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Future War Cultist wrote: A pizza place here had the unfortunate timing of opening up just as the lockdown began. Somebody here said try to help the little businesses through this and I took that to heart. And I’m glad that I did because it was really good pizza.
An acquaintance of mine was caught with his brand new restaurant open just by a couple months. We're talking mega-posh, as in we're getting a Michelin star in 5 years, 60 euro 10-course tasting menu without drinks place.
€60 for a ten course tasting menu is extremely cheap
That's how you start, and it's actually on the expensive side if you're hoping to get the Bib gourmand first.
Keep in mind this is Spain. There are actual Michelin-starred tasting menus for under 100€ so there's quite some competition there.
So third school in finland got corona case announced today. Real great start. 3rd day in school. Thanfully only 2 weeks or so left on school anymore(which makes desire to reopen them even more weird. All exams are done and numbers assigned. Usually these weeks are less hectic with school trips etc being common around this time but this year those are not happening...).
GoatboyBeta wrote: Silver lining to the idiocy in Hyde park today has to be #I AM NOT MAN on Twitter Just don't fall down the deep deep rabbit hole of the people supporting the "protest"
Fairly sure that was fethwit in chief, David Icke?
Not it wasn't.
It was Jeff Wyatt -- hung/hangs around with various rightwing fringe groups and a Tommy Robinson fan too.
"‘Delusional’ Martin Shkreli denied prison release by judge"
The poor man really has a stake in the country. The rich man hasn't; he can go away to New Guinea in a yacht. The poor have sometimes objected to being governed badly; the rich have always objected to being governed at all
We love our superheroes because they refuse to give up on us. We can analyze them out of existence, kill them, ban them, mock them, and still they return, patiently reminding us of who we are and what we wish we could be.
"the play's the thing wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king,
Tunbridge Wells confirmed to have the lowest rate of infection in Kent, which is very good news for me.
Whilst I’m sure some would argue it means the town can reopen somewhat, suspect that’d just attract people from further afield, affecting our relative isolation.
But whilst I need to wait for pubs to reopen (and I’m choking for a proper proper Pint), it’s a wait I’m willing to put up with. Rather be sober than Ill!
Fed up of Scalpers? But still want your Exclusives? Why not join us?
It's bizarre but the Mitchell and Webb show was pretty prophetic in this sketch. Not sure whether we should laugh anymore...
"Because while the truncheon may be used in lieu of conversation, words will always retain their power. Words offer the means to meaning, and for those who will listen, the enunciation of truth. And the truth is, there is something terribly wrong with this country, isn't there? Cruelty and injustice, intolerance and oppression. And where once you had the freedom to object, to think and speak as you saw fit, you now have censors and systems of surveillance coercing your conformity and soliciting your submission. How did this happen? Who's to blame? Well certainly there are those more responsible than others, and they will be held accountable, but again truth be told, if you're looking for the guilty, you need only look into a mirror. " - V
I've just supported the Permanent European Union Citizenship initiative. Please do the same and spread the word!
"It's not a problem if you don't look up." - Dakka's approach to politics
Going back a few posts, there were some questions about the general American sentiment, here are my local thoughts for the state of WY......
My perception that the local American response in my rural, red state is that COVID-19 is not a real threat, we need to open up now, and we desperately all want to be back to normal.
We want that so bad, that I am 95% certain we will not "shelter-at-home" again no matter how many people start dying.
This concerns me as I have a high-risk family.
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A very cruel, tiny minded part of me (we all have them) says ‘OK then, let’s all ignore the Expert Advice. Clearly their degrees, doctorates and collective decades of research knowledge is all just a sham. Re-open. Spit on each other. Herd Immunity’
And when the death toll climbs ever further, and worse, the virus mutates again, we can at last point to every single pseudo-science cretin, every woo peddler. Every agent provovacteur claiming it’s 5G, or Bill Gates behind it. Every last anti-Vaxxer. Every single idiot screwing this all up, and say?
[i]This. Is. On. You. You did this. No-one else.
Because whilst I regularly wash my hands for 20 seconds and have had to buy hand cream because my skin is dry as a very dry thing? They won’t be able to wash that blood off their hands.
Fed up of Scalpers? But still want your Exclusives? Why not join us?
I take it you’ve seen the story of that guy who dismissed the virus as a hoax until he got it and it nearly killed him and now he’s trying to spread the word?
I don’t know how to feel about that tbh...I want to say good for him for admitting that he was wrong and for changing his attitude but a big part of me is screaming “NO gak SHERLOCK!
Future War Cultist wrote: I take it you’ve seen the story of that guy who dismissed the virus as a hoax until he got it and it nearly killed him and now he’s trying to spread the word?
I don’t know how to feel about that tbh...I want to say good for him for admitting that he was wrong and for changing his attitude but a big part of me is screaming “NO gak SHERLOCK!
I think both are appropriate
IRON WITHIN, IRON WITHOUT.
New Heavy Gear Log! Also...Grey Knights! The correct pronunciation is Imperial Guard and Stormtroopers, "Astra Militarum" and "Tempestus Scions" are something you'll find at Hogwarts.
I've now resigned myself that it's unlikely I'm going to have any kind of close contact with friends or family for at least the rest of this year, and that is because of the utter and monumental failure of the government to protect the people and for the mainstream media or opposition to hold them to account in any meaningful way.
I'll almost certainly be working from home for at least a similar time - I'm extremely fortunate in this regard, there are large numbers of people who have effectively been forced back into the workplace where their employers have no way of guaranteeing their safety.
We have finally moved under 200 reported deaths per day, but rather than using the lockdown time to prepare contract and trace systems in place in an effort to monitor and control the spread of the virus, the effort has fallen apart in a string of cronyism and dodgy contracts to companies that aren't capable of fulfilling their tasks. And so all of that lockdown time is wasted. And guess what? The virus is still there and it's waiting, it didn't magically fething disappear.
The deaths in the UK are 30k to 50k or 60k depending on which reports you read. Yet when I was out in the car the other day, B&Q (a DIY store) was like a fething summer jamboree. Cars parked next to each other in spaces, and far, far too much rubbing of shoulders. Have people not read how contagious the virus is, how many people it has killed and continues to kill? I would be surprised if 1 in 20 is wearing a mask or gloves. Despite the advice of numerous medical bodies (and finally, the UK government as well) or the knowledge that countries like Japan and Korea, for whom wearing protective items is commonplace, the death count is in the hundreds rather than the tens of thousands.
I read of the contact and trace measures and monitoring, the huge manpower being committed in countries like S. Korea and I realise that we have absolutely no chance - no chance - whatsoever in coming close to matching that level of organisation, the political or societal will. Instead, I'll have to keep prompting elderly and vulnerable friends and family to try and keep their guard up. Because the government is failing utterly in its task of protecting the people by the most effective means and we seem to have slipped back into the 'herd immunity' policy, despite many other countries showing how to effectively combat the virus.
And when the death toll climbs ever further, and worse, the virus mutates again, we can at last point to every single pseudo-science cretin, every woo peddler. Every agent provovacteur claiming it’s 5G, or Bill Gates behind it. Every last anti-Vaxxer. Every single idiot screwing this all up, and say?
.
There are plenty of lockdown sceptics who aren't conspiracy theorists or anti vaxxers. That's a poor tactic that's often rolled out whenever people present points against the lockdown in an attempt to infantilise their argument.
Puts the estimated IFR at 1.4% although this still seems a touch high if you consider that most believe actual infection rates are much higher. Consistent estimates of recovery rate are 97-99%
They say 'follow the science' yet they are not doing so.
In my opinion the government is in the middle of a sunk cost dilemma. They can't relax things any further without having to admit they were wrong, which would cause them a huge hit politically.
Also, its funny how 'herd immunity' has become this heretical snarl word. If a vaccine or treatment doesn't appear, herd immunity will likely be the only thing we have to rely on. It should be factored into every strategy.
I also heard a scientist today talking about how it might be possible that some people can be exposed to the virus but just not get sick. Their immune system just expels it or something.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2020/05/18 22:05:30
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: A very cruel, tiny minded part of me (we all have them) says ‘OK then, let’s all ignore the Expert Advice. Clearly their degrees, doctorates and collective decades of research knowledge is all just a sham. Re-open. Spit on each other. Herd Immunity’
And when the death toll climbs ever further, and worse, the virus mutates again, we can at last point to every single pseudo-science cretin, every woo peddler. Every agent provovacteur claiming it’s 5G, or Bill Gates behind it. Every last anti-Vaxxer. Every single idiot screwing this all up, and say?
This. Is. On. You. You did this. No-one else
Because whilst I regularly wash my hands for 20 seconds and have had to buy hand cream because my skin is dry as a very dry thing? They won’t be able to wash that blood off their hands.
This is pretty much how human history has been. You forget; they are already well-practiced experts on delusion. Pretending there's no blood on their own hands is easy as breathing.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
queen_annes_revenge wrote: I also heard a scientist today talking about how it might be possible that some people can be exposed to the virus but just not get sick. Their immune system just expels it or something.
Leaving the rest to someone more charitable than I, on this particular point; yes that is how things normally work for disease.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2020/05/18 22:04:13
Herd immunity is getting as many people as possible vaccinated so that those who can't don't get infected and can survive. Letting everybody get randomly infected and risking the death the weaker people is not herd immunity, that's just eugenics with extra steps.
Well no one seems to be mentioning it. Only whether or not folks have antibodies. Which is good, but there are evidently other means of fighting it off which may not be provable by testing, which is potentially very good.
Herd immunity is getting as many people as possible vaccinated so that those who can't don't get infected and can survive. Letting everybody get randomly infected and risking the death the weaker people is not herd immunity, that's just eugenics with extra steps.
Vaccinated with what?
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2020/05/18 22:09:01
a form of indirect protection from infectious disease that occurs when a large percentage of a population has become immune to an infection, whether through vaccination or previous infections, thereby providing a measure of protection for individuals who are not immune
Emphasis mine.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2020/05/18 22:13:20
There are a lot of people on the net who claim if we just let a "few" million people die of covid (They claim it's just 1.4% of the population, but covid death rates are higher in many areas so it could be far higher.) this thing called "herd immunity" will suddenly appear and make covid go away.
Ok, I have one question for them: My grandfather (I still miss him) used to tell me about his childhood and what polio was like. What is was like to see a quarantine sign on your friends house and not see him for weeks, or maybe forever. And it happened every year.
Polio came bac every year and left people across america dead of crippled. Herd immunity didn't make it go away, Jonas Salk made it go away with a vaccine.
Vaccines ended polio, they ended smallpox. Why should we believe the covid virus will fall to the awesome power of herd immunity when as far as I can tell no other disease in recent times has?
The last time a disease may have been overcome, possibly, by enough people dying of it to create herd immunity would be the black plague. Look at how many people had to die to possibly make herd immunity happen in that case.
I'm not buying the herd immunity theory. Anyone have any evidence as to why i should?
"But the universe is a big place, and whatever happens, you will not be missed..."
That's what vaccinations are for, not to render every single person immune to the disease, but to make enough immune as to limit the effective spread of a disease through a population.
It's well known and understood science at this point.
Anyone advocating that people should live or die as they may is, from a purely logical point of view, correct. That is the fastest way to achieve herd immunity in the absence of an effective vaccine.
What that argument fails to account for, of course, is the emotional impact on society those deaths will have, and all the consequential deaths from overwhelmed health services, which would be the outcome no matter the quality or preparedness of any given institution.
We find comfort among those who agree with us - growth among those who don't. - Frank Howard Clark
The wise man doubts often, and changes his mind; the fool is obstinate, and doubts not; he knows all things but his own ignorance.
The correct statement of individual rights is that everyone has the right to an opinion, but crucially, that opinion can be roundly ignored and even made fun of, particularly if it is demonstrably nonsense!” Professor Brian Cox
Your grandfather also would have pointed out that the very worst years of polio never involved more than about 50,000 cases, which is not by far enouhg to create herd immunity against the disease from recoverey and self immunization. Herd immunity isn't a thing in alaska yet, for example, although there are excellent arguments to be made that the essentail work personnel in NYC have accomplished a functional Covid herd immunity among their members, even as the stay at home (lets go Wellsian and call the stay at home/ luxury class the "Eloi" class, and the people who do actual work out of the house in NYC the "morloks".) Basically, new cases in NY have plummeted among morloks, with some 84 percent of the ongoing new cases occuring in the eloi class. The eloi haven't suddenly become more numerous and the morloks haven't all suddenly become less numerous, so something is shifting the spread of the disease from the people out and about to the people at home. Given about 1/3 of NYC and long island have been infected, this could be herd immunity with an escape group. Why? what could possibly, one asks, make it safer to rid the bus to the subway and after, work all day in a job meeting strangers, than it is to cower in your own apartment and telecommuting? I mean, the Eloi class are literally phoning it in, and only going out for the occasaional egg and milk run. On the surface, the morloks have it far more risky and have had it far more risky. Historically they were a huge caseload contribution, now, suddenly, their share is falling off. There is no vaccine in play in NYC, there is as yet little or no effective treatment for the disease (only supportive therapy that fails to budge the death rate more than about 16 percent in an optimal case). This leaves either 1) Morloks suddenly smarter than eloi, are better at handwashing, or (more likely) 2) Morlok subpopulations are well into herd immunity already.
Also, your understanding of polio is not a perfect analogy. Traditionally polio was a childhood disease of most people, and it was with the advent of sanitation (widespread) and similar public health advances that it advanced from a disease (mostly asymptomatic) of very young children to a much more paralytic and dangerous disease of older children and adults. The opportunity to catch polio as an adult (where its bad effects were easily 10 to 100 times more common) was tied to the absence of having caught it as kids. There is no counterexample to herd immunity here -- its a situation where the natural process of adaptive auto-vaccination was removed by improved plumbing, by water treatement, by lower prevalence in the community. Polio as a PROBLEM was a side effect of things getting better enough that everyone wasn't so likely exposed as kids, when it showed up to hit the population again, the sudden absence of herd immunity in adults meant it became a bad and terrifying issue.
Even so, it was hitting a tiny number of people and not enouhg in any one outbreak to shift the needle to herd immunity in the USA -- 60 or even 100k cases a year is a drop in an epidemic bucket, iwth only a couple thousand dying. Polio was still case for case FAR worse a disease to catch than Covid, but it didn't propagate as widely or as profoundly. In western countries, this was a sanitation effect, in places like India, though, it was pure herd immunity built up from childhood. After the vaccines caught on in both places, it was herd immunity again.
Now lest we forget, smallpox was taken out by carefully targetted herd immunization efforts. This worked even in places like India and west africa, both of which had actual religions built around worshiping the disease, from time immemorial.
Saying you don't believe in herd immunity is like saying you don't believe in evolution, because the survival of the fittest organisms in a series of ongoing competition scenarios could also be .. well, loaded dice and lots of invuln saves? Its got a wide body of evidence throughout modern epidemiology that is compatible with herd immunity being a thing, and NOT compatible with herd immunity being not a thing.
When herd immunity was built up against polio by vaccination, there were of course subgroups in the population that didn't share that protection (like the amish) .. and it was in these groups the last outbreaks occured in the US (less than 200 cases, in the last one, I believe). These infections failed to break out into the larger population and spread, failed to create waves of the disease across the US, failed to transmit it from county to county. Because herd immunity.
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Dukeofstuff, first off you never met my grandfather and you don't know what he would have pointed out.
Secondly, herd immunity as far as I know never effecitvely eradicated a single disease. It may have reduced their death tolls but it took vaccinations to effectively make them non issues to the vast majority of the human race.
As to your assertion that not believing in herd immunity is like not believing in evolution, by linking your argument for herd immunity to evolution your shoot the idea of letting herd immunity solve the covid situation right in the foot.
I know evolution happens and it is a generational process, which mean it effectively does not happen on a human time scale. Evolution is linked to reproduction, which is why so many bacteria evolve immunity to antibiotics, bacteria reproduce on a time frame measured in hours. Bacteria undergo a thousand or more generations in a year. We can see bacteria evolve on a human time scale.
Likewise insects who can have a couple dozen generations a year can evolve resistance to pesticides on a human perceptible scale.
Human generations can be said to take at least 18 or so years. (Yes I know some girls have gotten pregnant at 12 or so, I'm ignoring extreme cases and focusing on the median.)
So even if we assume evolution could produce a herd immunity effect in as little as 5 generations it's 90 years until that fifth generation happens, at a minimum.
So waiting for herd immunity to evolve will take more than a human lifetime, typically, and condemn generations to living with the covid scare coming back every year.
So I'm not waiting. I don't care if we have to "gut the military" (Which is what some people call no increasing military spending every year, let alone reducing it in any way) to finance covid vaccine research, we go with vaccine research.
I believe we should start transferring money from the military finding to covid vaccine research, and keep it up till we get it. Manhattan project levels of funding and research till we get the vaccine.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2020/05/19 03:05:38
"But the universe is a big place, and whatever happens, you will not be missed..."
Vaccine research is happening. In multiple places with multiple organizations.
But vaccine research takes time.
You need to
a) actually develop a vaccine that works, which is trial and error. Somewhat informed trial and error, but that's still a lot of testing, which takes time.
b) actually make sure that vaccine is safe, and doesn't cause even harmful side effects. That means animal trials, and then human trials on people who don't have it, because its a vaccine and not a cure. So you can't just test it on people who have it and are likely to die anyway (because that does no good), you have to do a lot of ethical protection for the volunteers who are going to be exposed to the virus with the hope that the vaccine will actually work.
c) manufacture the vaccine, in this case, for the entire global population (in theory, in practice, this is going to be prioritized relatively unfairly, just by the sheer number of governments and corporations involved)
Each of those steps takes months or years to do properly, regardless of how many times various talking heads on the TV say 'we'll have one by the end of the year.'
Because that's a stupid thing to say, because a) can't be guaranteed, and just 'having' a vaccine still means you've got steps b) and c) to do.
As an example, trials for Ebola vaccines started in 2014, and the successful ones weren't approved until the end of 2019.
-----
Now, a couple outfits (Oxford Uni, particularly) have decided that they have a workable vaccine candidate already, and have started production prematurely and are going to backfill doing the work to make sure they really do have a working and safe vaccine. Odds of a safe and effective vaccine being produced by this methodology are not great. I know I'll aim for the back of the line if they actually get to distribution. Let someone else be the guinea pig for a rush job on delicate science.
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I nevr said we can have one by the end of you year, I'm not the guy who said that.
I do thinkwe should do all we can to get one as soon as possible. I'd like to think a full blown effort could do it in much sooner than 5 years I'm not sure it could.
"But the universe is a big place, and whatever happens, you will not be missed..."
Matt Swain wrote: I nevr said we can have one by the end of you year, I'm not the guy who said that.
I do think we should do all we can to get one as soon as possible. I'd like to think a full blown effort could do it in much sooner than 5 years I'm not sure it could.
At a certain point, you run out of qualified virologists and lab space, and run into a 'too many cooks' problem. As it is, with the diversity of locations and institutions, a lot of different money piles are tapped, and recruiting coverage looks to be really good (to the point of probably stretching the pool of candidates experience with labwork and willing and able to help). It isn't a big pool, either. The number of virology graduates in 2017 in the US was... 19, and that number was up from previous years. (And those graduates would have limited work experience now in 2020). And its not a specialization where you can just bang out more graduates on a whim.
Now there are a lot of biology lab techs that would also be required, but I can tell you from my own job searches over the last decade that they're constantly in demand- there's simply too few of them in circulation (I come across lab tech positions because my own field uses 'technician' a lot for some reason, and a lot of university job search engines are rubbish).
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Few years back, my Dad had a minor heart attack. Few stents and a change of lifestyle later and he’s fine and dandy.
Because there was space in a hospital for him.
My Mum finally lost her cancer battle last year. She’d been fighting it through various treatments for around a decade. Chemo, tupenny-all-out etc.
Because the health service had the time and resources.
When I was 16 and just starting to sit my GCSEs? Yeah my appendix ruptured. Emergency operation later, and here I am.
Because the health service had the time and resources.
Remember, we’re truly spoiled in the modern day. Broken limbs are rarely fatal. Even coronavirus is relatively rarely fatal. Because, for now, we have the resources to tackle it. Ventilators etc.
But just because you survive it, doesn’t mean you survive it unscathed. Facebook friend has had the virus. He’s not dead - but his lungs are permanently damaged.
Routine but life saving treatments could be lost if this spirals out of control. That’s an ever higher death toll, linked to, but not directly caused by coronavirus.
The more cases in a given hospital, the higher the risk to hospital staff. What happens if Doctors and Nurses start coming down with it? Ever greater strain. The greater the strain, the greater the death toll.
I lost my Mum last year, because sadly her cancer became incurable. I am not prepared to lose anyone else, not from something actually avoidable.
By all means be sceptical. Definitely question advice. But for now? As long as you’re following it? We’re golden. But those Words Not Allowed on Dakka flouting it? The idiots demanding their barber go back to work etc? Those claiming this is all just a conspiracy by Big Pharma whilst entirely coincidentally flogging their own ‘miracle cures’ (which certainly isn’t bleach, despite it smelling like bleach and actually being bleach it’s definitely not actually bleach)? The morons burning down 5G towers? No. No no no.
Because I’ve been round the block often enough and seen enough of the world’s dark sense of humour to know, inexplicably, they all too rarely carry the can for the harm they cause others.
To get melodramatic? Give me a list of 100 people you know. This list must include your nuclear family and extended family, and your friends. I’ll then roll a D100 twice to determine who dies from Coronavirus.
Fed up of Scalpers? But still want your Exclusives? Why not join us?
Matt Swain wrote: Dukeofstuff, first off you never met my grandfather and you don't know what he would have pointed out.
Secondly, herd immunity as far as I know never effecitvely eradicated a single disease. It may have reduced their death tolls but it took vaccinations to effectively make them non issues to the vast majority of the human race.
So I'm not waiting. I don't care if we have to "gut the military" (Which is what some people call no increasing military spending every year, let alone reducing it in any way) to finance covid vaccine research, we go with vaccine research.
I believe we should start transferring money from the military finding to covid vaccine research, and keep it up till we get it. Manhattan project levels of funding and research till we get the vaccine.
Respectfully, if you introduce a personal anecdote into a debate, you can't then take it personally if someone uses it in their counterpoint.
IF. you seem very sure that there's a vaccine out there just waiting to be found, so what's your plan when none appears? We just throw money at scientists ad infinitum?
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Heresy World Eaters/Emperors Children 
