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Living in a police state
We really aren't, and to use such terms is pretty insulting to those who do.
Living in a police state
Police states generally tend to have large numbers of police
and censorship
and people disappearing
and more dictators
and censorship
and people disappearing
and more dictators
and electoral fraud.
oh. wait.
To use china as an example, a police state is a pretty effective way of reducing transmission
Now if we look at how our country has done in comparison it's pretty obviously that we are nothing of the sort..
So, Mike Yeadon claims the 'pandemic is fundamentally over' in the UK.
2 things. Why is he 'ex Pfizer' and, well, it's Talkradio....
Furlough scheme extended to March 31st '21
'We're living in a police state' is very Tommy Robinson btw.
he also says he thinks this was all over months ago
Then it'll take you but moments to find out that he's wrong, and should probably be ignored. I'd put you in contact with family members who work in Greater Manchester hospitals... but you're better off just reading the news, it'll be quicker.
@kelvin, you're bizarrely assuming I'm believing him, if I wanna talk to a healthcare professional immersed in this, she's next to me on the sofa...
I dont know anything about him apart from watching it and Googling him...sounded like he knew what he was on about but I don't have the means to know otherwise. I dont know much about talk radio. Looks right wing. But that doesn't mean its simply bollocks same goes with leftwing outlets surely.
sounded like he knew what he was on about
This is why we are ****ed. And there is nothing left/right about acknowledging what is going on in the world. There is no way "this is over"... if someone tells you it's raining, look out the window, don't just nod along because of the way they sound. Crazy how this stuff spreads... at least half the people sharing it will say they don't go along with it, or think it's wrong, or just an interesting talking point... and then it gets shared enough to become treated as equal/opposite/balance to what is actually really truthfully happening.
...i did, the mail concors!
Hahah...joke
Made me laugh! Sorry for the rant.
you’re bizarrely assuming I’m believing him
Not at all! It would be out of character if you did. I was replying to the same post of Sefton's that you were... I hadn't even read your post at that point.
I dont know what to make of what he's saying...hence why I posted it on here. I'm about as far away as you can get from a scientist.
Well... I'd suggest checking out the Independent Sage weekly videos that Bill posts here. They are very good at explaining the ongoing situation so that we can all (lay people that is) keep up to date.
EDIT: their site... https://www.independentsage.org
Cheers but I think ill stick to talk radio now.
Joke!
Thanks ill def have a look.
I don’t have the means to know otherwise
You could always consider the massive hospital admissions and increasing numbers of folk dying and all that other strong evidence which is being repeated worldwide in practically every country on the globe, to show we're experiencing a pandemic of a highly transmissive and lethal disease?
Not at all! It would be out of character if you did. I was replying to the same post of Sefton’s that you were… I hadn’t even read your post at that point
Sorry. my bad, I've spent too long on here today!
what happpend to this thread? It was a goldmine of informed comment and now its gone all Daily Express
Hold on.... Boris press conf at 5pm to provide the clarity we all desperately seek
Having watched my local secondary school at hometime today and seen the total lack of any distancing or any mask use I cannot see how this lockdown will be effective. Essentially, if you are a parent you are being exposed to all the kids in your kids class and about twice as many again in between lessons.
Older people were physically recoiling from the 30-40 large group as they came out of school, and the local Co-op was effectively out of bounds for 40 minutes.
I'm increasingly aware of the global challenges, not just my relatively "I'm ok here in Scotland, Jack" attitude.
USA just had biggest day yet.
Africa - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-4a11d568-2716-41cf-a15e-7d15079548bc
(Etc)
Even if we in the UK get our house in order, we're surely a lot longer from the world being back settled again.
yeadon is a general health scientist, but he seems to know little about the rt-pcr test used but he is talking absolute bobbins about it
hes either never done any rt-pcr & has no idead or is simply lying
I posted a takedown of hanegans similar nonsense a few pages back
I really wish that they werent allowed to peddle this BS unchallenged (and fwiw his general points arent without merit but his comments on test are so wrong)
to sum up: the probe that detects it is a 20bp long segment of 2 viral genes specific to this covid but the amplified fragments are 100bp long, dead virus will degraded to less than 100bp by the body and wont be amplified, some will still be around, but its
and the rt-pcr test is run to 45 cycles but that isnt the end-point at which you call whether a sample is positive
thats when the florescent signal from the probe used is increasing at an exponential rate
if you have a high input amount of viral rna it will start to do that at a low number of amplifications (cycles)
if its v low it will happen higher, in the UK anything from below 35 cycles is a positive, 35-37 is undetermined & the sample is retested
https://twitter.com/alanmcn1/status/1323987854767366147
yeadon & hartlkey brewer are spreading fakenews, please dont do the same
also wtf
can we take back hardings peerage?
https://twitter.com/PippaCrerar/status/1324314468487254016
My friend is nursing on a covid safe ward away from the main hospital. She cares for the elderly, many of whom have had surgery or have multiple medical problems and have had treatment.
The ward now has covid and the hospital keep sending patients to her. What on earth is she supposed to do?
She's not a person that gets stressed easily, but her life is awful atm.
I would dearly love all these idiots who are not complying or don't care about the rules go and spend a day with her.
Good news her team are all getting regular tests and she's got antibodies.
Having watched my local secondary school at hometime today and seen the total lack of any distancing or any mask use I cannot see how this lockdown will be effective
You do realise they spend all day with no social distancing, only to be tutted at for the way they walk home?
I had to give my tutor group the message that they all had to adhere to social distancing on the way home, go straight home, lock themselves down and no leave the house again till they came back to see me in the morning.
Why dont we have to distance at school sir, because the teachers protective magic will keep you safe at school.
Yes, my reaction was largely because I've not seen anyone in a large group or not distancing for about 11 months and it shocked me a bit.
I just can't see how any form of lockdown will work while kids are at school, which I know makes me very, very late to this party!
You do realise they spend all day with no social distancing, only to be tutted at for the way they walk home?
Kicking off on the village FB group about 4 kids seen together this afternoon on their way home from school. A bit of perspective and common sense has been suggested.
I just can’t see how any form of lockdown will work while kids are at school
Calderdale schools being hit hard right now. It’s getting messy.
Moonshit…
Apparently the pilot in Hartlepool has been pulled and resources focused on Liverpool. I guess it will be the same for the other two town ones.
P-Jay
Full MemberIf only there was a way to know how British people will act during “Lockdown 2”.
Oh wait, Hi everyone from Wales! We’re coming towards the end of ours now, so I might be able to give you a little bit of an insight.
Ah, you don't understand english exceptionalism! Remember, that it's 50% about how English people are better than everyone else and that simple Common Sense and Blitz Spirit can defeat a disease that everywhere else in the world thinks is probably best fought with Science and Medicine.
But it's also 50% about how English people are worse than everyone else, and that things that work perfectly well in France, or Australia, or Senegal, couldn't possibly work in England. See also: paying for a plastic bag.
cloudnine
Full MemberThe BoE has just printed £150 billion to help out the needy.
Anyone care to explain how this helps?
Stuff costs money. Countries can print money to pay for things. Inflation is rock bottom so it's possible to print billions of quid with no major ill effects. See also, borrowing- government borrowing is incredibly cheap just now, in fact, for much of this year it's been cheaper to borrow than it's been to tax.
Literally the only reason we're not doing more of it is that we have Tories in charge and they don't want to admit that this stuff is the right thing to do. After 10 years of austerity and blatant lies about "balancing the books" and "magic money trees", they don't want to admit that it works today, and it would have worked in the financial crisis, and that they've ruined lives and harmed the economy for no reason other than that their ideology says it's better to do stuff that doesn't work and lie about it.
I don't tend to "play the man", but in Yeadon's case, I am sorry, but you must judge a scientist by their past judgements. Under Dr Yeadon, Pfizer's respiratory and inflammation portfolio (based at Sandwich in kent), for which he was accountable, was not successful, the company withdrew from the therapeutic area and closed research at Sandwich. I know quite a few people who worked for him and lost their jobs. Oh and he took an asset into his own biotech company and sold it to Novartis. Nothing unusual about that. But how did that sale work out?
https://www.fiercebiotech.com/biotech/novartis-dumps-ziarco-eczema-drug-taking-485m-hit
I made a comment on lockdownsceptics, that basically he assumes as scientific truth what is really conjecture. That's an all to common mistake in drug discovery (and other areas too), but can lead to confirmation bias, discounting of observations, and eventual failure. I personally view his comments as reckless, in the same way as I view Gupta's.
But some epidemiology now... I was reading yesterday of the effects of COVID-19 in pregnancy (for work). A report by the CDC showed that the risk of severe COVID is about three times normal for women who are pregnant. Fortunately they respond well to treatment. This is not unexpected since pregnancy adds a degree of immuno-suppression.
462k patients 15-44 with symptoms, 5.7% pregnant, 1% admitted to ITU (vs. 3.9% controls), and 0.15% die. Survival is well over 9/10 from ITU, but what happens if the ITU is full and treatment unavailable? Scaling those numbers to the UK, say 1300 births/day is about 0.5M pregnancies per year, 1% admitted to ITU and 7% die would be 327 deaths. Spread the epidemic over the course of three years and that would be about 2-3 per week.
https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6944e3.htm
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2020/nov/05/uk-government-urged-to-protect-pregnant-women-in-second-covid-wave
This is not just a disease of the elderly.
Somehow I manage to arrive at this thread when my anxiety about all this is at its worst. I genuinely struggle to see any point in hanging around to see what happens next. Make it to Christmas? Doubt it. I'd end up hating it more than I already do and then having to deal with the start of 2021 still locked down.
I don’t tend to “play the man”, but in Yeadon’s case, I am sorry, but you must judge a scientist by their past judgements. Under Dr Yeadon, Pfizer’s respiratory and inflammation portfolio (based at Sandwich in kent), for which he was accountable, was not successful, the company withdrew from the therapeutic area and closed research at Sandwich. I know quite a few people who worked for him and lost their jobs. Oh and he took an asset into his own biotech company and sold it to Novartis. Nothing unusual about that. But how did that sale work out?
Oooft. I must admit scanning his CV and coming to a similar conclusion.
Thanks Kelvin, I appreciate the offer. I'm not sure what I can say at the moment, or why I've vented here.
@stcolin if I can help with some reasoned perspective on where we are, just drop me a line. There really are are solid grounds for optimism, the timeframe a little longer than one would like. But do not take all the media doom and gloom. There are serious challenges, but medicine and science rises to those challenges as it has in the past.
In six months, the 28d mortality rate from the disease has almost halved. In my day job, that would be such a staggering effect it would be a blockbuster drug.
Thanks also, Tired. I have welcomed your knowledge, although I confess to not really understanding the science and feel frightened by the numbers. I do get drawn into the news at times, but my own personal battle is very tough at the moment and I find that this virus is certainly the driving factor of it all since March. I'm so naturally pessimistic that I guess you can appreciate my current outlook. Add in the darkness of winter, and it easily overwhelms. I'm putting all my energy into coming across to others as being fine, but I must be honest with myself and admit I really am hanging by a thread.
I'm really sorry to derail the thread in the last 20 minutes, it wasn't my intention.
You're far from alone in being anxious, it's perfectly understandable. I feel it too, probably to a lesser extent, particularly the part about using up your energy to appear OK. But, as is pointed out, there is a great deal to be optimistic about despite the current position. A lot of people are doing a lot of good work to protect us.