Malibuflyer wrote:
Fuji_Abound wrote: In what way do you excuse their lack of transparency?First of all, I’m not excusing anything.
Second: Which lack of transparency are you referring to?
The initial delay in openly telling what is happening? I would not call it “lack of transparency” but rather a combination of underestimating the magnitude of this event (like almost every other government as well) and the normal behavior of states to cover up. How long did it take before the Ukranian government published the whole magnitude of Tschernobyl? How long until the US published what really happened in 3 mile Island? It took the UK government 25 (!) years to publish the first report on the true number of casualties from Sellafield – so 24 years to go until we are in a position to judge China on its Covid information policy.And after that initial reaction, everything that is required to fight the disease is shared and transparent now – it’s just that the Chinese government is not supporting any kind of “blame game” going on – like the Italian government is not very actively communicating right now, that we have indications for cases in Italy that date to clearly before the outbreak in Wuhan.
I am referring to the lack of transparency with the WHO “inspectors”. It has taken over nine months to grant them access. In the sense it is a crime scene (I dont mean that China has behaved criminally, but the virus itself is the crime scene) the scene is now almost certainly cold, and whether there has been an intentional cover up, or not, vital evidence will no longer exist.
I dont think all the mistakes throughout history are relevant. If the benchmark is to be what some other regime previoulsy did progress will never be made. It is the here and now that is all that matters, and when it comes to learning lessons, preparing for the future in which other viruses will cause similiar chaos it is vital where ever these might first occur in the world we are ready, able and prepared for the best scientists to be given immediate access without deference to politcal blushes, if we are to give ourselves the best chance of understadning how and why these events occur and what can be best done to nip them in the bud.
In that respect China has failed miserably on every count.
Airborne_Again wrote:
Fuji_Abound wrote: Does it really matter what the variants are called?Yes, it absolutely matters. Maybe it wouldn’t if people were perfectly rational, but we are not. Why does it matter if a person is called gypsy or roma? Why does your supermarket prefer “red orange” rather than “blood orange”?
Yes, fair point, but I didnt mean the name calling is acceptable, I meant we must rise above this. Regardless, it will happen. You will not stop a Trump refering to it as the China virus or whatever. My point is the problem is bigger than the name calling, which is insoluble, and my feelings are tackle the problem, dont get hung up with what it is called. You will never stop the Daily Mash or whatever it is calling it the the China virus, you cant sue them for the term, it sells papers, it appears it did originate in China and most people in the street make this association, just as with the new variant that appears to have originated in Kent.
As to the terms you mention I understand these are seen as derogatory. I see the use of the term China virus, or Kent variant no more derogatory than say someone is African. It defines where the person, or in this case, the virus orginated, and in this much it is factually accurate.
Malibuflyer wrote:
This is absolutely true in the very same way as it is without any doubt that seatbelts are the root cause for a much higher share of population dying by cancer.
He he. It’s a “new” virus, and still evolving quickly and in insane numbers. If one is to trust Darwin and the philosophical principle of entropy, all we are doing right now with vaccines and lockdowns is to prevent the virus from eventually “settling” to it’s natural place in the order of things. Like for instance the EBV virus. It infects the entire populations and inflict great misery, yet it does it in such a way that assures it will survive for all eternity.
I mean, the virus has already solved masks and lockdowns. This is obvious looking at the UK and the mutation, the newer generation, now taking over from the old one. No one knows what it can mutate into when the vaccines start to affect it’s course. It is likely however, that new and more resistant mutations will come from places with high vaccine concentrations, and where is that ? 
There is certainly a possibility that what we have seen so far is only a small taste of what is to come IMO. I don’t think that will happen, but if one is to trust Darwin etc, that is the natural course. At least that is evident so far with the UK variant.
dublinpilot wrote:
I don’t think it’s going to be very practical to expect large numbers of people on minimum wage to move home and change their life circumstances significantly in the middle of a pandemic.Maybe you mean that they should have done that before the pandemic, but if that’s what you mean, then it doesn’t give them much opportunity to manage their risk now.
I generally have no particular expectations of other people (other than those in positions of power and responsibility), but yes you’re right I’m not suggesting that the solution to all this is for a lot of people to change their lives very quickly. I’m simply saying that we all make our life choices and these should be informed by our attitudes to risk – any risk that might reasonably be present – of which infectious disease is one.
Graham wrote:
dublinpilot wrote: I don’t think it’s going to be very practical to expect large numbers of people on minimum wage to move home and change their life circumstances significantly in the middle of a pandemic. Maybe you mean that they should have done that before the pandemic, but if that’s what you mean, then it doesn’t give them much opportunity to manage their risk now.I generally have no particular expectations of other people (other than those in positions of power and responsibility), but yes you’re right I’m not suggesting that the solution to all this is for a lot of people to change their lives very quickly. I’m simply saying that we all make our life choices and these should be informed by our attitudes to risk – any risk that might reasonably be present – of which infectious disease is one.
This is an interesting discussion.
I suspect it takes a surprising amount to alter the demographics of people’s behaviour. I suspect that when the virus is controlled the vast majority will return to their “old” lifestyle. The jury may in my mind be out on this a little. There will I think be some fundamantal changes. Retailing for example I think will never be the same. I suspect this change was already underway before Covid, but there is no doubt in my mind Covid has given this a very big shove. Working from home will be interesting. Again I think there were already signs of this becoming more acceptable, and in the same way as retailing, I think Covid will increase the numbers that do. At a more fundamental level will we see a shift of people from Cities to the country, I doubt it – some will, but the void will be filled, by the youngster who will still embrace City life and culture.
A good analogy is the movements to and from Spain. I was talking to an international removal company who tell me they have never been so busy. I could understand lots of people moving back from Spain as a consequence of Brexit, but I imagined the lorries going out empty. Not so. The more elderly and less well off are returning wholesale, and the more wealthy and younger are filling the wagons going out as they see the various EU restrictions having no impact on them.
It is often said nature doesnt like a void, and perhaps this is true of us as well, voids tend to get filled, and I am guessing the high streets will get filled with more smaller retailers prepared to chance their arm, or more shops converted into residential propoerty, so the void left will be filled.
LeSving wrote:
I mean, the virus has already solved masks and lockdowns.
Except that it hasn’t – the UK’s current lockdown is causing a record decrease in the rate of new cases (about twice the rate of decrease compared to November’s lockdown).
dp – that graph is from the “respected” and “nowadays quite champagne socialist liberal” Financial Times
So my champagne socialist liberal street cred remains intact.
As Alioth says – the current decline is rapid.
Doubtless the reason for AZ announcing reduced deliveries to the EU is that the UK government has persuaded it to agree to export only the excess production which the UK does not have the logistical capacity to deliver to its citizens.
Dountless that happened during the weeks which Brussels lost while unable to get agreement between member countries on what to do, with France reportedly delaying an EU decision to give its domestic mfg Sanofi more time – that backfired badly because they never came up with a vaccine.
Also AZ was given the Oxford formulation either free or very cheap which saved it all the R&D so that would have been a part of any deal.
But yes Brussels could get really nasty on this. They clearly suspect the UK is getting more stuff than they think it should be getting, but they aren’t actually saying that directly. Presumably if the UK was embargoed by Brussels it could get the AZ vaccine from AZ’s US factories?
LeSving wrote:
I mean, the virus has already solved masks and lockdowns.
Can’t talk about many other countries – but in Germany it clearly hasn’t: We simply did not have something like a real lockdown for almost a year now – even if it is called lockdown the vast majority of people still go to work, shop, visit churches, etc.
And with respect to masks it has only been few weeks now since the people took it a bit more seriously.
As always said: In the end the virus doesn’t care about law, it only cares about behavior. If (even) laws don’t fundamentally change behaviors, we could not expect to change the spread of the virus.
Mooney_Driver wrote:
They had their chance in spring, when we were told by the government to pretty please be reasonable and stay home. We all know the result.
I seem to recall that here in France I “had the opportunity to pretty please stay at home” for a grand total of 4 days… At which point there was “confinement” whereby I was stopped and asked “ver arrr your papers” every time I went to the supermarket. The way I remember it is that it was the first weekend of nice sunny warm weather that year and so obviously people went out into the sunshine. Looking back, we now know that being outside like that was actually not a big risk…
I believe the same thing happened in the UK, accompanied by appropriate media outrage, and following the Chinese example, the Lockdown culture was started.
The problem is that no politician is going to commit suicide by openly saying that x% of his country’s population is too thick to work out that being outdoors, and keeping a reasonable distance, say 1-2m, is actually safe.
So they have to keep bringing in measures which dance around the issue, and not many follow them.
The current Netherlands curfew troubles are one example. It is obvious that the curfew is mainly to stop young people mixing close-up, in various indoor “organised events”, and close-up outdoors (not so much in the winter perhaps) but no politician is going to say that some % of his country’s young generation don’t give a toss.
This is interesting
Apparently some religions believe the vaccine contains unacceptable substances or is some vector for manipulating them.
