snowychap

1 hour ago, LondonLax said:

Standing up to China is definitely required and least he did that (in his boorish style).

Did he?

He postured against China for specific domestic reasons. He did not 'stand up to' China.

4 minutes ago, AXD said:

Pushing other NATO countries to pay their fair share.

3 minutes ago, Tommo_b said:

I guess what they will say is once Mings touches it it’s a new phase of play. 

That would be an absolutely dreadful claim as surely it would open the doors to all sorts of goalhanging?

1 minute ago, PieFacE said:

I guess the argument is at what point does the next "phase of play" start.

That's a good point.

I mean I'd disagree that another one had started but I get what you say.

Just now, PieFacE said:

Mings took the ball down and got the nicked. 

But when the Man City player headed the ball forward the other player was surely offside?

Why is that not offside?

30 minutes ago, Seat68 said:

Going to have a look to see where the point was where I said I hate the 80s.

1981?

2 minutes ago, blandy said:

I guess you're probably right that (realistically) they can use the advice/opinion of the scientists who think it'll be OK to back them up (and ignore the ones who disagree) and say "it's not purely political". Also had they decided to adhere to the actual trials result data and evidence for which there is no disagreement then I'd argue strongly that that would be a wholly scientific decision. So maybe it's a bit of each, but my feeling is politics will have been the driver - 0.7% of the population have been vaccinated. Nearly 6% have been jabbed once. It's good that both have happened, but one number "looks" better than the other. Equally, they could have been really genuinely alarmed by the chaos in the hospitals and asked their scientists what could be done, in which case you'd be very right indeed.

I get what you're saying and I think the only point I;d make was one brought up by @HanoiVillana little while back about it being a decision made on public health grounds, which would be a little bit wider, scientifically, than purely on the back of the trial data and would then include political decision-making.

9 minutes ago, blandy said:

Our brains work differently, because I take the opposite as the point

That's fair enough.

If we were assessing it as a purely political decision then I'd tend to agree with you but we can't view it solely in that way, can we?

I put the ly optimistic in brackets because the main point was about being cautious until we know for sure but that the consensus, even allowing for and including those expressing their concerns at the risk, is that it should be okay and, in this situation, okay is a good outcome.

1 hour ago, sidcow said:

Is it?

Yes, it is.

To draw a comparison between people who support vaccination programs but who question the effects of changing the regimens on which the trials have been conducted because they fear that this might create circumstances where an escape variant, which could significantly reduce the effectiveness of these vaccines, is created to Andrew Wakefield's fraudulent work suggests either a massive misunderstanding of the points being made by those people or a particular agenda behind the comment.

1 hour ago, sidcow said:

If in 3 months time we are overrun by vaccine resistant strains I'll agree he was right. 

This would suggest a massive misunderstanding. If he said that doing this will mean being overrun by vaccine resistant strains then you might be making a valid point, but he (and others) are not saying that. They are saying that there are risks to the policy and the experts in the various fields appear only to be disagreeing about the level of risk and whether the risk is outweighed by other considerations.

Edit: I’ll leave most of the original comment even though, after reviewing it, I think the reply could be somewhat different –

I do think it’s shoddy because of all that we know about the Wakefield issue, even though I can see some of a point that you are making between the potential result of how the general public may and do react to discussions of subjects that are largely beyond their (our) understanding.

There are a number of issues at play and a couple of them are:

Are there risks from the policy decision to stretch the time between doses (or perhaps even not to give a second dose)? It would appear that the expert consensus is yes but there is a great range of opinions on the matter with some even suggesting that they think it might be beneficial to increase the time between doses beyond the regimen that was the case in the trials.

Should experts raise matters in public when there is a possibility for those opinions and questions to be misinterpreted by some, be misreported or badly reported (headlines which don’t and can’t appropriately capture the nuance in the debate) or, simply, be misused? I think they should be allowing for these possibilities but there’s also a responsibility on all people, here – from those experts to be careful about how they raise these questions; by people reporting to be as accurate as possible and to report all of the relevant opinions (which is one of the reasons why I posted this latest article and put in the excerpts the bits from other experts who suggest that the issues being raised about escape variants is of secondary importance), and from those who read these articles and headlines to look further than merely the headline and to look at what is actually said rather than coming at the story from a particular angle.

2 minutes ago, sidcow said:

"Experts" also said the MMR vaccine made kids Autistic. 

There always seems to be someone looking to stick their oar in about vaccines.

OK this guy might be right but my money would be on us getting to 2nd vaccinations without armageddon looming. 

That's a really, really shoddy comparison.

2 minutes ago, Genie said:

We keep hearing that experts don’t agree with the upto 12 week gap between injections, there must be some that agree and signed off on it. I can’t believe Johnson and Hancock cooked this idea up themselves and just pushed ahead.

I think the point of the article linked in my post was to show that there are many different views on the subject from experts. It would appear that they all acknowledge that there is a risk in doing this (Vallance and Whitty did to differing extents in one of the press conferences last week) but some suggest that the risk is much less than others, is of a secondary concern and is outweighed by the potential benefit of giving the first dose to people.

The point is that we don't know and can't be sure and that we ought to be cautious(ly optimistic) until we do know for sure.

Could too much time between doses drive the coronavirus to outwit vaccines?

Quote

Paul Bieniasz didn’t mince words in a sarcastic New Year’s Day statement he tweeted. If he wanted to create a new, vaccine-resisting version of the pandemic coronavirus, the Rockefeller University virologist wrote, “having developed a remarkable two-dose vaccine, [I’d] … ADMINISTER IT TO MILLIONS OF PEOPLE – BUT DELAY THE SECOND DOSE. … If we let immunity wane for a little while, say 4 to 12 weeks, we just might hit the sweet spot”—and create a virus that could foil the vaccine.

Bieniasz was reacting to the United Kingdom’s 30 December 2020 decision to allow up to 12 weeks between doses of two authorized vaccines, rather than the 3 or 4 weeks tested in the vaccines’ clinical trials. Desperate to tame a massive surge in cases and alarmed by the spread of a new, more contagious variant of the virus, U.K. vaccine experts were aiming to quickly get at least some protection into the arms of as many people as possible.

...

Experts don’t agree, however, on how big of a risk a long delay between doses poses, especially when weighed against the current out-of-control spread of the pandemic coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, in many places. “It’s carnage out there,” says Andrew Read, an evolutionary microbiologist at Pennsylvania State University, University Park. “Twice as many people with partial immunity has got to be better than full immunity in half of them.”

...

Some data support the possibility that partial immunity could spawn new variants. For example, a case study published recently in The New England Journal of Medicine reported how, in a prolonged, ultimately fatal case of SARS-CoV-2 in an immunocompromised man, the virus kept mutating at a rapid rate compared with virus circulating in the general population.

But evolutionary biologists who use computer modeling to generate scenarios of viral “escape” from vaccines say there aren’t enough data yet to compute this still-hypothetical risk, and any single mutation is unlikely to send vaccine effectiveness plummeting. Bloom notes that “even [the] worst mutations” seen so far only partially eroded the effectiveness of antibodies from recovered patients’ blood.

“Most people I know who do dynamical modeling in public health and evolution think [vaccine escape] is a secondary … concern. That it’s more important just to immunize broadly right now. I’m in that camp,” says Sarah Cobey, an epidemiologist and evolutionary biologist at the University of Chicago.

...more

Just now, Genie said:

Yes, I agree.

Apologies for the vehemence of my response.

4 minutes ago, Genie said:

From what I can tell the response from these people seems to be “I’m fit and young so I’ll take my chances with the virus rather take a vaccine I know nothing about. But because I’m a bit thick and love conspiracies I need everyone to know I’m not a sheep so I’ll, ironically, follow the conspiracy theorists into proudly not having it. Stick it to the man, their plan all along is to control us and I won’t be controlled etc etc.”

Not everyone who doesn't want (immediately), doesn't accept (when offered), doesn't have (at all) a vaccination is part of the group of 'these people' that you characterize above.

8 minutes ago, MCU said:

Didn’t say anything about forcing the vaccine into anyone, but for those individuals what’s the thinking process/resolution going forward in life? 

There are all sorts of possible reasons why someone may not choose to have a vaccination; there are all sorts or reasons why someone may be advised by the likes of the MHRA not to have a vaccination; there are all sorts of reasons why someone may not have a vaccination (if there's a strict - you don't turn up, you don't get as has been suggested).

13 minutes ago, MCU said:

Why wouldn’t you have it?

Wrong question - though to answer it: depending upon the particular vaccine - if you're pregnant, if you're immuno-compromised, perhaps people with a history of severe allergic reactions, &c. (I think those are some of the points raised by the MHRA)?

Edit: My response was about compulsory vaccination programs (or even 'encouragment' as euphemistically phrased by previous posters).

1 hour ago, Xela said:

Its a killer virus, should it not be compulsory? 

No, absolutely not.

1 hour ago, Xela said:

Absolutely. Something like having their benefits/pension suspended until they have the vaccination might work

2 hours ago, wazzap24 said:

My Dad had his yesterday. Big weight off my mind tbh and once he gets his top-up, I’ll be sending him out to do my shopping! 

Nooooo!

8 hours ago, Nicho said:

I’m a generous 5’10

5'9" or just a really nice bloke?

Edit:

From the article linked in the above tweet:

Quote

Alroy-Preis stressed that the data wasn’t enough to conclude that the vaccine prevents transmission of the virus altogether, since it is believed that one can spread the virus to others for a limited amount of time if it is located in their nasal cavity, even if it hasn’t infected the body to a level that would yield a positive test result.

2 hours ago, StefanAVFC said:

This is encouraging

It has been tested by the JCVI?

5 hours ago, Awol said:

Welcome to every professional armed forces on earth. 

Not something to celebrate.