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What happened in Batley and Spen at the May 2019 Euro elections – politicalbetting.com

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  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    Leon said:

    Selebian said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    My cheerful friend in Cornwall adds this:

    "Delta can transmit in 5-10 seconds"

    Evidence....
    She didn't give a citation. But she IS very clever, top of her profession, not a fool that reads the Express

    She's the sort that does tons of reading. I'm minded to believe that she has, at least, read that somewhere reputable; doesn't make it true, of course

    But we can all see how frigging infectious Delta can be. It's almost as if it this virus was engineered to have maximum virulence, in a lab
    Wait, I thought it was the original version that got leaked from a lab? If so, the lab version was a bit naff really, wasn't it, compared to Delta? So much for enhancement of function.

    Or did the original version and Delta both come from the lab? That really would be careless (lose a virus once, shame on... shame on you, lose a virus... - you can't lose a virus again!)
    Or a virus engineered to be super adaptable? And quick to evolve?

    Serious question. I am not a virologist, is this even possible?

    Incidentally, I defy anyone to watch this and come out thinking Fauci is this saintly figure with no questions to answer. He is deep in the dirt

    https://twitter.com/MarkMeadows/status/1409991235163545600?s=20
    The big factor in speed of evolution is number of instances of virus, and the big factor in number of instances of virus is number of victims infected. So just being super infectious takes care of everything else
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 75,842
    IshmaelZ said:

    People are talking as if COVID vaccines claimed to be 100% effective against catching it....

    They did claim to make fully vaccinated couples becoming seriously ill very, very, very unlikely....
    If you're seriously ill with Delta double jabbed, you'd be dead without it
    The USA is going to overtake us on deaths per million shortly
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 76,274

    Gadfly said:

    Leon said:

    Anecdata from Cornwall

    A close friend of mine (cancer survivor, l;ate 50s) lives in Mousehole. Cornwall

    She reports a huge spike in cases in Cornish hotspots - post G7 - up to 900 per 100,000

    She also reports two double jabbed villagers are really ill with Delta, and half the pubs and restaurants are shut again, because so many staff are ill/isolating. Not good

    Same here in my Yorkshire Dales village. Delta has hit every generation of one family (who do not cohabit). Double jabbed grandfather and partner bother seriously ill, jabbed son and partner both badly, infected grandchildren have closed the nursery and reception year at school. Son and partner both in the pub last Friday before getting positive results on Saturday morning, so the community is now waiting to see what happens next. Meanwhile, the pub was rammed again last night for the football game.
    If double jabbed are getting seriously ill in growing/large numbers wouldn't ZOE have picked this up by now as they are driven by people with symptoms?
    They have reported on his. Symptoms are far far milder (on average) and the numbers of double jabbed people catching it is tiny.
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 31,718
    DavidL said:

    FPT
    DecrepiterJohnL said:
    » show previous quotes
    Now there's a case that would have @DavidL off his death bed and back into court. Your Honour, the prosecution contends it is an official secret that Boris is "unfit" to be Prime Minister and that Matt Hancock is "fucking hopeless".

    I said:
    Unfortunately I have not been offered the gig. It does seem to me that Cummings has taken pictures of lots of things that should at least be confidential and quite possibly a good deal more secret than that. It really is inconceivable that someone in such a position will not have a confidential information provision in his contract. This really shouldn't be that difficult in law. The court of public opinion is, of course, another matter.

    Again FPT my thought was
    While...... and IANAL ....... I agree that it ought to be inconceivable etc, I wonder who drew up his contract. If, TBH, there ever was a written one.
  • BigRichBigRich Posts: 3,489

    How many of the cases we're picking up are asymptomatic?

    image

    As its mostly in young people and a very large propotion of the cases are Asyptomatic.

    The the UKs mass testing in schools collages and University's. is probably a big factor in the number of cases.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,574
    Absolute quantitation of individual SARS-CoV-2 RNA molecules: a new paradigm for infection dynamics and variant differences
    https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.06.29.450133v1
    Despite an unprecedented global research effort on SARS-CoV-2, early replication events remain poorly understood. Given the clinical importance of emergent viral variants with increased transmission, there is an urgent need to understand the early stages of viral replication and transcription. We used single molecule fluorescence in situ hybridisation (smFISH) to quantify positive sense RNA genomes with 95% detection efficiency, while simultaneously visualising negative sense genomes, sub-genomic RNAs and viral proteins. Our absolute quantification of viral RNAs and replication factories revealed that SARS-CoV-2 genomic RNA is long-lived after entry, suggesting that it avoids degradation by cellular nucleases. Moreover, we observed that SARS-CoV-2 replication is highly variable between cells, with only a small cell population displaying high burden of viral RNA. Unexpectedly, the Alpha variant, first identified in the UK, exhibits significantly slower replication kinetics than the Victoria strain, suggesting a novel mechanism contributing to its higher transmissibility with important clinical implications.
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 50,772

    DavidL said:

    FPT
    DecrepiterJohnL said:
    » show previous quotes
    Now there's a case that would have @DavidL off his death bed and back into court. Your Honour, the prosecution contends it is an official secret that Boris is "unfit" to be Prime Minister and that Matt Hancock is "fucking hopeless".

    I said:
    Unfortunately I have not been offered the gig. It does seem to me that Cummings has taken pictures of lots of things that should at least be confidential and quite possibly a good deal more secret than that. It really is inconceivable that someone in such a position will not have a confidential information provision in his contract. This really shouldn't be that difficult in law. The court of public opinion is, of course, another matter.

    Again FPT my thought was
    While...... and IANAL ....... I agree that it ought to be inconceivable etc, I wonder who drew up his contract. If, TBH, there ever was a written one.
    Surely the Civil Service will have insisted on that.
  • Nigel_ForemainNigel_Foremain Posts: 13,766
    Leon said:

    Gadfly said:

    Leon said:

    Anecdata from Cornwall

    A close friend of mine (cancer survivor, l;ate 50s) lives in Mousehole. Cornwall

    She reports a huge spike in cases in Cornish hotspots - post G7 - up to 900 per 100,000

    She also reports two double jabbed villagers are really ill with Delta, and half the pubs and restaurants are shut again, because so many staff are ill/isolating. Not good

    Same here in my Yorkshire Dales village. Delta has hit every generation of one family (who do not cohabit). Double jabbed grandfather and partner bother seriously ill, jabbed son and partner both badly, infected grandchildren have closed the nursery and reception year at school. Son and partner both in the pub last Friday before getting positive results on Saturday morning, so the community is now waiting to see what happens next. Meanwhile, the pub was rammed again last night for the football game.
    Crikey, that's ominous. We must remember that these are all outliers, and the vaccines work, but still

    How ill is "seriously ill"?

    My friend in Cornwall says her double jabbed Deltoid pals were in bed for ten days, but not bad enough for hospital. Then the risk of Long Covid.
    Was it the same friend in Cornwall who saw alien battlecruisers hovering on the horizon just south of The Isles of Silly?
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    Nigelb said:

    Selebian said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    My cheerful friend in Cornwall adds this:

    "Delta can transmit in 5-10 seconds"

    Evidence....
    She didn't give a citation. But she IS very clever, top of her profession, not a fool that reads the Express

    She's the sort that does tons of reading. I'm minded to believe that she has, at least, read that somewhere reputable; doesn't make it true, of course

    But we can all see how frigging infectious Delta can be. It's almost as if it this virus was engineered to have maximum virulence, in a lab
    Wait, I thought it was the original version that got leaked from a lab? If so, the lab version was a bit naff really, wasn't it, compared to Delta? So much for enhancement of function.

    Or did the original version and Delta both come from the lab? That really would be careless (lose a virus once, shame on... shame on you, lose a virus... - you can't lose a virus again!)
    At the risk of going around in more @Leon circles...

    The Case Against the Covid-19 Lab Leak Theory
    https://newrepublic.com/article/162689/bats-covid-19-lab-leak-theory
    Server down.
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 31,718
    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    FPT
    DecrepiterJohnL said:
    » show previous quotes
    Now there's a case that would have @DavidL off his death bed and back into court. Your Honour, the prosecution contends it is an official secret that Boris is "unfit" to be Prime Minister and that Matt Hancock is "fucking hopeless".

    I said:
    Unfortunately I have not been offered the gig. It does seem to me that Cummings has taken pictures of lots of things that should at least be confidential and quite possibly a good deal more secret than that. It really is inconceivable that someone in such a position will not have a confidential information provision in his contract. This really shouldn't be that difficult in law. The court of public opinion is, of course, another matter.

    Again FPT my thought was
    While...... and IANAL ....... I agree that it ought to be inconceivable etc, I wonder who drew up his contract. If, TBH, there ever was a written one.
    Surely the Civil Service will have insisted on that.
    This is our current PM; at what point was Cummings appointed to his staff?
  • Nigel_ForemainNigel_Foremain Posts: 13,766

    DavidL said:

    FPT
    DecrepiterJohnL said:
    » show previous quotes
    Now there's a case that would have @DavidL off his death bed and back into court. Your Honour, the prosecution contends it is an official secret that Boris is "unfit" to be Prime Minister and that Matt Hancock is "fucking hopeless".

    I said:
    Unfortunately I have not been offered the gig. It does seem to me that Cummings has taken pictures of lots of things that should at least be confidential and quite possibly a good deal more secret than that. It really is inconceivable that someone in such a position will not have a confidential information provision in his contract. This really shouldn't be that difficult in law. The court of public opinion is, of course, another matter.

    Again FPT my thought was
    While...... and IANAL ....... I agree that it ought to be inconceivable etc, I wonder who drew up his contract. If, TBH, there ever was a written one.
    My thoughts exactly. Bozo is just the sort of idiot to insist that contracts are not needed between trusted friends lol.
  • MattWMattW Posts: 18,087

    This is the only issue on the horizon.

    The supply from Pfizer and Moderna is now the main limiting factor in the coronavirus vaccine programme, analysts say, preventing a reduction in the eight-week interval between doses as the race against the Delta variant continues.

    The government was advised last month under-40s should be offered an alternative to the Oxford-AstraZeneca jab because of a small risk of blood clots, given the low prevalence of the virus and the availability of other shots.


    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/not-enough-pfizer-and-moderna-doses-to-vaccinate-against-covid-faster-rp8jpf0fs

    That's from Airfinity, who don't have a stellar record imo.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,248
    Nigelb said:

    Selebian said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    My cheerful friend in Cornwall adds this:

    "Delta can transmit in 5-10 seconds"

    Evidence....
    She didn't give a citation. But she IS very clever, top of her profession, not a fool that reads the Express

    She's the sort that does tons of reading. I'm minded to believe that she has, at least, read that somewhere reputable; doesn't make it true, of course

    But we can all see how frigging infectious Delta can be. It's almost as if it this virus was engineered to have maximum virulence, in a lab
    Wait, I thought it was the original version that got leaked from a lab? If so, the lab version was a bit naff really, wasn't it, compared to Delta? So much for enhancement of function.

    Or did the original version and Delta both come from the lab? That really would be careless (lose a virus once, shame on... shame on you, lose a virus... - you can't lose a virus again!)
    At the risk of going around in more @Leon circles...

    The Case Against the Covid-19 Lab Leak Theory
    https://newrepublic.com/article/162689/bats-covid-19-lab-leak-theory
    I don't think anyone believes natural zoonosis outside the lab is likely, not anymore


    "Former State Dept officials tell
    @CBSNews
    significant info about the Wuhan lab was buried in government databases + didn’t reach their desks for nearly a year, as there is a new push to know the origins #COVID19
    @CBS_Herridge
    reports on the lab leak theory"

    https://twitter.com/CBS_Herridge/status/1410222245079830533?s=20


    The New York Times:

    "It’s very difficult to read this and not be convinced that this was a lab leak. This is pretty damning:"

    https://twitter.com/susanthesquark/status/1408660068157911046?s=20

  • GadflyGadfly Posts: 1,191
    Leon said:

    Gadfly said:

    Leon said:

    Anecdata from Cornwall

    A close friend of mine (cancer survivor, l;ate 50s) lives in Mousehole. Cornwall

    She reports a huge spike in cases in Cornish hotspots - post G7 - up to 900 per 100,000

    She also reports two double jabbed villagers are really ill with Delta, and half the pubs and restaurants are shut again, because so many staff are ill/isolating. Not good

    Same here in my Yorkshire Dales village. Delta has hit every generation of one family (who do not cohabit). Double jabbed grandfather and partner bother seriously ill, jabbed son and partner both badly, infected grandchildren have closed the nursery and reception year at school. Son and partner both in the pub last Friday before getting positive results on Saturday morning, so the community is now waiting to see what happens next. Meanwhile, the pub was rammed again last night for the football game.
    Crikey, that's ominous. We must remember that these are all outliers, and the vaccines work, but still

    How ill is "seriously ill"?

    My friend in Cornwall says her double jabbed Deltoid pals were in bed for ten days, but not bad enough for hospital. Then the risk of Long Covid.
    My understanding is that they are bedridden, but so far not in hospital. They're both in their 60S.
  • Nigel_ForemainNigel_Foremain Posts: 13,766
    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    FPT
    DecrepiterJohnL said:
    » show previous quotes
    Now there's a case that would have @DavidL off his death bed and back into court. Your Honour, the prosecution contends it is an official secret that Boris is "unfit" to be Prime Minister and that Matt Hancock is "fucking hopeless".

    I said:
    Unfortunately I have not been offered the gig. It does seem to me that Cummings has taken pictures of lots of things that should at least be confidential and quite possibly a good deal more secret than that. It really is inconceivable that someone in such a position will not have a confidential information provision in his contract. This really shouldn't be that difficult in law. The court of public opinion is, of course, another matter.

    Again FPT my thought was
    While...... and IANAL ....... I agree that it ought to be inconceivable etc, I wonder who drew up his contract. If, TBH, there ever was a written one.
    Surely the Civil Service will have insisted on that.
    Cummings will have told Johnson that the fact that the Civil Service insists on it is a reason not to do it. Johnson really is that gullible.
  • AlistairAlistair Posts: 23,670
    With regards to the Scottish numbers despite the dramatic graphs they are producing cases per 100k are still not close to the figures london/south of England was producing in late december/early Jan.

    Scotland got off lightly in winter and as a result acquired immunity is a lot lower.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,146
    Nigelb said:

    Selebian said:

    FPT

    Carnyx said:

    rcs1000 said:

    There is this strange idea that asking the young to make sacrifices for the old in time of crisis is somehow unusual.

    Ladies and gentlemen, can I bring to your attention conscription? That is, forcing the young to take time out from education and life, to get trained as a soldier and to go into battle for theit country, so an external menace can be defeated.

    It seems to me that CV19 is not a million miles different to a war. A pathogen has come to disrupt our lived and potentially to kill and to injure, and to affect our way of life.

    A small number of people (might) bear a slightly higher risk from vaccination than they would do from the disease. But in return everyone benefits from stamping out the disease completely.

    We all agree conscription is necessary under certain circumstances, why should it not be the same with vaccination?

    The comparison is even closer. Being a guinea pig was a recognised role for conscientious objectors to conscription, of course. And I don't mean the Mengele kind of guinea pig.

    https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16510534/
    Crikey! Scientists back then had all the fun :hushed: That's both apalling and very interesting in the things that were learned. Fascinating that the author was involved as a scientist and that one (at least) of the 'volunteers' went into science afterwards. I also like the desert-dry reference to the Declaration of Helsinki preventing similar studies in future - I can't work out whether the author sees that as a bad or a good thing.

    These seem direct links to the full paper:
    https://academic.oup.com/ije/article/35/3/556/735661
    DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/ije/dyl020

    I was fortunate enough to have a brilliant surgeon for my youthful health problems. He was at the end of a long and successful career, but I was surprised to discover that, in the 1950s, he had done experiments on volunteer servicemen. The tests were to examine heat effects and would, to modern eyes, not be allowed. He was fairly frank about it.
    Not to mention the experiment on human subjects with chemical weapons, at Porton Down, which went on into the '70s, I think.
    At least Haldane (in WW1, on respiratory issues, I think inclouding submarines) included himself in the experimental panel.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,574
    Leon said:

    Nigelb said:

    Selebian said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    My cheerful friend in Cornwall adds this:

    "Delta can transmit in 5-10 seconds"

    Evidence....
    She didn't give a citation. But she IS very clever, top of her profession, not a fool that reads the Express

    She's the sort that does tons of reading. I'm minded to believe that she has, at least, read that somewhere reputable; doesn't make it true, of course

    But we can all see how frigging infectious Delta can be. It's almost as if it this virus was engineered to have maximum virulence, in a lab
    Wait, I thought it was the original version that got leaked from a lab? If so, the lab version was a bit naff really, wasn't it, compared to Delta? So much for enhancement of function.

    Or did the original version and Delta both come from the lab? That really would be careless (lose a virus once, shame on... shame on you, lose a virus... - you can't lose a virus again!)
    At the risk of going around in more @Leon circles...

    The Case Against the Covid-19 Lab Leak Theory
    https://newrepublic.com/article/162689/bats-covid-19-lab-leak-theory
    I don't think anyone believes natural zoonosis outside the lab is likely, not anymore


    "Former State Dept officials tell
    @CBSNews
    significant info about the Wuhan lab was buried in government databases + didn’t reach their desks for nearly a year, as there is a new push to know the origins #COVID19
    @CBS_Herridge
    reports on the lab leak theory"

    https://twitter.com/CBS_Herridge/status/1410222245079830533?s=20


    The New York Times:

    "It’s very difficult to read this and not be convinced that this was a lab leak. This is pretty damning:"

    https://twitter.com/susanthesquark/status/1408660068157911046?s=20

    Perhaps not on your Twitter feed.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,248
    IshmaelZ said:

    Leon said:

    Selebian said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    My cheerful friend in Cornwall adds this:

    "Delta can transmit in 5-10 seconds"

    Evidence....
    She didn't give a citation. But she IS very clever, top of her profession, not a fool that reads the Express

    She's the sort that does tons of reading. I'm minded to believe that she has, at least, read that somewhere reputable; doesn't make it true, of course

    But we can all see how frigging infectious Delta can be. It's almost as if it this virus was engineered to have maximum virulence, in a lab
    Wait, I thought it was the original version that got leaked from a lab? If so, the lab version was a bit naff really, wasn't it, compared to Delta? So much for enhancement of function.

    Or did the original version and Delta both come from the lab? That really would be careless (lose a virus once, shame on... shame on you, lose a virus... - you can't lose a virus again!)
    Or a virus engineered to be super adaptable? And quick to evolve?

    Serious question. I am not a virologist, is this even possible?

    Incidentally, I defy anyone to watch this and come out thinking Fauci is this saintly figure with no questions to answer. He is deep in the dirt

    https://twitter.com/MarkMeadows/status/1409991235163545600?s=20
    The big factor in speed of evolution is number of instances of virus, and the big factor in number of instances of virus is number of victims infected. So just being super infectious takes care of everything else
    An interesting thread on increased functionality and "lab leak"


    "1/ Months ago, some said that the fact that SARS2 is continuing to evolve means that it was not *pre-adapted* to humans and thus didn't have a lab origin. I have asked: Is there a way to distinguish between mutations that would arise from adaptation to human cells in culture ..."

    https://twitter.com/MalcolmByrnes/status/1410245089180405769?s=20
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,248
    edited June 2021
    Nigelb said:

    Leon said:

    Nigelb said:

    Selebian said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    My cheerful friend in Cornwall adds this:

    "Delta can transmit in 5-10 seconds"

    Evidence....
    She didn't give a citation. But she IS very clever, top of her profession, not a fool that reads the Express

    She's the sort that does tons of reading. I'm minded to believe that she has, at least, read that somewhere reputable; doesn't make it true, of course

    But we can all see how frigging infectious Delta can be. It's almost as if it this virus was engineered to have maximum virulence, in a lab
    Wait, I thought it was the original version that got leaked from a lab? If so, the lab version was a bit naff really, wasn't it, compared to Delta? So much for enhancement of function.

    Or did the original version and Delta both come from the lab? That really would be careless (lose a virus once, shame on... shame on you, lose a virus... - you can't lose a virus again!)
    At the risk of going around in more @Leon circles...

    The Case Against the Covid-19 Lab Leak Theory
    https://newrepublic.com/article/162689/bats-covid-19-lab-leak-theory
    I don't think anyone believes natural zoonosis outside the lab is likely, not anymore


    "Former State Dept officials tell
    @CBSNews
    significant info about the Wuhan lab was buried in government databases + didn’t reach their desks for nearly a year, as there is a new push to know the origins #COVID19
    @CBS_Herridge
    reports on the lab leak theory"

    https://twitter.com/CBS_Herridge/status/1410222245079830533?s=20


    The New York Times:

    "It’s very difficult to read this and not be convinced that this was a lab leak. This is pretty damning:"

    https://twitter.com/susanthesquark/status/1408660068157911046?s=20

    Perhaps not on your Twitter feed.
    No, I mean generally:


    "Most Americans believe in COVID-19 lab leak theory: Poll"

    https://aninews.in/news/world/us/most-americans-believe-in-covid-19-lab-leak-theory-poll20210624111141#.YNQxMWre7n4.twitter


    Indeed, most Americans think their government conspired to hide the truth of this:


    "Poll: Majority believe US Government and media tried to cover up Wuhan lab leak theory"

    https://twitter.com/DesertReporter/status/1410264107790438412?s=20
  • TimTTimT Posts: 6,328
    TimS said:

    Would be very interesting to see how this epidemic actually compares (in case numbers and growth terms) with what happens with other diseases. I've no handle on how widely and rapidly other infections grow.

    For example, every year (or few months) you'll hear talk about the fact there is a particularly nasty cold going round, or there will be talk of everyone coming down with the winter vomiting virus. We never test extensively for these, and half the time they don't even make it to the doctor's, particularly colds. What would the infection curves look like if PHE were issuing daily updates and dozens of twitter statisticians were doing charts of them. Do we, for example, have times of the year where something like flu is growing at 20k+ cases per day? Perhaps we do, and the death numbers in some winters coupled with the known CFR of flu suggest maybe the rates massively outstrip this, but I've no idea.

    The rate a disease spreads at depends on a multitude of factors, including but not limited to:
    - its mode of transmission - air, touch, water, bodily fluids, blood
    - its portals of entry - nose, mouth, abrasions to skin, puncture (including insect bites), sexual activity
    - its portals of exit - breath, coughing/sneezing, vomit, GI tract, bodily fluids, blood (including insect bites)
    - the survivability of the pathogen between hosts (itself dependent on a variety of factors, including the weather and if it is vector-borne, like Zika, yellow fever, malaria etc... with mosquitos)
    - the naivety of the population to the pathogen - i.e. whether their is any immunity to it in the population, including cross immunity from different but similar pathogens (e.g. immunity to H1N1 flu might convey some immunity to H1N5 flu; or immunity to one of the common cold coronaviruses might convey some immunity to COVID - and the evidence is that there is some degree of cross immunity between SARS and COVID)
    - the distribution/concentration of vulnerable populations
    - social behaviours (which includes whether symptoms appear before infectiousness or after, i.e. if like Ebola we get ill before we can infect, and so change our behaviours naturally before we get sick)
    - the joker of superspreader individuals and events.

    The R0 number attempts to capture all of this in one measure. Wuhan was about 2.6, Kent 3.5, Delta 6-ish.

    For comparison
    MERS 0.5
    Seasonal flu 1.3
    Common cold 2-3
    SARS 2-4
    HIV 2-5
    Smallpox 3.5-6
    Whooping cough 5.5
    Polio 5-7
    Rubella 6-7
    Mumps 10-12
    Chickenpox 10-12.
    Measles 12-18

    So COVID is up there, and the Delta variant very much so. But it is not the champion of infectiousness.

    Of course, the reason that common cold die out is that we reach herd immunity through infection, not vaccination. So that would imply that 50-67% of the population get most epidemic versions of a common cold given that we do not adopt social controls or vaccinate for them.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,771
    Leon said:

    Nigelb said:

    Selebian said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    My cheerful friend in Cornwall adds this:

    "Delta can transmit in 5-10 seconds"

    Evidence....
    She didn't give a citation. But she IS very clever, top of her profession, not a fool that reads the Express

    She's the sort that does tons of reading. I'm minded to believe that she has, at least, read that somewhere reputable; doesn't make it true, of course

    But we can all see how frigging infectious Delta can be. It's almost as if it this virus was engineered to have maximum virulence, in a lab
    Wait, I thought it was the original version that got leaked from a lab? If so, the lab version was a bit naff really, wasn't it, compared to Delta? So much for enhancement of function.

    Or did the original version and Delta both come from the lab? That really would be careless (lose a virus once, shame on... shame on you, lose a virus... - you can't lose a virus again!)
    At the risk of going around in more @Leon circles...

    The Case Against the Covid-19 Lab Leak Theory
    https://newrepublic.com/article/162689/bats-covid-19-lab-leak-theory
    I don't think anyone believes natural zoonosis outside the lab is likely, not anymore


    "Former State Dept officials tell
    @CBSNews
    significant info about the Wuhan lab was buried in government databases + didn’t reach their desks for nearly a year, as there is a new push to know the origins #COVID19
    @CBS_Herridge
    reports on the lab leak theory"

    https://twitter.com/CBS_Herridge/status/1410222245079830533?s=20


    The New York Times:

    "It’s very difficult to read this and not be convinced that this was a lab leak. This is pretty damning:"

    https://twitter.com/susanthesquark/status/1408660068157911046?s=20

    So, what new evidence is there that specifically excludes zoonosis?
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,146
    Nigelb said:

    Selebian said:

    FPT

    Carnyx said:

    rcs1000 said:

    There is this strange idea that asking the young to make sacrifices for the old in time of crisis is somehow unusual.

    Ladies and gentlemen, can I bring to your attention conscription? That is, forcing the young to take time out from education and life, to get trained as a soldier and to go into battle for theit country, so an external menace can be defeated.

    It seems to me that CV19 is not a million miles different to a war. A pathogen has come to disrupt our lived and potentially to kill and to injure, and to affect our way of life.

    A small number of people (might) bear a slightly higher risk from vaccination than they would do from the disease. But in return everyone benefits from stamping out the disease completely.

    We all agree conscription is necessary under certain circumstances, why should it not be the same with vaccination?

    The comparison is even closer. Being a guinea pig was a recognised role for conscientious objectors to conscription, of course. And I don't mean the Mengele kind of guinea pig.

    https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16510534/
    Crikey! Scientists back then had all the fun :hushed: That's both apalling and very interesting in the things that were learned. Fascinating that the author was involved as a scientist and that one (at least) of the 'volunteers' went into science afterwards. I also like the desert-dry reference to the Declaration of Helsinki preventing similar studies in future - I can't work out whether the author sees that as a bad or a good thing.

    These seem direct links to the full paper:
    https://academic.oup.com/ije/article/35/3/556/735661
    DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/ije/dyl020

    I was fortunate enough to have a brilliant surgeon for my youthful health problems. He was at the end of a long and successful career, but I was surprised to discover that, in the 1950s, he had done experiments on volunteer servicemen. The tests were to examine heat effects and would, to modern eyes, not be allowed. He was fairly frank about it.
    Not to mention the experiment on human subjects with chemical weapons, at Porton Down, which went on into the '70s, I think.
    That was actually directly to do with defence, so it's quite a good comparison for covid!

    There was a rather distressing book published on the experiments. I can't remember the details now, but IIRC the question of informed consent was rather skated over - perhaps an element of being volunteered too. It wasn't formally wartime, either, so they were doing it on professional squaddies.
  • OmniumOmnium Posts: 9,688
    Leon said:

    Nigelb said:

    Selebian said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    My cheerful friend in Cornwall adds this:

    "Delta can transmit in 5-10 seconds"

    Evidence....
    She didn't give a citation. But she IS very clever, top of her profession, not a fool that reads the Express

    She's the sort that does tons of reading. I'm minded to believe that she has, at least, read that somewhere reputable; doesn't make it true, of course

    But we can all see how frigging infectious Delta can be. It's almost as if it this virus was engineered to have maximum virulence, in a lab
    Wait, I thought it was the original version that got leaked from a lab? If so, the lab version was a bit naff really, wasn't it, compared to Delta? So much for enhancement of function.

    Or did the original version and Delta both come from the lab? That really would be careless (lose a virus once, shame on... shame on you, lose a virus... - you can't lose a virus again!)
    At the risk of going around in more @Leon circles...

    The Case Against the Covid-19 Lab Leak Theory
    https://newrepublic.com/article/162689/bats-covid-19-lab-leak-theory
    I don't think anyone believes natural zoonosis outside the lab is likely, not anymore


    "Former State Dept officials tell
    @CBSNews
    significant info about the Wuhan lab was buried in government databases + didn’t reach their desks for nearly a year, as there is a new push to know the origins #COVID19
    @CBS_Herridge
    reports on the lab leak theory"

    https://twitter.com/CBS_Herridge/status/1410222245079830533?s=20


    The New York Times:

    "It’s very difficult to read this and not be convinced that this was a lab leak. This is pretty damning:"

    https://twitter.com/susanthesquark/status/1408660068157911046?s=20

    Look about you. The ability of nature to produce all sorts of things is undeniable. Lab stuff? Not so much.
  • TimTTimT Posts: 6,328
    Gadfly said:

    Leon said:

    Anecdata from Cornwall

    A close friend of mine (cancer survivor, l;ate 50s) lives in Mousehole. Cornwall

    She reports a huge spike in cases in Cornish hotspots - post G7 - up to 900 per 100,000

    She also reports two double jabbed villagers are really ill with Delta, and half the pubs and restaurants are shut again, because so many staff are ill/isolating. Not good

    Same here in my Yorkshire Dales village. Delta has hit every generation of one family (who do not cohabit). Double jabbed grandfather and partner bother seriously ill, jabbed son and partner both badly, infected grandchildren have closed the nursery and reception year at school. Son and partner both in the pub last Friday before getting positive results on Saturday morning, so the community is now waiting to see what happens next. Meanwhile, the pub was rammed again last night for the football game.

    Sister lives in Cambourne. Same reports of massive spike post G7. But I think their local is still open.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,248
    rcs1000 said:

    Leon said:

    Nigelb said:

    Selebian said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    My cheerful friend in Cornwall adds this:

    "Delta can transmit in 5-10 seconds"

    Evidence....
    She didn't give a citation. But she IS very clever, top of her profession, not a fool that reads the Express

    She's the sort that does tons of reading. I'm minded to believe that she has, at least, read that somewhere reputable; doesn't make it true, of course

    But we can all see how frigging infectious Delta can be. It's almost as if it this virus was engineered to have maximum virulence, in a lab
    Wait, I thought it was the original version that got leaked from a lab? If so, the lab version was a bit naff really, wasn't it, compared to Delta? So much for enhancement of function.

    Or did the original version and Delta both come from the lab? That really would be careless (lose a virus once, shame on... shame on you, lose a virus... - you can't lose a virus again!)
    At the risk of going around in more @Leon circles...

    The Case Against the Covid-19 Lab Leak Theory
    https://newrepublic.com/article/162689/bats-covid-19-lab-leak-theory
    I don't think anyone believes natural zoonosis outside the lab is likely, not anymore


    "Former State Dept officials tell
    @CBSNews
    significant info about the Wuhan lab was buried in government databases + didn’t reach their desks for nearly a year, as there is a new push to know the origins #COVID19
    @CBS_Herridge
    reports on the lab leak theory"

    https://twitter.com/CBS_Herridge/status/1410222245079830533?s=20


    The New York Times:

    "It’s very difficult to read this and not be convinced that this was a lab leak. This is pretty damning:"

    https://twitter.com/susanthesquark/status/1408660068157911046?s=20

    So, what new evidence is there that specifically excludes zoonosis?
    Nothing, of course. Which is why I specifically did not exclude it.

    I said natural zoonosis outside the lab is now regarded, by most, as less likely than a lab leak - whether accidental or deliberate, engineered or not. And polls show I am right (at least in the USA). Most agree with me

    Meanwhile the weight of circumstantial evidence continues to pile on the lab leak side of the debate. The recent revelation of inexplicable Wuhan Lab data deletion, in Q3 2019, being one such
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,146
    edited June 2021

    Leon said:

    Nigelb said:

    Leon said:

    Nigelb said:

    Selebian said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    My cheerful friend in Cornwall adds this:

    "Delta can transmit in 5-10 seconds"

    Evidence....
    She didn't give a citation. But she IS very clever, top of her profession, not a fool that reads the Express

    She's the sort that does tons of reading. I'm minded to believe that she has, at least, read that somewhere reputable; doesn't make it true, of course

    But we can all see how frigging infectious Delta can be. It's almost as if it this virus was engineered to have maximum virulence, in a lab
    Wait, I thought it was the original version that got leaked from a lab? If so, the lab version was a bit naff really, wasn't it, compared to Delta? So much for enhancement of function.

    Or did the original version and Delta both come from the lab? That really would be careless (lose a virus once, shame on... shame on you, lose a virus... - you can't lose a virus again!)
    At the risk of going around in more @Leon circles...

    The Case Against the Covid-19 Lab Leak Theory
    https://newrepublic.com/article/162689/bats-covid-19-lab-leak-theory
    I don't think anyone believes natural zoonosis outside the lab is likely, not anymore


    "Former State Dept officials tell
    @CBSNews
    significant info about the Wuhan lab was buried in government databases + didn’t reach their desks for nearly a year, as there is a new push to know the origins #COVID19
    @CBS_Herridge
    reports on the lab leak theory"

    https://twitter.com/CBS_Herridge/status/1410222245079830533?s=20


    The New York Times:

    "It’s very difficult to read this and not be convinced that this was a lab leak. This is pretty damning:"

    https://twitter.com/susanthesquark/status/1408660068157911046?s=20

    Perhaps not on your Twitter feed.
    No, I mean generally:


    "Most Americans believe in COVID-19 lab leak theory: Poll"

    https://aninews.in/news/world/us/most-americans-believe-in-covid-19-lab-leak-theory-poll20210624111141#.YNQxMWre7n4.twitter


    Indeed, most Americans think their government conspired to hide the truth of this:


    "Poll: Majority believe US Government and media tried to cover up Wuhan lab leak theory"

    https://twitter.com/DesertReporter/status/1410264107790438412?s=20
    A sentence starting "Most Americans believe..." is not one that is really going to be a slam dunker in an argument.
    It is - but perhaps not in the way its deployer might wish.

    Edit: of course, this does not apply when the issue of popuilar belief itself is beign discussed, rather than the strict validity of the belief itself.
  • JosiasJessopJosiasJessop Posts: 38,517
    TimT said:

    Gadfly said:

    Leon said:

    Anecdata from Cornwall

    A close friend of mine (cancer survivor, l;ate 50s) lives in Mousehole. Cornwall

    She reports a huge spike in cases in Cornish hotspots - post G7 - up to 900 per 100,000

    She also reports two double jabbed villagers are really ill with Delta, and half the pubs and restaurants are shut again, because so many staff are ill/isolating. Not good

    Same here in my Yorkshire Dales village. Delta has hit every generation of one family (who do not cohabit). Double jabbed grandfather and partner bother seriously ill, jabbed son and partner both badly, infected grandchildren have closed the nursery and reception year at school. Son and partner both in the pub last Friday before getting positive results on Saturday morning, so the community is now waiting to see what happens next. Meanwhile, the pub was rammed again last night for the football game.

    Sister lives in Cambourne. Same reports of massive spike post G7. But I think their local is still open.
    Hey! I live in Cambourne, and the G7 was nowhere near here! ;)

    (I think you mean Camborne, in the not-so-flatlands).
  • TimTTimT Posts: 6,328
    Omnium said:

    Leon said:

    Nigelb said:

    Selebian said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    My cheerful friend in Cornwall adds this:

    "Delta can transmit in 5-10 seconds"

    Evidence....
    She didn't give a citation. But she IS very clever, top of her profession, not a fool that reads the Express

    She's the sort that does tons of reading. I'm minded to believe that she has, at least, read that somewhere reputable; doesn't make it true, of course

    But we can all see how frigging infectious Delta can be. It's almost as if it this virus was engineered to have maximum virulence, in a lab
    Wait, I thought it was the original version that got leaked from a lab? If so, the lab version was a bit naff really, wasn't it, compared to Delta? So much for enhancement of function.

    Or did the original version and Delta both come from the lab? That really would be careless (lose a virus once, shame on... shame on you, lose a virus... - you can't lose a virus again!)
    At the risk of going around in more @Leon circles...

    The Case Against the Covid-19 Lab Leak Theory
    https://newrepublic.com/article/162689/bats-covid-19-lab-leak-theory
    I don't think anyone believes natural zoonosis outside the lab is likely, not anymore


    "Former State Dept officials tell
    @CBSNews
    significant info about the Wuhan lab was buried in government databases + didn’t reach their desks for nearly a year, as there is a new push to know the origins #COVID19
    @CBS_Herridge
    reports on the lab leak theory"

    https://twitter.com/CBS_Herridge/status/1410222245079830533?s=20


    The New York Times:

    "It’s very difficult to read this and not be convinced that this was a lab leak. This is pretty damning:"

    https://twitter.com/susanthesquark/status/1408660068157911046?s=20

    Look about you. The ability of nature to produce all sorts of things is undeniable. Lab stuff? Not so much.
    Everyone I know in the biosecurity space is open-minded about natural vs lab leak of a natural virus. Even those who pushed back against the shut-down of the lab leak option from the start (e.g. Filippa Lentzos, Jamie Metzl) do not say that is definitely what happened, just that it cannot be so off-handedly discounted.

    No-one serious believes this was designed. Most profess too little information to determine if it were evolved in nature or via deliberate or accidental directed evolution in the lab, or was the result of Gain of Function work.

    So Leon's opening statement is a little too definitive.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,248
    Carnyx said:

    Leon said:

    Nigelb said:

    Leon said:

    Nigelb said:

    Selebian said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    My cheerful friend in Cornwall adds this:

    "Delta can transmit in 5-10 seconds"

    Evidence....
    She didn't give a citation. But she IS very clever, top of her profession, not a fool that reads the Express

    She's the sort that does tons of reading. I'm minded to believe that she has, at least, read that somewhere reputable; doesn't make it true, of course

    But we can all see how frigging infectious Delta can be. It's almost as if it this virus was engineered to have maximum virulence, in a lab
    Wait, I thought it was the original version that got leaked from a lab? If so, the lab version was a bit naff really, wasn't it, compared to Delta? So much for enhancement of function.

    Or did the original version and Delta both come from the lab? That really would be careless (lose a virus once, shame on... shame on you, lose a virus... - you can't lose a virus again!)
    At the risk of going around in more @Leon circles...

    The Case Against the Covid-19 Lab Leak Theory
    https://newrepublic.com/article/162689/bats-covid-19-lab-leak-theory
    I don't think anyone believes natural zoonosis outside the lab is likely, not anymore


    "Former State Dept officials tell
    @CBSNews
    significant info about the Wuhan lab was buried in government databases + didn’t reach their desks for nearly a year, as there is a new push to know the origins #COVID19
    @CBS_Herridge
    reports on the lab leak theory"

    https://twitter.com/CBS_Herridge/status/1410222245079830533?s=20


    The New York Times:

    "It’s very difficult to read this and not be convinced that this was a lab leak. This is pretty damning:"

    https://twitter.com/susanthesquark/status/1408660068157911046?s=20

    Perhaps not on your Twitter feed.
    No, I mean generally:


    "Most Americans believe in COVID-19 lab leak theory: Poll"

    https://aninews.in/news/world/us/most-americans-believe-in-covid-19-lab-leak-theory-poll20210624111141#.YNQxMWre7n4.twitter


    Indeed, most Americans think their government conspired to hide the truth of this:


    "Poll: Majority believe US Government and media tried to cover up Wuhan lab leak theory"

    https://twitter.com/DesertReporter/status/1410264107790438412?s=20
    A sentence starting "Most Americans believe..." is not one that is really going to be a slam dunker in an argument.
    It is - but perhaps not in the way its deployer might wish.

    Edit: of course, this does not apply when the issue of popuilar belief itself is beign discussed, rather than the strict validity of the belief itself.
    Which is what was being discussed. How widely these beliefs are held. Most now believe lab leak, at least in the USA. Indeed I fail to understand anyone who does not accept that it is, at least, eminently plausible. And there was very definitely a scandalous attempt to crush this hypothesis, at an early stage, that is now indisputable

    And this:

    "WATCH → Every single expert witness at yesterday’s COVID-19 origins hearing told Congress it came from a lab.

    "Will the media and Big Tech be apologizing for calling people conspiracy theorists for saying that?"


    https://twitter.com/GGail2011/status/1410242119558701059?s=20
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 26,280
    edited June 2021
    Pulpstar said:

    Andy_JS said:

    dixiedean said:

    This Delta variant really is virulently infectious isn't it?
    Will rip through unvaccinated countries. It is ripping through here, too.
    Those case rights are astonishing given our level of vaccine protection.

    Would it be correct to say that if the original variant had spread through the population without being impeded, this variant would probably never have arisen?
    Not sure how much impeding there was going on in India
    Yes because the Delta variant had already arisen in other parts of the world by then. I was just wondering whether one could say that the Delta variant is an indirect result of human action to suppress the original variant...
  • TimTTimT Posts: 6,328
    Leon said:

    Nigelb said:

    Selebian said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    My cheerful friend in Cornwall adds this:

    "Delta can transmit in 5-10 seconds"

    Evidence....
    She didn't give a citation. But she IS very clever, top of her profession, not a fool that reads the Express

    She's the sort that does tons of reading. I'm minded to believe that she has, at least, read that somewhere reputable; doesn't make it true, of course

    But we can all see how frigging infectious Delta can be. It's almost as if it this virus was engineered to have maximum virulence, in a lab
    Wait, I thought it was the original version that got leaked from a lab? If so, the lab version was a bit naff really, wasn't it, compared to Delta? So much for enhancement of function.

    Or did the original version and Delta both come from the lab? That really would be careless (lose a virus once, shame on... shame on you, lose a virus... - you can't lose a virus again!)
    At the risk of going around in more @Leon circles...

    The Case Against the Covid-19 Lab Leak Theory
    https://newrepublic.com/article/162689/bats-covid-19-lab-leak-theory
    I don't think anyone believes natural zoonosis outside the lab is likely, not anymore


    "Former State Dept officials tell
    @CBSNews
    significant info about the Wuhan lab was buried in government databases + didn’t reach their desks for nearly a year, as there is a new push to know the origins #COVID19
    @CBS_Herridge
    reports on the lab leak theory"

    https://twitter.com/CBS_Herridge/status/1410222245079830533?s=20


    The New York Times:

    "It’s very difficult to read this and not be convinced that this was a lab leak. This is pretty damning:"

    https://twitter.com/susanthesquark/status/1408660068157911046?s=20


    The link to Catherine Herridge's twitter is not working for me. What does it say?
  • Sandpit said:

    I love Rafa so much, never stopped loving him when he managed Chelsea so managing Everton is fine by me.

    https://www.evertonfc.com/news/2181395/benitez-appointed-everton-manager

    There’s a lot of Everton fans online today, who don’t seem to be too happy at the prospect of having a manager who won the European Cup.
    The board can shove it. He won’t last a season. A manager getting worse as he goes on using us to stuff his pension pot while working from home.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,771
    Leon said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Leon said:

    Nigelb said:

    Selebian said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    My cheerful friend in Cornwall adds this:

    "Delta can transmit in 5-10 seconds"

    Evidence....
    She didn't give a citation. But she IS very clever, top of her profession, not a fool that reads the Express

    She's the sort that does tons of reading. I'm minded to believe that she has, at least, read that somewhere reputable; doesn't make it true, of course

    But we can all see how frigging infectious Delta can be. It's almost as if it this virus was engineered to have maximum virulence, in a lab
    Wait, I thought it was the original version that got leaked from a lab? If so, the lab version was a bit naff really, wasn't it, compared to Delta? So much for enhancement of function.

    Or did the original version and Delta both come from the lab? That really would be careless (lose a virus once, shame on... shame on you, lose a virus... - you can't lose a virus again!)
    At the risk of going around in more @Leon circles...

    The Case Against the Covid-19 Lab Leak Theory
    https://newrepublic.com/article/162689/bats-covid-19-lab-leak-theory
    I don't think anyone believes natural zoonosis outside the lab is likely, not anymore


    "Former State Dept officials tell
    @CBSNews
    significant info about the Wuhan lab was buried in government databases + didn’t reach their desks for nearly a year, as there is a new push to know the origins #COVID19
    @CBS_Herridge
    reports on the lab leak theory"

    https://twitter.com/CBS_Herridge/status/1410222245079830533?s=20


    The New York Times:

    "It’s very difficult to read this and not be convinced that this was a lab leak. This is pretty damning:"

    https://twitter.com/susanthesquark/status/1408660068157911046?s=20

    So, what new evidence is there that specifically excludes zoonosis?
    Nothing, of course. Which is why I specifically did not exclude it.

    I said natural zoonosis outside the lab is now regarded, by most, as less likely than a lab leak - whether accidental or deliberate, engineered or not. And polls show I am right (at least in the USA). Most agree with me

    Meanwhile the weight of circumstantial evidence continues to pile on the lab leak side of the debate. The recent revelation of inexplicable Wuhan Lab data deletion, in Q3 2019, being one such
    You said "I don't think anyone believes natural zoonosis outside the lab is likely, not anymore"

    I'm happy to agree that the lab leak theory now looks more plausible than zoonosis. But your statement was a bit stronger than that.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,248
    rcs1000 said:

    Leon said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Leon said:

    Nigelb said:

    Selebian said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    My cheerful friend in Cornwall adds this:

    "Delta can transmit in 5-10 seconds"

    Evidence....
    She didn't give a citation. But she IS very clever, top of her profession, not a fool that reads the Express

    She's the sort that does tons of reading. I'm minded to believe that she has, at least, read that somewhere reputable; doesn't make it true, of course

    But we can all see how frigging infectious Delta can be. It's almost as if it this virus was engineered to have maximum virulence, in a lab
    Wait, I thought it was the original version that got leaked from a lab? If so, the lab version was a bit naff really, wasn't it, compared to Delta? So much for enhancement of function.

    Or did the original version and Delta both come from the lab? That really would be careless (lose a virus once, shame on... shame on you, lose a virus... - you can't lose a virus again!)
    At the risk of going around in more @Leon circles...

    The Case Against the Covid-19 Lab Leak Theory
    https://newrepublic.com/article/162689/bats-covid-19-lab-leak-theory
    I don't think anyone believes natural zoonosis outside the lab is likely, not anymore


    "Former State Dept officials tell
    @CBSNews
    significant info about the Wuhan lab was buried in government databases + didn’t reach their desks for nearly a year, as there is a new push to know the origins #COVID19
    @CBS_Herridge
    reports on the lab leak theory"

    https://twitter.com/CBS_Herridge/status/1410222245079830533?s=20


    The New York Times:

    "It’s very difficult to read this and not be convinced that this was a lab leak. This is pretty damning:"

    https://twitter.com/susanthesquark/status/1408660068157911046?s=20

    So, what new evidence is there that specifically excludes zoonosis?
    Nothing, of course. Which is why I specifically did not exclude it.

    I said natural zoonosis outside the lab is now regarded, by most, as less likely than a lab leak - whether accidental or deliberate, engineered or not. And polls show I am right (at least in the USA). Most agree with me

    Meanwhile the weight of circumstantial evidence continues to pile on the lab leak side of the debate. The recent revelation of inexplicable Wuhan Lab data deletion, in Q3 2019, being one such
    You said "I don't think anyone believes natural zoonosis outside the lab is likely, not anymore"

    I'm happy to agree that the lab leak theory now looks more plausible than zoonosis. But your statement was a bit stronger than that.
    Fair enough. A bit of playful hyperbole from me
  • Sean_FSean_F Posts: 35,765
    IshmaelZ said:

    People are talking as if COVID vaccines claimed to be 100% effective against catching it....

    They did claim to make fully vaccinated couples becoming seriously ill very, very, very unlikely....
    And that is indeed the case.
  • alex_alex_ Posts: 7,518
    Has there EVER been a pandemic where the focus on positive tests has led perception of the pandemic’s progress (at least to the degree it has). How would we look at this pandemic differently if the focus was all on detectable cases - basically hospitalisations and deaths?

    Take Spanish flu for instance. Conventional story is that there was a medium size first wave , a massive second wave, a smaller third wave and a few isolated outbreaks subsequently. But how would it have been seen in the modern approach?

  • Nigel_ForemainNigel_Foremain Posts: 13,766
    Carnyx said:

    Leon said:

    Nigelb said:

    Leon said:

    Nigelb said:

    Selebian said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    My cheerful friend in Cornwall adds this:

    "Delta can transmit in 5-10 seconds"

    Evidence....
    She didn't give a citation. But she IS very clever, top of her profession, not a fool that reads the Express

    She's the sort that does tons of reading. I'm minded to believe that she has, at least, read that somewhere reputable; doesn't make it true, of course

    But we can all see how frigging infectious Delta can be. It's almost as if it this virus was engineered to have maximum virulence, in a lab
    Wait, I thought it was the original version that got leaked from a lab? If so, the lab version was a bit naff really, wasn't it, compared to Delta? So much for enhancement of function.

    Or did the original version and Delta both come from the lab? That really would be careless (lose a virus once, shame on... shame on you, lose a virus... - you can't lose a virus again!)
    At the risk of going around in more @Leon circles...

    The Case Against the Covid-19 Lab Leak Theory
    https://newrepublic.com/article/162689/bats-covid-19-lab-leak-theory
    I don't think anyone believes natural zoonosis outside the lab is likely, not anymore


    "Former State Dept officials tell
    @CBSNews
    significant info about the Wuhan lab was buried in government databases + didn’t reach their desks for nearly a year, as there is a new push to know the origins #COVID19
    @CBS_Herridge
    reports on the lab leak theory"

    https://twitter.com/CBS_Herridge/status/1410222245079830533?s=20


    The New York Times:

    "It’s very difficult to read this and not be convinced that this was a lab leak. This is pretty damning:"

    https://twitter.com/susanthesquark/status/1408660068157911046?s=20

    Perhaps not on your Twitter feed.
    No, I mean generally:


    "Most Americans believe in COVID-19 lab leak theory: Poll"

    https://aninews.in/news/world/us/most-americans-believe-in-covid-19-lab-leak-theory-poll20210624111141#.YNQxMWre7n4.twitter


    Indeed, most Americans think their government conspired to hide the truth of this:


    "Poll: Majority believe US Government and media tried to cover up Wuhan lab leak theory"

    https://twitter.com/DesertReporter/status/1410264107790438412?s=20
    A sentence starting "Most Americans believe..." is not one that is really going to be a slam dunker in an argument.
    It is - but perhaps not in the way its deployer might wish.

    Edit: of course, this does not apply when the issue of popuilar belief itself is beign discussed, rather than the strict validity of the belief itself.
    Apparently nearly 80% of Americans believe in at least one unscientifically proven idea! However, only 2.3% of respondents identified as flat earthers (which out of a population of 331M is still quite a lot of absolute loons!)
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 14,878
    Gadfly said:

    Leon said:

    Anecdata from Cornwall

    A close friend of mine (cancer survivor, l;ate 50s) lives in Mousehole. Cornwall

    She reports a huge spike in cases in Cornish hotspots - post G7 - up to 900 per 100,000

    She also reports two double jabbed villagers are really ill with Delta, and half the pubs and restaurants are shut again, because so many staff are ill/isolating. Not good

    Same here in my Yorkshire Dales village. Delta has hit every generation of one family (who do not cohabit). Double jabbed grandfather and partner bother seriously ill, jabbed son and partner both badly, infected grandchildren have closed the nursery and reception year at school. Son and partner both in the pub last Friday before getting positive results on Saturday morning, so the community is now waiting to see what happens next. Meanwhile, the pub was rammed again last night for the football game.
    Any in hospital? Thats the key. Being very unwell, but getting over it at home is unpleasant, but should not be a concern. Needing hospital support more worrying.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,248
    TimT said:

    Leon said:

    Nigelb said:

    Selebian said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    My cheerful friend in Cornwall adds this:

    "Delta can transmit in 5-10 seconds"

    Evidence....
    She didn't give a citation. But she IS very clever, top of her profession, not a fool that reads the Express

    She's the sort that does tons of reading. I'm minded to believe that she has, at least, read that somewhere reputable; doesn't make it true, of course

    But we can all see how frigging infectious Delta can be. It's almost as if it this virus was engineered to have maximum virulence, in a lab
    Wait, I thought it was the original version that got leaked from a lab? If so, the lab version was a bit naff really, wasn't it, compared to Delta? So much for enhancement of function.

    Or did the original version and Delta both come from the lab? That really would be careless (lose a virus once, shame on... shame on you, lose a virus... - you can't lose a virus again!)
    At the risk of going around in more @Leon circles...

    The Case Against the Covid-19 Lab Leak Theory
    https://newrepublic.com/article/162689/bats-covid-19-lab-leak-theory
    I don't think anyone believes natural zoonosis outside the lab is likely, not anymore


    "Former State Dept officials tell
    @CBSNews
    significant info about the Wuhan lab was buried in government databases + didn’t reach their desks for nearly a year, as there is a new push to know the origins #COVID19
    @CBS_Herridge
    reports on the lab leak theory"

    https://twitter.com/CBS_Herridge/status/1410222245079830533?s=20


    The New York Times:

    "It’s very difficult to read this and not be convinced that this was a lab leak. This is pretty damning:"

    https://twitter.com/susanthesquark/status/1408660068157911046?s=20


    The link to Catherine Herridge's twitter is not working for me. What does it say?
    It's a good summary. It definitely tends towards lab leak, and it looks bad for Fauci

    Maybe this will work for you


    https://twitter.com/CBSThisMorning/status/1410213850092298248?s=20
  • Nigel_ForemainNigel_Foremain Posts: 13,766
    alex_ said:

    Has there EVER been a pandemic where the focus on positive tests has led perception of the pandemic’s progress (at least to the degree it has). How would we look at this pandemic differently if the focus was all on detectable cases - basically hospitalisations and deaths?

    Take Spanish flu for instance. Conventional story is that there was a medium size first wave , a massive second wave, a smaller third wave and a few isolated outbreaks subsequently. But how would it have been seen in the modern approach?

    A fair point. It is possibly the time to focus much more on actual outcomes
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 31,718
    Carnyx said:

    Nigelb said:

    Selebian said:

    FPT

    Carnyx said:

    rcs1000 said:

    There is this strange idea that asking the young to make sacrifices for the old in time of crisis is somehow unusual.

    Ladies and gentlemen, can I bring to your attention conscription? That is, forcing the young to take time out from education and life, to get trained as a soldier and to go into battle for theit country, so an external menace can be defeated.

    It seems to me that CV19 is not a million miles different to a war. A pathogen has come to disrupt our lived and potentially to kill and to injure, and to affect our way of life.

    A small number of people (might) bear a slightly higher risk from vaccination than they would do from the disease. But in return everyone benefits from stamping out the disease completely.

    We all agree conscription is necessary under certain circumstances, why should it not be the same with vaccination?

    The comparison is even closer. Being a guinea pig was a recognised role for conscientious objectors to conscription, of course. And I don't mean the Mengele kind of guinea pig.

    https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16510534/
    Crikey! Scientists back then had all the fun :hushed: That's both apalling and very interesting in the things that were learned. Fascinating that the author was involved as a scientist and that one (at least) of the 'volunteers' went into science afterwards. I also like the desert-dry reference to the Declaration of Helsinki preventing similar studies in future - I can't work out whether the author sees that as a bad or a good thing.

    These seem direct links to the full paper:
    https://academic.oup.com/ije/article/35/3/556/735661
    DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/ije/dyl020

    I was fortunate enough to have a brilliant surgeon for my youthful health problems. He was at the end of a long and successful career, but I was surprised to discover that, in the 1950s, he had done experiments on volunteer servicemen. The tests were to examine heat effects and would, to modern eyes, not be allowed. He was fairly frank about it.
    Not to mention the experiment on human subjects with chemical weapons, at Porton Down, which went on into the '70s, I think.
    That was actually directly to do with defence, so it's quite a good comparison for covid!

    There was a rather distressing book published on the experiments. I can't remember the details now, but IIRC the question of informed consent was rather skated over - perhaps an element of being volunteered too. It wasn't formally wartime, either, so they were doing it on professional squaddies.
    Husband of a good friend of my sister was one of the National Servicemen used in the Christmas Island nuclear tests.
    Volunteer......... no more than he wanted to be in the services! Being 'volunteered'..... definitely. Professional squaddies.... rubbish.
    AFAIK he's still trying to get compensation, but I haven't talked about it with my sister for a while.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,396

    Another straw in the wind to make of what you will: Labour has now spoken to EVERY Batley and Spen voter for whom we have phone numbers. I resumed phoning this evening and after a few (including 2 don't-know to Labour switchers, yay) I got the message that everyone had now been called.

    This has to be a lot more than the Galloway effort. I think it's now really come down to a Tory-Labour battle and Galloway is marginalised.

    Intentionally or otherwise the expectations management seems to have worked in Labour's favour, to the point losing but being close would, well, still be bad, but not as devastating.
  • TimTTimT Posts: 6,328
    alex_ said:

    Has there EVER been a pandemic where the focus on positive tests has led perception of the pandemic’s progress (at least to the degree it has). How would we look at this pandemic differently if the focus was all on detectable cases - basically hospitalisations and deaths?

    Take Spanish flu for instance. Conventional story is that there was a medium size first wave , a massive second wave, a smaller third wave and a few isolated outbreaks subsequently. But how would it have been seen in the modern approach?

    Don't forget that with the Spanish flu it happened when a World War was underway and all the major players in that war actively suppressed news of the pandemic. In fact, the only reason it is called the Spanish Flu is that Spain was not involved in the war and so was about the only country reporting progress of the pandemic within its borders.

    Latest theory is that two strains combined as a result of the war (a South Chinese strain with a Kansas strain) and that that strain further evolved within the confines of troop ships and trains and trenches to become the killer of young men.
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 27,836
    39.8 °C in Victoria BC. 42.7 in Port Alberni. And 49 + in BC Interior.
    These are extraordinary temperatures for a place with a normally middle England climate.
  • OmniumOmnium Posts: 9,688
    TimT said:

    Omnium said:

    Leon said:

    Nigelb said:

    Selebian said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    My cheerful friend in Cornwall adds this:

    "Delta can transmit in 5-10 seconds"

    Evidence....
    She didn't give a citation. But she IS very clever, top of her profession, not a fool that reads the Express

    She's the sort that does tons of reading. I'm minded to believe that she has, at least, read that somewhere reputable; doesn't make it true, of course

    But we can all see how frigging infectious Delta can be. It's almost as if it this virus was engineered to have maximum virulence, in a lab
    Wait, I thought it was the original version that got leaked from a lab? If so, the lab version was a bit naff really, wasn't it, compared to Delta? So much for enhancement of function.

    Or did the original version and Delta both come from the lab? That really would be careless (lose a virus once, shame on... shame on you, lose a virus... - you can't lose a virus again!)
    At the risk of going around in more @Leon circles...

    The Case Against the Covid-19 Lab Leak Theory
    https://newrepublic.com/article/162689/bats-covid-19-lab-leak-theory
    I don't think anyone believes natural zoonosis outside the lab is likely, not anymore


    "Former State Dept officials tell
    @CBSNews
    significant info about the Wuhan lab was buried in government databases + didn’t reach their desks for nearly a year, as there is a new push to know the origins #COVID19
    @CBS_Herridge
    reports on the lab leak theory"

    https://twitter.com/CBS_Herridge/status/1410222245079830533?s=20


    The New York Times:

    "It’s very difficult to read this and not be convinced that this was a lab leak. This is pretty damning:"

    https://twitter.com/susanthesquark/status/1408660068157911046?s=20

    Look about you. The ability of nature to produce all sorts of things is undeniable. Lab stuff? Not so much.
    Everyone I know in the biosecurity space is open-minded about natural vs lab leak of a natural virus. Even those who pushed back against the shut-down of the lab leak option from the start (e.g. Filippa Lentzos, Jamie Metzl) do not say that is definitely what happened, just that it cannot be so off-handedly discounted.

    No-one serious believes this was designed. Most profess too little information to determine if it were evolved in nature or via deliberate or accidental directed evolution in the lab, or was the result of Gain of Function work.

    So Leon's opening statement is a little too definitive.
    Sure.

    It's not just possible that it was a natural thing it is clearly the most likely explanation. It might be otherwise of course. You'd have to weird and strange to disagree with the preceding two sentences.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,068
    TimS said:

    Would be very interesting to see how this epidemic actually compares (in case numbers and growth terms) with what happens with other diseases. I've no handle on how widely and rapidly other infections grow.

    For example, every year (or few months) you'll hear talk about the fact there is a particularly nasty cold going round, or there will be talk of everyone coming down with the winter vomiting virus. We never test extensively for these, and half the time they don't even make it to the doctor's, particularly colds. What would the infection curves look like if PHE were issuing daily updates and dozens of twitter statisticians were doing charts of them. Do we, for example, have times of the year where something like flu is growing at 20k+ cases per day? Perhaps we do, and the death numbers in some winters coupled with the known CFR of flu suggest maybe the rates massively outstrip this, but I've no idea.

    Actually NHS England does active surveillance of respiratory viruses in normal years, as well as by other means, in order to understand and estimate numbers via a sample of GP practices, including virus samples.

    https://www.gov.uk/guidance/sources-of-uk-flu-data-influenza-surveillance-in-the-uk

    This is how we know that Covid did not occur here prior to Feb 2020, despite a fair few folk thinking they had it before it was famous.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,248
    TimT said:

    Omnium said:

    Leon said:

    Nigelb said:

    Selebian said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    My cheerful friend in Cornwall adds this:

    "Delta can transmit in 5-10 seconds"

    Evidence....
    She didn't give a citation. But she IS very clever, top of her profession, not a fool that reads the Express

    She's the sort that does tons of reading. I'm minded to believe that she has, at least, read that somewhere reputable; doesn't make it true, of course

    But we can all see how frigging infectious Delta can be. It's almost as if it this virus was engineered to have maximum virulence, in a lab
    Wait, I thought it was the original version that got leaked from a lab? If so, the lab version was a bit naff really, wasn't it, compared to Delta? So much for enhancement of function.

    Or did the original version and Delta both come from the lab? That really would be careless (lose a virus once, shame on... shame on you, lose a virus... - you can't lose a virus again!)
    At the risk of going around in more @Leon circles...

    The Case Against the Covid-19 Lab Leak Theory
    https://newrepublic.com/article/162689/bats-covid-19-lab-leak-theory
    I don't think anyone believes natural zoonosis outside the lab is likely, not anymore


    "Former State Dept officials tell
    @CBSNews
    significant info about the Wuhan lab was buried in government databases + didn’t reach their desks for nearly a year, as there is a new push to know the origins #COVID19
    @CBS_Herridge
    reports on the lab leak theory"

    https://twitter.com/CBS_Herridge/status/1410222245079830533?s=20


    The New York Times:

    "It’s very difficult to read this and not be convinced that this was a lab leak. This is pretty damning:"

    https://twitter.com/susanthesquark/status/1408660068157911046?s=20

    Look about you. The ability of nature to produce all sorts of things is undeniable. Lab stuff? Not so much.
    Everyone I know in the biosecurity space is open-minded about natural vs lab leak of a natural virus. Even those who pushed back against the shut-down of the lab leak option from the start (e.g. Filippa Lentzos, Jamie Metzl) do not say that is definitely what happened, just that it cannot be so off-handedly discounted.

    No-one serious believes this was designed. Most profess too little information to determine if it were evolved in nature or via deliberate or accidental directed evolution in the lab, or was the result of Gain of Function work.

    So Leon's opening statement is a little too definitive.
    it was, and I accept that. I was being provocative

    However I think this from you is too definitive, as well


    "No one seriously believes this was designed" - if by "designed" you mean the virus was somehow altered or engineered then lots of people are taking that very seriously indeed. Not least because Peter "Wuhan" Daszak explicitly admitted this is what they were doing in Wuhan - making coronaviruses nastier

    "Unearthed video of Peter Daszak Describing ‘Chinese Colleagues’ Developing ‘Killer’ Coronaviruses"

    https://twitter.com/bryanvilleneuve/status/1407547650560434179?s=20
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,146

    Carnyx said:

    Nigelb said:

    Selebian said:

    FPT

    Carnyx said:

    rcs1000 said:

    There is this strange idea that asking the young to make sacrifices for the old in time of crisis is somehow unusual.

    Ladies and gentlemen, can I bring to your attention conscription? That is, forcing the young to take time out from education and life, to get trained as a soldier and to go into battle for theit country, so an external menace can be defeated.

    It seems to me that CV19 is not a million miles different to a war. A pathogen has come to disrupt our lived and potentially to kill and to injure, and to affect our way of life.

    A small number of people (might) bear a slightly higher risk from vaccination than they would do from the disease. But in return everyone benefits from stamping out the disease completely.

    We all agree conscription is necessary under certain circumstances, why should it not be the same with vaccination?

    The comparison is even closer. Being a guinea pig was a recognised role for conscientious objectors to conscription, of course. And I don't mean the Mengele kind of guinea pig.

    https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16510534/
    Crikey! Scientists back then had all the fun :hushed: That's both apalling and very interesting in the things that were learned. Fascinating that the author was involved as a scientist and that one (at least) of the 'volunteers' went into science afterwards. I also like the desert-dry reference to the Declaration of Helsinki preventing similar studies in future - I can't work out whether the author sees that as a bad or a good thing.

    These seem direct links to the full paper:
    https://academic.oup.com/ije/article/35/3/556/735661
    DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/ije/dyl020

    I was fortunate enough to have a brilliant surgeon for my youthful health problems. He was at the end of a long and successful career, but I was surprised to discover that, in the 1950s, he had done experiments on volunteer servicemen. The tests were to examine heat effects and would, to modern eyes, not be allowed. He was fairly frank about it.
    Not to mention the experiment on human subjects with chemical weapons, at Porton Down, which went on into the '70s, I think.
    That was actually directly to do with defence, so it's quite a good comparison for covid!

    There was a rather distressing book published on the experiments. I can't remember the details now, but IIRC the question of informed consent was rather skated over - perhaps an element of being volunteered too. It wasn't formally wartime, either, so they were doing it on professional squaddies.
    Husband of a good friend of my sister was one of the National Servicemen used in the Christmas Island nuclear tests.
    Volunteer......... no more than he wanted to be in the services! Being 'volunteered'..... definitely. Professional squaddies.... rubbish.
    AFAIK he's still trying to get compensation, but I haven't talked about it with my sister for a while.
    That like is to express interest in your comment - not to approve of what happened!
  • OmniumOmnium Posts: 9,688

    Another straw in the wind to make of what you will: Labour has now spoken to EVERY Batley and Spen voter for whom we have phone numbers. I resumed phoning this evening and after a few (including 2 don't-know to Labour switchers, yay) I got the message that everyone had now been called.

    This has to be a lot more than the Galloway effort. I think it's now really come down to a Tory-Labour battle and Galloway is marginalised.

    "Labour has now spoken to EVERY Batley and Spen voter for whom we have phone numbers."

    Dr P - this seems improbable unless you have a fantastically short list of phone numbers.
  • TimTTimT Posts: 6,328
    Carnyx said:

    Nigelb said:

    Selebian said:

    FPT

    Carnyx said:

    rcs1000 said:

    There is this strange idea that asking the young to make sacrifices for the old in time of crisis is somehow unusual.

    Ladies and gentlemen, can I bring to your attention conscription? That is, forcing the young to take time out from education and life, to get trained as a soldier and to go into battle for theit country, so an external menace can be defeated.

    It seems to me that CV19 is not a million miles different to a war. A pathogen has come to disrupt our lived and potentially to kill and to injure, and to affect our way of life.

    A small number of people (might) bear a slightly higher risk from vaccination than they would do from the disease. But in return everyone benefits from stamping out the disease completely.

    We all agree conscription is necessary under certain circumstances, why should it not be the same with vaccination?

    The comparison is even closer. Being a guinea pig was a recognised role for conscientious objectors to conscription, of course. And I don't mean the Mengele kind of guinea pig.

    https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16510534/
    Crikey! Scientists back then had all the fun :hushed: That's both apalling and very interesting in the things that were learned. Fascinating that the author was involved as a scientist and that one (at least) of the 'volunteers' went into science afterwards. I also like the desert-dry reference to the Declaration of Helsinki preventing similar studies in future - I can't work out whether the author sees that as a bad or a good thing.

    These seem direct links to the full paper:
    https://academic.oup.com/ije/article/35/3/556/735661
    DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/ije/dyl020

    I was fortunate enough to have a brilliant surgeon for my youthful health problems. He was at the end of a long and successful career, but I was surprised to discover that, in the 1950s, he had done experiments on volunteer servicemen. The tests were to examine heat effects and would, to modern eyes, not be allowed. He was fairly frank about it.
    Not to mention the experiment on human subjects with chemical weapons, at Porton Down, which went on into the '70s, I think.
    At least Haldane (in WW1, on respiratory issues, I think inclouding submarines) included himself in the experimental panel.
    A very good friend of mine (our careers have intertwined since 1985) was one of the subjects of Porton Downs' experiments. Another friend was at Fort Derrick when the US was doing similar, including with LSD and other mind-altering substances!
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 76,274
    edited June 2021
    NHS draws up plans to roll out Covid booster jabs from September

    The JCVI recommends that if a Covid booster programme goes ahead then stage one should offer a third dose to:

    Adults aged 16 years and over who are immunosuppressed.
    Those living in residential care homes for older adults.
    All adults aged 70 years or over.
    Adults aged 16 years and over who are considered clinically extremely vulnerable.
    Frontline health and social care workers.


    Stage 2 would offer a third dose to:
    All adults aged 50 years and over.
    All adults aged 16 to 49 years who are in an at-risk group for flu or Covid.
    Adult household contacts of immunosuppressed individuals.

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jun/30/nhs-draws-up-plans-to-roll-out-covid-booster-jabs-from-september

    I would have thought it would be 40 and over for Stage 2, as that is the tweener group when you start to see issues in reasonable numbers, but as the report says only recently had their 2nd jabs.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,146

    Carnyx said:

    Leon said:

    Nigelb said:

    Leon said:

    Nigelb said:

    Selebian said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    My cheerful friend in Cornwall adds this:

    "Delta can transmit in 5-10 seconds"

    Evidence....
    She didn't give a citation. But she IS very clever, top of her profession, not a fool that reads the Express

    She's the sort that does tons of reading. I'm minded to believe that she has, at least, read that somewhere reputable; doesn't make it true, of course

    But we can all see how frigging infectious Delta can be. It's almost as if it this virus was engineered to have maximum virulence, in a lab
    Wait, I thought it was the original version that got leaked from a lab? If so, the lab version was a bit naff really, wasn't it, compared to Delta? So much for enhancement of function.

    Or did the original version and Delta both come from the lab? That really would be careless (lose a virus once, shame on... shame on you, lose a virus... - you can't lose a virus again!)
    At the risk of going around in more @Leon circles...

    The Case Against the Covid-19 Lab Leak Theory
    https://newrepublic.com/article/162689/bats-covid-19-lab-leak-theory
    I don't think anyone believes natural zoonosis outside the lab is likely, not anymore


    "Former State Dept officials tell
    @CBSNews
    significant info about the Wuhan lab was buried in government databases + didn’t reach their desks for nearly a year, as there is a new push to know the origins #COVID19
    @CBS_Herridge
    reports on the lab leak theory"

    https://twitter.com/CBS_Herridge/status/1410222245079830533?s=20


    The New York Times:

    "It’s very difficult to read this and not be convinced that this was a lab leak. This is pretty damning:"

    https://twitter.com/susanthesquark/status/1408660068157911046?s=20

    Perhaps not on your Twitter feed.
    No, I mean generally:


    "Most Americans believe in COVID-19 lab leak theory: Poll"

    https://aninews.in/news/world/us/most-americans-believe-in-covid-19-lab-leak-theory-poll20210624111141#.YNQxMWre7n4.twitter


    Indeed, most Americans think their government conspired to hide the truth of this:


    "Poll: Majority believe US Government and media tried to cover up Wuhan lab leak theory"

    https://twitter.com/DesertReporter/status/1410264107790438412?s=20
    A sentence starting "Most Americans believe..." is not one that is really going to be a slam dunker in an argument.
    It is - but perhaps not in the way its deployer might wish.

    Edit: of course, this does not apply when the issue of popuilar belief itself is beign discussed, rather than the strict validity of the belief itself.
    Apparently nearly 80% of Americans believe in at least one unscientifically proven idea! However, only 2.3% of respondents identified as flat earthers (which out of a population of 331M is still quite a lot of absolute loons!)
    While on that topic ...

    https://www.inverness-courier.co.uk/news/the-flat-earths-controversial-hq-in-inverness-appears-to-ha-242960/
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 76,274
    dixiedean said:

    39.8 °C in Victoria BC. 42.7 in Port Alberni. And 49 + in BC Interior.
    These are extraordinary temperatures for a place with a normally middle England climate.

    Toasty....
  • TimTTimT Posts: 6,328
    Leon said:

    TimT said:

    Omnium said:

    Leon said:

    Nigelb said:

    Selebian said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    My cheerful friend in Cornwall adds this:

    "Delta can transmit in 5-10 seconds"

    Evidence....
    She didn't give a citation. But she IS very clever, top of her profession, not a fool that reads the Express

    She's the sort that does tons of reading. I'm minded to believe that she has, at least, read that somewhere reputable; doesn't make it true, of course

    But we can all see how frigging infectious Delta can be. It's almost as if it this virus was engineered to have maximum virulence, in a lab
    Wait, I thought it was the original version that got leaked from a lab? If so, the lab version was a bit naff really, wasn't it, compared to Delta? So much for enhancement of function.

    Or did the original version and Delta both come from the lab? That really would be careless (lose a virus once, shame on... shame on you, lose a virus... - you can't lose a virus again!)
    At the risk of going around in more @Leon circles...

    The Case Against the Covid-19 Lab Leak Theory
    https://newrepublic.com/article/162689/bats-covid-19-lab-leak-theory
    I don't think anyone believes natural zoonosis outside the lab is likely, not anymore


    "Former State Dept officials tell
    @CBSNews
    significant info about the Wuhan lab was buried in government databases + didn’t reach their desks for nearly a year, as there is a new push to know the origins #COVID19
    @CBS_Herridge
    reports on the lab leak theory"

    https://twitter.com/CBS_Herridge/status/1410222245079830533?s=20


    The New York Times:

    "It’s very difficult to read this and not be convinced that this was a lab leak. This is pretty damning:"

    https://twitter.com/susanthesquark/status/1408660068157911046?s=20

    Look about you. The ability of nature to produce all sorts of things is undeniable. Lab stuff? Not so much.
    Everyone I know in the biosecurity space is open-minded about natural vs lab leak of a natural virus. Even those who pushed back against the shut-down of the lab leak option from the start (e.g. Filippa Lentzos, Jamie Metzl) do not say that is definitely what happened, just that it cannot be so off-handedly discounted.

    No-one serious believes this was designed. Most profess too little information to determine if it were evolved in nature or via deliberate or accidental directed evolution in the lab, or was the result of Gain of Function work.

    So Leon's opening statement is a little too definitive.
    it was, and I accept that. I was being provocative

    However I think this from you is too definitive, as well


    "No one seriously believes this was designed" - if by "designed" you mean the virus was somehow altered or engineered then lots of people are taking that very seriously indeed. Not least because Peter "Wuhan" Daszak explicitly admitted this is what they were doing in Wuhan - making coronaviruses nastier

    "Unearthed video of Peter Daszak Describing ‘Chinese Colleagues’ Developing ‘Killer’ Coronaviruses"

    https://twitter.com/bryanvilleneuve/status/1407547650560434179?s=20
    Most gain of function work is not 'designing for purpose', but rather is tinkering around to find out what works. So it is not design work, but selection from a very large array of blind attempts.
  • stodgestodge Posts: 12,743
    dixiedean said:

    39.8 °C in Victoria BC. 42.7 in Port Alberni. And 49 + in BC Interior.
    These are extraordinary temperatures for a place with a normally middle England climate.

    It's a real warning and should be seen as such.

    130 people, mostly elderly, have died in Vancouver during this heatwave. British Columbia isn't like California and is unprepared for heat of this scale.

    As are we.

    5-10 consecutive days of temperatures above 40c in London are, in my view, likely in the next 10-20 years - how prepared are we in terms of demands on the power grid and the likelihood of dozens if not scores of deaths among elderly people who cannot deal with the heat and associated humidity?

    70,000 are estimated to have perished in the 2003 European heatwave - 14,000 died in France which has slightly more experience of heat than the UK.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,146
    edited June 2021
    TimT said:

    Carnyx said:

    Nigelb said:

    Selebian said:

    FPT

    Carnyx said:

    rcs1000 said:

    There is this strange idea that asking the young to make sacrifices for the old in time of crisis is somehow unusual.

    Ladies and gentlemen, can I bring to your attention conscription? That is, forcing the young to take time out from education and life, to get trained as a soldier and to go into battle for theit country, so an external menace can be defeated.

    It seems to me that CV19 is not a million miles different to a war. A pathogen has come to disrupt our lived and potentially to kill and to injure, and to affect our way of life.

    A small number of people (might) bear a slightly higher risk from vaccination than they would do from the disease. But in return everyone benefits from stamping out the disease completely.

    We all agree conscription is necessary under certain circumstances, why should it not be the same with vaccination?

    The comparison is even closer. Being a guinea pig was a recognised role for conscientious objectors to conscription, of course. And I don't mean the Mengele kind of guinea pig.

    https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16510534/
    Crikey! Scientists back then had all the fun :hushed: That's both apalling and very interesting in the things that were learned. Fascinating that the author was involved as a scientist and that one (at least) of the 'volunteers' went into science afterwards. I also like the desert-dry reference to the Declaration of Helsinki preventing similar studies in future - I can't work out whether the author sees that as a bad or a good thing.

    These seem direct links to the full paper:
    https://academic.oup.com/ije/article/35/3/556/735661
    DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/ije/dyl020

    I was fortunate enough to have a brilliant surgeon for my youthful health problems. He was at the end of a long and successful career, but I was surprised to discover that, in the 1950s, he had done experiments on volunteer servicemen. The tests were to examine heat effects and would, to modern eyes, not be allowed. He was fairly frank about it.
    Not to mention the experiment on human subjects with chemical weapons, at Porton Down, which went on into the '70s, I think.
    At least Haldane (in WW1, on respiratory issues, I think inclouding submarines) included himself in the experimental panel.
    A very good friend of mine (our careers have intertwined since 1985) was one of the subjects of Porton Downs' experiments. Another friend was at Fort Derrick when the US was doing similar, including with LSD and other mind-altering substances!
    There was also the Common Cold Research Unit at Salisbury (I forget the exact title). I never did volunteer, but in hindsight wonder about its geographical location ...
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 27,836
    alex_ said:

    Has there EVER been a pandemic where the focus on positive tests has led perception of the pandemic’s progress (at least to the degree it has). How would we look at this pandemic differently if the focus was all on detectable cases - basically hospitalisations and deaths?

    Take Spanish flu for instance. Conventional story is that there was a medium size first wave , a massive second wave, a smaller third wave and a few isolated outbreaks subsequently. But how would it have been seen in the modern approach?

    Spanish flu was a State secret in most countries when it began.
    I doubt we want to go that far.
    The focus on cases was understandable at first when we had no idea of the CFR, the %age of asymptomatic cases, how it was transmitted, how best to treat it, and, quite frankly, when we didn't know that a lot of us might not survive at all.
    There has been very little attempt by the media, government or health authorities to move away from this crude measure, or to educate the wider public.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,248
    The evidence piles up

    "Wuhan Institute of Virology...used..reverse-genetics technology to make numerous coronavirus chimeras..The..work was carried out at biosafety level 2 (BSL-2)"

    "That meant the same viruses that Daszak was holding up as a clear and present danger to the world were being studied under conditions that..matched..the biosafety level of a US dentist’s office."

    "[O]ne factor at play was the cost and inconvenience of working in high-containment conditions. The Chinese lab’s decision to work at BSL-2..would have 'effectively increas[ed] rates of progress, all else being equal, by a factor of 10 to 20'—a huge edge."

    Ralph Baric: "I would never argue that..should be studied at BSL-2..There’s..risk associated with those viruses..If you study a hundred different bat viruses, your luck may run out..Let’s face it: there are going to be unknown viruses in guano..or..swabs, which are often.pooled."

    https://twitter.com/R_H_Ebright/status/1409900592814755843?s=20

    For balance, Baric still thinks natural zoonosis is likelier, but wow
  • TimTTimT Posts: 6,328
    Foxy said:

    TimS said:

    Would be very interesting to see how this epidemic actually compares (in case numbers and growth terms) with what happens with other diseases. I've no handle on how widely and rapidly other infections grow.

    For example, every year (or few months) you'll hear talk about the fact there is a particularly nasty cold going round, or there will be talk of everyone coming down with the winter vomiting virus. We never test extensively for these, and half the time they don't even make it to the doctor's, particularly colds. What would the infection curves look like if PHE were issuing daily updates and dozens of twitter statisticians were doing charts of them. Do we, for example, have times of the year where something like flu is growing at 20k+ cases per day? Perhaps we do, and the death numbers in some winters coupled with the known CFR of flu suggest maybe the rates massively outstrip this, but I've no idea.

    Actually NHS England does active surveillance of respiratory viruses in normal years, as well as by other means, in order to understand and estimate numbers via a sample of GP practices, including virus samples.

    https://www.gov.uk/guidance/sources-of-uk-flu-data-influenza-surveillance-in-the-uk

    This is how we know that Covid did not occur here prior to Feb 2020, despite a fair few folk thinking they had it before it was famous.
    @ Foxy, but most of that surveillance is based on reporting of symptoms rather than random diagnostics of the population, is it not? That is my understanding of how the Influenza-like Illness surveillance system works, but I could be wrong.
  • eekeek Posts: 24,797
    edited June 2021

    Another straw in the wind to make of what you will: Labour has now spoken to EVERY Batley and Spen voter for whom we have phone numbers. I resumed phoning this evening and after a few (including 2 don't-know to Labour switchers, yay) I got the message that everyone had now been called.

    This has to be a lot more than the Galloway effort. I think it's now really come down to a Tory-Labour battle and Galloway is marginalised.

    Let's hope so as personally he needs to be placed in (an airtight) box never to see the light of day again.
  • OmniumOmnium Posts: 9,688
    dixiedean said:

    alex_ said:

    Has there EVER been a pandemic where the focus on positive tests has led perception of the pandemic’s progress (at least to the degree it has). How would we look at this pandemic differently if the focus was all on detectable cases - basically hospitalisations and deaths?

    Take Spanish flu for instance. Conventional story is that there was a medium size first wave , a massive second wave, a smaller third wave and a few isolated outbreaks subsequently. But how would it have been seen in the modern approach?

    Spanish flu was a State secret in most countries when it began.
    I doubt we want to go that far.
    The focus on cases was understandable at first when we had no idea of the CFR, the %age of asymptomatic cases, how it was transmitted, how best to treat it, and, quite frankly, when we didn't know that a lot of us might not survive at all.
    There has been very little attempt by the media, government or health authorities to move away from this crude measure, or to educate the wider public.
    dixiedean said:

    alex_ said:

    Has there EVER been a pandemic where the focus on positive tests has led perception of the pandemic’s progress (at least to the degree it has). How would we look at this pandemic differently if the focus was all on detectable cases - basically hospitalisations and deaths?

    Take Spanish flu for instance. Conventional story is that there was a medium size first wave , a massive second wave, a smaller third wave and a few isolated outbreaks subsequently. But how would it have been seen in the modern approach?

    Spanish flu was a State secret in most countries when it began.
    I doubt we want to go that far.
    The focus on cases was understandable at first when we had no idea of the CFR, the %age of asymptomatic cases, how it was transmitted, how best to treat it, and, quite frankly, when we didn't know that a lot of us might not survive at all.
    There has been very little attempt by the media, government or health authorities to move away from this crude measure, or to educate the wider public.
    There was a bit of a war going on.
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    TimT said:

    Leon said:

    TimT said:

    Omnium said:

    Leon said:

    Nigelb said:

    Selebian said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    My cheerful friend in Cornwall adds this:

    "Delta can transmit in 5-10 seconds"

    Evidence....
    She didn't give a citation. But she IS very clever, top of her profession, not a fool that reads the Express

    She's the sort that does tons of reading. I'm minded to believe that she has, at least, read that somewhere reputable; doesn't make it true, of course

    But we can all see how frigging infectious Delta can be. It's almost as if it this virus was engineered to have maximum virulence, in a lab
    Wait, I thought it was the original version that got leaked from a lab? If so, the lab version was a bit naff really, wasn't it, compared to Delta? So much for enhancement of function.

    Or did the original version and Delta both come from the lab? That really would be careless (lose a virus once, shame on... shame on you, lose a virus... - you can't lose a virus again!)
    At the risk of going around in more @Leon circles...

    The Case Against the Covid-19 Lab Leak Theory
    https://newrepublic.com/article/162689/bats-covid-19-lab-leak-theory
    I don't think anyone believes natural zoonosis outside the lab is likely, not anymore


    "Former State Dept officials tell
    @CBSNews
    significant info about the Wuhan lab was buried in government databases + didn’t reach their desks for nearly a year, as there is a new push to know the origins #COVID19
    @CBS_Herridge
    reports on the lab leak theory"

    https://twitter.com/CBS_Herridge/status/1410222245079830533?s=20


    The New York Times:

    "It’s very difficult to read this and not be convinced that this was a lab leak. This is pretty damning:"

    https://twitter.com/susanthesquark/status/1408660068157911046?s=20

    Look about you. The ability of nature to produce all sorts of things is undeniable. Lab stuff? Not so much.
    Everyone I know in the biosecurity space is open-minded about natural vs lab leak of a natural virus. Even those who pushed back against the shut-down of the lab leak option from the start (e.g. Filippa Lentzos, Jamie Metzl) do not say that is definitely what happened, just that it cannot be so off-handedly discounted.

    No-one serious believes this was designed. Most profess too little information to determine if it were evolved in nature or via deliberate or accidental directed evolution in the lab, or was the result of Gain of Function work.

    So Leon's opening statement is a little too definitive.
    it was, and I accept that. I was being provocative

    However I think this from you is too definitive, as well


    "No one seriously believes this was designed" - if by "designed" you mean the virus was somehow altered or engineered then lots of people are taking that very seriously indeed. Not least because Peter "Wuhan" Daszak explicitly admitted this is what they were doing in Wuhan - making coronaviruses nastier

    "Unearthed video of Peter Daszak Describing ‘Chinese Colleagues’ Developing ‘Killer’ Coronaviruses"

    https://twitter.com/bryanvilleneuve/status/1407547650560434179?s=20
    Most gain of function work is not 'designing for purpose', but rather is tinkering around to find out what works. So it is not design work, but selection from a very large array of blind attempts.
    That's also a good explanation of how natural selection works, and the results in both cases can be virtually indistinguishable from design.
  • BigRichBigRich Posts: 3,489
    Omnium said:

    Another straw in the wind to make of what you will: Labour has now spoken to EVERY Batley and Spen voter for whom we have phone numbers. I resumed phoning this evening and after a few (including 2 don't-know to Labour switchers, yay) I got the message that everyone had now been called.

    This has to be a lot more than the Galloway effort. I think it's now really come down to a Tory-Labour battle and Galloway is marginalised.

    "Labour has now spoken to EVERY Batley and Spen voter for whom we have phone numbers."

    Dr P - this seems improbable unless you have a fantastically short list of phone numbers.
    Unless you have a lot of volunteers?

    constancy of say 80,000 voters, might be 45,000 houses, some are X directory, or dont have a Phone line, say 40,000.

    if you had 1,000 volatiers, each dong 4 hours, that's only 10 an hour.

    Seems credible to me.

    They started this weeks ago.

  • TheuniondivvieTheuniondivvie Posts: 39,748
    eek said:

    Another straw in the wind to make of what you will: Labour has now spoken to EVERY Batley and Spen voter for whom we have phone numbers. I resumed phoning this evening and after a few (including 2 don't-know to Labour switchers, yay) I got the message that everyone had now been called.

    This has to be a lot more than the Galloway effort. I think it's now really come down to a Tory-Labour battle and Galloway is marginalised.

    Let's hope so as personally he needs to be placed in (an airtight) box never to see the light of day again.
    Schrödinger’s cat impersonator.
  • OmniumOmnium Posts: 9,688
    BigRich said:

    Omnium said:

    Another straw in the wind to make of what you will: Labour has now spoken to EVERY Batley and Spen voter for whom we have phone numbers. I resumed phoning this evening and after a few (including 2 don't-know to Labour switchers, yay) I got the message that everyone had now been called.

    This has to be a lot more than the Galloway effort. I think it's now really come down to a Tory-Labour battle and Galloway is marginalised.

    "Labour has now spoken to EVERY Batley and Spen voter for whom we have phone numbers."

    Dr P - this seems improbable unless you have a fantastically short list of phone numbers.
    Unless you have a lot of volunteers?

    constancy of say 80,000 voters, might be 45,000 houses, some are X directory, or dont have a Phone line, say 40,000.

    if you had 1,000 volatiers, each dong 4 hours, that's only 10 an hour.

    Seems credible to me.

    They started this weeks ago.

    Some will have died, some will have moved. It's simply not true.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,248
    IshmaelZ said:

    TimT said:

    Leon said:

    TimT said:

    Omnium said:

    Leon said:

    Nigelb said:

    Selebian said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    My cheerful friend in Cornwall adds this:

    "Delta can transmit in 5-10 seconds"

    Evidence....
    She didn't give a citation. But she IS very clever, top of her profession, not a fool that reads the Express

    She's the sort that does tons of reading. I'm minded to believe that she has, at least, read that somewhere reputable; doesn't make it true, of course

    But we can all see how frigging infectious Delta can be. It's almost as if it this virus was engineered to have maximum virulence, in a lab
    Wait, I thought it was the original version that got leaked from a lab? If so, the lab version was a bit naff really, wasn't it, compared to Delta? So much for enhancement of function.

    Or did the original version and Delta both come from the lab? That really would be careless (lose a virus once, shame on... shame on you, lose a virus... - you can't lose a virus again!)
    At the risk of going around in more @Leon circles...

    The Case Against the Covid-19 Lab Leak Theory
    https://newrepublic.com/article/162689/bats-covid-19-lab-leak-theory
    I don't think anyone believes natural zoonosis outside the lab is likely, not anymore


    "Former State Dept officials tell
    @CBSNews
    significant info about the Wuhan lab was buried in government databases + didn’t reach their desks for nearly a year, as there is a new push to know the origins #COVID19
    @CBS_Herridge
    reports on the lab leak theory"

    https://twitter.com/CBS_Herridge/status/1410222245079830533?s=20


    The New York Times:

    "It’s very difficult to read this and not be convinced that this was a lab leak. This is pretty damning:"

    https://twitter.com/susanthesquark/status/1408660068157911046?s=20

    Look about you. The ability of nature to produce all sorts of things is undeniable. Lab stuff? Not so much.
    Everyone I know in the biosecurity space is open-minded about natural vs lab leak of a natural virus. Even those who pushed back against the shut-down of the lab leak option from the start (e.g. Filippa Lentzos, Jamie Metzl) do not say that is definitely what happened, just that it cannot be so off-handedly discounted.

    No-one serious believes this was designed. Most profess too little information to determine if it were evolved in nature or via deliberate or accidental directed evolution in the lab, or was the result of Gain of Function work.

    So Leon's opening statement is a little too definitive.
    it was, and I accept that. I was being provocative

    However I think this from you is too definitive, as well


    "No one seriously believes this was designed" - if by "designed" you mean the virus was somehow altered or engineered then lots of people are taking that very seriously indeed. Not least because Peter "Wuhan" Daszak explicitly admitted this is what they were doing in Wuhan - making coronaviruses nastier

    "Unearthed video of Peter Daszak Describing ‘Chinese Colleagues’ Developing ‘Killer’ Coronaviruses"

    https://twitter.com/bryanvilleneuve/status/1407547650560434179?s=20
    Most gain of function work is not 'designing for purpose', but rather is tinkering around to find out what works. So it is not design work, but selection from a very large array of blind attempts.
    That's also a good explanation of how natural selection works, and the results in both cases can be virtually indistinguishable from design.
    It's also semantics. The scientists in Wuhan were trying to make "killer" new coronaviruses expressly designed to infect humans. Nice
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 75,842
    edited June 2021

    NHS draws up plans to roll out Covid booster jabs from September

    The JCVI recommends that if a Covid booster programme goes ahead then stage one should offer a third dose to:

    Adults aged 16 years and over who are immunosuppressed.
    Those living in residential care homes for older adults.
    All adults aged 70 years or over.
    Adults aged 16 years and over who are considered clinically extremely vulnerable.
    Frontline health and social care workers.


    Stage 2 would offer a third dose to:
    All adults aged 50 years and over.
    All adults aged 16 to 49 years who are in an at-risk group for flu or Covid.
    Adult household contacts of immunosuppressed individuals.

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jun/30/nhs-draws-up-plans-to-roll-out-covid-booster-jabs-from-september

    I would have thought it would be 40 and over for Stage 2, as that is the tweener group when you start to see issues in reasonable numbers, but as the report says only recently had their 2nd jabs.

    This looks very sensible. Your regular immune system* below 50 plus double vax should be able to handle delta easily in most cases.

    * Don't forget immune compromised are being done 3rd jab anyway.
  • StuartinromfordStuartinromford Posts: 14,087
    eek said:

    Another straw in the wind to make of what you will: Labour has now spoken to EVERY Batley and Spen voter for whom we have phone numbers. I resumed phoning this evening and after a few (including 2 don't-know to Labour switchers, yay) I got the message that everyone had now been called.

    This has to be a lot more than the Galloway effort. I think it's now really come down to a Tory-Labour battle and Galloway is marginalised.

    Let's hope so as personally he needs to be placed in (an airtight) box never to see the light of day again.
    That is harsh.
    I'd put him in a soundproof box and then run a continuous live feed on an unwatched Freeview channel.

    Or give him a show on GB News, which is pretty much the same thing.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,068
    TimT said:

    Foxy said:

    TimS said:

    Would be very interesting to see how this epidemic actually compares (in case numbers and growth terms) with what happens with other diseases. I've no handle on how widely and rapidly other infections grow.

    For example, every year (or few months) you'll hear talk about the fact there is a particularly nasty cold going round, or there will be talk of everyone coming down with the winter vomiting virus. We never test extensively for these, and half the time they don't even make it to the doctor's, particularly colds. What would the infection curves look like if PHE were issuing daily updates and dozens of twitter statisticians were doing charts of them. Do we, for example, have times of the year where something like flu is growing at 20k+ cases per day? Perhaps we do, and the death numbers in some winters coupled with the known CFR of flu suggest maybe the rates massively outstrip this, but I've no idea.

    Actually NHS England does active surveillance of respiratory viruses in normal years, as well as by other means, in order to understand and estimate numbers via a sample of GP practices, including virus samples.

    https://www.gov.uk/guidance/sources-of-uk-flu-data-influenza-surveillance-in-the-uk

    This is how we know that Covid did not occur here prior to Feb 2020, despite a fair few folk thinking they had it before it was famous.
    @ Foxy, but most of that surveillance is based on reporting of symptoms rather than random diagnostics of the population, is it not? That is my understanding of how the Influenza-like Illness surveillance system works, but I could be wrong.
    Yes, a lot is reporting of respiratory symptoms, but that is only one side of the information. There is viral sampling too:

    "In England, there are 2 sentinel GP swabbing schemes, which run throughout a normal influenza season, providing timely information about the proportion of patients presenting to GPs with an influenza-like illness (ILI) who are positive for influenza and the strains of influenza that are circulating in the community.

    PHE RVU and RCGP scheme: throughout the season about 100 general practices in the RCGP scheme in England obtain nose and throat swabs from patients who present with ILI and send these specimens by post to RVU for virus isolation and characterisation

    PHE Specialist Microbiology Network (SMN) scheme: PHE laboratories and the influenza surveillance team recruit GPs to the scheme each season and request GPs to obtain swabs from patients who present with ILI and fill out a patient questionnaire - the samples are sent to the GPs’ local laboratory and results are collated by the national influenza surveillance team at PHE

    Real-time PCR for influenza and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) is carried out on specimens submitted through both schemes"

    From the link in my earlier post.
  • TimTTimT Posts: 6,328
    Leon said:

    TimT said:

    Leon said:

    Nigelb said:

    Selebian said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    My cheerful friend in Cornwall adds this:

    "Delta can transmit in 5-10 seconds"

    Evidence....
    She didn't give a citation. But she IS very clever, top of her profession, not a fool that reads the Express

    She's the sort that does tons of reading. I'm minded to believe that she has, at least, read that somewhere reputable; doesn't make it true, of course

    But we can all see how frigging infectious Delta can be. It's almost as if it this virus was engineered to have maximum virulence, in a lab
    Wait, I thought it was the original version that got leaked from a lab? If so, the lab version was a bit naff really, wasn't it, compared to Delta? So much for enhancement of function.

    Or did the original version and Delta both come from the lab? That really would be careless (lose a virus once, shame on... shame on you, lose a virus... - you can't lose a virus again!)
    At the risk of going around in more @Leon circles...

    The Case Against the Covid-19 Lab Leak Theory
    https://newrepublic.com/article/162689/bats-covid-19-lab-leak-theory
    I don't think anyone believes natural zoonosis outside the lab is likely, not anymore


    "Former State Dept officials tell
    @CBSNews
    significant info about the Wuhan lab was buried in government databases + didn’t reach their desks for nearly a year, as there is a new push to know the origins #COVID19
    @CBS_Herridge
    reports on the lab leak theory"

    https://twitter.com/CBS_Herridge/status/1410222245079830533?s=20


    The New York Times:

    "It’s very difficult to read this and not be convinced that this was a lab leak. This is pretty damning:"

    https://twitter.com/susanthesquark/status/1408660068157911046?s=20


    The link to Catherine Herridge's twitter is not working for me. What does it say?
    It's a good summary. It definitely tends towards lab leak, and it looks bad for Fauci

    Maybe this will work for you


    https://twitter.com/CBSThisMorning/status/1410213850092298248?s=20
    Thanks. Catherine is a very serious journalist, but a little prone to juicy conspiracies.
  • eekeek Posts: 24,797
    Fujifilm Diosynth Biotechnologies is investing $850m in vaccines plants across the USA and Billingham - it looks like $450m of it will be in Billingham.

    https://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/news/19410406.hundreds-jobs-billinghams-fujifilm-vaccines-facility/
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 58,040
    TimT said:

    Gadfly said:

    Leon said:

    Anecdata from Cornwall

    A close friend of mine (cancer survivor, l;ate 50s) lives in Mousehole. Cornwall

    She reports a huge spike in cases in Cornish hotspots - post G7 - up to 900 per 100,000

    She also reports two double jabbed villagers are really ill with Delta, and half the pubs and restaurants are shut again, because so many staff are ill/isolating. Not good

    Same here in my Yorkshire Dales village. Delta has hit every generation of one family (who do not cohabit). Double jabbed grandfather and partner bother seriously ill, jabbed son and partner both badly, infected grandchildren have closed the nursery and reception year at school. Son and partner both in the pub last Friday before getting positive results on Saturday morning, so the community is now waiting to see what happens next. Meanwhile, the pub was rammed again last night for the football game.

    Sister lives in Cambourne. Same reports of massive spike post G7. But I think their local is still open.
    There was discussion earlier of whether ZOE is picking this up (older, double jabbed getting ill). I found this on Mail website:

    "Professor Tim Spector, who leads the UK's largest symptom tracking app, also warned yesterday that data from his study showed immunity among older people sparked by the jabs was falling among some people.

    He told MailOnline: 'We're at around six months after the most vulnerable were vaccinated and we are seeing through our app about a quarter of cases in vaccinated people as that group loses their immunity.' "
  • Nigel_ForemainNigel_Foremain Posts: 13,766

    eek said:

    Another straw in the wind to make of what you will: Labour has now spoken to EVERY Batley and Spen voter for whom we have phone numbers. I resumed phoning this evening and after a few (including 2 don't-know to Labour switchers, yay) I got the message that everyone had now been called.

    This has to be a lot more than the Galloway effort. I think it's now really come down to a Tory-Labour battle and Galloway is marginalised.

    Let's hope so as personally he needs to be placed in (an airtight) box never to see the light of day again.
    That is harsh.
    I'd put him in a soundproof box and then run a continuous live feed on an unwatched Freeview channel.

    Or give him a show on GB News, which is pretty much the same thing.
    I think he prefers RT, though Putin has probably tired of him by now
  • eekeek Posts: 24,797
    Omnium said:

    dixiedean said:



    Spanish flu was a State secret in most countries when it began.
    I doubt we want to go that far.
    The focus on cases was understandable at first when we had no idea of the CFR, the %age of asymptomatic cases, how it was transmitted, how best to treat it, and, quite frankly, when we didn't know that a lot of us might not survive at all.
    There has been very little attempt by the media, government or health authorities to move away from this crude measure, or to educate the wider public.

    There was a bit of a war going on.
    Which is why we know it as Spanish flu as Spain was a neutral country used to allow the story to be reported at all.

  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 27,836
    stodge said:

    dixiedean said:

    39.8 °C in Victoria BC. 42.7 in Port Alberni. And 49 + in BC Interior.
    These are extraordinary temperatures for a place with a normally middle England climate.

    It's a real warning and should be seen as such.

    130 people, mostly elderly, have died in Vancouver during this heatwave. British Columbia isn't like California and is unprepared for heat of this scale.

    As are we.

    5-10 consecutive days of temperatures above 40c in London are, in my view, likely in the next 10-20 years - how prepared are we in terms of demands on the power grid and the likelihood of dozens if not scores of deaths among elderly people who cannot deal with the heat and associated humidity?

    70,000 are estimated to have perished in the 2003 European heatwave - 14,000 died in France which has slightly more experience of heat than the UK.
    Yep. Populated BC equals South of England climate under normal conditions.
    Not sure how we would cope with those figures over any period of time.
    Probably not well at all.
    I fear our PM might be exhorting us to enjoy the wonderful British weather for a start.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 43,621

    eek said:

    Another straw in the wind to make of what you will: Labour has now spoken to EVERY Batley and Spen voter for whom we have phone numbers. I resumed phoning this evening and after a few (including 2 don't-know to Labour switchers, yay) I got the message that everyone had now been called.

    This has to be a lot more than the Galloway effort. I think it's now really come down to a Tory-Labour battle and Galloway is marginalised.

    Let's hope so as personally he needs to be placed in (an airtight) box never to see the light of day again.
    That is harsh.
    I'd put him in a soundproof box and then run a continuous live feed on an unwatched Freeview channel.

    Or give him a show on GB News, which is pretty much the same thing.
    How about the punishment room with Piers Morgan, Piers Corbyn and the mad lawyer with the baseball bat? Pineapple pizza every meal, Radiohead on a loop and Con Home for entertainment....
  • OmniumOmnium Posts: 9,688
    eek said:

    Omnium said:

    dixiedean said:



    Spanish flu was a State secret in most countries when it began.
    I doubt we want to go that far.
    The focus on cases was understandable at first when we had no idea of the CFR, the %age of asymptomatic cases, how it was transmitted, how best to treat it, and, quite frankly, when we didn't know that a lot of us might not survive at all.
    There has been very little attempt by the media, government or health authorities to move away from this crude measure, or to educate the wider public.

    There was a bit of a war going on.
    Which is why we know it as Spanish flu as Spain was a neutral country used to allow the story to be reported at all.

    There may have been a broader point.
  • FloaterFloater Posts: 14,195
    BigRich said:

    Omnium said:

    Another straw in the wind to make of what you will: Labour has now spoken to EVERY Batley and Spen voter for whom we have phone numbers. I resumed phoning this evening and after a few (including 2 don't-know to Labour switchers, yay) I got the message that everyone had now been called.

    This has to be a lot more than the Galloway effort. I think it's now really come down to a Tory-Labour battle and Galloway is marginalised.

    "Labour has now spoken to EVERY Batley and Spen voter for whom we have phone numbers."

    Dr P - this seems improbable unless you have a fantastically short list of phone numbers.
    Unless you have a lot of volunteers?

    constancy of say 80,000 voters, might be 45,000 houses, some are X directory, or dont have a Phone line, say 40,000.

    if you had 1,000 volatiers, each dong 4 hours, that's only 10 an hour.

    Seems credible to me.

    They started this weeks ago.

    Yet there were reports that they had no records to work off at all
  • TimTTimT Posts: 6,328
    Foxy said:

    TimT said:

    Foxy said:

    TimS said:

    Would be very interesting to see how this epidemic actually compares (in case numbers and growth terms) with what happens with other diseases. I've no handle on how widely and rapidly other infections grow.

    For example, every year (or few months) you'll hear talk about the fact there is a particularly nasty cold going round, or there will be talk of everyone coming down with the winter vomiting virus. We never test extensively for these, and half the time they don't even make it to the doctor's, particularly colds. What would the infection curves look like if PHE were issuing daily updates and dozens of twitter statisticians were doing charts of them. Do we, for example, have times of the year where something like flu is growing at 20k+ cases per day? Perhaps we do, and the death numbers in some winters coupled with the known CFR of flu suggest maybe the rates massively outstrip this, but I've no idea.

    Actually NHS England does active surveillance of respiratory viruses in normal years, as well as by other means, in order to understand and estimate numbers via a sample of GP practices, including virus samples.

    https://www.gov.uk/guidance/sources-of-uk-flu-data-influenza-surveillance-in-the-uk

    This is how we know that Covid did not occur here prior to Feb 2020, despite a fair few folk thinking they had it before it was famous.
    @ Foxy, but most of that surveillance is based on reporting of symptoms rather than random diagnostics of the population, is it not? That is my understanding of how the Influenza-like Illness surveillance system works, but I could be wrong.
    Yes, a lot is reporting of respiratory symptoms, but that is only one side of the information. There is viral sampling too:

    "In England, there are 2 sentinel GP swabbing schemes, which run throughout a normal influenza season, providing timely information about the proportion of patients presenting to GPs with an influenza-like illness (ILI) who are positive for influenza and the strains of influenza that are circulating in the community.

    PHE RVU and RCGP scheme: throughout the season about 100 general practices in the RCGP scheme in England obtain nose and throat swabs from patients who present with ILI and send these specimens by post to RVU for virus isolation and characterisation

    PHE Specialist Microbiology Network (SMN) scheme: PHE laboratories and the influenza surveillance team recruit GPs to the scheme each season and request GPs to obtain swabs from patients who present with ILI and fill out a patient questionnaire - the samples are sent to the GPs’ local laboratory and results are collated by the national influenza surveillance team at PHE

    Real-time PCR for influenza and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) is carried out on specimens submitted through both schemes"

    From the link in my earlier post.
    Thanks much. Live and learn
  • Nigel_ForemainNigel_Foremain Posts: 13,766
    Carnyx said:

    Carnyx said:

    Leon said:

    Nigelb said:

    Leon said:

    Nigelb said:

    Selebian said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    My cheerful friend in Cornwall adds this:

    "Delta can transmit in 5-10 seconds"

    Evidence....
    She didn't give a citation. But she IS very clever, top of her profession, not a fool that reads the Express

    She's the sort that does tons of reading. I'm minded to believe that she has, at least, read that somewhere reputable; doesn't make it true, of course

    But we can all see how frigging infectious Delta can be. It's almost as if it this virus was engineered to have maximum virulence, in a lab
    Wait, I thought it was the original version that got leaked from a lab? If so, the lab version was a bit naff really, wasn't it, compared to Delta? So much for enhancement of function.

    Or did the original version and Delta both come from the lab? That really would be careless (lose a virus once, shame on... shame on you, lose a virus... - you can't lose a virus again!)
    At the risk of going around in more @Leon circles...

    The Case Against the Covid-19 Lab Leak Theory
    https://newrepublic.com/article/162689/bats-covid-19-lab-leak-theory
    I don't think anyone believes natural zoonosis outside the lab is likely, not anymore


    "Former State Dept officials tell
    @CBSNews
    significant info about the Wuhan lab was buried in government databases + didn’t reach their desks for nearly a year, as there is a new push to know the origins #COVID19
    @CBS_Herridge
    reports on the lab leak theory"

    https://twitter.com/CBS_Herridge/status/1410222245079830533?s=20


    The New York Times:

    "It’s very difficult to read this and not be convinced that this was a lab leak. This is pretty damning:"

    https://twitter.com/susanthesquark/status/1408660068157911046?s=20

    Perhaps not on your Twitter feed.
    No, I mean generally:


    "Most Americans believe in COVID-19 lab leak theory: Poll"

    https://aninews.in/news/world/us/most-americans-believe-in-covid-19-lab-leak-theory-poll20210624111141#.YNQxMWre7n4.twitter


    Indeed, most Americans think their government conspired to hide the truth of this:


    "Poll: Majority believe US Government and media tried to cover up Wuhan lab leak theory"

    https://twitter.com/DesertReporter/status/1410264107790438412?s=20
    A sentence starting "Most Americans believe..." is not one that is really going to be a slam dunker in an argument.
    It is - but perhaps not in the way its deployer might wish.

    Edit: of course, this does not apply when the issue of popuilar belief itself is beign discussed, rather than the strict validity of the belief itself.
    Apparently nearly 80% of Americans believe in at least one unscientifically proven idea! However, only 2.3% of respondents identified as flat earthers (which out of a population of 331M is still quite a lot of absolute loons!)
    While on that topic ...

    https://www.inverness-courier.co.uk/news/the-flat-earths-controversial-hq-in-inverness-appears-to-ha-242960/
    Fantastic! I love the quote at the end of the article: Two millennia of scientific consensus has it that the earth is spherical.
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 23,926
    Batley and Spen could be the ideal place to set up a driving school based on what's going on behind the GB News roving reporter. Have Kelloggs been giving out driving licences free in boxes of Cornflakes?

    There must be something better to do than watch GB News on a night without soccerball.
  • Nigel_ForemainNigel_Foremain Posts: 13,766

    eek said:

    Another straw in the wind to make of what you will: Labour has now spoken to EVERY Batley and Spen voter for whom we have phone numbers. I resumed phoning this evening and after a few (including 2 don't-know to Labour switchers, yay) I got the message that everyone had now been called.

    This has to be a lot more than the Galloway effort. I think it's now really come down to a Tory-Labour battle and Galloway is marginalised.

    Let's hope so as personally he needs to be placed in (an airtight) box never to see the light of day again.
    That is harsh.
    I'd put him in a soundproof box and then run a continuous live feed on an unwatched Freeview channel.

    Or give him a show on GB News, which is pretty much the same thing.
    How about the punishment room with Piers Morgan, Piers Corbyn and the mad lawyer with the baseball bat? Pineapple pizza every meal, Radiohead on a loop and Con Home for entertainment....
    Reminds me of Roger Water's/Pink Floyd's "Fletcher Memorial Home for Incurable Tyrants and Kings"
  • TimTTimT Posts: 6,328
    IshmaelZ said:

    TimT said:

    Leon said:

    TimT said:

    Omnium said:

    Leon said:

    Nigelb said:

    Selebian said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    My cheerful friend in Cornwall adds this:

    "Delta can transmit in 5-10 seconds"

    Evidence....
    She didn't give a citation. But she IS very clever, top of her profession, not a fool that reads the Express

    She's the sort that does tons of reading. I'm minded to believe that she has, at least, read that somewhere reputable; doesn't make it true, of course

    But we can all see how frigging infectious Delta can be. It's almost as if it this virus was engineered to have maximum virulence, in a lab
    Wait, I thought it was the original version that got leaked from a lab? If so, the lab version was a bit naff really, wasn't it, compared to Delta? So much for enhancement of function.

    Or did the original version and Delta both come from the lab? That really would be careless (lose a virus once, shame on... shame on you, lose a virus... - you can't lose a virus again!)
    At the risk of going around in more @Leon circles...

    The Case Against the Covid-19 Lab Leak Theory
    https://newrepublic.com/article/162689/bats-covid-19-lab-leak-theory
    I don't think anyone believes natural zoonosis outside the lab is likely, not anymore


    "Former State Dept officials tell
    @CBSNews
    significant info about the Wuhan lab was buried in government databases + didn’t reach their desks for nearly a year, as there is a new push to know the origins #COVID19
    @CBS_Herridge
    reports on the lab leak theory"

    https://twitter.com/CBS_Herridge/status/1410222245079830533?s=20


    The New York Times:

    "It’s very difficult to read this and not be convinced that this was a lab leak. This is pretty damning:"

    https://twitter.com/susanthesquark/status/1408660068157911046?s=20

    Look about you. The ability of nature to produce all sorts of things is undeniable. Lab stuff? Not so much.
    Everyone I know in the biosecurity space is open-minded about natural vs lab leak of a natural virus. Even those who pushed back against the shut-down of the lab leak option from the start (e.g. Filippa Lentzos, Jamie Metzl) do not say that is definitely what happened, just that it cannot be so off-handedly discounted.

    No-one serious believes this was designed. Most profess too little information to determine if it were evolved in nature or via deliberate or accidental directed evolution in the lab, or was the result of Gain of Function work.

    So Leon's opening statement is a little too definitive.
    it was, and I accept that. I was being provocative

    However I think this from you is too definitive, as well


    "No one seriously believes this was designed" - if by "designed" you mean the virus was somehow altered or engineered then lots of people are taking that very seriously indeed. Not least because Peter "Wuhan" Daszak explicitly admitted this is what they were doing in Wuhan - making coronaviruses nastier

    "Unearthed video of Peter Daszak Describing ‘Chinese Colleagues’ Developing ‘Killer’ Coronaviruses"

    https://twitter.com/bryanvilleneuve/status/1407547650560434179?s=20
    Most gain of function work is not 'designing for purpose', but rather is tinkering around to find out what works. So it is not design work, but selection from a very large array of blind attempts.
    That's also a good explanation of how natural selection works, and the results in both cases can be virtually indistinguishable from design.
    It is how most R&D works in reality, but it is not 'design' in the sense used in synthetic biology, which is more akin to designing a bridge or a building using standard components based on a pre-existing understanding of what works.
  • GnudGnud Posts: 298
    I preferred the Guardian's original report on the High Court decision in Belfast, but it's fast going down the memory hole. It provided an instructive glimpse of a highly specific kind of craziness. Fortunately the key dollop of information is still being reported by BreakingNews.ie, in a piece cited to Jonathan McCambridge of the Press Association from before the decision was issued:

    "Former Northern Ireland attorney general John Larkin QC (...) said (to the court): 'If the power to make law for Northern Ireland can be given to Brussels, it can be given just as legally to the Oireachtas (Irish Parliament).' "

    In other words, X must be WROOONNNGGG because it would be tantamount to OPENING THE GATES to the Antichrist Church of Rome. Because that is what he means.
  • Pagan2Pagan2 Posts: 8,631
    Omnium said:

    Another straw in the wind to make of what you will: Labour has now spoken to EVERY Batley and Spen voter for whom we have phone numbers. I resumed phoning this evening and after a few (including 2 don't-know to Labour switchers, yay) I got the message that everyone had now been called.

    This has to be a lot more than the Galloway effort. I think it's now really come down to a Tory-Labour battle and Galloway is marginalised.

    "Labour has now spoken to EVERY Batley and Spen voter for whom we have phone numbers."

    Dr P - this seems improbable unless you have a fantastically short list of phone numbers.
    Not only improbable but impossible. Personally I dont answer a call from an unknown number and I doubt I am the only one
  • Nigel_ForemainNigel_Foremain Posts: 13,766

    Carnyx said:

    Carnyx said:

    Leon said:

    Nigelb said:

    Leon said:

    Nigelb said:

    Selebian said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    My cheerful friend in Cornwall adds this:

    "Delta can transmit in 5-10 seconds"

    Evidence....
    She didn't give a citation. But she IS very clever, top of her profession, not a fool that reads the Express

    She's the sort that does tons of reading. I'm minded to believe that she has, at least, read that somewhere reputable; doesn't make it true, of course

    But we can all see how frigging infectious Delta can be. It's almost as if it this virus was engineered to have maximum virulence, in a lab
    Wait, I thought it was the original version that got leaked from a lab? If so, the lab version was a bit naff really, wasn't it, compared to Delta? So much for enhancement of function.

    Or did the original version and Delta both come from the lab? That really would be careless (lose a virus once, shame on... shame on you, lose a virus... - you can't lose a virus again!)
    At the risk of going around in more @Leon circles...

    The Case Against the Covid-19 Lab Leak Theory
    https://newrepublic.com/article/162689/bats-covid-19-lab-leak-theory
    I don't think anyone believes natural zoonosis outside the lab is likely, not anymore


    "Former State Dept officials tell
    @CBSNews
    significant info about the Wuhan lab was buried in government databases + didn’t reach their desks for nearly a year, as there is a new push to know the origins #COVID19
    @CBS_Herridge
    reports on the lab leak theory"

    https://twitter.com/CBS_Herridge/status/1410222245079830533?s=20


    The New York Times:

    "It’s very difficult to read this and not be convinced that this was a lab leak. This is pretty damning:"

    https://twitter.com/susanthesquark/status/1408660068157911046?s=20

    Perhaps not on your Twitter feed.
    No, I mean generally:


    "Most Americans believe in COVID-19 lab leak theory: Poll"

    https://aninews.in/news/world/us/most-americans-believe-in-covid-19-lab-leak-theory-poll20210624111141#.YNQxMWre7n4.twitter


    Indeed, most Americans think their government conspired to hide the truth of this:


    "Poll: Majority believe US Government and media tried to cover up Wuhan lab leak theory"

    https://twitter.com/DesertReporter/status/1410264107790438412?s=20
    A sentence starting "Most Americans believe..." is not one that is really going to be a slam dunker in an argument.
    It is - but perhaps not in the way its deployer might wish.

    Edit: of course, this does not apply when the issue of popuilar belief itself is beign discussed, rather than the strict validity of the belief itself.
    Apparently nearly 80% of Americans believe in at least one unscientifically proven idea! However, only 2.3% of respondents identified as flat earthers (which out of a population of 331M is still quite a lot of absolute loons!)
    While on that topic ...

    https://www.inverness-courier.co.uk/news/the-flat-earths-controversial-hq-in-inverness-appears-to-ha-242960/
    Fantastic! I love the quote at the end of the article: Two millennia of scientific consensus has it that the earth is spherical.
    ..PS and as every PB pedant and scientist will know is actually not quite correct...
  • JosiasJessopJosiasJessop Posts: 38,517
    Why we should never return the Elgin Marbles:

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-europe-57665536

    (runs for cover)
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 31,718
    Carnyx said:

    Carnyx said:

    Nigelb said:

    Selebian said:

    FPT

    Carnyx said:

    rcs1000 said:

    There is this strange idea that asking the young to make sacrifices for the old in time of crisis is somehow unusual.

    Ladies and gentlemen, can I bring to your attention conscription? That is, forcing the young to take time out from education and life, to get trained as a soldier and to go into battle for theit country, so an external menace can be defeated.

    It seems to me that CV19 is not a million miles different to a war. A pathogen has come to disrupt our lived and potentially to kill and to injure, and to affect our way of life.

    A small number of people (might) bear a slightly higher risk from vaccination than they would do from the disease. But in return everyone benefits from stamping out the disease completely.

    We all agree conscription is necessary under certain circumstances, why should it not be the same with vaccination?

    The comparison is even closer. Being a guinea pig was a recognised role for conscientious objectors to conscription, of course. And I don't mean the Mengele kind of guinea pig.

    https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16510534/
    Crikey! Scientists back then had all the fun :hushed: That's both apalling and very interesting in the things that were learned. Fascinating that the author was involved as a scientist and that one (at least) of the 'volunteers' went into science afterwards. I also like the desert-dry reference to the Declaration of Helsinki preventing similar studies in future - I can't work out whether the author sees that as a bad or a good thing.

    These seem direct links to the full paper:
    https://academic.oup.com/ije/article/35/3/556/735661
    DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/ije/dyl020

    I was fortunate enough to have a brilliant surgeon for my youthful health problems. He was at the end of a long and successful career, but I was surprised to discover that, in the 1950s, he had done experiments on volunteer servicemen. The tests were to examine heat effects and would, to modern eyes, not be allowed. He was fairly frank about it.
    Not to mention the experiment on human subjects with chemical weapons, at Porton Down, which went on into the '70s, I think.
    That was actually directly to do with defence, so it's quite a good comparison for covid!

    There was a rather distressing book published on the experiments. I can't remember the details now, but IIRC the question of informed consent was rather skated over - perhaps an element of being volunteered too. It wasn't formally wartime, either, so they were doing it on professional squaddies.
    Husband of a good friend of my sister was one of the National Servicemen used in the Christmas Island nuclear tests.
    Volunteer......... no more than he wanted to be in the services! Being 'volunteered'..... definitely. Professional squaddies.... rubbish.
    AFAIK he's still trying to get compensation, but I haven't talked about it with my sister for a while.
    That like is to express interest in your comment - not to approve of what happened!
    Thank you. I’ll try and find out the current situation. I do know that the chap, as a National Serviceman, wasn’t alone in being a guinea-pig.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 43,621
    UK cases by specimen date

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  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 43,621
    UK cases by specimen date scaled to 100K population

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  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 43,621
    England PCR positivity

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  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 31,718
    Pagan2 said:

    Omnium said:

    Another straw in the wind to make of what you will: Labour has now spoken to EVERY Batley and Spen voter for whom we have phone numbers. I resumed phoning this evening and after a few (including 2 don't-know to Labour switchers, yay) I got the message that everyone had now been called.

    This has to be a lot more than the Galloway effort. I think it's now really come down to a Tory-Labour battle and Galloway is marginalised.

    "Labour has now spoken to EVERY Batley and Spen voter for whom we have phone numbers."

    Dr P - this seems improbable unless you have a fantastically short list of phone numbers.
    Not only improbable but impossible. Personally I dont answer a call from an unknown number and I doubt I am the only one
    I always answer; sometimes with an imprecation!
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 43,621
    UK case summary

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  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 43,621
    UK hospitals

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  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 31,718
    Gnud said:

    I preferred the Guardian's original report on the High Court decision in Belfast, but it's fast going down the memory hole. It provided an instructive glimpse of a highly specific kind of craziness. Fortunately the key dollop of information is still being reported by BreakingNews.ie, in a piece cited to Jonathan McCambridge of the Press Association from before the decision was issued:

    "Former Northern Ireland attorney general John Larkin QC (...) said (to the court): 'If the power to make law for Northern Ireland can be given to Brussels, it can be given just as legally to the Oireachtas (Irish Parliament).' "

    In other words, X must be WROOONNNGGG because it would be tantamount to OPENING THE GATES to the Antichrist Church of Rome. Because that is what he means.

    NOOOOO
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 43,621
    UK deaths

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This discussion has been closed.