Generic Virus Thread

[Stevo985]

We’ve all known it for weeks. 
 

Absolutely guarantee next Friday it’ll be “we have the capacity for 100,000 tests” and they’ll claim they’ve met the target even though they’re actually performing far less. 
 

Glad to see Starmer pinning Raab on this earlier. 

[wazzap24]

42 minutes ago, Wainy316 said:

I live near Oxford so signed up to participate in the trials.  They followed up but the wife said I’m not allowed

I tried too, but didn’t realise there was a catchment area 

[markavfc40]

This is the latest guidance given to construction workers which has coincided with many of them returning to work: The 15 minutes or less guidance to work face to face within 2 metres hardly seems safe does it.

The guidance now states that where workers are required to work within two metres of each other, they should “work side by side, or facing away from each other, rather than face to face”, the union said.

When this is not possible and workers have to work “face to face” within two metres of each other, workers should “keep this to 15 minutes or less where possible”.

[OutByEaster?]

1 hour ago, chrisp65 said:

We actually have an opportunity here to do something about that.

We won’t take it, obviously. But it is a window of opportunity.

 

I'm not sure I understand this. An opportunity to stop China? An opportunity to stop companies using IP to profit on death?

 

[bannedfromHandV]

16 minutes ago, Stevo985 said:

We’ve all known it for weeks. 
 

Absolutely guarantee next Friday it’ll be “we have the capacity for 100,000 tests” and they’ll claim they’ve met the target even though they’re actually performing far less. 
 

Glad to see Starmer pinning Raab on this earlier. 

'We have capacity for 40,000 tests per day but only 18,000 are being used due to lack of demand'.

Lack of demand.

There's an entire nation crying out to be tested (if we began testing en masse perhaps we could start finding ways to return to normality) - do they think we're that stupid?! (evidently, yes)

[blandy]

3 minutes ago, OutByEaster? said:

I'm not sure I understand this. An opportunity to stop China? An opportunity to stop companies using IP to profit on death?

The purest, most altruistic thing would be to recover costs, but otherwise open up the ingredients or recipe or whatever the name os for the vaccine to everyone.

A decent thing to do would be to sell the above, or license the above at a low cost to everywhere, using the profit to fund future research and keep the lab who invented it going.

A good-ish thing to do would be to sell it at a bit more of a mark up to some areas and produce and give it free to poor areas.

Protecting the ip, and it's quite possible to do that whilst also giving drugs or etc. away is actually a wise thing to do.

A really bad thing would be for someone to steal the ip, and then make their own drug/vaccine and try and kill off (undercut) the original discoverer to subsequently exploit new market dominance. China is perfectly likely to do that.

[Villarocker]

7 hours ago, bickster said:

This parachute has slowed my rate of descent but I've slowed down now so I'm taking it off as I don't need it anymore

Brilliant!

[Villarocker]

People suggesting the death rate for the first quarter of 2020 is about average for the time of year; if that's the case why is it that we don't have exhibition centres being converted to temporary hospitals and aircraft hangers to mortuaries year on year? Surely that would also be the norm? 

[wazzap24]

17 minutes ago, markavfc40 said:

This is the latest guidance given to construction workers which has coincided with many of them returning to work: The 15 minutes or less guidance to work face to face within 2 metres hardly seems safe does it.

The guidance now states that where workers are required to work within two metres of each other, they should “work side by side, or facing away from each other, rather than face to face”, the union said.

When this is not possible and workers have to work “face to face” within two metres of each other, workers should “keep this to 15 minutes or less where possible”.

Yeah, that sounds like utter bollocks doesn’t it. 

Edited April 22, 2020 by wazzap24

[Villarocker]

Over the last few days I've become more and more tired. Yesterday, I fell asleep on the bus on my way home from work. I was knackered when I got off the bus and after dinner I fell asleep on the sofa before 9pm. I woke up at 1:40am and went to bed. This morning, when my alarm went off for work, I just hadn't got the energy to get up and ready for work. I had to text my boss to allow me a day's holiday, which I've spent mostly sleeping and doing nothing.

I don't usually feel like that two weeks after getting over a cold. 

[OutByEaster?]

10 minutes ago, blandy said:

The purest, most altruistic thing would be to recover costs, but otherwise open up the ingredients or recipe or whatever the name os for the vaccine to everyone.

A decent thing to do would be to sell the above, or license the above at a low cost to everywhere, using the profit to fund future research and keep the lab who invented it going.

A good-ish thing to do would be to sell it at a bit more of a mark up to some areas and produce and give it free to poor areas.

Protecting the ip, and it's quite possible to do that whilst also giving drugs or etc. away is actually a wise thing to do.

A really bad thing would be for someone to steal the ip, and then make their own drug/vaccine and try and kill off (undercut) the original discoverer to subsequently exploit new market dominance. China is perfectly likely to do that.

Aye, there's an opportunity to do lots of things - but I wasn't sure which one was being referred to.

Of the list there, I'd say the current situation which in most cases tends to be maximise profit on the IP to the largest possible extent regardless of the clinical outcome is worse than all of them!

 

[Villarocker]

34 minutes ago, Stevo985 said:

We’ve all known it for weeks. 
 

Absolutely guarantee next Friday it’ll be “we have the capacity for 100,000 tests” and they’ll claim they’ve met the target even though they’re actually performing far less. 
 

Glad to see Starmer pinning Raab on this earlier. 

I personally think that Corbyn was a patsy used by Labour knowing that he would never win anything other than a game of cards. I think that they knew the Tories, in Cameron's desperation to win a second term, had screwed up massively in offering an EU referendum and didn't want to deal with their mess of seeing it through so kept Corbyn as leader knowing that the Tories would be left to deal with the whole Brexit saga. That would certainly explain why they kept on Corbyn so long and were offering nothing as an opposition. 

I think now the whole Brexit farce is over they have now elected a serious politician as leader and will now be more of an opposition. I think Keir Starmer is another Blair-like figure for Labour and will probably be the next Labour PM which, following the public enquiry that will inevitably follow the Covid-19 approach by the current government, might not be another full term away. 

[chrisp65]

31 minutes ago, OutByEaster? said:

I'm not sure I understand this. An opportunity to stop China? An opportunity to stop companies using IP to profit on death?

 

An opportunity to stop blatant state sanctioned theft, piracy and economic espionage and war on other countries.

[HanoiVillan]

29 minutes ago, OutByEaster? said:

An opportunity to stop companies using IP to profit on death?

 

10 minutes ago, OutByEaster? said:

Aye, there's an opportunity to do lots of things - but I wasn't sure which one was being referred to.

Of the list there, I'd say the current situation which in most cases tends to be maximise profit on the IP to the largest possible extent regardless of the clinical outcome is worse than all of them!

 

There are lots of interesting ways that the 'current situation' could be reformed. There's a really interesting chapter in Dean Baker's book 'Rigged' about this (the pdf is available for free on his website here - chapter 5 if you're interested). He looks at several options, such as public financing of medical research, publicly funded clinical trials, and shortening the length of patents. Another interesting idea was proposed by Bernie Sanders in the Senate many years ago, which involves using prizes instead of patents.

It's possible that something halfway to the latter could happen in the case of coronavirus, ie, the American government, presuming it's developed there, give an enormous sum of money to the drug company in exchange for them distributing the vaccine at around cost-price. (This is @blandy's second option above, give or take).

[Guest]

It's a **** struggle atm. Currently got a cough, feeling a bit of a temperature (nothing major, plus my house is warm, I'm not uncomfortable), I can taste and smell quite well, I'm hungry and have booked a takeaway, but I just feel mega **** anxious

Doesn't help that on a day I feel like that I get a call from the COVID-19 helpline (NHS) where they check up on me and remind me I am high risk. They offered me a food package but I turned it down, I'd rather it went to somebody who needs it.

But yeah, one big head ****.. just hoping I'm feeling a bit off and it's not the thing that'll have a good chance of killing me off.

 

[OutByEaster?]

44 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

An opportunity to stop blatant state sanctioned theft, piracy and economic espionage and war on other countries.

Understood - both things make me angry, I was just wondering which one you were aiming at.

 

[Stevo985]

1 hour ago, Villarocker said:

I personally think that Corbyn was a patsy used by Labour knowing that he would never win anything other than a game of cards. I think that they knew the Tories, in Cameron's desperation to win a second term, had screwed up massively in offering an EU referendum and didn't want to deal with their mess of seeing it through so kept Corbyn as leader knowing that the Tories would be left to deal with the whole Brexit saga. That would certainly explain why they kept on Corbyn so long and were offering nothing as an opposition. 

I think now the whole Brexit farce is over they have now elected a serious politician as leader and will now be more of an opposition. I think Keir Starmer is another Blair-like figure for Labour and will probably be the next Labour PM which, following the public enquiry that will inevitably follow the Covid-19 approach by the current government, might not be another full term away. 

Not sure about what’s happened in the past, but I do think with the fallout from Covid-19, and the car crash that is Brexit on the horizon, there is every opportunity for a decent opposition to use the inevitably shite handling of both of those things as leverage to mount a real challenge. 

[snowychap]

Warning of a swear word or two in the audio:

 

[snowychap]

Erm:

 

[sharkyvilla]

On the BBC it says that now the NHS in England are able to look at the data of actual, not just reported deaths in hospital for each day it looks like 8th April was the peak.