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And Brian, Squonk is with us in spirit; you didn’t think I could find all these links on my own, did you?
REMINDER:
Full page adverts in all major UK newspapers near the end of February 2020:
– “THE GOVERNMENT AND THE NHS ARE WELL PREPARED FOR THE NOVEL CORONAVIRUS”
I just laughed. Yeah, right!
@N_ “So basically all the squillions the state handed over to Big Pharma for vaccines didn’t protect anyone much at all because a new strain appeared”
We don’t know it isn’t effective as yet, or at least, as effective as the pfizer vaccine was shown to be against the previous strains. Let’s not yet jump to conclusions. Granted, it isn’t good news. Kinda glad I moved away from London some time ago even though I miss it lots.
Cheers for the link Clark..I see now that some big name MSM are carrying the story. Been looking around..
I found this on too – from a trucker’s Twitter –ciaran the euro courier 🇪🇺 🇮🇪
@donnyc1975
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1h
Friend just called me – he’s on his way to London with pallets of Covid tests and apparently the A303 is packed , fleet services heaving and the M3 solid . Johnson’s last minute advice created panic and a mass exodus helping spread the virus to parts of the U.K. with low rateshttps://twitter.com/donnyc1975/status/1340424286717272065?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
Thank too for letting me know Squonk is with us.. Great Stuff.. Was just thinking about Squounk earlier.
Oliver Johnson is calling the illness from the new strain COVID-20. Lots of informative maths on his Twitter stream, plus he wrote this:
– “Can Twitter roll out a black dunce’s cap mark to quickly identify Oxford PPE grads on here, so we don’t waste time reading their idiot opinions?”
ET, the danger is that some vaccinated people might suffer ADE (antibody dependent enhancement) if they get infected by the new strain, which is rapidly becoming the dominant strain. If I have interpreted that paper correctly (which isn’t particularly likely), the vaccine would prevent infection in people predisposed to mild covid, but through ADE would lead to worse covid in those predisposed to serious covid.
There are possible indications of sudden rises of hospitalisation in areas which had high prevalence in the first wave. This is the opposite of what we’d expect from acquired immunity, and may indicate ADE – those with mild or symptomless infection in the first wave requiring hospitalisation in this wave.
If this is so, those promoting herd immunity through real infection have got it entirely the wrong way around. So let’s keep an eye on the data while hoping this isn’t the case.
Local authorities should rebel against the government, declare local independence and close their borders to the greatest extent possible*. We need to compartmentalise, now!
https://www.endcoronavirus.org/green-zones
* Obviously, infrastructure has become increasingly centralised under neoliberalism, and critical supplies need to get through until they can be produced locally. But we need to stop supplying the virus with free transport.
We need job-swap schemes so that people can work as near as possible to where they live, and accommodation swap schemes so that other people can stay near where they work. We need accommodation-swap schemes so that people with compatible risk profiles can share company and living space.
We need food distribution to local outdoor distribution points, and stop people going to those indoor virus-exchange centres called supermarkets.
We need citizens’ incomes so people can stop working when they feel ill, and four-day-on-ten-day-off work cycles so that symptoms have time to manifest between work periods; with non-essential work shut down we have the person-hours for this.
These are all types of compartmentalisation.
None of this is rocket science; it just contradicts the dominant ideology. But then so does rationing, commandeering, evacuation of urban children to rural locations, and re-purposing of industry, as in WWII; are we saying that such measures were wrong?
We need to suspend rent and other fixed costs for the duration of the emergency so that people and companies don’t go bankrupt.
Clark
There are possible indications of sudden rises of hospitalisation in areas which had high prevalence in the first wave. This is the opposite of what we’d expect from acquired immunity, and may indicate ADE – those with mild or symptomless infection in the first wave requiring hospitalisation in this wave.
Thanks for this. On My evidence, that would seem correct.
My area Inverclyde, had the Highest Positive rates in the first Wave ( in Scotland ).. But in this Second Wave, the Lowest.. Till maybe four / five weeks ago..When it’s been racing here again.. We feel that one of the reasons is that people were coming here in Droves to shop..because we were Tier 2. Whilst places like Glasgow, and Ayrshire, were T-3…We were Surrounded by T-3, I think Dumbarton Too.
I’ve been shielding Again for three weeks now..I was dreading it at this time of year Dark Dark Wet.. Hard going .. But DOUNE Will Be A Huge Boon 2021…HUGE OPEN FIELDS…Rivers Mountains, Colours, Music, Fire, A Teeny bit of Rain. Friends..JOY.. Aye I’ve Gotta Keep this Image.“ET, the danger is that some vaccinated people might suffer ADE………….”
Perhaps, perhaps not, we just don’t currently know. The human immune response is very strong and nuanced. I’ll put my money on humans to win. Prepare for the worst whilst hoping for the best. The history of all other pandemics is that they ended. No need to write off the human race or the UK yet. It isn’t THAT bad. I have 3 siblings in UK, 2 of whom are now in tier 4, that has kinda messed up their Christmas plans. They will cope. I am not leaving my coronavirus free haven. Where I live the borders are closed. Everywhere else, close your fecking borders.
Tier 4 but without closing the borders is meaningless. When will the government learn that voluntary wishy washy measures are becoming worthless? Voluntary observation of self isolation and all the other measures are only now nominally observed. Also will there be escalating tiers? When will we get to tier 10?
Thanks for these comments.
Brian – “But in this Second Wave, the Lowest.. Till maybe four / five weeks ago..When it’s been racing here again.. We feel that one of the reasons is that people were coming here in Droves to shop..because we were Tier 2. Whilst places like Glasgow, and Ayrshire, were T-3…We were Surrounded by T-3”
Indeed, the behaviour of infection in a mobile population is a highly complex system; difficult to separate cause from effect. As a friend e-mailed me this morning:
– “One person, one key, one lock; open or shut easy. 5,000 people, 5,000 keys, 5,000 locks… chaos. But all chaotic large systems have basins of attraction. The art is to make those basins conducive with humanity in a fair and peaceful manner”
ET – “Prepare for the worst whilst hoping for the best.”
Precisely.
SA – “…but without closing the borders is meaningless.”
Again, precisely. We need to compartmentalise, and then wipe it out zone by zone. Each zone cleared to Green can reopen to other Green zones. The smaller a zone, the sooner it can achieve Green status.
The introduction to Planet of the Humans by Jeff Gibbs:
Gibbs, narrating:
I’ve got a question. How long do you think we humans have?
Various members of the US public:
“How long does the human race have?”
“Ooh.”
“Umm,”
“ah wow..”
“I don’t exactly know, but maybe two…”
“I have no clue, I hope I give me at least fifty more years!”
“I think, there’s an infinite amount of time.”
“Infinite. It’s infinity, yeah.”
“I give us a million, a million years.”
“Being kind, I’d say about probably ten years.”
“Ten, twelve years.”
“Thousands of years.”
“Forty seven years three months five days, it’s approximate.”
“We’re kinda like cockroaches on the planet; no matter how much damage we’ll do enough of us will survive to procreate and keep it going.”
“Unless we can get to another planet but then we’re just gonna Fuck it up like we did Earth.”
“Well I think we’ll be here for a long time but we will change. We’re going to turn back into apes!”Gibbs, narrating again:
Have you ever wondered what would happen if a single species took over an entire planet? Maybe they’re cute, maybe they’re clever, but lack a certain, shall we say, self restraint? What if they go too far? What if they go way, way, way, way, way, too far? How would they know… when it’s their time to go?
Here are some comments from some distinguished virologists about the significance of the mutation. It is common for coronaviruses to mutate due to mistakes during recombination and possibly also as a process of adaptation to a new host. There is less worry about its affecting vaccine efficacy at this stage, there is still no clear evidence whether it affects virulence and disease severity and some evidence to suggest that it has an advantage over the previous most common variant, as it is quickly replacing it, and that this may be due to higher infectivity. The main effect would be on control measures and test and trace which would have to be boosted to cope with the accelerated rate of transmission.
SA – “The main effect would be on control measures and test and trace which would have to be boosted to cope with the accelerated rate of transmission.”
Social restraint needs to increase to reduce R below 1 for the new variant, so that’s about 30% more restraint than in spring. But the more restraint we exercise the faster infections will fall and the less time we’ll have to put up with it.
Test and trace hasn’t a snowflake’s chance in hell until we can get infections down into hundreds per day at most, AND we have quarantine facilities, AND guaranteed income. Currently there must be over a quarter of a million infected and therefore potentially infectious; there’s no hope of tracing everyone a quarter million have come into contact with every day, absolutely nowhere to isolate them if we did, and most can’t afford the time off work anyway so they’ll avoid getting tested in the first place.
Track and trace seems unlikely to be much help until we can get the infection numbers down, but can anyone think of any reason in principle why there should only be one track and trace software system? It seems to me that there could be any number running concurrently, such that anyone could sign up to whichever they preferred. Is there any reason in principle why Google, for instance, shouldn’t deploy their European system in the UK? Then people who didn’t feel like signing up their portable touchscreen computer to Mossad via Matthew Gould’s company could just opt for Google instead, who programmed their Android device anyway.
I might be a bit behind recent developments; I don’t take much notice of government announcements. I don’t need to be told to stay out of other people’s vicinity during a pandemic. I don’t have an “app”; I’m doing quite well at having hardly any contacts to trace :/
I have Saturn and Jupiter together in the telescope now.
Thanks N_.
Yep; Jupiter’s four Galilean moons visible, and Saturn’s rings, all together simultaneously whichever of the three eyepieces I used. Lovely.
Should Saturn and Jupiter not follow social distancing guidelines?
Sorry to hear that ET; hopefully you’ll get clear sky in the next few days. They’re very low from my latitude, ten degrees or less above the horizon, roughly south-west; you need a view to the horizon free from houses or trees, even tall grass for a ‘scope mounted as low as mine. And they’re not visible for long between it becoming dark enough after sunset, and Saturn and Jupiter setting themselves. And of course they’re coming through more and more atmosphere the lower they get; I never got them completely sharp, but everything was recognisable.
Oh I think they’re still over two metre apart…
And besides, they’re both Green Zones.
Well Done Getting the Scope out Clark…Great Stuff…We were Clouded out
How a string of failures by the British government helped Covid-19 to mutate:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/dec/22/uk-government-blamed-covid-19-mutation-occur
I think this guy has been reading your posts Clark. Joking aside, sums it up well.
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