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[Hiberno-Britannic Politics] Let’s Do The Lockdown Again

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Posts

  • discriderdiscrider Registered User regular
    Oh. This is perhaps Brexit enabling live subject testing in January.

  • SolarSolar Registered User regular
    Details yet to be forthcoming

    Shitty though isn't it

    This feels like it all came about because of the movement of students around the country tbh

  • TastyfishTastyfish Registered User regular
    discrider wrote: »

    Building a model of the disease in a controlled setting. Basically running a placebo set for a trial to set future ones up - this will let you know what time points you need to start sampling, which samples are best to take and opens up more windows for therapy compared to waiting for people to get sick and come to hospital (especially for diseases that tend to be seasonal). Then you can start doing smarter drug trials where treatments can be assessed against each other with smaller numbers of patients and the various phases can be run much closer together (and therefore speed up the trials).

    We currently do it with flu and other respiratory diseases like rhinoviruses and RSV.

  • discriderdiscrider Registered User regular
    Scientist on the news: Yeah, but normally we wait until we have an effective treatment.

  • tbloxhamtbloxham Registered User regular
    discrider wrote: »
    Scientist on the news: Yeah, but normally we wait until we have an effective treatment.

    However, as the website for the trial discusses, if you can advance a proven vaccine by 1 week you might save 50,000 lives. The people willing to do this are well informed volunteers. Theres no cure to being burned to death, and we let people be firefighters because the balance of risk goes the right way.

    Real people are dying every day, and even a bit more knowledge of how the virus behaves during early infection could contribute to therapy development.

    "That is cool" - Abraham Lincoln
  • klemmingklemming Registered User regular
    Home Office policy for removing migrants unlawful, court rules
    A major plank of the UK's strategy for removing failed migrants has been ruled illegal because it prevents the courts from considering their cases.

    In a significant ruling, the Court of Appeal said the policy risked removing people from the UK even if they had a right to be in the country.

    The policy has been used in 40,000 removal cases.

    The unanimous judgment against the Home Office was taken by the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Burnett, and two other senior judges.
    You'll all have to imagine my shock.

    Nobody remembers the singer. The song remains.
  • JazzJazz Registered User regular
    Now watch them carry on regardless.

  • AlphaRomeroAlphaRomero Registered User regular
    Jazz wrote: »
    Now watch them carry on regardless.

    Sid James, Kenneth Williams, and Hattie Jacques running a bawdy parliament would be fine right about now.

  • JazzJazz Registered User regular
    Jazz wrote: »
    Now watch them carry on regardless.

    Sid James, Kenneth Williams, and Hattie Jacques running a bawdy parliament would be fine right about now.

    And they'd significantly improve overall competence!

  • AlphaRomeroAlphaRomero Registered User regular
    Jazz wrote: »
    Jazz wrote: »
    Now watch them carry on regardless.

    Sid James, Kenneth Williams, and Hattie Jacques running a bawdy parliament would be fine right about now.

    And they'd significantly improve overall competence!

    Sid: Competence? Only happened one time. But it was dark and I thought I was with my wife.
    Kenneth: Ohhhhh European Unionnnnnn
    Babs: I hear the Americans are having a tough election
    Sid: I said it only happened once, stop banging on about it will ya!
    Babs: I said election
    Sid: Oh. Yes. Well that too.
    *fade out to margate*

  • discriderdiscrider Registered User regular
    tbloxham wrote: »
    discrider wrote: »
    Scientist on the news: Yeah, but normally we wait until we have an effective treatment.

    However, as the website for the trial discusses, if you can advance a proven vaccine by 1 week you might save 50,000 lives. The people willing to do this are well informed volunteers. Theres no cure to being burned to death, and we let people be firefighters because the balance of risk goes the right way.

    Real people are dying every day, and even a bit more knowledge of how the virus behaves during early infection could contribute to therapy development.

    Are they well-informed?
    Do we even have a handle on the long-term impacts of COVID and probabilities of such yet?
    The volunteers that I've heard speaking to the news so far do not seem well-informed, and expect to feel ill, but then get better.

  • discriderdiscrider Registered User regular
    Read the website, specifically:
    https://1daysooner.org/objections-to-challenge-trials
    Answer to the above is 'everyone could get long term complications so better for young people near doctors to take the risk'.
    Which is bleh.

    Really if the argument is that better to chance healthy people under controlled conditions rather than other people in normal environs, then there better be a good chance of establishing a vaccine or treatment out of the trial.
    Otherwise you're just infecting people for no reason.

  • CoinageCoinage Heaviside LayerRegistered User regular
    I can't imagine why a pharmaceutical company would run trials on a vaccine they didn't think would work. They're evil but not pointlessly evil

  • discriderdiscrider Registered User regular
    They're running trials on treatments they think could work.
    The probability underneath 'could' combined with the probable number of potential people saved if the risk pays off, is what should control whether or not the 'risk the participants to save the world' is ethical or not.

    It's not clear to me that there is a great chance of success, especially as they're talking about what they would learn if none of the treatments are effective.

  • MrMisterMrMister Jesus dying on the cross in pain? Morally better than us. One has to go "all in".Registered User regular
    edited October 2020
    discrider wrote: »
    They're running trials on treatments they think could work.
    The probability underneath 'could' combined with the probable number of potential people saved if the risk pays off, is what should control whether or not the 'risk the participants to save the world' is ethical or not.

    It's not clear to me that there is a great chance of success, especially as they're talking about what they would learn if none of the treatments are effective.

    I agree that the probability of successfully accelerating vaccine development is relevant, but given the massive size of the potential benefits, even low chances of success could still more than underwrite and justify the expenditure of social resources and the risks to participants.

    Regardless of how individually high those risks are, they are, if anything, lower than the risks that ordinary people face when they contract corona, because volunteers will be infected with an at least somewhat controlled and attenuated challenge strain and because they will be under close medical supervision. If a small number of people are willing volunteers to undergo that risk in order to potentially prevent a much larger group of people from suffering an even more serious version of that same risk, then it is hard to see what is wrong with that.

    I agree that participants' understanding can be dicey; they should (and, I'm guessing, will) employ an enhanced consent process and most proposals in the literature of which I am aware include comprehension testing alongside that.

    I haven't followed the UK proposal closely so I am not an expert on it--but I was dismayed at how the US's regulatory and decisionmaking bodies seemed to stall out on them and am generally pleased to hear the news.

    MrMister on
  • tbloxhamtbloxham Registered User regular
    MrMister wrote: »
    discrider wrote: »
    They're running trials on treatments they think could work.
    The probability underneath 'could' combined with the probable number of potential people saved if the risk pays off, is what should control whether or not the 'risk the participants to save the world' is ethical or not.

    It's not clear to me that there is a great chance of success, especially as they're talking about what they would learn if none of the treatments are effective.

    I agree that the probability of successfully accelerating vaccine development is relevant, but given the massive size of the potential benefits, even low chances of success could still more than underwrite and justify the expenditure of social resources and the risks to participants.

    Regardless of how individually high those risks are, they are, if anything, lower than the risks that ordinary people face when they contract corona, because volunteers will be infected with an at least somewhat controlled and attenuated challenge strain and because they will be under close medical supervision. If a small number of people are willing volunteers to undergo that risk in order to potentially prevent a much larger group of people from suffering an even more serious version of that same risk, then it is hard to see what is wrong with that.

    I agree that participant's understanding can be dicey; they should (and, I'm guessing, will) employ an enhanced consent process and most proposals in the literature of which I am aware include comprehension testing alongside that.

    I haven't followed the UK proposal closely so I am not an expert on it--but I was dismayed at how the US's regulatory and decisionmaking bodies seemed to stall out on them and am generally pleased to hear the news.

    It should also be taken into account that these will be escalating challenge trials in the early rounds. People will be infected with deliberately tiny amounts of virus in an effort to find out what the smallest dose which can routinely cause infection is, with the hope that the virus will behave like many others and actually such an exposure will be highly likely to provoke an asymptomatic or low symptoms infection. This has real value even if nothing else is done because it offers the chance to actually study immune response and viral propagation in the body from a precisely known T0. Even if they don't trial a single drug, knowledge like this will save lives.

    "That is cool" - Abraham Lincoln
  • CroakerBCCroakerBC TorontoRegistered User regular
    In...news...a new, points based skilled worker visa has been created, and a lot of immigration system changes made by the executive. Because oversight review is something for the plebes.

  • klemmingklemming Registered User regular
    Is this the point based system that wouldn't allow desperately needed NHS staff to come work here, or is it a sane point based system?
    Hahaha, I'm just kidding, I think we already know the answer.

    Nobody remembers the singer. The song remains.
  • 101101 Registered User regular
    I still cannot get over the vote on Wednesday against free meals for disadvantaged kids over half term.

    Just, can these people not be utter arseholes for 5 minutes

  • CasualCasual Wiggle Wiggle Wiggle Flap Flap Flap Registered User regular
    101 wrote: »
    I still cannot get over the vote on Wednesday against free meals for disadvantaged kids over half term.

    Just, can these people not be utter arseholes for 5 minutes

    It's disgusting, shameless and a grand Tory tradition dating back through the ages. Nothing gets them off quite like taking food from the mouths of hungry children.

  • japanjapan Registered User regular
    101 wrote: »
    I still cannot get over the vote on Wednesday against free meals for disadvantaged kids over half term.

    Just, can these people not be utter arseholes for 5 minutes

    Then you had Nicky Morgan on question time suggesting that the Tories voted it down because Angela Rayner called them scum

    Deliberately starving children in order to spite your political opposition being a clear sign of a healthy and normally functioning government

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-politics-54660719

  • CasualCasual Wiggle Wiggle Wiggle Flap Flap Flap Registered User regular
    It's just so galling because we're talking about ten million quid here. A lot of money to you and me but it's about as cheap as government expenditure gets. It's probably the budget to keep the Westminster bar open for a year. Making sure disadvantaged kids get fed is just one of the simplest and most profoundly felt things a government can do.

  • autono-wally, erotibot300autono-wally, erotibot300 love machine Registered User regular
    Ah yes, the good old time travel defense:
    "you calling me out for being an asshole made me an asshole"
    "how?"
    "...parkour"

    kFJhXwE.jpgkFJhXwE.jpg
  • JazzJazz Registered User regular
    It's the "liberals made me vote for Trump!" argument. Horseshit then, horseshit now. Infuriating.

    At least from what I've seen on the ol' social medias and whatnot, this vote is getting an awful lot of blowback. As it should. People are fucking angry about it.

    I just wish voters' memories for things like this weren't so damn short, but even so.

  • BogartBogart Streetwise Hercules Registered User, Moderator mod
  • BurnageBurnage Registered User regular
    I think I've genuinely reached a point where I can admit that I fundamentally do not understand people who are still in support of this government and its policies.

    The worldview just seems entirely alien to me.

  • Rhesus PositiveRhesus Positive GNU Terry Pratchett Registered User regular
    edited October 2020
    Marcus Rashford is compiling a list on Twitter of eateries which are providing free meals to kids over the holidays, if any of you need that information or know somebody who does

    Rhesus Positive on
    [Muffled sounds of gorilla violence]
  • klemmingklemming Registered User regular
    Great, we've reached the point where they not only can't be shamed into showing basic decency, they're proud to announce that they won't.

    Nobody remembers the singer. The song remains.
  • GumpyGumpy There is always a greater powerRegistered User regular
    Burnage wrote: »
    I think I've genuinely reached a point where I can admit that I fundamentally do not understand people who are still in support of this government and its policies.

    The worldview just seems entirely alien to me.

    I think I support the governments position on this one.

    We have kids going hungry. We should be:

    A) Maximising the money available to families with kids in food poverty while other programmes are being developed that more effectively resolve the issue. If the vouchers are less than the uplift, why support the old system?

    B) By moving away from the contract, those administrative costs can be invested in programmes that directly tackle the issues behind food poverty. The ultimate objective here is feeding kids - we should choose the approaches that are most effective at doing so.

    So the uplift strengthens the plaster, but if there's robust evidence that the money isn't actually going to feeding them, other approaches need to be explored that achieve this. Kids shouldn't starve for the sake of politics.

    As always, having good access to the underlying data would be immensely helpful on having an outside view of if this is the best approach, but if the evidence is robust - feed the kids.

  • SharpyVIISharpyVII Registered User regular
    edited October 2020
    The problem with that view is assuming the government actually has a plan.....

    Again this is a tiny amount of money that would benefit millions of children. There's no good reason they can't do this and create a long term plan.

    However considering the Tories have been in power for ten years and child poverty has skyrocketed under them I don't think we can rely on them.

    SharpyVII on
  • BogartBogart Streetwise Hercules Registered User, Moderator mod
    The government aren't making the argument that they have a better plan than the one Rashford and Labour are asking for: they're saying it isn't their business to be feeding poor, hungry kids when school's not in session.

  • BurnageBurnage Registered User regular
    Bogart wrote: »
    The government aren't making the argument that they have a better plan than the one Rashford and Labour are asking for: they're saying it isn't their business to be feeding poor, hungry kids when school's not in session.

    This is certainly my impression. Perhaps I just haven't been paying enough attention to the debate, but if the argument was being framed in terms of "what's the most effective way to make sure no child goes hungry?" instead of "not our problem, lads" then I would be considerably more understanding.

  • Rhesus PositiveRhesus Positive GNU Terry Pratchett Registered User regular
    Just give parents money

    If it goes on booze and fags like people always claim it does, then good news! Duty and VAT mean that the government get more of that money back than if it was spent on vegetables! What a saver! Thanks, likely fictional parents used to demonise the poor!

    [Muffled sounds of gorilla violence]
  • autono-wally, erotibot300autono-wally, erotibot300 love machine Registered User regular
    Isn't your business that your citizens aren't poor and hungry when you're, you know, their government?

    kFJhXwE.jpgkFJhXwE.jpg
  • monikermoniker Registered User regular
    Gumpy wrote: »
    Burnage wrote: »
    I think I've genuinely reached a point where I can admit that I fundamentally do not understand people who are still in support of this government and its policies.

    The worldview just seems entirely alien to me.

    I think I support the governments position on this one.

    We have kids going hungry. We should be:

    A) Maximising the money available to families with kids in food poverty while other programmes are being developed that more effectively resolve the issue. If the vouchers are less than the uplift, why support the old system?

    B) By moving away from the contract, those administrative costs can be invested in programmes that directly tackle the issues behind food poverty. The ultimate objective here is feeding kids - we should choose the approaches that are most effective at doing so.

    So the uplift strengthens the plaster, but if there's robust evidence that the money isn't actually going to feeding them, other approaches need to be explored that achieve this. Kids shouldn't starve for the sake of politics.

    As always, having good access to the underlying data would be immensely helpful on having an outside view of if this is the best approach, but if the evidence is robust - feed the kids.

    Generally you should have your replacement ready to go before ending the current offering. Certain things just don't really have a transition period that can last more than a day or two, and eating food is definitely among them. That approach seems about as useful as a 10 month pregnancy test.

  • BogartBogart Streetwise Hercules Registered User, Moderator mod
    Isn't your business that your citizens aren't poor and hungry when you're, you know, their government?

    Those poor and hungry citizens chose to be poor and hungry. Why they didn't choose to be rich and well-fed we'll never know, but we know it was their fault.

  • SharpyVIISharpyVII Registered User regular
    It's a perfect example of our government's incompetence.

    Similar to Brexit where their plan seems to Brexit first figure out how everything else works afterwards whilst everyone is losing their jobs and there's food/medicine shortages.

  • Santa ClaustrophobiaSanta Claustrophobia Ho Ho Ho Disconnecting from Xbox LIVERegistered User regular
    Bogart wrote: »
    Isn't your business that your citizens aren't poor and hungry when you're, you know, their government?

    Those poor and hungry citizens chose to be poor and hungry. Why they didn't choose to be rich and well-fed we'll never know, but we know it was their fault.

    If the poor dodn't want to be poor they would bought some bootstraps.

  • 101101 Registered User regular
    Bogart wrote: »
    Isn't your business that your citizens aren't poor and hungry when you're, you know, their government?

    Those poor and hungry citizens chose to be poor and hungry. Why they didn't choose to be rich and well-fed we'll never know, but we know it was their fault.

    Its like they watched the new statesman and figured B'stard was a role model to follow.

  • PowerpuppiesPowerpuppies drinking coffee in the mountain cabinRegistered User regular
    If it were true, they could trumpet from the rooftops that they'd saved $X by not feeding the children, and they were going to pour that into Y program to feed even more children, and provide evidence of that. It seems obvious instead that they have no interest in minimizing food poverty.

    sig.gif
This discussion has been closed.