Thanks. That would be cool if you are chosen and get one of the better vaccines. Then (I think) we hope you end up in the active group rather than the control group. Keep us updated.Quote:
Originally Posted by blackchubby38
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Thanks. That would be cool if you are chosen and get one of the better vaccines. Then (I think) we hope you end up in the active group rather than the control group. Keep us updated.Quote:
Originally Posted by blackchubby38
We now know how to defeat Covid 19. Just put your lips together, and blow...
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...-a9448561.html
While I know wearing masks in the public is important, am I the only person who thinks it wrong to either fine or arrest people for not doing so. The same goes for informing on businesses that aren't enforcing social distancing guidelines.
I wouldn't be surprised if there are people who agree with you though I disagree.
To start, it doesn't violate a constitutionally recognized liberty interest to require someone to wear a mask during a pandemic and to enforce it with a civil fine. The same goes for businesses that aren't following public health orders. I think part of the social contract is that (within reasonable limits) people can be required to take precautions because of the collective benefit they provide. And if wearing a mask doesn't jeopardize the wearer's health (and may provide some protection) then a mandate isn't unreasonable. How else would we enforce a public health measure that people insist is their prerogative not to follow except with a sanction of some sort?
I think it would be wrong to fine someone for not wearing a mask if they have a respiratory condition that makes it difficult for them to do so and so I would strongly support medically proven exemptions to a mandate. I think people can be required to sacrifice their comfort for a legitimate safety benefit but not necessarily their own personal well-being.
I don't know if it's productive to fine people for not wearing masks given the culture we have and the shocking level of ignorance that's been sown among our public. If we fine people, I think there are enough people with a skewed idea of what our constitution says that we'd just have more people flout the regulation.
For Stavros: a week or so ago you posted an informative article that included a prediction that it might take longer than people expected for a vaccine to be available. I responded that I had read some of the rebuttals and provided what I thought was the other side of the argument. Of course, I've consistently sought out the most optimistic voices about vaccines and treatments because frankly it makes me feel better. Anyhow, I thought of our exchange when I saw this article, which has comments from a range of experts about what can still go wrong and why it might be a bad idea to convince people there won't be any complications with the phase iii vaccine trials. They do a good job of including some experts who are bullish as well. We'll see!
https://www.vox.com/21311768/covid-19-coronavirus-vaccine-available-moderna-fauci
Former Republican Presidential candidate Herman Cain died of Covid today. He attended the Trump Tulsa rally and urged people not to wear masks because according to him everyone was "fed up." It's unclear whether he contracted covid at the rally or was there spreading it to hundreds of other people.
Covid has both defined who we are as a society and is changing it for the worse. For my part, I started out wishing everyone well regardless of their choices. I'm at the point where I don't feel much regret that someone who has endangered other people has lost a battle with a disease he showed no concern about. Will Herman Cain's death be a wake up call to people peddling misinformation about the virus? Why didn't Herman take hydroxychloroquine? Couldn't demon sex doctor have gotten him some hydroxychloroquine? We really shouldn't joke about the dead. It's ghoulish and wrong.....but what if the dead were systematically poisoning people with misinformation while they were alive and succumbed to that same poison?
Victims of misinformation and victimizers as well. It's almost like Herman Cain's body decided to issue the correction to his public statements.
Thanks for this Broncofan, for some reason I seem to have missed it until today. On the one hand, if I have been guarded in my views on a vaccine, it is because a vaccine against Corona type viruses has not been found. On the other hand, the temporary nature of the SARS pandemic in the early 2000s meant the pool of infected subjected from which to derive enough information for a vaccine was not stable enough, whereas the extensive occurrence of Covid 19 and the large number of scientists across the world working on a vaccine suggests it might be found sooner rather than later.Quote:
Originally Posted by broncofan
At this stage I think Government should be looking at intermediate strategies, of which the most crucial now is test and tracing. British tourists arriving back in the UK are not tested at the airport, yet have been told to self-isolate. It is obvious that testing at the airport is the best way to find out if returning tourists are infected not least because most have been in the least affected areas of Spain -its islands- rather than those parts of Spain where there have been new cases.
It is also important that results be rapid, ideally, as with a breathalyser test, immediate, or at least some test to indicate a possible infection -but also for returning tourists to have follow-up tests a fortnight after returning home. With an effective test and trace system, we will know if returning tourists (or travellers for other reasons) are at risk, and save on the inconvience of re-instating lockdowns as a blanket measure (as has happened overnight in the North, the grim North) because the Government, six months into this pandemic, has yet to create an effective reporting system, in spite of the insistence of the WHO from the start on the importance of testing and tracing.
There has been an overload of regulation, but a deficit of prophylactic tactics designed to aquire information on the basis of which to quarantine, or not as the case may be -saving anxiety, time, and lots of money. I wish I could express my confidence in the manner in which this pandemic is being handled in the UK -I can't. I don't think Boris Johnson is as absorbed in this crisis as he is in a crisis of his own making, namely Brexit.
Not much chance of that. These people seem to have almost unlimited capacity for spinning anything that happens to fit their existing narrative. For example, I just saw this story about a Republican Congressman who claims he may have got the virus because he started wearing a mask after resisting previously. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-07-...trump/12506114Quote:
Originally Posted by broncofan
Meanwhile, the situation in Australia is a little worrying. The outbreak in Melbourne is not under control after 3 weeks of lockdown, and cases are now starting to rise again in Sydney. Social-distancing fatigue seems to have set in, as people are being less cautious than they were in the first wave. A recent survey found that 90% of people were not self-isolating after first experiencing symptoms, and only half were doing so between being tested and receiving their results.
One issue the current surge has highlighted is problems in the running of private aged care homes, where most of the deaths have occurred. There have been fewer problems in state-run homes, which have more stringent staffing standards. Inadequate care of the aged has been a long-running issue, but the virus has really brought it home. It seems that as a society we have chosen to prioritise keeping taxes low over the welfare of the elderly.
Testing efficiency is improving and is one very important way to control outbreaks. One reason it was fairly obvious that people without symptoms were spreading the disease is that it would presumably be pretty easy to control a disease that only people with significant symptoms could spread. Even without contact tracing, you could tell covid wasn't controlled just by isolating people once they develop a sore throat or something.Quote:
Originally Posted by Stavros
In the U.S., major league baseball has started a season. They are testing their players regularly, limiting staff, and hosting games without fans. They're still experiencing outbreaks because they have not properly isolated the players and the season will probably end up being canceled. Within two weeks there have already been two major team outbreaks and it looks like some futuristic contest of attrition. Lots of testing and common sense can go a long way.
Filghy-I'm sorry to hear there are outbreaks in Australia. I had been following for the first several months but haven't paid attention lately. I can only imagine you have responsible officials who are at least trying to control what's going on. Even countries that have been vigilant and guided by science such as Germany (and now Australia) have had some outbreaks simply because this disease is so tough to contain. In the long run intelligent efforts are rewarded though. But quarantine fatigue is real.
As for assisted living or private aged care centers, it's a tough problem. Residents have lots of medical needs, frequently go to hospitals, and are exposed to nurses, doctors, and other staff. Wherever there are outbreaks here there seem to be problems within these facilities and they need a bit of luck not to be hit. My uncle is in one of these facilities and we just got a letter saying they had their first two cases of covid.
One reason I'm cautious in my expectations is that I've read about therapies and been optimistic before only to learn that the drug and vaccine development process is slow and can seem even slower with 1000+ people a day dying in this country. I also haven't found there is a consensus with respect to a timeline for a vaccine, as some scientists believe it will be successful and others anticipate some pitfalls.Quote:
Originally Posted by Stavros
One thing I can say is that I'm more likely to be optimistic because I haven't watched this slow process unfold before and therefore am not aware of all of the pitfalls that can hinder vaccine efforts. I will read one study about rhesus monkeys developing immunity to viral challenge and won't even consider that humans might not have the same response, both to the vaccine and to the disease. Scientists are still trying to figure out what the "correlates of immunity" are but it's guesswork until people are vaccinated and go out in the world.
I do think our epidemiological controls should be based on the premise that there will be a vaccine by February or so of next year, even if it ends up not being the case. If there are lots of failures and other pitfalls then public health strategies can be revamped then. But if you tell people that there is a possible light at the end of the tunnel, they then can tell themselves they're not committing to being cautious their entire lives.
Finally, I also had been interested in monoclonal antibodies simply because it seemed exciting and short of re-purposing drugs designed for other diseases it is the only way to develop a tailored treatment in a short period of time. As I said before, they were very effective in Ebola, though they don't have a long track record of use in infectious diseases (pitfalls here involve "viral escape" and the development of viral resistance to the monoclonal antibody; interestingly people can even develop antibodies to the synthetic antibody which is not ideal either). I think data from some of the human trials for these antibodies are expected to be released by the end of the summer, so whether it's false optimism or a real treatment, at least we'll have some idea.
In Australia, the major sports teams have been relocated to hubs in relatively safe areas, where the players and support staff are kept isolated from the general public. They can bring their families, but they have to be isolated as well. At present there is no Australian rules football games being played in Melbourne, which is the home of the sport. I think that is the first time ever, as they kept playing during WWII.Quote:
Originally Posted by broncofan
The appalling thing is that most of this second wave appears to have originated from lapses in the control of hotel quarantine in Melbourne, which was outsourced to private security companies. I assume that was done to save on police resources, which definitely proved to be a false economy.Quote:
Originally Posted by broncofan
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-07-...ourne/12471916
Fortunately our politicians are still mostly acting like mature adults. Even the finger-pointing and blame-shifting between politicians of different parties when things have gone wrong has been fairly constrained.
So, it looks like the US did in fact have a 'National Plan' to tackle Covid 19 -but it was scuppered by Under-President Kushner -is this man ever going to make himself accountable for his decisions?
"Inside the White House, over much of March and early April, Kushner’s handpicked group of young business associates, which included a former college roommate, teamed up with several top experts from the diagnostic-testing industry. Together, they hammered out the outline of a national testing strategy. The group—working night and day, using the encrypted platform WhatsApp—emerged with a detailed plan obtained by Vanity Fair.
Rather than have states fight each other for scarce diagnostic tests and limited lab capacity, the plan would have set up a system of national oversight and coordination to surge supplies, allocate test kits, lift regulatory and contractual roadblocks, and establish a widespread virus surveillance system by the fall, to help pinpoint subsequent outbreaks.
The solutions it proposed weren’t rocket science—or even comparable to the dauntingly complex undertaking of developing a new vaccine. Any national plan to address testing deficits would likely be more on the level of “replicating UPS for an industry,” said Dr. Mike Pellini, the managing partner of Section 32, a technology and health care venture capital fund. “Imagine if UPS or FedEx didn’t have infrastructure to connect all the dots. It would be complete chaos.”
The plan crafted at the White House, then, set out to connect the dots. Some of those who worked on the plan were told that it would be presented to President Trump and likely announced in the Rose Garden in early April. “I was beyond optimistic,” said one participant. “My understanding was that the final document would make its way to the president over that weekend” and would result in a “significant announcement.”
But no nationally coordinated testing strategy was ever announced. The plan, according to the participant, “just went poof into thin air.”
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020...-into-thin-air
I went to a Manly Eagles Aussie Rules football game a while ago. I had a lot of fun but it was kind of like explaining American football to someone who's never watched it. You can explain the premise but then any time something happens you're explaining an exception or some quirk. I know I'm saying this apropos of nothing but it's a vivid memory for me. Hopefully they're back when this nightmare is over.Quote:
Originally Posted by filghy2
Anyway, that seems like the obvious way to do things. Imagine Major League Baseball's planning process though. They honestly thought they could test players and staff, allow both to go out in public where a super transmissible virus is raging, and that people would always test positive before spreading it. This illusion has already been shattered. When I heard they were having the season, I figured they could probably have the players make some commitment to quarantine or opt out if they were uncomfortable with that, and even hold all of the games in the same location without a lot of travel.
As for the hotel quarantine breakdowns, all I can say is that your administrative mistakes regard precautions we haven't even contemplated. We have people go back home when they test positive and don't even have options to provide them. I hope you get things under control. I did look at the numbers in Australia, not by region though, and they've popped, but you can definitely get things back to where they were. If I looked at the right time of day, it was 600 new cases in a country of 25 million. This would be the per capita equivalent of 8000 new cases in the U.S. For reference, when we had started to suppress the virus and get things under control before the south exploded, we had 20,000 cases and declining. So I think now is the time to act...
One interesting study would be how the U.S.' response to Covid compares to our response to Influenza in 1918. The 1918 pandemic killed 675,000 Americans while Covid has killed 154,000 so far.
Take into account that in 1918 there were a lot of differences in icu care. Ventilators had not been invented yet. So while we may lament the fact that only 40-50% of those put on ventilators survive (the reporting for survival rate for people ventilated has varied a lot), everyone who would need one would be dead. Oxygen therapy had already been used therapeutically but I'm having trouble locating whether hospitals in 1918 were all equipped with it and using it. But an enormous number of people have needed oxygen to survive.
Testing was not nearly as good back then. As Trump likes to boast, we have tested tens of millions of people. The ability to work remotely was not possible then. And it's tough to know exact infection fatality rates but I haven't seen a lot of evidence that covid is more deadly than 1918 flu. Is it possible that we responded to a deadly pandemic better in 1918 than 2020?
From what I have read about the The Flu Epidemic of 1918, was that it worse than the Corona Virus. Especially when you take into consideration how much living conditions and medical care has improved since then. WWI was coming to an end, so you had U.S. troops returning from Europe. Not on a plane mind you. But on a boat on a voyage that if I recall took about 6 days to complete.Quote:
Originally Posted by broncofan
Not surprised that the National Plan on how to handle the CO-VID 19 Global Pandemic was scrapped by the Silverspoon Spoiled Brat Jared Kushner,nope he's never going to make himself accountable for his decisions,because he just as delusional and toned deaf like his father in law the Clueless Buffoon In Chief is.Quote:
Originally Posted by Stavros
Positive results for Regeneron's antibody cocktail in non-human primates when used therapeutically and prophylactically. This is a good sign but obviously not as good as positive results in clinical trials in humans which we're waiting on.
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.08.02.233320v1
https://twitter.com/AndyBiotech/stat...28132848214016
https://af.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idAFKCN24Z2S3
A short clip of Trump being dismantled by Jonathan Swan. Apparently Trump thinks the relevant metric is CFR and not deaths per capita. He should be removed from office for being this dumb.
https://twitter.com/axios/status/1290497186489348096
Is it the case that his staff are terrified of telling him the truth, telling him how to add up, because they don't want to be fired, because they fear his volcanic temper? Or is it the case that they do tell him, but he is so utterly convinced of his own -superior- intelligence that he just ignores them, as he ignores -and then insults Drs Fauci and Birx? Kushner might be intellectually ill-equipped for his ghostling of the Presidency -I believe he is now co-ordinating and directing the re-election campaign- but then when you read the tweets of Junior and Skittles, you reach the conclusion there is a circle of dimwits in the White House who can't actually see what the rest of the world is seeing.
The key point is this: he doesn't care. And more worryingly, the men who can do someting -McConnell, Barr -don't care either. They seem to me have boxed themselves into an ideological vice in which you are either with the President and the USA, or against them. All those years in Congress and the Department of Justice, and they can't see the incompetence in front of them? You have to wonder if the Republicans looking defeat in the face have decided to go down with the ship rather than save it.
Covid 19 has become too difficult for the most egocentric leaders to handle, because they are are not used to delegating, or to collegiate decision making based on non-political, in this case medical, advice. They have been revealed to be too timid, or indifferent to the stark reality of the virus, to make the very tough decisions that are supposed to be emblems of the tough-guy persona they project: your President, Boris Johnson, Jair Bolosonaro, Benjamin Netanyahu.
The myth of the strong leader, exposed by the kind of public health crisis that ought to show them at their finest -and a fascinatng study by Archie Brown. Note that for Brown
"...Truman is something of a hero. In contrast to self-styled "strong" leaders, seeking to achieve their aims through dominance and diktat, Truman was an instinctively collegiate president, delegating significant authority to his colleagues – especially his two secretaries of state, George Marshall and Dean Acheson. As Brown writes: "It was characteristic of Truman's style that the most outstanding foreign policy achievement of his presidency is known as the Marshall Plan, not the Truman Plan."
https://www.theguardian.com/books/20...e-brown-review
This probably should go into the thread about NYC, but since we are talking about ineffective leaders.
Apparently the New York city Health commissioner has resigned over Mayor Deblasio's handling of the Corona Virus. While there are no details yet as to what the problem was, I wish he was one the resigning and not her.
https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipelin...il-in-primates
I highly recommend this article for those who are interested in treatments. It interprets Regeneron's animal studies, talks about how effective each animal model is at predicting human response, and discusses the pros and cons of prophylactic v therapeutic use of antibodies.
The federal government has given Regeneron a paltry 450 million dollars and I don't think has had much involvement in the funding of other antibody candidates.
The big problem with antibody treatments is that in the first round only 100,000 doses might be produced as capacity is limited. This limits its usefulness for prophylactic use except in high risk groups. It also will limit its usefulness if it is only effective if administered early. We have millions of cases in this country. We really need to see this show effects when administered to people who are already in serious condition in order for current capacity to meet demand and make a big difference. That's tougher. Regeneron's ebola cocktail was much more effective when administered early but still showed modest improvement in survival when administered a bit later. Of course, covid is not as deadly per case as ebola and there is a chance this still improve survival rate in already hospitalized patients.
The issue with authoritarian figures or in the case of President Trump figures with those traits, is that they don't like to hear bad news. So Dr. Birx, Dr. Fauci and the rest of the Corona Virus task force have had to walk the fine line of doing what's the best for the county, all the while keeping the person they work for happy. I think both Birx and Fauci realize/ed the worst thing that could have happened/still happen is if one or the both of them got/gets fired.Quote:
Originally Posted by Stavros
So I think they make sure to tell him things that he wants to hear, all the while making sure the public knows what's going on. That's why Fauci is always giving interviews with various media outlets. While this hasn't saved them from getting insulted by Trump, it has kept the task force intact for the whole time the pandemic has been going on.
Its not an easy position to be in because it looks like they're signing off on whatever the President is saying. Over the weekend it was reported that Nancy Pelosi doesn't think too highly of Dr. Birx because she didn't push back forcibly when Trump made the comment about injecting disinfectants. But like Dr. Facui said earlier this year, "What are we supposed to do, grab the microphone out of his hands as he is speaking".
That's an interesting point you make about Truman delegating significant authority to his colleagues. While that maybe true, he also said "The buck stops here". Meaning that final decision will always be made by the person in charge and that a leader will always take the responsibility for when things go wrong.
All good points, but not good for governance in a democracy.
I was surprised at Nancy Pelosi's comments on Dr Birx, it seemed like a cheap shot from someone in her position, I don't know enough about her to know if this is how she is, or if it was a lapse of judgment.
Truman is a difficult one to assess- the use of the Atom Bomb in Japan -about which the pro-and-contra arguments continue to batter each other (see the link below); the alleged manipulation of the UN to embark on war in Korea...perhaps it was his style that appeals to Archie Brown.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...lear-atom-bomb
A brief (14 pages) but interesting view of the political and economic challenges of Covid 19, including proposals for a one-off wealth tax, has been produced by the London School of Econoics, and is here-
http://cep.lse.ac.uk/pubs/download/cepcovid-19-004.pdf
Those of you interested in the vaccine against Covif 19 may know of this website tracking more than 40 experiments currently taking place. Not sure how often it is updated, the link is from 4 days ago-
https://www.raps.org/news-and-articl...accine-tracker
africa says no to the vaccine https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWWgTwFKoUs
A puzzling question at present is why Republicans are uninterested in reaching agreement on a further stimulus package - or indeed any strategy for dealing with the effects of the virus - when they are the ones likely to suffer if things are not improving by November. In other words, why are they behaving like an opposition party when they are the incumbent?
This article suggests four possible explanations: https://www.vox.com/policy-and-polit...stimulus-polls
- they are afraid to do anything independently of Trump's say-so
- anti-government ideology cannot deal with any crisis requiring government intervention
- they are afraid of a Tea Party 2.0 internal backlash
- they have given up on November and just want to make things as hard as possible for a Biden administration
This fits in with the point made in Robert Reich's article posted in the other thread: because Republican's have succeeded politically through negative strategies these seem now to be the only skills they have and that are valued within the party.
How can such a party deal with any problem requiring carefully-considered government responses? Presumably by trying to deny the seriousness of the problem or by finding scapegoats to divert attention from the real issues. And how long can this approach succeed - particularly if (as seems plausible) we are entering a period where we are more exposed to crises that require some kind of government action?
We have reached a stage, not just in the US, when failure and a refusal to accept responsibility for failure has become 'normal', because those within the parties concerned -Republicans, Democrats, Conservatives and Labour (ie, in the US and UK)- are terrified of the reality that change must mean if we are to move on from Covid 19, colossal government debt, and the long term but nevertheless urgent problems that have been set aside -climate change, the meaning and practice of work, to which we now add its challenged location, and the dismal prospect that our youth, under the age of 20, are being condemned to a decade of idleness and despair.Quote:
Originally Posted by filghy2
Perhaps nothing encapsulates the indifference to facts, than the President's attempt to ridicule New Zealand because it has recorded nine new cases of Covid 19-
"“The places they were using to hold up now they’re having a big surge … they were holding up names of countries and now they’re saying ‘whoops!.
“Do you see what’s happening in New Zealand? They beat it, they beat it, it was like front-page news because they wanted to show me something,” the US president said at a campaign rally in Mankato, Minnesota.
...On Monday Auckland recorded nine new cases of the virus, and 13 on Tuesday, while the US’s Monday figure was just under 42,000."
https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...ne-covid-cases
The fact is everyone who can read or turn on their tv or radio, can see this nonsense fo themselves, just as few people can believe the grandiose rubbish that the President talks about when everything is 'the worst in history', 'the greatest in history' and when he can claim Obama is guilty of Treason without a shred of evidence -indeed, this is media madness at its 'best' of the kind Murdoch has been pumping out since he was so slimy an operator in Australia they called him 'the dirty digger'. Truth is irrelevant, using all means possible to repeatedly sneer and jeer at others using 'street smart' lingo to 'connect' with Blokes and Mums -the whole point is that every day Obama must be cast as a villain, any achievements of his administration claimed by the succeeding one. There is no this and that, only either/or.
Covid 19 is not important because the people dying from it are not important, and because Dr Fauci talks too much about medicine and society, he is replaced by a jobsworth whose primary aim will be to praise the President.
But the self-harm filghy2 refers to is now evident in the atttack on the UPS, a contraction of whosse services damages the lives of rural voters most likely to vote Republican, just as Republican governors indifferent to Covid 19 are seeing their voters hit by the very same virus they dismiss, as if it were just something they must bear. It remains to be seen, that if votes are not counted, they will include enough Republican voters to deny him a second term in office.
He cannot perpetually condemn the Democrats for stealing an election, when he has alienated, and may deny the vote from his own base. But the US is set for five-to-six months of chaos, whereas in the UK, where the fiasco of school exam results has crystallized so much of what has gone wrong with the overall campaign against Covid 19, we are four months away from the reality of Brexit, with the sense that nobody is in charge, or that those in office don't want to take charge, thus Secretary of State for Education Gavin Williamson, widely regarded as the least competent minister in a Cabinet of misfits, takes no responsibility for the failure of his department, because at fault is an algorithm.
If it were not for the strength and diversity of our civil society, our inherited freedoms, the vitality of social media and multi-party democracies, we would resemble Belarus. And to think that Lukashenko is the kind of politician the President aspires to be, that Boris Johnson most resembles....well, with rumours of a split in the Communist Party of China over Xi's not-so-briliant thought, and even more inept action, which major power is going to be the first to be clobbered by Covid?
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/14/h...reatments.html
The reason many virologists are interested in the results of human trials in monoclonal antibodies is that it takes two to five years to develop an antiviral that is tailored to a particular virus. It is also unlikely that repurposed drugs, be they antivirals or immunosuppressants, are going to have a major impact on the course of the epidemic. On the other hand, monoclonal antibodies, if production can match demand, actually have the potential to come online and make a big difference prior to the approval of vaccines. Furthermore, testing of antibody cocktails in two different animal models have shown robust effects on disease course.
Is it any surprise then that the Trump administration has spent very little money helping to develop them? Is it any surprise that clinical trials are difficult to conduct because of testing deficiencies, including slow turn around times on tests which has slowed enrollment? Regeneron's data is going to be delayed by at least a month and Eli Lilly has now said they may not be done with phase iii trials until the end of the year. Government money may help Regeneron produce at risk but there are a bunch of other companies trying to develop them, from Lilly to Sorrento. Another missed opportunity to actually help people.
A brutal analysis of the Conservative Governmen inept management of Covid-19-
"The government has offered no support to ensure people are able to self-isolate. Nor has it collected statistics on whether people actually are self-isolating – an extraordinary oversight, given that the whole exercise is practically pointless without this information. If isolating means people – particularly those in the gig economy – will lose their incomes and possibly even their jobs, they are far less likely to come forward to be tested. Likewise, they’re less likely to name their mates, who may also lose out. How can we expect people to look after their community if their community won’t look after them?
Despite clear international evidence indicating the importance of support measures, and domestic stories about people spreading infection because they continued to work even when unwell, the government has done nothing to support people isolating. They have made no moves to ensure those people have access to sick pay or to prevent bad employers from reprimanding workers who have to isolate. The government has designed a system whose aim is to get people to self-isolate – without making it possible for people to do so."
https://www.theguardian.com/commenti...gs-coronavirus
The Telegraph in the UK argues that the fundamental flaw in China in the information chain in December 2019 -possibly even before that- lay in the fear among low-level party and Wuhan city functionaies that they would be punished for admitting they had not been able to control the first cases of what became Covid 19. Though it appears to shift direct blame from the Chinese Government, the culture of fear and silence in the Communist Party which must be immune from criticism, undoubtedly helped the virus spread. How other Governments then reacted is a separate argument, but this one seems reasonable to believe-
"Unfortunately for the world, the universal fear of passing bad news up the chain was all the more acute in this case under an authoritarian system that encourages officials to withhold information for fear of reprisal.
Tragically, this enduring lack of transparency and accountability under President Xi Jinping’s Communist regime means we may never know the cause of this deadly coronavirus in order to prevent the next. "
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-h...d-19-outbreak/
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/...38862108663808
Donald Trump is pretending like the hold-up with vaccines and therapeutics is red tape from "deep state" saboteurs at the FDA. First, there has not been a hold up with vaccines as they have moved at extremely rapid speed through phase i and ii trials and are enrolling patients for phase iii very quickly. We are not Russia (yet). We are not going to be administering untested vaccines to people when we don't know whether they're safe or effective. What Russia is doing doesn't just endanger its own citizens but also risks making the pandemic worse. Vaccine-induced resistance to viruses is more of a theoretical risk but it is possible for an ineffective vaccine to create a selection pressure for the virus that would increase its virulence. They could do this in the same way a therapeutic can create pathogen resistance. If the induced immune response doesn't completely clear the virus, it can result in mutations that are more difficult for the immune system to deal with.
Finally, the therapeutics he is talking about are delayed because of insufficient testing which is at least partly on him. He has spent the last several months hawking hydroxychloroquine when it's ineffective and has taken no interest in the therapeutics with the most potential, including interferon (Sukumvit posted a link on the other thread) and monoclonal antibodies. The government has invested a sum total of 450 million dollars into monoclonal antibodies, when it should have invested more than ten times that amount. If they are shown to be effective either at prevention in key workers or as therapeutics and they are not ready by election time, it is his negligence and the poorly coordinated response of our government that is to blame. Monoclonal antibodies should have been much easier to expedite through clinical trials than a vaccine because it is easier to screen for the dangers associated with administering one or two cloned antibodies than the varied immune responses of millions of people to a vaccine. If used as therapeutics, it also takes much less time to identify efficacy. But alas, with tests taking five days to come back it is difficult to enroll patients in trials meant to test the product in early disease.
What a clusterfuck. What an incompetent, stupid piece of shit Trump is and how unbelievably stupid anyone is who doesn't know it.
And if the Republican Party is now in alliance with QAnon, should the President combat the 'Deep State' head-on, and fire all the Jews in his Administration, as presumably they are covert operatives of the 'Deep State' that is holding up development of the vaccine, and had Bannon arrested?
Completely agree 1000%.Quote:
Originally Posted by broncofan
RE:And these are 2 more examples from a Clueless Buffoon spreading conspiracy theories,and doesn't know what the hell he is doing or what he's talking about. and agree that Donald Trump is an incompetent and stupid pile of shit. andQuote:
Originally Posted by broncofan
how unbelievably stupid anyone who doesn't know it.
The FDA recently, under pressure from the Trump administration, supported an Emergency Use Authorization for convalescent plasma. Convalescent plasma was initially considered a promising therapy but more recent evidence suggests it's not very effective. First, most hospitalized patients have reasonably high titers of antibodies and the supposition is that a transfusion, even from someone who cleared the virus, may not do too much. In ebola, convalescent plasma was not effective even though monoclonal antibodies were, and my understanding is that it can be hit or miss in infectious diseases.
The most important point I suppose is that there aren't any randomized controlled trials demonstrating its effectiveness. We've spent time and effort with such trials of hydroxychloroquine, but 6 months into the U.S. pandemic we do not have results from a single rct for convalescent plasma. It may work, it is unlikely to cause harm, but its approval is politically motivated.
Finally, the idea of therapeutics is attractive to anyone who looks at public health efforts and says, "that's not the way it should be." It's a hope for a silver bullet or something that can make this pandemic go away. Likely that won't happen until we get a vaccine. As I've said before, I found monoclonal antibodies exciting and think they have a lot of potential in general despite their limitations, but we will probably be dealing with this until there's an effective vaccine.
The situation here in the UK can best be described as confusion close to chaos. On the one hand, the overall rate of infection has declined as have daily deaths, but in specific parts of the country, including Scotland, there have been spikes in the rate of infection. Some of it has been caused by holiday-makers returning from supposedly 'safe' destinations in Greece and Portugal, others due to more schools opening. 20-30 year olds are accused of beig the carriers of the virus, largely because of the relaxation on physical distancing in public places.
Yesterday we had the farcical situation of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland having different regulations for holidaymakers-
"Differences in UK quarantine rules are "confusing" for travellers, Grant Shapps has admitted, as the four nations take varying approaches to international travel.
The transport secretary acknowledged people's frustrations, as Scotland and Wales asked arrivals from Portugal and parts of Greece to isolate, but England and Northern Ireland held off.
Wales' rules, including only six Greek islands, began at 04:00 BST on Friday.
Travel firms called for urgent clarity.
Some holidaymakers from England who anticipated a change in quarantine rules said they spent hundreds of pounds to get home early.
While Wales' advice has already changed, arrivals to Scotland from Portugal and French Polynesia will also have to self-isolate from 04:00 on Saturday. Scotland has already reintroduced quarantine for arrivals from Greece.
The measures will affect those who reside in Wales and Scotland but return to the UK via England.
Portugal, Greece and French Polynesia are still on England and Northern Ireland's lists of travel corridors."
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-54022411
Meanwhile Boris Johnsn's poll ratings have sunk from an approval rate of 92% in March to 48%. There is a sense here that the Government wants to move on from Covid, and certanly there is also anxiety that the trade negotiations with the EU are not going well, even if Johnson, Cummings and others want the UK to leave the EU in December without a deal. As the idea of income tax increases was floated earlier this week, alarm bells rang and the Prime Minister yesterday had to address a hastily arranged meeting of Tory MPs to calm their nerves, though he did so to a room packed with over 50 MPs, not wearing masks, in a room where 20 was supposed to be the maximum. It remans to be seen if anyone falls ill, as has happened with meetings addressed by the President in the USA.
It means that without a vaccine that is touted as some sort of magic bullet that will bring an end to the way we live, and with spikes in new cases forcing instant lockdowns of towns and cities or areas within them, we have moved from the gradual descent from the peak of the pandemic, to a jagged fall and rise which suggest that quarantine, self-isolation and other strategies may be with us for at least another six months, with a severe impact on the economy. How much longer can the Government subsidize business?
Add to that is the prospect of the UK failing to agree a trade deal with the EU, or an agreement of principles which leaves detais to be decided at a later date. But another report claims that with the formal end of UK-EU relations starting at the end of the year no firm plans have been put in place to control border traffic-
"Boris Johnson’s government has been warned of “border chaos” at the end of the Brexit transition period, as a leaked government document revealed that attempts to get the UK’s ready for trade for 1 January 2021 are “unmanageable”.
Eight major groups from the logistics industry are now demanding an urgent meeting with Michael Gove and other senior cabinet ministers – warning that the UK’s supply chain faces “severe disruption” if infrastructure and IT systems are not fixed."
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/u...-a9704536.html
Martin Kettle points out that when she was forced to resign as leader of her party, Margaret Thatcher had a majority of 101, larger than Johnson's. When he was running for the leadership there were plenty of warnings about Boris Johnson's cavalier attitude to policy, and he has demonstrated in recent months a frustration shared by most people that Covid continues to shape our lives. But while some of us accept that and the limitations it imposes on us, he wants to be rushing around doing other things, obsessed as he is with proving he has always been right about Brexit.
Johnson will survive his first year as Prime Minister- I don't expect a challenge to his leadership this December-, but will he survive 2021? The signs are not good, and even those of us who want to see him gone, cannot see much to hope for if Brexit + Covid makes a bad situation worse. Some people leaving the city for the countryside might wonder if they shoud leave the country altogether. If I was under the age of 40, I think I would leave.
Martin Kettle has a perceptive article on Johnson here-
https://www.theguardian.com/commenti...nservative-mps
We had a right to think that by September we would be moving out of this crisis, not deeper into it. What a pathetic shower of idiots and losers this Government is!
"The UK has recorded a massive rise in the number of people testing positive for coronavirus, amid concerns the government has lost control of the epidemic just as people are returning to work and universities prepare to reopen.
Labour has demanded the health secretary, Matt Hancock, give an urgent statement to the House of Commons to explain the increase and why some people are still being told to drive hundreds of miles to have a test."
https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...rol-cases-soar