You are the most consistent man on 606 Watford I missed your thoughtful and balanced analyses of current affairs whilst I was on holiday It's great to be back
Are you realy naive enough to believe every pathologist know how to identify the cause was Sars-CoV-2 ? Only specialised doctors (e.g. Medical examiner) are capable of doing that. The famous Hamburg based Medical examiner Püschel stated: In Hamburg no one has died of corona without previous illness. He had examined over a hundred so-calle Covid-19 deaths and came to the conclusion that all of them were seriously ill before.
Spain in the end. Then two days after arriving they got taken off the list. Pretty much adhered to quarantine which was doable helped by the weather.
I refer you back to your post 11,195 - your fifth point begins with ''Nobody was examined by pathologists'' ! It would help if you read your copied material before inserting it here. Otherwise it just comes over as one more bold statement which, upon examination, turns out to be rubbish.
Good timing I have to say the West and Far North of Scotland seemed to be pretty good at following guidance....mainly through most things being closed
Every news bulletin currently reporting on the increase in new recorded Covid cases, but very rarely do they put these numbers alongside the numbers for hospitalisations and deaths, or as a percentage of tests taken. Without this additional information, it's just scaremongering.
The Covid trap: will society ever open up again? A ‘temporary’ expansion of government power is hard to reverse From magazine issue: 5 September 2020 please log in to view this image Text settings CommentsShare The great pandemic of 2020 has led to an extraordinary expansion of government power. Countries rushed to close their borders and half of the world’s population were forced into some sort of curfew. Millions of companies, from micropubs to mega corporations, were prohibited from carrying on business. In supposedly free and liberal societies, peaceful strollers and joggers were tracked by drones and stopped by policemen asking for their papers. It’s all in the name of defeating coronavirus; all temporary, we’re told. But it’s time to ask, just how temporary? As Milton Friedman used to warn: ‘Nothing is so permanent as a temporary government programme.’ Measures that seemed unthinkable a few months ago have been implemented in haste and without debate. In the UK, as in many other countries, the rationale changed. First, lockdown was designed to ‘buy time’ so the health service could prepare. Next, it was needed to ‘flatten the curve’. But when the curve peaked a few weeks later, the restrictions didn’t merely stay in place, they were reinforced.
Its not really scaremongering, after all 41000 deaths here is a widely reported figure and we can all assess the risks are pretty small of dying. Its more that in this day and age we seem to be stuck and no one in authority wants to be the one to say lets just get on with it and a few deaths are just going to be a fact. More an indictment of the modern world and how ultra cautious we are nowadays i suppose..
please log in to view this image Dr. Ali Nouri @AliNouriPhD · Sep 6 India has the fastest growing coronavirus crisis w/more than 80,000 new cases each day. Last quarter it's economy shrank by 24 percent; it risks losing its place as the world’s fifth largest economy; as many as 200 million could slip back into poverty 1/2 please log in to view this image
Speed of coronavirus vaccine race 'crazy' and unsafe, scientists warn 'The more this moves into politics, the more it becomes a little crazy,' one leading expert says By Jennifer Rigby 6 September 2020 • 10:00am please log in to view this image Political pressure has overtaken scientific evidence in the push for a Covid-19 vaccine, scientists said Credit: Reuters Leading scientists across the world say rushing the development of a coronavirus vaccine to bring it to the public before the end of this year is unrealistic, unsafe, and even "crazy". Despite reports from across the world suggesting a vaccine could be ready in weeks - particularly from the United States, where "Operation Warp Speed" reportedly has officials on standby to distribute the vaccine by October, ahead of the presidential election - experts are increasingly concerned that the rhetoric is in no way matched by the data. None of the leading vaccine candidates have yet completed clinical trials, the regulatory bodies who licence vaccines are already struggling to cope with coronavirus demands, and questions over manufacture and distribution haven't been considered, experts say. Professor Beate Kampmann, director of the Vaccine Centre at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, told The Telegraph: "This timeline is neither realistic, nor is it sensible to put this kind of pressure on the analysis of important trials. It is highly politicised, and I am not a fan of this approach." She said that it was essential for all new vaccines to go through comprehensive clinical trials. In normal times, a vaccine takes up to ten years to develop, including several years of testing. Under the current plans outlined by politicians in the UK, Russia, and the United States, this has been crunched to less than 12 months. "It is extremely unwise to proceed with licensing any vaccine without a proven track record for safety and efficacy, in any country," Professor Kampmann said. "If they are found to be useless or even dangerous, you might jeopardise the entire vaccine programme. The more this moves from science into politics, the more it becomes a little crazy." The World Health Organization said on Friday it does not expect to see a vaccine until mid-2021, and it is working with experts to define the criteria for declaring a vaccine successful. On the same day, US newspapers also carried reports of a planned joint statement from some of the big pharmaceutical companies, pledging that they will not release a coronavirus vaccine until its usefulness and safety are proven. At the same time, the head of 'Operation Warp Speed' in the US, Dr Moncef Slaoui, hit back at accusations of political influence, telling Science Magazine he would resign if there was "undue interference". But the data gaps are plain to see. According to a vaccine tracker from the Vaccine Centre, there are 210 vaccine candidates - some involving totally new technology - in development. Nine of them are at the final stage of trials, Phase III. This stage tests the vaccine on thousands of people to hunt for potential side-effects, as well as checking the jab actually works. However, none - including the leading Oxford University candidate, as well as Chinese, German and US bids - have completed it, and some are still recruiting for volunteers. Tens of thousands of people are expected to be needed in countries across the world. And if the speed of development and testing is unprecedented, the speed with which regulatory bodies and governments will have to assess the evidence for the vaccines is, too. In the past this has taken between one and two years. Now, regulatory bodies are suggesting they can do it in months - in the UK, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) has said just 70 days. That is ambitious, to say the least, and not only because the MHRA's experience in licensing vaccines is limited. In the past, while the UK was part of the European Union, it usually relied on the much larger European Medicines Agency (EMA) for licences (and in fact, still does, until the end of the Brexit transition period). That body warned this week that it was already struggling to cope with its coronavirus workload amid staff shortages after Brexit forced its relocation from London to Amsterdam. Meanwhile, the MHRA is set for new powers and resources from the UK government to sift through the evidence more quickly and license a vaccine. But even if a new vaccine does get licensed, that "doesn't mean it's in a clinic next to your home in the next two weeks", cautioned Professor Kampmann. Many manufacturing and logistical hurdles remain. And the problem is almost everyone involved in this process is not used to acting with this kind of urgency. "We have never seen anything like this, and the incentives to cut corners are greater than has ever been the case, and that's the trouble," Dr Stuart Blume, an expert in the history of vaccines at the University of Amsterdam, told The Telegraph. "We all want a vaccine but the fact that it is taking place under these political and economic circumstances is disastrous in my view," he said. History shows that things have gone wrong before when vaccines have been rushed through, including unleashing rare side effects on the general population. Cautionary tales 1955 - The ‘Cutter incident’ The US government unveiled a new polio vaccine, vaccinating 200,000 children, but a batch from Cutter Laboratories accidentally contained live polio virus. According to Dr Howard Markel, a US paediatrician and history of medicine professor in America, 40,000 children contracted polio, several hundred were paralysed, and ten died. Some blame point to the horrifying incident as this century's driver for a growing hesitancy around vaccines globally. 1976 - Fort Dix flu Hundreds of soldiers at the US military base Fort Dix contracted a new swine flu strain, and there were epidemic warnings. President Gerald Ford – facing an election – fast-tracked a vaccine for mass innoculation, and 45 million Americans got the jab. Of those vaccinated, 450 developed the paralyzing Guillain-Barré syndrome, with 30 deaths. Meanwhile the flu strain never made it out of the base, and only one soldier died. 2009-10 - Swine flu and Pandemrix The Pandemrix vaccine was given to six million people in the UK, to high risk groups, including children. It had been granted speedy approval by the EMA. But clinicians saw a rise in cases of narcolepsy, or sleeping sickness, and a UK Health Protection Agency (now Public Health England) study among 4-18 year olds later found that one in every 55,000 jabs had led to narcolepsy. And while more in-depth trials may not necessarily catch these very rare side effects, they also might. And is that a risk worth taking this time round? That question over the balance of risk is important, because while this kind of speed is unusual, it is not completely new. As Professor Eleanor Riley, Professor of immunology and infectious disease at the University of Edinburgh, explained: “There are precedents for rapid approval of experimental vaccines during epidemics." These approvals are known as qualified approvals (for emergency use), and are the kind of licences being discussed for coronavirus vaccines both in the UK and the US. They mean vaccines can be approved before all the evidence is in, in specific situations, such as in the 2014-16 West Africa Ebola outbreak. "For Ebola this was justified by the very high transmission and case fatality rates and the very high risks posed to health care and sanitation workers involved in controlling the outbreak," said Professor Riley. "In essence, the risk of receiving an experimental vaccine was deemed to be lower than the risk of contracting and dying from Ebolavirus." However, for coronavirus, there's a catch. As Professor Riley put it: “Arguably, these justifications do not, or no longer, pertain in the case of the Covid-19 pandemic. The individual risk of dying from Covid-19 is low, and in many countries it is falling, and we have effective public health measures to sustain this in the short to medium term." Meanwhile, the risks of pushing through a vaccine in the current time-frame remain so serious that some leading public health experts hinted that they may not be willing to recommend it. Dr Tom Frieden, former head of the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention and now head of Resolve to Save Lives, tweeted this week: "Licensing a vaccine requires that it be proven safe and effective. That's a reasonable standard. If reached, I also would feel comfortable getting a vaccine and recommending to my family. An Emergency Use Authorisation, in contrast, is a much lower standard." Dr. Tom Frieden @DrTomFrieden To be clear: Licensing a vaccine requires that it be proven safe and effective. That's a reasonable standard. If reached, I also would feel comfortable getting a vaccine and recommending to my family. An Emergency Use Authorization, in contrast, is a much lower standard. please log in to view this image Prof Peter Hotez MD PhD @PeterHotez 1/13: New Thread: A dozen reasons why I'm worried about releasing a #COVID19#vaccine through an emergency use authorization (EUA) If people do not trust any vaccine that is developed, and therefore do not get the jab - already a risk in many countries thanks to anti-vaxxer movements - it could cost millions of lives, and not just because of coronavirus. A mistake, and the ensuing loss of trust, could jeopardise vaccines as a public health measure altogether. Professor Peter Hotez, dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at the Baylor College of Medicine, Texas, told The Telegraph that concern was very real. "We have a terrible anti-vaccine, anti-science movement in America. The anti-vaxxers are waiting in the wings for this like lions surrounding an injured impala on the savannah," he warned.
