Generic Virus Thread

[bickster]

21 minutes ago, KenjiOgiwara said:

I actually think the logical **** up when it comes to statistics here is when people drag in vaccination done in the UK and other countries that aren't affected. If the problem is batches and what's hit hospital in Norway and Denmark are the problem, then your overall statistics means dick. Then we're back to idiots saying you're less likely to die in a car accident than being killed by a shark. Well, that **** changes once you go swimming outside Cape Town doesn't it.

7 fatal shark attacks since 2000 in South Africa. 1 every three years. Yes the chances go up from minute to just a little bit less than minute

[Genie]

6 minutes ago, Mic09 said:

I wonder, and I haven't read into this yet, if this could be a political move linked with a limited number of vaccines in the EU.

"We haven't vaccineted many people? Well, it's not our fault, it's that horrible AZ that's the reason. Look, it even gives people blood clots!"

That was my thought. The attempt to discredit it for not working backfired. 

[HanoiVillan]

1 hour ago, KenjiOgiwara said:

That's a bit like saying your more likely to be killed by a cow than a shark attack. Utterly meaningless in the context it's given.

Not really anything like that at all. The point is that flying definitely leads to blood clots in a non-trivial number of people, yet we don't prevent people from flying to protect them from blood clots, and it would be considered absurd to do so. Yet here, governments are choosing to prevent people from getting vaccinated due to an objectively massively smaller concern of exactly the same thing.

[HanoiVillan]

43 minutes ago, Enda said:

Lads, you’re basing your calculations on the wrong outcome. Clean statistical tests are not what governments are thinking about. What matters is beliefs.

Your 1 in 10,000 statistic doesn’t matter if John Public believes the vaccine is going to give him blood clots and brain hemorrhages. By stalling for a week and saying “Yes, we checked, and have concluded AZ is fine” the government might well convince John that AZ is safe, moreso than if they’d just plowed on regardless. It’s expectations management, innit?

I wonder how easy it's going to turn out to be to get the genie back into the bottle afterwards. Maybe people will just hear 'it's dangerous', and won't go back to being A-OK about everything after a perfunctory pause and some chat amongst the eggheads.

[mjmooney]

1 minute ago, HanoiVillan said:

I wonder how easy it's going to turn out to be to get the genie back into the bottle afterwards. Maybe people will just hear 'it's dangerous', and won't go back to being A-OK about everything after a perfunctory pause and some chat amongst the eggheads.

Definitely this. As we've seen with QAnon, etc., once the bullshit gets into social media, it never goes away, it proliferates like, er... a virus. 

[HanoiVillan]

3 minutes ago, mjmooney said:

Definitely this. As we've seen with QAnon, etc., once the bullshit gets into social media, it never goes away, it proliferates like, er... a virus. 

'Nobody will actually *believe* that Trump won the election, they will all realise from watching network TV that this is just a silly game that Republicans are playing to humour him'

[ml1dch]

28 minutes ago, Mic09 said:

I wonder, and I haven't read into this yet, if this could be a political move linked with a limited number of vaccines in the EU.

"We haven't vaccineted many people? Well, it's not our fault, it's that horrible AZ that's the reason. Look, it even gives people blood clots!"

And they've just decided to rope Iceland, Norway and Thailand in for a laugh? 

[KenjiOgiwara]

24 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

Not really anything like that at all. The point is that flying definitely leads to blood clots in a non-trivial number of people, yet we don't prevent people from flying to protect them from blood clots, and it would be considered absurd to do so. Yet here, governments are choosing to prevent people from getting vaccinated due to an objectively massively smaller concern of exactly the same thing.

It is. Because IF it's a batch issue your statistics don't holder water. So we're back in the scenario of walking into shark infested waters. The data and probability would be massively skewed. And that is the point. 

Edited March 15, 2021 by KenjiOgiwara

[KenjiOgiwara]

So people refuse to admit it's a likely connection to the AZ vaccine after healthy young people of the same profession, with no underlying conditions, get the same illness with very rare blood conditions, after taking the AZ vaccine. BUT they talk of EU conspiracy. 

Alright then. I'll leave you to it. 

[bickster]

19 minutes ago, KenjiOgiwara said:

So people refuse to admit it's a likely connection to the AZ vaccine after healthy young people of the same profession, with no underlying conditions, get the same illness with very rare blood conditions, after taking the AZ vaccine. BUT they talk of EU conspiracy. 

Alright then. I'll leave you to it. 

The point that you appear to be missing the whole time is that the causation of this is unlikely to be the vaccine per se. The stats overwhelmingly tell us that.

You are correct that it may be a bad batch but countries that have no similar instances (which is every country other than Norway or Denmark) unless they also have vaccine from the same batch should not be stopping the roll out

The shark infested waters argument is actually the wrong argument, it supports the opposite case to which you are arguing. Fatal shark attacks are excedingly rare, even in Australia they number about 1 per year (since 2000 - 26), the Australians do not close all the beaches as a result of one attack

[Mic09]

19 minutes ago, ml1dch said:

And they've just decided to rope Iceland, Norway and Thailand in for a laugh? 

I didn't know about those countries. 

[darrenm]

11 minutes ago, KenjiOgiwara said:

So people refuse to admit it's a likely connection to the AZ vaccine after healthy young people of the same profession, with no underlying conditions, get the same illness with very rare blood conditions, after taking the AZ vaccine. BUT they talk of EU conspiracy. 

Alright then. I'll leave you to it. 

I'm not ruling anything out. But there's the issue that 10 million people in the UK have had the vaccine without anything like this cropping up. So the data rules out it being anything to do with the vaccine. The key factor seems to be them all being nurses rather than having the vaccine. 

But then even if it turns out to be somehow proven that the vaccine does cause clotting issues (was it bloods clots or haemorrhage because they're 2 different things?), is it right to stop the rollout of a vaccine that could be saving thousands of lives because it has a statistically insignificant possibility of causing a clotting problem? As was said before, do you then stop people travelling on planes?

[blandy]

8 minutes ago, darrenm said:

do you then stop people travelling on planes?

Only if they haven’t been vaccinated!

oh! Following the conversation ? No, why..

[sidcow]

33 minutes ago, KenjiOgiwara said:

So people refuse to admit it's a likely connection to the AZ vaccine after healthy young people of the same profession, with no underlying conditions, get the same illness with very rare blood conditions, after taking the AZ vaccine. BUT they talk of EU conspiracy. 

Alright then. I'll leave you to it. 

Yes, I refuse to admit it's a "likely" connection. 

I won't refuse to admit there is a small possibility of a connection. That's the point here.  What is in the scheme of things a very minor anomoly had been declared almost certainly a problem with the AZ vaccine. 

There is not enough data to either assume that or to put thousands of lives at stake by stopping vaccinating.  Many more people are going to die now.  And when they resume vaccination many more still are going to die because they will refuse to take it. 

[sidcow]

26 minutes ago, Mic09 said:

I didn't know about those countries. 

Iceland and Norway are northern European countries.  Thailand is an Asian country where you shouldn't jump into bed with a lady just because she is pretty. 

Edited March 15, 2021 by sidcow

[mjmooney]

1 hour ago, darrenm said:

As was said before, do you then stop people travelling on planes

Indeed, and we're back to people's perception of risk again. Statistically, flying is the safest form of travel. Of course, that's no consolation if you happen to be on one of the rare flights that crashes, so I can understand why some people are too scared to fly. But practically all of those people will get in their cars every day of their lives without a second's thought, despite the much greater risk of injury or death incurred by doing so. 

Edited March 15, 2021 by mjmooney

[El Zen]

Further tightening of restrictions imminent in Oslo and adjacent counties. I’m really on the brink of a minor breakdown now. 

[darrenm]

1 hour ago, mjmooney said:

Indeed, and we're back to people's perception of risk again. Statistically, flying is the safest form of travel. Of course, that's no consolation if you happen to be on one of the rare flights that crashes, so I can understand why some people are too scared to fly. But practically all of those people will get in their cars every day of their lives without a second's thought, despite the much greater risk of injury or death incurred by doing so. 

I meant in the context of getting DVT but I absolutely agree with the risk perception imbalance.

[Enda]

2 hours ago, HanoiVillan said:

I wonder how easy it's going to turn out to be to get the genie back into the bottle afterwards. Maybe people will just hear 'it's dangerous', and won't go back to being A-OK about everything after a perfunctory pause and some chat amongst the eggheads.

Agreed it’s not obviously the best strategy, my point is that reassuring the public isn’t necessarily the same thing as showing them the evidence – all the more so if people are conspiracy theorists.

[HanoiVillan]

1 hour ago, Enda said:

Agreed it’s not obviously the best strategy, my point is that reassuring the public isn’t necessarily the same thing as showing them the evidence – all the more so if people are conspiracy theorists.

I just think being straightforward with the public is essentially always the best strategy in a public health emergency. I'm not saying this is what you're asking for, but in general we've spent too much time hiding away information for bad reasons - we don't think people will understand, people's patience will wear out, people are easier to control if we don't level with them - and the results have been appalling across Europe, not just in this country.