Any journalist worth their salt sharing a story like this should have seen the data. They're making it clear they haven't.
This is gossip. Uninformed, unintelligent, dangerous, antivax gossip. Not reporting of scientific data.
I tend to agree. But I am not 100% sure. Handelsblatt IS a respected paper. Like the FT. They will know the personal and global consequences if they've got this wrong. It is not the Daily Express.
The reference to Bild to back them up makes me think it is desperate bullshit. But the reference to the health official with data being so explicit (virtually no efficacy in over 60s) does give me pause.
If it is true - IF IF IF IF - it is a calamity. Especially for the UK, but also the world in general.
Single, un-named source, no data presented (or even seen by the journo), it’s not correct. Don’t get fooled by the bullshit. The mhra are not idiots, and have seen all the trial data, and authorised for use. That’s enough for me.
The MHRA authorised for use because its better than nothing and we are in the middle of a crisis here in the UK.
All the data the MHRA saw though was too little to come to any conclusion about over 65 efficacy however. Its perfectly possible that there is now additional trial data showing poor response for older people. At that point it becomes sensible to optimise your vaccination a strategy with the best vaccine reserved for those most at risk and the less effective one for everyone else.
Then make the data public so everyone can see it. It's put up or shut up time.
Yes. Obviously everyone would be hugely disappointed and worried if it is accurate, but people need to know - if the story was important enough to break, it was important enough to include the proof along with it, and the journalists had no reason to break only half a story by publishing a claim on its own.
Ok, I'm not a journalists, but some stories you surely need to rely on more than your source's word, even if they are a really good source?
As I understand it the good news for the UK is that we've already vaccinated — or are going to vaccinate— most elderly people with the Pfizer rather than the AZ vaccine. So even if there is a problem with the AZ vaccine for older people it wouldn't be a major problem here. It might be if other countries were intending to use it for most of their elderly population.
Any journalist worth their salt sharing a story like this should have seen the data. They're making it clear they haven't.
This is gossip. Uninformed, unintelligent, dangerous, antivax gossip. Not reporting of scientific data.
I tend to agree. But I am not 100% sure. Handelsblatt IS a respected paper. Like the FT. They will know the personal and global consequences if they've got this wrong. It is not the Daily Express.
The reference to Bild to back them up makes me think it is desperate bullshit. But the reference to the health official with data being so explicit (virtually no efficacy in over 60s) does give me pause.
If it is true - IF IF IF IF - it is a calamity. Especially for the UK, but also the world in general.
It's all very All the President's Men. In the end Ben Bradlee had to make a call on how much he trusted Bernstein and Woodward and their sources. He got it right. It could just be the Handelsblatt reporter has a great track record, has broken huge stories before and is insisting that his sources are impeccable. The editor has decided to trust him/her. It looks like a catastrophic error.
Well quite. It all keeps coming back to where this data upon which the near zero efficacy claim is based has come from. Insofar as I'm aware, the only data available by which the efficacy of this vaccine may presently be determined is clinical trial data that is or has already been picked over by the relevant regulators, and the publicly disclosed summary of that tells us the same thing that reputable figures such as Vallance have also been telling us. There is no efficacy value available for older patients, because the trial didn't contain a large enough number of them to make a statistically valid determination; the assumption that the vaccine will be effective in older people therefore rests on the observation of similar immune responses in all age cohorts, and nobody in either British or German officialdom appears to be casting serious doubt on this - except for Handelsblatt's anonymous sources, who claim to have the smoking gun but won't produce it.
That's because it can't possibly exist. This vaccine hasn't been in use for long enough for the additional information necessary to determine efficacy in older patients to have been gathered.
If you are right then Handellsblatt should be closed down, and the journalists jailed. Seriously.
No. Free speech includes the freedom to be wrong.
It is easy to be tolerant of views you agree with.
They're shouting "bomb" in an airport at this stage. If they aren't going to produce the data then this is just bullshit sour grapes from a German newspaper with a pissed off German politician who thinks our success is their failure.
Any journalist worth their salt sharing a story like this should have seen the data. They're making it clear they haven't.
This is gossip. Uninformed, unintelligent, dangerous, antivax gossip. Not reporting of scientific data.
I tend to agree. But I am not 100% sure. Handelsblatt IS a respected paper. Like the FT. They will know the personal and global consequences if they've got this wrong. It is not the Daily Express.
The reference to Bild to back them up makes me think it is desperate bullshit. But the reference to the health official with data being so explicit (virtually no efficacy in over 60s) does give me pause.
If it is true - IF IF IF IF - it is a calamity. Especially for the UK, but also the world in general.
Single, un-named source, no data presented (or even seen by the journo), it’s not correct. Don’t get fooled by the bullshit. The mhra are not idiots, and have seen all the trial data, and authorised for use. That’s enough for me.
The MHRA authorised for use because its better than nothing and we are in the middle of a crisis here in the UK.
All the data the MHRA saw though was too little to come to any conclusion about over 65 efficacy however. Its perfectly possible that there is now additional trial data showing poor response for older people. At that point it becomes sensible to optimise your vaccination a strategy with the best vaccine reserved for those most at risk and the less effective one for everyone else.
Then make the data public so everyone can see it. It's put up or shut up time.
Yes. Obviously everyone would be hugely disappointed and worried if it is accurate, but people need to know - if the story was important enough to break, it was important enough to include the proof along with it, and the journalists had no reason to break only half a story by publishing a claim on its own.
Ok, I'm not a journalists, but some stories you surely need to rely on more than your source's word, even if they are a really good source?
Ideally the data would be made public but I guess for the Germans and the EMA this is an academic exercise as no one there has had the jab. In the UK its much more pressing as so much has been used.
But there's also hundreds of millions of others, including in the EU, who may start to receive it soon, with approval supposedly in days, partial or otherwise.
If it is worth not waiting for the decision, it is worth not waiting on publishing the data, as people all over the world will be waiting on news like this. Not least as it is one of the cheapest vaccines to produce and easiest to store, so may well be a big part of a lot of places' plans.
In that situation, there' s no 'ideally' about sharing proof. Nor in academic for that matter.
Based on everything we have heard about Covid, since more-or-less day one of the nightmare, that's totally unsurprising.
The number under 45 who did not have an underlying condition is even smaller, I think.
Looking at the NHS England hospital figures (and the hospital stats should cover pretty well all Covid deaths for people of working age,) the total number of people who had succumbed to Covid-19 in English hospitals, as of the most recent weekly update (21 January,) was 64,111. Of those, 4,717 (7.4% of the total) were under 60, and of that subset only 486 (0.8% of total deaths) were people under 60 and with no known comorbidity.
So, Covid can get anybody, but if you're reasonably fit and below pensionable age then you'd be extraordinarily unlucky actually to die of it.
So what’s an “underlying condition” and how many people have one or more?
Interview with CEO Pascal Soriot: "The agreement says: we will do our best, there is no obligation on the delivery of doses. False that we are diverting vials to other countries to the detriment of the Union"
Mary Lou McDonald calling for a two-island approach on RTÉ news this evening, to keep Covid out. Can we please make this happen?
Yes please, the CTA should have acted as one from the start wrt border control. We have to secure our common external border with hotel based quarantine for all incoming travellers.
If we could combine that with Taiwan, Australia and New Zealand I'd live with it.
Brexit Bin 🇪🇺 #BrexitReality @BrexitBin Veteran Remainer 🇪🇺 Lives in Germany & GB. Tweets about the #Brexit utopia of #Gammonopolis *Non Partisan* I block Bots•Trolls•Brexidiots•Lexidiots•Covidiots EU & GammonopolisJoined September 2016 26.3K Following 57.1K Followers
Ha! Just noticed that he "blocks Covidiots"...
What's his view of who is a Covidiot - is that a person who believes Covid is real or a person who believes Covid isn't real.
In her last tweet she just says "the story continues"
The worst possible outcome will be if the EMA authorises AZ for under 60s, but just says we don't have enough data for over-60s (and no more than that)
That will leave everyone unsure, and doubting of AZ. I suppose the UK might be able to win back some credibility for AZ if we can prove that our AZ-jabbed oldsters ARE protected, in a couple of weeks, but by then a huge amount of damage will have been done to the credibility of the cheapest, easiest vaccine we have. Perhaps irreversible damage
On the other hand, the journalists will sure HAVE to publish their evidence for the "8%", "under 10%" remarks
Any journalist worth their salt sharing a story like this should have seen the data. They're making it clear they haven't.
This is gossip. Uninformed, unintelligent, dangerous, antivax gossip. Not reporting of scientific data.
I tend to agree. But I am not 100% sure. Handelsblatt IS a respected paper. Like the FT. They will know the personal and global consequences if they've got this wrong. It is not the Daily Express.
The reference to Bild to back them up makes me think it is desperate bullshit. But the reference to the health official with data being so explicit (virtually no efficacy in over 60s) does give me pause.
If it is true - IF IF IF IF - it is a calamity. Especially for the UK, but also the world in general.
Single, un-named source, no data presented (or even seen by the journo), it’s not correct. Don’t get fooled by the bullshit. The mhra are not idiots, and have seen all the trial data, and authorised for use. That’s enough for me.
The MHRA authorised for use because its better than nothing and we are in the middle of a crisis here in the UK.
All the data the MHRA saw though was too little to come to any conclusion about over 65 efficacy however. Its perfectly possible that there is now additional trial data showing poor response for older people. At that point it becomes sensible to optimise your vaccination a strategy with the best vaccine reserved for those most at risk and the less effective one for everyone else.
Then make the data public so everyone can see it. It's put up or shut up time.
Yes. Obviously everyone would be hugely disappointed and worried if it is accurate, but people need to know - if the story was important enough to break, it was important enough to include the proof along with it, and the journalists had no reason to break only half a story by publishing a claim on its own.
Ok, I'm not a journalists, but some stories you surely need to rely on more than your source's word, even if they are a really good source?
As I understand it the good news for the UK is that we've already vaccinated — or are going to vaccinate— most elderly people with the Pfizer rather than the AZ vaccine. So even if there is a problem with the AZ vaccine for older people it wouldn't be a major problem here. It might be if other countries were intending to use it for most of their elderly population.
If the paper is right all a lot of people will hear is that it does not work, so the worry is people may refuse AZ, but if they are right we need to know.
The problem is how many people globally have heard the story as 'it does not work' because this 'very dull paper' couldn't wait a few days to hear the decision of the regulators, even if they are wrong?
This is why Covid-19 won't be as serious in poor countries, because they have far fewer older people.
Two generations ago, COVID might have passed through the world unnoticed. One generation barely noticed.
The cohort that it affects most severely hardly existed before, both in terms of age and disability. Most of those people were simply not around for COVID to harvest. A brutal observation but true.
That's fundamentally not true.
A couple of generations ago we did not have the medical knowledge and technology that is being used in hospitals to keep younger people who have been hospitalised alive.
If Covid had struck us many decades ago the fatality rate would have been much higher. This is why preventing the hospitals from being overwhelmed is such a big deal.
We also did not have the technology or produce the wealth to support people of any age with underlying conditions. Those people mostly simply passed, sadly.
The people who covid targets, both old and younger, did not exist two generations ago. They couldn't.
Like so much of what you say, this is innumerate nonsense. What do you think life expectancy was "two generations" ago? We're not talking about the middle ages. Were there no 80+ year old grannies with a propensity to get chest infections? (My 101 year old great grandmother would have disagreed.) No old obese diabetics?
You just make up statistics. You aren't to be trusted on facts.
I'm going to move to Scotland. Decision made today. I don't have any particular region in mind, though, so would love your input on locations to help me narrow things down.
Easy access to the highlands is a must, so I'm ruling out Borders/Dumfries/Ayrshire. I like to cycle a bit, so if there's any place with lots of long-distance cycle paths that would be great. Things like segregated cycle ways next to dual carriageways are fine but I don't want to be forced to wobble along the kerb of a narrow 60mph road. I don't really need much access to cities since I work from home and I'm more into books than theatre. I'm fine with the wind and rain and dark winters and midges. Connectivity in terms of broadband is important, and in terms of parcel delivery without having to pay extra is a nice to have (not sure if that is an issue any more?)
Anything else I haven't mentioned that I should be thinking about?
I'm biased but I'd say the Greater Glasgow area is best for the highlands, several pleasant wee towns north of Glasgow that are literally less than an hour from the highlands proper. I believe cycle routes are getting more and more developed but I haven't done much being a lazy barsteward, and none at all since my bike was nicked. Pretty sure broadband would be ok in that area but it definitely drops off the farther north and west you go.
any where with a low midge count.
I'd say close to the coast, perhaps West if you are a gardener, with prevailing wind to help with midges maybe.
The place where Boris went on holiday looked good.
Or a lot of people move to the Islands to build a house. If you want to build it is much easier in open country in Scotland than England and plots are reasonable prices, but the authorities tend to be quite precious about their foursquare windows in one and half stories, at least in the country.
Large areas of Scotland still have light traffic, so road cycling is quite practical.
If it works like around here, then you want eg former pit railways or similar for cycle trails.
Perth strikes me as lovely. Big enough to be interesting, small enough to escape. Close to the Highlands and close enough to the central belt. It is a lovely medium sized town. Top choice for me if I moved above the border.
I'm going to move to Scotland. Decision made today. I don't have any particular region in mind, though, so would love your input on locations to help me narrow things down.
Easy access to the highlands is a must, so I'm ruling out Borders/Dumfries/Ayrshire. I like to cycle a bit, so if there's any place with lots of long-distance cycle paths that would be great. Things like segregated cycle ways next to dual carriageways are fine but I don't want to be forced to wobble along the kerb of a narrow 60mph road. I don't really need much access to cities since I work from home and I'm more into books than theatre. I'm fine with the wind and rain and dark winters and midges. Connectivity in terms of broadband is important, and in terms of parcel delivery without having to pay extra is a nice to have (not sure if that is an issue any more?)
Anything else I haven't mentioned that I should be thinking about?
I'm biased but I'd say the Greater Glasgow area is best for the highlands, several pleasant wee towns north of Glasgow that are literally less than an hour from the highlands proper. I believe cycle routes are getting more and more developed but I haven't done much being a lazy barsteward, and none at all since my bike was nicked. Pretty sure broadband would be ok in that area but it definitely drops off the farther north and west you go.
any where with a low midge count.
I'd say close to the coast, perhaps West if you are a gardener, with prevailing wind to help with midges maybe.
The place where Boris went on holiday looked good.
Or a lot of people move to the Islands to build a house. If you want to build it is much easier in open country in Scotland than England and plots are reasonable prices, but the authorities tend to be quite precious about their foursquare windows in one and half stories, at least in the country.
Large areas of Scotland still have light traffic, so road cycling is quite practical.
If it works like around here, then you want eg former pit railways or similar for cycle trails.
Perth strikes me as lovely. Big enough to be interesting, small enough to escape. Close to the Highlands and close enough to the central belt. It is a lovely medium sized town. Top choice for me if I moved above the border.
Pitlochry would be a better choice in that region of Scotland
Pitgrockly is full of tourist coaches, tat shops and caravans. Avoid.
Perth is fine. It even has some culture, although not all parts are great and it has expanded significantly in the last 20 years. Avoid anywhere on the flood plain (obviously).
Aberfeldy is better than Pitgrockly but you have to share it with Ms Rowling.
Flatlander, don't you think it ironic that you are advising MB to avoid the flatlands (and presumably flatlanders)?
My daily exercise yesterday covered 17km and Strava informs me that the elevation gain was all of 3m. I suspect that might be 3m too many.
However, that isn't really by choice, but circumstances. I'd much prefer that the elevation gain was nearer 914m. I'm familiar with most of Perthshire and even went to school there for a short while.
Always fancied moving there but the anti-English nonsense (and don't believe any Nat that tells you there isn't any) is a bit off-putting.
Mary Lou McDonald calling for a two-island approach on RTÉ news this evening, to keep Covid out. Can we please make this happen?
Yes please, the CTA should have acted as one from the start wrt border control. We have to secure our common external border with hotel based quarantine for all incoming travellers.
If we could combine that with Taiwan, Australia and New Zealand I'd live with it.
I'm sure they'd love open borders with 20k cases a day.
This is why Covid-19 won't be as serious in poor countries, because they have far fewer older people.
Two generations ago, COVID might have passed through the world unnoticed. One generation barely noticed.
The cohort that it affects most severely hardly existed before, both in terms of age and disability. Most of those people were simply not around for COVID to harvest. A brutal observation but true.
That's fundamentally not true.
A couple of generations ago we did not have the medical knowledge and technology that is being used in hospitals to keep younger people who have been hospitalised alive.
If Covid had struck us many decades ago the fatality rate would have been much higher. This is why preventing the hospitals from being overwhelmed is such a big deal.
We also did not have the technology or produce the wealth to support people of any age with underlying conditions. Those people mostly simply passed, sadly.
The people who covid targets, both old and younger, did not exist two generations ago. They couldn't.
Like so much of what you say, this is innumerate nonsense. What do you think life expectancy was "two generations" ago? We're not talking about the middle ages. Were there no 80+ year old grannies with a propensity to get chest infections? (My 101 year old great grandmother would have disagreed.) No old obese diabetics?
You just make up statistics. You aren't to be trusted on facts.
In her last tweet she just says "the story continues"
The worst possible outcome will be if the EMA authorises AZ for under 60s, but just says we don't have enough data for over-60s (and no more than that)
That will leave everyone unsure, and doubting of AZ. I suppose the UK might be able to win back some credibility for AZ if we can prove that our AZ-jabbed oldsters ARE protected, in a couple of weeks, but by then a huge amount of damage will have been done to the credibility of the cheapest, easiest vaccine we have. Perhaps irreversible damage
On the other hand, the journalists will sure HAVE to publish their evidence for the "8%", "under 10%" remarks
I actually think both the EU and US are awaiting real data from the UK, which we will start getting in a couple of weeks.
Interview with CEO Pascal Soriot: "The agreement says: we will do our best, there is no obligation on the delivery of doses. False that we are diverting vials to other countries to the detriment of the Union"
Mary Lou McDonald calling for a two-island approach on RTÉ news this evening, to keep Covid out. Can we please make this happen?
Yes please, the CTA should have acted as one from the start wrt border control. We have to secure our common external border with hotel based quarantine for all incoming travellers.
If we could combine that with Taiwan, Australia and New Zealand I'd live with it.
I'm sure they'd love open borders with 20k cases a day.
Yes, obviously we'd have to eliminate the virus domestically first. Given that these things take months to negotiate, we might have done it by then.
But the point is, we should create a bubble with countries with decent winter weather and good beaches, not just Ireland.
Any journalist worth their salt sharing a story like this should have seen the data. They're making it clear they haven't.
This is gossip. Uninformed, unintelligent, dangerous, antivax gossip. Not reporting of scientific data.
I tend to agree. But I am not 100% sure. Handelsblatt IS a respected paper. Like the FT. They will know the personal and global consequences if they've got this wrong. It is not the Daily Express.
The reference to Bild to back them up makes me think it is desperate bullshit. But the reference to the health official with data being so explicit (virtually no efficacy in over 60s) does give me pause.
If it is true - IF IF IF IF - it is a calamity. Especially for the UK, but also the world in general.
Single, un-named source, no data presented (or even seen by the journo), it’s not correct. Don’t get fooled by the bullshit. The mhra are not idiots, and have seen all the trial data, and authorised for use. That’s enough for me.
The MHRA authorised for use because its better than nothing and we are in the middle of a crisis here in the UK.
All the data the MHRA saw though was too little to come to any conclusion about over 65 efficacy however. Its perfectly possible that there is now additional trial data showing poor response for older people. At that point it becomes sensible to optimise your vaccination a strategy with the best vaccine reserved for those most at risk and the less effective one for everyone else.
Then make the data public so everyone can see it. It's put up or shut up time.
Yes. Obviously everyone would be hugely disappointed and worried if it is accurate, but people need to know - if the story was important enough to break, it was important enough to include the proof along with it, and the journalists had no reason to break only half a story by publishing a claim on its own.
Ok, I'm not a journalists, but some stories you surely need to rely on more than your source's word, even if they are a really good source?
Ideally the data would be made public but I guess for the Germans and the EMA this is an academic exercise as no one there has had the jab. In the UK its much more pressing as so much has been used.
But there's also hundreds of millions of others, including in the EU, who may start to receive it soon, with approval supposedly in days, partial or otherwise.
If it is worth not waiting for the decision, it is worthy not waiting on publishing the data, as people all over the world will be waiting on news like this. Not least as it is one of the cheapest vaccines to produce and easiest to store, so may well be a big part of a lot of places' plans.
In that situation, there' s no 'ideally' about sharing proof. Nor in academic for that matter.
I guess their justification will be that its still perfectly good for under 60s to use as soon as it becomes available but over 60s need to wait for the good stuff. In the end a slight delay in vaccinating everyone but not critical. More of a problem for anywhere that was immunising lots of over 70s with it however 🙁
Based on everything we have heard about Covid, since more-or-less day one of the nightmare, that's totally unsurprising.
The number under 45 who did not have an underlying condition is even smaller, I think.
Looking at the NHS England hospital figures (and the hospital stats should cover pretty well all Covid deaths for people of working age,) the total number of people who had succumbed to Covid-19 in English hospitals, as of the most recent weekly update (21 January,) was 64,111. Of those, 4,717 (7.4% of the total) were under 60, and of that subset only 486 (0.8% of total deaths) were people under 60 and with no known comorbidity.
So, Covid can get anybody, but if you're reasonably fit and below pensionable age then you'd be extraordinarily unlucky actually to die of it.
So what’s an “underlying condition” and how many people have one or more?
Asthma, diabetes, cold, heart disease. And probably not that severe. The image some have is of very overweight, obviously ill people, but that is not how it is defined. I’m pretty sure if I died of Covid my very mild asthma would be on the list, as would my leukaemia (8 years in remission).
Any journalist worth their salt sharing a story like this should have seen the data. They're making it clear they haven't.
This is gossip. Uninformed, unintelligent, dangerous, antivax gossip. Not reporting of scientific data.
I tend to agree. But I am not 100% sure. Handelsblatt IS a respected paper. Like the FT. They will know the personal and global consequences if they've got this wrong. It is not the Daily Express.
The reference to Bild to back them up makes me think it is desperate bullshit. But the reference to the health official with data being so explicit (virtually no efficacy in over 60s) does give me pause.
If it is true - IF IF IF IF - it is a calamity. Especially for the UK, but also the world in general.
It's all very All the President's Men. In the end Ben Bradlee had to make a call on how much he trusted Bernstein and Woodward and their sources. He got it right. It could just be the Handelsblatt reporter has a great track record, has broken huge stories before and is insisting that his sources are impeccable. The editor has decided to trust him/her. It looks like a catastrophic error.
Well quite. It all keeps coming back to where this data upon which the near zero efficacy claim is based has come from. Insofar as I'm aware, the only data available by which the efficacy of this vaccine may presently be determined is clinical trial data that is or has already been picked over by the relevant regulators, and the publicly disclosed summary of that tells us the same thing that reputable figures such as Vallance have also been telling us. There is no efficacy value available for older patients, because the trial didn't contain a large enough number of them to make a statistically valid determination; the assumption that the vaccine will be effective in older people therefore rests on the observation of similar immune responses in all age cohorts, and nobody in either British or German officialdom appears to be casting serious doubt on this - except for Handelsblatt's anonymous sources, who claim to have the smoking gun but won't produce it.
That's because it can't possibly exist. This vaccine hasn't been in use for long enough for the additional information necessary to determine efficacy in older patients to have been gathered.
If you are right then Handellsblatt should be closed down, and the journalists jailed. Seriously.
No. Free speech includes the freedom to be wrong.
It is easy to be tolerant of views you agree with.
It's a difficult one, isn't it?
Free speech isn't absolute. On the one hand, of course the people writing this stuff are entitled to be wrong. On the other hand, if they'd written an article saying that an unnamed source at the Interior Ministry had disclosed that migrants from such and such a country are ten times more likely to be rapists than the general population (without offering any evidence whatsoever to back the assertion) then would this be allowed to go unchallenged?
People in positions of power have a responsibility for the damage that their loose words can cause. If the US Senate can impeach Trump for inciting insurrection, then the least that can be done in the case of an extraordinarily serious, damaging, corrosive claim like the one being made by this newspaper is to suggest that it might be a good idea if they offered some evidence to back it.
Where would we find ourselves if anybody with a platform could make any entirely baseless claim they liked about anyone or anything, and get away with it?
I'd be very surprised if Johnson survives as leader much beyond early summer. When things start to return to normal there are going to be questions to answer for his appalling mismanagement. The worst number in Europe and one of the worst in the world.
Good riddance to him.
You can't blame Johnson for the fact that we have a combination of the following factors in the UK: one of the highest population densities in the world, large elderly population, high levels of obesity, large numbers of people arriving and leaving from all over the world. All of those were already the case before he became PM.
Taiwan and South Korea have much higher population densities than the UK, South Korea has 15% over 65, the UK 18%, not a huge difference there. And if you think about large numbers of people arriving and leaving we have Singapore and Hong Kong. All of these countries have far, far fewer deaths than the UK. Which leaves us with obesity though I guess New Zealand and Australia are not that different from the UK in this respect? The UK may have a unique combination of these factors but this does not explain how we have nearly 100 times as many deaths as Australia and South Korea and no less than 4000 times as many as New Zealand and Taiwan. More people died in the UK today than in Australia throughout the entire pandemic ffs!
Any journalist worth their salt sharing a story like this should have seen the data. They're making it clear they haven't.
This is gossip. Uninformed, unintelligent, dangerous, antivax gossip. Not reporting of scientific data.
I tend to agree. But I am not 100% sure. Handelsblatt IS a respected paper. Like the FT. They will know the personal and global consequences if they've got this wrong. It is not the Daily Express.
The reference to Bild to back them up makes me think it is desperate bullshit. But the reference to the health official with data being so explicit (virtually no efficacy in over 60s) does give me pause.
If it is true - IF IF IF IF - it is a calamity. Especially for the UK, but also the world in general.
Single, un-named source, no data presented (or even seen by the journo), it’s not correct. Don’t get fooled by the bullshit. The mhra are not idiots, and have seen all the trial data, and authorised for use. That’s enough for me.
The MHRA authorised for use because its better than nothing and we are in the middle of a crisis here in the UK.
All the data the MHRA saw though was too little to come to any conclusion about over 65 efficacy however. Its perfectly possible that there is now additional trial data showing poor response for older people. At that point it becomes sensible to optimise your vaccination a strategy with the best vaccine reserved for those most at risk and the less effective one for everyone else.
Then make the data public so everyone can see it. It's put up or shut up time.
Yes. Especially as it is gaining credence again. This is nightmarish. Just give us the sources and the data, you can't fanny about with global bloody health
Worse than that, it could turn into a stodgy greywash. I'm not saying this is the reality, but I think it's consistent with what's in the public domain.
Suppose OAZ works OK. Overall, the WHO cutoff is about 50% effective, I think, and it works rather better than that. But it's better in the young than the old.
Suppose the sample of old people in the trials is on the low side. I think that's been confirmed. That means that the uncertainty in the effectiveness calculation will be pretty high. Maybe the range does include some horribly low numbers for some subgroup or other. Not as the central estimate, but at the fringe of possibility.
In normal times, I suspect the regulator would say to go away and do the trials properly. That might be justified now. Equally, a "dammit, this is an emergency, if it's safe then jabbing is more useful than not jabbing" might also be justified. Indeed, the UK might be justified in taking a more dammit approach, since our emergency is more acute.
Based on everything we have heard about Covid, since more-or-less day one of the nightmare, that's totally unsurprising.
The number under 45 who did not have an underlying condition is even smaller, I think.
Looking at the NHS England hospital figures (and the hospital stats should cover pretty well all Covid deaths for people of working age,) the total number of people who had succumbed to Covid-19 in English hospitals, as of the most recent weekly update (21 January,) was 64,111. Of those, 4,717 (7.4% of the total) were under 60, and of that subset only 486 (0.8% of total deaths) were people under 60 and with no known comorbidity.
So, Covid can get anybody, but if you're reasonably fit and below pensionable age then you'd be extraordinarily unlucky actually to die of it.
So what’s an “underlying condition” and how many people have one or more?
Around about 40 million people in England have no morbidity according to the Kings Fund. The NHS outlines the conditions on its spreadsheets..
Now we have a vaccine and everybody thinks it's easy. But in April last year, everybody was saying “it's impossible to do a vaccine by the end of the 2020”, or “you're going too fast” or “you're cutting corners”, “you can't do it”, eccetera. Now everybody is saying “you’re too slow”, while before we were “too fast”.
Any journalist worth their salt sharing a story like this should have seen the data. They're making it clear they haven't.
This is gossip. Uninformed, unintelligent, dangerous, antivax gossip. Not reporting of scientific data.
I tend to agree. But I am not 100% sure. Handelsblatt IS a respected paper. Like the FT. They will know the personal and global consequences if they've got this wrong. It is not the Daily Express.
The reference to Bild to back them up makes me think it is desperate bullshit. But the reference to the health official with data being so explicit (virtually no efficacy in over 60s) does give me pause.
If it is true - IF IF IF IF - it is a calamity. Especially for the UK, but also the world in general.
It's all very All the President's Men. In the end Ben Bradlee had to make a call on how much he trusted Bernstein and Woodward and their sources. He got it right. It could just be the Handelsblatt reporter has a great track record, has broken huge stories before and is insisting that his sources are impeccable. The editor has decided to trust him/her. It looks like a catastrophic error.
Well quite. It all keeps coming back to where this data upon which the near zero efficacy claim is based has come from. Insofar as I'm aware, the only data available by which the efficacy of this vaccine may presently be determined is clinical trial data that is or has already been picked over by the relevant regulators, and the publicly disclosed summary of that tells us the same thing that reputable figures such as Vallance have also been telling us. There is no efficacy value available for older patients, because the trial didn't contain a large enough number of them to make a statistically valid determination; the assumption that the vaccine will be effective in older people therefore rests on the observation of similar immune responses in all age cohorts, and nobody in either British or German officialdom appears to be casting serious doubt on this - except for Handelsblatt's anonymous sources, who claim to have the smoking gun but won't produce it.
That's because it can't possibly exist. This vaccine hasn't been in use for long enough for the additional information necessary to determine efficacy in older patients to have been gathered.
If you are right then Handellsblatt should be closed down, and the journalists jailed. Seriously.
No. Free speech includes the freedom to be wrong.
It is easy to be tolerant of views you agree with.
It's a difficult one, isn't it?
Free speech isn't absolute. On the one hand, of course the people writing this stuff are entitled to be wrong. On the other hand, if they'd written an article saying that an unnamed source at the Interior Ministry had disclosed that migrants from such and such a country are ten times more likely to be rapists than the general population (without offering any evidence whatsoever to back the assertion) then would this be allowed to go unchallenged?
People in positions of power have a responsibility for the damage that their loose words can cause. If the US Senate can impeach Trump for inciting insurrection, then the least that can be done in the case of an extraordinarily serious, damaging, corrosive claim like the one being made by this newspaper is to suggest that it might be a good idea if they offered some evidence to back it.
Where would we find ourselves if anybody with a platform could make any entirely baseless claim they liked about anyone or anything, and get away with it?
I don't think it's difficult in this case at all. They did not directly incite a crime, which, besides revealing government secrets and commercial lying, is just about the only criminal limit I'd put on free speech (libel being a civil matter).
The case of Trump is interesting. Personally, I'd just about vote to acquit him on legal grounds, because he didn't directly and unambiguously incite a crime. But it's a much more marginal case than the Handlesblatt one.
Mary Lou McDonald calling for a two-island approach on RTÉ news this evening, to keep Covid out. Can we please make this happen?
Yes please, the CTA should have acted as one from the start wrt border control. We have to secure our common external border with hotel based quarantine for all incoming travellers.
If we could combine that with Taiwan, Australia and New Zealand I'd live with it.
I'm sure they'd love open borders with 20k cases a day.
Yes, obviously we'd have to eliminate the virus domestically first. Given that these things take months to negotiate, we might have done it by then.
But the point is, we should create a bubble with countries with decent winter weather and good beaches, not just Ireland.
Fair enough. Chances are though we'll just leave it to simmer within hospital capacity rather than trying to eliminate it, by reopening things as soon as there's some headroom. If the vaccines are enough to counter the unrestricted R it might die out anyway, but that's not until much later in the year.
Any journalist worth their salt sharing a story like this should have seen the data. They're making it clear they haven't.
This is gossip. Uninformed, unintelligent, dangerous, antivax gossip. Not reporting of scientific data.
I tend to agree. But I am not 100% sure. Handelsblatt IS a respected paper. Like the FT. They will know the personal and global consequences if they've got this wrong. It is not the Daily Express.
The reference to Bild to back them up makes me think it is desperate bullshit. But the reference to the health official with data being so explicit (virtually no efficacy in over 60s) does give me pause.
If it is true - IF IF IF IF - it is a calamity. Especially for the UK, but also the world in general.
It's all very All the President's Men. In the end Ben Bradlee had to make a call on how much he trusted Bernstein and Woodward and their sources. He got it right. It could just be the Handelsblatt reporter has a great track record, has broken huge stories before and is insisting that his sources are impeccable. The editor has decided to trust him/her. It looks like a catastrophic error.
Well quite. It all keeps coming back to where this data upon which the near zero efficacy claim is based has come from. Insofar as I'm aware, the only data available by which the efficacy of this vaccine may presently be determined is clinical trial data that is or has already been picked over by the relevant regulators, and the publicly disclosed summary of that tells us the same thing that reputable figures such as Vallance have also been telling us. There is no efficacy value available for older patients, because the trial didn't contain a large enough number of them to make a statistically valid determination; the assumption that the vaccine will be effective in older people therefore rests on the observation of similar immune responses in all age cohorts, and nobody in either British or German officialdom appears to be casting serious doubt on this - except for Handelsblatt's anonymous sources, who claim to have the smoking gun but won't produce it.
That's because it can't possibly exist. This vaccine hasn't been in use for long enough for the additional information necessary to determine efficacy in older patients to have been gathered.
If you are right then Handellsblatt should be closed down, and the journalists jailed. Seriously.
No. Free speech includes the freedom to be wrong.
It is easy to be tolerant of views you agree with.
It's a difficult one, isn't it?
Free speech isn't absolute. On the one hand, of course the people writing this stuff are entitled to be wrong. On the other hand, if they'd written an article saying that an unnamed source at the Interior Ministry had disclosed that migrants from such and such a country are ten times more likely to be rapists than the general population (without offering any evidence whatsoever to back the assertion) then would this be allowed to go unchallenged?
People in positions of power have a responsibility for the damage that their loose words can cause. If the US Senate can impeach Trump for inciting insurrection, then the least that can be done in the case of an extraordinarily serious, damaging, corrosive claim like the one being made by this newspaper is to suggest that it might be a good idea if they offered some evidence to back it.
Where would we find ourselves if anybody with a platform could make any entirely baseless claim they liked about anyone or anything, and get away with it?
Any journalist worth their salt sharing a story like this should have seen the data. They're making it clear they haven't.
This is gossip. Uninformed, unintelligent, dangerous, antivax gossip. Not reporting of scientific data.
I tend to agree. But I am not 100% sure. Handelsblatt IS a respected paper. Like the FT. They will know the personal and global consequences if they've got this wrong. It is not the Daily Express.
The reference to Bild to back them up makes me think it is desperate bullshit. But the reference to the health official with data being so explicit (virtually no efficacy in over 60s) does give me pause.
If it is true - IF IF IF IF - it is a calamity. Especially for the UK, but also the world in general.
It's all very All the President's Men. In the end Ben Bradlee had to make a call on how much he trusted Bernstein and Woodward and their sources. He got it right. It could just be the Handelsblatt reporter has a great track record, has broken huge stories before and is insisting that his sources are impeccable. The editor has decided to trust him/her. It looks like a catastrophic error.
Well quite. It all keeps coming back to where this data upon which the near zero efficacy claim is based has come from. Insofar as I'm aware, the only data available by which the efficacy of this vaccine may presently be determined is clinical trial data that is or has already been picked over by the relevant regulators, and the publicly disclosed summary of that tells us the same thing that reputable figures such as Vallance have also been telling us. There is no efficacy value available for older patients, because the trial didn't contain a large enough number of them to make a statistically valid determination; the assumption that the vaccine will be effective in older people therefore rests on the observation of similar immune responses in all age cohorts, and nobody in either British or German officialdom appears to be casting serious doubt on this - except for Handelsblatt's anonymous sources, who claim to have the smoking gun but won't produce it.
That's because it can't possibly exist. This vaccine hasn't been in use for long enough for the additional information necessary to determine efficacy in older patients to have been gathered.
If you are right then Handellsblatt should be closed down, and the journalists jailed. Seriously.
Sounds very similar to the reaction in Germany about the FT journalist who was pushing the Wirecard reporting.
Any journalist worth their salt sharing a story like this should have seen the data. They're making it clear they haven't.
This is gossip. Uninformed, unintelligent, dangerous, antivax gossip. Not reporting of scientific data.
I tend to agree. But I am not 100% sure. Handelsblatt IS a respected paper. Like the FT. They will know the personal and global consequences if they've got this wrong. It is not the Daily Express.
The reference to Bild to back them up makes me think it is desperate bullshit. But the reference to the health official with data being so explicit (virtually no efficacy in over 60s) does give me pause.
If it is true - IF IF IF IF - it is a calamity. Especially for the UK, but also the world in general.
It's all very All the President's Men. In the end Ben Bradlee had to make a call on how much he trusted Bernstein and Woodward and their sources. He got it right. It could just be the Handelsblatt reporter has a great track record, has broken huge stories before and is insisting that his sources are impeccable. The editor has decided to trust him/her. It looks like a catastrophic error.
Well quite. It all keeps coming back to where this data upon which the near zero efficacy claim is based has come from. Insofar as I'm aware, the only data available by which the efficacy of this vaccine may presently be determined is clinical trial data that is or has already been picked over by the relevant regulators, and the publicly disclosed summary of that tells us the same thing that reputable figures such as Vallance have also been telling us. There is no efficacy value available for older patients, because the trial didn't contain a large enough number of them to make a statistically valid determination; the assumption that the vaccine will be effective in older people therefore rests on the observation of similar immune responses in all age cohorts, and nobody in either British or German officialdom appears to be casting serious doubt on this - except for Handelsblatt's anonymous sources, who claim to have the smoking gun but won't produce it.
That's because it can't possibly exist. This vaccine hasn't been in use for long enough for the additional information necessary to determine efficacy in older patients to have been gathered.
If you are right then Handellsblatt should be closed down, and the journalists jailed. Seriously.
No. Free speech includes the freedom to be wrong.
It is easy to be tolerant of views you agree with.
It's a difficult one, isn't it?
Free speech isn't absolute. On the one hand, of course the people writing this stuff are entitled to be wrong. On the other hand, if they'd written an article saying that an unnamed source at the Interior Ministry had disclosed that migrants from such and such a country are ten times more likely to be rapists than the general population (without offering any evidence whatsoever to back the assertion) then would this be allowed to go unchallenged?
People in positions of power have a responsibility for the damage that their loose words can cause. If the US Senate can impeach Trump for inciting insurrection, then the least that can be done in the case of an extraordinarily serious, damaging, corrosive claim like the one being made by this newspaper is to suggest that it might be a good idea if they offered some evidence to back it.
Where would we find ourselves if anybody with a platform could make any entirely baseless claim they liked about anyone or anything, and get away with it?
I don't think it's difficult in this case at all. They did not directly incite a crime, which, besides revealing government secrets and commercial lying, is just about the only criminal limit I'd put on free speech (libel being a civil matter).
The case of Trump is interesting. Personally, I'd just about vote to acquit him on legal grounds, because he didn't directly and unambiguously incite a crime. But it's a much more marginal case than the Handlesblatt one.
If the journalists have published an improperly sourced claim, which turns out to be false, because they didn't see the data, yet still went ahead with their inflammatory allegations - several times over - then yes they have crossed the line. Prosecute.
It is difficult to exaggerate the enormity of what Handelsblatt are STILL alleging.
Arguably the most important vaccine in the world has no virtually no effect on the over 60s.
This might explain why they have not retracted or apologised. They believe it is true, because they are being told this by the German Health Ministry, who claim to have data to prove it
Except the German Health Ministry are saying they don't.
I don't believe Handelsblatt - a respected paper - would KEEP repeating this stuff if someone at the German Health Ministry was NOT feeding them this info.
They know it is potentially career-ending: it could cause global anti-vaxxing.
So who is lying? The German politicians? Or have Astra Zeneca fucked up?
Look again at the explanatory Twitter thread from Gregor Wincheski. It specifically refers to the information that caused this fuck up - he specifically refers to the low numbers of 65+ people in the trial as a source of concern. Isn't that a bit of a coincidence, that he also cites the source of the mistake? I suspect he even knew he'd fucked up at that point, he just wanted to brazen it out, so he tried to introduce elements of the truth into the equation.
In her last tweet she just says "the story continues"
The worst possible outcome will be if the EMA authorises AZ for under 60s, but just says we don't have enough data for over-60s (and no more than that)
That will leave everyone unsure, and doubting of AZ. I suppose the UK might be able to win back some credibility for AZ if we can prove that our AZ-jabbed oldsters ARE protected, in a couple of weeks, but by then a huge amount of damage will have been done to the credibility of the cheapest, easiest vaccine we have. Perhaps irreversible damage
On the other hand, the journalists will sure HAVE to publish their evidence for the "8%", "under 10%" remarks
I think the mRNA vaccines are definitely known to be effacious for older patients. In an ideal world we'd have a dual rollout of Pfizer/Moderna for the elderly and infirm with Oxford for the young and fit amongst us in group 10. But we were in the middle of a raging fire in December so the Gov't has taken a punt on some Oxford for the oldies too.
On topic. Brexit IS done. I totally accept this and am not agitating for Rejoin. It's imo losing (and will continue to shed) its heat as a mainstream political issue. But the social, intellectual & cultural divide it carved through the nation will, I fear, be longlasting.
Take me. I'm no Remainiac extremist or Remoaner about what happened. I voted Remain but recognized the democratic necessity to implement the result. Never held any truck with another Referendum. Always a ridiculous notion. Yet I have a new and stubborn identity - Remainer. I am still a Remainer in this sense. As defined against its opposite, Leaver. And it's such a powerful ID.
For example, thinking about moving house, the 1st thing I will check for a prospective area is how it voted in the 2016 EU Referendum. If it's Leave, and especially if it's strongly Leave, I will strike it out without a moment's further thought. Why waste time. Similarly, if I were vibrant enough to be Tinder dating, and I saw a profile which looked great except (oh no) Leaver, that would be it. Swipe left.
And something even more poignant. My son is due to get engaged soon to his sweetheart from Essex (lovely girl) and I'm delighted. But would I be quite so delighted if I had not discovered to my immense relief that she was one of the few people from her part of Essex who had voted Remain? No, I don't believe I would have been. Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't have been all arsey about it, but it would have detracted from things and been both a worry and a disappointment.
I don't say this is a good thing - it isn't - but it is a thing. That's what Brexit has done to this country and its people. The economic hit, the masses of red tape, the loss of precious freedoms is only the half of it.
But surely the point is that Brexit revealed the underlying contours and fissures of our society rather than created them. If Brexit had never happened, you would still have ended up living in one of the Remainiest parts of the UK, and your son would still be courting the Remainiest damsel in Epping Essex. It's all been a gigantic consciousness-raising exercise, if you will.
Any journalist worth their salt sharing a story like this should have seen the data. They're making it clear they haven't.
This is gossip. Uninformed, unintelligent, dangerous, antivax gossip. Not reporting of scientific data.
I tend to agree. But I am not 100% sure. Handelsblatt IS a respected paper. Like the FT. They will know the personal and global consequences if they've got this wrong. It is not the Daily Express.
The reference to Bild to back them up makes me think it is desperate bullshit. But the reference to the health official with data being so explicit (virtually no efficacy in over 60s) does give me pause.
If it is true - IF IF IF IF - it is a calamity. Especially for the UK, but also the world in general.
Single, un-named source, no data presented (or even seen by the journo), it’s not correct. Don’t get fooled by the bullshit. The mhra are not idiots, and have seen all the trial data, and authorised for use. That’s enough for me.
The MHRA authorised for use because its better than nothing and we are in the middle of a crisis here in the UK.
All the data the MHRA saw though was too little to come to any conclusion about over 65 efficacy however. Its perfectly possible that there is now additional trial data showing poor response for older people. At that point it becomes sensible to optimise your vaccination a strategy with the best vaccine reserved for those most at risk and the less effective one for everyone else.
Then make the data public so everyone can see it. It's put up or shut up time.
Yes. Obviously everyone would be hugely disappointed and worried if it is accurate, but people need to know - if the story was important enough to break, it was important enough to include the proof along with it, and the journalists had no reason to break only half a story by publishing a claim on its own.
Ok, I'm not a journalists, but some stories you surely need to rely on more than your source's word, even if they are a really good source?
Ideally the data would be made public but I guess for the Germans and the EMA this is an academic exercise as no one there has had the jab. In the UK its much more pressing as so much has been used.
But there's also hundreds of millions of others, including in the EU, who may start to receive it soon, with approval supposedly in days, partial or otherwise.
If it is worth not waiting for the decision, it is worthy not waiting on publishing the data, as people all over the world will be waiting on news like this. Not least as it is one of the cheapest vaccines to produce and easiest to store, so may well be a big part of a lot of places' plans.
In that situation, there' s no 'ideally' about sharing proof. Nor in academic for that matter.
I guess their justification will be that its still perfectly good for under 60s to use as soon as it becomes available but over 60s need to wait for the good stuff. In the end a slight delay in vaccinating everyone but not critical. More of a problem for anywhere that was immunising lots of over 70s with it however 🙁
Doing the under 60s sooner might actually be better anyway for stopping the pandemic as it should bring down the R rate more quickly.
But the UK contract was signed three months before the European vaccine deal. So with the UK we have had an extra three months to fix all the glitches we experienced. ]
The suggestion we sell to other countries to make more money is not right because we make no profit everywhere.That's the approach we took and we agreed on that. That’s the agreement we have with Oxford University. It's actually even written in a contract we have with Oxford University: that we will be at no profit
Anyway, we didn't commit with the EU, by the way. It's not a commitment we have to Europe: it’s a best effort, we said we are going to make our best effort. The reason why we said that is because Europe at the time wanted to be supplied more or less at the same time as the UK, even though the contract was signed three months later. So we said, “ok, we're going to do our best, we’re going to try, but we cannot commit contractually because we are three months behind UK”.
But the contract with the UK was signed first and the UK, of course, said “you supply us first”, and this is fair enough. This vaccine was developed with the UK government, Oxford and with us as well. As soon as we can, we'll help the EU. I mean, as a company we are half Swedish and half British. So, in fact, we're global, of course, but we are European as much as we are British".
“I think the UK one-dose strategy is absolutely the right way to go, at least for our vaccine.
In her last tweet she just says "the story continues"
The worst possible outcome will be if the EMA authorises AZ for under 60s, but just says we don't have enough data for over-60s (and no more than that)
That will leave everyone unsure, and doubting of AZ. I suppose the UK might be able to win back some credibility for AZ if we can prove that our AZ-jabbed oldsters ARE protected, in a couple of weeks, but by then a huge amount of damage will have been done to the credibility of the cheapest, easiest vaccine we have. Perhaps irreversible damage
On the other hand, the journalists will sure HAVE to publish their evidence for the "8%", "under 10%" remarks
I think the mRNA vaccines are definitely known to be effacious for older patients. In an ideal world we'd have a dual rollout of Pfizer/Moderna for the elderly and infirm with Oxford for the young and fit amongst us in group 10. But we were in the middle of a raging fire in December so the Gov't has taken a punt on some Oxford for the oldies too.
Yes, I think that about right. Desperate times so roll the dice, but how effective AZN is in the elderly after a single dose is not at present something we know for sure.
In her last tweet she just says "the story continues"
The worst possible outcome will be if the EMA authorises AZ for under 60s, but just says we don't have enough data for over-60s (and no more than that)
That will leave everyone unsure, and doubting of AZ. I suppose the UK might be able to win back some credibility for AZ if we can prove that our AZ-jabbed oldsters ARE protected, in a couple of weeks, but by then a huge amount of damage will have been done to the credibility of the cheapest, easiest vaccine we have. Perhaps irreversible damage
On the other hand, the journalists will sure HAVE to publish their evidence for the "8%", "under 10%" remarks
I think the mRNA vaccines are definitely known to be effacious for older patients. In an ideal world we'd have a dual rollout of Pfizer/Moderna for the elderly and infirm with Oxford for the young and fit amongst us in group 10. But we were in the middle of a raging fire in December so the Gov't has taken a punt on some Oxford for the oldies too.
Sorry but the government didn’t. The mhra is independent and approved use. There’s a big difference.
Presumably they're going to have to make sure that the 2,000 VC winners weren't at all racist before they build their statues?
What I find astonishing is that thewy were so desperate to have a dogwhistle for the Brexity voters that they didn't; stop to consider that the GC holders woiuld be just as worthy of consideration as the VC holders.
I have enormous respect for all VC and GC holders, and we owe them a deep dept of gratitude. However, I am not sure about having an individual likeness of each of them dotted around the country like garden gnomes. A beautiful monument like a folly or a woodland style cascade, where the names of recipients can be added (and new ones added as they win these medals) seems more fitting.
That said, I don't really see how this is 'a slap in the face for women' either. I don't think you can slap someone by honouring someone else. I am sure most women, if asked, would be fully behind a scheme to honour the winners of the VC, rather than taking it as a personal insult.
This is why Covid-19 won't be as serious in poor countries, because they have far fewer older people.
Two generations ago, COVID might have passed through the world unnoticed. One generation barely noticed.
The cohort that it affects most severely hardly existed before, both in terms of age and disability. Most of those people were simply not around for COVID to harvest. A brutal observation but true.
That's fundamentally not true.
A couple of generations ago we did not have the medical knowledge and technology that is being used in hospitals to keep younger people who have been hospitalised alive.
If Covid had struck us many decades ago the fatality rate would have been much higher. This is why preventing the hospitals from being overwhelmed is such a big deal.
We also did not have the technology or produce the wealth to support people of any age with underlying conditions. Those people mostly simply passed, sadly.
The people who covid targets, both old and younger, did not exist two generations ago. They couldn't.
You're looking only at the people that current medical technology cannot save from Covid. You're not seeing all the otherwise healthy people who have had their lives saved by the hospital system, but would have died of Covid if it had struck generations ago.
Presumably they're going to have to make sure that the 2,000 VC winners weren't at all racist before they build their statues?
What I find astonishing is that thewy were so desperate to have a dogwhistle for the Brexity voters that they didn't; stop to consider that the GC holders woiuld be just as worthy of consideration as the VC holders.
I have enormous respect for all VC and GC holders, and we owe them a deep dept of gratitude. However, I am not sure about having an individual likeness of each of them dotted around the country like garden gnomes. A beautiful monument like a folly or a woodland style cascade, where the names of recipients can be added (and new ones added as they win these medals) seems more fitting.
That said, I don't really see how this is 'a slap in the face for women' either. I don't think you can slap someone by honouring someone else. I am sure most women, if asked, would be fully behind a scheme to honour the winners of the VC, rather than taking it as a personal insult.
The plans included the GC winners as well and the VCs
Based on everything we have heard about Covid, since more-or-less day one of the nightmare, that's totally unsurprising.
The number under 45 who did not have an underlying condition is even smaller, I think.
Looking at the NHS England hospital figures (and the hospital stats should cover pretty well all Covid deaths for people of working age,) the total number of people who had succumbed to Covid-19 in English hospitals, as of the most recent weekly update (21 January,) was 64,111. Of those, 4,717 (7.4% of the total) were under 60, and of that subset only 486 (0.8% of total deaths) were people under 60 and with no known comorbidity.
So, Covid can get anybody, but if you're reasonably fit and below pensionable age then you'd be extraordinarily unlucky actually to die of it.
So what’s an “underlying condition” and how many people have one or more?
Around about 40 million people in England have no morbidity according to the Kings Fund. The NHS outlines the conditions on its spreadsheets..
That's a pretty solid interview performance from Soriot. This line, in particular, put EU moaning in context:
"Europe is getting 17 percent of this global production in February for a population that is 5 percent of the world population."
It is all very well, but we are European. We didn't get any less European because we left the European Union. Europe is a geographical expression. Half of Russia is also European.
However, as a former Remainer who loathes Boris and is lapping up his xenophobic, populist border policy, l am insulted. I have made my last Kirstie Allsop, sub- Blue Peter nick-nack creation out of cardboard, sticky back plastic, coat hangers and washing up liquid bottles.
Any journalist worth their salt sharing a story like this should have seen the data. They're making it clear they haven't.
This is gossip. Uninformed, unintelligent, dangerous, antivax gossip. Not reporting of scientific data.
I tend to agree. But I am not 100% sure. Handelsblatt IS a respected paper. Like the FT. They will know the personal and global consequences if they've got this wrong. It is not the Daily Express.
The reference to Bild to back them up makes me think it is desperate bullshit. But the reference to the health official with data being so explicit (virtually no efficacy in over 60s) does give me pause.
If it is true - IF IF IF IF - it is a calamity. Especially for the UK, but also the world in general.
It's all very All the President's Men. In the end Ben Bradlee had to make a call on how much he trusted Bernstein and Woodward and their sources. He got it right. It could just be the Handelsblatt reporter has a great track record, has broken huge stories before and is insisting that his sources are impeccable. The editor has decided to trust him/her. It looks like a catastrophic error.
Well quite. It all keeps coming back to where this data upon which the near zero efficacy claim is based has come from. Insofar as I'm aware, the only data available by which the efficacy of this vaccine may presently be determined is clinical trial data that is or has already been picked over by the relevant regulators, and the publicly disclosed summary of that tells us the same thing that reputable figures such as Vallance have also been telling us. There is no efficacy value available for older patients, because the trial didn't contain a large enough number of them to make a statistically valid determination; the assumption that the vaccine will be effective in older people therefore rests on the observation of similar immune responses in all age cohorts, and nobody in either British or German officialdom appears to be casting serious doubt on this - except for Handelsblatt's anonymous sources, who claim to have the smoking gun but won't produce it.
That's because it can't possibly exist. This vaccine hasn't been in use for long enough for the additional information necessary to determine efficacy in older patients to have been gathered.
If you are right then Handellsblatt should be closed down, and the journalists jailed. Seriously.
No. Free speech includes the freedom to be wrong.
It is easy to be tolerant of views you agree with.
It's a difficult one, isn't it?
Free speech isn't absolute. On the one hand, of course the people writing this stuff are entitled to be wrong. On the other hand, if they'd written an article saying that an unnamed source at the Interior Ministry had disclosed that migrants from such and such a country are ten times more likely to be rapists than the general population (without offering any evidence whatsoever to back the assertion) then would this be allowed to go unchallenged?
People in positions of power have a responsibility for the damage that their loose words can cause. If the US Senate can impeach Trump for inciting insurrection, then the least that can be done in the case of an extraordinarily serious, damaging, corrosive claim like the one being made by this newspaper is to suggest that it might be a good idea if they offered some evidence to back it.
Where would we find ourselves if anybody with a platform could make any entirely baseless claim they liked about anyone or anything, and get away with it?
I don't think it's difficult in this case at all. They did not directly incite a crime, which, besides revealing government secrets and commercial lying, is just about the only criminal limit I'd put on free speech (libel being a civil matter).
The case of Trump is interesting. Personally, I'd just about vote to acquit him on legal grounds, because he didn't directly and unambiguously incite a crime. But it's a much more marginal case than the Handlesblatt one.
If the journalists have published an improperly sourced claim, which turns out to be false, because they didn't see the data, yet still went ahead with their inflammatory allegations - several times over - then yes they have crossed the line. Prosecute.
No, let them be discredited by the intelligence and good taste of the remainder of the population. Which, in fact, is what is happening.
Mary Lou McDonald calling for a two-island approach on RTÉ news this evening, to keep Covid out. Can we please make this happen?
Yes please, the CTA should have acted as one from the start wrt border control. We have to secure our common external border with hotel based quarantine for all incoming travellers.
If we could combine that with Taiwan, Australia and New Zealand I'd live with it.
I'm sure they'd love open borders with 20k cases a day.
Yes, obviously we'd have to eliminate the virus domestically first. Given that these things take months to negotiate, we might have done it by then.
But the point is, we should create a bubble with countries with decent winter weather and good beaches, not just Ireland.
Fair enough. Chances are though we'll just leave it to simmer within hospital capacity rather than trying to eliminate it, by reopening things as soon as there's some headroom. If the vaccines are enough to counter the unrestricted R it might die out anyway, but that's not until much later in the year.
... just when we'll all be needing holidays somewhere sunny.
Based on everything we have heard about Covid, since more-or-less day one of the nightmare, that's totally unsurprising.
The number under 45 who did not have an underlying condition is even smaller, I think.
Looking at the NHS England hospital figures (and the hospital stats should cover pretty well all Covid deaths for people of working age,) the total number of people who had succumbed to Covid-19 in English hospitals, as of the most recent weekly update (21 January,) was 64,111. Of those, 4,717 (7.4% of the total) were under 60, and of that subset only 486 (0.8% of total deaths) were people under 60 and with no known comorbidity.
So, Covid can get anybody, but if you're reasonably fit and below pensionable age then you'd be extraordinarily unlucky actually to die of it.
So what’s an “underlying condition” and how many people have one or more?
Around about 40 million people in England have no morbidity according to the Kings Fund. The NHS outlines the conditions on its spreadsheets..
Based on everything we have heard about Covid, since more-or-less day one of the nightmare, that's totally unsurprising.
The number under 45 who did not have an underlying condition is even smaller, I think.
We have a couple of 40 year olds with no pre-existing conditions on our ICU. One was training for a marathon. The youngest is in her twenties.
Ah, but they’re not actually dead - is their point. They might be suffering horribly, only held back from death by heroic efforts, and very possibly will go through life with serious conditions going forwards if they survive - but that counts as “unaffected”. Apparently.
However, as a former Remainer who loathes Boris and is lapping up his xenophobic, populist border policy, l am insulted. I have made my last Kirstie Allsop, sub- Blue Peter nick-nack creation out of cardboard, sticky back plastic, coat hangers and washing up liquid bottles.
No double sided sticky tape? What are you? A UKIPer?
About the allegation on the “8% efficiency of the AZ vaccine among the elderly” yesterday quoted in the German paper Handelsblatt last night: authorities in Germany have already officially denied this story. Do you think this is kind of an exercise of political scapegoating? And what is the risk of this?
“What can I say? I don't have any idea where this number is coming. It’s incorrect. Several regulators of many countries have approved this vaccine for people 18 years old and above. How can one think that all these people, all these regulators around the world would have approved our vaccine if its efficiency was eight percent? I mean, of course not. Lots of very smart people are working for regulators, we must have approval now in 10 or 12 countries, including the U.K., of course, which is a very strong, very tough regulator. I don't know where these numbers come from. Now, why do people come up with this? I don't know. Again, the emotions are raw. I would really like to call on people to really focus on the details and focus on the regulators. There is a lot of silly talk going on right now about all sorts of things. Some people making up stories, for what reason? I'm not sure. There may also be local political considerations sometimes? I can't say. Like testing and masks in the past, the vaccine has become a political tool. It's unfortunate because you would like to tell people this is a moment to come together, really work together and try and resolve this issue. It's not a moment to use the testing of vaccines as a political tool”.
Those numbers are quite different from the Bloomberg and NYTimes ones, so I'm not sure how seriously one should take them. (And did France really do *zero* vaccinations?)
Based on everything we have heard about Covid, since more-or-less day one of the nightmare, that's totally unsurprising.
The number under 45 who did not have an underlying condition is even smaller, I think.
We have a couple of 40 year olds with no pre-existing conditions on our ICU. One was training for a marathon. The youngest is in her twenties.
Ah, but they’re not actually dead - is their point. They might be suffering horribly, only held back from death by heroic efforts, and very possibly will go through life with serious conditions going forwards if they survive - but that counts as “unaffected”. Apparently.
Lib Dems only 8% effective? I demand they publish the evidence or be arrested!
There is no reason to think they are not effective, but we just don't have enough data points to be sure.
That 8% does look like a bit of an overestimate. Efficacy also seems to be concentrated in demographic groups that favour open footwear and excessive facial hair.
That's a pretty solid interview performance from Soriot. This line, in particular, put EU moaning in context:
"Europe is getting 17 percent of this global production in February for a population that is 5 percent of the world population."
It is all very well, but we are European. We didn't get any less European because we left the European Union. Europe is a geographical expression. Half of Russia is also European.
I am not sure what your point is Lucky. I think it is clear that, in the context in which he was speaking, Soriot meant Europe as the EU. So, if the EU is complaining about being disadvantaged vis-a-vis the UK, they are also complaining about not being even more advantaged vis-a-vis the rest of the world.
Turkey is part European too. What is the relevance of that?
But the UK contract was signed three months before the European vaccine deal. So with the UK we have had an extra three months to fix all the glitches we experienced. ]
The suggestion we sell to other countries to make more money is not right because we make no profit everywhere.That's the approach we took and we agreed on that. That’s the agreement we have with Oxford University. It's actually even written in a contract we have with Oxford University: that we will be at no profit
Anyway, we didn't commit with the EU, by the way. It's not a commitment we have to Europe: it’s a best effort, we said we are going to make our best effort. The reason why we said that is because Europe at the time wanted to be supplied more or less at the same time as the UK, even though the contract was signed three months later. So we said, “ok, we're going to do our best, we’re going to try, but we cannot commit contractually because we are three months behind UK”.
But the contract with the UK was signed first and the UK, of course, said “you supply us first”, and this is fair enough. This vaccine was developed with the UK government, Oxford and with us as well. As soon as we can, we'll help the EU. I mean, as a company we are half Swedish and half British. So, in fact, we're global, of course, but we are European as much as we are British".
“I think the UK one-dose strategy is absolutely the right way to go, at least for our vaccine.
Excellent, lucid, explanatory.
Certainly more persuasive - at the moment - than H-Blott with their "unnamed sources" and "unseen data" and "under 10% efficacy"
The German journalists will have to name names and show their evidence, or they are finished, I think. If they have the data then fair enough.
Presumably they're going to have to make sure that the 2,000 VC winners weren't at all racist before they build their statues?
What I find astonishing is that thewy were so desperate to have a dogwhistle for the Brexity voters that they didn't; stop to consider that the GC holders woiuld be just as worthy of consideration as the VC holders.
I have enormous respect for all VC and GC holders, and we owe them a deep dept of gratitude. However, I am not sure about having an individual likeness of each of them dotted around the country like garden gnomes. A beautiful monument like a folly or a woodland style cascade, where the names of recipients can be added (and new ones added as they win these medals) seems more fitting.
That said, I don't really see how this is 'a slap in the face for women' either. I don't think you can slap someone by honouring someone else. I am sure most women, if asked, would be fully behind a scheme to honour the winners of the VC, rather than taking it as a personal insult.
Glasgow's VC winners are commemorated in a single monument in the Necropolis which looks out over Glasgow, quite fitting I think (there may be other individual monuments of I'm not aware).
Those numbers are quite different from the Bloomberg and NYTimes ones, so I'm not sure how seriously one should take them. (And did France really do *zero* vaccinations?)
The German vaccination program seems to be making steady progress, according to https://ourworldindata.org/covid-vaccinations - looks like they have increased from 20K per day to 100K a day in about a month.
Those numbers are quite different from the Bloomberg and NYTimes ones, so I'm not sure how seriously one should take them. (And did France really do *zero* vaccinations?)
The German vaccination program seems to be making steady progress, according to https://ourworldindata.org/covid-vaccinations - looks like they have increased from 20K per day to 100K a day in about a month.
Once they have sufficient supply, I don't doubt several European nations should do very well indeed in terms of acceleration.
Those numbers are quite different from the Bloomberg and NYTimes ones, so I'm not sure how seriously one should take them. (And did France really do *zero* vaccinations?)
Countries update sporadically - so France has shown no change from yesterday when Politico showed they had done 66,000. The date of the latest data is noted - so is it an entirely accurate "point in time" - who knows?:
Data for some countries not available. Since most vaccines demand two doses, the number of doses does not indicate the number of people vaccinated. SOURCE: ourworldindata.org, POLITICO research
What leads you to believe Bloomberg or the NYT is more reliable?
About the allegation on the “8% efficiency of the AZ vaccine among the elderly” yesterday quoted in the German paper Handelsblatt last night: authorities in Germany have already officially denied this story. Do you think this is kind of an exercise of political scapegoating? And what is the risk of this?
“What can I say? I don't have any idea where this number is coming. It’s incorrect. Several regulators of many countries have approved this vaccine for people 18 years old and above. How can one think that all these people, all these regulators around the world would have approved our vaccine if its efficiency was eight percent? I mean, of course not. Lots of very smart people are working for regulators, we must have approval now in 10 or 12 countries, including the U.K., of course, which is a very strong, very tough regulator. I don't know where these numbers come from. Now, why do people come up with this? I don't know. Again, the emotions are raw. I would really like to call on people to really focus on the details and focus on the regulators. There is a lot of silly talk going on right now about all sorts of things. Some people making up stories, for what reason? I'm not sure. There may also be local political considerations sometimes? I can't say. Like testing and masks in the past, the vaccine has become a political tool. It's unfortunate because you would like to tell people this is a moment to come together, really work together and try and resolve this issue. It's not a moment to use the testing of vaccines as a political tool”.
Key point I'd like to see addressed is Handleblatt claim that the EMA / Germans have additional data about over 60 efficacy. Is that true, even if there is debate about its interpretation.
Brexit Bin 🇪🇺 #BrexitReality @BrexitBin Veteran Remainer 🇪🇺 Lives in Germany & GB. Tweets about the #Brexit utopia of #Gammonopolis *Non Partisan* I block Bots•Trolls•Brexidiots•Lexidiots•Covidiots EU & GammonopolisJoined September 2016 26.3K Following 57.1K Followers
Ha! Just noticed that he "blocks Covidiots"...
I'm assuming that everyone has read the threat quoted from the original journalist, and it seems to me he's walking back his allegations. (Albeit without admitting he's doing so, or altering the original story.)
Specifically, this is no longer a scientific paper or anything concrete, but is now "(unnamed) German officials estimate". That's VERY different framing from the original article, and very different from published AZN figures, which imply 70% or so accuracy (albeit on an incredibly small sample size).
At the very least, the journalist has been negligent in not getting comment from AZN before publishing the paper (something that they should always do). In this case, his attempt to change what he is claiming (without apology or correction) compounds his error.
I don't see how he can keep his job, and I don't see how Handelsblatt avoids an apology.
Those numbers are quite different from the Bloomberg and NYTimes ones, so I'm not sure how seriously one should take them. (And did France really do *zero* vaccinations?)
Countries update sporadically - so France has shown no change from yesterday when Politico showed they had done 66,000. The date of the latest data is noted - so is it an entirely accurate "point in time" - who knows?:
Data for some countries not available. Since most vaccines demand two doses, the number of doses does not indicate the number of people vaccinated. SOURCE: ourworldindata.org, POLITICO research
What leads you to believe Bloomberg or the NYT is more reliable?
It leads me to be sceptical of all of them, to be honest!
Lib Dems only 8% effective? I demand they publish the evidence or be arrested!
There is no reason to think they are not effective, but we just don't have enough data points to be sure.
That 8% does look like a bit of an overestimate. Efficacy also seems to be concentrated in demographic groups that favour open footwear and excessive facial hair.
I know a few Conservatives that have thick and luxurious beards. And sometimes their husbands have one too.
Brexit Bin 🇪🇺 #BrexitReality @BrexitBin Veteran Remainer 🇪🇺 Lives in Germany & GB. Tweets about the #Brexit utopia of #Gammonopolis *Non Partisan* I block Bots•Trolls•Brexidiots•Lexidiots•Covidiots EU & GammonopolisJoined September 2016 26.3K Following 57.1K Followers
Ha! Just noticed that he "blocks Covidiots"...
I'm assuming that everyone has read the threat quoted from the original journalist, and it seems to me he's walking back his allegations. (Albeit without admitting he's doing so, or altering the original story.)
Specifically, this is no longer a scientific paper or anything concrete, but is now "(unnamed) German officials estimate". That's VERY different framing from the original article, and very different from published AZN figures, which imply 70% or so accuracy (albeit on an incredibly small sample size).
At the very least, the journalist has been negligent in not getting comment from AZN before publishing the paper (something that they should always do). In this case, his attempt to change what he is claiming (without apology or correction) compounds his error.
I don't see how he can keep his job, and I don't see how Handelsblatt avoids an apology.
That's the thread from last night. He's not Tweeted anything today.
About the allegation on the “8% efficiency of the AZ vaccine among the elderly” yesterday quoted in the German paper Handelsblatt last night: authorities in Germany have already officially denied this story. Do you think this is kind of an exercise of political scapegoating? And what is the risk of this?
“What can I say? I don't have any idea where this number is coming. It’s incorrect. Several regulators of many countries have approved this vaccine for people 18 years old and above. How can one think that all these people, all these regulators around the world would have approved our vaccine if its efficiency was eight percent? I mean, of course not. Lots of very smart people are working for regulators, we must have approval now in 10 or 12 countries, including the U.K., of course, which is a very strong, very tough regulator. I don't know where these numbers come from. Now, why do people come up with this? I don't know. Again, the emotions are raw. I would really like to call on people to really focus on the details and focus on the regulators. There is a lot of silly talk going on right now about all sorts of things. Some people making up stories, for what reason? I'm not sure. There may also be local political considerations sometimes? I can't say. Like testing and masks in the past, the vaccine has become a political tool. It's unfortunate because you would like to tell people this is a moment to come together, really work together and try and resolve this issue. It's not a moment to use the testing of vaccines as a political tool”.
Key point I'd like to see addressed is Handleblatt claim that the EMA / Germans have additional data about over 60 efficacy. Is that true, even if there is debate about its interpretation.
The head of AZN has said the story is complete bull. Would he lie about something so important?
About the allegation on the “8% efficiency of the AZ vaccine among the elderly” yesterday quoted in the German paper Handelsblatt last night: authorities in Germany have already officially denied this story. Do you think this is kind of an exercise of political scapegoating? And what is the risk of this?
“What can I say? I don't have any idea where this number is coming. It’s incorrect. Several regulators of many countries have approved this vaccine for people 18 years old and above. How can one think that all these people, all these regulators around the world would have approved our vaccine if its efficiency was eight percent? I mean, of course not. Lots of very smart people are working for regulators, we must have approval now in 10 or 12 countries, including the U.K., of course, which is a very strong, very tough regulator. I don't know where these numbers come from. Now, why do people come up with this? I don't know. Again, the emotions are raw. I would really like to call on people to really focus on the details and focus on the regulators. There is a lot of silly talk going on right now about all sorts of things. Some people making up stories, for what reason? I'm not sure. There may also be local political considerations sometimes? I can't say. Like testing and masks in the past, the vaccine has become a political tool. It's unfortunate because you would like to tell people this is a moment to come together, really work together and try and resolve this issue. It's not a moment to use the testing of vaccines as a political tool”.
Key point I'd like to see addressed is Handleblatt claim that the EMA / Germans have additional data about over 60 efficacy. Is that true, even if there is debate about its interpretation.
I think the point is that there's not enough data, he addresses it. He says the antibody response differential for various age groups is tiny and the efficacy for groups with enough high quality data is well above the necessary baseline. With a 12 week gap between doses we see evidence of 90%+ efficacy in those groups and a similar immune response in older age groups.
Brexit Bin 🇪🇺 #BrexitReality @BrexitBin Veteran Remainer 🇪🇺 Lives in Germany & GB. Tweets about the #Brexit utopia of #Gammonopolis *Non Partisan* I block Bots•Trolls•Brexidiots•Lexidiots•Covidiots EU & GammonopolisJoined September 2016 26.3K Following 57.1K Followers
Ha! Just noticed that he "blocks Covidiots"...
I'm assuming that everyone has read the threat quoted from the original journalist, and it seems to me he's walking back his allegations. (Albeit without admitting he's doing so, or altering the original story.)
Specifically, this is no longer a scientific paper or anything concrete, but is now "(unnamed) German officials estimate". That's VERY different framing from the original article, and very different from published AZN figures, which imply 70% or so accuracy (albeit on an incredibly small sample size).
At the very least, the journalist has been negligent in not getting comment from AZN before publishing the paper (something that they should always do). In this case, his attempt to change what he is claiming (without apology or correction) compounds his error.
I don't see how he can keep his job, and I don't see how Handelsblatt avoids an apology.
Also, I don't see how he can avoid either naming some of the German officials, or showing this data with "8%". Journalistic privilege does not apply here. This is a matter of global importance: the world needs to know ASAP
You can't just say "Oh we have the data but we can't reveal it", when millions of lives are at risk, if that data is correct
Brexit Bin 🇪🇺 #BrexitReality @BrexitBin Veteran Remainer 🇪🇺 Lives in Germany & GB. Tweets about the #Brexit utopia of #Gammonopolis *Non Partisan* I block Bots•Trolls•Brexidiots•Lexidiots•Covidiots EU & GammonopolisJoined September 2016 26.3K Following 57.1K Followers
Ha! Just noticed that he "blocks Covidiots"...
I'm assuming that everyone has read the threat quoted from the original journalist, and it seems to me he's walking back his allegations. (Albeit without admitting he's doing so, or altering the original story.)
Specifically, this is no longer a scientific paper or anything concrete, but is now "(unnamed) German officials estimate". That's VERY different framing from the original article, and very different from published AZN figures, which imply 70% or so accuracy (albeit on an incredibly small sample size).
At the very least, the journalist has been negligent in not getting comment from AZN before publishing the paper (something that they should always do). In this case, his attempt to change what he is claiming (without apology or correction) compounds his error.
I don't see how he can keep his job, and I don't see how Handelsblatt avoids an apology.
Robert, I think you mean 'thread' not 'threat'. You got me wondering what he had written!!
Based on everything we have heard about Covid, since more-or-less day one of the nightmare, that's totally unsurprising.
The number under 45 who did not have an underlying condition is even smaller, I think.
Looking at the NHS England hospital figures (and the hospital stats should cover pretty well all Covid deaths for people of working age,) the total number of people who had succumbed to Covid-19 in English hospitals, as of the most recent weekly update (21 January,) was 64,111. Of those, 4,717 (7.4% of the total) were under 60, and of that subset only 486 (0.8% of total deaths) were people under 60 and with no known comorbidity.
So, Covid can get anybody, but if you're reasonably fit and below pensionable age then you'd be extraordinarily unlucky actually to die of it.
So what’s an “underlying condition” and how many people have one or more?
Around about 40 million people in England have no morbidity according to the Kings Fund. The NHS outlines the conditions on its spreadsheets..
Have we done this? Sounds like vaccine shortages coming in Feb..
Region’s vaccine programme ‘stepped back’ as supply cut by a third
The supply of covid vaccine to the North West region is set to be cut by around a third in February, seemingly due to national shortages and the need for other regions to catch up with vaccinating their priority groups.
Now previously the "direct to other areas" has been denied by the government, but they haven't denied lower deliveries due to supply shortage. Sounds like one way or another AZN aint got production up to full speed if we still are expecting shortfall through Feb.
I reckon we should have a meltdown and threaten to sue them...
Those numbers are quite different from the Bloomberg and NYTimes ones, so I'm not sure how seriously one should take them. (And did France really do *zero* vaccinations?)
The German vaccination program seems to be making steady progress, according to https://ourworldindata.org/covid-vaccinations - looks like they have increased from 20K per day to 100K a day in about a month.
Same number for Germany as in the chart, so that's what Politico is using...
Have we done this? Sounds like vaccine shortages coming in Feb..
Region’s vaccine programme ‘stepped back’ as supply cut by a third
The supply of covid vaccine to the North West region is set to be cut by around a third in February, seemingly due to national shortages and the need for other regions to catch up with vaccinating their priority groups.
Niw previously the "direct to other areas" has been denied by the government, but they haven't denied lower deliveries due to supply shortage. Sounds like regardless AZN aint got production up to full speed if we still are expecting shortfall through Feb.
Pfizer delivery delays due to their factory upgrade, hopefully it will be temporary and we get back up to speed by the end of Feb.
Have we done this? Sounds like vaccine shortages coming in Feb..
Region’s vaccine programme ‘stepped back’ as supply cut by a third
The supply of covid vaccine to the North West region is set to be cut by around a third in February, seemingly due to national shortages and the need for other regions to catch up with vaccinating their priority groups.
Niw previously the "direct to other areas" has been denied by the government, but they haven't denied lower deliveries due to supply shortage. Sounds like regardless AZN aint got production up to full speed if we still are expecting shortfall through Feb.
Pfizer delivery delays due to their factory upgrade, hopefully it will be temporary and we get back up to speed by the end of Feb.
We obviously aren't getting the many millions of AZN coming through every week though to make up any shortfall from Pfizer.There is obviously still some bottleneck in getting these 20 million doses from vat to vial.
So it is Oxford University’s involvement in collaborating with AZN, and the pre-existing ties it has with the government, that gave us the head start with the AZN vaccine, rather than anything arising from Brexit.
Have we done this? Sounds like vaccine shortages coming in Feb..
Region’s vaccine programme ‘stepped back’ as supply cut by a third
The supply of covid vaccine to the North West region is set to be cut by around a third in February, seemingly due to national shortages and the need for other regions to catch up with vaccinating their priority groups.
Niw previously the "direct to other areas" has been denied by the government, but they haven't denied lower deliveries due to supply shortage. Sounds like regardless AZN aint got production up to full speed if we still are expecting shortfall through Feb.
Pfizer delivery delays due to their factory upgrade, hopefully it will be temporary and we get back up to speed by the end of Feb.
We obviously aren't getting the many millions of AZN coming through every week though to make up any shortfall from Pfizer.There is obviously still some bottleneck in getting these 20 million doses from vat to vial.
Have we done this? Sounds like vaccine shortages coming in Feb..
Region’s vaccine programme ‘stepped back’ as supply cut by a third
The supply of covid vaccine to the North West region is set to be cut by around a third in February, seemingly due to national shortages and the need for other regions to catch up with vaccinating their priority groups.
Niw previously the "direct to other areas" has been denied by the government, but they haven't denied lower deliveries due to supply shortage. Sounds like regardless AZN aint got production up to full speed if we still are expecting shortfall through Feb.
Pfizer delivery delays due to their factory upgrade, hopefully it will be temporary and we get back up to speed by the end of Feb.
We obviously aren't getting the many millions of AZN coming through every week though to make up any shortfall from Pfizer.There is obviously still some bottleneck in getting these 20 million doses from vat to vial.
Impossible, these shortages only effect the EU.
WHERE'S MY NVIDIA 3080.......shouts loudly and waves arms around uncontrollablly.
Those numbers are quite different from the Bloomberg and NYTimes ones, so I'm not sure how seriously one should take them. (And did France really do *zero* vaccinations?)
Based on everything we have heard about Covid, since more-or-less day one of the nightmare, that's totally unsurprising.
The number under 45 who did not have an underlying condition is even smaller, I think.
Looking at the NHS England hospital figures (and the hospital stats should cover pretty well all Covid deaths for people of working age,) the total number of people who had succumbed to Covid-19 in English hospitals, as of the most recent weekly update (21 January,) was 64,111. Of those, 4,717 (7.4% of the total) were under 60, and of that subset only 486 (0.8% of total deaths) were people under 60 and with no known comorbidity.
So, Covid can get anybody, but if you're reasonably fit and below pensionable age then you'd be extraordinarily unlucky actually to die of it.
So what’s an “underlying condition” and how many people have one or more?
Around about 40 million people in England have no morbidity according to the Kings Fund. The NHS outlines the conditions on its spreadsheets..
So it is Oxford University’s involvement in collaborating with AZN, and the pre-existing ties it has with the government, that gave us the head start with the AZN vaccine, rather than anything arising from Brexit.
Except for the obvious point that, had we remained in the EU, we would have been bound by the EU scheme and delayed along with the other members. But, apart from that, you are absolutely right.
Have we done this? Sounds like vaccine shortages coming in Feb..
Region’s vaccine programme ‘stepped back’ as supply cut by a third
The supply of covid vaccine to the North West region is set to be cut by around a third in February, seemingly due to national shortages and the need for other regions to catch up with vaccinating their priority groups.
Niw previously the "direct to other areas" has been denied by the government, but they haven't denied lower deliveries due to supply shortage. Sounds like regardless AZN aint got production up to full speed if we still are expecting shortfall through Feb.
Pfizer delivery delays due to their factory upgrade, hopefully it will be temporary and we get back up to speed by the end of Feb.
We obviously aren't getting the many millions of AZN coming through every week though to make up any shortfall from Pfizer.There is obviously still some bottleneck in getting these 20 million doses from vat to vial.
Impossible, these shortages only effect the EU.
WHERE'S MY NVIDIA 3080.......shouts loudly and waves arms around uncontrollablly.
Nvidia 3080? not seen any in about a month - anywhere in Europe
* I have a sideline business that tracks various Amazon prices and availability and there has literally been zero 3080 stock anywhere in Europe all month.
Presumably they're going to have to make sure that the 2,000 VC winners weren't at all racist before they build their statues?
What I find astonishing is that thewy were so desperate to have a dogwhistle for the Brexity voters that they didn't; stop to consider that the GC holders woiuld be just as worthy of consideration as the VC holders.
I have enormous respect for all VC and GC holders, and we owe them a deep dept of gratitude. However, I am not sure about having an individual likeness of each of them dotted around the country like garden gnomes. A beautiful monument like a folly or a woodland style cascade, where the names of recipients can be added (and new ones added as they win these medals) seems more fitting.
That said, I don't really see how this is 'a slap in the face for women' either. I don't think you can slap someone by honouring someone else. I am sure most women, if asked, would be fully behind a scheme to honour the winners of the VC, rather than taking it as a personal insult.
Glasgow's VC winners are commemorated in a single monument in the Necropolis which looks out over Glasgow, quite fitting I think (there may be other individual monuments of I'm not aware).
Whats all this about VC and GC statues? What is with the weird statue fetishism?
Comments
https://twitter.com/anked/status/1354141997884387335
https://twitter.com/KirstieMAllsopp/status/1354001555960320000?s=20
If it is worth not waiting for the decision, it is worth not waiting on publishing the data, as people all over the world will be waiting on news like this. Not least as it is one of the cheapest vaccines to produce and easiest to store, so may well be a big part of a lot of places' plans.
In that situation, there' s no 'ideally' about sharing proof. Nor in academic for that matter.
Interview with CEO Pascal Soriot: "The agreement says: we will do our best, there is no obligation on the delivery of doses. False that we are diverting vials to other countries to the detriment of the Union"
Both sides regard the others as idiots.
The worst possible outcome will be if the EMA authorises AZ for under 60s, but just says we don't have enough data for over-60s (and no more than that)
That will leave everyone unsure, and doubting of AZ. I suppose the UK might be able to win back some credibility for AZ if we can prove that our AZ-jabbed oldsters ARE protected, in a couple of weeks, but by then a huge amount of damage will have been done to the credibility of the cheapest, easiest vaccine we have. Perhaps irreversible damage
On the other hand, the journalists will sure HAVE to publish their evidence for the "8%", "under 10%" remarks
The problem is how many people globally have heard the story as 'it does not work' because this 'very dull paper' couldn't wait a few days to hear the decision of the regulators, even if they are wrong?
Daily deaths are by date of death.
Weekly deaths are by date registered.
The Daily deaths with Covid on Death Certificate must already be over 120,000 by now.
You just make up statistics. You aren't to be trusted on facts.
--AS
However, that isn't really by choice, but circumstances. I'd much prefer that the elevation gain was nearer 914m. I'm familiar with most of Perthshire and even went to school there for a short while.
Always fancied moving there but the anti-English nonsense (and don't believe any Nat that tells you there isn't any) is a bit off-putting.
"In fact, he fucked us. Well done him"
https://twitter.com/udogumpel/status/1354143979177185280?s=20
But the point is, we should create a bubble with countries with decent winter weather and good beaches, not just Ireland.
Free speech isn't absolute. On the one hand, of course the people writing this stuff are entitled to be wrong. On the other hand, if they'd written an article saying that an unnamed source at the Interior Ministry had disclosed that migrants from such and such a country are ten times more likely to be rapists than the general population (without offering any evidence whatsoever to back the assertion) then would this be allowed to go unchallenged?
People in positions of power have a responsibility for the damage that their loose words can cause. If the US Senate can impeach Trump for inciting insurrection, then the least that can be done in the case of an extraordinarily serious, damaging, corrosive claim like the one being made by this newspaper is to suggest that it might be a good idea if they offered some evidence to back it.
Where would we find ourselves if anybody with a platform could make any entirely baseless claim they liked about anyone or anything, and get away with it?
https://twitter.com/antoguerrera/status/1354145191192571907?s=20
Suppose OAZ works OK. Overall, the WHO cutoff is about 50% effective, I think, and it works rather better than that. But it's better in the young than the old.
Suppose the sample of old people in the trials is on the low side. I think that's been confirmed. That means that the uncertainty in the effectiveness calculation will be pretty high. Maybe the range does include some horribly low numbers for some subgroup or other. Not as the central estimate, but at the fringe of possibility.
In normal times, I suspect the regulator would say to go away and do the trials properly. That might be justified now. Equally, a "dammit, this is an emergency, if it's safe then jabbing is more useful than not jabbing" might also be justified. Indeed, the UK might be justified in taking a more dammit approach, since our emergency is more acute.
https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/projects/time-think-differently/trends-disease-and-disability-long-term-conditions-multi-morbidity
Now we have a vaccine and everybody thinks it's easy. But in April last year, everybody was saying “it's impossible to do a vaccine by the end of the 2020”, or “you're going too fast” or “you're cutting corners”, “you can't do it”, eccetera. Now everybody is saying “you’re too slow”, while before we were “too fast”.
https://twitter.com/tom_nuttall/status/1354148515967074311?s=20
The case of Trump is interesting. Personally, I'd just about vote to acquit him on legal grounds, because he didn't directly and unambiguously incite a crime. But it's a much more marginal case than the Handlesblatt one.
Brexit and Trump as President of the USA...
But surely the point is that Brexit revealed the underlying contours and fissures of our society rather than created them. If Brexit had never happened, you would still have ended up living in one of the Remainiest parts of the UK, and your son would still be courting the Remainiest damsel in Epping Essex. It's all been a gigantic consciousness-raising exercise, if you will.
The suggestion we sell to other countries to make more money is not right because we make no profit everywhere.That's the approach we took and we agreed on that. That’s the agreement we have with Oxford University. It's actually even written in a contract we have with Oxford University: that we will be at no profit
Anyway, we didn't commit with the EU, by the way. It's not a commitment we have to Europe: it’s a best effort, we said we are going to make our best effort. The reason why we said that is because Europe at the time wanted to be supplied more or less at the same time as the UK, even though the contract was signed three months later. So we said, “ok, we're going to do our best, we’re going to try, but we cannot commit contractually because we are three months behind UK”.
But the contract with the UK was signed first and the UK, of course, said “you supply us first”, and this is fair enough. This vaccine was developed with the UK government, Oxford and with us as well. As soon as we can, we'll help the EU. I mean, as a company we are half Swedish and half British. So, in fact, we're global, of course, but we are European as much as we are British".
“I think the UK one-dose strategy is absolutely the right way to go, at least for our vaccine.
"Europe is getting 17 percent of this global production in February for a population that is 5 percent of the world population."
That said, I don't really see how this is 'a slap in the face for women' either. I don't think you can slap someone by honouring someone else. I am sure most women, if asked, would be fully behind a scheme to honour the winners of the VC, rather than taking it as a personal insult.
But they are rare.
However, as a former Remainer who loathes Boris and is lapping up his xenophobic, populist border policy, l am insulted. I have made my last Kirstie Allsop, sub- Blue Peter nick-nack creation out of cardboard, sticky back plastic, coat hangers and washing up liquid bottles.
Lib Dems only 8% effective?
I demand they publish the evidence or be arrested!
By December 17, there were 48 (forty-eight) healthy under 40s who had lost their lives to it in England.
https://www.politico.eu/coronavirus-in-europe/
They might be suffering horribly, only held back from death by heroic efforts, and very possibly will go through life with serious conditions going forwards if they survive - but that counts as “unaffected”.
Apparently.
About the allegation on the “8% efficiency of the AZ vaccine among the elderly” yesterday quoted in the German paper Handelsblatt last night: authorities in Germany have already officially denied this story. Do you think this is kind of an exercise of political scapegoating? And what is the risk of this?
“What can I say? I don't have any idea where this number is coming. It’s incorrect. Several regulators of many countries have approved this vaccine for people 18 years old and above. How can one think that all these people, all these regulators around the world would have approved our vaccine if its efficiency was eight percent? I mean, of course not. Lots of very smart people are working for regulators, we must have approval now in 10 or 12 countries, including the U.K., of course, which is a very strong, very tough regulator. I don't know where these numbers come from. Now, why do people come up with this? I don't know. Again, the emotions are raw. I would really like to call on people to really focus on the details and focus on the regulators. There is a lot of silly talk going on right now about all sorts of things. Some people making up stories, for what reason? I'm not sure. There may also be local political considerations sometimes? I can't say. Like testing and masks in the past, the vaccine has become a political tool. It's unfortunate because you would like to tell people this is a moment to come together, really work together and try and resolve this issue. It's not a moment to use the testing of vaccines as a political tool”.
Whoever it is an idiot.
Labour = Liverpool
Turkey is part European too. What is the relevance of that?
Certainly more persuasive - at the moment - than H-Blott with their "unnamed sources" and "unseen data" and "under 10% efficacy"
The German journalists will have to name names and show their evidence, or they are finished, I think. If they have the data then fair enough.
Data for some countries not available. Since most vaccines demand two doses, the number of doses does not indicate the number of people vaccinated.
SOURCE: ourworldindata.org, POLITICO research
What leads you to believe Bloomberg or the NYT is more reliable?
Specifically, this is no longer a scientific paper or anything concrete, but is now "(unnamed) German officials estimate". That's VERY different framing from the original article, and very different from published AZN figures, which imply 70% or so accuracy (albeit on an incredibly small sample size).
At the very least, the journalist has been negligent in not getting comment from AZN before publishing the paper (something that they should always do). In this case, his attempt to change what he is claiming (without apology or correction) compounds his error.
I don't see how he can keep his job, and I don't see how Handelsblatt avoids an apology.
And sometimes their husbands have one too.
You can't just say "Oh we have the data but we can't reveal it", when millions of lives are at risk, if that data is correct
Yet this is what he is trying to do.
https://twitter.com/washingtonski/status/1353796533246976000?s=20
If he can't reveal this, it becomes no more than criminally irresponsible rumour-mongering.
2 - these are the ones that medical intervention (sometimes heroic medical intervention) saved.
Approximate numbers hospitalised against dead a few weeks back in England in one week:
Ratio between population, cases, hospitalisation, ICU, and deaths per age group:
Without the medical attention, the death tolls, ratios, and so forth would be very very different.
Region’s vaccine programme ‘stepped back’ as supply cut by a third
The supply of covid vaccine to the North West region is set to be cut by around a third in February, seemingly due to national shortages and the need for other regions to catch up with vaccinating their priority groups.
https://www.hsj.co.uk/coronavirus/regions-vaccine-programme-stepped-back-as-supply-cut-by-a-third/7029383.article
Now previously the "direct to other areas" has been denied by the government, but they haven't denied lower deliveries due to supply shortage. Sounds like one way or another AZN aint got production up to full speed if we still are expecting shortfall through Feb.
I reckon we should have a meltdown and threaten to sue them...
(It also looks like there's a lot of ICU rationing going on, with very few of the 85+ and a low proportion of the 75-84 getting ICU beds.)
> Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen (84-15)
> Secretary of State Anthony Blinken (78-22)
> Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin (93-2)
> Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines (84-10)
* I have a sideline business that tracks various Amazon prices and availability and there has literally been zero 3080 stock anywhere in Europe all month.