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When will this shit end?


Chrisp1986

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Btw this is a spreadsheet of some of the awards given from the arts council. Seems to be a skewing to high art or expensive art (as was predicted) theatres being prioritized over indy cinemas. In face very little help for stuff like cinemas, except a thing called "secret cinema" a once a year event, that charges 60 pounds a ticket. Deffo hearing some of the highest awards have gone to establishments with tory ties to. 

also the geographical bias  yet again - "leveling up"

Edited by ace56blaa
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37 minutes ago, Toilet Duck said:

FWIW, I'm hearing rumblings from a virologist mate in Chicago with his ear to the ground that they are expecting the Pfizer vaccine to be 70-90% effective based on emerging data (he'd seen the pre-clinical data and was impressed by it, I've looked at some of it in their protocol filing to the FDA (as well as the Moderna data) and it does look good alright, though the real details are in the investigators' brochures which haven't been publicly released). That would be a big deal and would allow them to reach their primary endpoint in the trial with as few as 50 events (it was originally powered for a vaccine that was 50% effective, so needed 150). They are expecting to roll out vaccinations to frontline and high risk individuals in the US in January and have the entire US population vaccinated by June. Now, if this was the pyramid headliners thread, I'd be dismissing all this as unsubstantiated rumours (or wishful thinking!), so make of it what you will!. On that front though, BioNTech (the company that designed the Pfizer vaccine) acquired a Novartis manufacturing facility in Germany a few weeks ago and will be able to churn out 750m doses per year from it. It was recently refurbed at a cost of over €100m, so it needs very little re-tooling to get up to speed (they say they can deliver 250m doses for the EU in H1 2021, double that in the second half of the year). Even a vaccine with 50% efficacy changes everything (flu shots are about 30% effective in bad years). The nice thing is, there's a lot more than one that we are pinning our hopes on (and actually, the vaccine portfolio that the UK government has backed is probably one of the best things they've done in handling this pandemic...good broad range of different technologies, and it's unlikely (though not impossible) that all will fail). One way or another, we are entering into the next phase of how all this is managed. 

Right, cool...so best option now is to keep with the lockdown restrictions as much as possible because vaccines are on there way.

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30 minutes ago, shoptildrop said:

Whilst not Glastonbury news it's a bit of good news!!

Bearded theory was awarded one if those art grants to keep them going which is good news :)

Awards also to Black Swan Arts, No23 Bath Street, and the legendary Cheese & Grain......all in Frome 🙂

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5 minutes ago, ace56blaa said:

 

Btw this is a spreadsheet of some of the awards given from the arts council. Seems to be a skewing to high art or expensive art (as was predicted) theatres being prioritized over indy cinemas. In face very little help for stuff like cinemas, except a thing called "secret cinema" a once a year event, that charges 60 pounds a ticket. Deffo hearing some of the highest awards have gone to establishments with tory ties to. 

also the geographical bias  yet again - "leveling up"

To be fair - some of the London ones are promoters e.g. https://www.metropolismusic.com/artists/  who just happen to be registered there - and they look after some of the biggest acts in the country so there's £200k that isn't just geographically based. It probably needs a bit more digging into for other such instances

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Just now, tigger123 said:

That’s worrying, I thought Devon was one of the areas with lowest case numbers as well. 

Exeter numbers were rising ... case numbers might be smaller but don’t forget the capacity in some of the hospitals might not be as large as elsewhere ... so lower numbers would reach capacity more quickly 

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6 minutes ago, Ozanne said:

Some worrying news about hospitals filling up and scaling back on non-COVID services. 

4D1BE585-D695-4B8F-A820-CEED7FD34BE4.jpeg

This needing to send staff from hospitals to Nightingales thing (thereby making them completely useless, just another money funneling scheme) is one of the biggest scandals yet hasn't had much coverage (alongside the "stay at home til you can't speak" advice which clearly will be responsible for many more deaths than were necessary)

All because our health system doesn't have enough capacity due to cuts

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23 minutes ago, Fuzzy Afro said:

Pfizer looking like the favourite now then? Might buy some shares in them.

 

Does that vaccine provide full sterilising immunity or would it need to be given out annually? 

I'd be surprised if we get any vaccine from the first batch that provides sterilising immunity, so repeated doses probably required (It's not impossible mind you, but more likely that it will offer some reduction in transmission, but mostly benefits in terms of disease...big question now is does it help prevent long COVID as well? focus in earlier studies has always been on pneumonia, understandably, but there's other things we need to look out for now). The guy I was talking to was in the US, so obviously they've believed that Pfizer and Moderna were the front-runners for a while (helped of course by the FDA continuing to pause the Oxford/AZ trial!). Novavax, J&J, Merck, GSK/Sanofi all have vaccines either in or entering big trials now. These are the major players in vaccine production and make most of the vaccines we currently use, with the manufacturing and logistics to roll out huge numbers, so the market for COVID vaccines is about to get pretty crowded. Different ones may well work better in different populations, some of them are easier to ship and store and would be more useful in developing countries, some only need a single dose, so there's probably room for a bunch of them (and of course there's billions of people that need them!).

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I think what people don't get is that those of us pushing for more restrictions are doing so *because we want to be able to go out again*. We want to be able to go to pubs, theatres and gigs but while there's a deadly disease going around outside, we don't fancy taking our chances. If they opened everything up today, we wouldn't go out. Probably not for a couple of years, to be honest. Or at least until we could actually get the vaccine.

Whereas if we can lockdown shorter term, keep things under control, and get a vaccine out to the vulnerable, then we'll likely feel like its safe to go out much earlier.

So all this quality of life, mental health, lets get back to gigs and pubs and stuff people are arguing for.... they're arguing it for themselves. If lockdown was lifted I would personally end up locked down, not doing any of this stuff, for longer. Yes, that would be my choice. But there are loads of people like me. I know there are. But the problem is, you don't see them. Because they're staying in. So by definition you will not see them. How do I know?

Because the pubs aren't full.

Pubs are at 50% capacity and you can still get a table. In pubs that are usually rammed. Where is the demand? Where are the stories about people queuing up outside of pubs to get in? Where are the complaints that everywhere is booked up? There aren't any. At the 50%-ish capacity pubs have been able to open at, they can cope with demand. That demand won't magically go up if the flood gates open and they can go to 100% capacity. If anything, demand will drop because those who feel the current pub model is "safe" may not feel the same way about them opening up 100% again.

This is the problem. You need people like us, the people staying in at the moment, to make these businesses viable. Because they represent a very large portion of their regular customers. You need to figure out how to get us on side because if you can't it doesn't matter what the government restrictions are. We're staying in until the numbers go down, so that's what we really need to focus on - getting the infection rate down again.

Edited by DeanoL
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1 minute ago, Toilet Duck said:

I'd be surprised if we get any vaccine from the first batch that provides sterilising immunity, so repeated doses probably required (It's not impossible mind you, but more likely that it will offer some reduction in transmission, but mostly benefits in terms of disease...big question now is does it help prevent long COVID as well? focus in earlier studies has always been on pneumonia, understandably, but there's other things we need to look out for now). The guy I was talking to was in the US, so obviously they've believed that Pfizer and Moderna were the front-runners for a while (helped of course by the FDA continuing to pause the Oxford/AZ trial!). Novavax, J&J, Merck, GSK/Sanofi all have vaccines either in or entering big trials now. These are the major players in vaccine production and make most of the vaccines we currently use, with the manufacturing and logistics to roll out huge numbers, so the market for COVID vaccines is about to get pretty crowded. Different ones may well work better in different populations, some of them are easier to ship and store and would be more useful in developing countries, some only need a single dose, so there's probably room for a bunch of them (and of course there's billions of people that need them!).

Are we still looking at getting the Oxford trial results within the next couple of weeks?

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Politicians in Germany are urging their government to extend this year’s Christmas holidays by several weeks in order to shield people in family bubbles for as long as possible and delay the risk of super-spreader events at schools in the new year.

Christoph Ploß, a delegate for Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) from Hamburg, told Bild newspaper that students could be better protected from the virus if the Christmas break were to be delayed “by two to three weeks”. The summer holidays could be shortened in turn, the conservative politician suggested.

Another CDU delegate, Stephan Pilsinger, proposed extending the Christmas break even further, by up to four weeks.

Germany has seen a surge of infection numbers with the onset of the cold season, with the country’s disease control agency recording 4,122 new infections over the last 24 hours.

 

We should do that here!

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6 minutes ago, JoeyT said:

Are we still looking at getting the Oxford trial results within the next couple of weeks?

I'd be surprised if we get anything in the next couple of weeks, this side of Christmas more realistic to be honest. You never know though, if they exceed their efficacy targets, then they need fewer events and the EMA and MHRA are reviewing in real time, so anything is possible. Hold tight, the cavalry is coming!

 

Edit: Though as I finished typing that, I just got an email indicating that the J&J trial has paused...expected to restart imminently, but need to investigate an unexplained illness (it's still good see standard procedure for developing these vaccines being adhered to).  

Edited by Toilet Duck
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6 minutes ago, Toilet Duck said:

I'd be surprised if we get any vaccine from the first batch that provides sterilising immunity, so repeated doses probably required (It's not impossible mind you, but more likely that it will offer some reduction in transmission, but mostly benefits in terms of disease...big question now is does it help prevent long COVID as well? focus in earlier studies has always been on pneumonia, understandably, but there's other things we need to look out for now). The guy I was talking to was in the US, so obviously they've believed that Pfizer and Moderna were the front-runners for a while (helped of course by the FDA continuing to pause the Oxford/AZ trial!). Novavax, J&J, Merck, GSK/Sanofi all have vaccines either in or entering big trials now. These are the major players in vaccine production and make most of the vaccines we currently use, with the manufacturing and logistics to roll out huge numbers, so the market for COVID vaccines is about to get pretty crowded. Different ones may well work better in different populations, some of them are easier to ship and store and would be more useful in developing countries, some only need a single dose, so there's probably room for a bunch of them (and of course there's billions of people that need them!).

Should we be worried about the pause in the J&J vaccine trial or is this similar to what happened with the Oxford vaccine last month? 

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2 minutes ago, SheffJeff said:

Should we be worried about the pause in the J&J vaccine trial or is this similar to what happened with the Oxford vaccine last month? 

Was literally just typing that as you posted! Standard protocol and good that corners aren't being cut. Some vaccines won't make it, it would be entirely unprecedented for all of them to work, but there are enough at phase 3 now for more than one to make it over the line (based on normal attrition rates). 

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43 minutes ago, ace56blaa said:

except a thing called "secret cinema" a once a year event, that charges 60 pounds a ticket. Deffo hearing some of the highest awards have gone to establishments with tory ties to. 
 

Secret cinema isn't once a year. They do lots of stuff. Maybe look it up?

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1 minute ago, Toilet Duck said:

Was literally just typing that as you posted! Standard protocol and good that corners aren't being cut. Some vaccines won't make it, it would be entirely unprecedented for all of them to work, but there are enough at phase 3 now for more than one to make it over the line (based on normal attrition rates). 

Out of upvotes but thanks as always.

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