Generic Virus Thread

[Genie]

Something to look forward to

Quote

Scientists warn of new Botswana variant of Covid with ‘horrific’ number of mutations

A new Covid-19 variant has emerged that has an “incredibly high” number of mutations, scientists are warning.

It is feared that the B.1.1529, or Botswanavariant – an off-shoot of the B.1.1 – could drive further transmission of the virus.

The first cases found were three in Botswana, followed by another six cases in South Africa, and one in Hong Konginvolving a traveller returning from South Africa.

Generally, spike mutations allow viruses to adapt and become more virulent, and more able to evade natural and vaccine immunity.

Dr Tom Peacock, a virologist at Imperial College London, said the variant could be “of real concern” as its 32 mutations in its spike protein could enable it to more easily evade a person’s immune system and spread to more people.

Link to Independent

[dont_do_it_doug.]

5 minutes ago, Rodders said:

no it's a consequence. its how incentives and disincentives work. It's worked in pretty much every area of life from parenting to boardrooms in trying to encourage behaviours. Describing it as coercive is rather dramatic. Those who choose not to acquire passports or take negative tests aren't banned from life, just certain avenues restricted to them. It's standard everywhere, whether it's addressing bigotry, i.e. through consequences for offensive attitudes, or encouraging a child to behave better or whatever other example you can think of, it's just trying to influence social behaviours, just on a larger scale. 

 

State controlled incentives shouldn't involve the risk of death. You might say well that's ridiculous, hardly anyone has died from the vaccine vs the deaths it has prevented, and as an individual you should want to protect yourself and by extension your community. And I would agree with you. But that is my personal decision and I arrived at it without having my hand forced. 

I'm jabbed, most of the people I care about are jabbed. Those that aren't, well, they have taken that risk upon themselves haven't they. I'm not sure what the state should have to do with it outside of presenting the facts and allowing people to make their own mind up. 

Often it feels like people are willing to accept this kind of intervention just because they know their government aren't up to the task of persuading people by ordinary, rational means. Really, we should be taking that up with the government rather than each other. 

[Stevo985]

29 minutes ago, blandy said:

“statistically it may be wise to vaccinate for your perfectly healthy child who has more likely than not already been exposed to covid, perhaps multiple times”.

And that’s the point. The science men have worked out it is wise, but not definitively so. Both paths are very low risk for the child. The vaccine path has the advantage of reducing the risk to others as well (including the parents and family).

This is key. As I’ve said numerous times in this thread, people are selfish. 
 

If the science men said it is undoubtedly safer for your child to be vaccinated, everyone would do it. 
 

But because it “reduces the risk for others” they won’t. People don’t care about others. 
 

I guarantee if the science said face masks protected the wearer and not the people around them, the vast majority would still be wearing them

[Rodders]

1 minute ago, dont_do_it_doug. said:

State controlled incentives shouldn't involve the risk of death. You might say well that's ridiculous, hardly anyone has died from the vaccine vs the deaths it has prevented, and as an individual you should want to protect yourself and by extension your community. And I would agree with you. But that is my personal decision and I arrived at it without having my hand forced. 

I'm jabbed, most of the people I care about are jabbed. Those that aren't, well, they have taken that risk upon themselves haven't they. I'm not sure what the state should have to do with it outside of presenting the facts and allowing people to make their own mind up. 

Often it feels like people are willing to accept this kind of intervention just because they know their government aren't up to the task of persuading people by ordinary, rational means. Really, we should be taking that up with the government rather than each other. 

 

I can't remember which political philosopher bod spoke it, but roughly speaking the gist was one of the main roles of government is preventing it's citizenry from harming each other. I guess it's a matter of philosophical preference as to how narrowly you define harm, but informing and proving incentives to achieve certain ends in a public health crisis would seem a reasonable way to achieve that end. It's fair to argue the toss over the relative merits over what is proportional, but vaccines or passports ( or proof of negative test ) seems such a small effort required of individuals that the whipped up hysteria over liberties being taken is very irritating. 

I've rowed back from mandatory vaccines, a position initially borne more out of frustrated contempt to that public corner of absolute cock sockets of anti vaxx, anti science bellends, but the red line for me is that there often is a refusal to acknowledge the "its not about you, its about who you interact with" component. Fine, you ( not you specifically DDID ) don't have the vaccine, but in that case you ought to take more appropriate precautions to prevent the spread. But it's these people who most eagerly wish to dispense with all of the public health regulations and get back to 'normal' ( though as someone who has done everything he would have done normally, including international flight for months I am really struggling to sympathise with that complaint, they're the **** who don't bother with masks at all ). And it's because of these people, that the government needs to come down with vaccine passports etc. 

 

[Stevo985]

16 minutes ago, dont_do_it_doug. said:

State controlled incentives shouldn't involve the risk of death. You might say well that's ridiculous, hardly anyone has died from the vaccine vs the deaths it has prevented, and as an individual you should want to protect yourself and by extension your community. And I would agree with you. But that is my personal decision and I arrived at it without having my hand forced. 

I'm jabbed, most of the people I care about are jabbed. Those that aren't, well, they have taken that risk upon themselves haven't they. I'm not sure what the state should have to do with it outside of presenting the facts and allowing people to make their own mind up. 

Often it feels like people are willing to accept this kind of intervention just because they know their government aren't up to the task of persuading people by ordinary, rational means. Really, we should be taking that up with the government rather than each other. 

You can’t drive without a license. You can’t work with children without a background check. You can’t ride a motor bike without a helmet. You can’t own a gun without a license. In some countries you need a flu vaccine to work with the elderly or in care. 
 

I’m against forcing people to get the vaccine. But needing proof of a vaccine to do certain things doesn’t seem much different to a lot of the other rules we have in society.

 

You don’t HAVE TO get vaccinated. But if you’re not vaccinated then you can’t do certain things. 
You don’t HAVE TO get a driving license. Nobody is forcing you. But if you don’t have one then you can’t drive a car

Edited November 25, 2021 by Stevo985

[blandy]

2 minutes ago, Stevo985 said:

If the science men said it is undoubtedly safer for your child to be vaccinated, everyone would do it. 

Just on this, two things really. I don’t think everyone would and secondly I’m not sure that they would say that, based on the (as I understand it) very low risks either way. There’s a very very remote risk of vaccine complications and a very remote risk of long term Covid implications for the unvaccinated child. When the risks are so low, I don’t think pure science would advise one course action over the other. 
 

yes, I know you wrote it as a hypothetical.

[dont_do_it_doug.]

6 minutes ago, Stevo985 said:

This is key. As I’ve said numerous times in this thread, people are selfish. 
 

If the science men said it is undoubtedly safer for your child to be vaccinated, everyone would do it. 
 

But because it “reduces the risk for others” they won’t. People don’t care about others. 
 

I guarantee if the science said face masks protected the wearer and not the people around them, the vast majority would still be wearing them

The problem with this post generally is that the science people don't all necessarily agree about how best we approach this. You only have to look to the Great Barrington Declaration for evidence. They may be going against the consensus, I haven't conducted a poll, but if there's one thing history has taught us it is that scientific consensus isn't always correct. 

You go on to cite masks, yet the kind of face coverings we wear and how we wear them are not masks by any medical definition and are proven to be completely useless at halting transmission. I will continue to wear my disposable surgical masks where appropriate because the cost to me is so low that why not, but I'm not convinced it's actually doing anything. 

[dont_do_it_doug.]

10 minutes ago, Stevo985 said:

You can’t drive without a license. You can’t work with children without a background check. You can’t ride a motor bike without a helmet. You can’t own a gun without a license. In some countries you need a flu vaccine to work with the elderly or in care. 
 

I’m against forcing people to get the vaccine. But needing proof of a vaccine to do certain things doesn’t seem much different to a lot of the other rules we have in society.

 

You don’t HAVE TO get vaccinated. But if you’re not vaccinated then you can’t do certain things. 
You don’t HAVE TO get a driving license. Nobody is forcing you. But if you don’t have one then you can’t drive a car

I understand how it functions in a practical sense, I get that bit. 

No issue with mandatory vaccinations for care workers either. That is perfectly sensible. 

Going to a concert? That is a personal choice for both those who are vaccinated as well as those who aren't. It is on each individual to weight up the various risk factors and make a decision. I am pro-testing FWIW and that seems ample and potentially more statistically protective. That they haven't bothered to put a reliable and verifiable testing regime in place is, again, no excuse for authoritarianism. 

[blandy]

3 minutes ago, dont_do_it_doug. said:

they haven't bothered to put a reliable and verifiable testing regime in place is, again, no excuse for authoritarianism. 

A non vaccinated person can go to any chemist or whatever and get a free box of LFTs to determine their status. I get that they may give false negatives and that the test can be gamed, but with the aim of reducing spread of a potentially fatal virus that’s not authoritarianism in my book. “Don’t kill people through selfishness” seems a good place in a pandemic.

and I agree better test kits etc would be nice to go with that

[Vive_La_Villa]

I heard they will start charging for LFT’s soon.

[dont_do_it_doug.]

7 minutes ago, blandy said:

A non vaccinated person can go to any chemist or whatever and get a free box of LFTs to determine their status. I get that they may give false negatives and that the test can be gamed, but with the aim of reducing spread of a potentially fatal virus that’s not authoritarianism in my book. “Don’t kill people through selfishness” seems a good place in a pandemic.

and I agree better test kits etc would be nice to go with that

The argument against that is the reliability of our current self reporting system. Which I understand completely. I know somebody, fully vaccinated, who doesn't bother *actually* testing anymore despite it being a pre-requisite of his job because he's sick of gagging on that stick twice a week. He just sends off negative results. 

Edit - I wasn't saying that LFT testing is authoritarian. For clarity, my point was that the lack of a super reliable testing regime is not an excuse for authoritarianism by way of 'mandatory' vaccination. 

Edited November 25, 2021 by dont_do_it_doug.

[HanoiVillan]

7 minutes ago, blandy said:

A non vaccinated person can go to any chemist or whatever and get a free box of LFTs to determine their status. I get that they may give false negatives and that the test can be gamed, but with the aim of reducing spread of a potentially fatal virus that’s not authoritarianism in my book. “Don’t kill people through selfishness” seems a good place in a pandemic.

and I agree better test kits etc would be nice to go with that

AIUI there are a new generation of lateral flow tests being released which are significantly more accurate than previous versions.

EDIT: Further to @dont_do_it_doug. above, these new LFTs also don't require a tonsil swab, just a nasal one.

Edited November 25, 2021 by HanoiVillan

[Wainy316]

I love the theory that the vaccine is population control and is going to gradually start killing people by design (so far evidenced by a couple of footballers collapsing).

So a deadly virus sweeps the earth which if left to it's own devices would probably kill a few percent of earth's populace.  Practically every government in the world colludes on their dastardly plot to lockdown people for a year while a vaccine is developed, an offshoot of which is severe damage to economies across the world.  The vaccine is then rolled out and starts to do exactly what the virus would have done if left unabated.

 

 

[dont_do_it_doug.]

1 minute ago, Wainy316 said:

I love the theory that the vaccine is population control and is going to gradually start killing people by design (so far evidenced by a couple of footballers collapsing).

So a deadly virus sweeps the earth which if left to it's own devices would probably kill a few percent of earth's populace.  Practically every government in the world colludes on their dastardly plot to lockdown people for a year while a vaccine is developed, an offshoot of which is severe damage to economies across the world.  The vaccine is then rolled out and starts to do exactly what the virus would have done if left unabated.

 

 

FWIW Covid has an infection fatality rate of about 0.2-0.3%. It's still a lot of bodies, far too many to do nothing at all IMO. 

[Genie]

15 minutes ago, dont_do_it_doug. said:

FWIW Covid has an infection fatality rate of about 0.2-0.3%. It's still a lot of bodies, far too many to do nothing at all IMO. 

That’s with lockdowns though isn’t it? If the world just took it on the chin and made no attempt to manage it then it would be much higher.

[sidcow]

 

[Vive_La_Villa]

42 minutes ago, Genie said:

That’s with lockdowns though isn’t it? If the world just took it on the chin and made no attempt to manage it then it would be much higher.

I don’t think we’d ever know. How many deaths never got reported? How many deaths got reported as covid when the reason was something else? 

[blandy]

1 hour ago, dont_do_it_doug. said:

FWIW Covid has an infection fatality rate of about 0.2-0.3%. It's still a lot of bodies, far too many to do nothing at all IMO. 

10 times that. We did the sums from the data maybe a week ago. 

[blandy]

5 minutes ago, Vive_La_Villa said:

I don’t think we’d ever know. How many deaths never got reported? How many deaths got reported as covid when the reason was something else? 

Your point is valid. But we do have a huge wealth of stats, now. We have 10s of millions of known infection cases and of those cases, we know the percentage of people who went dead. Statistically a huge sample

[Stevo985]

1 hour ago, dont_do_it_doug. said:

I understand how it functions in a practical sense, I get that bit. 

No issue with mandatory vaccinations for care workers either. That is perfectly sensible. 

Going to a concert? That is a personal choice for both those who are vaccinated as well as those who aren't. It is on each individual to weight up the various risk factors and make a decision. I am pro-testing FWIW and that seems ample and potentially more statistically protective. That they haven't bothered to put a reliable and verifiable testing regime in place is, again, no excuse for authoritarianism. 

It’s not a personal choice though. It’s a choice people are making for them personally and for everyone else going. 

If an unvaccinated person was only harming themselves by going to a concert then you’d be 100% correct. 
 

But they’re potentially harming lots and lots of others. And that’s where it becomes not a personal choice. A vaccinated person is relying on an unvaccinated person making the right choice. And as I’ve stated, people are **** selfish.

If someone is selfish enough not to get a vaccine then they’re probably going to be selfish enough to just go wherever they want.