politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » The boys who cried sheep. The politics of the end of lockdown
Comments
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Long-range forecasting is guesswork, so sometimes you will guess correctly as long as your predictions are within the parameters of normal (e.g. you don't predict 25c in January or -3c in July). Doesn't mean it works!DecrepiterJohnL said:
Piers' did work for a bit. I met him once at his offices in a previous life -- must be more than 20 years ago now. South of the river somewhere, I think.Malmesbury said:
Yes - but I was trying to find the name of the chap who actually delivered working forecasts....DecrepiterJohnL said:
Piers Corbyn's long-range weather forecasts were based on his readings of sunspot cycles. For a long time, Piers was darling of the anti-climate change/AGW brigade because he said it could all be explained by changes in solar activity.Malmesbury said:
Who was the guy in long range weather forecasting, who was a bit odd, but actually delivered? Beat some of the big players? Trying to remember the name...Richard_Nabavi said:Some years ago Jeremy Corbyn's brother had his offices in the same building as my company, in fact right in the next door rooms. He was a nutjob even then, selling weather long-term 'forecasts', arrived at using some method known only to him, to gullible companies such as retailers. I got to know him reasonably well, and, shall we say, was not impressed. He seems to have got a lot nuttier still since.
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https://twitter.com/HeidiTworek/status/1262086030099955712
Although that includes furloughed I think. Trump will be delighted.0 -
It sometimes feels like 25c in january is just round the corner. Even the docks are wilting in the fields down here, never mind the grass.Anabobazina said:
Long-range forecasting is guesswork, so sometimes you will guess correctly as long as your predictions are within the parameters of normal (e.g. you don't predict 25c in January or -3c in July). Doesn't mean it works!DecrepiterJohnL said:
Piers' did work for a bit. I met him once at his offices in a previous life -- must be more than 20 years ago now. South of the river somewhere, I think.Malmesbury said:
Yes - but I was trying to find the name of the chap who actually delivered working forecasts....DecrepiterJohnL said:
Piers Corbyn's long-range weather forecasts were based on his readings of sunspot cycles. For a long time, Piers was darling of the anti-climate change/AGW brigade because he said it could all be explained by changes in solar activity.Malmesbury said:
Who was the guy in long range weather forecasting, who was a bit odd, but actually delivered? Beat some of the big players? Trying to remember the name...Richard_Nabavi said:Some years ago Jeremy Corbyn's brother had his offices in the same building as my company, in fact right in the next door rooms. He was a nutjob even then, selling weather long-term 'forecasts', arrived at using some method known only to him, to gullible companies such as retailers. I got to know him reasonably well, and, shall we say, was not impressed. He seems to have got a lot nuttier still since.
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Severe drought is going to follow plague this summer. I guess we'll be seeing food issues soon.IshmaelZ said:
It sometimes feels like 25c in january is just round the corner. Even the docks are wilting in the fields down here, never mind the grass.Anabobazina said:
Long-range forecasting is guesswork, so sometimes you will guess correctly as long as your predictions are within the parameters of normal (e.g. you don't predict 25c in January or -3c in July). Doesn't mean it works!DecrepiterJohnL said:
Piers' did work for a bit. I met him once at his offices in a previous life -- must be more than 20 years ago now. South of the river somewhere, I think.Malmesbury said:
Yes - but I was trying to find the name of the chap who actually delivered working forecasts....DecrepiterJohnL said:
Piers Corbyn's long-range weather forecasts were based on his readings of sunspot cycles. For a long time, Piers was darling of the anti-climate change/AGW brigade because he said it could all be explained by changes in solar activity.Malmesbury said:
Who was the guy in long range weather forecasting, who was a bit odd, but actually delivered? Beat some of the big players? Trying to remember the name...Richard_Nabavi said:Some years ago Jeremy Corbyn's brother had his offices in the same building as my company, in fact right in the next door rooms. He was a nutjob even then, selling weather long-term 'forecasts', arrived at using some method known only to him, to gullible companies such as retailers. I got to know him reasonably well, and, shall we say, was not impressed. He seems to have got a lot nuttier still since.
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I see not just Buzzfeed, but Vice (the other trendy leftie new style news outfit) is having to make a load more layoffs, and they have had crazy amounts of funding.rottenborough said:https://twitter.com/HeidiTworek/status/1262086030099955712
Although that includes furloughed I think. Trump will be delighted.0 -
Another reason why I think containment is possible, this is a big, big step forwards towards containment.FrancisUrquhart said:Everyone over age of five in the UK with symptoms can now be tested for coronavirus, Health Secretary Matt Hancock has announced.
Matt Hancock says 21,000 people have been recruited to conduct contact-tracing in England, including 7,500 healthcare workers.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-52713127
It was no longer being capable of doing this that led to containment failing at the start.1 -
Let`s hope that the government effectively communicates the good work to date.Philip_Thompson said:
Indeed there was a very good libertarian reason to do what Sweden did. But we are where we are.Stocky said:
I think you`ve got to the nub of it. I don`t think that containment is possible because it`s endemic. You think it is. If you are wrong, lockdown will have cost this country so much in terms of the economy and particularly in terms of liberty. And the longer it goes on the more damage it will do - and the more difficult it will be to get out of. I`m surprised that you, a libertarian, aren`t standing up for liberty like you usually do.Philip_Thompson said:
And does she speak for every resident? And all their children? And all grandchildren?Stocky said:
What if the residents of the care home would rather die than live their current existence. No visitors, only seeing staff bring meals wearing masks, as my mother currently experiences. We are farming old folk, completely prioritisng quantity of life over quality.Philip_Thompson said:
Because your visit isn't necessary but the nurses is. Tragically.Stocky said:
Yes indeed - yet they stop me - clean as a whistle from seven weeks in isolation - from seeing my own dear mother.Philip_Thompson said:
How many visitors daily from staff members, nurses, NHS staff etc do you think they're getting?RobD said:
The number in the last week is staggering. How are they still getting new cases? You thought these places would be locked down tighter than fort knox by now.Andy_JS said:"Almost four in ten English care homes have had coronavirus outbreaks, No 10 admits"
https://www.itv.com/news/2020-05-18/coronavirus-four-in-ten-care-homes-have-had-outbreaks-no-10-admits/
An asymptomatic NHS district nurse could unfortunately seed an outbreak in multiple homes, it only takes one carrier to get in to start it off.
And it goes the other way. If you asymptomatically bring it in you risk infecting not just your own mother but everyone else's relatives in the home, and the staff, and a nurse who can then take it to another home.
This is why the only way to stop the care home outbreaks is to stop all community transmission. Completely.
Otherwise just write off the care homes as a price worth paying for lifting lockdown prematurely. I'm not prepared to do that when it looks like we have a viable safer alternative.
My mother is appalled that other residents are being denied seeing their own loved ones to protect herself (my mother). She`s never asked for this protection, has never sought it and disagrees with it.
I don't think we can or should lockdown for long but I think we have already squished this over 80% and just a couple more weeks would make containment a viable strategy. At which point you should be able to see your mother.
I think lifting prematurely while people don't want it lifting only to see people stay at home will do far more damage to the economy. Businesses that open up will see costs go up and if there's no customers to pay those bills they will go bust.
I think eradicating this (at least to containable levels) will do less damage not more, from where we are. We've done most of the work.
If you make some good quality outdoor woodwork you don't go to all the effort of building it only to not bother to put the varnish on. For me a little bit now is the varnish, it will keep what's been done and ensure we can get back to a real normal sooner. Which is what we need, we need a real return to normal not a fake one.
The reduction in daily deaths as reported by NHS England from 890 peak to under 200 now (a 80% reduction in 5 weeks!) is a great news story that isn`t known to many people. My ultra-cautious family members don`t believe me when I tell them that deaths have fallen dramatically.1 -
Only 2 (two) covid deaths in Scotland announced today.
No wonder Nicola is looking to liberalise the lockdown next week.0 -
I would be much happier if they had just gone with the Google / Apple API for the app from the get-go. Instead it is still weeks away while they think about pivoting.Philip_Thompson said:
Another reason why I think containment is possible, this is a big, big step forwards towards containment.FrancisUrquhart said:Everyone over age of five in the UK with symptoms can now be tested for coronavirus, Health Secretary Matt Hancock has announced.
Matt Hancock says 21,000 people have been recruited to conduct contact-tracing in England, including 7,500 healthcare workers.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-52713127
It was no longer being capable of doing this that led to containment failing at the start.0 -
That is absolutely spot on and you are far from the only one who has experienced this phenomenon – any would think the government is deliberately not trumpeting it. But I wouldn't wish to speculate on that!Stocky said:
Let`s hope that the government effectively communicates the good work to date.Philip_Thompson said:
Indeed there was a very good libertarian reason to do what Sweden did. But we are where we are.Stocky said:
I think you`ve got to the nub of it. I don`t think that containment is possible because it`s endemic. You think it is. If you are wrong, lockdown will have cost this country so much in terms of the economy and particularly in terms of liberty. And the longer it goes on the more damage it will do - and the more difficult it will be to get out of. I`m surprised that you, a libertarian, aren`t standing up for liberty like you usually do.Philip_Thompson said:
And does she speak for every resident? And all their children? And all grandchildren?Stocky said:
What if the residents of the care home would rather die than live their current existence. No visitors, only seeing staff bring meals wearing masks, as my mother currently experiences. We are farming old folk, completely prioritisng quantity of life over quality.Philip_Thompson said:
Because your visit isn't necessary but the nurses is. Tragically.Stocky said:
Yes indeed - yet they stop me - clean as a whistle from seven weeks in isolation - from seeing my own dear mother.Philip_Thompson said:
How many visitors daily from staff members, nurses, NHS staff etc do you think they're getting?RobD said:
The number in the last week is staggering. How are they still getting new cases? You thought these places would be locked down tighter than fort knox by now.Andy_JS said:"Almost four in ten English care homes have had coronavirus outbreaks, No 10 admits"
https://www.itv.com/news/2020-05-18/coronavirus-four-in-ten-care-homes-have-had-outbreaks-no-10-admits/
An asymptomatic NHS district nurse could unfortunately seed an outbreak in multiple homes, it only takes one carrier to get in to start it off.
And it goes the other way. If you asymptomatically bring it in you risk infecting not just your own mother but everyone else's relatives in the home, and the staff, and a nurse who can then take it to another home.
This is why the only way to stop the care home outbreaks is to stop all community transmission. Completely.
Otherwise just write off the care homes as a price worth paying for lifting lockdown prematurely. I'm not prepared to do that when it looks like we have a viable safer alternative.
My mother is appalled that other residents are being denied seeing their own loved ones to protect herself (my mother). She`s never asked for this protection, has never sought it and disagrees with it.
I don't think we can or should lockdown for long but I think we have already squished this over 80% and just a couple more weeks would make containment a viable strategy. At which point you should be able to see your mother.
I think lifting prematurely while people don't want it lifting only to see people stay at home will do far more damage to the economy. Businesses that open up will see costs go up and if there's no customers to pay those bills they will go bust.
I think eradicating this (at least to containable levels) will do less damage not more, from where we are. We've done most of the work.
If you make some good quality outdoor woodwork you don't go to all the effort of building it only to not bother to put the varnish on. For me a little bit now is the varnish, it will keep what's been done and ensure we can get back to a real normal sooner. Which is what we need, we need a real return to normal not a fake one.
The reduction in daily deaths as reported by NHS England from 890 peak to under 200 now (a 80% reduction in 5 weeks!) is a great news story that isn`t known to many people. My ultra-cautious family members don`t believe me when I tell them that deaths have fallen dramatically.
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End Times indeed.rottenborough said:
Severe drought is going to follow plague this summer. I guess we'll be seeing food issues soon.IshmaelZ said:
It sometimes feels like 25c in january is just round the corner. Even the docks are wilting in the fields down here, never mind the grass.Anabobazina said:
Long-range forecasting is guesswork, so sometimes you will guess correctly as long as your predictions are within the parameters of normal (e.g. you don't predict 25c in January or -3c in July). Doesn't mean it works!DecrepiterJohnL said:
Piers' did work for a bit. I met him once at his offices in a previous life -- must be more than 20 years ago now. South of the river somewhere, I think.Malmesbury said:
Yes - but I was trying to find the name of the chap who actually delivered working forecasts....DecrepiterJohnL said:
Piers Corbyn's long-range weather forecasts were based on his readings of sunspot cycles. For a long time, Piers was darling of the anti-climate change/AGW brigade because he said it could all be explained by changes in solar activity.Malmesbury said:
Who was the guy in long range weather forecasting, who was a bit odd, but actually delivered? Beat some of the big players? Trying to remember the name...Richard_Nabavi said:Some years ago Jeremy Corbyn's brother had his offices in the same building as my company, in fact right in the next door rooms. He was a nutjob even then, selling weather long-term 'forecasts', arrived at using some method known only to him, to gullible companies such as retailers. I got to know him reasonably well, and, shall we say, was not impressed. He seems to have got a lot nuttier still since.
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The public can see Parliament with its hybrid system. They're not daft.
Besides you still can't visit your parents house for tea and biscuits under official guidance...0 -
There are two big problems that caused the misunderstanding over the death numbers :-
a) the daily reported, rather than date of death, graphs
b) the pivoting to "all deaths" from just hospital deaths, means the casual observer saw continually big numbers for weeks.0 -
Weekend effect I rather fear - this seems clear from the Travelling Tabby histogram, alas.Anabobazina said:Only 2 (two) covid deaths in Scotland announced today.
No wonder Nicola is looking to liberalise the lockdown next week.
https://www.travellingtabby.com/scotland-coronavirus-tracker
But the weekly deaths data based on NAS (equivalent to ONS in ENgland) are showing a marked decline. Waiting on the new week's data.
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As people are receiving 80% of their wages to enjoy the early summer sun no wonder they don't want it lifted. Only BoJo can lead the way in persuading people that we need to stop being scared and it's time to move on to the next stage.Philip_Thompson said:
Indeed there was a very good libertarian reason to do what Sweden did. But we are where we are.Stocky said:
I think you`ve got to the nub of it. I don`t think that containment is possible because it`s endemic. You think it is. If you are wrong, lockdown will have cost this country so much in terms of the economy and particularly in terms of liberty. And the longer it goes on the more damage it will do - and the more difficult it will be to get out of. I`m surprised that you, a libertarian, aren`t standing up for liberty like you usually do.Philip_Thompson said:
And does she speak for every resident? And all their children? And all grandchildren?Stocky said:
What if the residents of the care home would rather die than live their current existence. No visitors, only seeing staff bring meals wearing masks, as my mother currently experiences. We are farming old folk, completely prioritisng quantity of life over quality.Philip_Thompson said:
Because your visit isn't necessary but the nurses is. Tragically.Stocky said:
Yes indeed - yet they stop me - clean as a whistle from seven weeks in isolation - from seeing my own dear mother.Philip_Thompson said:
How many visitors daily from staff members, nurses, NHS staff etc do you think they're getting?RobD said:
The number in the last week is staggering. How are they still getting new cases? You thought these places would be locked down tighter than fort knox by now.Andy_JS said:"Almost four in ten English care homes have had coronavirus outbreaks, No 10 admits"
https://www.itv.com/news/2020-05-18/coronavirus-four-in-ten-care-homes-have-had-outbreaks-no-10-admits/
An asymptomatic NHS district nurse could unfortunately seed an outbreak in multiple homes, it only takes one carrier to get in to start it off.
And it goes the other way. If you asymptomatically bring it in you risk infecting not just your own mother but everyone else's relatives in the home, and the staff, and a nurse who can then take it to another home.
This is why the only way to stop the care home outbreaks is to stop all community transmission. Completely.
Otherwise just write off the care homes as a price worth paying for lifting lockdown prematurely. I'm not prepared to do that when it looks like we have a viable safer alternative.
My mother is appalled that other residents are being denied seeing their own loved ones to protect herself (my mother). She`s never asked for this protection, has never sought it and disagrees with it.
I don't think we can or should lockdown for long but I think we have already squished this over 80% and just a couple more weeks would make containment a viable strategy. At which point you should be able to see your mother.
I think lifting prematurely while people don't want it lifting only to see people stay at home will do far more damage to the economy. Businesses that open up will see costs go up and if there's no customers to pay those bills they will go bust.
I think eradicating this (at least to containable levels) will do less damage not more, from where we are. We've done most of the work.
If you make some good quality outdoor woodwork you don't go to all the effort of building it only to not bother to put the varnish on. For me a little bit now is the varnish, it will keep what's been done and ensure we can get back to a real normal sooner. Which is what we need, we need a real return to normal not a fake one.0 -
This is why the all-or-nothing attitude to contact tracing from the government is another big failure.Philip_Thompson said:
How many visitors daily from staff members, nurses, NHS staff etc do you think they're getting?RobD said:
The number in the last week is staggering. How are they still getting new cases? You thought these places would be locked down tighter than fort knox by now.Andy_JS said:"Almost four in ten English care homes have had coronavirus outbreaks, No 10 admits"
https://www.itv.com/news/2020-05-18/coronavirus-four-in-ten-care-homes-have-had-outbreaks-no-10-admits/
An asymptomatic NHS district nurse could unfortunately seed an outbreak in multiple homes, it only takes one carrier to get in to start it off.
The virus spread too fast for our contact tracing capability to keep up with it, but they could have kept it going as much as possible for tracking contacts of health professionals, etc, and then expanding from there as contact tracing capacity increased and virus prevalence decreased.
Instead they just gave up on it. A baffling defeatist attitude. And now they're trying to restart it again from scratch. Haphazard.0 -
Mate of mine who works for the Environment Agency reckons there's enough moisture in the water table from the very wet winter to see us through. But I'm sceptical –this spring has been insanely dry and no end in sight, at least down here. I'm a keen gardener and my water bill is of the "look away now" variety.IshmaelZ said:
End Times indeed.rottenborough said:
Severe drought is going to follow plague this summer. I guess we'll be seeing food issues soon.IshmaelZ said:
It sometimes feels like 25c in january is just round the corner. Even the docks are wilting in the fields down here, never mind the grass.Anabobazina said:
Long-range forecasting is guesswork, so sometimes you will guess correctly as long as your predictions are within the parameters of normal (e.g. you don't predict 25c in January or -3c in July). Doesn't mean it works!DecrepiterJohnL said:
Piers' did work for a bit. I met him once at his offices in a previous life -- must be more than 20 years ago now. South of the river somewhere, I think.Malmesbury said:
Yes - but I was trying to find the name of the chap who actually delivered working forecasts....DecrepiterJohnL said:
Piers Corbyn's long-range weather forecasts were based on his readings of sunspot cycles. For a long time, Piers was darling of the anti-climate change/AGW brigade because he said it could all be explained by changes in solar activity.Malmesbury said:
Who was the guy in long range weather forecasting, who was a bit odd, but actually delivered? Beat some of the big players? Trying to remember the name...Richard_Nabavi said:Some years ago Jeremy Corbyn's brother had his offices in the same building as my company, in fact right in the next door rooms. He was a nutjob even then, selling weather long-term 'forecasts', arrived at using some method known only to him, to gullible companies such as retailers. I got to know him reasonably well, and, shall we say, was not impressed. He seems to have got a lot nuttier still since.
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It means he swallows 99% of their propaganda rather than the full monty.DecrepiterJohnL said:
One naturally hesitates to get involved but iirc @malcolmg is from the Nicola-sceptic wing of the cybernats, though I'm not sure if that helps or hinders the comparison with other posters.Nigel_Foremain said:
Haha, I have read plenty of your posts, all of which would indicate you are not quite in a position to insult anyone with respect to intelligence. Certainly if clarity of argument and ability to articulate said argument are indicators of intelligence then you clearly weren't at the front of the proverbial queue , though the biggest indicator of all is that even by the low bar that is set by people who believe in the backward cretinous ideology of nationalism, you dip well below it. I think I was being very unfair to HYUFD though, comparing you with him was very unkind to the poor chap.malcolmg said:FPT @Nigel_foremain
Nigel_Foremain said:
» show previous quotes
Malcolmg is the Nat equivalent of HYUFD. Nicola could tell him the moon was made of cheese an he would ask her what variety. I always find it very odd that someone who is so critical of everyone else could be so gullible when it comes to messages from their own side.
You really are a totally thick numpty. You do not obviously read my posts , jog on you sad thicko.0 -
We are 'ramping things up' globally - but 'normal production timetables' for new vaccines are inordinately long. And scaling up biological manufacturing is not simple at all*.Anabobazina said:
I don’t know anything at all about vaccine production, but instinctively I find it hard to countenance the idea that if a vaccine is found we won’t ramp up global production to such an intense degree we’d have it available well ahead of normal production timetables. Money is no object.Nigelb said:(FPT)
If the Moderna vaccine is truly effective, that is excellent news, as it is probably the most easily scalable technology for mass production.FrancisUrquhart said:
I would guess limited emergency use IN THE US. Unless they are willing to share early and have other people start the mass production of it.Philip_Thompson said:
A limited emergency use would be better than nothing.FrancisUrquhart said:
All reports say that even if this is a home run, it will only be available for limited emergency use this year.TimT said:Was this shared already?
Moderna’s closely watched early-stage human trial for a coronavirus vaccine produced Covid-19 antibodies in all 45 participants.
Each participant received a 25 microgram, 100 mcg or 250 mcg dose, with 15 people in each dose group.
At day 43, or two weeks following the second dose, levels of binding antibodies in the 25 mcg group were at the levels generally seen in blood samples from people who recovered from the diseaseRichard_Nabavi said:From the Guardian live finance blog:
Travel company shares are now soaring in London, on hopes that a vaccine breakthrough [Moderna] could, perhaps, help the global economy to emerge from the Covid-19 lockdown sooner than previously feared.
A bit premature, methinks!
Edit:
Moderna aims for a billion COVID-19 shots a year with Lonza manufacturing tie-up
• Technology transfer expected to begin in June 2020
• First batches of mRNA-1273 expected to be manufactured at Lonza U.S. in July 2020
https://www.fiercepharma.com/manufacturing/moderna-aims-for-a-billion-covid-19-shots-a-year-lonza-manufacturing-tie-up
Interestingly it showed a dose dependent response (they tried both 25 and 100 mcg doses). Finers crossed for this one, too.
The good things about the Moderna vaccine are that it requires a much smaller amount for each individual dose, and also that it can be produced in a 'cell free' process, so the steps required to produced the purified vaccine from what comes out of the bioreactor are much simpler.
So it's a lot easier to make lots of it quickly.
It's a completely new technology, and there were fears that it wouldn't make as effective a vaccine. For now, there seems to be some ground to think that it might be effective.
*If you are going to dose billions of people, you can't just turn out any old crap; new production lines have to be fully regulated, and that takes time.1 -
It doesn't help that people want to make the situation appear as bad as humanly possible to either sell a story or make the government appear bad. Nothing will say how much deaths have come down quite like being able to say "no deaths" which we are surprisingly fast approaching in some regions now.Stocky said:
Let`s hope that the government effectively communicates the good work to date.Philip_Thompson said:
Indeed there was a very good libertarian reason to do what Sweden did. But we are where we are.Stocky said:
I think you`ve got to the nub of it. I don`t think that containment is possible because it`s endemic. You think it is. If you are wrong, lockdown will have cost this country so much in terms of the economy and particularly in terms of liberty. And the longer it goes on the more damage it will do - and the more difficult it will be to get out of. I`m surprised that you, a libertarian, aren`t standing up for liberty like you usually do.Philip_Thompson said:
And does she speak for every resident? And all their children? And all grandchildren?Stocky said:
What if the residents of the care home would rather die than live their current existence. No visitors, only seeing staff bring meals wearing masks, as my mother currently experiences. We are farming old folk, completely prioritisng quantity of life over quality.Philip_Thompson said:
Because your visit isn't necessary but the nurses is. Tragically.Stocky said:
Yes indeed - yet they stop me - clean as a whistle from seven weeks in isolation - from seeing my own dear mother.Philip_Thompson said:
How many visitors daily from staff members, nurses, NHS staff etc do you think they're getting?RobD said:
The number in the last week is staggering. How are they still getting new cases? You thought these places would be locked down tighter than fort knox by now.Andy_JS said:"Almost four in ten English care homes have had coronavirus outbreaks, No 10 admits"
https://www.itv.com/news/2020-05-18/coronavirus-four-in-ten-care-homes-have-had-outbreaks-no-10-admits/
An asymptomatic NHS district nurse could unfortunately seed an outbreak in multiple homes, it only takes one carrier to get in to start it off.
And it goes the other way. If you asymptomatically bring it in you risk infecting not just your own mother but everyone else's relatives in the home, and the staff, and a nurse who can then take it to another home.
This is why the only way to stop the care home outbreaks is to stop all community transmission. Completely.
Otherwise just write off the care homes as a price worth paying for lifting lockdown prematurely. I'm not prepared to do that when it looks like we have a viable safer alternative.
My mother is appalled that other residents are being denied seeing their own loved ones to protect herself (my mother). She`s never asked for this protection, has never sought it and disagrees with it.
I don't think we can or should lockdown for long but I think we have already squished this over 80% and just a couple more weeks would make containment a viable strategy. At which point you should be able to see your mother.
I think lifting prematurely while people don't want it lifting only to see people stay at home will do far more damage to the economy. Businesses that open up will see costs go up and if there's no customers to pay those bills they will go bust.
I think eradicating this (at least to containable levels) will do less damage not more, from where we are. We've done most of the work.
If you make some good quality outdoor woodwork you don't go to all the effort of building it only to not bother to put the varnish on. For me a little bit now is the varnish, it will keep what's been done and ensure we can get back to a real normal sooner. Which is what we need, we need a real return to normal not a fake one.
The reduction in daily deaths as reported by NHS England from 890 peak to under 200 now (a 80% reduction in 5 weeks!) is a great news story that isn`t known to many people. My ultra-cautious family members don`t believe me when I tell them that deaths have fallen dramatically.
Usual caveats about lag in data on weekend etc but today's data from Scotland was 2 deaths. Not 2 dozen, but 2.
I feel like we are about 21 miles into a marathon. We are at "the wall" stage of the marathon, should we give up now or get to the finishing line?1 -
Makes me wonder yet again what her evidence was that our R rate was over 1 last week.Anabobazina said:Only 2 (two) covid deaths in Scotland announced today.
No wonder Nicola is looking to liberalise the lockdown next week.1 -
I'd say we're into about mile 3 personally.Philip_Thompson said:
I feel like we are about 21 miles into a marathon. We are at "the wall" stage of the marathon, should we give up now or get to the finishing line?1 -
I just hope a team in the background is already working on that API and it's not a case of thinking about it.FrancisUrquhart said:
I would be much happier if they had just gone with the Google / Apple API for the app from the get-go. Instead it is still weeks away while they think about pivoting.Philip_Thompson said:
Another reason why I think containment is possible, this is a big, big step forwards towards containment.FrancisUrquhart said:Everyone over age of five in the UK with symptoms can now be tested for coronavirus, Health Secretary Matt Hancock has announced.
Matt Hancock says 21,000 people have been recruited to conduct contact-tracing in England, including 7,500 healthcare workers.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-52713127
It was no longer being capable of doing this that led to containment failing at the start.
They should have a team working on the already done model and another team working on Plan B.0 -
I know Scottish subs subsamples are as popular on PB as pineapple pizza, but the Redfield and Wilton one is interesting.
SNP 41
SLAB 32
SCON 17
Could make next years Holyrood elections interesting...0 -
Phillip
I was arguing with you this morning, but I'd broadly agree with you on timetable (can't find your OP but the varnish analogy is a good one).
It would have been nice to liberalise by the bank holiday weekend but that instinctively seems too soon.
1 June has a nice ring to it, and is a Monday, which is a good day to do it on.1 -
The Tories weren't saying stay at home.DavidL said:
Makes me wonder yet again what her evidence was that our R rate was over 1 last week.Anabobazina said:Only 2 (two) covid deaths in Scotland announced today.
No wonder Nicola is looking to liberalise the lockdown next week.0 -
Shew didn't IIRC - just that the error range of the estimate overlapped 1.0, did it not?DavidL said:
Makes me wonder yet again what her evidence was that our R rate was over 1 last week.Anabobazina said:Only 2 (two) covid deaths in Scotland announced today.
No wonder Nicola is looking to liberalise the lockdown next week.
And see my post about clear weekend effect. Though the death rate from NAS weekly data is plainly going down (and in close step with the 'excess' total deaths, in contrast to England - something is wrong with recording somewhere, it would seem ...).0 -
Yes that does indeed seem rather baffling.DavidL said:
Makes me wonder yet again what her evidence was that our R rate was over 1 last week.Anabobazina said:Only 2 (two) covid deaths in Scotland announced today.
No wonder Nicola is looking to liberalise the lockdown next week.0 -
A high water table is fine for garden hosepipes and having a bath, useless for crops and pasture without an irrigation system (which very few farmers have, or could afford).Anabobazina said:
Mate of mine who works for the Environment Agency reckons there's enough moisture in the water table from the very wet winter to see us through. But I'm sceptical –this spring has been insanely dry and no end in sight, at least down here. I'm a keen gardener and my water bill is of the "look away now" variety.IshmaelZ said:
End Times indeed.rottenborough said:
Severe drought is going to follow plague this summer. I guess we'll be seeing food issues soon.IshmaelZ said:
It sometimes feels like 25c in january is just round the corner. Even the docks are wilting in the fields down here, never mind the grass.Anabobazina said:
Long-range forecasting is guesswork, so sometimes you will guess correctly as long as your predictions are within the parameters of normal (e.g. you don't predict 25c in January or -3c in July). Doesn't mean it works!DecrepiterJohnL said:
Piers' did work for a bit. I met him once at his offices in a previous life -- must be more than 20 years ago now. South of the river somewhere, I think.Malmesbury said:
Yes - but I was trying to find the name of the chap who actually delivered working forecasts....DecrepiterJohnL said:
Piers Corbyn's long-range weather forecasts were based on his readings of sunspot cycles. For a long time, Piers was darling of the anti-climate change/AGW brigade because he said it could all be explained by changes in solar activity.Malmesbury said:
Who was the guy in long range weather forecasting, who was a bit odd, but actually delivered? Beat some of the big players? Trying to remember the name...Richard_Nabavi said:Some years ago Jeremy Corbyn's brother had his offices in the same building as my company, in fact right in the next door rooms. He was a nutjob even then, selling weather long-term 'forecasts', arrived at using some method known only to him, to gullible companies such as retailers. I got to know him reasonably well, and, shall we say, was not impressed. He seems to have got a lot nuttier still since.
0 -
Foxy said:
I know Scottish subs subsamples are as popular on PB as pineapple pizza, but the Redfield and Wilton one is interesting.
SNP 41
SLAB 32
SCON 17
Could make next years Holyrood elections interesting...
I perhaps committed a major faux pas when I quoted, erm, Caledonian Covid numbers earlier.
I await the ban hammer.0 -
Good grief, you'll fit in well on here.Pulpstar said:
I'd say we're into about mile 3 personally.Philip_Thompson said:
I feel like we are about 21 miles into a marathon. We are at "the wall" stage of the marathon, should we give up now or get to the finishing line?
FFS.0 -
I think that's very pessimistic. This will be continuing in the background until there's a vaccine but once it's squished and can be contained it should be no worse than it was in early February.Pulpstar said:
I'd say we're into about mile 3 personally.Philip_Thompson said:
I feel like we are about 21 miles into a marathon. We are at "the wall" stage of the marathon, should we give up now or get to the finishing line?
The more we squish it now the more we can go back to normal sooner. We are an island nation, with contract tracing, without much community transmission and with border quarantines we ought to be able to be like New Zealand.2 -
Not at all - please don't worry. Theyt are separate in a way which subsamples in polls are [edit] definitely not. Helpfully Travelling Tabby seems to be separating out or adding the different sources for us.Anabobazina said:Foxy said:I know Scottish subs subsamples are as popular on PB as pineapple pizza, but the Redfield and Wilton one is interesting.
SNP 41
SLAB 32
SCON 17
Could make next years Holyrood elections interesting...
I perhaps committed a major faux pas when I quoted, erm, Caledonian Covid numbers earlier.
I await the ban hammer.0 -
I thought she simultaneously used the R number as reason for not lifting restrictions but did not know what the R number actually was.DavidL said:
Makes me wonder yet again what her evidence was that our R rate was over 1 last week.Anabobazina said:Only 2 (two) covid deaths in Scotland announced today.
No wonder Nicola is looking to liberalise the lockdown next week.2 -
A marathon... is a very long wayAnabobazina said:
Good grief, you'll fit in well on here.Pulpstar said:
I'd say we're into about mile 3 personally.Philip_Thompson said:
I feel like we are about 21 miles into a marathon. We are at "the wall" stage of the marathon, should we give up now or get to the finishing line?
FFS.
1 -
Because she souldn't be sure, given the scientists' estimate, that it was actually under 1.0 (though it probably was, IIRC, from the graph)?RobD said:
I thought she simultaneously used the R number as reason for not lifting restrictions but did not know what the R number actually was.DavidL said:
Makes me wonder yet again what her evidence was that our R rate was over 1 last week.Anabobazina said:Only 2 (two) covid deaths in Scotland announced today.
No wonder Nicola is looking to liberalise the lockdown next week.0 -
RobD said:
I thought she simultaneously used the R number as reason for not lifting restrictions but did not know what the R number actually was.DavidL said:
Makes me wonder yet again what her evidence was that our R rate was over 1 last week.Anabobazina said:Only 2 (two) covid deaths in Scotland announced today.
No wonder Nicola is looking to liberalise the lockdown next week.
0 -
Interesting exchange between Hancock and Ashworth in the HOC
Ashworth made a snide comment about a private sector company to which Hancock retorted we would have had no testing without them
And Hancock's response was to chide Ashworth that he thought labour had moved on from that a month ago and to be fair Ashworth laughed at the comment.
However, on the wider issue of the NHS and social care the idea 'public sector good, private sector bad' is over.
The only future for the NHS and social care is a public - private sector model where both are respected for their contributions to the future health of the nation
This is one of many changes that will come about due to covid1 -
Go on then, I’ll bite.Stocky said:
Private sector v public sector?contrarian said:
My daughter and I both work for (different) companies that supply news, data and information the financial marketsStocky said:
My neighbour works for the council and has been working from home. On full salary of course. She reckons she does two hours per week and thinks it`s a hoot.NerysHughes said:
There are lots of people working from home and it works great and I am sure that is the future for many people, but in the currently working stats there will be many getting 100% pay who are either not working or only working in a limited way. As an example I am friends with an electrical engineer for a Local Authority. He is working from home, but is only allowed to log in to their server once a week and currently has nothing to do.Anabobazina said:
I often agree with you but putting WFH in inverted commas is a bit silly, to be honest. I think companies have proved beyond any reasonable doubt that WFH is a good model that, erm, works.NerysHughes said:Its a no win situation, howver I would say that people are getting very used to Furlough or getting 100% pay "working from home" for a Local Authority and have no desire to return to work, especially as the weather is nice.
Neither of us has ever been busier.
I work for a local authority, involved with senior staff and councillors.
We’ve all been working from home and been very busy. Online meetings have proved very successful. A lot of admin staff have been very busy in ensuring the upper reaches of the authority have continued to function. Some folk are putting in very long hours. There’s been a lot of work to do to keep essential services running, shutting down and now re-opening others. It has been an exhilarating few months.
Of course there are staff lower down the food chain - traffic wardens, dinner ladies, etc - that can’t do their normal jobs. Many of these have been volunteering to do food deliveries for vulnerable people, and other stuff.
I’m trying to make the point that many staff can do their work perfectly well from home. Not all can, I admit. But it is a bit unfair to paint all public sector staff as bone idle layabouts on the basis of anecdotes. The work to keep everything running in the face of all the disruption has been impressive. Can we keep ideology out of this?9 -
One coach I knew used to say that halfway in a marathon is at 20 miles. Obviously not in actual distance, but in terms of effort needed etc.Pulpstar said:
I'd say we're into about mile 3 personally.Philip_Thompson said:
I feel like we are about 21 miles into a marathon. We are at "the wall" stage of the marathon, should we give up now or get to the finishing line?1 -
Though not so long ago 200 deaths a day from it would have seemed horrific.Stocky said:
Let`s hope that the government effectively communicates the good work to date.Philip_Thompson said:
Indeed there was a very good libertarian reason to do what Sweden did. But we are where we are.Stocky said:
I think you`ve got to the nub of it. I don`t think that containment is possible because it`s endemic. You think it is. If you are wrong, lockdown will have cost this country so much in terms of the economy and particularly in terms of liberty. And the longer it goes on the more damage it will do - and the more difficult it will be to get out of. I`m surprised that you, a libertarian, aren`t standing up for liberty like you usually do.Philip_Thompson said:
And does she speak for every resident? And all their children? And all grandchildren?Stocky said:
What if the residents of the care home would rather die than live their current existence. No visitors, only seeing staff bring meals wearing masks, as my mother currently experiences. We are farming old folk, completely prioritisng quantity of life over quality.Philip_Thompson said:
Because your visit isn't necessary but the nurses is. Tragically.Stocky said:
Yes indeed - yet they stop me - clean as a whistle from seven weeks in isolation - from seeing my own dear mother.Philip_Thompson said:
How many visitors daily from staff members, nurses, NHS staff etc do you think they're getting?RobD said:
The number in the last week is staggering. How are they still getting new cases? You thought these places would be locked down tighter than fort knox by now.Andy_JS said:"Almost four in ten English care homes have had coronavirus outbreaks, No 10 admits"
https://www.itv.com/news/2020-05-18/coronavirus-four-in-ten-care-homes-have-had-outbreaks-no-10-admits/
An asymptomatic NHS district nurse could unfortunately seed an outbreak in multiple homes, it only takes one carrier to get in to start it off.
And it goes the other way. If you asymptomatically bring it in you risk infecting not just your own mother but everyone else's relatives in the home, and the staff, and a nurse who can then take it to another home.
This is why the only way to stop the care home outbreaks is to stop all community transmission. Completely.
Otherwise just write off the care homes as a price worth paying for lifting lockdown prematurely. I'm not prepared to do that when it looks like we have a viable safer alternative.
My mother is appalled that other residents are being denied seeing their own loved ones to protect herself (my mother). She`s never asked for this protection, has never sought it and disagrees with it.
I don't think we can or should lockdown for long but I think we have already squished this over 80% and just a couple more weeks would make containment a viable strategy. At which point you should be able to see your mother.
I think lifting prematurely while people don't want it lifting only to see people stay at home will do far more damage to the economy. Businesses that open up will see costs go up and if there's no customers to pay those bills they will go bust.
I think eradicating this (at least to containable levels) will do less damage not more, from where we are. We've done most of the work.
If you make some good quality outdoor woodwork you don't go to all the effort of building it only to not bother to put the varnish on. For me a little bit now is the varnish, it will keep what's been done and ensure we can get back to a real normal sooner. Which is what we need, we need a real return to normal not a fake one.
The reduction in daily deaths as reported by NHS England from 890 peak to under 200 now (a 80% reduction in 5 weeks!) is a great news story that isn`t known to many people. My ultra-cautious family members don`t believe me when I tell them that deaths have fallen dramatically.
A little Anecdata on testing and lockdown:
One of our most cautious 40 something office staff let her daughters boyfriend come round and chat in the garden on Bank Holiday weekend. A couple of days later tested positive along with some of his family. My colleague tested positive (though asymptomatic) but daughter, son and partner did not.
So:
1) lockdown wearing thin.
2) asymptomatic transmission very possible and idiosyncratic.
3) test and tracing very useful. My colleague is now isolating rather than infecting a dozen others in the back office.4 -
There seems to be an abundance of good news this sunny Monday.
I dare say the media will leap on Tuesday's numbers (which always look 'bad') in a bid to sell newspapers.0 -
You've got to run on very tired legs indeed for another 10k.turbotubbs said:
One coach I knew used to say that halfway in a marathon is at 20 miles. Obviously not in actual distance, but in terms of effort needed etc.Pulpstar said:
I'd say we're into about mile 3 personally.Philip_Thompson said:
I feel like we are about 21 miles into a marathon. We are at "the wall" stage of the marathon, should we give up now or get to the finishing line?0 -
Indeed. Hopefully too after this people can start thinking about what other nations (like Germany) do well and what lessons we can learn rather than acting like it's a stark choice between purely public NHS or an American system.Big_G_NorthWales said:Interesting exchange between Hancock and Ashworth in the HOC
Ashworth made a snide comment about a private sector company to which Hancock retorted we would have had no testing without them
And Hancock's response was to chide Ashworth that he thought labour had moved on from that a month ago and to be fair Ashworth laughed at the comment.
However, on the wider issue of the NHS and social care the idea 'public sector good, private sector bad' is over.
The only future for the NHS and social care is a public - private sector model where both are respected for their contributions to the future health of the nation
This is one of many changes that will come about due to covid0 -
Just shows the state I'm in - when somebody posts "subsamples" on here I now immediately think it's about Covid infections. Took me a while here to realize you are talking about voting (!) for political parties.Foxy said:I know Scottish subs subsamples are as popular on PB as pineapple pizza, but the Redfield and Wilton one is interesting.
SNP 41
SLAB 32
SCON 17
Could make next years Holyrood elections interesting...0 -
For both clinical trials and opinion polls, subsamples are frequently quoted, and frequently found to be misleading.kinabalu said:
Just shows the state I'm in - when somebody posts "subsamples" on here I now immediately think it's about Covid infections. Took me a while here to realize you are talking about voting (!) for political parties.Foxy said:I know Scottish subs subsamples are as popular on PB as pineapple pizza, but the Redfield and Wilton one is interesting.
SNP 41
SLAB 32
SCON 17
Could make next years Holyrood elections interesting...0 -
Exactly. For me the hardest thing in marathon training was the need to reach this tired state to get used to it (the very long runs, were for a lot of it you feel great)Pulpstar said:
You've got to run on very tired legs indeed for another 10k.turbotubbs said:
One coach I knew used to say that halfway in a marathon is at 20 miles. Obviously not in actual distance, but in terms of effort needed etc.Pulpstar said:
I'd say we're into about mile 3 personally.Philip_Thompson said:
I feel like we are about 21 miles into a marathon. We are at "the wall" stage of the marathon, should we give up now or get to the finishing line?1 -
As a born-again Blairite this was one of the early successes of the 3rd way - taking a broken down NHS with 18 months and using surplus private sector provision to smash waiting times down. From the patients' perspective it didn't matter who provided the care as long as it was provided.Big_G_NorthWales said:Interesting exchange between Hancock and Ashworth in the HOC
Ashworth made a snide comment about a private sector company to which Hancock retorted we would have had no testing without them
And Hancock's response was to chide Ashworth that he thought labour had moved on from that a month ago and to be fair Ashworth laughed at the comment.
However, on the wider issue of the NHS and social care the idea 'public sector good, private sector bad' is over.
The only future for the NHS and social care is a public - private sector model where both are respected for their contributions to the future health of the nation
This is one of many changes that will come about due to covid
The balancing goes both ways though - the compulsory privatisation and in so many cases fragmentation of the service provided can't be allowed to happen again now that large chunks of it have been reversed. And in many cases people are right to be wary of the profit motive when (for example) the contract to provide palliative care to dying children is awarded exclusively to a private enterprise looking to spend the least amount of money possible providing said palliative care. A private monopoly is just as bad as a public monopoly!2 -
Pretty similar to the England 'evidence' as I recall, estimates from scientific advisors that it could be anything from 0.7-1. I think the the England one 0.6-0.9 or something of that order?DavidL said:
Makes me wonder yet again what her evidence was that our R rate was over 1 last week.Anabobazina said:Only 2 (two) covid deaths in Scotland announced today.
No wonder Nicola is looking to liberalise the lockdown next week.0 -
Was there scientific evidence that it was over one?Theuniondivvie said:
Pretty similar to the England 'evidence' as I recall, estimates from scientific advisors that it could be anything from 0.7-1. I think the the England one 0.6-0.9 or something of that order?DavidL said:
Makes me wonder yet again what her evidence was that our R rate was over 1 last week.Anabobazina said:Only 2 (two) covid deaths in Scotland announced today.
No wonder Nicola is looking to liberalise the lockdown next week.0 -
Such an attitude would be welcome but the mother of all battles. Are Johnson and co up for it, with a stack of red wall seats at stake?Philip_Thompson said:
Indeed. Hopefully too after this people can start thinking about what other nations (like Germany) do well and what lessons we can learn rather than acting like it's a stark choice between purely public NHS or an American system.Big_G_NorthWales said:Interesting exchange between Hancock and Ashworth in the HOC
Ashworth made a snide comment about a private sector company to which Hancock retorted we would have had no testing without them
And Hancock's response was to chide Ashworth that he thought labour had moved on from that a month ago and to be fair Ashworth laughed at the comment.
However, on the wider issue of the NHS and social care the idea 'public sector good, private sector bad' is over.
The only future for the NHS and social care is a public - private sector model where both are respected for their contributions to the future health of the nation
This is one of many changes that will come about due to covid
0 -
Where would you pitch the market, Nigel, as a spread (in months) for the time between today and a vaccine being generally available to the public?Nigelb said:
We are 'ramping things up' globally - but 'normal production timetables' for new vaccines are inordinately long. And scaling up biological manufacturing is not simple at all*.Anabobazina said:
I don’t know anything at all about vaccine production, but instinctively I find it hard to countenance the idea that if a vaccine is found we won’t ramp up global production to such an intense degree we’d have it available well ahead of normal production timetables. Money is no object.Nigelb said:(FPT)
If the Moderna vaccine is truly effective, that is excellent news, as it is probably the most easily scalable technology for mass production.FrancisUrquhart said:
I would guess limited emergency use IN THE US. Unless they are willing to share early and have other people start the mass production of it.Philip_Thompson said:
A limited emergency use would be better than nothing.FrancisUrquhart said:
All reports say that even if this is a home run, it will only be available for limited emergency use this year.TimT said:Was this shared already?
Moderna’s closely watched early-stage human trial for a coronavirus vaccine produced Covid-19 antibodies in all 45 participants.
Each participant received a 25 microgram, 100 mcg or 250 mcg dose, with 15 people in each dose group.
At day 43, or two weeks following the second dose, levels of binding antibodies in the 25 mcg group were at the levels generally seen in blood samples from people who recovered from the diseaseRichard_Nabavi said:From the Guardian live finance blog:
Travel company shares are now soaring in London, on hopes that a vaccine breakthrough [Moderna] could, perhaps, help the global economy to emerge from the Covid-19 lockdown sooner than previously feared.
A bit premature, methinks!
Edit:
Moderna aims for a billion COVID-19 shots a year with Lonza manufacturing tie-up
• Technology transfer expected to begin in June 2020
• First batches of mRNA-1273 expected to be manufactured at Lonza U.S. in July 2020
https://www.fiercepharma.com/manufacturing/moderna-aims-for-a-billion-covid-19-shots-a-year-lonza-manufacturing-tie-up
Interestingly it showed a dose dependent response (they tried both 25 and 100 mcg doses). Finers crossed for this one, too.
The good things about the Moderna vaccine are that it requires a much smaller amount for each individual dose, and also that it can be produced in a 'cell free' process, so the steps required to produced the purified vaccine from what comes out of the bioreactor are much simpler.
So it's a lot easier to make lots of it quickly.
It's a completely new technology, and there were fears that it wouldn't make as effective a vaccine. For now, there seems to be some ground to think that it might be effective.
*If you are going to dose billions of people, you can't just turn out any old crap; new production lines have to be fully regulated, and that takes time.
As market-maker I would put up 15/18.0 -
I don't see why it's an anti red wall situation?contrarian said:
Such an attitude would be welcome but the mother of all battles. Are Johnson and co up for it, with a stack of red wall seats at stake?Philip_Thompson said:
Indeed. Hopefully too after this people can start thinking about what other nations (like Germany) do well and what lessons we can learn rather than acting like it's a stark choice between purely public NHS or an American system.Big_G_NorthWales said:Interesting exchange between Hancock and Ashworth in the HOC
Ashworth made a snide comment about a private sector company to which Hancock retorted we would have had no testing without them
And Hancock's response was to chide Ashworth that he thought labour had moved on from that a month ago and to be fair Ashworth laughed at the comment.
However, on the wider issue of the NHS and social care the idea 'public sector good, private sector bad' is over.
The only future for the NHS and social care is a public - private sector model where both are respected for their contributions to the future health of the nation
This is one of many changes that will come about due to covid
Surely what matters most in the red wall is what works. If as Pioneers just wrote using the private sector smartly can bring better results that may annoy the Guardian but I don't think it will bother red wall voters.0 -
New Zealand reckon they've eliminated it.Philip_Thompson said:
The more we squish it now the more we can go back to normal sooner. We are an island nation, with contract tracing, without much community transmission and with border quarantines we ought to be able to be like New Zealand.
Going to be a while before the UK is anywhere near that.
0 -
Thank f**k we aren't in the EU anymore!williamglenn said:0 -
.
In what quantity ?kinabalu said:
Where would you pitch the market, Nigel, as a spread (in months) for the time between today and a vaccine being generally available to the public?Nigelb said:
We are 'ramping things up' globally - but 'normal production timetables' for new vaccines are inordinately long. And scaling up biological manufacturing is not simple at all*.Anabobazina said:
I don’t know anything at all about vaccine production, but instinctively I find it hard to countenance the idea that if a vaccine is found we won’t ramp up global production to such an intense degree we’d have it available well ahead of normal production timetables. Money is no object.Nigelb said:(FPT)
If the Moderna vaccine is truly effective, that is excellent news, as it is probably the most easily scalable technology for mass production.FrancisUrquhart said:
I would guess limited emergency use IN THE US. Unless they are willing to share early and have other people start the mass production of it.Philip_Thompson said:
A limited emergency use would be better than nothing.FrancisUrquhart said:
All reports say that even if this is a home run, it will only be available for limited emergency use this year.TimT said:Was this shared already?
Moderna’s closely watched early-stage human trial for a coronavirus vaccine produced Covid-19 antibodies in all 45 participants.
Each participant received a 25 microgram, 100 mcg or 250 mcg dose, with 15 people in each dose group.
At day 43, or two weeks following the second dose, levels of binding antibodies in the 25 mcg group were at the levels generally seen in blood samples from people who recovered from the diseaseRichard_Nabavi said:From the Guardian live finance blog:
Travel company shares are now soaring in London, on hopes that a vaccine breakthrough [Moderna] could, perhaps, help the global economy to emerge from the Covid-19 lockdown sooner than previously feared.
A bit premature, methinks!
Edit:
Moderna aims for a billion COVID-19 shots a year with Lonza manufacturing tie-up
• Technology transfer expected to begin in June 2020
• First batches of mRNA-1273 expected to be manufactured at Lonza U.S. in July 2020
https://www.fiercepharma.com/manufacturing/moderna-aims-for-a-billion-covid-19-shots-a-year-lonza-manufacturing-tie-up
Interestingly it showed a dose dependent response (they tried both 25 and 100 mcg doses). Finers crossed for this one, too.
The good things about the Moderna vaccine are that it requires a much smaller amount for each individual dose, and also that it can be produced in a 'cell free' process, so the steps required to produced the purified vaccine from what comes out of the bioreactor are much simpler.
So it's a lot easier to make lots of it quickly.
It's a completely new technology, and there were fears that it wouldn't make as effective a vaccine. For now, there seems to be some ground to think that it might be effective.
*If you are going to dose billions of people, you can't just turn out any old crap; new production lines have to be fully regulated, and that takes time.
As market-maker I would put up 15/18.
If you mean for >everyone< , then I'd probably agree.0 -
I noted in my piece on Sunday, that one major effect of Coronavirus in Britain is the nationalisation (albeit temporary) of the private hospitals, and the effective abolition of private healthcare.Philip_Thompson said:
I don't see why it's an anti red wall situation?contrarian said:
Such an attitude would be welcome but the mother of all battles. Are Johnson and co up for it, with a stack of red wall seats at stake?Philip_Thompson said:
Indeed. Hopefully too after this people can start thinking about what other nations (like Germany) do well and what lessons we can learn rather than acting like it's a stark choice between purely public NHS or an American system.Big_G_NorthWales said:Interesting exchange between Hancock and Ashworth in the HOC
Ashworth made a snide comment about a private sector company to which Hancock retorted we would have had no testing without them
And Hancock's response was to chide Ashworth that he thought labour had moved on from that a month ago and to be fair Ashworth laughed at the comment.
However, on the wider issue of the NHS and social care the idea 'public sector good, private sector bad' is over.
The only future for the NHS and social care is a public - private sector model where both are respected for their contributions to the future health of the nation
This is one of many changes that will come about due to covid
Surely what matters most in the red wall is what works. If as Pioneers just wrote using the private sector smartly can bring better results that may annoy the Guardian but I don't think it will bother red wall voters.0 -
I think we are in agreementRochdalePioneers said:
As a born-again Blairite this was one of the early successes of the 3rd way - taking a broken down NHS with 18 months and using surplus private sector provision to smash waiting times down. From the patients' perspective it didn't matter who provided the care as long as it was provided.Big_G_NorthWales said:Interesting exchange between Hancock and Ashworth in the HOC
Ashworth made a snide comment about a private sector company to which Hancock retorted we would have had no testing without them
And Hancock's response was to chide Ashworth that he thought labour had moved on from that a month ago and to be fair Ashworth laughed at the comment.
However, on the wider issue of the NHS and social care the idea 'public sector good, private sector bad' is over.
The only future for the NHS and social care is a public - private sector model where both are respected for their contributions to the future health of the nation
This is one of many changes that will come about due to covid
The balancing goes both ways though - the compulsory privatisation and in so many cases fragmentation of the service provided can't be allowed to happen again now that large chunks of it have been reversed. And in many cases people are right to be wary of the profit motive when (for example) the contract to provide palliative care to dying children is awarded exclusively to a private enterprise looking to spend the least amount of money possible providing said palliative care. A private monopoly is just as bad as a public monopoly!0 -
"Potential turning point for Guam"??? Why, was it about to cast off the chains of Yankee imperialism and join the EU?williamglenn said:2 -
Indeed temporarily. This is literally a total war style situation and it's happened before and will happen again.Foxy said:
I noted in my piece on Sunday, that one major effect of Coronavirus in Britain is the nationalisation (albeit temporary) of the private hospitals, and the effective abolition of private healthcare.Philip_Thompson said:
I don't see why it's an anti red wall situation?contrarian said:
Such an attitude would be welcome but the mother of all battles. Are Johnson and co up for it, with a stack of red wall seats at stake?Philip_Thompson said:
Indeed. Hopefully too after this people can start thinking about what other nations (like Germany) do well and what lessons we can learn rather than acting like it's a stark choice between purely public NHS or an American system.Big_G_NorthWales said:Interesting exchange between Hancock and Ashworth in the HOC
Ashworth made a snide comment about a private sector company to which Hancock retorted we would have had no testing without them
And Hancock's response was to chide Ashworth that he thought labour had moved on from that a month ago and to be fair Ashworth laughed at the comment.
However, on the wider issue of the NHS and social care the idea 'public sector good, private sector bad' is over.
The only future for the NHS and social care is a public - private sector model where both are respected for their contributions to the future health of the nation
This is one of many changes that will come about due to covid
Surely what matters most in the red wall is what works. If as Pioneers just wrote using the private sector smartly can bring better results that may annoy the Guardian but I don't think it will bother red wall voters.
But the other way of looking at it is that now that the NHS has gotten used to using all available resources - of public and private origins - that maybe that should continue?0 -
-
It is a point well made, though I would argue that the NHS has always, in reality, been a public-private partnership. Not only is there much usage of private facilities, the NHS would not be able to function at all without the services and products sold by private companies. Personally I believe that the NHS should simply be a public body that enables patients to be treated freely at the point of need. How it delivers that best, whether from private or public should not matter. Public sector trade unions and the BMA will not agree though. In reality they prioritise the wellbeing of their members well above the wellbeing of patients.Big_G_NorthWales said:Interesting exchange between Hancock and Ashworth in the HOC
Ashworth made a snide comment about a private sector company to which Hancock retorted we would have had no testing without them
And Hancock's response was to chide Ashworth that he thought labour had moved on from that a month ago and to be fair Ashworth laughed at the comment.
However, on the wider issue of the NHS and social care the idea 'public sector good, private sector bad' is over.
The only future for the NHS and social care is a public - private sector model where both are respected for their contributions to the future health of the nation
This is one of many changes that will come about due to covid0 -
Agreed. A dozen point lead is lovely.CorrectHorseBattery said:
1 -
True. Labour will bring back the 'we told you they wanted to privatise your NHS all along and this is the proof' refrain though, regardless of truth.Philip_Thompson said:
I don't see why it's an anti red wall situation?contrarian said:
Such an attitude would be welcome but the mother of all battles. Are Johnson and co up for it, with a stack of red wall seats at stake?Philip_Thompson said:
Indeed. Hopefully too after this people can start thinking about what other nations (like Germany) do well and what lessons we can learn rather than acting like it's a stark choice between purely public NHS or an American system.Big_G_NorthWales said:Interesting exchange between Hancock and Ashworth in the HOC
Ashworth made a snide comment about a private sector company to which Hancock retorted we would have had no testing without them
And Hancock's response was to chide Ashworth that he thought labour had moved on from that a month ago and to be fair Ashworth laughed at the comment.
However, on the wider issue of the NHS and social care the idea 'public sector good, private sector bad' is over.
The only future for the NHS and social care is a public - private sector model where both are respected for their contributions to the future health of the nation
This is one of many changes that will come about due to covid
Surely what matters most in the red wall is what works. If as Pioneers just wrote using the private sector smartly can bring better results that may annoy the Guardian but I don't think it will bother red wall voters.
'This is what the Germans do' will hopefully be an acceptable riposte.
0 -
A favourite of the genre. Waterfall in the UK was significantly above average in August, September, October, November, December, January and of course a record breaking amount of rain in February. March was 78% of average. April was very sunny, but in the most populated areas of England and Wales, it was still 50-100% of average. Drier in north and Scotland.Anabobazina said:
Mate of mine who works for the Environment Agency reckons there's enough moisture in the water table from the very wet winter to see us through. But I'm sceptical –this spring has been insanely dry and no end in sight, at least down here. I'm a keen gardener and my water bill is of the "look away now" variety.IshmaelZ said:
End Times indeed.rottenborough said:
Severe drought is going to follow plague this summer. I guess we'll be seeing food issues soon.IshmaelZ said:
It sometimes feels like 25c in january is just round the corner. Even the docks are wilting in the fields down here, never mind the grass.Anabobazina said:
Long-range forecasting is guesswork, so sometimes you will guess correctly as long as your predictions are within the parameters of normal (e.g. you don't predict 25c in January or -3c in July). Doesn't mean it works!DecrepiterJohnL said:
Piers' did work for a bit. I met him once at his offices in a previous life -- must be more than 20 years ago now. South of the river somewhere, I think.Malmesbury said:
Yes - but I was trying to find the name of the chap who actually delivered working forecasts....DecrepiterJohnL said:
Piers Corbyn's long-range weather forecasts were based on his readings of sunspot cycles. For a long time, Piers was darling of the anti-climate change/AGW brigade because he said it could all be explained by changes in solar activity.Malmesbury said:
Who was the guy in long range weather forecasting, who was a bit odd, but actually delivered? Beat some of the big players? Trying to remember the name...Richard_Nabavi said:Some years ago Jeremy Corbyn's brother had his offices in the same building as my company, in fact right in the next door rooms. He was a nutjob even then, selling weather long-term 'forecasts', arrived at using some method known only to him, to gullible companies such as retailers. I got to know him reasonably well, and, shall we say, was not impressed. He seems to have got a lot nuttier still since.
Most rivers are flowing close to normal levels. Reservoirs are 89% full at end of April.
There are no issues currently, nor any predicted by Environment Agency.
2 -
And at the same time putting the final touches to some high end woodwork?Philip_Thompson said:
It doesn't help that people want to make the situation appear as bad as humanly possible to either sell a story or make the government appear bad. Nothing will say how much deaths have come down quite like being able to say "no deaths" which we are surprisingly fast approaching in some regions now.Stocky said:
Let`s hope that the government effectively communicates the good work to date.Philip_Thompson said:
Indeed there was a very good libertarian reason to do what Sweden did. But we are where we are.Stocky said:
I think you`ve got to the nub of it. I don`t think that containment is possible because it`s endemic. You think it is. If you are wrong, lockdown will have cost this country so much in terms of the economy and particularly in terms of liberty. And the longer it goes on the more damage it will do - and the more difficult it will be to get out of. I`m surprised that you, a libertarian, aren`t standing up for liberty like you usually do.Philip_Thompson said:
And does she speak for every resident? And all their children? And all grandchildren?Stocky said:
What if the residents of the care home would rather die than live their current existence. No visitors, only seeing staff bring meals wearing masks, as my mother currently experiences. We are farming old folk, completely prioritisng quantity of life over quality.Philip_Thompson said:
Because your visit isn't necessary but the nurses is. Tragically.Stocky said:
Yes indeed - yet they stop me - clean as a whistle from seven weeks in isolation - from seeing my own dear mother.Philip_Thompson said:
How many visitors daily from staff members, nurses, NHS staff etc do you think they're getting?RobD said:
The number in the last week is staggering. How are they still getting new cases? You thought these places would be locked down tighter than fort knox by now.Andy_JS said:"Almost four in ten English care homes have had coronavirus outbreaks, No 10 admits"
https://www.itv.com/news/2020-05-18/coronavirus-four-in-ten-care-homes-have-had-outbreaks-no-10-admits/
An asymptomatic NHS district nurse could unfortunately seed an outbreak in multiple homes, it only takes one carrier to get in to start it off.
And it goes the other way. If you asymptomatically bring it in you risk infecting not just your own mother but everyone else's relatives in the home, and the staff, and a nurse who can then take it to another home.
This is why the only way to stop the care home outbreaks is to stop all community transmission. Completely.
Otherwise just write off the care homes as a price worth paying for lifting lockdown prematurely. I'm not prepared to do that when it looks like we have a viable safer alternative.
My mother is appalled that other residents are being denied seeing their own loved ones to protect herself (my mother). She`s never asked for this protection, has never sought it and disagrees with it.
I don't think we can or should lockdown for long but I think we have already squished this over 80% and just a couple more weeks would make containment a viable strategy. At which point you should be able to see your mother.
I think lifting prematurely while people don't want it lifting only to see people stay at home will do far more damage to the economy. Businesses that open up will see costs go up and if there's no customers to pay those bills they will go bust.
I think eradicating this (at least to containable levels) will do less damage not more, from where we are. We've done most of the work.
If you make some good quality outdoor woodwork you don't go to all the effort of building it only to not bother to put the varnish on. For me a little bit now is the varnish, it will keep what's been done and ensure we can get back to a real normal sooner. Which is what we need, we need a real return to normal not a fake one.
The reduction in daily deaths as reported by NHS England from 890 peak to under 200 now (a 80% reduction in 5 weeks!) is a great news story that isn`t known to many people. My ultra-cautious family members don`t believe me when I tell them that deaths have fallen dramatically.
Usual caveats about lag in data on weekend etc but today's data from Scotland was 2 deaths. Not 2 dozen, but 2.
I feel like we are about 21 miles into a marathon. We are at "the wall" stage of the marathon, should we give up now or get to the finishing line?
Talk about (!) your British exceptionalism.1 -
It would be if we had a competent government. Enjoy it while it lasts. The non-politically interested catch up on what's going on in good time.Philip_Thompson said:0 -
Yes, but the pony is overhauling the donkey pretty quickly...Philip_Thompson said:0 -
(I am an optimist.)Nigelb said:.
In what quantity ?kinabalu said:
Where would you pitch the market, Nigel, as a spread (in months) for the time between today and a vaccine being generally available to the public?Nigelb said:
We are 'ramping things up' globally - but 'normal production timetables' for new vaccines are inordinately long. And scaling up biological manufacturing is not simple at all*.Anabobazina said:
I don’t know anything at all about vaccine production, but instinctively I find it hard to countenance the idea that if a vaccine is found we won’t ramp up global production to such an intense degree we’d have it available well ahead of normal production timetables. Money is no object.Nigelb said:(FPT)
If the Moderna vaccine is truly effective, that is excellent news, as it is probably the most easily scalable technology for mass production.FrancisUrquhart said:
I would guess limited emergency use IN THE US. Unless they are willing to share early and have other people start the mass production of it.Philip_Thompson said:
A limited emergency use would be better than nothing.FrancisUrquhart said:
All reports say that even if this is a home run, it will only be available for limited emergency use this year.TimT said:Was this shared already?
Moderna’s closely watched early-stage human trial for a coronavirus vaccine produced Covid-19 antibodies in all 45 participants.
Each participant received a 25 microgram, 100 mcg or 250 mcg dose, with 15 people in each dose group.
At day 43, or two weeks following the second dose, levels of binding antibodies in the 25 mcg group were at the levels generally seen in blood samples from people who recovered from the diseaseRichard_Nabavi said:From the Guardian live finance blog:
Travel company shares are now soaring in London, on hopes that a vaccine breakthrough [Moderna] could, perhaps, help the global economy to emerge from the Covid-19 lockdown sooner than previously feared.
A bit premature, methinks!
Edit:
Moderna aims for a billion COVID-19 shots a year with Lonza manufacturing tie-up
• Technology transfer expected to begin in June 2020
• First batches of mRNA-1273 expected to be manufactured at Lonza U.S. in July 2020
https://www.fiercepharma.com/manufacturing/moderna-aims-for-a-billion-covid-19-shots-a-year-lonza-manufacturing-tie-up
Interestingly it showed a dose dependent response (they tried both 25 and 100 mcg doses). Finers crossed for this one, too.
The good things about the Moderna vaccine are that it requires a much smaller amount for each individual dose, and also that it can be produced in a 'cell free' process, so the steps required to produced the purified vaccine from what comes out of the bioreactor are much simpler.
So it's a lot easier to make lots of it quickly.
It's a completely new technology, and there were fears that it wouldn't make as effective a vaccine. For now, there seems to be some ground to think that it might be effective.
*If you are going to dose billions of people, you can't just turn out any old crap; new production lines have to be fully regulated, and that takes time.
As market-maker I would put up 15/18.
If you mean for >everyone< , then I'd probably agree.0 -
Thank you, and your last sentence demonstrates why it has to changeNigel_Foremain said:
It is a point well made, though I would argue that the NHS has always, in reality, been a public-private partnership. Not only is there much usage of private facilities, the NHS would not be able to function at all without the services and products sold by private companies. Personally I believe that the NHS should simply be a public body that enables patients to be treated freely at the point of need. How it delivers that best, whether from private or public should not matter. Public sector trade unions and the BMA will not agree though. In reality they prioritise the wellbeing of their members well above the wellbeing of patients.Big_G_NorthWales said:Interesting exchange between Hancock and Ashworth in the HOC
Ashworth made a snide comment about a private sector company to which Hancock retorted we would have had no testing without them
And Hancock's response was to chide Ashworth that he thought labour had moved on from that a month ago and to be fair Ashworth laughed at the comment.
However, on the wider issue of the NHS and social care the idea 'public sector good, private sector bad' is over.
The only future for the NHS and social care is a public - private sector model where both are respected for their contributions to the future health of the nation
This is one of many changes that will come about due to covid1 -
You can see the figures yourself.Anabobazina said:
Mate of mine who works for the Environment Agency reckons there's enough moisture in the water table from the very wet winter to see us through. But I'm sceptical –this spring has been insanely dry and no end in sight, at least down here. I'm a keen gardener and my water bill is of the "look away now" variety.IshmaelZ said:
End Times indeed.rottenborough said:
Severe drought is going to follow plague this summer. I guess we'll be seeing food issues soon.IshmaelZ said:
It sometimes feels like 25c in january is just round the corner. Even the docks are wilting in the fields down here, never mind the grass.Anabobazina said:
Long-range forecasting is guesswork, so sometimes you will guess correctly as long as your predictions are within the parameters of normal (e.g. you don't predict 25c in January or -3c in July). Doesn't mean it works!DecrepiterJohnL said:
Piers' did work for a bit. I met him once at his offices in a previous life -- must be more than 20 years ago now. South of the river somewhere, I think.Malmesbury said:
Yes - but I was trying to find the name of the chap who actually delivered working forecasts....DecrepiterJohnL said:
Piers Corbyn's long-range weather forecasts were based on his readings of sunspot cycles. For a long time, Piers was darling of the anti-climate change/AGW brigade because he said it could all be explained by changes in solar activity.Malmesbury said:
Who was the guy in long range weather forecasting, who was a bit odd, but actually delivered? Beat some of the big players? Trying to remember the name...Richard_Nabavi said:Some years ago Jeremy Corbyn's brother had his offices in the same building as my company, in fact right in the next door rooms. He was a nutjob even then, selling weather long-term 'forecasts', arrived at using some method known only to him, to gullible companies such as retailers. I got to know him reasonably well, and, shall we say, was not impressed. He seems to have got a lot nuttier still since.
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/water-situation-national-monthly-reports-for-england-20200 -
I don't believe those figures (who does?) but they do make you wonder if there could be room in Scotland for a moderate left-of-centre party interested more in services than the constitution, post-Covid.kinabalu said:
Just shows the state I'm in - when somebody posts "subsamples" on here I now immediately think it's about Covid infections. Took me a while here to realize you are talking about voting (!) for political parties.Foxy said:I know Scottish subs subsamples are as popular on PB as pineapple pizza, but the Redfield and Wilton one is interesting.
SNP 41
SLAB 32
SCON 17
Could make next years Holyrood elections interesting...
I think there may be a gap in the market developing, particularly given SCON no longer have Ruth Davidson who was able to appeal to that segment, a bit.
However, the big problem facing SLAB remains their leader. Truly awful.0 -
You mean you don't do carpentry while running? 🏃kinabalu said:
And at the same time putting the final touches to some high end woodwork?Philip_Thompson said:
It doesn't help that people want to make the situation appear as bad as humanly possible to either sell a story or make the government appear bad. Nothing will say how much deaths have come down quite like being able to say "no deaths" which we are surprisingly fast approaching in some regions now.Stocky said:
Let`s hope that the government effectively communicates the good work to date.Philip_Thompson said:
Indeed there was a very good libertarian reason to do what Sweden did. But we are where we are.Stocky said:
I think you`ve got to the nub of it. I don`t think that containment is possible because it`s endemic. You think it is. If you are wrong, lockdown will have cost this country so much in terms of the economy and particularly in terms of liberty. And the longer it goes on the more damage it will do - and the more difficult it will be to get out of. I`m surprised that you, a libertarian, aren`t standing up for liberty like you usually do.Philip_Thompson said:
And does she speak for every resident? And all their children? And all grandchildren?Stocky said:
What if the residents of the care home would rather die than live their current existence. No visitors, only seeing staff bring meals wearing masks, as my mother currently experiences. We are farming old folk, completely prioritisng quantity of life over quality.Philip_Thompson said:
Because your visit isn't necessary but the nurses is. Tragically.Stocky said:
Yes indeed - yet they stop me - clean as a whistle from seven weeks in isolation - from seeing my own dear mother.Philip_Thompson said:
How many visitors daily from staff members, nurses, NHS staff etc do you think they're getting?RobD said:
The number in the last week is staggering. How are they still getting new cases? You thought these places would be locked down tighter than fort knox by now.Andy_JS said:"Almost four in ten English care homes have had coronavirus outbreaks, No 10 admits"
https://www.itv.com/news/2020-05-18/coronavirus-four-in-ten-care-homes-have-had-outbreaks-no-10-admits/
An asymptomatic NHS district nurse could unfortunately seed an outbreak in multiple homes, it only takes one carrier to get in to start it off.
And it goes the other way. If you asymptomatically bring it in you risk infecting not just your own mother but everyone else's relatives in the home, and the staff, and a nurse who can then take it to another home.
This is why the only way to stop the care home outbreaks is to stop all community transmission. Completely.
Otherwise just write off the care homes as a price worth paying for lifting lockdown prematurely. I'm not prepared to do that when it looks like we have a viable safer alternative.
My mother is appalled that other residents are being denied seeing their own loved ones to protect herself (my mother). She`s never asked for this protection, has never sought it and disagrees with it.
I don't think we can or should lockdown for long but I think we have already squished this over 80% and just a couple more weeks would make containment a viable strategy. At which point you should be able to see your mother.
I think lifting prematurely while people don't want it lifting only to see people stay at home will do far more damage to the economy. Businesses that open up will see costs go up and if there's no customers to pay those bills they will go bust.
I think eradicating this (at least to containable levels) will do less damage not more, from where we are. We've done most of the work.
If you make some good quality outdoor woodwork you don't go to all the effort of building it only to not bother to put the varnish on. For me a little bit now is the varnish, it will keep what's been done and ensure we can get back to a real normal sooner. Which is what we need, we need a real return to normal not a fake one.
The reduction in daily deaths as reported by NHS England from 890 peak to under 200 now (a 80% reduction in 5 weeks!) is a great news story that isn`t known to many people. My ultra-cautious family members don`t believe me when I tell them that deaths have fallen dramatically.
Usual caveats about lag in data on weekend etc but today's data from Scotland was 2 deaths. Not 2 dozen, but 2.
I feel like we are about 21 miles into a marathon. We are at "the wall" stage of the marathon, should we give up now or get to the finishing line?
Talk about (!) your British exceptionalism.0 -
Sky has just faded out from Patel live in the HOC and it was a great relief to switch her off1
-
Yes, I meant for the creation of mass immunity.Nigelb said:.
In what quantity ?kinabalu said:
Where would you pitch the market, Nigel, as a spread (in months) for the time between today and a vaccine being generally available to the public?Nigelb said:
We are 'ramping things up' globally - but 'normal production timetables' for new vaccines are inordinately long. And scaling up biological manufacturing is not simple at all*.Anabobazina said:
I don’t know anything at all about vaccine production, but instinctively I find it hard to countenance the idea that if a vaccine is found we won’t ramp up global production to such an intense degree we’d have it available well ahead of normal production timetables. Money is no object.Nigelb said:(FPT)
If the Moderna vaccine is truly effective, that is excellent news, as it is probably the most easily scalable technology for mass production.FrancisUrquhart said:
I would guess limited emergency use IN THE US. Unless they are willing to share early and have other people start the mass production of it.Philip_Thompson said:
A limited emergency use would be better than nothing.FrancisUrquhart said:
All reports say that even if this is a home run, it will only be available for limited emergency use this year.TimT said:Was this shared already?
Moderna’s closely watched early-stage human trial for a coronavirus vaccine produced Covid-19 antibodies in all 45 participants.
Each participant received a 25 microgram, 100 mcg or 250 mcg dose, with 15 people in each dose group.
At day 43, or two weeks following the second dose, levels of binding antibodies in the 25 mcg group were at the levels generally seen in blood samples from people who recovered from the diseaseRichard_Nabavi said:From the Guardian live finance blog:
Travel company shares are now soaring in London, on hopes that a vaccine breakthrough [Moderna] could, perhaps, help the global economy to emerge from the Covid-19 lockdown sooner than previously feared.
A bit premature, methinks!
Edit:
Moderna aims for a billion COVID-19 shots a year with Lonza manufacturing tie-up
• Technology transfer expected to begin in June 2020
• First batches of mRNA-1273 expected to be manufactured at Lonza U.S. in July 2020
https://www.fiercepharma.com/manufacturing/moderna-aims-for-a-billion-covid-19-shots-a-year-lonza-manufacturing-tie-up
Interestingly it showed a dose dependent response (they tried both 25 and 100 mcg doses). Finers crossed for this one, too.
The good things about the Moderna vaccine are that it requires a much smaller amount for each individual dose, and also that it can be produced in a 'cell free' process, so the steps required to produced the purified vaccine from what comes out of the bioreactor are much simpler.
So it's a lot easier to make lots of it quickly.
It's a completely new technology, and there were fears that it wouldn't make as effective a vaccine. For now, there seems to be some ground to think that it might be effective.
*If you are going to dose billions of people, you can't just turn out any old crap; new production lines have to be fully regulated, and that takes time.
As market-maker I would put up 15/18.
If you mean for >everyone< , then I'd probably agree.
My sense (and hope) is 12 months from now is not wildly optimistic. But no way less than 9 and a real risk of MUCH longer than 18. Could still be years or not at all.
Hence (risk adjusted) I offer 15/18 to my theoretical customers.0 -
On that I can agree with you in principle. They won't return to Labour because they are worried about the NHS. They will however, return because they realise Starmer is not Corbyn, and they will realise what they knew all along and that is that Boris Johnson is not only not one of them, he is a complete incompetent twat.Philip_Thompson said:
I don't see why it's an anti red wall situation?contrarian said:
Such an attitude would be welcome but the mother of all battles. Are Johnson and co up for it, with a stack of red wall seats at stake?Philip_Thompson said:
Indeed. Hopefully too after this people can start thinking about what other nations (like Germany) do well and what lessons we can learn rather than acting like it's a stark choice between purely public NHS or an American system.Big_G_NorthWales said:Interesting exchange between Hancock and Ashworth in the HOC
Ashworth made a snide comment about a private sector company to which Hancock retorted we would have had no testing without them
And Hancock's response was to chide Ashworth that he thought labour had moved on from that a month ago and to be fair Ashworth laughed at the comment.
However, on the wider issue of the NHS and social care the idea 'public sector good, private sector bad' is over.
The only future for the NHS and social care is a public - private sector model where both are respected for their contributions to the future health of the nation
This is one of many changes that will come about due to covid
Surely what matters most in the red wall is what works. If as Pioneers just wrote using the private sector smartly can bring better results that may annoy the Guardian but I don't think it will bother red wall voters.2 -
If you go for "the German system" stay well clear of the funding model which is a complete mess, and stick to the provision model which is mostly not-for-profit organisations like universities, the red cross, and charities.Philip_Thompson said:
Indeed. Hopefully too after this people can start thinking about what other nations (like Germany) do well and what lessons we can learn rather than acting like it's a stark choice between purely public NHS or an American system.Big_G_NorthWales said:Interesting exchange between Hancock and Ashworth in the HOC
Ashworth made a snide comment about a private sector company to which Hancock retorted we would have had no testing without them
And Hancock's response was to chide Ashworth that he thought labour had moved on from that a month ago and to be fair Ashworth laughed at the comment.
However, on the wider issue of the NHS and social care the idea 'public sector good, private sector bad' is over.
The only future for the NHS and social care is a public - private sector model where both are respected for their contributions to the future health of the nation
This is one of many changes that will come about due to covid
1 -
Yes, but by the very nature of a Unionist party, the UK leader is more valued than the local one. In any case, Starmer seems to be the new broom that sweeps clean.Burgessian said:
I don't believe those figures (who does?) but they do make you wonder if there could be room in Scotland for a moderate left-of-centre party interested more in services than the constitution, post-Covid.kinabalu said:
Just shows the state I'm in - when somebody posts "subsamples" on here I now immediately think it's about Covid infections. Took me a while here to realize you are talking about voting (!) for political parties.Foxy said:I know Scottish subs subsamples are as popular on PB as pineapple pizza, but the Redfield and Wilton one is interesting.
SNP 41
SLAB 32
SCON 17
Could make next years Holyrood elections interesting...
I think there may be a gap in the market developing, particularly given SCON no longer have Ruth Davidson who was able to appeal to that segment, a bit.
However, the big problem facing SLAB remains their leader. Truly awful.1 -
Philip_Thompson said:
You mean you don't do carpentry while running? 🏃kinabalu said:
And at the same time putting the final touches to some high end woodwork?Philip_Thompson said:
It doesn't help that people want to make the situation appear as bad as humanly possible to either sell a story or make the government appear bad. Nothing will say how much deaths have come down quite like being able to say "no deaths" which we are surprisingly fast approaching in some regions now.Stocky said:
Let`s hope that the government effectively communicates the good work to date.Philip_Thompson said:
Indeed there was a very good libertarian reason to do what Sweden did. But we are where we are.Stocky said:
I think you`ve got to the nub of it. I don`t think that containment is possible because it`s endemic. You think it is. If you are wrong, lockdown will have cost this country so much in terms of the economy and particularly in terms of liberty. And the longer it goes on the more damage it will do - and the more difficult it will be to get out of. I`m surprised that you, a libertarian, aren`t standing up for liberty like you usually do.Philip_Thompson said:
And does she speak for every resident? And all their children? And all grandchildren?Stocky said:
What if the residents of the care home would rather die than live their current existence. No visitors, only seeing staff bring meals wearing masks, as my mother currently experiences. We are farming old folk, completely prioritisng quantity of life over quality.Philip_Thompson said:
Because your visit isn't necessary but the nurses is. Tragically.Stocky said:
Yes indeed - yet they stop me - clean as a whistle from seven weeks in isolation - from seeing my own dear mother.Philip_Thompson said:
How many visitors daily from staff members, nurses, NHS staff etc do you think they're getting?RobD said:
The number in the last week is staggering. How are they still getting new cases? You thought these places would be locked down tighter than fort knox by now.Andy_JS said:"Almost four in ten English care homes have had coronavirus outbreaks, No 10 admits"
https://www.itv.com/news/2020-05-18/coronavirus-four-in-ten-care-homes-have-had-outbreaks-no-10-admits/
An asymptomatic NHS district nurse could unfortunately seed an outbreak in multiple homes, it only takes one carrier to get in to start it off.
And it goes the other way. If you asymptomatically bring it in you risk infecting not just your own mother but everyone else's relatives in the home, and the staff, and a nurse who can then take it to another home.
This is why the only way to stop the care home outbreaks is to stop all community transmission. Completely.
Otherwise just write off the care homes as a price worth paying for lifting lockdown prematurely. I'm not prepared to do that when it looks like we have a viable safer alternative.
My mother is appalled that other residents are being denied seeing their own loved ones to protect herself (my mother). She`s never asked for this protection, has never sought it and disagrees with it.
I don't think we can or should lockdown for long but I think we have already squished this over 80% and just a couple more weeks would make containment a viable strategy. At which point you should be able to see your mother.
I think lifting prematurely while people don't want it lifting only to see people stay at home will do far more damage to the economy. Businesses that open up will see costs go up and if there's no customers to pay those bills they will go bust.
I think eradicating this (at least to containable levels) will do less damage not more, from where we are. We've done most of the work.
If you make some good quality outdoor woodwork you don't go to all the effort of building it only to not bother to put the varnish on. For me a little bit now is the varnish, it will keep what's been done and ensure we can get back to a real normal sooner. Which is what we need, we need a real return to normal not a fake one.
The reduction in daily deaths as reported by NHS England from 890 peak to under 200 now (a 80% reduction in 5 weeks!) is a great news story that isn`t known to many people. My ultra-cautious family members don`t believe me when I tell them that deaths have fallen dramatically.
Usual caveats about lag in data on weekend etc but today's data from Scotland was 2 deaths. Not 2 dozen, but 2.
I feel like we are about 21 miles into a marathon. We are at "the wall" stage of the marathon, should we give up now or get to the finishing line?
Talk about (!) your British exceptionalism.
- no I don't.
I think the only person remotely capable of that would be our man Boris "Muscles" Johnson.0 -
The consequences of this crisis are indeed many and various, and often unexpected.rpjs said:
"Potential turning point for Guam"??? Why, was it about to cast off the chains of Yankee imperialism and join the EU?williamglenn said:1 -
Smaller amounts of vaccine, used for ring vaccination around outbreaks, could be very effective in suppressing the pandemic, before it's available in massive quantities.kinabalu said:
Yes, I meant for the creation of mass immunity.Nigelb said:.
In what quantity ?kinabalu said:
Where would you pitch the market, Nigel, as a spread (in months) for the time between today and a vaccine being generally available to the public?Nigelb said:
We are 'ramping things up' globally - but 'normal production timetables' for new vaccines are inordinately long. And scaling up biological manufacturing is not simple at all*.Anabobazina said:
I don’t know anything at all about vaccine production, but instinctively I find it hard to countenance the idea that if a vaccine is found we won’t ramp up global production to such an intense degree we’d have it available well ahead of normal production timetables. Money is no object.Nigelb said:(FPT)
If the Moderna vaccine is truly effective, that is excellent news, as it is probably the most easily scalable technology for mass production.FrancisUrquhart said:
I would guess limited emergency use IN THE US. Unless they are willing to share early and have other people start the mass production of it.Philip_Thompson said:
A limited emergency use would be better than nothing.FrancisUrquhart said:
All reports say that even if this is a home run, it will only be available for limited emergency use this year.TimT said:Was this shared already?
Moderna’s closely watched early-stage human trial for a coronavirus vaccine produced Covid-19 antibodies in all 45 participants.
Each participant received a 25 microgram, 100 mcg or 250 mcg dose, with 15 people in each dose group.
At day 43, or two weeks following the second dose, levels of binding antibodies in the 25 mcg group were at the levels generally seen in blood samples from people who recovered from the diseaseRichard_Nabavi said:From the Guardian live finance blog:
Travel company shares are now soaring in London, on hopes that a vaccine breakthrough [Moderna] could, perhaps, help the global economy to emerge from the Covid-19 lockdown sooner than previously feared.
A bit premature, methinks!
Edit:
Moderna aims for a billion COVID-19 shots a year with Lonza manufacturing tie-up
• Technology transfer expected to begin in June 2020
• First batches of mRNA-1273 expected to be manufactured at Lonza U.S. in July 2020
https://www.fiercepharma.com/manufacturing/moderna-aims-for-a-billion-covid-19-shots-a-year-lonza-manufacturing-tie-up
Interestingly it showed a dose dependent response (they tried both 25 and 100 mcg doses). Finers crossed for this one, too.
The good things about the Moderna vaccine are that it requires a much smaller amount for each individual dose, and also that it can be produced in a 'cell free' process, so the steps required to produced the purified vaccine from what comes out of the bioreactor are much simpler.
So it's a lot easier to make lots of it quickly.
It's a completely new technology, and there were fears that it wouldn't make as effective a vaccine. For now, there seems to be some ground to think that it might be effective.
*If you are going to dose billions of people, you can't just turn out any old crap; new production lines have to be fully regulated, and that takes time.
As market-maker I would put up 15/18.
If you mean for >everyone< , then I'd probably agree.
My sense (and hope) is 12 months from now is not wildly optimistic. But no way less than 9 and a real risk of MUCH longer than 18. Could still be years or not at all.
Hence (risk adjusted) I offer 15/18 to my theoretical customers.1 -
Stilton under threat:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leicestershire-526975100 -
Cracking link, thank you.LostPassword said:
You can see the figures yourself.Anabobazina said:
Mate of mine who works for the Environment Agency reckons there's enough moisture in the water table from the very wet winter to see us through. But I'm sceptical –this spring has been insanely dry and no end in sight, at least down here. I'm a keen gardener and my water bill is of the "look away now" variety.IshmaelZ said:
End Times indeed.rottenborough said:
Severe drought is going to follow plague this summer. I guess we'll be seeing food issues soon.IshmaelZ said:
It sometimes feels like 25c in january is just round the corner. Even the docks are wilting in the fields down here, never mind the grass.Anabobazina said:
Long-range forecasting is guesswork, so sometimes you will guess correctly as long as your predictions are within the parameters of normal (e.g. you don't predict 25c in January or -3c in July). Doesn't mean it works!DecrepiterJohnL said:
Piers' did work for a bit. I met him once at his offices in a previous life -- must be more than 20 years ago now. South of the river somewhere, I think.Malmesbury said:
Yes - but I was trying to find the name of the chap who actually delivered working forecasts....DecrepiterJohnL said:
Piers Corbyn's long-range weather forecasts were based on his readings of sunspot cycles. For a long time, Piers was darling of the anti-climate change/AGW brigade because he said it could all be explained by changes in solar activity.Malmesbury said:
Who was the guy in long range weather forecasting, who was a bit odd, but actually delivered? Beat some of the big players? Trying to remember the name...Richard_Nabavi said:Some years ago Jeremy Corbyn's brother had his offices in the same building as my company, in fact right in the next door rooms. He was a nutjob even then, selling weather long-term 'forecasts', arrived at using some method known only to him, to gullible companies such as retailers. I got to know him reasonably well, and, shall we say, was not impressed. He seems to have got a lot nuttier still since.
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/water-situation-national-monthly-reports-for-england-20200 -
And the view from Ireland is that, for grass (other crops may not be so affected):LostPassword said:
You can see the figures yourself.Anabobazina said:
Mate of mine who works for the Environment Agency reckons there's enough moisture in the water table from the very wet winter to see us through. But I'm sceptical –this spring has been insanely dry and no end in sight, at least down here. I'm a keen gardener and my water bill is of the "look away now" variety.IshmaelZ said:
End Times indeed.rottenborough said:
Severe drought is going to follow plague this summer. I guess we'll be seeing food issues soon.IshmaelZ said:
It sometimes feels like 25c in january is just round the corner. Even the docks are wilting in the fields down here, never mind the grass.Anabobazina said:
Long-range forecasting is guesswork, so sometimes you will guess correctly as long as your predictions are within the parameters of normal (e.g. you don't predict 25c in January or -3c in July). Doesn't mean it works!DecrepiterJohnL said:
Piers' did work for a bit. I met him once at his offices in a previous life -- must be more than 20 years ago now. South of the river somewhere, I think.Malmesbury said:
Yes - but I was trying to find the name of the chap who actually delivered working forecasts....DecrepiterJohnL said:
Piers Corbyn's long-range weather forecasts were based on his readings of sunspot cycles. For a long time, Piers was darling of the anti-climate change/AGW brigade because he said it could all be explained by changes in solar activity.Malmesbury said:
Who was the guy in long range weather forecasting, who was a bit odd, but actually delivered? Beat some of the big players? Trying to remember the name...Richard_Nabavi said:Some years ago Jeremy Corbyn's brother had his offices in the same building as my company, in fact right in the next door rooms. He was a nutjob even then, selling weather long-term 'forecasts', arrived at using some method known only to him, to gullible companies such as retailers. I got to know him reasonably well, and, shall we say, was not impressed. He seems to have got a lot nuttier still since.
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/water-situation-national-monthly-reports-for-england-2020
"Soil moisture deficits are currently around 50mm in most areas with restricions on growth due to lack of moisture."
https://www.met.ie/index.php/forecasts/farming#0 -
We have some of the best universities in the world. We should be using them as much as possible.eristdoof said:
If you go for "the German system" stay well clear of the funding model which is a complete mess, and stick to the provision model which is mostly not-for-profit organisations like universities, the red cross, and charities.Philip_Thompson said:
Indeed. Hopefully too after this people can start thinking about what other nations (like Germany) do well and what lessons we can learn rather than acting like it's a stark choice between purely public NHS or an American system.Big_G_NorthWales said:Interesting exchange between Hancock and Ashworth in the HOC
Ashworth made a snide comment about a private sector company to which Hancock retorted we would have had no testing without them
And Hancock's response was to chide Ashworth that he thought labour had moved on from that a month ago and to be fair Ashworth laughed at the comment.
However, on the wider issue of the NHS and social care the idea 'public sector good, private sector bad' is over.
The only future for the NHS and social care is a public - private sector model where both are respected for their contributions to the future health of the nation
This is one of many changes that will come about due to covid0 -
"UK government has never planned to make travellers from France exempt from proposed quarantine measures, Downing Street says"
Oceania was at war with Eastasia: Oceania had always been at war with
Eastasia.0 -
Some of the great socialists over the years have been Scottish. You'd have thought we could find one now to lead SLAB.Burgessian said:
I don't believe those figures (who does?) but they do make you wonder if there could be room in Scotland for a moderate left-of-centre party interested more in services than the constitution, post-Covid.kinabalu said:
Just shows the state I'm in - when somebody posts "subsamples" on here I now immediately think it's about Covid infections. Took me a while here to realize you are talking about voting (!) for political parties.Foxy said:I know Scottish subs subsamples are as popular on PB as pineapple pizza, but the Redfield and Wilton one is interesting.
SNP 41
SLAB 32
SCON 17
Could make next years Holyrood elections interesting...
I think there may be a gap in the market developing, particularly given SCON no longer have Ruth Davidson who was able to appeal to that segment, a bit.
However, the big problem facing SLAB remains their leader. Truly awful.0 -
You still saying that despite me showing I never said what you thought I'd said?kinabalu said:Philip_Thompson said:
You mean you don't do carpentry while running? 🏃kinabalu said:
And at the same time putting the final touches to some high end woodwork?Philip_Thompson said:
It doesn't help that people want to make the situation appear as bad as humanly possible to either sell a story or make the government appear bad. Nothing will say how much deaths have come down quite like being able to say "no deaths" which we are surprisingly fast approaching in some regions now.Stocky said:
Let`s hope that the government effectively communicates the good work to date.Philip_Thompson said:
Indeed there was a very good libertarian reason to do what Sweden did. But we are where we are.Stocky said:
I think you`ve got to the nub of it. I don`t think that containment is possible because it`s endemic. You think it is. If you are wrong, lockdown will have cost this country so much in terms of the economy and particularly in terms of liberty. And the longer it goes on the more damage it will do - and the more difficult it will be to get out of. I`m surprised that you, a libertarian, aren`t standing up for liberty like you usually do.Philip_Thompson said:
And does she speak for every resident? And all their children? And all grandchildren?Stocky said:
What if the residents of the care home would rather die than live their current existence. No visitors, only seeing staff bring meals wearing masks, as my mother currently experiences. We are farming old folk, completely prioritisng quantity of life over quality.Philip_Thompson said:
Because your visit isn't necessary but the nurses is. Tragically.Stocky said:
Yes indeed - yet they stop me - clean as a whistle from seven weeks in isolation - from seeing my own dear mother.Philip_Thompson said:
How many visitors daily from staff members, nurses, NHS staff etc do you think they're getting?RobD said:
The number in the last week is staggering. How are they still getting new cases? You thought these places would be locked down tighter than fort knox by now.Andy_JS said:"Almost four in ten English care homes have had coronavirus outbreaks, No 10 admits"
https://www.itv.com/news/2020-05-18/coronavirus-four-in-ten-care-homes-have-had-outbreaks-no-10-admits/
An asymptomatic NHS district nurse could unfortunately seed an outbreak in multiple homes, it only takes one carrier to get in to start it off.
And it goes the other way. If you asymptomatically bring it in you risk infecting not just your own mother but everyone else's relatives in the home, and the staff, and a nurse who can then take it to another home.
This is why the only way to stop the care home outbreaks is to stop all community transmission. Completely.
Otherwise just write off the care homes as a price worth paying for lifting lockdown prematurely. I'm not prepared to do that when it looks like we have a viable safer alternative.
My mother is appalled that other residents are being denied seeing their own loved ones to protect herself (my mother). She`s never asked for this protection, has never sought it and disagrees with it.
I don't think we can or should lockdown for long but I think we have already squished this over 80% and just a couple more weeks would make containment a viable strategy. At which point you should be able to see your mother.
I think lifting prematurely while people don't want it lifting only to see people stay at home will do far more damage to the economy. Businesses that open up will see costs go up and if there's no customers to pay those bills they will go bust.
I think eradicating this (at least to containable levels) will do less damage not more, from where we are. We've done most of the work.
If you make some good quality outdoor woodwork you don't go to all the effort of building it only to not bother to put the varnish on. For me a little bit now is the varnish, it will keep what's been done and ensure we can get back to a real normal sooner. Which is what we need, we need a real return to normal not a fake one.
The reduction in daily deaths as reported by NHS England from 890 peak to under 200 now (a 80% reduction in 5 weeks!) is a great news story that isn`t known to many people. My ultra-cautious family members don`t believe me when I tell them that deaths have fallen dramatically.
Usual caveats about lag in data on weekend etc but today's data from Scotland was 2 deaths. Not 2 dozen, but 2.
I feel like we are about 21 miles into a marathon. We are at "the wall" stage of the marathon, should we give up now or get to the finishing line?
Talk about (!) your British exceptionalism. - no I don't.
I think the only person remotely capable of that would be our man Boris "Muscles" Johnson.
All joggers and cyclists have more muscles than someone who never leaves their couch. Doesn't mean they can't also be fat and it doesn't mean they're fit.
A fat active cyclist of a certain height and volume will ceteris paribus weigh more than a fat couch potato of the same height and volume. Do you disagree?0 -
Raab really is terrible at these press conferences, so dull and hard to listen to. And then I remember he is significantly better than several of his colleagues!Big_G_NorthWales said:Sky has just faded out from Patel live in the HOC and it was a great relief to switch her off
Reshuffle and promote some with more capability as soon we can please.0 -
All of the big teaching hospitals in the UK work closely with universities. One in london UCH is even named after a university.Philip_Thompson said:
We have some of the best universities in the world. We should be using them as much as possible.eristdoof said:
If you go for "the German system" stay well clear of the funding model which is a complete mess, and stick to the provision model which is mostly not-for-profit organisations like universities, the red cross, and charities.Philip_Thompson said:
Indeed. Hopefully too after this people can start thinking about what other nations (like Germany) do well and what lessons we can learn rather than acting like it's a stark choice between purely public NHS or an American system.Big_G_NorthWales said:Interesting exchange between Hancock and Ashworth in the HOC
Ashworth made a snide comment about a private sector company to which Hancock retorted we would have had no testing without them
And Hancock's response was to chide Ashworth that he thought labour had moved on from that a month ago and to be fair Ashworth laughed at the comment.
However, on the wider issue of the NHS and social care the idea 'public sector good, private sector bad' is over.
The only future for the NHS and social care is a public - private sector model where both are respected for their contributions to the future health of the nation
This is one of many changes that will come about due to covid
0 -
I have demostrated extremely poor hoarding skills.
I'm about to run out of bogrolls.
Shan't make that mistake for the second wave.1 -
If there is never a vaccine, when do buyers get paid? Each month as we go along, or err never? (i.e have to wait for the vaccine before its settled)kinabalu said:
Yes, I meant for the creation of mass immunity.Nigelb said:.
In what quantity ?kinabalu said:
Where would you pitch the market, Nigel, as a spread (in months) for the time between today and a vaccine being generally available to the public?Nigelb said:
We are 'ramping things up' globally - but 'normal production timetables' for new vaccines are inordinately long. And scaling up biological manufacturing is not simple at all*.Anabobazina said:
I don’t know anything at all about vaccine production, but instinctively I find it hard to countenance the idea that if a vaccine is found we won’t ramp up global production to such an intense degree we’d have it available well ahead of normal production timetables. Money is no object.Nigelb said:(FPT)
If the Moderna vaccine is truly effective, that is excellent news, as it is probably the most easily scalable technology for mass production.FrancisUrquhart said:
I would guess limited emergency use IN THE US. Unless they are willing to share early and have other people start the mass production of it.Philip_Thompson said:
A limited emergency use would be better than nothing.FrancisUrquhart said:
All reports say that even if this is a home run, it will only be available for limited emergency use this year.TimT said:Was this shared already?
Moderna’s closely watched early-stage human trial for a coronavirus vaccine produced Covid-19 antibodies in all 45 participants.
Each participant received a 25 microgram, 100 mcg or 250 mcg dose, with 15 people in each dose group.
At day 43, or two weeks following the second dose, levels of binding antibodies in the 25 mcg group were at the levels generally seen in blood samples from people who recovered from the diseaseRichard_Nabavi said:From the Guardian live finance blog:
Travel company shares are now soaring in London, on hopes that a vaccine breakthrough [Moderna] could, perhaps, help the global economy to emerge from the Covid-19 lockdown sooner than previously feared.
A bit premature, methinks!
Edit:
Moderna aims for a billion COVID-19 shots a year with Lonza manufacturing tie-up
• Technology transfer expected to begin in June 2020
• First batches of mRNA-1273 expected to be manufactured at Lonza U.S. in July 2020
https://www.fiercepharma.com/manufacturing/moderna-aims-for-a-billion-covid-19-shots-a-year-lonza-manufacturing-tie-up
Interestingly it showed a dose dependent response (they tried both 25 and 100 mcg doses). Finers crossed for this one, too.
The good things about the Moderna vaccine are that it requires a much smaller amount for each individual dose, and also that it can be produced in a 'cell free' process, so the steps required to produced the purified vaccine from what comes out of the bioreactor are much simpler.
So it's a lot easier to make lots of it quickly.
It's a completely new technology, and there were fears that it wouldn't make as effective a vaccine. For now, there seems to be some ground to think that it might be effective.
*If you are going to dose billions of people, you can't just turn out any old crap; new production lines have to be fully regulated, and that takes time.
As market-maker I would put up 15/18.
If you mean for >everyone< , then I'd probably agree.
My sense (and hope) is 12 months from now is not wildly optimistic. But no way less than 9 and a real risk of MUCH longer than 18. Could still be years or not at all.
Hence (risk adjusted) I offer 15/18 to my theoretical customers.
Makes a huge difference to the price!!0 -
Chinese vaccine would be ‘global public good,’ Xi says
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/05/18/chinese-vaccine-would-be-global-public-good-xi-says-2650390 -
Why is that? It's like manifestoes being stuffed with new departments and bodies on the assumption that creating a new role will improve matters by itself. And as important as that task is, why would elevation to a Cabinet level position for it specifically make a difference to, say, a minister of state level?noneoftheabove said:
Why isnt there a secretary of state for test track and trace? One should have been appointed in April, it is that important.Stuartinromford said:Meanwhile, in app news, uh-oh:
https://twitter.com/SebastianEPayne/status/1262357454643499008?s=200 -
I agreenoneoftheabove said:
Raab really is terrible at these press conferences, so dull and hard to listen to. And then I remember he is significantly better than several of his colleagues!Big_G_NorthWales said:Sky has just faded out from Patel live in the HOC and it was a great relief to switch her off
Reshuffle and promote some with more capability as soon we can please.0 -
Spot on. I find it depressing on here how many sneer at local authority/council workers, and the public sector in general. Most are working hard, either at home or in manual work. As well as those mentioned above, either directly, or indirectly if subcontracted, council staff and other public sector workers are emptying the bins, dealing with housing issues, sweeping the streets, tending to the parks, running the local crematorium, dealing with universal credit applications and so on.northern_monkey said:
Go on then, I’ll bite.Stocky said:
Private sector v public sector?contrarian said:
My daughter and I both work for (different) companies that supply news, data and information the financial marketsStocky said:
My neighbour works for the council and has been working from home. On full salary of course. She reckons she does two hours per week and thinks it`s a hoot.NerysHughes said:
There are lots of people working from home and it works great and I am sure that is the future for many people, but in the currently working stats there will be many getting 100% pay who are either not working or only working in a limited way. As an example I am friends with an electrical engineer for a Local Authority. He is working from home, but is only allowed to log in to their server once a week and currently has nothing to do.Anabobazina said:
I often agree with you but putting WFH in inverted commas is a bit silly, to be honest. I think companies have proved beyond any reasonable doubt that WFH is a good model that, erm, works.NerysHughes said:Its a no win situation, howver I would say that people are getting very used to Furlough or getting 100% pay "working from home" for a Local Authority and have no desire to return to work, especially as the weather is nice.
Neither of us has ever been busier.
I work for a local authority, involved with senior staff and councillors.
We’ve all been working from home and been very busy. Online meetings have proved very successful. A lot of admin staff have been very busy in ensuring the upper reaches of the authority have continued to function. Some folk are putting in very long hours. There’s been a lot of work to do to keep essential services running, shutting down and now re-opening others. It has been an exhilarating few months.
Of course there are staff lower down the food chain - traffic wardens, dinner ladies, etc - that can’t do their normal jobs. Many of these have been volunteering to do food deliveries for vulnerable people, and other stuff.
I’m trying to make the point that many staff can do their work perfectly well from home. Not all can, I admit. But it is a bit unfair to paint all public sector staff as bone idle layabouts on the basis of anecdotes. The work to keep everything running in the face of all the disruption has been impressive. Can we keep ideology out of this?8 -
I see after a few days of pummeling teachers, heroic PBers (who seem to have an awful lot of time to post on here while keeping the economy afloat virtually singlehandedly) have now got it in for their old favourite, council workers.
On topic, I believe as Alastair refers to that lots of reasonably well informed members of the public do not see the risks of returning to work or their kids to school as minimal, and are not minded to pay attention to the entreaties of the likes of Daniel Hannan to take a punt for the greater good.
I don't think it's limited to the UK; haven't several US states that have eased off lockdowns (usually with little evidence of the virus being in retreat) seen fairly pitiful customer uptake for businesses that have opened up again? AfaIcs the Swedish 'experiment' consists of its people following by choice the distancing rules put in place by neighbouring countries. A lad I follow on twitter was in his Stockholm office for the first time in 9 weeks today and posted a pic of a usually busy metro interchange.
https://twitter.com/daveylittle/status/1262402756935127044?s=200
