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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Human trials of a coronavirus vaccine could “begin in a fortni

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  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 43,625
    kinabalu said:

    What was that about standing on the shoulders of giants?

    Yes. Very much so. Or sometimes - and less nobly - things like nicking other people's work, or getting credited as being the discoverer of something when in fact you led a team and all the hard yards were done by others, and what you really are is the frontman, there due to excellent PR skills or something. I bet those sort of scandalous goings on do happen in science, although of course it should be the last place where it does.
    Oh they do.

    A case in point - a chap doing research in to high temperature super conductors noticed that one of the reviewers of his stuff was publishing the same thing first.

    So he made an obvious, stupid mistake in the next paper.

    The reviewer promptly published a paper with the same mistake.

    The researcher made and amendment/retraction of his "mistake". Then went to the Profs in his university with his evidence.

    He was told that if he made public case of the issue, they would strip him of his PhD. For the crime of trapping a superior.
  • CarlottaVanceCarlottaVance Posts: 59,540

    tlg86 said:

    Are we really doing Oxford v Cambridge again?

    Oxford: Rachel Riley
    Cambridge: Nick Griffin

    'Nuff said.

    Oxford: Jeffrey Archer

    Cambridge: Sir David Attenborough.

    Need I go on?
    Oxford: 1096

    Cambridge: 1209

    What kept you?
    I prefer these stats

    Cambridge: 120

    Oxford: 72

    And on topic in the sciences

    Cambridge: 97

    Oxford: 52
    Since this site discusses politics:

    Oxford: 28

    Cambridge: 14
    Plus we’re a science discussion website for the foreseeable future.
    Not public policy?
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 76,274
    edited April 2020

    I really good video explaining South Korea's approach. It is much much much more than just testing a lot of people.

    https://youtu.be/BE-cA4UK07c

    Didnt we start off on that path?

    Then we gave up?
    Watch the video. We can't do what they do, unless we are willing to radically change what we allow the government to know about us.

    We didn't give in, as much as community transmission had become widespread, as due to privacy we can't have big brother automatically go in and see where everybody has been, who they met, what they bought, and spit out the next batch of those that need to be contacted.
    At some point it'll be worth having a well-informed community discussion (perhaps this might be a case where citizens' assemblies were helpful) on what kinds of privacy are important to people. Some clearly are very important (how we vote, for instance), others not really (I don't really mind that Sainsburys know what toothpaste I use). I'm not sure that if it gave a real potential health benefit, I'd really object to the authorities knowing who I'd visited (though if ir went public there would be issues with relationships where it's...complicated).

    People tend to give knee-jerk responses according to what they're used to. For example, in Norway all tax returns are on the internet, so you can see what the PM has declared or indeed your neighbour, which obviously has benefits in exposing tax-dodgers but would be thought very startling in Britain even by nothing-to-hide people. So far as I know, even libertarians in Norway haven't identified this as a problem. Do South Koreans feel concerned about the tracking, or is it shrugged off as part of normal life?
    I think this is a much bigger issue than having your tax returns published.

    Regardless of CV, we are going to have to have these discussions anyway e.g. automatic facial recognition. Although the UK version of the tech is a bit shit at the moment, others have far better versions.

    For this situation, it would massively improve contact tracing. As we could instantly be able to pull up all those people you came into contact with out on the street.
  • edmundintokyoedmundintokyo Posts: 17,136

    I really good video explaining South Korea's approach. It is much much much more than just testing a lot of people.

    https://youtu.be/BE-cA4UK07c

    Didnt we start off on that path?

    Then we gave up?
    Watch the video. We can't do what they do, unless we are willing to radically change what we allow the government to know about us.

    We didn't give in, as much as community transmission had become widespread, as due to privacy we can't have big brother automatically go in and see where everybody has been, who they met, what they bought, and spit out the next batch of those that need to be contacted.
    You keep talking about this as if it's impossible but as a privacy hawk I've previously asked here if there's anyone who wouldn't be willing to give up privacy like this to fight something that is otherwise being tackled by literally being banned from leaving your house. I think it's appropriate, and I haven't heard from a single poster who doesn't think it's appropriate.
  • DennisBetsDennisBets Posts: 244
    nichomar said:

    tlg86 said:

    Are we really doing Oxford v Cambridge again?

    Oxford: Rachel Riley
    Cambridge: Nick Griffin

    'Nuff said.

    Oxford: Jeffrey Archer

    Cambridge: Sir David Attenborough.

    Need I go on?
    Oxford: 1096

    Cambridge: 1209

    What kept you?
    I prefer these stats

    Cambridge: 120

    Oxford: 72

    And on topic in the sciences

    Cambridge: 97

    Oxford: 52
    This is rather boring, especially when you have an engineering degree from Bradford.
    All the proper scientists go to Imperial anyway. Keep turning that skipping rope Rupert
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,712
    tlg86 said:

    tlg86 said:

    Are we really doing Oxford v Cambridge again?

    Oxford: Rachel Riley
    Cambridge: Nick Griffin

    'Nuff said.

    Oxford: Jeffrey Archer

    Cambridge: Sir David Attenborough.

    Need I go on?
    Thought Archer was at a Teachers Training place IN Oxford, not AT.
    He was accepted into Brasenose.
    To be fair, they even let David Cameron in. Not one of the better colleges.
    17th out of 35 in the Norrington rankings, so actually mid table
    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norrington_Table
  • felixfelix Posts: 15,124

    tlg86 said:

    Are we really doing Oxford v Cambridge again?

    Oxford: Rachel Riley
    Cambridge: Nick Griffin

    'Nuff said.

    Oxford: Jeffrey Archer

    Cambridge: Sir David Attenborough.

    Need I go on?
    Oxford: 1096

    Cambridge: 1209

    What kept you?
    It takes time to get it right.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 76,274
    edited April 2020

    I really good video explaining South Korea's approach. It is much much much more than just testing a lot of people.

    https://youtu.be/BE-cA4UK07c

    Didnt we start off on that path?

    Then we gave up?
    Watch the video. We can't do what they do, unless we are willing to radically change what we allow the government to know about us.

    We didn't give in, as much as community transmission had become widespread, as due to privacy we can't have big brother automatically go in and see where everybody has been, who they met, what they bought, and spit out the next batch of those that need to be contacted.
    You keep talking about this as if it's impossible but as a privacy hawk I've previously asked here if there's anyone who wouldn't be willing to give up privacy like this to fight something that is otherwise being tackled by literally being banned from leaving your house. I think it's appropriate, and I haven't heard from a single poster who doesn't think it's appropriate.
    I talk about it as very difficult, because the public reaction to ID cards was very much against it. And more recently the police have started to roll out limited use of facial recognition and there is huge resistance to that as well.

    I definitely see huge legal challenges to any proposals, which at best will massively slow down any potential roll out.

    PB posters aren't exactly representative of the wider public. At the moment, I doubt very few members of the general public have any idea how South Korea do it. My feeling is there will be a lot of resistance and suspicion.
  • DennisBetsDennisBets Posts: 244
    Just think if you hadn't spent years downgrading all those science papers from working class students we would probably be months ahead than we are now.
  • CarlottaVanceCarlottaVance Posts: 59,540
    philiph said:

    OllyT said:

    Matt Hancock describes PPE as a "precious resource."

    Wrong. It is basic kit, essential for staff to stay alive. The idea that face masks should be used sparingly in a pandemic is frightening. The fact it's happening because of government failure to plan is criminal.

    People are dying because of PPE failings and the fact there has been such small number of tests we dont have a clue which NHS/Carer environment is safe or not.

    We could easily be on course to have the most deaths of any Country in Europe and those in charge will be held responsible for the flawed initial strategy, the PPE failings, the late lockdown failings, the pathetic inability to ramp up testing.

    "We followed the Science but ended up with the worst results" - not so much.

    It is all so easy BJO
    Who says its easy but by definition the country that ends up with the worst outcome has clearly failed.

    Which bit of We could easily be on course to have the most deaths of any Country in Europe do you not understand BigG
    I am not quick to judge and will wait to see in the months and years to come just which outcomes were successful and which were not

    You are not exactly an independent authority on this
    The time to judge how well we have done in the UK compared to the rest of Europe is when the worst is over not when we are in the thick of. I believe there are going to be some very tricky questions for the government to answer but let's wait and see.
    I doubt there will be any governments without tricky questions to answer. In this situation a government has to take lots of decisions quickly. A good (or lucky) government will make more right decisions than wrong ones - but all governments will make mistakes. The question is how quickly do they learn from them?
    The obsession with country vs country comparisons is very tedious.
    I think its valid if it leads to a discussion around why it might be different (eg, demographics, population density, family structure) and what we can learn from their response (what are they doing differently, what can we learn?). I agree responses along the lines of "why is the government not doing as well as Germany?" or "the UK is doing better than the US" are unhelpful and substitute sniping for thinking.
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 37,603

    tlg86 said:

    Are we really doing Oxford v Cambridge again?

    Oxford: Rachel Riley
    Cambridge: Nick Griffin

    'Nuff said.

    Oxford: Jeffrey Archer

    Cambridge: Sir David Attenborough.

    Need I go on?
    Oxford: 1096

    Cambridge: 1209

    What kept you?
    I prefer these stats

    Cambridge: 120

    Oxford: 72

    And on topic in the sciences

    Cambridge: 97

    Oxford: 52
    Since this site discusses politics:

    Oxford: 28

    Cambridge: 14
    We focus on changing the world not the minor functionary role of First Lord of the Treasury.

    Plus we’re a science discussion website for the foreseeable future.
    If we're a science discussion site then doesn't Imperial win by default and the Oxford vs Cambridge competition is the same as two bald men fighting over a comb.
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 49,960
    nichomar said:

    OllyT said:

    Matt Hancock describes PPE as a "precious resource."

    Wrong. It is basic kit, essential for staff to stay alive. The idea that face masks should be used sparingly in a pandemic is frightening. The fact it's happening because of government failure to plan is criminal.

    People are dying because of PPE failings and the fact there has been such small number of tests we dont have a clue which NHS/Carer environment is safe or not.

    We could easily be on course to have the most deaths of any Country in Europe and those in charge will be held responsible for the flawed initial strategy, the PPE failings, the late lockdown failings, the pathetic inability to ramp up testing.

    "We followed the Science but ended up with the worst results" - not so much.

    It is all so easy BJO
    Who says its easy but by definition the country that ends up with the worst outcome has clearly failed.

    Which bit of We could easily be on course to have the most deaths of any Country in Europe do you not understand BigG
    I am not quick to judge and will wait to see in the months and years to come just which outcomes were successful and which were not

    You are not exactly an independent authority on this
    The time to judge how well we have done in the UK compared to the rest of Europe is when the worst is over not when we are in the thick of. I believe there are going to be some very tricky questions for the government to answer but let's wait and see.
    Yes, but a 'Nuremberg style reckoning' as was posited by at least one of Team Mouth Breather on here. No chance.

    We'll do better than most countries on some aspects (for example, other than China, has any other country matched our efforts on the Nightingale hospitals) and worse on others but not catastrophically so. It will likely be UK science and engineering at the forefront of some of the global solutions.

    There, that's my prediction.
    They were building nightingale type hospitals in exhibition centers and hospital car parks in Spain two weeks before the UK. Valencia and Alicante hospital had 500 icu bed extensions set up as well as the largest in Madrid.
    Everyone was awestruck when China built a Covid-19 hospital from scratch in 10 days.

    We built Nightingale in 9.

    Chalk one up for the British squaddies.
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 47,789
    Poland is making mask wearing mandatory and installing vending machines to distribute them.

    https://notesfrompoland.com/2020/04/10/vending-machines-selling-masks-appear-across-poland-as-face-covering-made-compulsory/
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 23,931
    edited April 2020

    Matt Hancock describes PPE as a "precious resource."

    Wrong. It is basic kit, essential for staff to stay alive. The idea that face masks should be used sparingly in a pandemic is frightening. The fact it's happening because of government failure to plan is criminal.

    People are dying because of PPE failings and the fact there has been such small number of tests we dont have a clue which NHS/Carer environment is safe or not.

    We could easily be on course to have the most deaths of any Country in Europe and those in charge will be held responsible for the flawed initial strategy, the PPE failings, the late lockdown failings, the pathetic inability to ramp up testing.

    "We followed the Science but ended up with the worst results" - not so much.


    Maybe you can enlighten us as to which European country has sufficient PPE?


    -Three weeks ago my wife's niece who works on the front line in Toulon phoned us asking if we can send her P2/P3 respirators.

    -The Netherlands is struggling due to a recent delivery of P2 respirators from China being defective..

    -Finland has a similar issue to the Netherlands as a recent delivery of 2 million masks from China were found to be defective.

    -As per the L'Express report, orders of two million masks each for Italy & Spain from the Molnlycke plant (a Swedish company) in France was hijacked by Macron & required direct intervention from the Swedish government to release the orders.

    -Then of course there is the EU tender for PPE & ventilators which apparently is about to be signed, my wife's niece has been told to expect additional ventilators (France currently has 8,000 ventilators) in July, the PPE part of the tender may be earlier.
    Nice whataboutery but HMG suppressed warnings about our lack of kit as recently as 2016 (pre-Boris, so I expect it is politically safe to admit it in due course).
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exercise_Cygnus

    During the crisis itself, we need to ask if government efforts to secure and expand supply and manufacture have been adequate. Results are clear that so far, they have not. Could HMG do better? We do not know. It might be unknowable. I am surprised no Minister of PPE has been appointed as in both wars.
    If it was all so obvious back in 2016, why did no one in Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition ever utter the words 'Exercise Cygnus' before the last couple of weeks?

    Were they conspiring with the Tories to commit mass murder? I think we should be told!
    Probably that is right. Although if the global illuminati embracing both parties is a mere fiction then it could alternatively be HMG forgot to publish the report so no-one else knew about it until the Daily Borisgraph spilled the beans a fortnight ago.

    Exclusive: Ministers were warned that the NHS could not cope with a pandemic three years ago but 'terrifying' results were kept secret

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/03/28/exclusive-ministers-warned-nhs-could-not-cope-pandemic-three/

    ETA: note the dates. Boris's hands are as clean as if he'd sung Happy Birthday twice.
  • felixfelix Posts: 15,124
    edited April 2020

    I really good video explaining South Korea's approach. It is much much much more than just testing a lot of people.

    https://youtu.be/BE-cA4UK07c

    Didnt we start off on that path?

    Then we gave up?
    Watch the video. We can't do what they do, unless we are willing to radically change what we allow the government to know about us.

    We didn't give in, as much as community transmission had become widespread, as due to privacy we can't have big brother automatically go in and see where everybody has been, who they met, what they bought, and spit out the next batch of those that need to be contacted.
    You keep talking about this as if it's impossible but as a privacy hawk I've previously asked here if there's anyone who wouldn't be willing to give up privacy like this to fight something that is otherwise being tackled by literally being banned from leaving your house. I think it's appropriate, and I haven't heard from a single poster who doesn't think it's appropriate.
    I talk about it as very difficult, because the public reaction to ID cards was very much against it. And more recently the police have started to roll out limited use of facial recognition and there is huge resistance to that as well.

    I definitely see huge legal challenges to any proposals, which at best will massively slow down any potential roll out.
    TBF I think you are right. ID cards are generally accepted in much of Europe as both useful and necessary. As a resident in Spain we British are not allowed to have Spanish ID cards and miss out on a lot as a result - their electronic DNi can be used in so many ways for banking, etc. Once the new arrangements come in post Brexit we may finally get to use them. Previously we could not have them, even voluntarily because in the EU the British refusal effectively prevented UK citizens from having them in any EU country. Quite bizarre but there it is.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 38,851
    Jonathan said:

    Both Oxford and Cambridge have been noticeably low key during the CV19 response. Would be nice if they stepped up and shared the load rather than leaving all the work to the likes of Imperial.

    I'm happy for Imperial to carry the load. I went there and I can tell you for nothing that it's full of blokes who live and breathe numbers and do NOT get distracted by any other nonsense.
  • MattWMattW Posts: 18,094

    From personal observation, mindset does play a part in a patient’s recovery, though I wouldn’t call it character. Goals-oriented people - those willing to work from where they are now - recover better, while brooders over the past do relatively worse. Oh, and a willingness actually to follow medical advice.

    rkrkrk said:

    TGOHF666 said:

    rkrkrk said:

    Foxy said:

    35% of those on ICU are BME, compared with 14% of the population. Bearing in mind that the BME population has a younger Median age, that is quite a high figure, even allowing for the population being more urban. All 10 medical fatalities too.


    https://amp.theguardian.com/society/2020/apr/10/uk-coronavirus-deaths-bame-doctors-bma?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Copy_to_clipboard&__twitter_impression=true

    Very concerning. I think BME are about twice as likely to have diabetes which could be one explanation.
    So you are saying BAME people are fat and unfit ?

    No - they are genetically more likely to get diabetes.
    UK govt recommends that BAME try to keep BMI under 23 I think.
    Black adults yes - above average overweight, the other groups no.

    https://www.ethnicity-facts-figures.service.gov.uk/health/diet-and-exercise/overweight-adults/latest

    "in 2017/18, 62.0% of adults aged 18 and over were overweight or obese, up from 61.3% the previous year

    Black adults were the most likely out of all ethnic groups to be overweight or obese

    White British adults were also more likely than average to be overweight or obese

    adults from the Chinese ethnic group were the least likely out of all ethnic groups
    to be overweight or obese

    the percentage of adults in the Asian, Other White, Mixed and Other ethnic groups who were overweight or obese was also lower than the national average

    the percentage of adults who were overweight or obese was similar to 2016/17 in every ethnic group except White British, which saw an increase"

    Diabetes has always been higher in some developing countries. eg Pakistan has been 2 or 3 times higher than UK. Some of those World Bank numbers may be some way out but the comparisons hold. Counting overall numbers type II dominates.
    https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SH.STA.DIAB.ZS?end=2019&start=2010&view=chart
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 49,960

    Poland is making mask wearing mandatory and installing vending machines to distribute them.

    https://notesfrompoland.com/2020/04/10/vending-machines-selling-masks-appear-across-poland-as-face-covering-made-compulsory/

    Masks and gloves if you want to leave your house - this will be standard post-lockdown requirement through 2020.

    One of my friends is an engineer and is making hi-spec masks with the aid of his 3D printer. His wife is a seamstress and is making the covers. Very grateful they are making one for the wife and I. Only downside: the only material she has in abundance is some gingham.

    Pink gingham.

    (No, I don't know why she'd have it either. But hey, if it saves my life....)
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 31,718

    nichomar said:

    OllyT said:

    Matt Hancock describes PPE as a "precious resource."

    Wrong. It is basic kit, essential for staff to stay alive. The idea that face masks should be used sparingly in a pandemic is frightening. The fact it's happening because of government failure to plan is criminal.

    People are dying because of PPE failings and the fact there has been such small number of tests we dont have a clue which NHS/Carer environment is safe or not.

    We could easily be on course to have the most deaths of any Country in Europe and those in charge will be held responsible for the flawed initial strategy, the PPE failings, the late lockdown failings, the pathetic inability to ramp up testing.

    "We followed the Science but ended up with the worst results" - not so much.

    It is all so easy BJO
    Who says its easy but by definition the country that ends up with the worst outcome has clearly failed.

    Which bit of We could easily be on course to have the most deaths of any Country in Europe do you not understand BigG
    I am not quick to judge and will wait to see in the months and years to come just which outcomes were successful and which were not

    You are not exactly an independent authority on this
    The time to judge how well we have done in the UK compared to the rest of Europe is when the worst is over not when we are in the thick of. I believe there are going to be some very tricky questions for the government to answer but let's wait and see.
    Yes, but a 'Nuremberg style reckoning' as was posited by at least one of Team Mouth Breather on here. No chance.

    We'll do better than most countries on some aspects (for example, other than China, has any other country matched our efforts on the Nightingale hospitals) and worse on others but not catastrophically so. It will likely be UK science and engineering at the forefront of some of the global solutions.

    There, that's my prediction.
    They were building nightingale type hospitals in exhibition centers and hospital car parks in Spain two weeks before the UK. Valencia and Alicante hospital had 500 icu bed extensions set up as well as the largest in Madrid.
    Everyone was awestruck when China built a Covid-19 hospital from scratch in 10 days.

    We built Nightingale in 9.

    Chalk one up for the British squaddies.
    Indeed. Where did they (either) get all the beds from?
  • TheuniondivvieTheuniondivvie Posts: 39,749
    nico67 said:

    The government is lucky it has a largely supportive media .

    I can only imagine what they would have done if Labour had been in charge . The fact remains that the government had an advantage seeing what was happening elsewhere and wasted that .

    Now Hancock is desperately trying to row back from his comments regarding PPE after it looked like he was blaming NHS workers for using too much .

    Some in here seem to think it’s heresy to criticize the government!

    Actually it's quite reassuring to see PB Tories take a break from their daily (hourly!) diatribes against the the media and the dumb shit that they say to tell us that now is not the time to be critcising the government for the dumb shit that they say and the good shit that they've not done. Normal service is resumed in these parlous times.
  • StereotomyStereotomy Posts: 4,092
    edited April 2020
    kinabalu said:

    Jonathan said:

    Both Oxford and Cambridge have been noticeably low key during the CV19 response. Would be nice if they stepped up and shared the load rather than leaving all the work to the likes of Imperial.

    I'm happy for Imperial to carry the load. I went there and I can tell you for nothing that it's full of blokes who live and breathe numbers and do NOT get distracted by any other nonsense.
    I went to Imperial and my experience was that the numbers they're most interested in are the ones prefixed with "£"
  • DennisBetsDennisBets Posts: 244
    MaxPB said:

    tlg86 said:

    Are we really doing Oxford v Cambridge again?

    Oxford: Rachel Riley
    Cambridge: Nick Griffin

    'Nuff said.

    Oxford: Jeffrey Archer

    Cambridge: Sir David Attenborough.

    Need I go on?
    Oxford: 1096

    Cambridge: 1209

    What kept you?
    I prefer these stats

    Cambridge: 120

    Oxford: 72

    And on topic in the sciences

    Cambridge: 97

    Oxford: 52
    Since this site discusses politics:

    Oxford: 28

    Cambridge: 14
    We focus on changing the world not the minor functionary role of First Lord of the Treasury.

    Plus we’re a science discussion website for the foreseeable future.
    If we're a science discussion site then doesn't Imperial win by default and the Oxford vs Cambridge competition is the same as two bald men fighting over a comb.
    Science discussion site haha! So if the virus is killed by copper and protects itself using glyceride shields it stands to reason a powerful organometallic enzyme could theoretically act as a tank busting shell which may expose the virus DNA to further mutagens which would hopefully inhibit virus reproduction...

    Well its better than Trumps idea of doing hydroxyquinoline bongs
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 76,274
    Can we all agree, its a good job the LSE won't be at the forefront of the response to this :-)
  • MaxPB said:

    tlg86 said:

    Are we really doing Oxford v Cambridge again?

    Oxford: Rachel Riley
    Cambridge: Nick Griffin

    'Nuff said.

    Oxford: Jeffrey Archer

    Cambridge: Sir David Attenborough.

    Need I go on?
    Oxford: 1096

    Cambridge: 1209

    What kept you?
    I prefer these stats

    Cambridge: 120

    Oxford: 72

    And on topic in the sciences

    Cambridge: 97

    Oxford: 52
    Since this site discusses politics:

    Oxford: 28

    Cambridge: 14
    We focus on changing the world not the minor functionary role of First Lord of the Treasury.

    Plus we’re a science discussion website for the foreseeable future.
    If we're a science discussion site then doesn't Imperial win by default and the Oxford vs Cambridge competition is the same as two bald men fighting over a comb.
    Neil Ferguson apart, Imperial have had a shocker.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 76,274
    edited April 2020

    MaxPB said:

    tlg86 said:

    Are we really doing Oxford v Cambridge again?

    Oxford: Rachel Riley
    Cambridge: Nick Griffin

    'Nuff said.

    Oxford: Jeffrey Archer

    Cambridge: Sir David Attenborough.

    Need I go on?
    Oxford: 1096

    Cambridge: 1209

    What kept you?
    I prefer these stats

    Cambridge: 120

    Oxford: 72

    And on topic in the sciences

    Cambridge: 97

    Oxford: 52
    Since this site discusses politics:

    Oxford: 28

    Cambridge: 14
    We focus on changing the world not the minor functionary role of First Lord of the Treasury.

    Plus we’re a science discussion website for the foreseeable future.
    If we're a science discussion site then doesn't Imperial win by default and the Oxford vs Cambridge competition is the same as two bald men fighting over a comb.
    Neil Ferguson apart, Imperial have had a shocker.
    I am not sure even Ferguson can fully escape criticism. His initial modelling was terrible and not having accessible code that can easily be open sourced is a huge no no.

    It was always drilled into me during my PhD that no matter if you think your code won't be used by anybody else, you need to ensure that it is documented, readable and can be picked up and developed by somebody else. Its just bad practice not to, and I wasn't developing pandemic response models.
  • Luckyguy1983Luckyguy1983 Posts: 25,047

    nico67 said:

    The government is lucky it has a largely supportive media .

    I can only imagine what they would have done if Labour had been in charge . The fact remains that the government had an advantage seeing what was happening elsewhere and wasted that .

    Now Hancock is desperately trying to row back from his comments regarding PPE after it looked like he was blaming NHS workers for using too much .

    Some in here seem to think it’s heresy to criticize the government!

    Actually it's quite reassuring to see PB Tories take a break from their daily (hourly!) diatribes against the the media and the dumb shit that they say to tell us that now is not the time to be critcising the government for the dumb shit that they say and the good shit that they've not done. Normal service is resumed in these parlous times.
    For variety in future posts, 'things' would work as a stand in for some of these instances of 'shit'.
  • Sunil_PrasannanSunil_Prasannan Posts: 48,922
    edited April 2020

    MaxPB said:

    tlg86 said:

    Are we really doing Oxford v Cambridge again?

    Oxford: Rachel Riley
    Cambridge: Nick Griffin

    'Nuff said.

    Oxford: Jeffrey Archer

    Cambridge: Sir David Attenborough.

    Need I go on?
    Oxford: 1096

    Cambridge: 1209

    What kept you?
    I prefer these stats

    Cambridge: 120

    Oxford: 72

    And on topic in the sciences

    Cambridge: 97

    Oxford: 52
    Since this site discusses politics:

    Oxford: 28

    Cambridge: 14
    We focus on changing the world not the minor functionary role of First Lord of the Treasury.

    Plus we’re a science discussion website for the foreseeable future.
    If we're a science discussion site then doesn't Imperial win by default and the Oxford vs Cambridge competition is the same as two bald men fighting over a comb.
    Neil Ferguson apart, Imperial have had a shocker.
    I did both my undergrad and PhD at Imperial. Also did my first three-year post-doc there.

    PS. Didn't Nick Griffin got to Cambridge? Nuff said?
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,575

    kinabalu said:

    Jonathan said:

    Both Oxford and Cambridge have been noticeably low key during the CV19 response. Would be nice if they stepped up and shared the load rather than leaving all the work to the likes of Imperial.

    I'm happy for Imperial to carry the load. I went there and I can tell you for nothing that it's full of blokes who live and breathe numbers and do NOT get distracted by any other nonsense.
    I went to Imperial and my experience was that the numbers they're most interested in are the ones prefixed with "£"
    LOL.
    My son sometimes refers to it as EvilCorp.
  • Can we all agree, its a good job the LSE won't be at the forefront of the response to this :-)

    Ban hammer time.

    The editor of PB is an alumni of the LSE.
  • TheuniondivvieTheuniondivvie Posts: 39,749

    nico67 said:

    The government is lucky it has a largely supportive media .

    I can only imagine what they would have done if Labour had been in charge . The fact remains that the government had an advantage seeing what was happening elsewhere and wasted that .

    Now Hancock is desperately trying to row back from his comments regarding PPE after it looked like he was blaming NHS workers for using too much .

    Some in here seem to think it’s heresy to criticize the government!

    Actually it's quite reassuring to see PB Tories take a break from their daily (hourly!) diatribes against the the media and the dumb shit that they say to tell us that now is not the time to be critcising the government for the dumb shit that they say and the good shit that they've not done. Normal service is resumed in these parlous times.
    For variety in future posts, 'things' would work as a stand in for some of these instances of 'shit'.
    More tea, vicar?
  • Sunil_PrasannanSunil_Prasannan Posts: 48,922

    Poland is making mask wearing mandatory and installing vending machines to distribute them.

    https://notesfrompoland.com/2020/04/10/vending-machines-selling-masks-appear-across-poland-as-face-covering-made-compulsory/

    Vending machines? What about the buttons you need to press? Wouldn't they be infected?
  • DennisBetsDennisBets Posts: 244

    MaxPB said:

    tlg86 said:

    Are we really doing Oxford v Cambridge again?

    Oxford: Rachel Riley
    Cambridge: Nick Griffin

    'Nuff said.

    Oxford: Jeffrey Archer

    Cambridge: Sir David Attenborough.

    Need I go on?
    Oxford: 1096

    Cambridge: 1209

    What kept you?
    I prefer these stats

    Cambridge: 120

    Oxford: 72

    And on topic in the sciences

    Cambridge: 97

    Oxford: 52
    Since this site discusses politics:

    Oxford: 28

    Cambridge: 14
    We focus on changing the world not the minor functionary role of First Lord of the Treasury.

    Plus we’re a science discussion website for the foreseeable future.
    If we're a science discussion site then doesn't Imperial win by default and the Oxford vs Cambridge competition is the same as two bald men fighting over a comb.
    Neil Ferguson apart, Imperial have had a shocker.
    I did both my undergrad and PhD at Imperial. Also did my first three-year post-doc there.

    PS. Didn't Nick Griffin got to Cambridge? Nuff said?
    And Nasty Nick from Big Brother, I mean Jeez
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 76,274
    I see the Currant Bun has a chopper spying on everybody in London parks...there is curtain twitching and then there is....
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,575
    edited April 2020

    I really good video explaining South Korea's approach. It is much much much more than just testing a lot of people.

    https://youtu.be/BE-cA4UK07c

    Didnt we start off on that path?

    Then we gave up?
    Watch the video. We can't do what they do, unless we are willing to radically change what we allow the government to know about us.

    We didn't give in, as much as community transmission had become widespread, as due to privacy we can't have big brother automatically go in and see where everybody has been, who they met, what they bought, and spit out the next batch of those that need to be contacted.
    You keep talking about this as if it's impossible but as a privacy hawk I've previously asked here if there's anyone who wouldn't be willing to give up privacy like this to fight something that is otherwise being tackled by literally being banned from leaving your house. I think it's appropriate, and I haven't heard from a single poster who doesn't think it's appropriate.
    Agreed - though the devil will, as always, lie in the details.
    Which will get scant consideration in the circumstances.

    A sunset clause would be sensible.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 76,274
    edited April 2020
    More on the Hooker-Gate....no laughing at the back...

    A member of the travelling party told Mail Online they were not holidaymakers but three billionaires on their way to the cliffside villa to complete a business deal that would have created over 900 jobs. He claimed the others in the party were bodyguards, a secretary and translators.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8210223/Pictured-Police-intercept-private-jet-billionaires-trying-south-France-villa.html
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,575

    Poland is making mask wearing mandatory and installing vending machines to distribute them.

    https://notesfrompoland.com/2020/04/10/vending-machines-selling-masks-appear-across-poland-as-face-covering-made-compulsory/

    Masks and gloves if you want to leave your house - this will be standard post-lockdown requirement through 2020.

    One of my friends is an engineer and is making hi-spec masks with the aid of his 3D printer. His wife is a seamstress and is making the covers. Very grateful they are making one for the wife and I. Only downside: the only material she has in abundance is some gingham.

    Pink gingham.

    (No, I don't know why she'd have it either. But hey, if it saves my life....)
    Gloves would be fairly pointless.
  • eristdooferistdoof Posts: 4,861
    Jonathan said:

    Both Oxford and Cambridge have been noticeably low key during the CV19 response. Would be nice if they stepped up and shared the load rather than leaving all the work to the likes of Imperial.

    That's probably because all the academic staff at Oxbridge are very busy writing research grants applying for the research they will do over the next three years analysing every aspect of the pandemic. The grants applications will be successful, because the research teams are based at Oxbridge. This in turn will improve their output of peer reviewed papers so that they become even more "competitive" for research grants in the future.
  • TheuniondivvieTheuniondivvie Posts: 39,749
    Handy home hint..


  • DennisBetsDennisBets Posts: 244
    Good to see Julian Assange is doing well now
  • BluestBlueBluestBlue Posts: 4,556

    Can we all agree, its a good job the LSE won't be at the forefront of the response to this :-)

    Ban hammer time.

    The editor of PB is an alumni of the LSE.
    Is the editor's preferred pronoun 'they', like Sam Smith's? :wink:
  • edmundintokyoedmundintokyo Posts: 17,136
    Nigelb said:

    I really good video explaining South Korea's approach. It is much much much more than just testing a lot of people.

    https://youtu.be/BE-cA4UK07c

    Didnt we start off on that path?

    Then we gave up?
    Watch the video. We can't do what they do, unless we are willing to radically change what we allow the government to know about us.

    We didn't give in, as much as community transmission had become widespread, as due to privacy we can't have big brother automatically go in and see where everybody has been, who they met, what they bought, and spit out the next batch of those that need to be contacted.
    You keep talking about this as if it's impossible but as a privacy hawk I've previously asked here if there's anyone who wouldn't be willing to give up privacy like this to fight something that is otherwise being tackled by literally being banned from leaving your house. I think it's appropriate, and I haven't heard from a single poster who doesn't think it's appropriate.
    Agreed - though the devil will, as always, lie in the details.
    Which will get scant consideration in the circumstances.

    A sunset clause would be sensible.
    Right, the relevant thing isn't whether location data is handed over for this, it's whether it's then used for other purposes, and whether the government stops getting it when this is over.
  • Alphabet_SoupAlphabet_Soup Posts: 2,703

    Can we all agree, its a good job the LSE won't be at the forefront of the response to this :-)

    Ban hammer time.

    The editor of PB is an alumni of the LSE.
    Anne who?
  • eristdooferistdoof Posts: 4,861

    Handy home hint..


    Looks a bit out of date to me, that antivirus might have been effective against the SARS epedemic of 2002/3 though.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 38,851

    Oh they do.

    A case in point - a chap doing research in to high temperature super conductors noticed that one of the reviewers of his stuff was publishing the same thing first.

    So he made an obvious, stupid mistake in the next paper.

    The reviewer promptly published a paper with the same mistake.

    The researcher made and amendment/retraction of his "mistake". Then went to the Profs in his university with his evidence.

    He was told that if he made public case of the issue, they would strip him of his PhD. For the crime of trapping a superior.

    There you go. One hates to hear this sort of thing happening in science but I sort of assumed that it did. So what did you do then? Bit of light blackmail?

    Seriously, though, I do hope our Covid-19 team are working well together rather than going "on maneuvers".

    Co-operation beats competition any day. This is a core belief on the Left of politics.
  • welshowlwelshowl Posts: 4,460
    kinabalu said:

    Oh they do.

    A case in point - a chap doing research in to high temperature super conductors noticed that one of the reviewers of his stuff was publishing the same thing first.

    So he made an obvious, stupid mistake in the next paper.

    The reviewer promptly published a paper with the same mistake.

    The researcher made and amendment/retraction of his "mistake". Then went to the Profs in his university with his evidence.

    He was told that if he made public case of the issue, they would strip him of his PhD. For the crime of trapping a superior.

    There you go. One hates to hear this sort of thing happening in science but I sort of assumed that it did. So what did you do then? Bit of light blackmail?

    Seriously, though, I do hope our Covid-19 team are working well together rather than going "on maneuvers".

    Co-operation beats competition any day. This is a core belief on the Left of politics.
    Trabants v Golfs hmm....
  • nichomarnichomar Posts: 7,483

    nichomar said:

    OllyT said:

    Matt Hancock describes PPE as a "precious resource."

    Wrong. It is basic kit, essential for staff to stay alive. The idea that face masks should be used sparingly in a pandemic is frightening. The fact it's happening because of government failure to plan is criminal.

    People are dying because of PPE failings and the fact there has been such small number of tests we dont have a clue which NHS/Carer environment is safe or not.

    We could easily be on course to have the most deaths of any Country in Europe and those in charge will be held responsible for the flawed initial strategy, the PPE failings, the late lockdown failings, the pathetic inability to ramp up testing.

    "We followed the Science but ended up with the worst results" - not so much.

    It is all so easy BJO
    Who says its easy but by definition the country that ends up with the worst outcome has clearly failed.

    Which bit of We could easily be on course to have the most deaths of any Country in Europe do you not understand BigG
    I am not quick to judge and will wait to see in the months and years to come just which outcomes were successful and which were not

    You are not exactly an independent authority on this
    The time to judge how well we have done in the UK compared to the rest of Europe is when the worst is over not when we are in the thick of. I believe there are going to be some very tricky questions for the government to answer but let's wait and see.
    Yes, but a 'Nuremberg style reckoning' as was posited by at least one of Team Mouth Breather on here. No chance.

    We'll do better than most countries on some aspects (for example, other than China, has any other country matched our efforts on the Nightingale hospitals) and worse on others but not catastrophically so. It will likely be UK science and engineering at the forefront of some of the global solutions.

    There, that's my prediction.
    They were building nightingale type hospitals in exhibition centers and hospital car parks in Spain two weeks before the UK. Valencia and Alicante hospital had 500 icu bed extensions set up as well as the largest in Madrid.
    OK, fair enough, on a smaller scale but on the same lines. Cheers.
    Madrid 5,500 beds. Now winding down
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,575
    edited April 2020
    Fairly clear there are not widespread undetected infections in Scotland (although this is effectively a snapshot of two weeks ago, and blood donors are not a fully representative population sample):

    https://twitter.com/Simmonds_Lab/status/1248626116463452163
  • Fecking autocorrect.

    I’m sure autocorrect was invented by the person who thought putting pineapple on pizza was a good idea.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,758

    tlg86 said:

    Are we really doing Oxford v Cambridge again?

    Oxford: Rachel Riley
    Cambridge: Nick Griffin

    'Nuff said.

    Oxford: Jeffrey Archer

    Cambridge: Sir David Attenborough.

    Need I go on?
    Oxford: 1096

    Cambridge: 1209

    What kept you?
    Oh FFS, not this hoary old myth again. Oxford was not founded in 1096. I know its website and Wikipedia both claim it was, but they are both lying. It is based on the claim of continuous teaching in Oxford from Theobald of Etmples (c. 1096/7-1123) and Robert of Pullen (until 1135). But as during the following fifty years the only recognisable studium in the Midlands, indeed in England, was at Northampton, there was clearly no continuity of education in Oxford.

    What saved it was that several students seemed to have remained behind and possibly as a result after 1177 Oxford became one of the centreS of ecclesiastical courts for Lincoln, attracting people to study law. Following 1189 and the increasing tensions with France and the papacy, it became more common for students to stay at home rather than go to Paris or Bologna, and until in 1201 the different teaching institutions felt important enough to elect a magister scolarum (John Grim).

    So if we’re looking for a date, 1201 might be more plausible as foundation, although clearly a lot was going on even before then, and certainly by 1209 (when several scholars were hanged for alleged complicity in a murder) there seems to be some sense of a united scholarly community.

    (R. W. Southern’s book on the early history of Oxford University is a available online: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=AkJO3TAxMtwC&pg=PA37&lpg=PA37&dq=southern+the+early+oxford+schools&source=bl&ots=QRHqw41P36&sig=ACfU3U1NslACcXzZ8ejMa7AhoEpLx_HrnA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj5hf2MpeDoAhVlUBUIHeV0A0UQ6AEwA3oECAwQLA#v=onepage&q&f=false)
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 49,960
    Nigelb said:

    Poland is making mask wearing mandatory and installing vending machines to distribute them.

    https://notesfrompoland.com/2020/04/10/vending-machines-selling-masks-appear-across-poland-as-face-covering-made-compulsory/

    Masks and gloves if you want to leave your house - this will be standard post-lockdown requirement through 2020.

    One of my friends is an engineer and is making hi-spec masks with the aid of his 3D printer. His wife is a seamstress and is making the covers. Very grateful they are making one for the wife and I. Only downside: the only material she has in abundance is some gingham.

    Pink gingham.

    (No, I don't know why she'd have it either. But hey, if it saves my life....)
    Gloves would be fairly pointless.
    Why? As long as you don't touch your face in them.
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 23,931
    edited April 2020
    Floater said:
    To borrow from another song, "picking out people, knocking them down: resisting arrest as they're kicked on the ground".
  • BarnesianBarnesian Posts: 7,979
    edited April 2020
    Latest data




  • TheuniondivvieTheuniondivvie Posts: 39,749
    edited April 2020
    ydoethur said:

    and certainly by 1209 (when several scholars were hanged for alleged complicity in a murder) there seems to be some sense of a united scholarly community.

    Marvellous collegial effort in getting someone whacked!
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758
    DougSeal said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    DougSeal said:

    On topic, its Oxford, now if it was Cambridge saying this that would be a different matter :-)

    More seriously. Scientists are normally a pretty conservative bunch when it comes to making predictions about timelines on their work, so that has to be good news.

    One thing from the article that was interesting, was the claim that with this approach, we wouldn't need to build massive new infrastructure to produce it. Existing facilities could be re-purposed.

    Cambridge has produced humanity changing scientists like Darwin, Newton, and Turing, the only scientist of note Oxford has produced is Thatcher*.

    *Hawking doesn't count for Oxford as he realised it was a dump and decided to do his PhD at Cambridge.
    Edwin Hubble, Robert Hooke, Erwin Schrödinger, Tim Berners-Lee...mere bagatelle
    None of them changed humanity, I mean Turing helped win a war.
    No dog in this fight, apart from the fact that MA supervisor was based in ARU's Cambridge facility, but Berners-Lee's invention of the internet surely changed humanity!
    Do you not think that without him we would still have some version of the internet?

    Perhaps but you could equally say that without Watson and Crick (who heavily relied on Rosalind Franklin’s (Kings College London) data) someone else would have uncovered the structure of DNA. Anyway, the internet had been around since the 60s, Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web, which uses the internet, but is not the internet itself.
    Without a door the most beautiful room has little utility
  • edmundintokyoedmundintokyo Posts: 17,136
    edited April 2020

    I really good video explaining South Korea's approach. It is much much much more than just testing a lot of people.

    https://youtu.be/BE-cA4UK07c

    Didnt we start off on that path?

    Then we gave up?
    Watch the video. We can't do what they do, unless we are willing to radically change what we allow the government to know about us.

    We didn't give in, as much as community transmission had become widespread, as due to privacy we can't have big brother automatically go in and see where everybody has been, who they met, what they bought, and spit out the next batch of those that need to be contacted.
    You keep talking about this as if it's impossible but as a privacy hawk I've previously asked here if there's anyone who wouldn't be willing to give up privacy like this to fight something that is otherwise being tackled by literally being banned from leaving your house. I think it's appropriate, and I haven't heard from a single poster who doesn't think it's appropriate.
    I talk about it as very difficult, because the public reaction to ID cards was very much against it. And more recently the police have started to roll out limited use of facial recognition and there is huge resistance to that as well.

    I definitely see huge legal challenges to any proposals, which at best will massively slow down any potential roll out.

    PB posters aren't exactly representative of the wider public. At the moment, I doubt very few members of the general public have any idea how South Korea do it. My feeling is there will be a lot of resistance and suspicion.
    Can you really not see the difference between ID cards used to tackle no obvious threat (so they have to say terrorism or something) and mobile data collection for contract tracing during a pandemic that's got everyone literally locked inside their houses?

    If anything PB has far more people interested in protecting civil liberties and restraining the government than the wider population. If you're worried about legal challenge for some reason, well the government can pass legislation... Just make sure the purpose is strictly limited, and give it a sunset clause, almost zero people will object.
  • ChrisChris Posts: 11,009

    Nigelb said:

    Poland is making mask wearing mandatory and installing vending machines to distribute them.

    https://notesfrompoland.com/2020/04/10/vending-machines-selling-masks-appear-across-poland-as-face-covering-made-compulsory/

    Masks and gloves if you want to leave your house - this will be standard post-lockdown requirement through 2020.

    One of my friends is an engineer and is making hi-spec masks with the aid of his 3D printer. His wife is a seamstress and is making the covers. Very grateful they are making one for the wife and I. Only downside: the only material she has in abundance is some gingham.

    Pink gingham.

    (No, I don't know why she'd have it either. But hey, if it saves my life....)
    Gloves would be fairly pointless.
    Why? As long as you don't touch your face in them.
    Same as hands.
  • isamisam Posts: 40,731

    tlg86 said:

    Are we really doing Oxford v Cambridge again?

    Oxford: Rachel Riley
    Cambridge: Nick Griffin

    'Nuff said.

    Oxford: Jeffrey Archer

    Cambridge: Sir David Attenborough.

    Need I go on?
    Oxford Dean Saunders
    Cambridge Dion Dublin
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 38,851

    I went to Imperial and my experience was that the numbers they're most interested in are the ones prefixed with "£"

    Probably produces more bond traders than professors, this is true.

    But I more meant that we didn't get distracted by non-numerical things such as girls.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 76,274
    edited April 2020

    I really good video explaining South Korea's approach. It is much much much more than just testing a lot of people.

    https://youtu.be/BE-cA4UK07c

    Didnt we start off on that path?

    Then we gave up?
    Watch the video. We can't do what they do, unless we are willing to radically change what we allow the government to know about us.

    We didn't give in, as much as community transmission had become widespread, as due to privacy we can't have big brother automatically go in and see where everybody has been, who they met, what they bought, and spit out the next batch of those that need to be contacted.
    You keep talking about this as if it's impossible but as a privacy hawk I've previously asked here if there's anyone who wouldn't be willing to give up privacy like this to fight something that is otherwise being tackled by literally being banned from leaving your house. I think it's appropriate, and I haven't heard from a single poster who doesn't think it's appropriate.
    I talk about it as very difficult, because the public reaction to ID cards was very much against it. And more recently the police have started to roll out limited use of facial recognition and there is huge resistance to that as well.

    I definitely see huge legal challenges to any proposals, which at best will massively slow down any potential roll out.

    PB posters aren't exactly representative of the wider public. At the moment, I doubt very few members of the general public have any idea how South Korea do it. My feeling is there will be a lot of resistance and suspicion.
    Can you really not see the difference between ID cards used to tackle no obvious threat (so they have to say terrorism or something) and mobile data collection for contract tracing?

    If anything PB has far more people interested in protecting civil liberties and restraining the government than the wider population. If you're worried about legal challenge for some reason, well the government can pass legislation... Just make sure the purpose is strictly limited, and give it a sunset clause, almost zero people will object.
    I can see the difference, my point is I am not sure the public will. In fact, the whole ID card debate was very confused. People were instinctively against just the idea of a carrying an ID card that the authorities could ask to see it, rather than the real and much more intricate issues of the data.

    The reaction to facial recognition has been very negative in parts of the press and among some communities. And it is only being used in very small specific scenarios.

    And as I say, there will be a huge number of legal challenges mounted. No matter how the government legislates due to our strong set of checks and balances and court system, they will be given a ample opportunity fight against it on a number of grounds.
  • MattWMattW Posts: 18,094
    nichomar said:

    nichomar said:

    OllyT said:

    Matt Hancock describes PPE as a "precious resource."

    Wrong. It is basic kit, essential for staff to stay alive. The idea that face masks should be used sparingly in a pandemic is frightening. The fact it's happening because of government failure to plan is criminal.

    People are dying because of PPE failings and the fact there has been such small number of tests we dont have a clue which NHS/Carer environment is safe or not.

    We could easily be on course to have the most deaths of any Country in Europe and those in charge will be held responsible for the flawed initial strategy, the PPE failings, the late lockdown failings, the pathetic inability to ramp up testing.

    "We followed the Science but ended up with the worst results" - not so much.

    It is all so easy BJO
    Who says its easy but by definition the country that ends up with the worst outcome has clearly failed.

    Which bit of We could easily be on course to have the most deaths of any Country in Europe do you not understand BigG
    I am not quick to judge and will wait to see in the months and years to come just which outcomes were successful and which were not

    You are not exactly an independent authority on this
    The time to judge how well we have done in the UK compared to the rest of Europe is when the worst is over not when we are in the thick of. I believe there are going to be some very tricky questions for the government to answer but let's wait and see.
    Yes, but a 'Nuremberg style reckoning' as was posited by at least one of Team Mouth Breather on here. No chance.

    We'll do better than most countries on some aspects (for example, other than China, has any other country matched our efforts on the Nightingale hospitals) and worse on others but not catastrophically so. It will likely be UK science and engineering at the forefront of some of the global solutions.

    There, that's my prediction.
    They were building nightingale type hospitals in exhibition centers and hospital car parks in Spain two weeks before the UK. Valencia and Alicante hospital had 500 icu bed extensions set up as well as the largest in Madrid.
    OK, fair enough, on a smaller scale but on the same lines. Cheers.
    Madrid 5,500 beds. Now winding down
    I'd say @bigjohnowls is rather misrepresenting what Matt Hancock said.

    He didn't say "sue it sparingly"; he said use it appropriately. And of course it is a precious resource.

    I'm quite surprised by the Union Rep reactions - are they really saying that there is zero waste in a service of 1 million plus people, and a rapid deployment of hundreds of millions of items of PPE?
  • felixfelix Posts: 15,124
    welshowl said:

    kinabalu said:

    Oh they do.

    A case in point - a chap doing research in to high temperature super conductors noticed that one of the reviewers of his stuff was publishing the same thing first.

    So he made an obvious, stupid mistake in the next paper.

    The reviewer promptly published a paper with the same mistake.

    The researcher made and amendment/retraction of his "mistake". Then went to the Profs in his university with his evidence.

    He was told that if he made public case of the issue, they would strip him of his PhD. For the crime of trapping a superior.

    There you go. One hates to hear this sort of thing happening in science but I sort of assumed that it did. So what did you do then? Bit of light blackmail?

    Seriously, though, I do hope our Covid-19 team are working well together rather than going "on maneuvers".

    Co-operation beats competition any day. This is a core belief on the Left of politics.
    Trabants v Golfs hmm....
    Yup and no-one told the Labour party about this except when they sing the Red Flag.
  • Sunil_PrasannanSunil_Prasannan Posts: 48,922

    Can we all agree, its a good job the LSE won't be at the forefront of the response to this :-)

    Ban hammer time.

    The editor of PB is an alumni of the LSE.
    An alumnus, surely? Alumni is plural.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,575

    ydoethur said:

    and certainly by 1209 (when several scholars were hanged for alleged complicity in a murder) there seems to be some sense of a united scholarly community.

    Marvellous collegial effort in getting someone whacked!
    Peer review ?
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,712
    edited April 2020
    Barnesian said:

    Latest data




    Interesting but per capita data would be more useful
    https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
    On that basis Spain, then Switzerland, Italy, Belgium and France have the most cases.
    Spain then Italy, Belgium, France and the Netherlands have most deaths
  • RobDRobD Posts: 58,941
    kinabalu said:

    I went to Imperial and my experience was that the numbers they're most interested in are the ones prefixed with "£"

    Probably produces more bond traders than professors, this is true.

    But I more meant that we didn't get distracted by non-numerical things such as girls.
    Quite right, they have letters.

    I'll get my coat....
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,575
    Chris said:

    Nigelb said:

    Poland is making mask wearing mandatory and installing vending machines to distribute them.

    https://notesfrompoland.com/2020/04/10/vending-machines-selling-masks-appear-across-poland-as-face-covering-made-compulsory/

    Masks and gloves if you want to leave your house - this will be standard post-lockdown requirement through 2020.

    One of my friends is an engineer and is making hi-spec masks with the aid of his 3D printer. His wife is a seamstress and is making the covers. Very grateful they are making one for the wife and I. Only downside: the only material she has in abundance is some gingham.

    Pink gingham.

    (No, I don't know why she'd have it either. But hey, if it saves my life....)
    Gloves would be fairly pointless.
    Why? As long as you don't touch your face in them.
    Same as hands.
    Exactly.
    Training everyone to correctly use disposable gloves is a hard problem; hand washing not so much.
  • Sunil_PrasannanSunil_Prasannan Posts: 48,922
    Nigelb said:

    ydoethur said:

    and certainly by 1209 (when several scholars were hanged for alleged complicity in a murder) there seems to be some sense of a united scholarly community.

    Marvellous collegial effort in getting someone whacked!
    Peer review ?
    Southend is the longest pier in the UK.
    Southport is second longest.
  • felixfelix Posts: 15,124
    nichomar said:

    nichomar said:

    OllyT said:

    Matt Hancock describes PPE as a "precious resource."

    Wrong. It is basic kit, essential for staff to stay alive. The idea that face masks should be used sparingly in a pandemic is frightening. The fact it's happening because of government failure to plan is criminal.

    People are dying because of PPE failings and the fact there has been such small number of tests we dont have a clue which NHS/Carer environment is safe or not.

    We could easily be on course to have the most deaths of any Country in Europe and those in charge will be held responsible for the flawed initial strategy, the PPE failings, the late lockdown failings, the pathetic inability to ramp up testing.

    "We followed the Science but ended up with the worst results" - not so much.

    It is all so easy BJO
    Who says its easy but by definition the country that ends up with the worst outcome has clearly failed.

    Which bit of We could easily be on course to have the most deaths of any Country in Europe do you not understand BigG
    I am not quick to judge and will wait to see in the months and years to come just which outcomes were successful and which were not

    You are not exactly an independent authority on this
    The time to judge how well we have done in the UK compared to the rest of Europe is when the worst is over not when we are in the thick of. I believe there are going to be some very tricky questions for the government to answer but let's wait and see.
    Yes, but a 'Nuremberg style reckoning' as was posited by at least one of Team Mouth Breather on here. No chance.

    We'll do better than most countries on some aspects (for example, other than China, has any other country matched our efforts on the Nightingale hospitals) and worse on others but not catastrophically so. It will likely be UK science and engineering at the forefront of some of the global solutions.

    There, that's my prediction.
    They were building nightingale type hospitals in exhibition centers and hospital car parks in Spain two weeks before the UK. Valencia and Alicante hospital had 500 icu bed extensions set up as well as the largest in Madrid.
    OK, fair enough, on a smaller scale but on the same lines. Cheers.
    Madrid 5,500 beds. Now winding down
    Finally getting some detail about cases witin my more immediate location. The north of Almeria from Mojacar to the Murcia border has a grand total of 67 cases. The whole of our province got just 3 more cases overnight. All very encouraging but how to keep it that way over the Summer is the next big challenge.
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758

    tlg86 said:

    Are we really doing Oxford v Cambridge again?

    Oxford: Rachel Riley
    Cambridge: Nick Griffin

    'Nuff said.

    Oxford: Jeffrey Archer

    Cambridge: Sir David Attenborough.

    Need I go on?
    Thought Archer was at a Teachers Training place IN Oxford, not AT.
    He was accepted into Brasenose.
    Brasenose College is an independent institution
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,575
    edited April 2020

    Can we all agree, its a good job the LSE won't be at the forefront of the response to this :-)

    Ban hammer time.

    The editor of PB is an alumni of the LSE.
    An alumnus, surely? Alumni is plural.
    Cambridge grammar. :smile:
  • TheuniondivvieTheuniondivvie Posts: 39,749
    edited April 2020
    We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills, we shall fight on the authorised parade routes; we shall never surrender!

    https://twitter.com/Gamcna/status/1248648777638043655?s=20
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 38,851
    ydoethur said:

    Oh FFS, not this hoary old myth again. Oxford was not founded in 1096. I know its website and Wikipedia both claim it was, but they are both lying. It is based on the claim of continuous teaching in Oxford from Theobald of Etmples (c. 1096/7-1123) and Robert of Pullen (until 1135). But as during the following fifty years the only recognisable studium in the Midlands, indeed in England, was at Northampton, there was clearly no continuity of education in Oxford.

    What saved it was that several students seemed to have remained behind and possibly as a result after 1177 Oxford became one of the centreS of ecclesiastical courts for Lincoln, attracting people to study law. Following 1189 and the increasing tensions with France and the papacy, it became more common for students to stay at home rather than go to Paris or Bologna, and until in 1201 the different teaching institutions felt important enough to elect a magister scolarum (John Grim).

    So if we’re looking for a date, 1201 might be more plausible as foundation, although clearly a lot was going on even before then, and certainly by 1209 (when several scholars were hanged for alleged complicity in a murder) there seems to be some sense of a united scholarly community.

    (R. W. Southern’s book on the early history of Oxford University is a available online: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=AkJO3TAxMtwC&pg=PA37&lpg=PA37&dq=southern+the+early+oxford+schools&source=bl&ots=QRHqw41P36&sig=ACfU3U1NslACcXzZ8ejMa7AhoEpLx_HrnA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj5hf2MpeDoAhVlUBUIHeV0A0UQ6AEwA3oECAwQLA#v=onepage&q&f=false)

    Beat me to it.
  • BarnesianBarnesian Posts: 7,979
    HYUFD said:

    Barnesian said:

    Latest data




    Interesting but per capita data would be more useful
    https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
    Per capita shows the relative incidence. My graphs show the trends i.e. the curves flattening. Both are useful. Per capita stats are available here https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 43,625
    kinabalu said:

    Oh they do.

    A case in point - a chap doing research in to high temperature super conductors noticed that one of the reviewers of his stuff was publishing the same thing first.

    So he made an obvious, stupid mistake in the next paper.

    The reviewer promptly published a paper with the same mistake.

    The researcher made and amendment/retraction of his "mistake". Then went to the Profs in his university with his evidence.

    He was told that if he made public case of the issue, they would strip him of his PhD. For the crime of trapping a superior.

    There you go. One hates to hear this sort of thing happening in science but I sort of assumed that it did. So what did you do then? Bit of light blackmail?

    Seriously, though, I do hope our Covid-19 team are working well together rather than going "on maneuvers".

    Co-operation beats competition any day. This is a core belief on the Left of politics.
    I didn't do anything - I was reading papers in the area, spoke to someone in the field about the strange publication/retraction and was told the story.

    You will be happy to know that the reviewer/thief was subsequently given a more prestigious post. The researcher involved later lost his post as part of a departmental re-organisation.

    Read the story of HMS Captain - it is still very true to day. Highlights -

    - Designed and built agains the judgement of the experts, based on a press campaign to force the hand of politicians
    - The designer was a man with no skills in ship design.
    - The man who warned that the ship was unstable - pushed to resign.
    - The man who built the ship wrong - proposed to replace him.

    To be fair, the ship was designed wrong as well. But then, the designer died when the ship sank.
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758
    Jonathan said:

    Both Oxford and Cambridge have been noticeably low key during the CV19 response. Would be nice if they stepped up and shared the load rather than leaving all the work to the likes of Imperial.

    It would also be nice if Niall Ferguson didn’t behave like a media whore and hog the limelight while the boys and girls at LSHTM do the hard graft
  • ChrisChris Posts: 11,009
    There has been an official update on the prime minister's condition. Apparently he continues to make good progress. Last night he succeeded in proving the Goldbach Conjecture, and this morning he exercised on the pommel horse for three hours.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,084
    HYUFD said:

    Barnesian said:

    Latest data




    Interesting but per capita data would be more useful
    https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
    On that basis Spain, then Switzerland, Italy, Belgium and France have the most cases.
    Except that one of the problems of such data is that looking at “Italy” during March was averaging the crisis data from Lombardy across the rest of that country that had no more of a problem, at that time, than we did in the UK. Similarly averaging across “USA” disguises the greater-than-Lombardy crisis that New York currently has, soon to be followed by a number of other US cities such as New Orleans, Detroit and Chicago, with many areas of the US well back on the infection curve.
  • CarlottaVanceCarlottaVance Posts: 59,540
    Nigelb said:

    Fairly clear there are not widespread undetected infections in Scotland (although this is effectively a snapshot of two weeks ago, and blood donors are not a fully representative population sample):

    https://twitter.com/Simmonds_Lab/status/1248626116463452163

    Wait until the Fifers see that! Quick to offend and slow to forgive!
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 38,851
    welshowl said:

    Trabants v Golfs hmm....

    I'm not seeing the Trabant as being a product of co-operation. This is not what I mean.
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 23,931

    Can we all agree, its a good job the LSE won't be at the forefront of the response to this :-)

    Ban hammer time.

    The editor of PB is an alumni of the LSE.
    An alumnus, surely? Alumni is plural.
    LSE does not teach Latin and Greek. This was a Yes Minister sketch iirc. Hacker was an LSE alumni man.
  • felixfelix Posts: 15,124
    From Monday up to half of petrol stations in Spain may close up temporarily at least and many of the rest reduce their hours. All the result of the collapse in demand during the lockdown.
  • felixfelix Posts: 15,124
    kinabalu said:

    ydoethur said:

    Oh FFS, not this hoary old myth again. Oxford was not founded in 1096. I know its website and Wikipedia both claim it was, but they are both lying. It is based on the claim of continuous teaching in Oxford from Theobald of Etmples (c. 1096/7-1123) and Robert of Pullen (until 1135). But as during the following fifty years the only recognisable studium in the Midlands, indeed in England, was at Northampton, there was clearly no continuity of education in Oxford.

    What saved it was that several students seemed to have remained behind and possibly as a result after 1177 Oxford became one of the centreS of ecclesiastical courts for Lincoln, attracting people to study law. Following 1189 and the increasing tensions with France and the papacy, it became more common for students to stay at home rather than go to Paris or Bologna, and until in 1201 the different teaching institutions felt important enough to elect a magister scolarum (John Grim).

    So if we’re looking for a date, 1201 might be more plausible as foundation, although clearly a lot was going on even before then, and certainly by 1209 (when several scholars were hanged for alleged complicity in a murder) there seems to be some sense of a united scholarly community.

    (R. W. Southern’s book on the early history of Oxford University is a available online: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=AkJO3TAxMtwC&pg=PA37&lpg=PA37&dq=southern+the+early+oxford+schools&source=bl&ots=QRHqw41P36&sig=ACfU3U1NslACcXzZ8ejMa7AhoEpLx_HrnA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj5hf2MpeDoAhVlUBUIHeV0A0UQ6AEwA3oECAwQLA#v=onepage&q&f=false)

    Beat me to it.
    Twas on the tip of my Cantabridgensian toungue!
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,575
    IanB2 said:

    HYUFD said:

    Barnesian said:

    Latest data




    Interesting but per capita data would be more useful
    https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
    On that basis Spain, then Switzerland, Italy, Belgium and France have the most cases.
    Except that one of the problems of such data is that looking at “Italy” during March was averaging the crisis data from Lombardy across the rest of that country that had no more of a problem, at that time, than we did in the UK. Similarly averaging across “USA” disguises the greater-than-Lombardy crisis that New York currently has, soon to be followed by a number of other US cities such as New Orleans, Detroit and Chicago, with many areas of the US well back on the infection curve.
    And some, like the SF Bay Area, that are further along, having crushed it with a rapid lockdown. (A week earlier than us; we should have locked down at the same time.)
  • paulyork64paulyork64 Posts: 2,461

    nichomar said:

    OllyT said:

    Matt Hancock describes PPE as a "precious resource."

    Wrong. It is basic kit, essential for staff to stay alive. The idea that face masks should be used sparingly in a pandemic is frightening. The fact it's happening because of government failure to plan is criminal.

    People are dying because of PPE failings and the fact there has been such small number of tests we dont have a clue which NHS/Carer environment is safe or not.

    We could easily be on course to have the most deaths of any Country in Europe and those in charge will be held responsible for the flawed initial strategy, the PPE failings, the late lockdown failings, the pathetic inability to ramp up testing.

    "We followed the Science but ended up with the worst results" - not so much.

    It is all so easy BJO
    Who says its easy but by definition the country that ends up with the worst outcome has clearly failed.

    Which bit of We could easily be on course to have the most deaths of any Country in Europe do you not understand BigG
    I am not quick to judge and will wait to see in the months and years to come just which outcomes were successful and which were not

    You are not exactly an independent authority on this
    The time to judge how well we have done in the UK compared to the rest of Europe is when the worst is over not when we are in the thick of. I believe there are going to be some very tricky questions for the government to answer but let's wait and see.
    Yes, but a 'Nuremberg style reckoning' as was posited by at least one of Team Mouth Breather on here. No chance.

    We'll do better than most countries on some aspects (for example, other than China, has any other country matched our efforts on the Nightingale hospitals) and worse on others but not catastrophically so. It will likely be UK science and engineering at the forefront of some of the global solutions.

    There, that's my prediction.
    They were building nightingale type hospitals in exhibition centers and hospital car parks in Spain two weeks before the UK. Valencia and Alicante hospital had 500 icu bed extensions set up as well as the largest in Madrid.
    Everyone was awestruck when China built a Covid-19 hospital from scratch in 10 days.

    We built Nightingale in 9.

    Chalk one up for the British squaddies.
    Indeed. Where did they (either) get all the beds from?
    i think we did well but didn't the chinese actually build the building too, not just fit out an existing one?
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,084
    Chris said:

    There has been an official update on the prime minister's condition. Apparently he continues to make good progress. Last night he succeeded in proving the Goldbach Conjecture, and this morning he exercised on the pommel horse for three hours.

    So he’s digging an escape tunnel out of the hospital?
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,575

    Can we all agree, its a good job the LSE won't be at the forefront of the response to this :-)

    Ban hammer time.

    The editor of PB is an alumni of the LSE.
    An alumnus, surely? Alumni is plural.
    LSE does not teach Latin and Greek. This was a Yes Minister sketch iirc. Hacker was an LSE alumni man.
    TSE is not LSE...
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 75,842
    13k run (Where I was miles from anyone) and shopping trip completed - a productive easter saturday. Wore a FFP2 mask and one glove (To push the trolley) for the shopping, no ppe for run except lots of distancing.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,084

    Nigelb said:

    ydoethur said:

    and certainly by 1209 (when several scholars were hanged for alleged complicity in a murder) there seems to be some sense of a united scholarly community.

    Marvellous collegial effort in getting someone whacked!
    Peer review ?
    Southend is the longest pier in the UK.
    Southport is second longest.
    Ryde is the oldest ;)
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 23,931
    Nigelb said:

    Can we all agree, its a good job the LSE won't be at the forefront of the response to this :-)

    Ban hammer time.

    The editor of PB is an alumni of the LSE.
    An alumnus, surely? Alumni is plural.
    LSE does not teach Latin and Greek. This was a Yes Minister sketch iirc. Hacker was an LSE alumni man.
    TSE is not LSE...
    OGH is iirc though he later sold his soul to Oxford to the tune of several million quid.
  • Sunil_PrasannanSunil_Prasannan Posts: 48,922
    Nigelb said:

    Can we all agree, its a good job the LSE won't be at the forefront of the response to this :-)

    Ban hammer time.

    The editor of PB is an alumni of the LSE.
    An alumnus, surely? Alumni is plural.
    LSE does not teach Latin and Greek. This was a Yes Minister sketch iirc. Hacker was an LSE alumni man.
    TSE is not LSE...
    At least Nick Griffin can point and laugh and say "Ha! Cambridge let in TSE!" :lol:
  • welshowlwelshowl Posts: 4,460
    kinabalu said:

    welshowl said:

    Trabants v Golfs hmm....

    I'm not seeing the Trabant as being a product of co-operation. This is not what I mean.
    So what do you mean?
  • felixfelix Posts: 15,124
    IanB2 said:

    HYUFD said:

    Barnesian said:

    Latest data




    Interesting but per capita data would be more useful
    https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
    On that basis Spain, then Switzerland, Italy, Belgium and France have the most cases.
    Except that one of the problems of such data is that looking at “Italy” during March was averaging the crisis data from Lombardy across the rest of that country that had no more of a problem, at that time, than we did in the UK. Similarly averaging across “USA” disguises the greater-than-Lombardy crisis that New York currently has, soon to be followed by a number of other US cities such as New Orleans, Detroit and Chicago, with many areas of the US well back on the infection curve.
    Following that to its logical UK 'political' conclusion - Labour London and Birmingham are dragging down the Tory and SNP successes elsewhere. It is utter nonsense of course but no more stupid than comparing Spain to the UK whose population and land is more than twice the former. It is quite wrong to make such silly comparisons now and may never be entirely sensible!
  • SandyRentoolSandyRentool Posts: 20,401

    Nigelb said:

    ydoethur said:

    and certainly by 1209 (when several scholars were hanged for alleged complicity in a murder) there seems to be some sense of a united scholarly community.

    Marvellous collegial effort in getting someone whacked!
    Peer review ?
    Southend is the longest pier in the UK.
    Southport is second longest.
    Wigan the shortest?

    Back to the garden...
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,758

    Nigelb said:

    ydoethur said:

    and certainly by 1209 (when several scholars were hanged for alleged complicity in a murder) there seems to be some sense of a united scholarly community.

    Marvellous collegial effort in getting someone whacked!
    Peer review ?
    Southend is the longest pier in the UK.
    Southport is second longest.
    Aberystwyth is the shortest.

    Llandudno has the most spectacular setting.
  • felixfelix Posts: 15,124
    Nigelb said:

    Can we all agree, its a good job the LSE won't be at the forefront of the response to this :-)

    Ban hammer time.

    The editor of PB is an alumni of the LSE.
    An alumnus, surely? Alumni is plural.
    LSE does not teach Latin and Greek. This was a Yes Minister sketch iirc. Hacker was an LSE alumni man.
    TSE is not LSE...
    TSE is barely CSE never mind GCSE or LSE!
  • felixfelix Posts: 15,124

    Nigelb said:

    Can we all agree, its a good job the LSE won't be at the forefront of the response to this :-)

    Ban hammer time.

    The editor of PB is an alumni of the LSE.
    An alumnus, surely? Alumni is plural.
    LSE does not teach Latin and Greek. This was a Yes Minister sketch iirc. Hacker was an LSE alumni man.
    TSE is not LSE...
    At least Nick Griffin can point and laugh and say "Ha! Cambridge let in TSE!" :lol:
    Listen my old college let in Burgon!!
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,575
    The potential season effect on transmission doesn’t appear to be large.

    No Association of COVID-19 transmission with temperature or UV radiation in Chinese cities
    https://erj.ersjournals.com/content/early/2020/04/01/13993003.00517-2020
    Previous results on the relationship between respiratory-borne infectious diseases and temperature indicated that both SARS and influenza need to survive under certain temperature conditions, and increasing temperature can reduce the ability of SARS virus and influenza virus to spread [6, 7]. The underlying hypothesis for why warmer seasons tends to decrease the spread of viruses includes higher vitamin D levels, resulting in better immune responses [8]; increased UV radiation; and no school in the summer (when children are clustered together, transmission rates of flu and measles increase). Reports of UV and respiratory diseases have also been studied, and previous studies have shown that high levels of UV exposure can reduce the spread of SARS-COV virus [9].

    The results from this study, however, do not follow this expected pattern. ...
This discussion has been closed.