Day of Chaos 2: a.Covid-19 thread.

[Professor Bear]

Of course, if there were no vaccine - and we simply had to rely on our natural immune system, these figures would be far worse. Obviously.

I can't help but feel that it probably says a great deal if the next step down from the government's actual response is "doing literally nothing".

Which, it goes without saying, they also failed at doing the moment they took any action at all, since the concept of "herd immunity" relies on the government doing nothing and letting the virus run its course, so... they even fucked this up by their own bullshit standards of logic.  I am pretty sure this means there isn't any possible timeline where they didn't fuck this.

[Funt Solo]

just because it confirms your bias.

Catch yourself on. Look, I'm not your fucking research monkey, but chart. And chart.

Take your bias accusation and look in a mirror.

My ONLY point in posting on this thread was to point out WHAT ALL THE SCIENTISTS AGREE ON (i.e. vaccine better than our immune system at tackling pandemic) in order to undermine our resident anti-vaccine nutter - who keeps trying to satisfy his obvious bias by (carefully) promoting an anti-vax agenda.

C4 News - I'm a consumer, but I don't always agree with their reporting. The UK government - I do hate the Tories and much of what they stand for and do - but that doesn't mean that they do everything wrong. And I was surprised by what that chart demonstrated - because I didn't have a preconceived notion of how the numbers looked in the UK vs. those other countries.

Summary: vaccine better than our immune system at tackling pandemic.

[Mister Pops]

just because it confirms your bias.

Catch yourself on. Look, I'm not your fucking research monkey, but chart. And chart.

Take your bias accusation and look in a mirror.

My ONLY point in posting on this thread was to point out WHAT ALL THE SCIENTISTS AGREE ON (i.e. vaccine better than our immune system at tackling pandemic) in order to undermine our resident anti-vaccine nutter - who keeps trying to satisfy his obvious bias by (carefully) promoting an anti-vax agenda.

I was typing out an equally aggro reply, but then the image a research monkey in a wee lab coat and safety goggles came into my head and my heart melted.

I wasn't referring to you specifically Funt, I was using you in the plural form. The royal you? I don't need to look in a mirror because everyone has bias, and scrutinizing information that you* agree with is just as important as debunking that which you know to be false.

And sometimes you just have to point out that some fecker is stealing a living producing graphs for channel four news that would fail a GCSE maths question. The easy first part of the question at that.

To prove I did not mean to cause any turmoil for you, I shall now make a statement what I view as so bleedin' obvious, trivial and uncontroversial I don't believe I have to make it:

Vaccines help eradicate disease.

I am also willing to admit that the tories have done a good job rolling out the vaccine, but my bias kicks in and tells me that's because it was the only thing they seriously put any effort into, anyone who died in the interim just should have had a better immune system.

Yes that was me actually trying to not be snarky.

I've just realised that my mental image was of a chimp in a labcoat and goggles, not a monkey.

And he had a bow-tie.

*plural

[Funt Solo]

Well, I'm also in love with the monkey. Or the chimp. Or any simian that'll have me, frankly.

Sorry for being overly defensive.

[The Mind of Wolfie Smith]

always expected orban to take the lead at some point in this horror (and do recall that his borders have been pretty much sealed off for a long time).

[Leigh S]

Not to twisted up with that x axis - I presume the dates have been chosen for some specific reason that wasnt evident in the final report - they are spaced out in proportion to the gaps, that's all that matters to me.

AS for vaccines vs herd immunity, let me tell you the tale of how I reckon I caught this fucker back in March - so mild I didnt know I had it until my sense of smell returned sometime a month or so after.   Over the course of the Summer I hae felt low level crap, to the degree I've been mithering my GP and having my self a scan or two due to a weird throaaty/reflux wheeziness/discomfort....didnt restirt my exercise, just didn't feel "right"

Got my jab last Thursday and since, I have been significantly better with just a mild tickling niggle rather than the almost always naggng feeling I had had up to then...

Short story - get a sodding jab!

[The Legendary Shark]

Take your bias accusation and look in a mirror.

My ONLY point in posting on this thread was to point out WHAT ALL THE SCIENTISTS AGREE ON

That's not a scientific statement. That's about one molecule this side of religious dogma. "Trust the scientists" is beginning to sound an awful lot like "trust the priests."

Plenty of scientists disagree - like the ones who got ridiculed and even fired for suggesting that ventilators often made things worse, which it turns out they did. Government scientists, mainly administrators, said one thing and front-line scientists (doctors) said another - but the ones standing next to Donald Trump were believed - at the cost of many lives.

Plenty of scientists are concerned that this current rush to vaccinate the majority of the planet's population with a vaccine that isn't only new but of a completely new type is dangerous and irresponsible. Plenty of scientists are concerned that this new type of vaccine hasn't been tested on children, adults, the elderly, the chronically ill, or pregnant women. But the scientists standing next to Boris (or offering in absentia moral support from Barnard Castle) say it's all safe and nothing to worry about. I know which scientists I think it's worthwhile listening to, as do you.

So, trust the science - yes, absolutely. Trust the scientist? Depends on the scientist, doesn't it?

I don't think that makes me an anti-vaxxer. Indeed, ever since the first European doctors witnessed the ancient Chinese method of blowing dried cow pus up people's noses to inoculate them and brought that knowledge home, the method has indeed saved countless lives and I'm all for that.

But now billions upon billions of dollars are involved. It's not just about saving lives any more, it's about profit as well. Lots of profit. Enough to fill countless brown envelopes - and we all know how fond of fat brown envelopes our trustworthy and humanitarian parliamentary representatives are.

Anti-vaxxer? No. Anti-overvaxxer? Absolutely.

[Leigh S]

Assuming that your supposition re scientists being more interested in cash than actually tackling the disease, which even if true, wel yes - money, duh!  Your alternative solution is.... note you are on the clock here as doing nothing is definitely killing those vulnerable people.

Take your bias accusation and look in a mirror.

My ONLY point in posting on this thread was to point out WHAT ALL THE SCIENTISTS AGREE ON

That's not a scientific statement. That's about one molecule this side of religious dogma. "Trust the scientists" is beginning to sound an awful lot like "trust the priests."

Plenty of scientists disagree - like the ones who got ridiculed and even fired for suggesting that ventilators often made things worse, which it turns out they did. Government scientists, mainly administrators, said one thing and front-line scientists (doctors) said another - but the ones standing next to Donald Trump were believed - at the cost of many lives.

Plenty of scientists are concerned that this current rush to vaccinate the majority of the planet's population with a vaccine that isn't only new but of a completely new type is dangerous and irresponsible. Plenty of scientists are concerned that this new type of vaccine hasn't been tested on children, adults, the elderly, the chronically ill, or pregnant women. But the scientists standing next to Boris (or offering in absentia moral support from Barnard Castle) say it's all safe and nothing to worry about. I know which scientists I think it's worthwhile listening to, as do you.

So, trust the science - yes, absolutely. Trust the scientist? Depends on the scientist, doesn't it?

I don't think that makes me an anti-vaxxer. Indeed, ever since the first European doctors witnessed the ancient Chinese method of blowing dried cow pus up people's noses to inoculate them and brought that knowledge home, the method has indeed saved countless lives and I'm all for that.

But now billions upon billions of dollars are involved. It's not just about saving lives any more, it's about profit as well. Lots of profit. Enough to fill countless brown envelopes - and we all know how fond of fat brown envelopes our trustworthy and humanitarian parliamentary representatives are.

Anti-vaxxer? No. Anti-overvaxxer? Absolutely.

[IndigoPrime]

The point with science is that it’s always the best response at the time. But it evolves. With COVID, we have effectively seen science in fast-forward. Lots of people are freaking out about the vaccines, not recognising that we’ve seen typical creation processes that have just been streamlined to the nth degree due to a fuck-ton of money going into COVID research, because it has paused half of the planet and had the potential to wipe out—at the very least—70 million people.

The notion that plenty of scientists are against vaccination is just not the case. It’s fringe anti-vaxx rot. Concern relating to children is on the basis we’d ideally want to be vaccinating children now. Guess what? Tests are ongoing. It will happen—but not until it’s deemed safe enough.

As for “anti-overvaxxer”, that has more than a whiff of Andrew Wakefield about it, and we all know how that turned out.

[The Enigmatic Dr X]

It is of course any person's right to refuse a vaccine.

In the same way that anyone can choose to be selfish.

Should someone decline, and then fall ill with COVID, would they feel guilty taking up treatment? Should they be treated?

This is not about civil liberties. This about global health.

[Funt Solo]

"WHAT ALL THE SCIENTISTS AGREE ON" was hyperbolic shorthand for scientific consensus.

At this point, though, I just have to trust the majority of people reading here won't be taken in by any (more) anti-vax rhetoric.

[von Boom]

I usually try very hard to accept a person's beliefs but in this case I think everyone must be vaccinated. For the anti-vaxxers I would track them down like animals and use a tranquilizer gun to give them the jab.

[The Legendary Shark]

scientific consensus.

Which states:

"In public policy debates, the assertion that
there exists a consensus of scientists in a
particular field is often used as an argument
for the validity of a theory and as support for a
course of action by those who stand to gain
from a policy based on that consensus."

Assuming that your supposition re scientists being more interested in cash than actually tackling the disease, which even if true, wel yes - money, duh!  Your alternative solution is....

First, some scientists are more interested in cash, not all. Second, my solution is... Pay attention to the science.

As an example, where politicians are using the Excess Deaths figure as an object of fear, a scientist would examine some of this number's other functions, such as years of life lost per excess deaths. The highest figure I've seen for this is 11 years, but this was from a "brute force" analysis collating all deaths mentioning COVID. A more refined analysis gave out six years and the lowest figure I've seen, coming from a statistician claiming even more accuracy separating death from COVID and death with COVID, is one year of life lost per excess death.

As the YLL per ED is so low, it indicates that the majority of excess deaths are being suffered by people in their last decade of life - or even their final year if that last figure is accurate.

My solution based on this science - protect the old and infirm, otherwise carry on as normal.

[JayzusB.Christ]

Exactly what Johnson was proposing this time last year.

[Colin YNWA]

My solution based on this science - protect the old and infirm, otherwise carry on as normal.

An arguement that loses all credibility as the way to protect the old and infirm is to restrict the spread of the disease in its entirety which means restrictions for all.

Well unless you propose clearing say the Isle of White - can identify and dump all the 'old and infirm' there - if the odd one or two die on the way who cares they'd have been dead in a year or two anyway - just look at the stats not then actual humans involved - and then we have the rest of the country to do as we please with - PARTY!!!!

Heck we can use the Isle of Man as a place to stash others with illness that makes them more vulnerable to Covid - though they might get upperity about their sovereignty so we might be best using Anglesey instead?