SARS CoV-2 coronavirus / Covid-19 (No tin foil hat silliness please)

zing said:
Can you please provide a source for your comments on the Chinese vaccine? I have a friend who has access to Sinopharms vaccine but is still deciding if he should sign up for the jab, would be useful to know some info.
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Here's a recent article discussing it in Nikkei Asia (maybe a bit gleefully?) and here it is in the Washington Post a little earlier. They both relate to this journal in the Lancet about Sinovac rather than Sinopharm. From this journal comparing the phase I/II results of the main vaccines, Sinopharm did perform notably better than Sinovac in the phase II trials, but we don't know the phase III results yet. I wouldn't take a vaccine until they've released phase III and it has been assessed by experts. That's when they thoroughly assess its safety and its efficacy. What we know so far is it generates some immune response and it is safe enough to continue testing, like Sinovac, but we don't know how well it performs.

On Nov. 17, British medical journal The Lancet featured a study about the efficacy of Sinovac Biotech's vaccine candidate based on initial clinical trials. It found that the Chinese company's candidate generated lower levels of protective antibodies than those present in recovered coronavirus patients. The efficacy was determined to be moderate.

In contrast, the candidates from U.S.-based Pfizer and Moderna were found to be more than 90% effective, while the offering from Britain's AstraZeneca had an overall efficacy rate of 70%. Both American pharma companies used cutting-edge technology to develop their products.

Sinovac used an inactivated virus that does not induce illness to develop its candidate, a tried-and-true method long employed for fighting pathogens such as influenza. The report of moderate success therefore caused ripples because more solid results were expected.

The team in The Lancet study confirmed the presence of antibodies and found no safety problems, sufficient evidence to continue with clinical trials. Sinovac senior director Meng Weining told an online conference on Nov. 20 that final-phase trials were proceeding smoothly.

"I guess maybe next month we'll have data available," he said.
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What Sinopharm are saying is particularly strange, assuming it's not being mischaracterised. They haven't released phase III results but they're happy to say it's safe because they've just done an uncontrolled trial on over a million people and...no problems so far? But then maybe there's been no problems because they're not actually following up to check? It's all a bit curious.

People lined up to receive inoculations Thursday at a Sinopharm research lab in Beijing, a program that has been expanded before the end of clinical trials.

Nearly 1 million people have received inoculations, the company said Nov. 18, up from 350,000 in September. Inoculations of individuals such as employees of state-owned companies have nearly tripled over the past two months.

Several such employees reported being inoculated in September but that Sinopharm made no attempt to contact them.

This raises questions about the effort being made to check on the health of people receiving a vaccine under development. Normally such contact would occur right after inoculation, as well as six months to a year later.

"After close to 1 million inoculations, there has not been a single adverse reaction," Sinopharm Chairman Liu Jingzhen said in a statement Nov. 18.
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Brwned said:
Here's a recent article discussing it in Nikkei Asia (maybe a bit gleefully?) and here it is in the Washington Post a little earlier. They both relate to this journal in the Lancet about Sinovac rather than Sinopharm. From this journal comparing the phase I/II results of the main vaccines, Sinopharm did perform notably better than Sinovac in the phase II trials, but we don't know the phase III results yet. I wouldn't take a vaccine until they've released phase III and it has been assessed by experts. That's when they thoroughly assess its safety and its efficacy. What we know so far is it generates some immune response and it is safe enough to continue testing, like Sinovac, but we don't know how well it performs.



What Sinopharm are saying is particularly strange, assuming it's not being mischaracterised. They haven't released phase III results but they're happy to say it's safe because they've just done an uncontrolled trial on over a million people and...no problems so far? But then maybe there's been no problems because they're not actually following up to check? It's all a bit curious.
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Thanks. Appreciate the detailed reply and citations.
 
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So this has been doing the rounds on social media lately. And sadly, it was shared by a bloody doctor. He's a born again pentecostal, so that explains a lot, I guess. Sigh ..... disappointing to know i have friends like this. He was also one those who were complaining that people are going to die anyway and that we should reopen.

I don't know what to do with these kinds of lunacy. I just shared that twitter thread shared by Pogue and hope his medical training can understand what the guy was tweeting and hopefully realise what an idiot he is.
 
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tombombadil said:
Whats-App-Image-2020-12-06-at-14-35-12.jpg


So this has been doing the rounds on social media lately. And sadly, it was shared by a bloody doctor. He's pentecostal, so that explains a lot, I guess. Sigh ..... disappointing to know i have friends like this. He was also one those who were complaining that people are going to die anyway and that we should reopen.

I don't know what to do with these kinds of lunacy. I just shared that twitter thread shared by Pogue and hope his medical training can understand what the guy was tweeting and hopefully realise what an idiot he is.
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I don't understand what sinister gains Bill Gates would get out of this?
 
djembatheking said:
I don't understand what sinister gains Bill Gates would get out of this?
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Typically it comes down to two main explanations; it's an attempt at depopulation or a plan to put microchips in your body for either surveilleance or control. The notion of depopulation isn't that conspiratorial given what has happened before, the conspiracy aspect tends to be that it's disguised as a vaccine and dictated by a shadowy cabal of elites. Which then tends to get tied in with the Gates foundation being "on trial for illegal vaccination" and another web of loosely related and mostly false ideas.

I'm doing a bit of research into vaccine hesitancy at the moment and the thing that seems to be coming out of it is that our perceptions of anti-vaxxers are essentially a bit naive or self-gratifying. To me the key takeaway is something that was touched upon here. The way we think about vaccine hesitancy and conspiracy theories tends to be very black and white – people either do or don’t believe in them. The reality is actually much murkier.

Most people don’t really know what to think about these complicated ideas, and they’re swayed in the moment by targeted information or misinformation, and unless they’re forced to, people don’t look into things much beyond that. They can flip-flop about from these two supposedly contradictory ideas, because they never really believe either of them, they just place their trust in people – sometimes experts, sometimes neighbours, sometimes anonymous online “influencers” – to do that thinking for them, and they make temporary judgment calls. They don’t identify with these beliefs, they’re just passing ideas, completely irrelevant to their day to day life and their worldviews.

If you see that photo, have it followed up on with some reasonable-looking web links, and then speak to someone else who believes it, it's surprisingly easy for that just to become your adopted view. Unless you're incentivised to assess all of the evidence and identify that as misinformation, you're content just moving on from there. And because conspiracy theories make for better stories, and we're just programmed to love information framed in stories, it's quite hard for the boring truth to win the argument.
 
tombombadil said:
Whats-App-Image-2020-12-06-at-14-35-12.jpg


So this has been doing the rounds on social media lately. And sadly, it was shared by a bloody doctor. He's a born again pentecostal, so that explains a lot, I guess. Sigh ..... disappointing to know i have friends like this. He was also one those who were complaining that people are going to die anyway and that we should reopen.

I don't know what to do with these kinds of lunacy. I just shared that twitter thread shared by Pogue and hope his medical training can understand what the guy was tweeting and hopefully realise what an idiot he is.
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Ah yes the Pentecostal Christians who preach that all lives matter when it comes to abortion but are more than happy for people (particularly poor people) to die unnecessarily when they feel their own rights are being infringed upon.
 
Brwned said:
Typically it comes down to two main explanations; it's an attempt at depopulation or a plan to put microchips in your body for either surveilleance or control. The notion of depopulation isn't that conspiratorial given what has happened before, the conspiracy aspect tends to be that it's disguised as a vaccine and dictated by a shadowy cabal of elites. Which then tends to get tied in with the Gates foundation being "on trial for illegal vaccination" and another web of loosely related and mostly false ideas.

I'm doing a bit of research into vaccine hesitancy at the moment and the thing that seems to be coming out of it is that our perceptions of anti-vaxxers are essentially a bit naive or self-gratifying. To me the key takeaway is something that was touched upon here. The way we think about vaccine hesitancy and conspiracy theories tends to be very black and white – people either do or don’t believe in them. The reality is actually much murkier.

Most people don’t really know what to think about these complicated ideas, and they’re swayed in the moment by targeted information or misinformation, and unless they’re forced to, people don’t look into things much beyond that. They can flip-flop about from these two supposedly contradictory ideas, because they never really believe either of them, they just place their trust in people – sometimes experts, sometimes neighbours, sometimes anonymous online “influencers” – to do that thinking for them, and they make temporary judgment calls. They don’t identify with these beliefs, they’re just passing ideas, completely irrelevant to their day to day life and their worldviews.

If you see that photo, have it followed up on with some reasonable-looking web links, and then speak to someone else who believes it, it's surprisingly easy for that just to become your adopted view. Unless you're incentivised to assess all of the evidence and identify that as misinformation, you're content just moving on from there. And because conspiracy theories make for better stories, and we're just programmed to love information framed in stories, it's quite hard for the boring truth to win the argument.
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Yeah. I was initially tempted to just drop an insult, but in the end, I felt it was counter productive and decided to leave the link from Pogue instead. I can only hope that it changes his mind. Or even if that fails, at least stop his misinformation from spreading to other people in that group.

 
It's the same in many countries. In Canada in Alberta the only province without a mask mandate is now protesting about having to wear a mask in some places only.
The cases are rising and deaths are increasing.
It's crazy lunatics and right wing racists leading the way. The funny thing is the Premier is one of theirs.
 
There's a massive crowd of anti-mask protestors in Manchester Piccadilly Gardens right now. No social distancing either, as you might have guessed.

Looks like we'll be staying in tier 3 for the foreseeable future.
 
Brwned said:
Typically it comes down to two main explanations; it's an attempt at depopulation or a plan to put microchips in your body for either surveilleance or control. The notion of depopulation isn't that conspiratorial given what has happened before, the conspiracy aspect tends to be that it's disguised as a vaccine and dictated by a shadowy cabal of elites. Which then tends to get tied in with the Gates foundation being "on trial for illegal vaccination" and another web of loosely related and mostly false ideas.

I'm doing a bit of research into vaccine hesitancy at the moment and the thing that seems to be coming out of it is that our perceptions of anti-vaxxers are essentially a bit naive or self-gratifying. To me the key takeaway is something that was touched upon here. The way we think about vaccine hesitancy and conspiracy theories tends to be very black and white – people either do or don’t believe in them. The reality is actually much murkier.

Most people don’t really know what to think about these complicated ideas, and they’re swayed in the moment by targeted information or misinformation, and unless they’re forced to, people don’t look into things much beyond that. They can flip-flop about from these two supposedly contradictory ideas, because they never really believe either of them, they just place their trust in people – sometimes experts, sometimes neighbours, sometimes anonymous online “influencers” – to do that thinking for them, and they make temporary judgment calls. They don’t identify with these beliefs, they’re just passing ideas, completely irrelevant to their day to day life and their worldviews.

If you see that photo, have it followed up on with some reasonable-looking web links, and then speak to someone else who believes it, it's surprisingly easy for that just to become your adopted view. Unless you're incentivised to assess all of the evidence and identify that as misinformation, you're content just moving on from there. And because conspiracy theories make for better stories, and we're just programmed to love information framed in stories, it's quite hard for the boring truth to win the argument.
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I think mainstream science has a problem in these situations. It talks about probabilities, statistics, risks. It admits weaknesses (like animal trials not necessarily offering guarantees in humans) but keeps coming back to square one and a balance of evidence. It's a bundle of maybes that still (in the eyes of the specialists) add up to a definite yes, or more commonly to a yes, but - like no pregnant women, no under 13s etc etc - and a promise to keep an eye on adverse reactions, unexplained events, and to keep looking even if they appear to be unfortunate coincidences.

The hard-core antivaxxers have no doubts. They offer certainties about "my friend's neighbour's niece" who had a fever afterwards and became autistic. Even where there are elements of truth (like the narcolepsy/flu jab story from a few years back) they talk as if it was a common problem, occurring after any/every vaccine or that it happened to all the kids given that vaccine that year, and they certainly don't compare it to the number of fatal or debilitating illnesses that the jab stopped. Emotion and passion is on their side, and fear of the unknown is always easy to trigger, particularly if it gets repeated by people you normally agree with (whether that's your vegan wholefood champion or Donald Trump)

Which puts the onus back on the science community and those who trust them. Full disclosure may be painful but it's also a necessity. The mRNA vaccines really are a novel technology and to go from 0 (or 50k who have only recently taken it) to 100m over a few weeks will reveal new information - it also won't reveal everything. Similarly a lot of the information they gather from that point on, will be obtained by "luck" - like the women who are/become pregnant who receive the vaccine and what the outcomes of those pregnancies are.

The science sales pitch is a tough one - but overwhelmed hospitals, packed morgues, intermittent lockdowns and massive social and economic disruption is a pretty unattractive option.
 
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They made 4 arrests. I don't know why they don't round up a bunch of them to send a message that it won't be tolerated.
 
Brwned said:
Typically it comes down to two main explanations; it's an attempt at depopulation or a plan to put microchips in your body for either surveilleance or control. The notion of depopulation isn't that conspiratorial given what has happened before, the conspiracy aspect tends to be that it's disguised as a vaccine and dictated by a shadowy cabal of elites. Which then tends to get tied in with the Gates foundation being "on trial for illegal vaccination" and another web of loosely related and mostly false ideas.

I'm doing a bit of research into vaccine hesitancy at the moment and the thing that seems to be coming out of it is that our perceptions of anti-vaxxers are essentially a bit naive or self-gratifying. To me the key takeaway is something that was touched upon here. The way we think about vaccine hesitancy and conspiracy theories tends to be very black and white – people either do or don’t believe in them. The reality is actually much murkier.

Most people don’t really know what to think about these complicated ideas, and they’re swayed in the moment by targeted information or misinformation, and unless they’re forced to, people don’t look into things much beyond that. They can flip-flop about from these two supposedly contradictory ideas, because they never really believe either of them, they just place their trust in people – sometimes experts, sometimes neighbours, sometimes anonymous online “influencers” – to do that thinking for them, and they make temporary judgment calls. They don’t identify with these beliefs, they’re just passing ideas, completely irrelevant to their day to day life and their worldviews.

If you see that photo, have it followed up on with some reasonable-looking web links, and then speak to someone else who believes it, it's surprisingly easy for that just to become your adopted view. Unless you're incentivised to assess all of the evidence and identify that as misinformation, you're content just moving on from there. And because conspiracy theories make for better stories, and we're just programmed to love information framed in stories, it's quite hard for the boring truth to win the argument.
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I've read my share of misinformation, and leaving some key info out allows them to tell the truth and still mislead people, I've seen a lot of that in regards to the effectiveness of masks. Makes it harder for people to come to the right conclusion. Like they will fail to mention that people who get SARS-COV-2 while wearing a mask almost always get an asymptomatic or mild case, they just point out people in masks are still getting infected and perhaps point out how they're less effective than a N95, then conclude you shouldn't wear one.

Unless someone puts that into perspective for you, you don't know what to think. Good articles don't spend much time filling in those blanks, probably because they're not reading the misinformation to know what they're leaving out. The US govt has used up its good reputation as an institution from all the lies that have been told to citizens, people don't trust them. Never mind the Trump administration intentionally mislead everyone and continues to do so.

There are so few independent journalists that are trying to dig deeper than the info you get from the mainstream media, but the internet is full of people happy to get clicks by copy pasting some nonsense onto their site.
 
golden_blunder said:
just take a look at the picture

https://www.google.ie/amp/s/www.tel...sts-mayhem-outside-harrods-crowds-gather/amp/

https://www.google.ie/amp/s/www.standard.co.uk/news/london/breaking-covid-rules-harrods-police-b187813.html?amp
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The best thing about that Standard article are the tweets reacting to the story that they chose to highlight:
Bob said:
No wonder covid is spreading spread! Selfish, idiotic kids with no brains or thoughts for others!
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FFS, Bob, you had one job.
Kevin Mitson said:
People in London are totally stupid and that’s a fact.
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This guy gets it.
 
djembatheking said:
Wow, Have people given up ?
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Hubris & selfishness.

It will be interesting to see how the apparently anticipated Covid baby bump might run into the health care systems in many countries in overload & potentially little to no space in hospitals.
 
Penna said:
What's up with them? I know the young people have much less to worry about Covid-wise, but it's not all young people there. It's a disgrace.
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Dunno how true this is but I heard that a lot of the young ones outside Harrods were an organised meet of traveller kids. Supposedly the plan was to get so many in the shop that it would cause confusion for nicking stuff. Just what I heard, dunno how true.
 
golden_blunder said:
just take a look at the picture

https://www.google.ie/amp/s/www.tel...sts-mayhem-outside-harrods-crowds-gather/amp/

https://www.google.ie/amp/s/www.standard.co.uk/news/london/breaking-covid-rules-harrods-police-b187813.html?amp
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Two things I've learned this year.

1. I don't want me or my family to contract Covid if at all possible
2. People are dumb and selfish.

Now, I know 2 isn't strictly true as there are some good and sensible people around, of course there are, but the proportion of those that sit under the umbrella of dumb and selfish is much larger and way more annoying than I'd ever realised. This has saddened me.

Also, Nottingham's annual Christmas market had to be shut down also. My question is, why was it even allowed to go ahead?
 
Volumiza said:
Two things I've learned this year.

1. I don't want me or my family to contract Covid if at all possible
2. People are dumb and selfish.

Now, I know 2 isn't strictly true as there are some good and sensible people around, of course there are, but the proportion of those that sit under the umbrella of dumb and selfish is much larger and way more annoying than I'd ever realised. This has saddened me.

Also, Nottingham's annual Christmas market had to be shut down also. My question is, why was it even allowed to go ahead?
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Agree with all of that. Such a waste of time for that Christmas market, it was so packed that they closed it an hour later. I love how people think that covid magically goes away when the government say things can reopen for Christmas. Have some blooming common sense
 
golden_blunder said:
Dunno how true this is but I heard that a lot of the young ones outside Harrods were an organised meet of traveller kids. Supposedly the plan was to get so many in the shop that it would cause confusion for nicking stuff. Just what I heard, dunno how true.
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I wondered why so many young people were desperate to get into Harrods, it struck me straight away that that was very weird.
 
BBC:
Where will the vaccination in England begin? In England, 50 hospital "hubs" are due to begin vaccinating tomorrow:

Mid and South Essex NHS Foundation Trust;
Milton Keynes University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust;
East Suffolk And North Essex NHS Foundation Trust;
North West Anglia NHS Foundation Trust;
James Paget University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (Great Yarmouth);
Norfolk And Norwich University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust;
Cambridge University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust;
East and North Hertfordshire NHS Trust;
Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust;
Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust (London);
Croydon Health Services NHS Trust;
St George’s University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (London);
King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust (London);
Walsall Healthcare NHS Trust;
Chesterfield Royal Hospital NHS Foundation Trust;
Sherwood Forest Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust;
University Hospitals Coventry And Warwickshire NHS Trust;
Royal Stoke Hospital; Northampton General Hospital NHS Trust;
University Hospitals of Derby and Burton NHS Foundation Trust;
United Lincolnshire Hospitals NHS Trust;
Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust;
Shrewsbury And Telford Hospital NHS Trust;
Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust;
North CumbriaIntegrated Care NHS Foundation Trust;
Hull University Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust;
The Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust;
Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust;
South Tees NHS Trust; Wirral University Teaching Hospital;
Liverpool University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust;
Countess of Chester Hospital NHS Foundation Trust;
Salford Royal NHS Foundation Trust;
Stockport NHS Foundation Trust;
Blackpool Teaching Hospital;
LancashireTeaching Hospital Trust;
Frimley Health NHS Foundation Trust – Wexham ParkHospital;
Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust;
East Kent Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust – William Harvey Hospital;
Brighton And Sussex University Hospitals NHS Trust – Royal Sussex County Hospital;
PortsmouthUniversity Hospitals Trust;
Royal Surrey NHS Foundation Trust;
Yeovil District Hospital NHS Foundation Trust;
Dorset County Hospital NHS Foundation Trust;
Royal Cornwall Hospitals NHS Trust;
University Hospitals Plymouth NHS Trust;
Great Western Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (Swindon);
Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust;
North Bristol NHS Trust.

Hospitals in Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland will also vaccinate tomorrow - but full lists of hospitals have not been published.
 
Volumiza said:
Two things I've learned this year.

1. I don't want me or my family to contract Covid if at all possible
2. People are dumb and selfish.

Now, I know 2 isn't strictly true as there are some good and sensible people around, of course there are, but the proportion of those that sit under the umbrella of dumb and selfish is much larger and way more annoying than I'd ever realised. This has saddened me.

Also, Nottingham's annual Christmas market had to be shut down also. My question is, why was it even allowed to go ahead?
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I think the difficulty with this situation is every single person has a different risk profile, however it's impossible to tailor rules/laws that are different for every individual. This isn't just in terms of how dangerous Covid is to yourself, but also those you come into contact with. The result is that some of the rules are too lax for some individuals (the result being death) and those same rules can be overly onerous on others (causing them to disregarded them completely).

There is a huge difference in terms of risk between a 20 year old who for the last 9 months has not come within 2 meters of someone over the age of 65, compared with a care home worker for example. Individually the former person is arguably acting more responsibly attending a 20 man house party than the latter person is by merely having dinner inside with another household.

In my view someone who's living with a family member who's 80+ with underlying conditions who is following the rules 100%, can actually be acting far more stupidly than someone who is breaking some of the rules.

Like driving though I would imagine if you asked everyone what their risk profile is it would be massively different to reality. The majority of people put themselves in the top decile for driving ability, despite that being an impossibility. I'd imagine the majority of people would put themselves in a lower Covid of risk categories, despite the reality being different. I'd like to have seen the government treat people as adults and educate as to various risk profiles and explain the kind of things that would be seen as high risk in each risk category.

I think more people would abide by the rules in this scenario. A blanket 40mph speed limit on the motorway to cater for 90 year olds with low reaction times would likewise be ignored by huge swathes of the population, not because they're law-breaking imbeciles, but because the reasoning behind the law doesn't apply (or isn't seen as applying) to them.
 
golden_blunder said:
Dunno how true this is but I heard that a lot of the young ones outside Harrods were an organised meet of traveller kids. Supposedly the plan was to get so many in the shop that it would cause confusion for nicking stuff. Just what I heard, dunno how true.
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Is that shaven back and sides haircut popular with traveller kids? They look very 1930s when you zoom in on the pic.
 
golden_blunder said:
Dunno how true this is but I heard that a lot of the young ones outside Harrods were an organised meet of traveller kids. Supposedly the plan was to get so many in the shop that it would cause confusion for nicking stuff. Just what I heard, dunno how true.
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I mean.. it probably is.
 
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