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N-
Of course Yeadon is right in pointing out that SARS cov2 is of the same family as other corona viruses that are associated with 15% of the common cold, and that is the extent of what he is right about, more or less. But this is like stating that Lions and lynxes are the same family as the domestic cat. At one end of the spectrum is a killer, then an animal that can damage but also kill and then one that purrs. It is well known that Covid-19 is caused by the virus SARS cov2, and yes, it does cause SARS but in a smaller proportion of people, 5% rather than the much higher rate that SARS. Yes 80% of those exposed to the virus do not suffer serious illness or are asymptomatic, but that has nothing to do with healthy eating. The severe illness from the virus is not due to lack of immunity, but the production of an inappropriate immune response. So a lot of what you have written has not advanced the discussion at all.N_:
1) When you eventually recognise conspiracy theory as a phenomenon, you may come to understand why I am angry at Yeadon; he exploited the human susceptibility to conspiracy theory for his own greed. He encouraged the social behaviours that are causing the second UK wave, because upon that wave his company’s stocks might rise. Despicable. ET’s digging revealed that Yeadon knew all along that there would be a second wave, but he used his technical knowledge to mislead the general public, including the politicians. The right-wing media does this all the time.
2) It’s not hatred, it’s anger. I do hate the corporate media, but that’s a system, not a class of people. Remember that being a toff is just another accident of birth. My own perspective may be unusual in that I was adopted; I have no idea of my own ancestry.
3) Look to yourself; your comments are laced with hatred for the “ruling classes”, but they’re entirely scatter-gun.
4) Yes, maintaining good health and a strong immune system are important, but they’re not a panacea, and they’re important at all times, not just now. And many people can’t, no matter how well they eat. Among the commercial activities you hold suspicion for, beware the dietary fads and supplements industries too. Read Goldacre’s Bad Science; it is the corporate media that has given these “entrepreneurs” false legitimacy, while conditioning their audiences to regard science not as assessment of evidence that anyone can practice, but as impenetrable announcements by “experts”. But the corporate media cannot afford to properly educate their readership, because it is dependent for its income upon the effectiveness of advertising; critical thinking itself is a threat to the corporate media’s income.
5) Yes, it’s entirely regrettable that use of the term “coronavirus” has caught on, also conflating the new SARS virus with the illness it causes. My heart sank as I saw this happening, for I could see the lack of clarity it would produce, and I expected that confusion to be exploited.
6) Yes, dominance and subservience are a major problem.
7) It is not always easy to get decent food. I’m lucky; there’s an old fashioned market in Chelmsford. Kirkcudbright had diverse, thriving independent small shops. A supermarket chain wanted to build a “superstore” there. Local residents campaigned against it; “their” council sided with the superstore. Soon, the supermarket chain encountered economic contraction and closed Kirkcudbright superstore. Most local shops had been put out of business and Kirkcudbright became a “shopping desert”. Happens all the time.
Happy New Year to you too, N_.
Yeadon wasn’t “just wrong”. He knew that what he was telling the public was wrong, by being incomplete. He used cherry-picked truths to mislead.
And he did it on Delingpole’s blog. Delingpole is a global warming denier, and the global warming deniers use this same technique all the time.
Dredd : “You say the vaccine is “poorly tested” but the MHRA (which is responsible for scrutinising the studies and approving it) politely disagrees. Whom to believe? Hmmm.”
Me!
There are no (zero) completed clinical trials for the BNT vaccine. Only Phase 1 of a 3 phase trial has been partially completed (its results were announced before the minimum term for assessing serious adverse events had elapsed). In MHRA’s Public Assessment Report, they state: “At the time of writing, the main clinical study is still on-going….”
MHRA conclude the vaccine is safe and effective based on data from 195 test subjects from the partially completed phase 1 as supplied by the R&D of the vaccine manufacturer (Pfizer and BioNTech) with no independent scrutiny. “Pfizer was responsible for the trial design; for the collection, analysis, and interpretation of the data; and for the writing of the report.” Only 39 vulnerable aged subjects received the vaccine, and about half reported some adverse reactions.
I repeat: “the vaccine is poorly tested”
P.S. Recent tender request : The MHRA urgently seeks an Artificial Intelligence (AI) software tool to process the expected high volume of Covid-19 vaccine Adverse Drug Reaction (ADRs)….it is not possible to retrofit the MHRA’s legacy systems to handle the volume of ADRs that will be generated by a Covid-19 vaccine.
Clark: “… and NHS managers in Northern Ireland were implicitly accused by Node a few days ago.”
This is a lie.
It is entirely understandable that the corporate media would popularise the term “coronavirus” for SARS-CoV-2.
The split personality disorder of the corporate media is being increasingly exposed by covid-19. On the one hand, it has to sensationalise, in order to sell audiences to advertisers – for this is how it makes profit. On the other hand, it has to oppose government-imposed social restrictions – closing shops and entertainments – for advertising these is, again, how it makes profit.
Hopelessly hamstrung.
Node, if you haven’t noticed that your accusation of “scaremongering” implied that NHS managers were “part of the conspiracy”, you’d best re-read your own comment.
Node, you’d best re-read your own comment, and the article your comment referred to, for it was an NHS manager who was reported as claiming to have a crisis to deal with.
Node, I agree that the new vaccines have so far been less rigorously tested than is usual. But there isn’t time. There are extremely strong theoretical reasons why adverse vaccine reactions will be far less serious than actual infection; quite simply, the vaccine can’t reproduce within cells ie. within a person, whereas the virus can, and indeed has to in order to proliferate.
I am inclined to agree with your assessment node. I don’t think they could possibly have a sufficiency of data available to them which under normal circumstances they would use to make such a safety determination. I guess the crux there is whether the current circumstances warrant making do with what they do have. It just can’t be as well tested as other vaccines have been. That said, I will still be having it when it is offered to me.
Node
What you state is not true. The following are extracts from the MHRA website on the phase 3 trial“In Study 2, approximately 44,000 participants 12 years of age and older were randomised equally and received 2 doses of COVID-19 mRNA Vaccine or placebo with a planned interval of 21 days. The efficacy analyses included participants that received their second vaccination within 19 to 42 days after their first vaccination. Participants are planned to be followed for up to 24 months, for assessments of safety and efficacy against COVID-19 disease.”
“Efficacy against COVID-19 disease
At the time of the analysis of Study 2, information presented is based on participants 16 years and older. Participants had been followed for symptomatic COVID-19 disease for at least 2,214 person-years for the COVID-19 mRNA Vaccine and at least 2,222 person-years in the placebo group. There were 8 confirmed COVID-19 cases identified in the COVID-19 mRNA Vaccine group and 162 cases in the placebo group, respectively. In this analysis, compared to placebo, efficacy of COVID-19 mRNA Vaccine BNT162b2 from first COVID-19 occurrence from 7 days after Dose 2 in participants without evidence of prior infection with SARS-CoV-2 was 95.0% (95% credible interval of 90.3% to 97.6%). In participants 65 years of age and older and 75 years of age and older without evidence of prior infections with SARS-CoV-2, efficacy of COVID-19 mRNA Vaccine BNT162b2 was 94.7% (two-sided 95% confidence interval of 66.7% to 99.9%) and 100% (two-sided 95% confidence interval of -13.1% to 100.0%) respectively.In a separate analysis, compared to placebo, efficacy of COVID-19 mRNA Vaccine from first COVID-19 occurrence from 7 days after Dose 2 in participants with or without evidence of prior infection with SARS-CoV-2 was 94.6% (95% credible interval of 89.9% to 97.3%).”
So I am not sure what you are on about.
My main criticism of the rushing through of the vaccines is that long term efficacy and side effects could not be assessed in such a short period of time. But that has to be weighed against the speed with which the disease is progressing, and the failure of the control mechanisms put in place. At the end of the day, if you believe the virus causes trivial infection, then you would agree that the vaccine has been rushed through, but given that this virus is advancing rapidly, and with many unknowns, and given that already about two million have died of the disease in one year, about a tenth of that of Spanish ‘flu, then I think using the vaccine is reasonable.The MHRA Public Assessment Report, Authorisation for Temporary Supply – link
Having read through it (which I hadn’t done before) I am somewhat more reassured. The (non serious) adverse drug reactions are mostly relatively minor though significantly higher in the treatment arm. There is little difference in serious adverse reactions between treatment and placebo arms. Its authorisation has been granted temporarily under regulation 174A of the Human Medicine Regulations 2012. So it will be kept under review and more data will follow from follow up. What the won’t and can’t know are the longer term possible effects until sufficient time has elapsed.
The one think that slightly bothers me is that the vaccine provokes an antibody directed at the spike protein on SARS-Cov-2, the part that attaches to the ACE2 receptor. Given that receptor-target binding is partly dependent on molecular 3D shapes I wonder to myself how those antibodies might interfere with angiotensin II binding. And is there a possible autoimmune problem in the making?
SA “What you state is not true.”
What specifically? I said there were no completed clinical trials. There aren’t. In both the BNT and the Astrazeneca/Oxfords (AZD1222) ones,the extremely limited data from phase one trials is conflated with incomplete and ongoing data collection from the much larger phase two and three trials. This is what you have done too. The impression is given that all trials are complete when in reality not even the phase one trials have been completed properly. The figures are meaningless because a realistic assessment depends on long term effects. You might as well conclude that exposure to lead is harmless because few health effects are reported in the first 3 months.By the way, your 95% effective claim is based on a calculation that gives relative risk reduction:
100(1 – (0.044/0.88)) = ~95%.
The absolute risk reduction is much more meaningful:
(0.88-0.044)% = ~0.84%Clinical trials are monitored by independent observers and the significant end points are determined at the beginning. However the trials do not stop there because monitoring continues to determine long term effects. If the end points are reached the two arms of the trial are unblinded and the interim results published. There is nothing irregular in how these trials were conducted.
“ You might as well conclude that exposure to lead is harmless because few health effects are reported in the first 3 months.”
You wouldn’t conduct such a study in the first place. You have to tailor your trials according to the effects you are looking for.
I would strongly suggest youtube video by Psychologist/Psychotherapist Jerry Kroth titled: “Covid 19 and American Collective Insanity“. IMHO applies to UK as well. Explains, from psychologist perspective (non)reaction to Covid. Bit of politics, media and economics addressed as well. Long 1h and 30 min but worth watching. Deals with usual Denial Projection Deflection and other symptoms of mental illness.
SA
“If the end points are reached the two arms of the trial are unblinded and the interim results published.”
And what are these end points? …
First, a relative risk reduction is being reported, not absolute risk reduction, which appears to be less than 1%. Second, these results refer to the trials’ primary endpoint of covid-19 of essentially any severity, and importantly not the vaccine’s ability to save lives, nor the ability to prevent infection, nor the efficacy in important subgroups (e.g. frail elderly). Those still remain unknown. Third, these results reflect a time point relatively soon after vaccination, and we know nothing about vaccine performance at 3, 6, or 12 months, so cannot compare these efficacy numbers against other vaccines like influenza vaccines (which are judged over a season). Fourth, children, adolescents, and immunocompromised individuals were largely excluded from the trials, so we still lack any data on these important populations.
[link]“There is nothing irregular in how these trials were conducted.”
You are writing in the past tense as though these trials are completed. They are not.
Node – “You might as well conclude that exposure to lead is harmless because few health effects are reported in the first 3 months.”
No. It’s not a comparison between adverse vaccine effects and nothing. The comparison is against a viral infection that is already known to be very harmful and dangerous.
Node – “The absolute risk reduction is much more meaningful:
– (0.88-0.044)% = ~0.84%”You didn’t work this out yourself, did you Node? You just picked someone you “believe” in, right? ‘Cos I couldn’t work out where you got 0.88 and 0.044 from so I stuck the following line of yours into Google:
(0.88-0.044)% = ~0.84%
and found an article on the conspiracy theory blog algora.com, “by Iain Davis via Off-Guardian”; some example article titles:
– Professor Perronne and the Vaccine: “We Do Not Want to Become, Like Tomatoes or Corn Transgenic GMOs”– Humans of the GREAT RESET: what the Future MIGHT Look Like in 2021 – If the Controlling Elites Have Their Way
– Must-watch Documentary: ‘Pl@ndemic 2: Indoctrination’
– Klaus Schwab: Great Reset Will “Lead To Fusion Of Our Physical, Digital, & Biological Identity”
SA “You wouldn’t conduct such a study in the first place.”
I thought my point was clear, but let me spell it out. You can’t test for long term effects with a short term trial … and even their short term trial was flawed.
According to the “Current Primary Outcome Measures,” the minimum time frame for Pfizer to assess serious adverse events (SAE’s) is “6 months after last dose.” This is the minimum term for assessing SAE’s in phase one of the trial. Pfizer published the outcome of phase one on the 14th October, 5 months and two weeks after the start date. Most of that period was taken up with recruitment and allocation. Phase 2 and 3 are months and years from completion.
– “I thought my point was clear, but let me spell it out.”
Quack, quack quack, “I am so great, you are so dumb”; the great conspiracy theorist puts the stupid sheeple in his rightful place!
Look Node, if you’re so worried about a Great Conspiracy, maybe you should be more concerned about this:
– Musings of an anonymous, pissed off virologist
– “However, if I had a nefarious nature, and wanted to ensure that the new SARS-CoV-2 vaccines were rendered impotent, these are a few things I would try…”
https://twitter.com/PaulBieniasz/status/1345195420033691648/photo/1
From my link at 20:56
– 4. Start a rumor-mill, making full use of social media and other outlets, with topics such as masks are unnecessary or don’t work, that PCR tests are too sensitive or unreliable, that infection-induced ‘herd immunity’ is a reasonable strategy, or even that SARS-CoV-2 isn’t real. Undermining already inadequate public health measures helps keep viral population sizes large.
Why are you working for the enemy, Node? Just nursing your sense of superiority?
The cancellation of GCSE and A Level exams “because of the pandemic” for the second year running is a tragedy.
But from a Tory point of view, it’s great. A consistent Tory line says there’s no point in these exams anyway because why not simply get the schools to point youngsters towards university “admissions tutors” with labels stuck on their backs stating their schoolteacher-determined “rank” or “class”.
(I put “admissions tutors” in inverted commas here because those with experience of formal “education” structures only outside of the British one may be unfamiliar with the idea that guys from a university are allowed to require different exam results from different applicants for admission on to one and the same degree course. Be aware that this system which reeks so strongly of feudalism is standard practice in Britain. You’ll probably never read any criticism of it in any British newspaper. Calling it what it is will annoy petty bourgeois types something rotten. And bourgeois types too, for that matter. Liberals among them will do some “quick thinking” and say its purpose is actually to help social mobility not to hinder it. Seriously! And the monarchy is really republican. And Britain’s got a wonderful “constitution” even if it doesn’t actually exist and nobody even claims to know what the non-existent thing says – at least if one doesn’t count the stupid repetition of lines written by royalist toadies such as that it falls to the monarch to “be consulted, to encourage, and to warn”. They will say there would be fewer Pot Noodle-eaters among undergraduates if the univerities didn’t operate the “offer system”. It’s all for social mobility apparently. Same as the “queen’s” garden party, which operates on the same principle of “it’s my garden party, so I’ll invite whoever I want”. Of course where a fair system is used instead, universities don’t need or have “admissions tutors” – there simply is such no such role or concept. But just try telling that to a British person whose knee jerks to defend “the system”. There’ll be sneering at you for never saying anything that’s “pertinent” as quick as a flash, rather in the way that a cat can grab a fly without thinking about where the fly is and consciously triangulating.)
This:
– The absolute risk reduction is much more meaningful:
– (0.88-0.044)% = ~0.84%
is utterly misleading. The absolute risk reduction isn’t even a percentage. The absolute risk reduction is:“From 162 COVID-19 cases among 18,319 people, to 8 COVID-19 cases among 18310 people”.
The article is full of deception, eg: “It should also be noted that these figures suggest the threat from COVID 19 is vanishingly small.” Yeah, right! A “vanishingly small risk” that has killed 75,000 people in the UK alone and is currently overwhelming the hospitals!
The deception works by ignoring both infection levels in the test subjects’ environment, and the passing of time – the chance of any test subject becoming infected obviously rises with both.
Why are you helping the enemy, Node? You should be ashamed of yourself, diligently repeating falsehoods that will increase death and suffering. The conspiracy theory you promote is ludicrous, as if the entire population will be vaccinated in a day, and only after, when it’s too late, will we find that the vaccine cripples them. Absolute rubbish. The vaccine can’t be delivered that fast; it will be administered over the course of months, and outcomes will be monitored. Your / OffGuardian’s scare story isn’t even remotely possible; maybe you sit alone at your computer relaying sensationalism from obscure websites, but most people actually know others, and if vaccination frequently injures people as your favourite websites insist, word will spread and people will refuse to be vaccinated. And the vaccine companies know that! They have people thinking far more critically than you are apparently capable of.
N_,
– “The cancellation of GCSE and A Level exams “because of the pandemic” for the second year running is a tragedy”
No. Only under this politico-economic system that forces everyone to be everyone else’s competitor could it be a tragedy. Is a cleaner or a shop worker worth less than an investment manager or a political pundit? I would say the opposite.
Only a small minority of this and last year’s exam intake ever stood any chance of getting a decent wage. All the rest were already condemned to low wages, zero hours contracts, poverty and insecurity, no matter what their exam results. There simply are not enough “good” jobs to go round, and there never will be until we rise up and change this unjust system.
Clark
Well done for revealing the source of Node’s knowledge. The Agora blog is a gem of pseudoscientific gobbledegook. I don’t think the writer even realises the shocking level of scientific illiteracy displayed.I found that the posters that come and go here appear to get a lot of their points of discussion from OG, which has sadly become so one sidedly obsessed with the great reset. We had those who told us that the PCR false positive rate was 90% and then how the WHO itself admitted that the death rate was very low for the virus and so on. It is worth casting an eye on that website to predict what will come our way next.
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