj.com/content/371/bmj.m4734
    And yet the real world data from the UK is absolutely first rate, the issue here is absolutely a political one rather than medical. Politicians of Europe have decided that AZ delivering to Brexit Britain as a priority and not the EU is beyond the pale and are now trying to "suffocate" AZ and it's business. Obviously it's not going to work because there isn't anything wrong with the vaccine and all they're really doing is harming their own people and economies. Still, it's about what I've come to expect from them.
    If all they were doing was harming their own, it wouldn’t be quite so bad.

    They’re also badly undermining Covax and the global effort to get the world vaccinated, thus prolonging the pandemic everywhere by months if not years, at a cost of millions of lives and trillions of dollars.
    I don't know if it will have any real effect. So far there doesn't seem to be any uptick in vaccine hesitancy outside of Europe. One thing about the majority of European media not being in English is that the stories don't spread as quickly or widely in Africa and Asia, it's an inbuilt firewall against this stuff. I also think having the Oxford University name attached to it as well as continued unquestioning support from the WHO will ultimately be worth more than what's happening in Europe.

    I think most people look at the shitfest in Europe and recognise it as something isolated to the EU.
    I'm slightly worried that it might somehow spill over and affect the COVAX rollout. The EU has been desperately trying to claim the credit for it, with their diplomats even suggesting that AZ vaccines delivered from South Korea had come from the EU. It's scandalous.
    I’ve been wondering whether this is what the EU has always looked like from the outside, but we just haven’t noticed because we were inside.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 70,892

    Probably what's happening - bureaucrats back covering, politicians dithering:

    https://twitter.com/BergAslak/status/1371480143089258496?s=20

    I don't think it's standard when those incidents are strongly correlated with the disease you're vaccinating against.
  • eekeek Posts: 28,257
    Roger said:

    The excellent Stephanie Flanders on why Brexit is ruining our economy and why notions of replacing the EU with the USA is ridiculous. We'd need at least four USA's

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000t1y3/newsnight-12032021

    And tell us something we aren't fully aware of.

    The simple fact is that we voted to leave and there are unavoidable consequences from doing so.
  • RH1992RH1992 Posts: 788
    edited March 2021
    David Henig is another of those who is completely incapable of recognising an EU member state making a mistake. This is because he's spent the last four years entrenched in the black and white "EU good, UK bad" academia state of mind rather than looking at each issue objectively.
  • Roger said:

    The excellent Stephanie Flanders on why Brexit is ruining our economy and why notions of replacing the EU with the USA is ridiculous. We'd need at least four USA's

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000t1y3/newsnight-12032021

    At the time the EU and their states are effectively threatening the lives of thousands if not millions of their citizens you just have to come up with a pro EU comment
  • tlg86tlg86 Posts: 26,152

    My father has asked a question, anyone have an answer?

    What is going to happen to the EU citizens due their second AZN vaccine?

    These people are going to be in limbo and terrified for all the wrong reasons.

    Even if you were concerned about side effects, presumably anyone due their second dose should get one on the basis that the first one hasn't, err, killed them.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 95,994
    We can see what the defence is going to be though. Not quite as much nonsense as caution over 5G, but given the millions of doses already done, it's not as far off it as it should be.
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 78,081
    What's going on with the Indian vaccination program. As an absolute number they're similar to ourselves, which given the population size isn't much.
    Exporting round the world for clout/soft power rather than vaxxing their own pop; hesitancy or ?
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 54,503
    Leon said:

    David Henig just shredding his own reputation there
    He had a reputation to shred?
  • eekeek Posts: 28,257
    Sandpit said:

    OT the Gambling Commission is looking for a new boss.

    Neil McArthur, Chief Executive of the Gambling Commission, has announced that he will be leaving the organisation after nearly 15 years. He joined the Commission in 2006 and was General Counsel before rising to the role of Chief Executive in 2018.
    https://www.gamblingcommission.gov.uk/news-action-and-statistics/news/2021/Gambling-Commission-CEO-announces-departure.aspx

    Let us hope the next chief knows something about betting and is not obsessed by age checks.

    Football Index fallout, after they approved what many commentators could see was a Ponzi scheme?
    It can't be that - I've never seen an organisation react to a corporate screw up by asking it's chief to leave.

    Usually you find an underling to blame and pocket another pay rise.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 70,892
    edited March 2021
    TimT said:

    This does not seem right. Say France is having 1/2000 of its population infected each day (25k/50m for round numbers), of the 100k not vaccinated today, we'd expect 50 to get COVID. Of those, maybe 1 would be expected to die.

    I agree with the underlying sentiment of the analysis, but you do yourself a disservice if you can't do the maths correctly.
    If those are your daily figures, though, a delay of two weeks gets you to around the 15 deaths per 100k in the tweet.
    It's not as though we expect the vaccine to be released for use again tomorrow.

    Your maths makes more sense, of course.
  • AnabobazinaAnabobazina Posts: 23,479

    I’ll admit to being slightly underwhelmed by today’s vax numbers. I’d hoped to be well north of 350k today, paving the way for a 650k later in the week. We’ve got a lot of catching up to do after a very slow early March.

    These are Saturday's numbers, when we were still at the weekend tail-end of limited supplies. Don't expect tomorrow to be much better. By Wednesday/Thursday though, we should be "going gangbusters".
    So I keep hearing!! Let's hope that's right.
  • Time_to_LeaveTime_to_Leave Posts: 2,547
    MaxPB said:

    MaxPB said:

    Sandpit said:

    MaxPB said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Endillion said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Leon said:
    How many German politicians have shares in BioNTech?
    Oh come on @williamglenn.

    Other than us, how many developed countries - outside of the EU - are actually using AstraZeneca today?

    I can think of one: Canada.

    Who else?

    Is everyone in BioNTech's pocket?
    They do have super, duper, humungously deep pockets.

    Also, excluding the UK and EU from "developed" countries doesn't leave all that many. It's really just the US, Australia, NZ, Japan and S Korea who aren't. The latter three don't have anything like as much of a pressing need as most of the EU - and the US has lots of home grown options.

    Oh, and Switzerland. Whatever.
    The point is that there is enormous - largely unwarranted - scepticism about the AZ vaccine, going all the way back to the initial release of efficacy data. Remember this, all the way back in November: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/25/business/coronavirus-vaccine-astrazeneca-oxford.html

    Or this, from last September: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/19/health/astrazeneca-vaccine-safety-blueprints.html

    Or this: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2261092-do-oxford-astrazeneca-covid-19-vaccine-results-stand-up-to-scrutiny/

    How about this from the trial in India: https://www.bmj.com/content/371/bmj.m4734
    And yet the real world data from the UK is absolutely first rate, the issue here is absolutely a political one rather than medical. Politicians of Europe have decided that AZ delivering to Brexit Britain as a priority and not the EU is beyond the pale and are now trying to "suffocate" AZ and it's business. Obviously it's not going to work because there isn't anything wrong with the vaccine and all they're really doing is harming their own people and economies. Still, it's about what I've come to expect from them.
    If all they were doing was harming their own, it wouldn’t be quite so bad.

    They’re also badly undermining Covax and the global effort to get the world vaccinated, thus prolonging the pandemic everywhere by months if not years, at a cost of millions of lives and trillions of dollars.
    I don't know if it will have any real effect. So far there doesn't seem to be any uptick in vaccine hesitancy outside of Europe. One thing about the majority of European media not being in English is that the stories don't spread as quickly or widely in Africa and Asia, it's an inbuilt firewall against this stuff. I also think having the Oxford University name attached to it as well as continued unquestioning support from the WHO will ultimately be worth more than what's happening in Europe.

    I think most people look at the shitfest in Europe and recognise it as something isolated to the EU.
    I'm slightly worried that it might somehow spill over and affect the COVAX rollout. The EU has been desperately trying to claim the credit for it, with their diplomats even suggesting that AZ vaccines delivered from South Korea had come from the EU. It's scandalous.
    Honestly, I just find it all a bit sad. This all stems from the EU continuing to act like a jilted ex. As I said yesterday, a few weeks ago I heard rumours that the EU had effectively threatened to cut off trade talks with Australia if the UK joined the CPTPP, I didn't believe it at the time as it just seemed ridiculous. Now I'm inclined to believe it. All of their actions are driven by their absolute refusal to accept the the UK has left and is now acting completely independently of them. The unnecessary border pedantry, the inability to accept that the UK contract with AZ is written better than the EU one, the threats over financial equivalence despite the UK having stronger financial regulations than what is required under equivalence rules.

    I'd now say it's odds on that the EU is taking their grievances against the UK outside of Europe and giving countries a "them or us" choice.
    I hope they are not that stupid, because if they are doing that I think we’d quickly have to reassess our commitment to their security through NATO. Surely we all want to see the western alliance endure?
  • Pulpstar said:

    What's going on with the Indian vaccination program. As an absolute number they're similar to ourselves, which given the population size isn't much.
    Exporting round the world for clout/soft power rather than vaxxing their own pop; hesitancy or ?

    I did speak to an Indian heritage friend, India's a place that loves conspiracy theories, and the fact that Modi is a Hindu nationalist who has come up with pretty anti Sikh and anti Muslim rhetoric and legislation means things won't go well on the vaccine rollout.

    The BJP are in a place where they consistently praise the assassin of Gandhi.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 95,994

    Italy as well.

    Madness. They'll be stuck with COVID all summer.

    Fortunately for them overall the EU nations have vaccinated a fair amount and will have lots of non AZ supplies coming.

    So the impact from this nonsense will be deadly through taking longer and more people refusing, but not as deadly as it could be.

    It's not much excuse as the impact is very avoidable.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 54,952

    Leon said:

    TimT said:

    This does not seem right. Say France is having 1/2000 of its population infected each day (25k/50m for round numbers), of the 100k not vaccinated today, we'd expect 50 to get COVID. Of those, maybe 1 would be expected to die.

    I agree with the underlying sentiment of the analysis, but you do yourself a disservice if you can't do the maths correctly.
    You may be wrong as well. France has an astonishing CFR of 25%. Of every case reported, and resolved, a quarter die

    This suggests a lot of milder cases being untested and unreported, and/or they are very reluctant to close a case

    Nonetheless that will skew your figures higher?

    https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/france/

    Either way, if AZ is suspended across the entire EU (and that is basically the case now) that means millions of jabs will not happen as planned. Millions of jabs not happening will surely mean thousands of deaths and hospitalisation that WILL happen
    Leon you tried this a few weeks ago and were as wrong then as you are now.

    Based on those Worldmeter numbers the CFR is (90,429/4,071,662)x100

    or 2.2%
    Yes, I understand that. By any normal reckoning France has a (slightly elevated) CFR of around 2%. Agreed

    But Worldometer does not put out rubbish data for the sake of it. There is some statistical quirk which means - it seems - that French doctors only consider a case closed under strict conditions. 25% of these end in fatalities (which is absurd, of course, Covid is bad but not the Black Death)

    But it does slightly muddy the water of TimT's calculations, and makes a difficult calculation somewhat harder. Which was my fairly modest point
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 17,305
    Leon said:

    TimT said:

    This does not seem right. Say France is having 1/2000 of its population infected each day (25k/50m for round numbers), of the 100k not vaccinated today, we'd expect 50 to get COVID. Of those, maybe 1 would be expected to die.

    I agree with the underlying sentiment of the analysis, but you do yourself a disservice if you can't do the maths correctly.
    You may be wrong as well. France has an astonishing CFR of 25%. Of every case reported, and resolved, a quarter die

    This suggests a lot of milder cases being untested and unreported, and/or they are very reluctant to close a case

    Nonetheless that will skew your figures higher?

    https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/france/

    Either way, if AZ is suspended across the entire EU (and that is basically the case now) that means millions of jabs will not happen as planned. Millions of jabs not happening will surely mean thousands of deaths and hospitalisation that WILL happen
    I'm not sure that's right. Worldometer reports 4 million cases and 90K deaths. I know that they have not kept up with 'recovered' data, but from cases to deaths the IFR is more like 2.2 %.
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 78,081
    edited March 2021

    Pulpstar said:

    What's going on with the Indian vaccination program. As an absolute number they're similar to ourselves, which given the population size isn't much.
    Exporting round the world for clout/soft power rather than vaxxing their own pop; hesitancy or ?

    I did speak to an Indian heritage friend, India's a place that loves conspiracy theories, and the fact that Modi is a Hindu nationalist who has come up with pretty anti Sikh and anti Muslim rhetoric and legislation means things won't go well on the vaccine rollout.

    The BJP are in a place where they consistently praise the assassin of Gandhi.
    That might cause some problems around the ~ 0.4 billion non hindus but there's almost a billion hindus in India though.
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 18,266

    My father has asked a question, anyone have an answer?

    What is going to happen to the EU citizens due their second AZN vaccine?

    These people are going to be in limbo and terrified for all the wrong reasons.

    On RTÉ last night it was stated that no-one in Ireland was due to receive a second dose of the AZ vaccine this week - at the moment they've suspended AZ vaccinations for the week.

    Hopefully, before the end of the week everything will have calmed down and they'll be able to announce that they'll be restarting vaccinations.
  • Thrown at Piers Morgan and I'd definitely support this proposal.

    https://twitter.com/planetjedward/status/1371254075849904132
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 53,752
    Chameleon said:

    Even the most delusional Brexiteers couldn't have imagined that the EU would spend so much of 2021 making utter wazzocks of themselves so publicly and obviously for so long.

    The less delusional ones (I daren't go any further than that) take no satisfaction from this whatsoever. The EU are adding unnecessary damage to their economies both in relation to vaccines and the other childish behaviour about Brexit. That is obviously not in their interests but it is not in ours either. They remain customers, friends and allies, even if they don't always behave that way.
  • Richard_NabaviRichard_Nabavi Posts: 30,821
    edited March 2021
    deleted
  • eekeek Posts: 28,257

    MaxPB said:

    MaxPB said:

    Sandpit said:

    MaxPB said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Endillion said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Leon said:
    How many German politicians have shares in BioNTech?
    Oh come on @williamglenn.

    Other than us, how many developed countries - outside of the EU - are actually using AstraZeneca today?

    I can think of one: Canada.

    Who else?

    Is everyone in BioNTech's pocket?
    They do have super, duper, humungously deep pockets.

    Also, excluding the UK and EU from "developed" countries doesn't leave all that many. It's really just the US, Australia, NZ, Japan and S Korea who aren't. The latter three don't have anything like as much of a pressing need as most of the EU - and the US has lots of home grown options.

    Oh, and Switzerland. Whatever.
    The point is that there is enormous - largely unwarranted - scepticism about the AZ vaccine, going all the way back to the initial release of efficacy data. Remember this, all the way back in November: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/25/business/coronavirus-vaccine-astrazeneca-oxford.html

    Or this, from last September: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/19/health/astrazeneca-vaccine-safety-blueprints.html

    Or this: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2261092-do-oxford-astrazeneca-covid-19-vaccine-results-stand-up-to-scrutiny/

    How about this from the trial in India: https://www.bmj.com/content/371/bmj.m4734
    And yet the real world data from the UK is absolutely first rate, the issue here is absolutely a political one rather than medical. Politicians of Europe have decided that AZ delivering to Brexit Britain as a priority and not the EU is beyond the pale and are now trying to "suffocate" AZ and it's business. Obviously it's not going to work because there isn't anything wrong with the vaccine and all they're really doing is harming their own people and economies. Still, it's about what I've come to expect from them.
    If all they were doing was harming their own, it wouldn’t be quite so bad.

    They’re also badly undermining Covax and the global effort to get the world vaccinated, thus prolonging the pandemic everywhere by months if not years, at a cost of millions of lives and trillions of dollars.
    I don't know if it will have any real effect. So far there doesn't seem to be any uptick in vaccine hesitancy outside of Europe. One thing about the majority of European media not being in English is that the stories don't spread as quickly or widely in Africa and Asia, it's an inbuilt firewall against this stuff. I also think having the Oxford University name attached to it as well as continued unquestioning support from the WHO will ultimately be worth more than what's happening in Europe.

    I think most people look at the shitfest in Europe and recognise it as something isolated to the EU.
    I'm slightly worried that it might somehow spill over and affect the COVAX rollout. The EU has been desperately trying to claim the credit for it, with their diplomats even suggesting that AZ vaccines delivered from South Korea had come from the EU. It's scandalous.
    Honestly, I just find it all a bit sad. This all stems from the EU continuing to act like a jilted ex. As I said yesterday, a few weeks ago I heard rumours that the EU had effectively threatened to cut off trade talks with Australia if the UK joined the CPTPP, I didn't believe it at the time as it just seemed ridiculous. Now I'm inclined to believe it. All of their actions are driven by their absolute refusal to accept the the UK has left and is now acting completely independently of them. The unnecessary border pedantry, the inability to accept that the UK contract with AZ is written better than the EU one, the threats over financial equivalence despite the UK having stronger financial regulations than what is required under equivalence rules.

    I'd now say it's odds on that the EU is taking their grievances against the UK outside of Europe and giving countries a "them or us" choice.
    I hope they are not that stupid, because if they are doing that I think we’d quickly have to reassess our commitment to their security through NATO. Surely we all want to see the western alliance endure?
    Due to issues I've already mentioned earlier today - Germany needs a guaranteed source of gas and that can only come from Russia.

    So it really wouldn't surprise me if we see the EU (under German influence) move more and more towards Russia in a desperate attempt to avoid their population dying from cold.
  • Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826
    TimT said:

    This does not seem right. Say France is having 1/2000 of its population infected each day (25k/50m for round numbers), of the 100k not vaccinated today, we'd expect 50 to get COVID. Of those, maybe 1 would be expected to die.

    I agree with the underlying sentiment of the analysis, but you do yourself a disservice if you can't do the maths correctly.
    Where did you get the 1/2000 per day seems quite low.

    25k cases testing positive doesn't mean 25k infections per day.
  • Pulpstar said:

    Pulpstar said:

    What's going on with the Indian vaccination program. As an absolute number they're similar to ourselves, which given the population size isn't much.
    Exporting round the world for clout/soft power rather than vaxxing their own pop; hesitancy or ?

    I did speak to an Indian heritage friend, India's a place that loves conspiracy theories, and the fact that Modi is a Hindu nationalist who has come up with pretty anti Sikh and anti Muslim rhetoric and legislation means things won't go well on the vaccine rollout.

    The BJP are in a place where they consistently praise the assassin of Gandhi.
    That might cause some problems around the ~ 0.4 billion non hindus but there's almost a billion hindus in India though.
    But not all Hindus are pro BJP, the caste system is another issue as well in the rollout.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 54,503
    Pulpstar said:

    What's going on with the Indian vaccination program. As an absolute number they're similar to ourselves, which given the population size isn't much.
    Exporting round the world for clout/soft power rather than vaxxing their own pop; hesitancy or ?

    All of the above, plus they have been making a lot of as-yet-unapproved vaccines, and started a little later than European and American factories.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 70,892
    On topic, the official government justification for the Police Bill is headlined by a quote from none other than C. Dick.

    https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/police-crime-sentencing-and-courts-bill-2021-factsheets/police-crime-sentencing-and-courts-bill-2021-protest-powers-factsheet
    "Ever since the first large-scale Extinction Rebellion protest in April last year I have been talking publicly and with the government about the potential for change to powers and to legislation that would enable the police to deal better with protests in general given that the act that we work to – the Public Order Act – is now very old, [dating to] 1986.

    But specifically to deal with protests where people are not primarily violent or seriously disorderly but, as in this instance, had an avowed intent to bring policing to its knees and the city to a halt and were prepared to use the methods we all know they did to do that..."


    In the context of her actions over this weekend's protest, and looking at the actual test of the bill, that seems more than a little disingenuous.
    Any legislation written to address those expressed concerns would be much, much narrower in scope.
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 38,683
    eek said:

    MaxPB said:

    MaxPB said:

    Sandpit said:

    MaxPB said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Endillion said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Leon said:
    How many German politicians have shares in BioNTech?
    Oh come on @williamglenn.

    Other than us, how many developed countries - outside of the EU - are actually using AstraZeneca today?

    I can think of one: Canada.

    Who else?

    Is everyone in BioNTech's pocket?
    They do have super, duper, humungously deep pockets.

    Also, excluding the UK and EU from "developed" countries doesn't leave all that many. It's really just the US, Australia, NZ, Japan and S Korea who aren't. The latter three don't have anything like as much of a pressing need as most of the EU - and the US has lots of home grown options.

    Oh, and Switzerland. Whatever.
    The point is that there is enormous - largely unwarranted - scepticism about the AZ vaccine, going all the way back to the initial release of efficacy data. Remember this, all the way back in November: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/25/business/coronavirus-vaccine-astrazeneca-oxford.html

    Or this, from last September: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/19/health/astrazeneca-vaccine-safety-blueprints.html

    Or this: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2261092-do-oxford-astrazeneca-covid-19-vaccine-results-stand-up-to-scrutiny/

    How about this from the trial in India: https://www.bmj.com/content/371/bmj.m4734
    And yet the real world data from the UK is absolutely first rate, the issue here is absolutely a political one rather than medical. Politicians of Europe have decided that AZ delivering to Brexit Britain as a priority and not the EU is beyond the pale and are now trying to "suffocate" AZ and it's business. Obviously it's not going to work because there isn't anything wrong with the vaccine and all they're really doing is harming their own people and economies. Still, it's about what I've come to expect from them.
    If all they were doing was harming their own, it wouldn’t be quite so bad.

    They’re also badly undermining Covax and the global effort to get the world vaccinated, thus prolonging the pandemic everywhere by months if not years, at a cost of millions of lives and trillions of dollars.
    I don't know if it will have any real effect. So far there doesn't seem to be any uptick in vaccine hesitancy outside of Europe. One thing about the majority of European media not being in English is that the stories don't spread as quickly or widely in Africa and Asia, it's an inbuilt firewall against this stuff. I also think having the Oxford University name attached to it as well as continued unquestioning support from the WHO will ultimately be worth more than what's happening in Europe.

    I think most people look at the shitfest in Europe and recognise it as something isolated to the EU.
    I'm slightly worried that it might somehow spill over and affect the COVAX rollout. The EU has been desperately trying to claim the credit for it, with their diplomats even suggesting that AZ vaccines delivered from South Korea had come from the EU. It's scandalous.
    Honestly, I just find it all a bit sad. This all stems from the EU continuing to act like a jilted ex. As I said yesterday, a few weeks ago I heard rumours that the EU had effectively threatened to cut off trade talks with Australia if the UK joined the CPTPP, I didn't believe it at the time as it just seemed ridiculous. Now I'm inclined to believe it. All of their actions are driven by their absolute refusal to accept the the UK has left and is now acting completely independently of them. The unnecessary border pedantry, the inability to accept that the UK contract with AZ is written better than the EU one, the threats over financial equivalence despite the UK having stronger financial regulations than what is required under equivalence rules.

    I'd now say it's odds on that the EU is taking their grievances against the UK outside of Europe and giving countries a "them or us" choice.
    I hope they are not that stupid, because if they are doing that I think we’d quickly have to reassess our commitment to their security through NATO. Surely we all want to see the western alliance endure?
    Due to issues I've already mentioned earlier today - Germany needs a guaranteed source of gas and that can only come from Russia.

    So it really wouldn't surprise me if we see the EU (under German influence) move more and more towards Russia in a desperate attempt to avoid their population dying from cold.
    Do what we do and import it from Norway, the US and Qatar? Germany has got coastline and can easily convert some of their existing dockyards to service LNG importation.
  • Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826
    Is it true that Italy have blocked another batch of AZN exports?

    While at the same time ceasing to use AZN?

    That seems an almighty fuck up.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 54,952
    eek said:

    MaxPB said:

    MaxPB said:

    Sandpit said:

    MaxPB said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Endillion said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Leon said:
    How many German politicians have shares in BioNTech?
    Oh come on @williamglenn.

    Other than us, how many developed countries - outside of the EU - are actually using AstraZeneca today?

    I can think of one: Canada.

    Who else?

    Is everyone in BioNTech's pocket?
    They do have super, duper, humungously deep pockets.

    Also, excluding the UK and EU from "developed" countries doesn't leave all that many. It's really just the US, Australia, NZ, Japan and S Korea who aren't. The latter three don't have anything like as much of a pressing need as most of the EU - and the US has lots of home grown options.

    Oh, and Switzerland. Whatever.
    The point is that there is enormous - largely unwarranted - scepticism about the AZ vaccine, going all the way back to the initial release of efficacy data. Remember this, all the way back in November: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/25/business/coronavirus-vaccine-astrazeneca-oxford.html

    Or this, from last September: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/19/health/astrazeneca-vaccine-safety-blueprints.html

    Or this: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2261092-do-oxford-astrazeneca-covid-19-vaccine-results-stand-up-to-scrutiny/

    How about this from the trial in India: https://www.bmj.com/content/371/bmj.m4734
    And yet the real world data from the UK is absolutely first rate, the issue here is absolutely a political one rather than medical. Politicians of Europe have decided that AZ delivering to Brexit Britain as a priority and not the EU is beyond the pale and are now trying to "suffocate" AZ and it's business. Obviously it's not going to work because there isn't anything wrong with the vaccine and all they're really doing is harming their own people and economies. Still, it's about what I've come to expect from them.
    If all they were doing was harming their own, it wouldn’t be quite so bad.

    They’re also badly undermining Covax and the global effort to get the world vaccinated, thus prolonging the pandemic everywhere by months if not years, at a cost of millions of lives and trillions of dollars.
    I don't know if it will have any real effect. So far there doesn't seem to be any uptick in vaccine hesitancy outside of Europe. One thing about the majority of European media not being in English is that the stories don't spread as quickly or widely in Africa and Asia, it's an inbuilt firewall against this stuff. I also think having the Oxford University name attached to it as well as continued unquestioning support from the WHO will ultimately be worth more than what's happening in Europe.

    I think most people look at the shitfest in Europe and recognise it as something isolated to the EU.
    I'm slightly worried that it might somehow spill over and affect the COVAX rollout. The EU has been desperately trying to claim the credit for it, with their diplomats even suggesting that AZ vaccines delivered from South Korea had come from the EU. It's scandalous.
    Honestly, I just find it all a bit sad. This all stems from the EU continuing to act like a jilted ex. As I said yesterday, a few weeks ago I heard rumours that the EU had effectively threatened to cut off trade talks with Australia if the UK joined the CPTPP, I didn't believe it at the time as it just seemed ridiculous. Now I'm inclined to believe it. All of their actions are driven by their absolute refusal to accept the the UK has left and is now acting completely independently of them. The unnecessary border pedantry, the inability to accept that the UK contract with AZ is written better than the EU one, the threats over financial equivalence despite the UK having stronger financial regulations than what is required under equivalence rules.

    I'd now say it's odds on that the EU is taking their grievances against the UK outside of Europe and giving countries a "them or us" choice.
    I hope they are not that stupid, because if they are doing that I think we’d quickly have to reassess our commitment to their security through NATO. Surely we all want to see the western alliance endure?
    Due to issues I've already mentioned earlier today - Germany needs a guaranteed source of gas and that can only come from Russia.

    So it really wouldn't surprise me if we see the EU (under German influence) move more and more towards Russia in a desperate attempt to avoid their population dying from cold.
    And note that on the same day Germany has suspended AZ, we get news they are about to bless the manufacture of SputnikV in Germany

    https://twitter.com/euronews/status/1371476438499659778?s=20
  • TazTaz Posts: 14,317

    Thrown at Piers Morgan and I'd definitely support this proposal.

    https://twitter.com/planetjedward/status/1371254075849904132


    Jedward, bless em, seem to have joined the brigade of blue ticks posting nonsense for likes and retweets. Mind you, as Irishmen, they have no reason to like Churchill.
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 33,388
    MattW said:

    Good piece, and I agree with nearly all of it.

    This bill has the feel of some of the more unpleasant / authoritarian stuff that we saw under New Labour and Theresa May. I think in the coalition the LDs were a protection in some measure. It looks like a further corrosion of policing by consent.

    In "relevant impact", relevant is also lethal, as a chameleon word. Impact on whom? "Serious impact", properly scoped, would be more reasonable. I am reminded of the justification by Extinction Rebellion that there cause was so important that people being blocked from their cancer treatment appointments was acceptable.

    And "causing offence" has no place whatsover in a legal test here. Did we not just get shot of that in one of the public protection laws from the Major era?

    We are in a serious situation; the Conservative party clearly feels that it is ordained by God to rule and is taking steps to ensure that opposition is stifled.

    When I was a small child I was told that our soldiers, my father and uncle among them, were fighting for 'freedom' and the 'British way'.
    I am sure both would be horrified by the suggestions now being put forward,
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 81,800
    EU countries again having Cartman style meltdowns...must be a side effect of the Pfizer vaccine.
  • ridaligoridaligo Posts: 174
    felix said:

    My father has asked a question, anyone have an answer?

    What is going to happen to the EU citizens due their second AZN vaccine?

    Does people are going to be in limbo and terrified for all the wrong reasons.

    To deny them the second dose would require a new word in the dictionary to replace 'clusterfuck'. Maybe there could be a PB competition........
    cleusterfeuck?
This discussion has been closed.