Re: Coronavirus
 

I'm not comparing diseases. I'm using it as an example of "overwhelming success". I can't think of many others. Maybe SARS-Cov-1, where we don't have a vaccine but was eradicated entirely by social distancing.

Re: Coronavirus
 

Just received some Rapid Antigen tests in case I need them. Are these lateral flow tests?

Ironically, there's a small leaflet in them that says they were made in China.

Re: Coronavirus
 

https://www.england.nhs.uk/2021/06/n...are-expansion/

https://www.itv.com/news/2021-06-07/...ovid-every-day in

Re: Coronavirus
 

Success is measured by the attainment of targets. Smallpox was eradicated; that was the aim. In that instance the aim was absolute so the measure of success is arguably binary. If you set out to eradicate something you either succeed or you don’t.

This year the aim has been to deliver an effective vaccine to enough people, with enough speed, to break an epidemic and the pressure it has placed on our health service. I am not aware of anyone inside or outside of government who has made any serious suggestion that the present vaccination programme could, or would, eradicate covid.

Given that we have empirical data showing how fast a covid vaccination programme can reasonably be conducted (as the whole world is doing it), including ample data for how our peer group is performing, and increasing evidence that the link between infection and serious illness has been broken, “overwhelming success” is not an unreasonable conclusion and “reasonably successful” looks precisely like what it is - sour grapes from someone who is hard-wired to detest anything achieved by the British state.

Re: Coronavirus
 

If you want to highlight how successful it's been we're 2nd only to Israel in fully vaccinated people per capita: https://ourworldindata.org/covid-vaccinations

Recently overtaking the United States who've also had a fantastic rollout in recent months.

Re: Coronavirus
 

They are indeed the famous Lateral Flow Tests. Very easy to use to be honest. We get through loads in our house as my kids do tests for school and my wife and I have done a few for work reasons.

These kits were designed by Innova They are made for the NHS by Xiamen Biotime in China which is fun! Even more fun is that Xiamen Biotimes webiste is blocked by my works web filtering software as it thinks that this is a gambling site :D

Re: Coronavirus
 

Thanks for confirming ��

The conspiracy theorists will probably say that China introduced Covid in order to sell us these. Whilst I think that there is a good chance that China are responsible for this virus coming from a laboratory, I doubt it was done on purpose. They just don't want to admit it to save face & paying out a hell of a lot of compensation.

Re: Coronavirus
 

I mean that second sentence is pretty much an evidence led worldview. Nobody else is planning to infect millions of school kids without mitigations.

Overwhelming success is attainable if they want to take the hard choices. Reasonable success will hopefully work and we won’t go into another lockdown in winter.

Re: Coronavirus
 

They’re no more “planning to infect” anyone with covid than they plan to infect anyone with chicken pox, a common childhood illness from which I almost died (the virus caused secondary encephalitis, necessitating a prolonged hospital stay and several months off school), yet I still understand the public health rationale for not vaccinating against it.

Your choice of words does however ably demonstrate why I characterise your viewpoint the way I do. It’s almost comically absurd.

Re: Coronavirus
 

I really don’t think that any reasonably neutral person would agree with you to be honest.

I don’t really consider the chicken pox analogy comparable. In any way, shape or form. If children become a reservoir for a further new variant which pushes the efficacy of the Oxford vaccine even lower with grave consequences for health and the economy then it will have been completely avoidable. And you’d still defend them at all costs.

Re: Coronavirus
 

In terms of likelihood, the virus being engineered is very unlikely. If it was, then Chinese scientists would be world stars in virus engineering and would also be world stars in vaccine development.

Could it have leaked? Possibly, it's happened before in the UK with Foot and Mouth. However, it would still be unlikely - if any one knows how to contain viruses, it would be a Virology Institute. Coronaviruses, especially unknown ones would be handled in a BSL-3 lab which is pretty tight.

My thoughts - it's just one of those things. SARS-COV2 came from an area where novel Coronaviruses pop up all the time

Re: Coronavirus
 

Apparently, we are going to get a flu jab in one arm & a covid booster in the other this year.

Re: Coronavirus
 

Re: Coronavirus
 

Not sure about that - China is dependent on the rest of the world buying the goods they produce; disrupting that is sub-optimal for their economy.

https://santandertrade.com/en/portal...ade-in-figures

Re: Coronavirus
 

I don't think there is much logic for China to have intentionally released it.

I do think there is coherent logic that they were researching coronaviruses and it somehow leaked, in that scenario it makes sense to cover it up obviously.

That said some of the arguments seem to mix up cause and effect. I.E People find it a remarkable coincidence that it just happens that a lab studying coronaviruses is in the city in which COVID-19 started. Apparently, this region of China is a hotbed of coronaviruses so it would make sense both a new variant of the virus and a lab studying them would be there.


Wuhan is also a city of 11 million people so there is plenty of reason that a new virus would emerge from such a city and not that much of a concidence it has scientific institutions there. It's not as if this is Oxford University and a virus family they're studying just happens to emerge from Oxford.