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A Vaccine against Stupidity – politicalbetting.com

SystemSystem Posts: 11,002
edited November 2020 in General
imageA Vaccine against Stupidity – politicalbetting.com

The government must hope that Pfizer’s vaccine announcement will overshadow the continued rumblings about Kate Bingham, Chair of the Vaccine Task Force and her expensive (and, judging by results, useless) PR consultants. She is due to leave in January, as originally planned. If you believe Hancock, that is. He’s fast becoming this government’s Marie-Antoinette. According to his latest interview, people paid £670,000 for 6 months’ work in government should be thanked as they have “given up” six months of their life. Who knew that being highly paid to do the job you’re trained for was such a sacrifice? We can only guess at the likely reaction of low paid essential workers (some in the NHS) and unpaid volunteers. Let alone that of the rest of the public, for whom the last 6 months have not exactly been days of wine and roses.

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Comments

  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,768
    First!
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    1st
  • I missed this earlier. We may have to put away the popcorn for the daily televised Allegra Show.

    https://twitter.com/SamCoatesSky/status/1326491672600064002
  • kle4 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    First!

    IshmaelZ said:

    1st

    Only a court can decide that.
    :lol:

    Recount!!!
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    kle4 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    First!

    IshmaelZ said:

    1st

    Only a court can decide that.
    I know now how those 86% of Trumpers feel.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,392

    Anyone else think China's actions in Hong Kong were timed so the world wouldn't notice because of Donald Trump's coup d'état?

    Absolute [moderated] both of them, it really pains me Hong Kong like America, places I love, are going down the bog?

    Honestly I don't think so - China gave up caring what people thought of their actions in Hong Kong earlier this year. They went all in.
    IshmaelZ said:

    kle4 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    First!

    IshmaelZ said:

    1st

    Only a court can decide that.
    I know now how those 86% of Trumpers feel.
    Time will heal your wounds.
  • RogerRoger Posts: 18,891

    I missed this earlier. We may have to put away the popcorn for the daily televised Allegra Show.

    https://twitter.com/SamCoatesSky/status/1326491672600064002

    I've read some more erudite tweets. What exactly is Sam Coates trying to say?
  • alex_alex_ Posts: 7,518
    Is there a suggestion in the Telegraph that the Govt have identified the lockdown leaker?
  • gealbhangealbhan Posts: 2,362
    On topic. What about the argument, if you have to do something quickly it’s always going to cost you more?
  • On a wider point, I'm quite happy to deport anyone who refuses the vaccine for non medical reasons.

    If you don't want the vaccine then get ready to live on Rockall or Pitcairn Island.
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 37,603

    MaxPB said:

    The Vaccine Taskforce in the UK has been extremely successful in purchasing priority supply of a wide range of vaccines across different approaches. We do genuinely have a world beating portfolio of vaccines.

    The announcement of the Pfizer vaccine success is vindication of the government's approach and tbh, his whole thread is unnecessary whining when the vaccine taskforce has actually achieved its goal of building a wide variety of vaccines which will deliver by the end of this year and in H1.

    So yeah, sorry Cyclefree, I don't care about £670k spent on PR, I don't care that we don't know the members of the taskforce and I don't care that there might be some signs of cronyism. We've secured 40m jabs of a 94% effective vaccine and hopefully another 100m of the AZ one which is also looking good.

    TL/DR - Max says "People can be as corrupt as they like as long as they do a reasonably good job - I'm not bovvered".
    In this scenario I'm ok with it. We were in a situation where there are 50 different developed countries trying to secure the same vaccines as us. The government had to move quickly, it did so and we're benefiting from it.
  • On a wider point, I'm quite happy to deport anyone who refuses the vaccine for non medical reasons.

    If you don't want the vaccine then get ready to live on Rockall or Pitcairn Island.

    South Georgia
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,392
    edited November 2020
    I might not go as far as MaxPB in response to the header, but I do think there is a fundamental flaw in presenting issues around who the taskforce members are etc as being the larger part of why there might be a lack of trust in any vaccine. There will be the out and out crazies of course, for whom it is irrelevant, and as for others, if someone is clued up enough to be concerned about matters of conflict of interest and cronyism, it seems odd they would decide to be completely unclued up on vaccine efficacy and so mistrust the vaccines because of governance concerns.

    A general mistrust of government will probably factor into vaccine take up, but even there if we exclude the regular anti-vaxxers, are people actually going to not trust the vaccines which won't be produced by government after all?

    I am usually on board with these sort of pieces, and I do still agree they are important questions, but I don't quite buy that there will be as direct a connection or the level of connection between the posed issues as is suggested.
  • RobDRobD Posts: 58,941
    MaxPB said:

    MaxPB said:

    The Vaccine Taskforce in the UK has been extremely successful in purchasing priority supply of a wide range of vaccines across different approaches. We do genuinely have a world beating portfolio of vaccines.

    The announcement of the Pfizer vaccine success is vindication of the government's approach and tbh, his whole thread is unnecessary whining when the vaccine taskforce has actually achieved its goal of building a wide variety of vaccines which will deliver by the end of this year and in H1.

    So yeah, sorry Cyclefree, I don't care about £670k spent on PR, I don't care that we don't know the members of the taskforce and I don't care that there might be some signs of cronyism. We've secured 40m jabs of a 94% effective vaccine and hopefully another 100m of the AZ one which is also looking good.

    TL/DR - Max says "People can be as corrupt as they like as long as they do a reasonably good job - I'm not bovvered".
    In this scenario I'm ok with it. We were in a situation where there are 50 different developed countries trying to secure the same vaccines as us. The government had to move quickly, it did so and we're benefiting from it.
    How's the EU scheme going? *innocent face*
  • gealbhangealbhan Posts: 2,362
    There’s a lot of belligerence towards Trump from Biden supporters on this blog. I do get why. But it could shut down more rational discussion of the situation?

    I agree with Mike Smithson Our Genial Host. The crunch comes on Dec 14 when electoral college meets and formalises the outcome.

    I don’t think complacency or shrillness and anger, as we have seen from too many Biden supporter, is the way to fight Trumpism and achieve regime change in Washington. So to be on same page, lets calmly decide what we do agree on.

    Scenario 1 Trump needs the EC votes from PA AZ and GA to be president.

    Scenario 2 Trump needs an EC win on Dec 14 to be president.

    It matters not how he does it. If he wins the EC on Dec 14 Trump will remain in office, neither Secret service or Military will remove him, nor will Dems urge their supporters to take up arms, any sort of violence plays straight into Trumps hands. If Trump achieves Scenario 1 or 2, the battle ground will be courts and ballot boxes in the years to come.

    We have had 4 years of Trump, some more of it isn’t the end of the world when compared to actual violence. We agree so far?

    In his favour he has much power to play with, Trump is President with 70% of his party behind him and this could grow under pressure, nearly all his voters still onside too; though arguable what SC would do, Trump feels he’s got a majority there to support him; he has the numbers in the senate to avoid impeachment.

    How does Trump achieve either scenario? What can be big and leftfield to achieve scenario 1 or 2? Not by any of the chaff we have seen from TeamTrump so far in pressers, tweets and law suits. This will get him nowhere. It has to be big and it has to be leftfield. And the first place you will hear about it is announcement at a rally, he saves his big stuff for those. So if he is going to attend a rally, he is going to reveal his hand.

    This result isn’t decided till Dec 14 when electoral college meets and formalises the outcome? If we wished otherwise, truth is Trump had too much support at the election to be blown away, so failing that it needs his concession or a Biden win at the college.
  • Peter_the_PunterPeter_the_Punter Posts: 13,225
    edited November 2020
    Deleted
  • Deleted
  • Useful for keeping track of who's who:

    https://sophieehill.shinyapps.io/my-little-crony/
  • stodgestodge Posts: 12,741
    edited November 2020
    kle4 said:

    I might not go as far as MaxPB in response to the header, but I do think there is a fundamental flaw in presenting issues around who the taskforce members are etc as being the larger part of why there might be a lack of trust in any vaccine. There will be the out and out crazies of course, for whom it is irrelevant, and as for others, if someone is clued up enough to be concerned about matters of conflict of interest and cronyism, it seems odd they would decide to be completely unclued up on vaccine efficacy and so mistrust the vaccines because of governance concerns.

    A general mistrust of government will probably factor into vaccine take up, but even there if we exclude the regular anti-vaxxers, are people actually going to not trust the vaccines which won't be produced by government after all?

    I am usually on board with these sort of pieces, and I do still agree they are important questions, but I don't quite buy that there will be as direct a connection or the level of connection between the posed issues as is suggested.

    As I said on the previous, I'll be happy to have the vaccine once the safety data is published and it's clear the issue of potential side effects has been properly and comprehensively addressed.

    We can't have a vaccine which causes problems for significant numbers of people with pre-existing health conditions. I've also read there may be concerns it produces too strong an immune response which can cause other problems.

    None of this invalidates the important questions and issues @Cyclefree raises and it's little surprise to see supporters of the Government hand-waving these legitimate concerns.
  • RobD said:

    MaxPB said:

    MaxPB said:

    The Vaccine Taskforce in the UK has been extremely successful in purchasing priority supply of a wide range of vaccines across different approaches. We do genuinely have a world beating portfolio of vaccines.

    The announcement of the Pfizer vaccine success is vindication of the government's approach and tbh, his whole thread is unnecessary whining when the vaccine taskforce has actually achieved its goal of building a wide variety of vaccines which will deliver by the end of this year and in H1.

    So yeah, sorry Cyclefree, I don't care about £670k spent on PR, I don't care that we don't know the members of the taskforce and I don't care that there might be some signs of cronyism. We've secured 40m jabs of a 94% effective vaccine and hopefully another 100m of the AZ one which is also looking good.

    TL/DR - Max says "People can be as corrupt as they like as long as they do a reasonably good job - I'm not bovvered".
    In this scenario I'm ok with it. We were in a situation where there are 50 different developed countries trying to secure the same vaccines as us. The government had to move quickly, it did so and we're benefiting from it.
    How's the EU scheme going? *innocent face*
    Well enough, thank you. The BionTech research was partly funded by the EU, preliminary contracts were made back then. A couple of days ago contracts over 300m doses were finalised.
  • JACK_WJACK_W Posts: 651
    gealbhan said:

    There’s a lot of belligerence towards Trump from Biden supporters on this blog. I do get why. But it could shut down more rational discussion of the situation?

    I agree with Mike Smithson Our Genial Host. The crunch comes on Dec 14 when electoral college meets and formalises the outcome.

    I don’t think complacency or shrillness and anger, as we have seen from too many Biden supporter, is the way to fight Trumpism and achieve regime change in Washington. So to be on same page, lets calmly decide what we do agree on.

    Scenario 1 Trump needs the EC votes from PA AZ and GA to be president.

    Scenario 2 Trump needs an EC win on Dec 14 to be president.

    It matters not how he does it. If he wins the EC on Dec 14 Trump will remain in office, neither Secret service or Military will remove him, nor will Dems urge their supporters to take up arms, any sort of violence plays straight into Trumps hands. If Trump achieves Scenario 1 or 2, the battle ground will be courts and ballot boxes in the years to come.

    We have had 4 years of Trump, some more of it isn’t the end of the world when compared to actual violence. We agree so far?

    In his favour he has much power to play with, Trump is President with 70% of his party behind him and this could grow under pressure, nearly all his voters still onside too; though arguable what SC would do, Trump feels he’s got a majority there to support him; he has the numbers in the senate to avoid impeachment.

    How does Trump achieve either scenario? What can be big and leftfield to achieve scenario 1 or 2? Not by any of the chaff we have seen from TeamTrump so far in pressers, tweets and law suits. This will get him nowhere. It has to be big and it has to be leftfield. And the first place you will hear about it is announcement at a rally, he saves his big stuff for those. So if he is going to attend a rally, he is going to reveal his hand.

    This result isn’t decided till Dec 14 when electoral college meets and formalises the outcome? If we wished otherwise, truth is Trump had too much support at the election to be blown away, so failing that it needs his concession or a Biden win at the college.

    Er ... so Trump needs something "big" announced at a rally to win the EC ....

    1. Is it a change of hair style?
    2. Executive order that the military are his private armed forces?
    3. Announcing something bigly for Christmas day?
    4. Annexing Canada and Scotland's golf courses?
    5. Making the USA a reality tv show on Fox?
  • Andy_CookeAndy_Cooke Posts: 4,793
    stodge said:

    kle4 said:

    I might not go as far as MaxPB in response to the header, but I do think there is a fundamental flaw in presenting issues around who the taskforce members are etc as being the larger part of why there might be a lack of trust in any vaccine. There will be the out and out crazies of course, for whom it is irrelevant, and as for others, if someone is clued up enough to be concerned about matters of conflict of interest and cronyism, it seems odd they would decide to be completely unclued up on vaccine efficacy and so mistrust the vaccines because of governance concerns.

    A general mistrust of government will probably factor into vaccine take up, but even there if we exclude the regular anti-vaxxers, are people actually going to not trust the vaccines which won't be produced by government after all?

    I am usually on board with these sort of pieces, and I do still agree they are important questions, but I don't quite buy that there will be as direct a connection or the level of connection between the posed issues as is suggested.

    As I said on the previous, I'll be happy to have the vaccine once the safety data is published and it's clear the issue of potential side effects has been properly and comprehensively addressed.

    We can't have a vaccine which causes problems for significant numbers of people with pre-existing health conditions. I've also read there may be concerns it produces too strong an immune response which can cause other problems.

    None of this invalidates the important questions and issues @Cyclefree raises and it's little surprise to see supporters of the Government hand-waving these legitimate concerns.
    If it helps, the Pfizer test protocol is openly available: pfe-pfizercom-d8-prod.s3.ama...ol_Nov2020.pdf.

    In Phase 1, it was tested in 13 groups of 15 healthy adults (in age groups: 18-55 and 65-85), of whom 12 in each group received the vaccine (so 156 got the vaccine). They were carefully and repeatedly reviewed over multiple months before progressing to Phase 2/3.

    Then, tens of thousands of people (including 2,000 children between age 12-15) in age groups of 12-15, 16-55, 55+, including non-healthy adults (it is notable that none of the following conditions prevented enrolment: HIV, Hepatitis B, Hepatitis C, COPD, heart disease, chronic and/or acute liver disease, COPD, diabetes, asthma, obesity) received the vaccine and were carefully watched over a period of months.
  • ThomasNasheThomasNashe Posts: 4,920
    gealbhan said:

    There’s a lot of belligerence towards Trump from Biden supporters on this blog. I do get why. But it could shut down more rational discussion of the situation?

    I agree with Mike Smithson Our Genial Host. The crunch comes on Dec 14 when electoral college meets and formalises the outcome.

    I don’t think complacency or shrillness and anger, as we have seen from too many Biden supporter, is the way to fight Trumpism and achieve regime change in Washington. So to be on same page, lets calmly decide what we do agree on.

    Scenario 1 Trump needs the EC votes from PA AZ and GA to be president.

    Scenario 2 Trump needs an EC win on Dec 14 to be president.

    It matters not how he does it. If he wins the EC on Dec 14 Trump will remain in office, neither Secret service or Military will remove him, nor will Dems urge their supporters to take up arms, any sort of violence plays straight into Trumps hands. If Trump achieves Scenario 1 or 2, the battle ground will be courts and ballot boxes in the years to come.

    We have had 4 years of Trump, some more of it isn’t the end of the world when compared to actual violence. We agree so far?

    In his favour he has much power to play with, Trump is President with 70% of his party behind him and this could grow under pressure, nearly all his voters still onside too; though arguable what SC would do, Trump feels he’s got a majority there to support him; he has the numbers in the senate to avoid impeachment.

    How does Trump achieve either scenario? What can be big and leftfield to achieve scenario 1 or 2? Not by any of the chaff we have seen from TeamTrump so far in pressers, tweets and law suits. This will get him nowhere. It has to be big and it has to be leftfield. And the first place you will hear about it is announcement at a rally, he saves his big stuff for those. So if he is going to attend a rally, he is going to reveal his hand.

    This result isn’t decided till Dec 14 when electoral college meets and formalises the outcome? If we wished otherwise, truth is Trump had too much support at the election to be blown away, so failing that it needs his concession or a Biden win at the college.

    It’s really quite simple. Trump is, as one 104 year old voter described him, an ‘obscene, grotesque radioactive turd’, and he’s currently behaving like one, which is as we expected it would be. The real disgrace is the Republican Party, who in failing to clearly tell him that he lost, have shown themselves to be unfit for a functioning democracy. Pompeo, McConnell et. al are the ones who are going to really harshly judged by history.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,138

    On a wider point, I'm quite happy to deport anyone who refuses the vaccine for non medical reasons.

    If you don't want the vaccine then get ready to live on Rockall or Pitcairn Island.

    Have you seen photos of the chap camping on Rockall?
  • @RochdalePioneers
    FPT - Re Trump 'Plan'

    Tony Schwarz who ghost-wrote The Art of the Deal for Trump was interviewed by Evan Davis on R4 earlier this evening. He basically answered your question for you.

    There is no plan, just a horror of losing and determination to deny it as long as possible.

  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,138
    Carnyx said:

    On a wider point, I'm quite happy to deport anyone who refuses the vaccine for non medical reasons.

    If you don't want the vaccine then get ready to live on Rockall or Pitcairn Island.

    Have you seen photos of the chap camping on Rockall?
    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2696222/Nick-Hancock-spends-43-days-Rockall-island-Scotland-missing-World-Cup.html

    You'd need the Isle of Wight, more likely.
  • MaxPB said:

    The Vaccine Taskforce in the UK has been extremely successful in purchasing priority supply of a wide range of vaccines across different approaches. We do genuinely have a world beating portfolio of vaccines.

    The announcement of the Pfizer vaccine success is vindication of the government's approach and tbh, this whole thread is unnecessary whining when the vaccine taskforce has actually achieved its goal of building a wide variety of vaccines which will deliver by the end of this year and in H1.

    So yeah, sorry Cyclefree, I don't care about £670k spent on PR, I don't care that we don't know the members of the taskforce and I don't care that there might be some signs of cronyism. We've secured 40m jabs of a 94% effective vaccine and hopefully another 100m of the AZ one which is also looking good.

    The vaccine definitely needs PR.

    There will be some people terrified of it, and others who want to leverage their pet conspiracy theories.
  • LadyGLadyG Posts: 2,221
    FPT

    That Bob Stewart speech about the IRA bomb at the Dropin Well is weirdly moving.

    How do spoken words provoke tears? Yet they do.
  • gealbhan said:

    On topic. What about the argument, if you have to do something quickly it’s always going to cost you more?

    It will, public procurement is an absolute joke and it can take you up to 6 months to onboard what you need - in a very expensive tender process, for all sides - under current rules for anything over c. £200-£300k. And then you often end up with someone who can't do the job.

    It's one thing we need to reform the regulations on post Brexit - it needs to be open to more SMEs (at present it crowds out anyone who can't afford lengthy tenders) and that almost always sucks in big companies and the Big4.
  • Carnyx said:

    Carnyx said:

    On a wider point, I'm quite happy to deport anyone who refuses the vaccine for non medical reasons.

    If you don't want the vaccine then get ready to live on Rockall or Pitcairn Island.

    Have you seen photos of the chap camping on Rockall?
    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2696222/Nick-Hancock-spends-43-days-Rockall-island-Scotland-missing-World-Cup.html

    You'd need the Isle of Wight, more likely.
    Rockall is appropriate for antivaxxers.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,392
    edited November 2020
    stodge said:

    kle4 said:

    I might not go as far as MaxPB in response to the header, but I do think there is a fundamental flaw in presenting issues around who the taskforce members are etc as being the larger part of why there might be a lack of trust in any vaccine. There will be the out and out crazies of course, for whom it is irrelevant, and as for others, if someone is clued up enough to be concerned about matters of conflict of interest and cronyism, it seems odd they would decide to be completely unclued up on vaccine efficacy and so mistrust the vaccines because of governance concerns.

    A general mistrust of government will probably factor into vaccine take up, but even there if we exclude the regular anti-vaxxers, are people actually going to not trust the vaccines which won't be produced by government after all?

    I am usually on board with these sort of pieces, and I do still agree they are important questions, but I don't quite buy that there will be as direct a connection or the level of connection between the posed issues as is suggested.

    As I said on the previous, I'll be happy to have the vaccine once the safety data is published and it's clear the issue of potential side effects has been properly and comprehensively addressed.

    We can't have a vaccine which causes problems for significant numbers of people with pre-existing health conditions. I've also read there may be concerns it produces too strong an immune response which can cause other problems.

    None of this invalidates the important questions and issues @Cyclefree raises and it's little surprise to see supporters of the Government hand-waving these legitimate concerns.
    Well I wouldn't handwave legitimate concerns and didn't, I simply questioned whether those concerns would have the direct effect cyclefree has suggested, as I don't believe most people, and most people considering not taking the vaccine will be more impacted by that than other things. So I assume you meant to reply to a different post.
  • LadyGLadyG Posts: 2,221
    623 dead in Italy today; 33,000 new cases.

    Just a few weeks ago the Conte government was winning plaudits for its handling of the virus,
  • On a wider point, I'm quite happy to deport anyone who refuses the vaccine for non medical reasons.

    If you don't want the vaccine then get ready to live on Rockall or Pitcairn Island.

    South Georgia
    Magnificient islands full of nature and awesome scenery
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 31,274
    gealbhan said:

    There’s a lot of belligerence towards Trump from Biden supporters on this blog. I do get why. But it could shut down more rational discussion of the situation?

    I agree with Mike Smithson Our Genial Host. The crunch comes on Dec 14 when electoral college meets and formalises the outcome.

    I don’t think complacency or shrillness and anger, as we have seen from too many Biden supporter, is the way to fight Trumpism and achieve regime change in Washington. So to be on same page, lets calmly decide what we do agree on.

    Scenario 1 Trump needs the EC votes from PA AZ and GA to be president.

    Scenario 2 Trump needs an EC win on Dec 14 to be president.

    It matters not how he does it. If he wins the EC on Dec 14 Trump will remain in office, neither Secret service or Military will remove him, nor will Dems urge their supporters to take up arms, any sort of violence plays straight into Trumps hands. If Trump achieves Scenario 1 or 2, the battle ground will be courts and ballot boxes in the years to come.

    We have had 4 years of Trump, some more of it isn’t the end of the world when compared to actual violence. We agree so far?

    In his favour he has much power to play with, Trump is President with 70% of his party behind him and this could grow under pressure, nearly all his voters still onside too; though arguable what SC would do, Trump feels he’s got a majority there to support him; he has the numbers in the senate to avoid impeachment.

    How does Trump achieve either scenario? What can be big and leftfield to achieve scenario 1 or 2? Not by any of the chaff we have seen from TeamTrump so far in pressers, tweets and law suits. This will get him nowhere. It has to be big and it has to be leftfield. And the first place you will hear about it is announcement at a rally, he saves his big stuff for those. So if he is going to attend a rally, he is going to reveal his hand.

    This result isn’t decided till Dec 14 when electoral college meets and formalises the outcome? If we wished otherwise, truth is Trump had too much support at the election to be blown away, so failing that it needs his concession or a Biden win at the college.

    This post is unbelievably naive on so many fronts.

    To quote one example: "We have had 4 years of Trump, some more of it isn’t the end of the world when compared to actual violence."

    Four more years of Trump (indeed any days of Trump beyond 20 January) would mean democracy in the US is dead. And if it dies in the US, it's chances of surviving long anywhere else are minimal.

    Violence to defend democracy would be far preferable to giving in to dictatorship.

    Obviously a peaceful trasition to the democratically elected President would be the best option, and the one we must all hope for.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,392

    MaxPB said:

    The Vaccine Taskforce in the UK has been extremely successful in purchasing priority supply of a wide range of vaccines across different approaches. We do genuinely have a world beating portfolio of vaccines.

    The announcement of the Pfizer vaccine success is vindication of the government's approach and tbh, this whole thread is unnecessary whining when the vaccine taskforce has actually achieved its goal of building a wide variety of vaccines which will deliver by the end of this year and in H1.

    So yeah, sorry Cyclefree, I don't care about £670k spent on PR, I don't care that we don't know the members of the taskforce and I don't care that there might be some signs of cronyism. We've secured 40m jabs of a 94% effective vaccine and hopefully another 100m of the AZ one which is also looking good.

    The vaccine definitely needs PR.

    There will be some people terrified of it, and others who want to leverage their pet conspiracy theories.
    As always, there will be some difficulty distinguising between those with legitimate concerns, and those pretending to have legitimate concerns as an excuse for a predetermined view (like when people oppose something by always suggesting more consultation is needed, no matter how much there was, or more questions that need answering, even if they have been answered). I don't think inherent anti-vaxxers are a big group, but as this would be very rapidly developed it is not inherently unreasonable that more people will be cautious.
  • MaxPB said:

    The Vaccine Taskforce in the UK has been extremely successful in purchasing priority supply of a wide range of vaccines across different approaches. We do genuinely have a world beating portfolio of vaccines.

    The announcement of the Pfizer vaccine success is vindication of the government's approach and tbh, this whole thread is unnecessary whining when the vaccine taskforce has actually achieved its goal of building a wide variety of vaccines which will deliver by the end of this year and in H1.

    So yeah, sorry Cyclefree, I don't care about £670k spent on PR, I don't care that we don't know the members of the taskforce and I don't care that there might be some signs of cronyism. We've secured 40m jabs of a 94% effective vaccine and hopefully another 100m of the AZ one which is also looking good.

    The vaccine definitely needs PR.

    There will be some people terrified of it, and others who want to leverage their pet conspiracy theories.
    I'm sure the vaccine would prefer good old FPTP :lol:
  • geoffwgeoffw Posts: 8,092
    The Pfizer/BioNtech vaccine deal is a win for Brexit Britain.
    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/did-brexit-boost-britain-s-vaccine-deal-
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,392

    gealbhan said:

    On topic. What about the argument, if you have to do something quickly it’s always going to cost you more?

    It will, public procurement is an absolute joke and it can take you up to 6 months to onboard what you need - in a very expensive tender process, for all sides - under current rules for anything over c. £200-£300k. And then you often end up with someone who can't do the job.

    It's one thing we need to reform the regulations on post Brexit - it needs to be open to more SMEs (at present it crowds out anyone who can't afford lengthy tenders) and that almost always sucks in big companies and the Big4.
    I haven't checked in with them for some time, but last I spoke with my procurement contacts they didn't expect much to change.
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 31,274
    The answer for those who refuse the vaccine is easy: no flights or foereign travel, employers allowed to exclude anyone who hasn't been vaccinated, similarly higher education attendance at major sports or entertainment venues... Others as soon as I think of them.

    A vaccine certificate (with a medical exemption certificate for those who cannot have the vaccine for medical reasons) will solve these problems.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,392
    edited November 2020
    gealbhan said:

    There’s a lot of belligerence towards Trump from Biden supporters on this blog. I do get why. But it could shut down more rational discussion of the situation?

    I agree with Mike Smithson Our Genial Host. The crunch comes on Dec 14 when electoral college meets and formalises the outcome.

    I don’t think complacency or shrillness and anger, as we have seen from too many Biden supporter, is the way to fight Trumpism and achieve regime change in Washington. So to be on same page, lets calmly decide what we do agree on.

    Scenario 1 Trump needs the EC votes from PA AZ and GA to be president.

    Scenario 2 Trump needs an EC win on Dec 14 to be president.

    It matters not how he does it. If he wins the EC on Dec 14 Trump will remain in office, neither Secret service or Military will remove him, nor will Dems urge their supporters to take up arms, any sort of violence plays straight into Trumps hands. If Trump achieves Scenario 1 or 2, the battle ground will be courts and ballot boxes in the years to come.

    We have had 4 years of Trump, some more of it isn’t the end of the world when compared to actual violence. We agree so far?

    In his favour he has much power to play with, Trump is President with 70% of his party behind him and this could grow under pressure, nearly all his voters still onside too; though arguable what SC would do, Trump feels he’s got a majority there to support him; he has the numbers in the senate to avoid impeachment.

    How does Trump achieve either scenario? What can be big and leftfield to achieve scenario 1 or 2? Not by any of the chaff we have seen from TeamTrump so far in pressers, tweets and law suits. This will get him nowhere. It has to be big and it has to be leftfield. And the first place you will hear about it is announcement at a rally, he saves his big stuff for those. So if he is going to attend a rally, he is going to reveal his hand.

    This result isn’t decided till Dec 14 when electoral college meets and formalises the outcome? If we wished otherwise, truth is Trump had too much support at the election to be blown away, so failing that it needs his concession or a Biden win at the college.

    Some of the belligerence you mention is when people ignore the trivial or meritless legal challenges made by Trump as if it is of no consequence to 'claims' of widespread irregularity without evidence.

    And what counts as a Biden supporter in this context? Certainly I very much wanted Biden to win, buy if there is evidence he 'won' due to cheating I would at once say Trump should be President, so preferring Biden doesn't mean anthing when assessing what should happen post election.
  • AlistairAlistair Posts: 23,670
    edited November 2020
    Pulpstar said:
    Never saw that coming. Just blown away. All those PB posts with "Well actually they aren't actually Nazis" had led me to believe they were a diverse group of multi faceted faiths, colours and creeds
  • gealbhangealbhan Posts: 2,362
    JACK_W said:

    gealbhan said:

    There’s a lot of belligerence towards Trump from Biden supporters on this blog. I do get why. But it could shut down more rational discussion of the situation?

    I agree with Mike Smithson Our Genial Host. The crunch comes on Dec 14 when electoral college meets and formalises the outcome.

    I don’t think complacency or shrillness and anger, as we have seen from too many Biden supporter, is the way to fight Trumpism and achieve regime change in Washington. So to be on same page, lets calmly decide what we do agree on.

    Scenario 1 Trump needs the EC votes from PA AZ and GA to be president.

    Scenario 2 Trump needs an EC win on Dec 14 to be president.

    It matters not how he does it. If he wins the EC on Dec 14 Trump will remain in office, neither Secret service or Military will remove him, nor will Dems urge their supporters to take up arms, any sort of violence plays straight into Trumps hands. If Trump achieves Scenario 1 or 2, the battle ground will be courts and ballot boxes in the years to come.

    We have had 4 years of Trump, some more of it isn’t the end of the world when compared to actual violence. We agree so far?

    In his favour he has much power to play with, Trump is President with 70% of his party behind him and this could grow under pressure, nearly all his voters still onside too; though arguable what SC would do, Trump feels he’s got a majority there to support him; he has the numbers in the senate to avoid impeachment.

    How does Trump achieve either scenario? What can be big and leftfield to achieve scenario 1 or 2? Not by any of the chaff we have seen from TeamTrump so far in pressers, tweets and law suits. This will get him nowhere. It has to be big and it has to be leftfield. And the first place you will hear about it is announcement at a rally, he saves his big stuff for those. So if he is going to attend a rally, he is going to reveal his hand.

    This result isn’t decided till Dec 14 when electoral college meets and formalises the outcome? If we wished otherwise, truth is Trump had too much support at the election to be blown away, so failing that it needs his concession or a Biden win at the college.

    Er ... so Trump needs something "big" announced at a rally to win the EC ....

    1. Is it a change of hair style?
    2. Executive order that the military are his private armed forces?
    3. Announcing something bigly for Christmas day?
    4. Annexing Canada and Scotland's golf courses?
    5. Making the USA a reality tv show on Fox?
    “Is it a change of hair style”

    ?

    But he doesn’t have hair

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxHd8JJ8hCU
  • glwglw Posts: 9,535

    MaxPB said:

    The Vaccine Taskforce in the UK has been extremely successful in purchasing priority supply of a wide range of vaccines across different approaches. We do genuinely have a world beating portfolio of vaccines.

    The announcement of the Pfizer vaccine success is vindication of the government's approach and tbh, his whole thread is unnecessary whining when the vaccine taskforce has actually achieved its goal of building a wide variety of vaccines which will deliver by the end of this year and in H1.

    So yeah, sorry Cyclefree, I don't care about £670k spent on PR, I don't care that we don't know the members of the taskforce and I don't care that there might be some signs of cronyism. We've secured 40m jabs of a 94% effective vaccine and hopefully another 100m of the AZ one which is also looking good.

    TL/DR - Max says "People can be as corrupt as they like as long as they do a reasonably good job - I'm not bovvered".
    Is it corruption? Or is it more likely to be "people, or friends of theirs, who we don't like, getting a lot of public money?"

    All these arguments about transparency, bidding, appointments, tendering and the like would be just fine if we had time. But we don't have time, every day wasted is hundreds more dead.

    If I thought that setting a 30 foot tall pile of £20 notes on fire would shorten the pandemic by a week, I'd be up for that.

    If Al-Qaeda could secure us 300 million doses of vaccine, I'd at least take a good look at their bid.

    If the best person to run some multi-billion pound programme just happens to be a blood relative of the PM, I'd turn a blind eye.


    I expect there was a lot of wastage, cronyism, and little to no transparency during the second world war as well.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,768
    RobD said:

    MaxPB said:

    MaxPB said:

    The Vaccine Taskforce in the UK has been extremely successful in purchasing priority supply of a wide range of vaccines across different approaches. We do genuinely have a world beating portfolio of vaccines.

    The announcement of the Pfizer vaccine success is vindication of the government's approach and tbh, his whole thread is unnecessary whining when the vaccine taskforce has actually achieved its goal of building a wide variety of vaccines which will deliver by the end of this year and in H1.

    So yeah, sorry Cyclefree, I don't care about £670k spent on PR, I don't care that we don't know the members of the taskforce and I don't care that there might be some signs of cronyism. We've secured 40m jabs of a 94% effective vaccine and hopefully another 100m of the AZ one which is also looking good.

    TL/DR - Max says "People can be as corrupt as they like as long as they do a reasonably good job - I'm not bovvered".
    In this scenario I'm ok with it. We were in a situation where there are 50 different developed countries trying to secure the same vaccines as us. The government had to move quickly, it did so and we're benefiting from it.
    How's the EU scheme going? *innocent face*
    It's actually doing OK, they've secured good quantities from J&J, PFE and AZN.

    The reality is that we've done well, the US is looking a bit shaky as they are a bit over-dependent on Moderna and Novavax, and the EU is OK.

    My guess is that the UK will achieve 60+% vaccinated by the end of next Summer, while most EU countries will be there by the end of next year, and the US gets there in 1H2022.
  • johntjohnt Posts: 86
    This is a very good example of the self entitled incompetence of the current government. I wrote to my MP about the appointment of Dido Harding which was the same. Process exists for a reason and following it is good. Any fool can throw hundreds of millions at companies to secure contracts as this government seems to be proving. Unfortunately they have no magic money tree to pay the bill. So we will all have to suffer massive tax hikes to meet the cost of their payments to their mates.
  • stodgestodge Posts: 12,741
    edited November 2020
    kle4 said:


    Well I wouldn't handwave legitimate concerns and didn't, I simply questioned whether those concerns would have the direct effect cyclefree has suggested, as I don't believe most people, and most people considering not taking the vaccine will be more impacted by that than other things. So I assume you meant to reply to a different post.

    No, I meant to reply to your post but to broaden it a little beyond the direct question of whether how the Government has comported itself over the past 8 months will impact future take-up of the vaccine.

    The experience of Eat Out to Help Out is people will quite happily go for something that looks good and I imagine the vaccine will be prevented as the path back to "normality" (however each one of us defines that).

    I suspect we won't go back in totality to the life we had pre-Covid. I imagine some will try to forget the last 8 months have happened and will want to go back to the life they used to have before the virus. Others may have seen the past eight months as an opportunity for some personal re-evaluation and that's no bad thing either.

    It may be that for many the "back to normal" won't be wholly welcome and some of the ways of life gained during the Covid experience will be retained (home working, more time with family etc).

    I'll confess I'm not the same person I was before the virus - I like home and being at home, I don't miss the commute or the madness of commuting. I've lost a little weight and slept a lot more. I'm looking forward to travelling again but I'm more aware of my own health and hygiene and suspect I'd have been healthier over the past 20 years if I'd taken a few basic precautions but the lifestyle/workstyle didn't allow for that.
  • I think recruitment
    rcs1000 said:

    RobD said:

    MaxPB said:

    MaxPB said:

    The Vaccine Taskforce in the UK has been extremely successful in purchasing priority supply of a wide range of vaccines across different approaches. We do genuinely have a world beating portfolio of vaccines.

    The announcement of the Pfizer vaccine success is vindication of the government's approach and tbh, his whole thread is unnecessary whining when the vaccine taskforce has actually achieved its goal of building a wide variety of vaccines which will deliver by the end of this year and in H1.

    So yeah, sorry Cyclefree, I don't care about £670k spent on PR, I don't care that we don't know the members of the taskforce and I don't care that there might be some signs of cronyism. We've secured 40m jabs of a 94% effective vaccine and hopefully another 100m of the AZ one which is also looking good.

    TL/DR - Max says "People can be as corrupt as they like as long as they do a reasonably good job - I'm not bovvered".
    In this scenario I'm ok with it. We were in a situation where there are 50 different developed countries trying to secure the same vaccines as us. The government had to move quickly, it did so and we're benefiting from it.
    How's the EU scheme going? *innocent face*
    It's actually doing OK, they've secured good quantities from J&J, PFE and AZN.

    The reality is that we've done well, the US is looking a bit shaky as they are a bit over-dependent on Moderna and Novavax, and the EU is OK.

    My guess is that the UK will achieve 60+% vaccinated by the end of next Summer, while most EU countries will be there by the end of next year, and the US gets there in 1H2022.
    So.. we've done rather well then, haven't we?

    I hold no candle for this government, or Boris, who has taken chumocracy to a whole new level - we know he only hires those personally loyal or beholden to him - however, on buying and securing vaccines at least, it would be churlish to criticise it too severely.
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 37,603
    rcs1000 said:

    RobD said:

    MaxPB said:

    MaxPB said:

    The Vaccine Taskforce in the UK has been extremely successful in purchasing priority supply of a wide range of vaccines across different approaches. We do genuinely have a world beating portfolio of vaccines.

    The announcement of the Pfizer vaccine success is vindication of the government's approach and tbh, his whole thread is unnecessary whining when the vaccine taskforce has actually achieved its goal of building a wide variety of vaccines which will deliver by the end of this year and in H1.

    So yeah, sorry Cyclefree, I don't care about £670k spent on PR, I don't care that we don't know the members of the taskforce and I don't care that there might be some signs of cronyism. We've secured 40m jabs of a 94% effective vaccine and hopefully another 100m of the AZ one which is also looking good.

    TL/DR - Max says "People can be as corrupt as they like as long as they do a reasonably good job - I'm not bovvered".
    In this scenario I'm ok with it. We were in a situation where there are 50 different developed countries trying to secure the same vaccines as us. The government had to move quickly, it did so and we're benefiting from it.
    How's the EU scheme going? *innocent face*
    It's actually doing OK, they've secured good quantities from J&J, PFE and AZN.

    The reality is that we've done well, the US is looking a bit shaky as they are a bit over-dependent on Moderna and Novavax, and the EU is OK.

    My guess is that the UK will achieve 60+% vaccinated by the end of next Summer, while most EU countries will be there by the end of next year, and the US gets there in 1H2022.
    I think the US will have a lot more anti-vaxxer refuseniks than the UK or EU.
  • Alistair said:

    Pulpstar said:
    Never saw that coming. Just blown away. All those PB posts with "Well actually they aren't actually Nazis" had led me to believe they were a diverse group of multi faceted faiths, colours and creeds
    I'm sure MrEd and DAlexander will be along shortly to explain why this is good news for Trump and why it will help him with his court cases and thus win Trump the electoral college vote in December.
  • gealbhangealbhan Posts: 2,362
    edited November 2020
    kle4 said:

    gealbhan said:

    There’s a lot of belligerence towards Trump from Biden supporters on this blog. I do get why. But it could shut down more rational discussion of the situation?

    I agree with Mike Smithson Our Genial Host. The crunch comes on Dec 14 when electoral college meets and formalises the outcome.

    I don’t think complacency or shrillness and anger, as we have seen from too many Biden supporter, is the way to fight Trumpism and achieve regime change in Washington. So to be on same page, lets calmly decide what we do agree on.

    Scenario 1 Trump needs the EC votes from PA AZ and GA to be president.

    Scenario 2 Trump needs an EC win on Dec 14 to be president.

    It matters not how he does it. If he wins the EC on Dec 14 Trump will remain in office, neither Secret service or Military will remove him, nor will Dems urge their supporters to take up arms, any sort of violence plays straight into Trumps hands. If Trump achieves Scenario 1 or 2, the battle ground will be courts and ballot boxes in the years to come.

    We have had 4 years of Trump, some more of it isn’t the end of the world when compared to actual violence. We agree so far?

    In his favour he has much power to play with, Trump is President with 70% of his party behind him and this could grow under pressure, nearly all his voters still onside too; though arguable what SC would do, Trump feels he’s got a majority there to support him; he has the numbers in the senate to avoid impeachment.

    How does Trump achieve either scenario? What can be big and leftfield to achieve scenario 1 or 2? Not by any of the chaff we have seen from TeamTrump so far in pressers, tweets and law suits. This will get him nowhere. It has to be big and it has to be leftfield. And the first place you will hear about it is announcement at a rally, he saves his big stuff for those. So if he is going to attend a rally, he is going to reveal his hand.

    This result isn’t decided till Dec 14 when electoral college meets and formalises the outcome? If we wished otherwise, truth is Trump had too much support at the election to be blown away, so failing that it needs his concession or a Biden win at the college.

    Some of the belligerence you mention is when people ignore the trivial or meritless legal challenges made by Trump as if it is of no consequence to 'claims' of widespread irregularity without evidence.

    And what counts as a Biden supporter in this context? Certainly I very much wanted Biden to win, buy if there is evidence he 'won' due to cheating I would at once say Trump should be President, so preferring Biden doesn't mean anthing when assessing what should happen post election.
    To be honest, I explained he’s yet to come out with anything other than desperately trivial and legally meritless. But without the concession the procedure has to wait till December 14th to be over, in order to have the people onside who can remove him. And if he does pull it off on Dec 14th, they won’t.

    I don’t want to be rude or anything, but the mistake many posting here are making, You are thinking with a faith in democracy to win through, that nice guys win, you are not thinking like a gangster. You need to channel your inner Constantine and the shenanigans at the Council of Nicaea. Where the Emperor strode around like a mafia boss. It shaped Christianity but its not argued much anymore exactly how.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,768
    LadyG said:

    623 dead in Italy today; 33,000 new cases.

    Just a few weeks ago the Conte government was winning plaudits for its handling of the virus,

    The long lag between cause and effect means that the damage is usually done long before anyone realises it.
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 32,735
    Who could have guessed that appointing Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson First Lord of the Treasury would descend into a farce of cronyism, corporatism, factional infighting, incompetence and chaos.

    If only there had been some clue...
  • LadyGLadyG Posts: 2,221
    rcs1000 said:

    LadyG said:

    623 dead in Italy today; 33,000 new cases.

    Just a few weeks ago the Conte government was winning plaudits for its handling of the virus,

    The long lag between cause and effect means that the damage is usually done long before anyone realises it.
    I can remember when people were saying, on here, that Italy's avoidance of a bad second wave was because "they take it seriously," "they all wear masks", "the horror of the first wave sobered them up, unlike the Brits", and so on, and so forth.

    Turns out that was all bollocks. Their second wave is now worse than ours.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,768
    gealbhan said:

    kle4 said:

    gealbhan said:

    There’s a lot of belligerence towards Trump from Biden supporters on this blog. I do get why. But it could shut down more rational discussion of the situation?

    I agree with Mike Smithson Our Genial Host. The crunch comes on Dec 14 when electoral college meets and formalises the outcome.

    I don’t think complacency or shrillness and anger, as we have seen from too many Biden supporter, is the way to fight Trumpism and achieve regime change in Washington. So to be on same page, lets calmly decide what we do agree on.

    Scenario 1 Trump needs the EC votes from PA AZ and GA to be president.

    Scenario 2 Trump needs an EC win on Dec 14 to be president.

    It matters not how he does it. If he wins the EC on Dec 14 Trump will remain in office, neither Secret service or Military will remove him, nor will Dems urge their supporters to take up arms, any sort of violence plays straight into Trumps hands. If Trump achieves Scenario 1 or 2, the battle ground will be courts and ballot boxes in the years to come.

    We have had 4 years of Trump, some more of it isn’t the end of the world when compared to actual violence. We agree so far?

    In his favour he has much power to play with, Trump is President with 70% of his party behind him and this could grow under pressure, nearly all his voters still onside too; though arguable what SC would do, Trump feels he’s got a majority there to support him; he has the numbers in the senate to avoid impeachment.

    How does Trump achieve either scenario? What can be big and leftfield to achieve scenario 1 or 2? Not by any of the chaff we have seen from TeamTrump so far in pressers, tweets and law suits. This will get him nowhere. It has to be big and it has to be leftfield. And the first place you will hear about it is announcement at a rally, he saves his big stuff for those. So if he is going to attend a rally, he is going to reveal his hand.

    This result isn’t decided till Dec 14 when electoral college meets and formalises the outcome? If we wished otherwise, truth is Trump had too much support at the election to be blown away, so failing that it needs his concession or a Biden win at the college.

    Some of the belligerence you mention is when people ignore the trivial or meritless legal challenges made by Trump as if it is of no consequence to 'claims' of widespread irregularity without evidence.

    And what counts as a Biden supporter in this context? Certainly I very much wanted Biden to win, buy if there is evidence he 'won' due to cheating I would at once say Trump should be President, so preferring Biden doesn't mean anthing when assessing what should happen post election.
    To be honest, I explained he’s yet to come out with anything other than desperately trivial and legally meritless. But without the concession the procedure has to wait till December 14th to be over, in order to have the people onside who can remove him. And if he does pull it off on Dec 14th, they won’t.

    I don’t want to be rude or anything, but the mistake many posting here are making, You are thinking with a faith in democracy to win through, that nice guys win, you are not thinking like a gangster. You need to channel your inner Constantine and the shenanigans at the Council of Nicaea. Where the Emperor strode around like a mafia boss. It shaped Christianity but its not argued much anymore exactly how.
    Sure.

    And you are making the mistake of thinking that those who voted Biden will just roll over.

    In any case, this is all irrelevant. If this hinged on a single state, it would be one thing, but it doesn't. Biden has won, and the legal challenges will be rejected.
  • @RochdalePioneers
    FPT - Re Trump 'Plan'

    Tony Schwarz who ghost-wrote The Art of the Deal for Trump was interviewed by Evan Davis on R4 earlier this evening. He basically answered your question for you.

    There is no plan, just a horror of losing and determination to deny it as long as possible.

    Appreciated. Trump and his inner cabal are morons. However, as he IS the president and wants to stay President. And the entire GOP leadership aren't morons. So there will be a plan even if it isn't his.

    As others elude to above, the Electoral College has to be the target. Doesn't matter what people think they voted for, they're voting for Electors. Who don't even have to represent their views.
  • LadyG said:

    rcs1000 said:

    LadyG said:

    623 dead in Italy today; 33,000 new cases.

    Just a few weeks ago the Conte government was winning plaudits for its handling of the virus,

    The long lag between cause and effect means that the damage is usually done long before anyone realises it.
    I can remember when people were saying, on here, that Italy's avoidance of a bad second wave was because "they take it seriously," "they all wear masks", "the horror of the first wave sobered them up, unlike the Brits", and so on, and so forth.

    Turns out that was all bollocks. Their second wave is now worse than ours.
    There was also thr articles about how they didn't need the massive testing capacity because they were using a smaller number of faster tests and they would track and trace....
  • glwglw Posts: 9,535
    edited November 2020
    LadyG said:

    rcs1000 said:

    LadyG said:

    623 dead in Italy today; 33,000 new cases.

    Just a few weeks ago the Conte government was winning plaudits for its handling of the virus,

    The long lag between cause and effect means that the damage is usually done long before anyone realises it.
    I can remember when people were saying, on here, that Italy's avoidance of a bad second wave was because "they take it seriously," "they all wear masks", "the horror of the first wave sobered them up, unlike the Brits", and so on, and so forth.

    Turns out that was all bollocks. Their second wave is now worse than ours.
    There was an enormous amount of nonsense written by all sorts of people between July and September that has been proven to be utterly wrong.
  • stodge said:

    kle4 said:

    I might not go as far as MaxPB in response to the header, but I do think there is a fundamental flaw in presenting issues around who the taskforce members are etc as being the larger part of why there might be a lack of trust in any vaccine. There will be the out and out crazies of course, for whom it is irrelevant, and as for others, if someone is clued up enough to be concerned about matters of conflict of interest and cronyism, it seems odd they would decide to be completely unclued up on vaccine efficacy and so mistrust the vaccines because of governance concerns.

    A general mistrust of government will probably factor into vaccine take up, but even there if we exclude the regular anti-vaxxers, are people actually going to not trust the vaccines which won't be produced by government after all?

    I am usually on board with these sort of pieces, and I do still agree they are important questions, but I don't quite buy that there will be as direct a connection or the level of connection between the posed issues as is suggested.

    As I said on the previous, I'll be happy to have the vaccine once the safety data is published and it's clear the issue of potential side effects has been properly and comprehensively addressed.

    We can't have a vaccine which causes problems for significant numbers of people with pre-existing health conditions. I've also read there may be concerns it produces too strong an immune response which can cause other problems.

    None of this invalidates the important questions and issues @Cyclefree raises and it's little surprise to see supporters of the Government hand-waving these legitimate concerns.
    I don't think you have much to worry about with side effects. The earlier phase trial of the Pfizer vaccine showed very few side effects and none of them major. The reason they picked the vaccine candidate to take to Phase III is that it had such a benign side effect profile. Remember that "side effects" includes things like having a sore arm, headache, or mild fever for a day or two. Over 40000 people have taken that vaccine and nobody died or had serious complications. Concerns about antibody-enhanced disease will have been allayed by the trial. Obviously the full safety data goes to the regulator before license.

    It will be way, way, safer to take the vaccine than not to take it, or even to postpone taking it, I'm sure.

    (Also remember that some of the people who are trying to worry you about side effects are anti-vaxxers or anti-vax adjacent.)

    --AS
  • kamskikamski Posts: 4,199
    gealbhan said:

    There’s a lot of belligerence towards Trump from Biden supporters on this blog. I do get why. But it could shut down more rational discussion of the situation?

    I agree with Mike Smithson Our Genial Host. The crunch comes on Dec 14 when electoral college meets and formalises the outcome.

    I don’t think complacency or shrillness and anger, as we have seen from too many Biden supporter, is the way to fight Trumpism and achieve regime change in Washington. So to be on same page, lets calmly decide what we do agree on.

    Scenario 1 Trump needs the EC votes from PA AZ and GA to be president.

    Scenario 2 Trump needs an EC win on Dec 14 to be president.

    It matters not how he does it. If he wins the EC on Dec 14 Trump will remain in office, neither Secret service or Military will remove him, nor will Dems urge their supporters to take up arms, any sort of violence plays straight into Trumps hands. If Trump achieves Scenario 1 or 2, the battle ground will be courts and ballot boxes in the years to come.

    We have had 4 years of Trump, some more of it isn’t the end of the world when compared to actual violence. We agree so far?

    In his favour he has much power to play with, Trump is President with 70% of his party behind him and this could grow under pressure, nearly all his voters still onside too; though arguable what SC would do, Trump feels he’s got a majority there to support him; he has the numbers in the senate to avoid impeachment.

    How does Trump achieve either scenario? What can be big and leftfield to achieve scenario 1 or 2? Not by any of the chaff we have seen from TeamTrump so far in pressers, tweets and law suits. This will get him nowhere. It has to be big and it has to be leftfield. And the first place you will hear about it is announcement at a rally, he saves his big stuff for those. So if he is going to attend a rally, he is going to reveal his hand.

    This result isn’t decided till Dec 14 when electoral college meets and formalises the outcome? If we wished otherwise, truth is Trump had too much support at the election to be blown away, so failing that it needs his concession or a Biden win at the college.

    Are you saying we mustn't upset the millions of trumpers who read PB?

    And why aren't I convinced there's a surprise move that's so clever only the stable genius Trump has thought of it?

    Is it threatening/bribing the electoral college electors?

    That would be about trump's level of genius.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,392
    edited November 2020
    glw said:

    LadyG said:

    rcs1000 said:

    LadyG said:

    623 dead in Italy today; 33,000 new cases.

    Just a few weeks ago the Conte government was winning plaudits for its handling of the virus,

    The long lag between cause and effect means that the damage is usually done long before anyone realises it.
    I can remember when people were saying, on here, that Italy's avoidance of a bad second wave was because "they take it seriously," "they all wear masks", "the horror of the first wave sobered them up, unlike the Brits", and so on, and so forth.

    Turns out that was all bollocks. Their second wave is now worse than ours.
    There was an enormous amount of nonsense written be all sorts of people between July and September that has been proven to be utterly wrong.
    Best to speak nonsense all year round,, that way no one will notice any specific nonsense.

    But on Covid we seem to continually make very firm sounding judgements on nations' responses, without seeming to think about the possibility time will move on.
  • LadyGLadyG Posts: 2,221
    edited November 2020
    Scott_xP said:

    Who could have guessed that appointing Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson First Lord of the Treasury would descend into a farce of cronyism, corporatism, factional infighting, incompetence and chaos.

    If only there had been some clue...

    I cannot think of a British postwar government, with the possible exception of Margaret Thatcher in her pomp, which would have avoided chaos and incompetence and cronymism and all the rest, when faced with a once in a century challenge like Covid-19 and another once in a century challenge like Brexit - AT THE SAME TIME

    Remember that similar chaos is raging across Europe - France to Denmark, Spain to Poland, Czechia to Italy, and they are not dealing with Brexit AS WELL. And let's avert our eyes from the American election, BLM, etc etc.

    The world has gone to shit, so has Western governance, pretty much in toto,
  • LadyGLadyG Posts: 2,221
    glw said:

    LadyG said:

    rcs1000 said:

    LadyG said:

    623 dead in Italy today; 33,000 new cases.

    Just a few weeks ago the Conte government was winning plaudits for its handling of the virus,

    The long lag between cause and effect means that the damage is usually done long before anyone realises it.
    I can remember when people were saying, on here, that Italy's avoidance of a bad second wave was because "they take it seriously," "they all wear masks", "the horror of the first wave sobered them up, unlike the Brits", and so on, and so forth.

    Turns out that was all bollocks. Their second wave is now worse than ours.
    There was an enormous amount of nonsense written by all sorts of people between July and September that has been proven to be utterly wrong.
    IF we get effective vaccines quickly all those praising Sweden (including myself) will possibly look quite foolish.

    The logic of the Swedish approach was that vaccines would take ages, and might never arrive. Hmm.
  • NickPalmerNickPalmer Posts: 21,263
    rcs1000 said:

    gealbhan said:


    It matters not how he does it. If he wins the EC on Dec 14 Trump will remain in office, neither Secret service or Military will remove him, nor will Dems urge their supporters to take up arms, any sort of violence plays straight into Trumps hands. If Trump achieves Scenario 1 or 2, the battle ground will be courts and ballot boxes in the years to come.

    We have had 4 years of Trump, some more of it isn’t the end of the world when compared to actual violence. We agree so far?

    Completely disagree.

    If Biden is seen to have won, and the Electoral College decides otherwise then there will be civil war in the US.
    I don't know about civil war, but the people will be entitled to use the minimum action necessary to prevent the end of democracy. A general strike, a blockade of the White House, a refusal to pay taxes could be starters.

    I don't think it'll be necessary. Trump is setting himself up to be The Opposition. He'll be good at it, and he's entitled to try that and stand next time or have an anointed acolyte.. Override this election? Nah.
  • stodgestodge Posts: 12,741


    I don't think you have much to worry about with side effects. The earlier phase trial of the Pfizer vaccine showed very few side effects and none of them major. The reason they picked the vaccine candidate to take to Phase III is that it had such a benign side effect profile. Remember that "side effects" includes things like having a sore arm, headache, or mild fever for a day or two. Over 40000 people have taken that vaccine and nobody died or had serious complications. Concerns about antibody-enhanced disease will have been allayed by the trial. Obviously the full safety data goes to the regulator before license.

    It will be way, way, safer to take the vaccine than not to take it, or even to postpone taking it, I'm sure.

    (Also remember that some of the people who are trying to worry you about side effects are anti-vaxxers or anti-vax adjacent.)

    --AS

    If you are right (and I'm not disputing it), the licensing will be a formality and it may well be the first groups will be getting the vaccine before Christmas.

    The programme of vaccination, in terms of priority, will hopefully be published before soon so I will know when it's "my turn".

  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 32,735
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 76,274
    edited November 2020
    kle4 said:

    glw said:

    LadyG said:

    rcs1000 said:

    LadyG said:

    623 dead in Italy today; 33,000 new cases.

    Just a few weeks ago the Conte government was winning plaudits for its handling of the virus,

    The long lag between cause and effect means that the damage is usually done long before anyone realises it.
    I can remember when people were saying, on here, that Italy's avoidance of a bad second wave was because "they take it seriously," "they all wear masks", "the horror of the first wave sobered them up, unlike the Brits", and so on, and so forth.

    Turns out that was all bollocks. Their second wave is now worse than ours.
    There was an enormous amount of nonsense written be all sorts of people between July and September that has been proven to be utterly wrong.
    Best to speak nonsense all year round,, that way no one will notice any specific nonsense.

    But on Covid we seem to continually make very firm sounding judgements on nations' responses, without seeming to think about the possibility time will move on.
    Again coming back to swedish eggehead said....start comparing in 2 years time, when we have been through multiple waves. There was all thr articles about aren't eastern Europe doing amazing, now poland running at 50% positivity rates, the Czechs had parties to celebrate eradicating it, Germany, there are 3x the number in ICU as in the UK and they have said track and trace can't really work.

    The one thing we know, unless you can cut yourself from the outside world or you have state sponsored spying on your citizen's, your getting this and it will.be bad.
  • RogerRoger Posts: 18,891
    gealbhan said:

    There’s a lot of belligerence towards Trump from Biden supporters on this blog. I do get why. But it could shut down more rational discussion of the situation?

    I agree with Mike Smithson Our Genial Host. The crunch comes on Dec 14 when electoral college meets and formalises the outcome.

    I don’t think complacency or shrillness and anger, as we have seen from too many Biden supporter, is the way to fight Trumpism and achieve regime change in Washington. So to be on same page, lets calmly decide what we do agree on.

    Scenario 1 Trump needs the EC votes from PA AZ and GA to be president.

    Scenario 2 Trump needs an EC win on Dec 14 to be president.

    It matters not how he does it. If he wins the EC on Dec 14 Trump will remain in office, neither Secret service or Military will remove him, nor will Dems urge their supporters to take up arms, any sort of violence plays straight into Trumps hands. If Trump achieves Scenario 1 or 2, the battle ground will be courts and ballot boxes in the years to come.

    We have had 4 years of Trump, some more of it isn’t the end of the world when compared to actual violence. We agree so far?

    In his favour he has much power to play with, Trump is President with 70% of his party behind him and this could grow under pressure, nearly all his voters still onside too; though arguable what SC would do, Trump feels he’s got a majority there to support him; he has the numbers in the senate to avoid impeachment.

    How does Trump achieve either scenario? What can be big and leftfield to achieve scenario 1 or 2? Not by any of the chaff we have seen from TeamTrump so far in pressers, tweets and law suits. This will get him nowhere. It has to be big and it has to be leftfield. And the first place you will hear about it is announcement at a rally, he saves his big stuff for those. So if he is going to attend a rally, he is going to reveal his hand.

    This result isn’t decided till Dec 14 when electoral college meets and formalises the outcome? If we wished otherwise, truth is Trump had too much support at the election to be blown away, so failing that it needs his concession or a Biden win at the college.

    Sid and Doris....
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,392
    gealbhan said:

    kle4 said:

    gealbhan said:

    There’s a lot of belligerence towards Trump from Biden supporters on this blog. I do get why. But it could shut down more rational discussion of the situation?

    I agree with Mike Smithson Our Genial Host. The crunch comes on Dec 14 when electoral college meets and formalises the outcome.

    I don’t think complacency or shrillness and anger, as we have seen from too many Biden supporter, is the way to fight Trumpism and achieve regime change in Washington. So to be on same page, lets calmly decide what we do agree on.

    Scenario 1 Trump needs the EC votes from PA AZ and GA to be president.

    Scenario 2 Trump needs an EC win on Dec 14 to be president.

    It matters not how he does it. If he wins the EC on Dec 14 Trump will remain in office, neither Secret service or Military will remove him, nor will Dems urge their supporters to take up arms, any sort of violence plays straight into Trumps hands. If Trump achieves Scenario 1 or 2, the battle ground will be courts and ballot boxes in the years to come.

    We have had 4 years of Trump, some more of it isn’t the end of the world when compared to actual violence. We agree so far?

    In his favour he has much power to play with, Trump is President with 70% of his party behind him and this could grow under pressure, nearly all his voters still onside too; though arguable what SC would do, Trump feels he’s got a majority there to support him; he has the numbers in the senate to avoid impeachment.

    How does Trump achieve either scenario? What can be big and leftfield to achieve scenario 1 or 2? Not by any of the chaff we have seen from TeamTrump so far in pressers, tweets and law suits. This will get him nowhere. It has to be big and it has to be leftfield. And the first place you will hear about it is announcement at a rally, he saves his big stuff for those. So if he is going to attend a rally, he is going to reveal his hand.

    This result isn’t decided till Dec 14 when electoral college meets and formalises the outcome? If we wished otherwise, truth is Trump had too much support at the election to be blown away, so failing that it needs his concession or a Biden win at the college.

    Some of the belligerence you mention is when people ignore the trivial or meritless legal challenges made by Trump as if it is of no consequence to 'claims' of widespread irregularity without evidence.

    And what counts as a Biden supporter in this context? Certainly I very much wanted Biden to win, buy if there is evidence he 'won' due to cheating I would at once say Trump should be President, so preferring Biden doesn't mean anthing when assessing what should happen post election.
    To be honest, I explained he’s yet to come out with anything other than desperately trivial and legally meritless. But without the concession the procedure has to wait till December 14th to be over, in order to have the people onside who can remove him. And if he does pull it off on Dec 14th, they won’t.

    I don’t want to be rude or anything, but the mistake many posting here are making, You are thinking with a faith in democracy to win through, that nice guys win, you are not thinking like a gangster. You need to channel your inner Constantine and the shenanigans at the Council of Nicaea. Where the Emperor strode around like a mafia boss. It shaped Christianity but its not argued much anymore exactly how.
    I don't know how you arrived at that conclusion as it certainly is not from my words. I don't think people can be complacent about what Trump may attempt, even though I don't expect it to succeed. I absolutely believe it is not enough to want or believe in a better or just good world, that you have to fight for it, figuratively. That doesn't mean I rate Trump's chances the same as you.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,709
    gealbhan said:

    There’s a lot of belligerence towards Trump from Biden supporters on this blog. I do get why. But it could shut down more rational discussion of the situation?

    I agree with Mike Smithson Our Genial Host. The crunch comes on Dec 14 when electoral college meets and formalises the outcome.

    I don’t think complacency or shrillness and anger, as we have seen from too many Biden supporter, is the way to fight Trumpism and achieve regime change in Washington. So to be on same page, lets calmly decide what we do agree on.

    Scenario 1 Trump needs the EC votes from PA AZ and GA to be president.

    Scenario 2 Trump needs an EC win on Dec 14 to be president.

    It matters not how he does it. If he wins the EC on Dec 14 Trump will remain in office, neither Secret service or Military will remove him, nor will Dems urge their supporters to take up arms, any sort of violence plays straight into Trumps hands. If Trump achieves Scenario 1 or 2, the battle ground will be courts and ballot boxes in the years to come.

    We have had 4 years of Trump, some more of it isn’t the end of the world when compared to actual violence. We agree so far?

    In his favour he has much power to play with, Trump is President with 70% of his party behind him and this could grow under pressure, nearly all his voters still onside too; though arguable what SC would do, Trump feels he’s got a majority there to support him; he has the numbers in the senate to avoid impeachment.

    How does Trump achieve either scenario? What can be big and leftfield to achieve scenario 1 or 2? Not by any of the chaff we have seen from TeamTrump so far in pressers, tweets and law suits. This will get him nowhere. It has to be big and it has to be leftfield. And the first place you will hear about it is announcement at a rally, he saves his big stuff for those. So if he is going to attend a rally, he is going to reveal his hand.

    This result isn’t decided till Dec 14 when electoral college meets and formalises the outcome? If we wished otherwise, truth is Trump had too much support at the election to be blown away, so failing that it needs his concession or a Biden win at the college.

    The PMs of the UK, Canada and India and Israel and and Australia and New Zealand and Italy and Ireland, the President of France and the Chancellor of Germany and the only living Republican ex President George W Bush and Mitt Romney, the last GOP nominee before Trump have all recognised Biden as President.

    It is not going to happen, he does not have the votes to overturn the result in Pennsylvania or Arizona and the Biden electors will stick with him on Dec 14 and Trump will then have to concede or be evicted in January
  • @RochdalePioneers
    FPT - Re Trump 'Plan'

    Tony Schwarz who ghost-wrote The Art of the Deal for Trump was interviewed by Evan Davis on R4 earlier this evening. He basically answered your question for you.

    There is no plan, just a horror of losing and determination to deny it as long as possible.

    Appreciated. Trump and his inner cabal are morons. However, as he IS the president and wants to stay President. And the entire GOP leadership aren't morons. So there will be a plan even if it isn't his.

    As others elude to above, the Electoral College has to be the target. Doesn't matter what people think they voted for, they're voting for Electors. Who don't even have to represent their views.
    If the GoP Leadership has a plan it is to let it all play out. Wait for the EC to do its job, and take it from there. Trump will decide himself when it is time to fold. They can't influence that and it would be pointless to try.

    I don't see the ECs playing fast and loose with the electorate. What's to gain? Everything to lose.
  • geoffwgeoffw Posts: 8,092
    LadyG said:

    glw said:

    LadyG said:

    rcs1000 said:

    LadyG said:

    623 dead in Italy today; 33,000 new cases.

    Just a few weeks ago the Conte government was winning plaudits for its handling of the virus,

    The long lag between cause and effect means that the damage is usually done long before anyone realises it.
    I can remember when people were saying, on here, that Italy's avoidance of a bad second wave was because "they take it seriously," "they all wear masks", "the horror of the first wave sobered them up, unlike the Brits", and so on, and so forth.

    Turns out that was all bollocks. Their second wave is now worse than ours.
    There was an enormous amount of nonsense written by all sorts of people between July and September that has been proven to be utterly wrong.
    IF we get effective vaccines quickly all those praising Sweden (including myself) will possibly look quite foolish.

    The logic of the Swedish approach was that vaccines would take ages, and might never arrive. Hmm.
    The Swedes too have signed up to the EU vaccine deal with AstraZeneca among others.

  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 76,274
    edited November 2020
    LadyG said:

    glw said:

    LadyG said:

    rcs1000 said:

    LadyG said:

    623 dead in Italy today; 33,000 new cases.

    Just a few weeks ago the Conte government was winning plaudits for its handling of the virus,

    The long lag between cause and effect means that the damage is usually done long before anyone realises it.
    I can remember when people were saying, on here, that Italy's avoidance of a bad second wave was because "they take it seriously," "they all wear masks", "the horror of the first wave sobered them up, unlike the Brits", and so on, and so forth.

    Turns out that was all bollocks. Their second wave is now worse than ours.
    There was an enormous amount of nonsense written by all sorts of people between July and September that has been proven to be utterly wrong.
    IF we get effective vaccines quickly all those praising Sweden (including myself) will possibly look quite foolish.

    The logic of the Swedish approach was that vaccines would take ages, and might never arrive. Hmm.
    Swedish egghead said 2 years was an optimistic time scale. It will at best end up being 18 months in the UK, where our government look like they have done extremely well on vaccine procurement. So not out by that much.

    Many countries it will be at least 2 year, maybe 3, maybe more if pfizer is the only working one.

    The Swedes have been candid about their biggest mistake, not protecting care homes. That is what has caused a big bulk of the deaths.
  • SandyRentoolSandyRentool Posts: 20,393
    This evening's Covanecdotes:

    1. One of our neighbours youngest child self isolating after a classmate tested positive. Under the rules, the rest of the family can carry on as normal. Bizarre.

    2. Friend of Wor Lass disclosed that she's had Long Covid for over 6 months. Normally fit and well, just totally lacking in energy.

  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,768

    LadyG said:

    glw said:

    LadyG said:

    rcs1000 said:

    LadyG said:

    623 dead in Italy today; 33,000 new cases.

    Just a few weeks ago the Conte government was winning plaudits for its handling of the virus,

    The long lag between cause and effect means that the damage is usually done long before anyone realises it.
    I can remember when people were saying, on here, that Italy's avoidance of a bad second wave was because "they take it seriously," "they all wear masks", "the horror of the first wave sobered them up, unlike the Brits", and so on, and so forth.

    Turns out that was all bollocks. Their second wave is now worse than ours.
    There was an enormous amount of nonsense written by all sorts of people between July and September that has been proven to be utterly wrong.
    IF we get effective vaccines quickly all those praising Sweden (including myself) will possibly look quite foolish.

    The logic of the Swedish approach was that vaccines would take ages, and might never arrive. Hmm.
    Swedish egghead said 2 years was an optimistic time scale. It will at best end up being 18 months in the UK, where our government look like they have done extremely well on vaccine procurement. So not out by that much. Many countries it will be at least 2 year, maybe 3, maybe more if pfizer is the only working one.
    I think egg head will turn out to be wrong: simply the economic rationale for doing this really quickly is enormous.
  • alex_alex_ Posts: 7,518
    How long before Trump notices the "previous President" comment by Johnson and explodes? Not that i have anything but contempt for Trump, but sounds like a major gaffe by Johnson to me. Firstly Trump isn't a previous President, and what's more i don't think Americans ever refer to their President in this way (once a President, always a President).

    Although maybe it WAS actually deliberate, and Johnson thinks it will help his popularity in the UK. Which it may well do. But i still think it was probably a slip of the tongue.
  • geoffwgeoffw Posts: 8,092
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,392
    rcs1000 said:

    LadyG said:

    glw said:

    LadyG said:

    rcs1000 said:

    LadyG said:

    623 dead in Italy today; 33,000 new cases.

    Just a few weeks ago the Conte government was winning plaudits for its handling of the virus,

    The long lag between cause and effect means that the damage is usually done long before anyone realises it.
    I can remember when people were saying, on here, that Italy's avoidance of a bad second wave was because "they take it seriously," "they all wear masks", "the horror of the first wave sobered them up, unlike the Brits", and so on, and so forth.

    Turns out that was all bollocks. Their second wave is now worse than ours.
    There was an enormous amount of nonsense written by all sorts of people between July and September that has been proven to be utterly wrong.
    IF we get effective vaccines quickly all those praising Sweden (including myself) will possibly look quite foolish.

    The logic of the Swedish approach was that vaccines would take ages, and might never arrive. Hmm.
    Swedish egghead said 2 years was an optimistic time scale. It will at best end up being 18 months in the UK, where our government look like they have done extremely well on vaccine procurement. So not out by that much. Many countries it will be at least 2 year, maybe 3, maybe more if pfizer is the only working one.
    I think egg head will turn out to be wrong: simply the economic rationale for doing this really quickly is enormous.
    It may not always be efficient, but sometimes throwing money at the problem really does work.
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 31,274
    HYUFD said:

    gealbhan said:

    There’s a lot of belligerence towards Trump from Biden supporters on this blog. I do get why. But it could shut down more rational discussion of the situation?

    I agree with Mike Smithson Our Genial Host. The crunch comes on Dec 14 when electoral college meets and formalises the outcome.

    I don’t think complacency or shrillness and anger, as we have seen from too many Biden supporter, is the way to fight Trumpism and achieve regime change in Washington. So to be on same page, lets calmly decide what we do agree on.

    Scenario 1 Trump needs the EC votes from PA AZ and GA to be president.

    Scenario 2 Trump needs an EC win on Dec 14 to be president.

    It matters not how he does it. If he wins the EC on Dec 14 Trump will remain in office, neither Secret service or Military will remove him, nor will Dems urge their supporters to take up arms, any sort of violence plays straight into Trumps hands. If Trump achieves Scenario 1 or 2, the battle ground will be courts and ballot boxes in the years to come.

    We have had 4 years of Trump, some more of it isn’t the end of the world when compared to actual violence. We agree so far?

    In his favour he has much power to play with, Trump is President with 70% of his party behind him and this could grow under pressure, nearly all his voters still onside too; though arguable what SC would do, Trump feels he’s got a majority there to support him; he has the numbers in the senate to avoid impeachment.

    How does Trump achieve either scenario? What can be big and leftfield to achieve scenario 1 or 2? Not by any of the chaff we have seen from TeamTrump so far in pressers, tweets and law suits. This will get him nowhere. It has to be big and it has to be leftfield. And the first place you will hear about it is announcement at a rally, he saves his big stuff for those. So if he is going to attend a rally, he is going to reveal his hand.

    This result isn’t decided till Dec 14 when electoral college meets and formalises the outcome? If we wished otherwise, truth is Trump had too much support at the election to be blown away, so failing that it needs his concession or a Biden win at the college.

    The PMs of the UK, Canada and India and Israel and and Australia and New Zealand and Italy and Ireland, the President of France and the Chancellor of Germany and the only living Republican ex President George W Bush and Mitt Romney, the last GOP nominee before Trump have all recognised Biden as President.

    It is not going to happen, he does not have the votes to overturn the result in Pennsylvania or Arizona and the Biden electors will stick with him on Dec 14 and Trump will then have to concede or be evicted in January
    Eviction please, it will be much more fun to watch.

    https://twitter.com/PickardJE/status/1324464485910937601?s=20
  • rcs1000 said:

    LadyG said:

    glw said:

    LadyG said:

    rcs1000 said:

    LadyG said:

    623 dead in Italy today; 33,000 new cases.

    Just a few weeks ago the Conte government was winning plaudits for its handling of the virus,

    The long lag between cause and effect means that the damage is usually done long before anyone realises it.
    I can remember when people were saying, on here, that Italy's avoidance of a bad second wave was because "they take it seriously," "they all wear masks", "the horror of the first wave sobered them up, unlike the Brits", and so on, and so forth.

    Turns out that was all bollocks. Their second wave is now worse than ours.
    There was an enormous amount of nonsense written by all sorts of people between July and September that has been proven to be utterly wrong.
    IF we get effective vaccines quickly all those praising Sweden (including myself) will possibly look quite foolish.

    The logic of the Swedish approach was that vaccines would take ages, and might never arrive. Hmm.
    Swedish egghead said 2 years was an optimistic time scale. It will at best end up being 18 months in the UK, where our government look like they have done extremely well on vaccine procurement. So not out by that much. Many countries it will be at least 2 year, maybe 3, maybe more if pfizer is the only working one.
    I think egg head will turn out to be wrong: simply the economic rationale for doing this really quickly is enormous.
    But there is only so much manufacturing capacity, plus with pfizer jab the super cold storage, the requirement for 2 jabs. I am absolutely ready to find i don't get mine until late summer / autumn next year.
This discussion has been closed.