O/T:- ⚠️Impressed with the leadership [The UK Party Politics Thread]

[upthemaggies]

You're entirely wrong. .

Covid catastrophe in Africa would have been a massive news story if such a thing occurred. We'd all know about it.
You can google Africa and Covid and can see all sorts of explanations as to why they suffered less. Had to laugh at this one... National Library of Medicine: "Why are COVID-19 effects less severe in Sub-Saharan Africa? Moving more and sitting less may be a primary reason" If only we'd been told not to sit down.

Forgot to mention them asking for and being granted indemnity. Which should have told people all they needed to know. They knew the risk and that they couldn't say it was safe because it wasn't and isn't.
Because of how the rules and regulations were set up, they were pushing to get kids (who were at no risk) vaccinated because once they'd got them jabbed they wouldn't have to prove safety once the emergency period ran out to get approval. That's the level of evil we're dealing with here. They couldn't care less about health, only profit.

Nobody is now denying there is a link with the jab and heart issues (which are now accounting for significant excess deaths), so if long Covid is causing issues with that as well then everybody jabbed adds to the risk because the jab doesn't stop you getting Covid.

[magpie_mania]

Covid catastrophe in Africa would have been a massive news story if such a thing occurred. We'd all know about it.
You can google Africa and Covid and can see all sorts of explanations as to why they suffered less. Had to laugh at this one... National Library of Medicine: "Why are COVID-19 effects less severe in Sub-Saharan Africa? Moving more and sitting less may be a primary reason" If only we'd been told not to sit down.

Forgot to mention them asking for and being granted indemnity. Which should have told people all they needed to know. They knew the risk and that they couldn't say it was safe because it wasn't and isn't.
Because of how the rules and regulations were set up, they were pushing to get kids (who were at no risk) vaccinated because once they'd got them jabbed they wouldn't have to prove safety once the emergency period ran out to get approval. That's the level of evil we're dealing with here. They couldn't care less about health, only profit.

Nobody is now denying there is a link with the jab and heart issues (which are now accounting for significant excess deaths), so if long Covid is causing issues with that as well then everybody jabbed adds to the risk because the jab doesn't stop you getting Covid.

And still no stats or anything to back up any of your claims.

Surely you can now provide proof of these 'significant excess deaths'.

Of course they asked for indemnity. It is part and parcel of society today, because of the blame / claim culture.

No-one as far as I ever heard said it was 100% risk free. There comes a time though, especially at national times of emergency that I feel we have to trust people like Jonathon Van Tamm who was working in vaccination centres and administering it. Based on his immense training and experience.

[upthemaggies]

And still no stats or anything to back up any of your claims.

Surely you can now provide proof of these 'significant excess deaths'.

John Campbell goes through government/official statistics and provides all the links if you need the proof of excess deaths and what's causing them. He was encouraging people to get vaccinated during the pandemic, now bitterly regrets it. Whatever anybody thinks of him, it doesn't alter the facts. People will argue over the interpretation of the data but the bottom line is there are excess death rates in young people with heart conditions, which implies massively greater numbers damaged.

[Newish Pie]

I'm getting frustrated with people asking for evidence when there's no disputing these vaccines were given emergency use to be rolled out, if they were safe they wouldn't have needed that to get the green light and they would have not needed to prove there was not one single treatment available. They were rushed out with a trial cut short at the early stages, wasn't it called "operation warpspeed"?

No side has any proper evidence because there is no long term data, I'm sick of going round in circles with this, the onus is on the vaccines to prove their safety and all we've got for now is noisy data 2 years into the experiment (since younger people were given it) and we're all trying to look for patterns or avoid seeing them which are dismissed as more noise from those who don't want to see it and conclusive evidence by those that do. It's early warning signals for now which could become too obvious to dismiss later down the line.

There is no doubt people have died of this vax but what about the injuries and the long term effects of those injuries? What about cell damage from manufactured spike that repair in organs other than the heart? We can't see that problem until later because with each repair you lose capacity to repair in future.

Vaccines have been taken off the market for far fewer deaths and deemed unsafe and I think they aren't withdrawn on a ratio basis, x number of deaths should deem it unsafe regardless of how many doses are given, but they got away with it because "there was no other treatment".

The other main evidence was all the false claims that then had to be down-graded and down graded again - stops spread to limits spread to doesn't do anything within 3 months, same with severity. They simply cannot be trusted.

I don't blame anyone for being alarmed at the speed at which the vaccine was developed compared to how long normal vaccine development takes. However, there were trials of the vaccine and it was developed using an established platform that had been tested. It's not like it was created completely from scratch - there was plenty of prior work on the coronavirus 'family' and vaccine development in general to build upon.

As I understand it, there were two significant factors in speeding up vaccine development, which I think everyone can relate to. I'm not a specialist in this area, but I work in an area related to research (without being a researcher myself) and have listened to some longform interviews with those involved. But we have at least two people more informed than me in this thread who can put me right.

The first is that when you're developing a vaccine (and especially getting funding) you can't get funding for C before you've shown results in B, and you can't get funding for B before you have results in A. Under normal circumstances that's perfectly sensible, because we don't want to waste money (either pharma's money or government research budgets distributed through the Research Councils) on things that won't work. With COVID, the nature of the emergency was such that development was done in parallel rather than sequentially - everything everywhere all at once. And that's why it was called 'warpspeed'.

The second is that a vaccine became everyone's number one priority for everyone involved. No matter what field you work in, imagine how quickly you could get X done if everyone agreed that X was the absolute top priority, that everyone should drop everything except X, and ££££ was... if not quite no object, but let's say no longer a problem. Could be a building project, could be a football transfer (see also: deadline day!), could be conveyancing on a house, could be building a house, whatever. Pick the thing in your field that needs a lot of input from a lot of people who don't all give it the highest priority and imagine how quick it could be done in an emergency.

It's certainly true that we don't know the long term impact of the vaccine, and I'd be amazed if a few people haven't been harmed by the vaccine. But the signs at the moment look pretty positive, as I don't see any evidence of waves and waves of problems. Compare this with the damage from 'long COVID'. Vaccines always and everywhere are a question of balancing competing risks - as is everything in life to a greater or lesser extent.

Seems to me that some people who have a problem with the COVID vaccines also have a problem with vaccines in general. If someone has a problem with vaccines in general, then I'm not sure why it makes any difference if the COVID vaccine was produced quickly, 'cos they presumably wouldn't be happy with it, no matter how long development took. I strongly suspect that if there was an issue with the vaccines, we'd know about it by now, and by "know about it" I mean something that's beyond dispute, rather than cherry-picked by some fringe blogs.

Vaccine development and rollout was an extraordinary scientific and logistical achievement, which could have been even better if the Global North didn't overorder and stockpile, rather than distribute to poorer countries.

[upthemaggies]

I strongly suspect that if there was an issue with the vaccines, we'd know about it by now, and by "know about it" I mean something that's beyond dispute, rather than cherry-picked by some fringe blogs.

Governments and media would have to do a complete 180 and admit they lied to the public, people lost their livelihoods over this, it would be the biggest scandal in modern history, there's no way they wouldn't try to cover it up and bury the truth, which is what I believe they are now doing.

We were getting a daily count of deaths during the pandemic, we've consistently had percentages way above the norm more recently, yet media silence. If it were unjabbed people now dying from the effects of long Covid then they'd be screaming this from the rooftops as vindication for the vax roll out and as an "I told you so."

[OchPie]

The first is that when you're developing a vaccine (and especially getting funding) you can't get funding for C before you've shown results in B, and you can't get funding for B before you have results in A. Under normal circumstances that's perfectly sensible, because we don't want to waste money (either pharma's money or government research budgets distributed through the Research Councils) on things that won't work. With COVID, the nature of the emergency was such that development was done in parallel rather than sequentially - everything everywhere all at once. And that's why it was called 'warpspeed'.

The second is that a vaccine became everyone's number one priority for everyone involved. No matter what field you work in, imagine how quickly you could get X done if everyone agreed that X was the absolute top priority, that everyone should drop everything except X, and ££££ was... if not quite no object, but let's say no longer a problem. Could be a building project, could be a football transfer (see also: deadline day!), could be conveyancing on a house, could be building a house, whatever. Pick the thing in your field that needs a lot of input from a lot of people who don't all give it the highest priority and imagine how quick it could be done in an emergency.

The third is that we knew it would be useful to go after the spike (more specifically, the surface spike protein or particular bits of it - the spikes are how the coronavirus family got its name). It cut down a lot of development time knowing where to aim.

But yes, those two points are basically correct. In particular generally you'd work through the whole of Phase 1 (one or several trials), wait for results, submit them, get them approved, then start a whole Phase 2 and so on. For Covid, authorities allowed overlapping trials and so-called rolling reviews - where after enough positive evidence was on for one Phase, the next Phase could start - but always ready to be halted if further results from the Phase before contradicted initial results. And yes, the focus on this across medical researchers was immense.

Vaccine development and rollout was an extraordinary scientific and logistical achievement, which could have been even better if the Global North didn't overorder and stockpile, rather than distribute to poorer countries.

They later did distribute doses they'd stockpiled but only shortly before expiry, and it was a complete nightmare to manage.

[OchPie]

Governments and media would have to do a complete 180 and admit they lied to the public, people lost their livelihoods over this, it would be the biggest scandal in modern history, there's no way they wouldn't try to cover it up and bury the truth, which is what I believe they are now doing.

If someone actually did the research here properly and showed it really was happening in a defensible way that would survive peer review, it would make their career.

But these people are on Twitter, not writing good papers for other scientists to build on.

Personally I think the really weird thing is the collective decision by the world to decide Covid is now over and not worth worrying about any more.

[upthemaggies]

Personally I think the really weird thing is the collective decision by the world to decide Covid is now over and not worth worrying about any more.

Well, you might be right about this because there's no long term data for Covid either.

Not everybody who thinks the vax was a bad idea takes the view that Covid isn't a serious disease or that it could mutate again and cause serious damage. Some are raising the question as to what the jab has done to people's immune system long term to be able to cope with such a scenario.

[jackal2]

Personally I think the really weird thing is the collective decision by the world to decide Covid is now over and not worth worrying about any more.

I don't think the world has decided it's "not worth worrying about", but rather, it's something we simply have no choice but to live (or indeed die) with. There's only so long people can live in lockdown or in a state of high alert, after which human nature dictates that we start to get used to and accept the threat, even if it's significant.

Since the invention of nuclear weapons we've lived every day with a potentially life ending threat, and in countries ravaged by war, where the threat of serious injury or death is especially high, you still see people somehow carrying on with their business as best they can, because frankly it's the only thing they can do.

[Mud Pie]

Governments and media would have to do a complete 180

you say that glibly like they one monster, a world 'government' golum with 'the media' quietly in its pocket.

I can't see France and the UK conspiring to set fishing hauls without a great pallava, never mind dupe the public on such a scale, never mind Turkey and Hungary and Venezuela all piling on and keeping mum. Can't see mail and mirror journalists all agreeing to a narrative, and agreeing to withhold inconvenient truths ... to help the 'governments' cover up the real reality.

But that doesn't mean I trust any of them, just that I also don't believe they could organize a p!ss up in a brewery!

[upthemaggies]

you say that glibly like they one monster, a world 'government' golum with 'the media' quietly in its pocket.

I can't see France and the UK conspiring to set fishing hauls, never mind dupe the public on such a scale, never mind Turkey and Hungary and Venezuela all piling on and keeping mum. Can't see mail and mirror journalists all agreeing to a narrative, and agreeing to withhold inconvenient truths ... to help the 'governments' cover up the real reality.

But that doesn't mean I trust any of them, just that I also don't believe they could organize a p!ss up in a brewery!

I would say that the media have gradually turned against lockdowns over the last year-ish with stories about the psychological damage, effects on child development, relationships etc. There's always been the odd story here and there raising concerns, but I sense the media collectively now generally consider lockdowns to be a mistake and would not be so supportive of a repeat, at least not for any length of time.

I expect the same thing will happen with the vaccines eventually but any journalist who breaks ranks at this stage knows they are likely to have their career destroyed and face abuse and ridicule as an anti-vaxxer.

Governments on the other hand are now agreeing to defer all powers to the WHO in a health emergency, which you could argue the logic for, but basically means unelected health officials denying fundamental human rights with the power to mandate vaccines, an organisation that declared Monkey Pox a global crisis only last year.

"Build back better"

[Elite_Pie]

Does anyone still think Boris Johnson is the right man to lead us?

[Mud Pie]

"Build back better"

Shudder!

can't really agree that they're all singing from the same page, but I do like and learn a lot from reading your posts.

[Jampie]

Governments on the other hand are now agreeing to defer all powers to the WHO in a health emergency, which you could argue the logic for, but basically means unelected health officials denying fundamental human rights with the power to mandate vaccines

Any evidence you could link to back up this fresh new ridiculous and obviously false claim?

[magpie_mania]

Does anyone still think Boris Johnson is the right man to lead us?

Nadine, Jacob ....... but the list is dwindling.

Don't forget that Boris got Brexit done for the UK. Or should that be got the UK done by Brexit?