Bijou Drains
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I think the small number of Covid deaths in some relatively hot countries is much more likely to be as a result of different demographic patterns. If most deaths are in the over 60s and a country doesn’t have many over 60s, then that country will probably not have many Covid deaths.
Paddy, it’s not just “likes” they’re after, it’s cash. David Icke’s estimated net worth is $2million, lots of the anti vaxxers, nut job Qanon misleaders, etc. have a nice little side line in peddling books, videos, subscriptions and other tat.
Wes – whilst it’s correct to say that Big Pharma’s main interest is profit, the situation here is a little more complex. It might also be true that a restaurant owner is only motivated by profit, but that doesn’t mean the chef is not motivated by a desire to provide beautiful food.
In the same way many of the scientists, researchers, etc. working for big pharma will be motivated by a wish to help humanity by controlling this dreadful virus.
Therefore to simply dismiss the results of these workers’ efforts, because of the social system they were produced in is a little like denying the artistic value of Michealangelo’s work because the Pope paid for it.
Another factor in this situation is the fact that this is a pandemic, pan meaning all. The owners of Big Pharma are not immune from this virus, nor are their friends and family. Not only that, a situation has arisen where to an extent the well being of themselves, their friends and their family is dependent to some degree on the welfare of the whole community. If the virus is not controlled on a world wide basis, it will continue to be a threat to them as much as it is to us. No virus control, no luxury ski resorts, no lavish restaurants, etc alongside the ever present risk of mutation. Although the poor have had higher rates of mortality, plenty of rich and famous people have died in this pandemic.
Moving on, whilst I can understand why “some are dubious” about the vaccines, a little research into methodology reveals an awful lot of information. Unfortunately some of the what might be termed the “Vaccine Skeptics” are as averse to studying the boring subject of statistics as the “anti vaxers” are. However a study of research methodology and statistics are very enlightening when it comes to understanding why vaccines have been produced so quickly, whilst also adding to evidence of their safety.
Again the key to understanding this is the fact that there’s a pandemic.
Say for instance we compare the development of the COVID vaccine with the Hepatitis C vaccine.
To prove the safety and efficacy of the Heb C vaccine you would need to recruit many thousands of volunteers and carry out a classic double blind study.
You divide the volunteers into two groups, one group gets the vaccine, one group gets a placebo, no one knows who got what until the end of the trial. At the end of the trial you compare the rate of infection between the two groups, showing the rate of effectiveness of the vaccine. Safety is also measured by comparing illnesses, reactions, etc between the two groups.
The difficulty for the Heb C trial is that it is very difficult and costly to recruit high numbers of volunteers, so they tend to be run with smaller numbers, so safety data is less thorough. Crucially because the prevalence of Heb C is quite low in the community the numbers of infections in the two groups are also very low, so much longer trials (often many years) are needed to increase the likelihood of infection and so provide the volume of data required to show efficacy and safety.
However for the Covid vaccine there was no shortage of volunteers, providing quick and accurate information on safety.
Also and crucially, because of the high level of prevalence of Covid in the community, determining efficacy, with high quality and very plentiful data, is really quite easy, shortening studies by many many years.
Also because of the current urgent situation, researchers are not waiting months and sometimes years to get their data in front of the regulators.
When you add the research already undertaken on SARS and MERS by vaccine researchers, it is easy to see why the Covid vaccines have been produced so quickly, yet can be judged as effective and safe.
The proof of this is flooding in, infection rates in vaccinated subjects in Israel have been very, very low. Globally very high numbers of vaccines have been given, with very high safety data coming back.
To put it into context, 100s of people are dying daily in the UK, due to Covid. Do you seriously believe that “big Pharma” and the government are suppressing big numbers of deaths or illness from the vaccine????
“a plot by Bill Gates to reduce the world’s population.”
He’s a bit of a tinker is that Bill Gates. Apparently he is also sticking a 5G micro chip in all of our arms through the vaccine so he can find out what everybody’s doing.I can imagine he’s thrilled with the progress of the vaccine roll out in the UK, as he will now know that a lot of the over 80’s in the UK watch Countdown in the afternoons and enjoy the occasional Werther’s Original.
I’m sure if I had $115 billion and a superyacht to travel the world in I would be focussing on finding out what time of day the average over 80 year old in the UK had a dump
Finally some good news about coronavirus
Re the efficacy of the AstraZeneca Vaccine_
“In a written response to the German media reports, AstraZeneca described the claims as “completely incorrect”.
Now, the German health ministry has admitted there is no data to suggest the vaccine only has 8% efficacy in older people.
In a statement on Tuesday, quoted by several media outlets, the ministry said: “At first glance, it seems that the reports have mixed up two things: about 8% of those tested in the AstraZeneca efficacy study were between 56 and 69, only 3-4% over 70.“”
Perhaps mark Zuckerberg has been brushing up on his Lenin, as Valdimir said “Why should freedom of speech and freedom of press be allowed? Why should a government which is doing what it believes to be right allow itself to be criticized? It would not allow opposition by lethal weapons. Ideas are much more fatal things than guns. Why should any man be allowed to buy a printing press and disseminate pernicious opinions calculated to embarrass the government?“
“But, BD, it is the prime minister who hands out the government departments to particular MPs or as we currently see Biden appointing non-elected government officials.”
I guess we’re lucky to have Boris Johnson then, he would never choose idiots to go in his cabinet, (apart from Gove, Hancock, Williamson, Truss, Sunak, Raab, Patel, etc.) or idiots for non elected government officals (apart from Cummings, Dido Harding, etc.).
I know capitalist governments look after the interests of the capitalist class, but I do really believe that the present bunch are amongst the most inept, ill informed and incompetent bunch of politicians I have come across. They might have just have been acceptable as committee members of the local allotment society, if it was a bad year for applicants.
“Would you believe it — a government minister in Ceylon has been advocating, and actually took, a quack remedy against covid, the minister of health no less.
How do idiots like this get into such a post?”
The working class elect them, unfortunately.
Police five times more likely to use force against black people than white people in England and Wales
Statistics revealed after police announce ‘plan of action’ to address racial disproportionality.It’ll probably work out the way it did with stop and search, they still stop and search as many Black workers, but to prove they don’t discriminate they stop and search a proportional number of white workers. Probably means they will now go out an bray the shit out of 5 times more white workers to demonstrate they aren’t racists.
To put the vaccine allergy story into some perpective, the article above states:
“COVID-19 vaccines can cause side effects such as fever, chills, headache or fatigue, which is a normal reaction and a sign that the body is building immunity. Severe reactions are rare, and anaphylaxis occurs in about 1 in 100,000 people.”That means that if every adult in the UK (roughly 52.5 million) had the vaccine, 525 would have an anaphylactic shock, the death rate from anaphylactic shock is about 5%, so that would lead to about 27 deaths. Covid now approaching 100,000 deaths in UK.
If you get to the stage of 100% inoculation, then the 70% of the population who are vaccinated and have immunity is usually enough to stop widespread community transmission. However the two vaccines currently being administered have different efficacies, one around the 90-95% and one around 70%. The level of cover will then depend upon the proportion of each given and also to which age groups they are given to (younger people and care staff would be more likely to transmit than older people in care homes because of their social pattern). This all also depends upon whether or not the immunity given by the jab also stops transmission.
The immunity from infection that the vaccine provides is not like a force field to the virus, the virus does enter the body as it usually would, however the immune system kills it off before it can establish itself. It may be that during this process of killing it off the virus is still infectious. Even if this was the case it is likely that the amount of time an infected person who has had the virus is infectious to others would be much reduced.
Taking this further from the original stage three trial of the Oxford vaccine, even of those who tested positive after the vaccine, non progressed to the level of needing hospital treatment and none died. The implication of this is that the vaccine boosts the immune system enough to deal with the infection eventually, although the virus does gain some foothold
Going back to ALBs point about the 50% effectiveness, this comes from the trials and relates to the difference between the vaccinated group and the non vaccinated group. You create two matched cohorts (matched for age, health conditions, etc.) if you had say 10,000 in each group you would measure the infection rate across both groups you would measure the infection rate from the control group who were given a placebo and the vaccinated group. In the case of a 50% effective vaccine, half as many in the second group would have test positive for the virus over a specified time than in the control group. It does not therefore measure the other effects of suppressing the virus to a manageable condition in the vaccinated subjects who were infected, but that is also an important factor.
The anaolgy with apartheid becomes even stronger with the roll out of the Coronavirus Vaccine.
Denying COVID-19 vaccines to Palestinians exposes Israel’s institutionalized discrimination
LB –
I don’t think it was the mob participation that killed them, it was more likely the 35 years of pancakes with maple syrup, deep fried chicken, countless Big Macs, etc. Wot done it.The point I was making is that a lot of the trumpists talk a good game, but in terms of being a real threat against the real agents of the state, they are a bunch of no hopers.
It’s a bit like their “survivalist” compadres, who had prepared for the apocalypse/zombie invasion, but who couldn’t manage a two week lockdown, because without a trip to the mall they were going to have a nervous breakdown.
The fact is that although they stormed the capitol, once they’d done that they didn’t have a bloody clue what to do next.
We used to have a phrase for the posh kids who turned up to play football with brand new expensive boots and kit etc. “All the gear and no idea”. I think for the majority of Trumpists that’s exactly where they are, unfortunately instead of football boots they have automatic assault rifles.
