That is not an unreasonable assumption on the vaccine at the time
The number of people that had antibody protection via vaccine on the last day of 2020 was perhaps 1/2 a million. For all intents and purposes the working assumption, no vaccine in 2020 was entirely correct.
It was my understanding that by any previous experience, a vaccine being ready to use in 2020 was something close to ridiculous.
What happened was the war-time-development* effect on process and systems - enough pressure was applied to reduce actions in the vaccine creation process to what *needed* to be done, rather than "but, traditionally..."
*In operational research, this effect is well known and rather interesting.
One of the most interesting questions for the next time from the long Cummings Twitter thread is whether we could reduce the time required to prove and approve a vaccine even further by using human challenge trials.
If we'd been able to start vaccinating people in September, or even earlier, that would have made a huge difference
The big question is whether the mRNA technology can be used to tweak the vaccine, without requiring a full re-trial, IIRC
I thought the government have already said yes.
Saying yes doesn't mean actually getting it through approval etc. My understanding is that the tweaked versions of the vaccine for the planned September shots will go through standard trials. MaxPB??
That is not an unreasonable assumption on the vaccine at the time
The number of people that had antibody protection via vaccine on the last day of 2020 was perhaps 1/2 a million. For all intents and purposes the working assumption, no vaccine in 2020 was entirely correct.
It was my understanding that by any previous experience, a vaccine being ready to use in 2020 was something close to ridiculous.
What happened was the war-time-development* effect on process and systems - enough pressure was applied to reduce actions in the vaccine creation process to what *needed* to be done, rather than "but, traditionally..."
*In operational research, this effect is well known and rather interesting.
One of the most interesting questions for the next time from the long Cummings Twitter thread is whether we could reduce the time required to prove and approve a vaccine even further by using human challenge trials.
If we'd been able to start vaccinating people in September, or even earlier, that would have made a huge difference
The big question is whether the mRNA technology can be used to tweak the vaccine, without requiring a full re-trial, IIRC
I'm thinking less of tweaking the vaccines to deal with variants and more about developing a vaccine for bird flu, or SARS-Cov-3, or a swine flu with an IFR above 1%, etc.
As he delivers his testimony, 75% of the public don't trust Dominic Cummings to tell the truth about how the government handled the pandemic. 55% don't trust Boris Johnson either, however...
Someone has taken the lid off of our tupperware box
It's an unlicensed nuclear reactor. No planning permission, no environmental impact statements, no containment, no cooling system, no emergency cooling system, no waste disposal repository, no waste disposal plan...
A complete cowboy job. Makes "Chernobyl look like picnic".
And yet nobody has even been told to shut it down, let alone been held to account! Disgraceful.
As he delivers his testimony, 75% of the public don't trust Dominic Cummings to tell the truth about how the government handled the pandemic. 55% don't trust Boris Johnson either, however...
As he delivers his testimony, 75% of the public don't trust Dominic Cummings to tell the truth about how the government handled the pandemic. 55% don't trust Boris Johnson either, however...
That is not an unreasonable assumption on the vaccine at the time
The number of people that had antibody protection via vaccine on the last day of 2020 was perhaps 1/2 a million. For all intents and purposes the working assumption, no vaccine in 2020 was entirely correct.
It was my understanding that by any previous experience, a vaccine being ready to use in 2020 was something close to ridiculous.
What happened was the war-time-development* effect on process and systems - enough pressure was applied to reduce actions in the vaccine creation process to what *needed* to be done, rather than "but, traditionally..."
*In operational research, this effect is well known and rather interesting.
One of the most interesting questions for the next time from the long Cummings Twitter thread is whether we could reduce the time required to prove and approve a vaccine even further by using human challenge trials.
If we'd been able to start vaccinating people in September, or even earlier, that would have made a huge difference
The big question is whether the mRNA technology can be used to tweak the vaccine, without requiring a full re-trial, IIRC
I thought the government have already said yes.
Saying yes doesn't mean actually getting it through approval etc. My understanding is that the tweaked versions of the vaccine for the planned September shots will go through standard trials. MaxPB??
IIRC it will be a similar process to the annual influenza vaccines. No full trials, only brief safety testing.
The 'seal off the vulnerable and let it rip through the rest of the population plan'.
In theory it could work BUT
i) You need to identify who is vulnerable - it's broadly correlated with age and comorbifity but you'll get some outliers who it kills outside those groups. ii) You need a hard cutoff if you're assuming differential action between the groups. Someone just below the shielding cut-off may have a minutely differing risk to someone above but their prescribed course of action will be completely different. iii) People above the cutoff may well have interaction, even through no fault of their own with those below. e.g. Old people need to head into hospital for things other than Covid. People in the more vulnerable group will not hermetically seal themselves off forever. iv) Even if everyone followed it 100% you'd get a certain level of mortality in the lesser vulnerable group. v) Spread through the lesser vulnerable group might lead to more transmissible mutations. This means ultimately your lesser vulnerable group isn't large enough so you need to release people from the more vulnerable group to achieve herd immunity. vii) People in the spread group may well try and err... avoid the virus by lessening their contact levels. viii) The temptation/pressure to lock everyone down as the bodies hit the floor rack up will be immense.
So you'd need perfectly defined groups; perfect spread behaviour amongst the spread group, perfect shielding behaviour amongst the shielding group, a big appetite for death...
I think again it comes down to the infamous first academic paper that said vast majority will only suffer mild symptoms...which the author meant not need hospital treatment, not as was taken by many to mean everybody under 80 will just have a bad cold.
It set the tone as a disease that only oldies were in danger.
a tone which is much more accurate than the media panic spread when Bergamo doctors started announcing this was an indiscriminate killer
That is not an unreasonable assumption on the vaccine at the time
The number of people that had antibody protection via vaccine on the last day of 2020 was perhaps 1/2 a million. For all intents and purposes the working assumption, no vaccine in 2020 was entirely correct.
It was my understanding that by any previous experience, a vaccine being ready to use in 2020 was something close to ridiculous.
What happened was the war-time-development* effect on process and systems - enough pressure was applied to reduce actions in the vaccine creation process to what *needed* to be done, rather than "but, traditionally..."
*In operational research, this effect is well known and rather interesting.
One of the most interesting questions for the next time from the long Cummings Twitter thread is whether we could reduce the time required to prove and approve a vaccine even further by using human challenge trials.
If we'd been able to start vaccinating people in September, or even earlier, that would have made a huge difference
The big question is whether the mRNA technology can be used to tweak the vaccine, without requiring a full re-trial, IIRC
I'm thinking less of tweaking the vaccines to deal with variants and more about developing a vaccine for bird flu, or SARS-Cov-3, or a swine flu with an IFR above 1%, etc.
Indeed. Getting the vaccination development timeline from ~5 to 10 years down to ~10 months was remarkable.
But we should be examining how if possible for next time we could get a vaccine testing program down even further. Could we get it down to 6 months?
Especially since the Moderna vaccine was apparently developed in just 2 days.
Thoughts and prayers with @Leon - what’s he going to do with himself now he can no longer whine endlessly about the weather?
theweatherincamdentown.com
Go back to predicting things after the event, perhaps.
We await with bated breath to see if his forecast of snow over SE England transpires tomorrow
Current BBC forecast for here is sunny periods and temperatures approaching 20degC. Even more sun for Dover. So the odds on snow have to be quite long.
Sounds like the scientists were not expecting any vaccines to work (or at least for them not to be available within a year).
The previous record was over four years to get a vaccine to market. The vaccine trial efforts, led by U.K. and US governments, were absolutely unprecedented.
Sounds like the scientists were not expecting any vaccines to work (or at least for them not to be available within a year).
Standard vaccine development and production would have been multiple years.
A combination of new technology and war-time-development pressure changed this.
Very often you have new technology building up - but not being used.
A classic in this genre was the manufacture of the turbo pumps for rocket engines. One of the tricky bits is the impellers, large, complex chunks of metal which need to be manufactured to extreme precision, in a complex shape, in metal that is very hard to work with.
Modern multi-axis CNC solved all of these problems. The very latest systems include final finish machining - you start with a lump of metal and you get the final product in one machining operation, polished like a mirror.
But the traditional aerospace companies carried on making the impellers the slow, hard way.
Then NASA sponsored the FASTRAC engine. Which used all the latest production techniques. And was dropped and forgotten. Until SpaceX asked Barber-Nichols, who made the pump, to make one for their Merlin engine.
SpaceX later bought the manufacture of impellers in house and further improved the process.
This is part of how they are building rocket engines for $500K rather than $50 million each.
Thoughts and prayers with @Leon - what’s he going to do with himself now he can no longer whine endlessly about the weather?
theweatherincamdentown.com
Go back to predicting things after the event, perhaps.
We await with bated breath to see if his forecast of snow over SE England transpires tomorrow
Current BBC forecast for here is sunny periods and temperatures approaching 20degC. Even more sun for Dover. So the odds on snow have to be quite long.
And the forecast for the next fortnight is predicting, at long, long last, a lengthy period of dry and passably warm weather. As opposed to alleging that it will improve in about a weeks' time, and then finding after a week has passed that the prediction was wholly inaccurate.
Alleluia! Perhaps we will get something resembling a Summer after all?
That is not an unreasonable assumption on the vaccine at the time
The number of people that had antibody protection via vaccine on the last day of 2020 was perhaps 1/2 a million. For all intents and purposes the working assumption, no vaccine in 2020 was entirely correct.
It was my understanding that by any previous experience, a vaccine being ready to use in 2020 was something close to ridiculous.
What happened was the war-time-development* effect on process and systems - enough pressure was applied to reduce actions in the vaccine creation process to what *needed* to be done, rather than "but, traditionally..."
*In operational research, this effect is well known and rather interesting.
One of the most interesting questions for the next time from the long Cummings Twitter thread is whether we could reduce the time required to prove and approve a vaccine even further by using human challenge trials.
If we'd been able to start vaccinating people in September, or even earlier, that would have made a huge difference
The big question is whether the mRNA technology can be used to tweak the vaccine, without requiring a full re-trial, IIRC
I thought the government have already said yes.
Saying yes doesn't mean actually getting it through approval etc. My understanding is that the tweaked versions of the vaccine for the planned September shots will go through standard trials. MaxPB??
IIRC it will be a similar process to the annual influenza vaccines. No full trials, only brief safety testing.
Surely unpalatable for most people to have a 3rd shot, when there are loads of people including very vulnerable and frontline health workers who have been unable to even get a first shot.
I mean it depends a bit how things develop, but there's also some self-interest in rich countries working to help the rest of the world before giving own populations 3rd shots.
Sounds like the scientists were not expecting any vaccines to work (or at least for them not to be available within a year).
That was what drove the Swedish thinking, it will be at least several years before a vaccine...so what, you are going to just shut yourself away for 2-3 years and even then it might well not come.
Obviously they have and actually with the variants it is even more transmissible and so yes you do have to
Someone has taken the lid off of our tupperware box
It's an unlicensed nuclear reactor. No planning permission, no environmental impact statements, no containment, no cooling system, no emergency cooling system, no waste disposal repository, no waste disposal plan...
A complete cowboy job. Makes "Chernobyl look like picnic".
Full of nasty UV emissions at the best of times. And it goes poot every now and then. Screws up Radio 4, not to mention a lot else.
That is not an unreasonable assumption on the vaccine at the time
The number of people that had antibody protection via vaccine on the last day of 2020 was perhaps 1/2 a million. For all intents and purposes the working assumption, no vaccine in 2020 was entirely correct.
It was my understanding that by any previous experience, a vaccine being ready to use in 2020 was something close to ridiculous.
What happened was the war-time-development* effect on process and systems - enough pressure was applied to reduce actions in the vaccine creation process to what *needed* to be done, rather than "but, traditionally..."
*In operational research, this effect is well known and rather interesting.
One of the most interesting questions for the next time from the long Cummings Twitter thread is whether we could reduce the time required to prove and approve a vaccine even further by using human challenge trials.
If we'd been able to start vaccinating people in September, or even earlier, that would have made a huge difference
The big question is whether the mRNA technology can be used to tweak the vaccine, without requiring a full re-trial, IIRC
I thought the government have already said yes.
Saying yes doesn't mean actually getting it through approval etc. My understanding is that the tweaked versions of the vaccine for the planned September shots will go through standard trials. MaxPB??
IIRC it will be a similar process to the annual influenza vaccines. No full trials, only brief safety testing.
Surely unpalatable for most people to have a 3rd shot, when there are loads of people including very vulnerable and frontline health workers who have been unable to even get a first shot.
I mean it depends a bit how things develop, but there's also some self-interest in rich countries working to help the rest of the world before giving own populations 3rd shots.
Hopefully, by then, the production issues will be out of the way. If the production levels planned are realised, we will be up to our ears in vaccines.
Nearly an hour into this. Has Cummings said anything like it might cause embarrassment.. Now if he admitted he had lied about his lockdown trip.. that might be a story...
Thoughts and prayers with @Leon - what’s he going to do with himself now he can no longer whine endlessly about the weather?
theweatherincamdentown.com
Go back to predicting things after the event, perhaps.
We await with bated breath to see if his forecast of snow over SE England transpires tomorrow
Current BBC forecast for here is sunny periods and temperatures approaching 20degC. Even more sun for Dover. So the odds on snow have to be quite long.
Indeed. But who would back the BBC over @Leon - he’s known in NW1 as a keen forecaster.
Thoughts and prayers with @Leon - what’s he going to do with himself now he can no longer whine endlessly about the weather?
theweatherincamdentown.com
Go back to predicting things after the event, perhaps.
We await with bated breath to see if his forecast of snow over SE England transpires tomorrow
Current BBC forecast for here is sunny periods and temperatures approaching 20degC. Even more sun for Dover. So the odds on snow have to be quite long.
And the forecast for the next fortnight is predicting, at long, long last, a lengthy period of dry and passably warm weather. As opposed to alleging that it will improve in about a weeks' time, and then finding after a week has passed that the prediction was wholly inaccurate.
Alleluia! Perhaps we will get something resembling a Summer after all?
Some of us have been publicly forecasting a pattern change to warm and dry on or around 26 May for weeks now.
Thoughts and prayers with @Leon - what’s he going to do with himself now he can no longer whine endlessly about the weather?
theweatherincamdentown.com
Go back to predicting things after the event, perhaps.
We await with bated breath to see if his forecast of snow over SE England transpires tomorrow
Current BBC forecast for here is sunny periods and temperatures approaching 20degC. Even more sun for Dover. So the odds on snow have to be quite long.
Indeed. But who would back the BBC over @Leon - he’s known in NW1 as a keen forecaster.
That is not an unreasonable assumption on the vaccine at the time
The number of people that had antibody protection via vaccine on the last day of 2020 was perhaps 1/2 a million. For all intents and purposes the working assumption, no vaccine in 2020 was entirely correct.
It was my understanding that by any previous experience, a vaccine being ready to use in 2020 was something close to ridiculous.
What happened was the war-time-development* effect on process and systems - enough pressure was applied to reduce actions in the vaccine creation process to what *needed* to be done, rather than "but, traditionally..."
*In operational research, this effect is well known and rather interesting.
One of the most interesting questions for the next time from the long Cummings Twitter thread is whether we could reduce the time required to prove and approve a vaccine even further by using human challenge trials.
If we'd been able to start vaccinating people in September, or even earlier, that would have made a huge difference
The big question is whether the mRNA technology can be used to tweak the vaccine, without requiring a full re-trial, IIRC
I thought the government have already said yes.
Saying yes doesn't mean actually getting it through approval etc. My understanding is that the tweaked versions of the vaccine for the planned September shots will go through standard trials. MaxPB??
IIRC it will be a similar process to the annual influenza vaccines. No full trials, only brief safety testing.
Surely unpalatable for most people to have a 3rd shot, when there are loads of people including very vulnerable and frontline health workers who have been unable to even get a first shot.
I mean it depends a bit how things develop, but there's also some self-interest in rich countries working to help the rest of the world before giving own populations 3rd shots.
Hopefully, by then, the production issues will be out of the way. If the production levels planned are realised, we will be up to our ears in vaccines.
But much of the world will be very far from up to their ears by September!
That is not an unreasonable assumption on the vaccine at the time
The number of people that had antibody protection via vaccine on the last day of 2020 was perhaps 1/2 a million. For all intents and purposes the working assumption, no vaccine in 2020 was entirely correct.
It was my understanding that by any previous experience, a vaccine being ready to use in 2020 was something close to ridiculous.
What happened was the war-time-development* effect on process and systems - enough pressure was applied to reduce actions in the vaccine creation process to what *needed* to be done, rather than "but, traditionally..."
*In operational research, this effect is well known and rather interesting.
One of the most interesting questions for the next time from the long Cummings Twitter thread is whether we could reduce the time required to prove and approve a vaccine even further by using human challenge trials.
If we'd been able to start vaccinating people in September, or even earlier, that would have made a huge difference
The big question is whether the mRNA technology can be used to tweak the vaccine, without requiring a full re-trial, IIRC
I thought the government have already said yes.
Saying yes doesn't mean actually getting it through approval etc. My understanding is that the tweaked versions of the vaccine for the planned September shots will go through standard trials. MaxPB??
IIRC it will be a similar process to the annual influenza vaccines. No full trials, only brief safety testing.
Surely unpalatable for most people to have a 3rd shot, when there are loads of people including very vulnerable and frontline health workers who have been unable to even get a first shot.
I mean it depends a bit how things develop, but there's also some self-interest in rich countries working to help the rest of the world before giving own populations 3rd shots.
Hopefully, by then, the production issues will be out of the way. If the production levels planned are realised, we will be up to our ears in vaccines.
But much of the world will be very far from up to their ears by September!
Pfizer alone are saying 4bn doses this year. There will be plenty to go around.
That is not an unreasonable assumption on the vaccine at the time
The number of people that had antibody protection via vaccine on the last day of 2020 was perhaps 1/2 a million. For all intents and purposes the working assumption, no vaccine in 2020 was entirely correct.
It was my understanding that by any previous experience, a vaccine being ready to use in 2020 was something close to ridiculous.
What happened was the war-time-development* effect on process and systems - enough pressure was applied to reduce actions in the vaccine creation process to what *needed* to be done, rather than "but, traditionally..."
*In operational research, this effect is well known and rather interesting.
One of the most interesting questions for the next time from the long Cummings Twitter thread is whether we could reduce the time required to prove and approve a vaccine even further by using human challenge trials.
If we'd been able to start vaccinating people in September, or even earlier, that would have made a huge difference
The big question is whether the mRNA technology can be used to tweak the vaccine, without requiring a full re-trial, IIRC
I thought the government have already said yes.
Saying yes doesn't mean actually getting it through approval etc. My understanding is that the tweaked versions of the vaccine for the planned September shots will go through standard trials. MaxPB??
IIRC it will be a similar process to the annual influenza vaccines. No full trials, only brief safety testing.
Surely unpalatable for most people to have a 3rd shot, when there are loads of people including very vulnerable and frontline health workers who have been unable to even get a first shot.
I mean it depends a bit how things develop, but there's also some self-interest in rich countries working to help the rest of the world before giving own populations 3rd shots.
Hopefully, by then, the production issues will be out of the way. If the production levels planned are realised, we will be up to our ears in vaccines.
But much of the world will be very far from up to their ears by September!
That is not an unreasonable assumption on the vaccine at the time
The number of people that had antibody protection via vaccine on the last day of 2020 was perhaps 1/2 a million. For all intents and purposes the working assumption, no vaccine in 2020 was entirely correct.
It was my understanding that by any previous experience, a vaccine being ready to use in 2020 was something close to ridiculous.
What happened was the war-time-development* effect on process and systems - enough pressure was applied to reduce actions in the vaccine creation process to what *needed* to be done, rather than "but, traditionally..."
*In operational research, this effect is well known and rather interesting.
One of the most interesting questions for the next time from the long Cummings Twitter thread is whether we could reduce the time required to prove and approve a vaccine even further by using human challenge trials.
If we'd been able to start vaccinating people in September, or even earlier, that would have made a huge difference
The big question is whether the mRNA technology can be used to tweak the vaccine, without requiring a full re-trial, IIRC
I thought the government have already said yes.
Saying yes doesn't mean actually getting it through approval etc. My understanding is that the tweaked versions of the vaccine for the planned September shots will go through standard trials. MaxPB??
IIRC it will be a similar process to the annual influenza vaccines. No full trials, only brief safety testing.
Surely unpalatable for most people to have a 3rd shot, when there are loads of people including very vulnerable and frontline health workers who have been unable to even get a first shot.
I mean it depends a bit how things develop, but there's also some self-interest in rich countries working to help the rest of the world before giving own populations 3rd shots.
Hopefully, by then, the production issues will be out of the way. If the production levels planned are realised, we will be up to our ears in vaccines.
But much of the world will be very far from up to their ears by September!
It depends on the production situation - the scale of what is planned makes what has been delivered so far look tiny.
This is actually very interesting stuff. Just not for the reasons the press were expecting.
Maybe at some point, they might think about getting their science and medicine journalists to report on the Health Select Committee?
Too busy wanking themselves crazy over the soap opera ...
GB News are going to have a field day, if Sky and BBC keep up this nonesense.
There’s a MASSIVE hole in the market for an adult, broadsheet broadcaster. As opposed to this tabloid crap we’ve had for the last year.
The accusation that Big Dom always thinks he is the smartest in the room, when he isn't...so many of the political hacks clearly think the same, but the tide has gone out and been revealed to be butt naked....yes i'm looking at you Prof Peston.
Though an individual’s right to approach their MP is an essential part of the democratic process,this has to be balanced against the rights of others, including potentially the right to a fair trial and the right to privacy. Extending qualified privilege to all forms of correspondence could allow constituents effectively to ignore any legislation or court order that required information to be kept confidential. This would potentially include breaches of the Official Secrets Act 1989 or the Contempt of Court Act 1981, and could undermine the rule of law.
and
123. The list set out in the Schedule includes the following speech offences: • Use of threatening words or behaviour intended to stir up racial or religious hatred, under the Public Order Act 1986 as amended by the Racial and Religious Hatred Act 2006; • Use of threatening words or behaviour intended to stir up hatred on the grounds of sexual orientation, under the Public Order Act 1986 as amended by the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008; • Threatening or abusive behaviour under Criminal Justice and Licensing (Scotland) Act 2010; • Encouragement of terrorism, under the Terrorism Act 2006; • Criminal contempt of court under the Contempt of Court Act 1981 (which makes it a strict liability offence to publish material which creates a substantial risk of prejudice or impediment to active court proceedings. “Publication” includes communication by speech); and • Breach of the Official Secrets Act 1989.
This is actually very interesting stuff. Just not for the reasons the press were expecting.
Maybe at some point, they might think about getting their science and medicine journalists to report on the Health Select Committee?
Too busy wanking themselves crazy over the soap opera ...
GB News are going to have a field day, if Sky and BBC keep up this nonesense.
There’s a MASSIVE hole in the market for an adult, broadsheet broadcaster. As opposed to this tabloid crap we’ve had for the last year.
The accusation that Big Dom always thinks he is the smartest in the room, when he isn't...so many of the political hacks clearly think the same, but the tide has gone out and been revealed to be butt naked....yes i'm looking at you Prof Peston.
At least with Big Dom, he does some reading.
He is proof that reading and understanding are two different things.
This is actually very interesting stuff. Just not for the reasons the press were expecting.
Maybe at some point, they might think about getting their science and medicine journalists to report on the Health Select Committee?
Too busy wanking themselves crazy over the soap opera ...
GB News are going to have a field day, if Sky and BBC keep up this nonesense.
There’s a MASSIVE hole in the market for an adult, broadsheet broadcaster. As opposed to this tabloid crap we’ve had for the last year.
The accusation that Big Dom always thinks he is the smartest in the room, when he isn't...so many of the political hacks clearly think the same, but the tide has gone out and been revealed to be butt naked....yes i'm looking at you Prof Peston.
At least with Big Dom, he does some reading.
A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.....
The problem is that the whole political circus is designed around the idea that saying "I don't know the answer" is the fatal reply.
Imagine if a minister said in an interview "I don't know the answer to that question." - he/she would be out of a job before the end of the interview. As opposed to "Well, Barry, {insert waffle here}"
I have to say I have been impressed with Hunt during the pandemic. He has often made very sensible criticisms / suggestions of practical things that could be done e.g. school remain for kids of key workers
Why is Hunt talking about preventing a lockdown? I get people weren't happy about Liverpool v Atletico and the Gold Cup. But Cummings was right when he said that cancelling those things are pointless if you don't shut pubs etc.
There never was some magic middle road through this.
As he delivers his testimony, 75% of the public don't trust Dominic Cummings to tell the truth about how the government handled the pandemic. 55% don't trust Boris Johnson either, however...
I have to say I have been impressed with Hunt during the pandemic. He has often made very sensible criticisms / suggestions of practical things that could be done e.g. school remain for kids of key workers
But he's an idiot for caring so much about Cheltenham etc.
Fascinating stuff from the Committee, for political nerds and lawyers etc, but this is going to be thin gruel i think for the media. Not following every single word, but i'm not sensing that Boris is coming out of this particularly badly or that there is anything bad for him or which can't be contextualised in a less damaging way. Cummings isn't coming out of it very well so far. Hunt doing an excellent job on him at moment.
Though an individual’s right to approach their MP is an essential part of the democratic process,this has to be balanced against the rights of others, including potentially the right to a fair trial and the right to privacy. Extending qualified privilege to all forms of correspondence could allow constituents effectively to ignore any legislation or court order that required information to be kept confidential. This would potentially include breaches of the Official Secrets Act 1989 or the Contempt of Court Act 1981, and could undermine the rule of law.
and
123. The list set out in the Schedule includes the following speech offences: • Use of threatening words or behaviour intended to stir up racial or religious hatred, under the Public Order Act 1986 as amended by the Racial and Religious Hatred Act 2006; • Use of threatening words or behaviour intended to stir up hatred on the grounds of sexual orientation, under the Public Order Act 1986 as amended by the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008; • Threatening or abusive behaviour under Criminal Justice and Licensing (Scotland) Act 2010; • Encouragement of terrorism, under the Terrorism Act 2006; • Criminal contempt of court under the Contempt of Court Act 1981 (which makes it a strict liability offence to publish material which creates a substantial risk of prejudice or impediment to active court proceedings. “Publication” includes communication by speech); and • Breach of the Official Secrets Act 1989.
That’s about communications between MPs and their constituents, rather than Committee hearings. My understanding was that the latter operate to the same rules as MPs speaking in the House of Commons.
That is not an unreasonable assumption on the vaccine at the time
The number of people that had antibody protection via vaccine on the last day of 2020 was perhaps 1/2 a million. For all intents and purposes the working assumption, no vaccine in 2020 was entirely correct.
It was my understanding that by any previous experience, a vaccine being ready to use in 2020 was something close to ridiculous.
What happened was the war-time-development* effect on process and systems - enough pressure was applied to reduce actions in the vaccine creation process to what *needed* to be done, rather than "but, traditionally..."
*In operational research, this effect is well known and rather interesting.
One of the most interesting questions for the next time from the long Cummings Twitter thread is whether we could reduce the time required to prove and approve a vaccine even further by using human challenge trials.
If we'd been able to start vaccinating people in September, or even earlier, that would have made a huge difference
The big question is whether the mRNA technology can be used to tweak the vaccine, without requiring a full re-trial, IIRC
I thought the government have already said yes.
Saying yes doesn't mean actually getting it through approval etc. My understanding is that the tweaked versions of the vaccine for the planned September shots will go through standard trials. MaxPB??
IIRC it will be a similar process to the annual influenza vaccines. No full trials, only brief safety testing.
Surely unpalatable for most people to have a 3rd shot, when there are loads of people including very vulnerable and frontline health workers who have been unable to even get a first shot.
I mean it depends a bit how things develop, but there's also some self-interest in rich countries working to help the rest of the world before giving own populations 3rd shots.
Hopefully, by then, the production issues will be out of the way. If the production levels planned are realised, we will be up to our ears in vaccines.
But much of the world will be very far from up to their ears by September!
Pfizer alone are saying 4bn doses this year. There will be plenty to go around.
But presumably not 4bn by September?
At some point there will be plenty to go round, but vaccines will reach those who need it the most later if rich countries take a billion doses in the Autumn to give people 3rd shots, when there will probably be hardly anyone who has already had 2 shots dying in those countries.
I wouldn't be able to take a 3rd shot this year if it has almost zero chance of giving me any benefit, when the same shot could save lives elsewhere!
That is not an unreasonable assumption on the vaccine at the time
The number of people that had antibody protection via vaccine on the last day of 2020 was perhaps 1/2 a million. For all intents and purposes the working assumption, no vaccine in 2020 was entirely correct.
It was my understanding that by any previous experience, a vaccine being ready to use in 2020 was something close to ridiculous.
What happened was the war-time-development* effect on process and systems - enough pressure was applied to reduce actions in the vaccine creation process to what *needed* to be done, rather than "but, traditionally..."
*In operational research, this effect is well known and rather interesting.
One of the most interesting questions for the next time from the long Cummings Twitter thread is whether we could reduce the time required to prove and approve a vaccine even further by using human challenge trials.
If we'd been able to start vaccinating people in September, or even earlier, that would have made a huge difference
The big question is whether the mRNA technology can be used to tweak the vaccine, without requiring a full re-trial, IIRC
I thought the government have already said yes.
Saying yes doesn't mean actually getting it through approval etc. My understanding is that the tweaked versions of the vaccine for the planned September shots will go through standard trials. MaxPB??
IIRC it will be a similar process to the annual influenza vaccines. No full trials, only brief safety testing.
Surely unpalatable for most people to have a 3rd shot, when there are loads of people including very vulnerable and frontline health workers who have been unable to even get a first shot.
I mean it depends a bit how things develop, but there's also some self-interest in rich countries working to help the rest of the world before giving own populations 3rd shots.
Hopefully, by then, the production issues will be out of the way. If the production levels planned are realised, we will be up to our ears in vaccines.
But much of the world will be very far from up to their ears by September!
Pfizer alone are saying 4bn doses this year. There will be plenty to go around.
But presumably not 4bn by September?
At some point there will be plenty to go round, but vaccines will reach those who need it the most later if rich countries take a billion doses in the Autumn to give people 3rd shots, when there will probably be hardly anyone who has already had 2 shots dying in those countries.
I wouldn't be able to take a 3rd shot this year if it has almost zero chance of giving me any benefit, when the same shot could save lives elsewhere!
The biggest issue by the end of the year will be distribution, not supply.
This is actually very interesting stuff. Just not for the reasons the press were expecting.
Maybe at some point, they might think about getting their science and medicine journalists to report on the Health Select Committee?
Too busy wanking themselves crazy over the soap opera ...
GB News are going to have a field day, if Sky and BBC keep up this nonesense.
There’s a MASSIVE hole in the market for an adult, broadsheet broadcaster. As opposed to this tabloid crap we’ve had for the last year.
The accusation that Big Dom always thinks he is the smartest in the room, when he isn't...so many of the political hacks clearly think the same, but the tide has gone out and been revealed to be butt naked....yes i'm looking at you Prof Peston.
At least with Big Dom, he does some reading.
A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.....
It's not the knowledge that's dangerous. It's the arrogance that goes with it.
Though an individual’s right to approach their MP is an essential part of the democratic process,this has to be balanced against the rights of others, including potentially the right to a fair trial and the right to privacy. Extending qualified privilege to all forms of correspondence could allow constituents effectively to ignore any legislation or court order that required information to be kept confidential. This would potentially include breaches of the Official Secrets Act 1989 or the Contempt of Court Act 1981, and could undermine the rule of law.
and
123. The list set out in the Schedule includes the following speech offences: • Use of threatening words or behaviour intended to stir up racial or religious hatred, under the Public Order Act 1986 as amended by the Racial and Religious Hatred Act 2006; • Use of threatening words or behaviour intended to stir up hatred on the grounds of sexual orientation, under the Public Order Act 1986 as amended by the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008; • Threatening or abusive behaviour under Criminal Justice and Licensing (Scotland) Act 2010; • Encouragement of terrorism, under the Terrorism Act 2006; • Criminal contempt of court under the Contempt of Court Act 1981 (which makes it a strict liability offence to publish material which creates a substantial risk of prejudice or impediment to active court proceedings. “Publication” includes communication by speech); and • Breach of the Official Secrets Act 1989.
That’s about communications between MPs and their constituents, rather than Committee hearings. My understanding was that the latter operate to the same rules as MPs speaking in the House of Commons.
Though an individual’s right to approach their MP is an essential part of the democratic process,this has to be balanced against the rights of others, including potentially the right to a fair trial and the right to privacy. Extending qualified privilege to all forms of correspondence could allow constituents effectively to ignore any legislation or court order that required information to be kept confidential. This would potentially include breaches of the Official Secrets Act 1989 or the Contempt of Court Act 1981, and could undermine the rule of law.
and
123. The list set out in the Schedule includes the following speech offences: • Use of threatening words or behaviour intended to stir up racial or religious hatred, under the Public Order Act 1986 as amended by the Racial and Religious Hatred Act 2006; • Use of threatening words or behaviour intended to stir up hatred on the grounds of sexual orientation, under the Public Order Act 1986 as amended by the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008; • Threatening or abusive behaviour under Criminal Justice and Licensing (Scotland) Act 2010; • Encouragement of terrorism, under the Terrorism Act 2006; • Criminal contempt of court under the Contempt of Court Act 1981 (which makes it a strict liability offence to publish material which creates a substantial risk of prejudice or impediment to active court proceedings. “Publication” includes communication by speech); and • Breach of the Official Secrets Act 1989.
That’s about communications between MPs and their constituents, rather than Committee hearings. My understanding was that the latter operate to the same rules as MPs speaking in the House of Commons.
I was going to ask about that.
Is it OK for Dom to retain such information after departing thee Govt, never mind publish it on Twitter?
If they are talking about it, presumably the Parl Committee should be in camera?
It strikes me that Dom is being pretty straightforward and honest to the Committee. If he'd adopted the same approach to his Barnard Castle trip, with a groveling apology, his reputation could well have remained intact. Such an error to bullshit about that trip.
It strikes me that Dom is being pretty straightforward and honest to the Committee. If he'd adopted the same approach to his Barnard Castle trip, with a groveling apology, his reputation could well have remained intact. Such an error to bullshit about that trip.
I said at the time, if he just told the truth, as a father and a husband, scared about what might happen...but I made a mistake, resigned...he would have been back by the end of the year, especially now so many others have been found to do the same or worse.
It strikes me that Dom is being pretty straightforward and honest to the Committee. If he'd adopted the same approach to his Barnard Castle trip, with a groveling apology, his reputation could well have remained intact. Such an error to bullshit about that trip.
It was a nudge-nudge-wink-wink Trumpian posture, part of the proudly shameless tone of the administration at the time, and complete with the played-up Durham accent to identify as "anti- elite".
Medical history should be entirely confidential unless requested by the police via court order, IMO.
Agree on that. We had something similar under Blair-Brown about 12-15 years ago. Here is a quote of part of the text.
England’s NHS is preparing to scrape the medical histories of 55m patients, including sensitive information on mental and sexual health, criminal records and abuse, into a database it will share with third parties.
The data collection project, which is the first of its kind, has caused an uproar among privacy campaigners, who say it is “legally problematic”, especially as patients only have a few weeks to opt out of the plan.
NHS Digital, which runs the health service’s IT systems, confirmed the plan to pool together medical records from every patient in England who is registered with a GP clinic into a single lake that will be available to academic and commercial third parties for research and planning purposes.
Cori Crider, co-founder of Foxglove, a campaign group for digital rights, said: “We all want to see the NHS come out of the pandemic stronger” but noted that the NHS had been “completely silent” on who would have access to the data.
...
Foxglove has issued a legal letter to the Department of Health and Social Care, questioning the lawfulness of the plans under current data protection laws, and threatening further legal action.
Rosa Curling, a solicitor at Foxglove, wrote in the letter that she had “serious concerns” about the legality of the move because no explicit consent had been given and “very few members of the public will be aware that the new processing is imminent, directly affecting their personal medical data”.
Patients have until June 23 to opt out by filling in a form and taking it to their GP before their historical records will become a permanent and irreversible part of the new data set. Patients who opt out after the deadline can stop future data from being funnelled into the new system.
No, wasn't that why he wouldn't appear in front of a select committee on Brexit stuff?
As someone with a former professional involvement with Select Committees I can authoritatively say the following:
Privilege applies to whatever a witness says in a Select Committee. Dom couldn't be prosecuted under the Official Secrets Act for revealing something in a Committee meeting. Privilege wouldn't protect him from other consequences of his testimony (for example if he were still employed by the government he could be dismissed for keeping unauthorised records) but in practice the Committee would take a dim view of any employer or agency penalising someone for their involvement in a Committee inquiry. Also the police can't use what's said in a Committee as the basis to open an investigation. If you confessed to murder in a Committee meeting the police couldn't use that as the reason to issue an arrest warrant, although of course they could probably come up with another reason.
Cummings confirming the PM and cabinet were getting duff data.
Difficult to see how that is bad for Boris.
I have not heard anything that damages Boris, but it is clear Cummings is attacking most everyone while at the same time apologising for his own inactions
It strikes me that Dom is being pretty straightforward and honest to the Committee. If he'd adopted the same approach to his Barnard Castle trip, with a groveling apology, his reputation could well have remained intact. Such an error to bullshit about that trip.
I said at the time, if he just told the truth, as a father and a husband, scared about what might happen...but I made a mistake, resigned...he would have been back by the end of the year, especially now so many others have been found to do the same or worse.
He didn't even need to resign. He just needed to say sorry and ensure that Boris didn't accept his resignation...
Comments
But, given that DC is on the other side of the table, who will have had the nous to write it?
In DC's opinion, anyway!
https://twitter.com/YouGov/status/1397479385171701760?s=20
OA (Con VI) Net Trust
Johnson: -17 (+55)
Cummings: -61 (-54)
https://docs.cdn.yougov.com/iszcru07g6/TheTimes_Coronahandling_Cummings_Results_210520.pdf
But we should be examining how if possible for next time we could get a vaccine testing program down even further. Could we get it down to 6 months?
Especially since the Moderna vaccine was apparently developed in just 2 days.
Even more sun for Dover.
So the odds on snow have to be quite long.
A combination of new technology and war-time-development pressure changed this.
Very often you have new technology building up - but not being used.
A classic in this genre was the manufacture of the turbo pumps for rocket engines. One of the tricky bits is the impellers, large, complex chunks of metal which need to be manufactured to extreme precision, in a complex shape, in metal that is very hard to work with.
Modern multi-axis CNC solved all of these problems. The very latest systems include final finish machining - you start with a lump of metal and you get the final product in one machining operation, polished like a mirror.
But the traditional aerospace companies carried on making the impellers the slow, hard way.
Then NASA sponsored the FASTRAC engine. Which used all the latest production techniques. And was dropped and forgotten. Until SpaceX asked Barber-Nichols, who made the pump, to make one for their Merlin engine.
SpaceX later bought the manufacture of impellers in house and further improved the process.
This is part of how they are building rocket engines for $500K rather than $50 million each.
Alleluia! Perhaps we will get something resembling a Summer after all?
I mean it depends a bit how things develop, but there's also some self-interest in rich countries working to help the rest of the world before giving own populations 3rd shots.
Obviously they have and actually with the variants it is even more transmissible and so yes you do have to
Not what I was expecting after the press briefings. Turns out the press have called it wrong again.
Dom is rich enough that he doesn't need to work, the life of an aristocratic gentleman-scholar might suit him well.
That's what makes him dangerous.
But said poster is too modest to mention it.
There’s a MASSIVE hole in the market for an adult, broadsheet broadcaster. As opposed to this tabloid crap we’ve had for the last year.
Test cricket with crowds back in 6 days thank goodness.
Dom's just broken the Official Secrets Act there.
So classy.
At least with Big Dom, he does some reading.
Would it be permitted to give that evidence in a closed room?
Oh, and now the F-bomb.
Classic Dom!
Really
and
123. The list set out in the Schedule includes the following speech offences:
• Use of threatening words or behaviour intended to stir up racial or religious hatred, under the
Public Order Act 1986 as amended by the Racial and Religious Hatred Act 2006;
• Use of threatening words or behaviour intended to stir up hatred on the grounds of sexual
orientation, under the Public Order Act 1986 as amended by the Criminal Justice and
Immigration Act 2008;
• Threatening or abusive behaviour under Criminal Justice and Licensing (Scotland) Act 2010;
• Encouragement of terrorism, under the Terrorism Act 2006;
• Criminal contempt of court under the Contempt of Court Act 1981 (which makes it a strict
liability offence to publish material which creates a substantial risk of prejudice or impediment to
active court proceedings. “Publication” includes communication by speech); and
• Breach of the Official Secrets Act 1989.
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/79390/consultation.pdf
Isn't she the driving force behind this net zero taxation tsunami ?
Cummings now talking about aliens...
And he has just conceded he was wrong
The problem is that the whole political circus is designed around the idea that saying "I don't know the answer" is the fatal reply.
Imagine if a minister said in an interview "I don't know the answer to that question." - he/she would be out of a job before the end of the interview. As opposed to "Well, Barry, {insert waffle here}"
There never was some magic middle road through this.
England’s NHS plans to share patient records with third parties
55m patients have until June 23 to opt out of having their health data scraped into a new database.
https://www.google.com/search?q=https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.ft.com/content/9fee812f-6975-49ce-915c-aeb25d3dd748
Medical history should be entirely confidential unless requested by the police via court order, IMO.
At some point there will be plenty to go round, but vaccines will reach those who need it the most later if rich countries take a billion doses in the Autumn to give people 3rd shots, when there will probably be hardly anyone who has already had 2 shots dying in those countries.
I wouldn't be able to take a 3rd shot this year if it has almost zero chance of giving me any benefit, when the same shot could save lives elsewhere!
Is it OK for Dom to retain such information after departing thee Govt, never mind publish it on Twitter?
If they are talking about it, presumably the Parl Committee should be in camera?
Cummings describes the meeting with PM the next day after McNamara remarks
'It was a like a scene from Independence Day with Warner as Jeff Goldblum' saying the aliens are coming'
This evidence is indeed mind - blowing
And this from the journalist who broke covid rules with Kay Burley
Now I want to watch Independence Day again.
Difficult to see how that is bad for Boris.
England’s NHS is preparing to scrape the medical histories of 55m patients, including sensitive information on mental and sexual health, criminal records and abuse, into a database it will share with third parties.
The data collection project, which is the first of its kind, has caused an uproar among privacy campaigners, who say it is “legally problematic”, especially as patients only have a few weeks to opt out of the plan.
NHS Digital, which runs the health service’s IT systems, confirmed the plan to pool together medical records from every patient in England who is registered with a GP clinic into a single lake that will be available to academic and commercial third parties for research and planning purposes.
Cori Crider, co-founder of Foxglove, a campaign group for digital rights, said: “We all want to see the NHS come out of the pandemic stronger” but noted that the NHS had been “completely silent” on who would have access to the data.
...
Foxglove has issued a legal letter to the Department of Health and Social Care, questioning the lawfulness of the plans under current data protection laws, and threatening further legal action.
Rosa Curling, a solicitor at Foxglove, wrote in the letter that she had “serious concerns” about the legality of the move because no explicit consent had been given and “very few members of the public will be aware that the new processing is imminent, directly affecting their personal medical data”.
Patients have until June 23 to opt out by filling in a form and taking it to their GP before their historical records will become a permanent and irreversible part of the new data set. Patients who opt out after the deadline can stop future data from being funnelled into the new system.
One or an email to MPss, perhaps.
Never trust a man who dresses like a scruff/Jeremy Corbyn.
Do up all your shirt buttons and put on a tie.
You're addressing the mother of all parliaments.
Privilege applies to whatever a witness says in a Select Committee. Dom couldn't be prosecuted under the Official Secrets Act for revealing something in a Committee meeting. Privilege wouldn't protect him from other consequences of his testimony (for example if he were still employed by the government he could be dismissed for keeping unauthorised records) but in practice the Committee would take a dim view of any employer or agency penalising someone for their involvement in a Committee inquiry. Also the police can't use what's said in a Committee as the basis to open an investigation. If you confessed to murder in a Committee meeting the police couldn't use that as the reason to issue an arrest warrant, although of course they could probably come up with another reason.