When will this shit end?

[kalifire]

When is Johnson giving his announcement today, anyone?

[gigpusher]

1 hour ago, Toilet Duck said:

So, the simplest explanation of how our immune systems work goes something like this…There’s two broad arms to our immune systems…innate and adaptive. Innate is non-specific and targets any kind of infection and parts of the innate system teach the adaptive part how to specifically recognise a given infection.

Within our adaptive immune response we have 2 main types of immune cells (really there’s loads more to this, but I’m simplifying it!)…T cells and B cells. T cells do lots of things, but for our purposes here, the two important things are (1) they teach B cells how to make antibodies that target the virus (these are called helper T cells, and they are the guys that HIV infects, hence the immunosuppression associated with HIV infection) and (2) they also destroy cells that are infected with the virus (these are called cytotoxic T cells). When the virus infects our cells, the spike gets chopped up inside our cells and displayed on the surface of the infected cell for our immune system to recognise and the cytotoxic T cells see it and kill the infected cell. The key thing here is that there are currently about 90 different parts of the spike that our T cells can recognise in order to kill infected cells, so that’s an awful lot of changes required to completely evade that part of our immune system.

Once the helper T cells teach B cells how to make antibodies, the B cells churn them out. There’s different types of antibody made (1) Neutralising antibodies that interact with the part of the spike that facilitates entry into our cells (so when the antibody is bound to these parts of the spike it blocks viral entry and without entry, the virus can’t replicate) and (2) binding antibodies that interact with other parts of the spike. They don’t stop the virus from binding to our cells, but virus coated with binding antibodies is snaffled up by the non-specific parts of our immune system and again, the virus is killed.

What we have seen so far in terms of antigenic drift (changes in the spike) are mutations that interfere with how well neutralising antibodies can bind (from the perspective of the virus, this is where the greatest pressure is, evade that and you can replicate…making people sick is not required for this virus as it can spread via speech, laughter etc from the upper airways, it doesn’t need a cough to get back out of the lower respiratory tract)…but changes that impact on binding antibodies are not so common. The other changes we are seeing in the variants are alterations that get the virus into our cells more efficiently…so it’s optimising itself to get past the neutralising antibodies, get into our cells, replicate and get back out quickly. In order to completely evade the immune response generated by the vaccines, it would need to change about 90 different parts of the spike and in all likelihood, if it did that, the spike would be unlikely to still bind ACE2 and the virus would function completely differently. It’s not impossible, but it’s highly unlikely. 

Thanks have you thought about doing these kind of explanations with animations and selling them to governments around the world to send out as public service announcements. I feel like there is a real lack of understanding around the vaccines and what they do which drives a lot of the increase in infections to begin with. So many people have already completely abandoned social distancing etc. 

[efcfanwirral]

3 minutes ago, kalifire said:

When is Johnson giving his announcement today, anyone?

5 o clock press conference apparently

[BobWillis2]

Mathematician Pagel on the BBC spreading lies this morning. 
 

“We’re 75% of the way through our vaccination program I’d like to finish it before we open up fully which is exactly what Israel did” 

 

 

 

[Fuzzy Afro]

David Schneider has been an absolute nobody for years. The total definition of yesterday’s man. 

[Ryan1984]

2 hours ago, andyrhodes24 said:

Twitter was a glorious place last night with all the stuff about the German football GoFundMe until someone started retweeting countless anti-unlocking/Fake Sage posts onto my timeline. It put a right downer on proceedings!

The last I saw was the creator of the fundraiser hasn’t been in contact with the girl or her family? Did anything happen after?

[kalifire]

1 minute ago, Fuzzy Afro said:

David Schneider has been an absolute nobody for years. The total definition of yesterday’s man. 

Quite the fall from grace though, given the seminal comedy he used to be involved in.

[philipsteak]

So as I mentioned yesterday I'm currently having to isolate after being pinged on the app. Along with two other colleagues who also got pinged over the weekend. One from a contact on Monday and two (me included) from a contact on Wednesday. I was at work on Wednesday, around a lot of people so I could well have come in to contact with someone, but very unlikely to have been in contact with someone for any length of time. Isn't it supposed to be 15 minutes? The weird thing is my colleague (and housemate) was off on Wednesday and didn't leave the house. He barely left his room (he very much celebrated England's win over Germany) so how did he get pinged?

[philipsteak]

8 minutes ago, Fuzzy Afro said:

David Schneider has been an absolute nobody for years. The total definition of yesterday’s man. 

So if he was on a more current show you'd be OK with his analogies? 

[Guest]

Pretty graphs.

 

[efcfanwirral]

6 minutes ago, philipsteak said:

So as I mentioned yesterday I'm currently having to isolate after being pinged on the app. Along with two other colleagues who also got pinged over the weekend. One from a contact on Monday and two (me included) from a contact on Wednesday. I was at work on Wednesday, around a lot of people so I could well have come in to contact with someone, but very unlikely to have been in contact with someone for any length of time. Isn't it supposed to be 15 minutes? The weird thing is my colleague (and housemate) was off on Wednesday and didn't leave the house. He barely left his room (he very much celebrated England's win over Germany) so how did he get pinged?

Tiny chance but maybe if he left his Bluetooth on at home, his neighbour?

[Crazyfool01]

1 minute ago, efcfanwirral said:

Tiny chance but maybe if he left his Bluetooth on at home, his neighbour?

That’s what I put me being pinged down to … I had no lengthy contacts … I think the app pinged because of contact with upstairs flat over night 

[philipsteak]

2 minutes ago, efcfanwirral said:

Tiny chance but maybe if he left his Bluetooth on at home, his neighbour?

The layout of the two houses (we only have a neighbour one side) would make it very very unlikely. And need both of them to have shit hot Bluetooth. And the house next door is only occupied part time. I'm almost certain it was empty last week (couldn't say 100%)

[jimmillen]

1 hour ago, MEGABOWL said:

The worst thing is I feel like it’s ‘my’ side trying to turn it into some sort of culture war. All these people I followed because they were smart, forceful Remainers now talking absolute bilge. Sigh.

In my experience any time you start to feel like you’re part of a “side” on social media is a good time to seek out some different viewpoints… 🤷‍♂️

It’s so easy to go down a rabbit hole of groupthink. I was 100% guilty of this during Brexit. Still totally think it was a terrible, terrible thing to happen. But a lot of the Twitter comments and opinions I kind of bought into at the time were in retrospect pretty useless.

[Fuzzy Afro]

It’s becoming quite clear that the choice of whether to wear a mask or not after 19th July is going to be the biggest virtue signalling culture war of the year 

[Guest]

7 minutes ago, philipsteak said:

The layout of the two houses (we only have a neighbour one side) would make it very very unlikely. And need both of them to have shit hot Bluetooth. And the house next door is only occupied part time. I'm almost certain it was empty last week (couldn't say 100%)

Maybe he’s been doing a Matt Hancock? 😉

[DeanoL]

2 minutes ago, Fuzzy Afro said:

It’s becoming quite clear that the choice of whether to wear a mask or not after 19th July is going to be the biggest virtue signalling culture war of the year 

It's not "virtue signalling" when it's actually being virtuous is it?

[kalifire]

4 minutes ago, Fuzzy Afro said:

It’s becoming quite clear that the choice of whether to wear a mask or not after 19th July is going to be the biggest virtue signalling culture war of the year 

Is it really a thing outside social media? Out here, nearly everyone wears masks when the health advice is that we should, and most of us don’t bother when the health advice is that it’s not mandatory. As far as I can tell, it hasn’t really made any difference - outbreaks occur independently of masks and the spread wasn’t any worse when we didn’t wear them. 

EDIT: of course, it’s never been so rampant here that masks were ever truly given a chance to come into their own. It’s always been precautionary. 

Edited July 5, 2021 by kalifire

[Fuzzy Afro]

1 minute ago, DeanoL said:

It's not "virtue signalling" when it's actually being virtuous is it?

Have we got data on whether they actually work? That’s the tell tale sign on whether it’s virtue signalling pandemic theatre of a sensible measure to protect members of the public. 
 

I struggle to see why I should wear a face mask to avoid spreading a virus that I don’t have. Surely I can’t spread a virus that I don’t actually have? 

[MEGABOWL]

11 minutes ago, jimmillen said:

In my experience any time you start to feel like you’re part of a “side” on social media is a good time to seek out some different viewpoints… 🤷‍♂️

It’s so easy to go down a rabbit hole of groupthink. I was 100% guilty of this during Brexit. Still totally think it was a terrible, terrible thing to happen. But a lot of the Twitter comments and opinions I kind of bought into at the time were in retrospect pretty useless.

Yes I totally agree. Brexit was the klaxon for me on that front. Then when I saw many Corbynistas absolutely convinced they were going to win the 2019 election because of the numbers he had at rally’s and the size of their Twitter echo chamber. Since then I’ve been trying really hard to mix up who I follow and it’s made it more interesting, even if it’s also left me with a feeling of political homelessness. 
 

Ultimately it’s down to personal choice but if you only see people that agree with you on Twitter (or even worse, block those who think differently) you aren’t seeing the full picture and are going to get a shock at some point.

[jimmillen]

7 minutes ago, Fuzzy Afro said:

It’s becoming quite clear that the choice of whether to wear a mask or not after 19th July is going to be the biggest virtue signalling culture war of the year 

As per their previous form, the trailed approach by the government to this could almost be calculated for maximum divisiveness. 🙄

A PM with some level of moral authority might have a hope of leading the majority of people to not act like dicks, wear masks if appropriate and genuinely take personal responsibility. 

This lot? No chance. 

[balthazarstarbuck]

26 minutes ago, philipsteak said:

So as I mentioned yesterday I'm currently having to isolate after being pinged on the app. Along with two other colleagues who also got pinged over the weekend. One from a contact on Monday and two (me included) from a contact on Wednesday. I was at work on Wednesday, around a lot of people so I could well have come in to contact with someone, but very unlikely to have been in contact with someone for any length of time. Isn't it supposed to be 15 minutes? The weird thing is my colleague (and housemate) was off on Wednesday and didn't leave the house. He barely left his room (he very much celebrated England's win over Germany) so how did he get pinged?

Mrs S’s sister is still shielding as vulnerable. Hasn’t left her flat; no way she could have been in contact with anyone, still got pinged last Thursday and told to isolate for 7 days. Would imagine it was from a flat above or below but nigh on impossible to have actually caught it.

I’ve deleted the app as a result. 

 

 

[Fuzzy Afro]

Just now, jimmillen said:

As per their previous form, the trailed approach by the government to this could almost be calculated for maximum divisiveness. 🙄

A PM with some level of moral authority might have a hope of leading the majority of people to not act like dicks, wear masks if appropriate and genuinely take personal responsibility. 

This lot? No chance. 

Isn’t that exactly what’s happening though?

 

As far as I can tell the government is basically saying “We aren’t going to fine you for not wearing them anymore, you can come to your own judgement on when, if at all, they should still be worn, however we still advise that they should be worn in enclosed public spaces.”

 

The messaging is hardly going to be “burn your face nappies and shag grannies”

[andyrhodes24]

39 minutes ago, Ryan1984 said:

The last I saw was the creator of the fundraiser hasn’t been in contact with the girl or her family? Did anything happen after?

Search his name, Joel Hughes, on Twitter, true or not it's quite the turn of events. He's gone private now but all hell broke loose last night. Trending #2 in the UK at one point

[zahidf]

7 minutes ago, balthazarstarbuck said:

Mrs S’s sister is still shielding as vulnerable. Hasn’t left her flat; no way she could have been in contact with anyone, still got pinged last Thursday and told to isolate for 7 days. Would imagine it was from a flat above or below but nigh on impossible to have actually caught it.

I’ve deleted the app as a result. 

 

 

They are removing the check in requirement for venues aren't they? Seems pointless using it for the next 2 weeks tbh