RandoEFC

I hate that the thought even crosses my mind but is there any potential for some cloak and dagger BS to have happened on the UK's part to try and hoard more vaccine? I would like to think that the powers that be in the UK wouldn't sink that low but the way some of our MPs have been casting this as some sort of Vaccine World Cup now that they've finally found something that they've got ahead in, I wouldn't put it past some of them. Surely there's no way they could actually do that without breaking contracts or international agreements of some description? Just a question, I'd hate to be accused of peddling conspiracies... There's been some murmurings in the UK about supply as well. There was something on Twitter about places in Yorkshire not getting as much vaccine as some places down South, some local MPs got involved and the local journalists defended themselves, seemed to be a North/South divide angle to it again but I never found the original story - I don't know if anyone else did? How does this square with the original numbers? Not enough testing carried out on this age group? Hardly gardening weather this time of year anyway .

I wonder why that's happened yet the UK seem to just be fine?

I'm not sure about that, I know the science is conflicting and that the recommendation is to do it after 3 weeks, and that it's a bit of a gamble on the UK's part, but there's no evidence that 8-12 weeks reduces the effectiveness of the process, it's just a bit of a gamble because the evidence that it does work isn't as well established. If the Dutch scientists had firmly established that it was the wrong thing to do, I think we'd have heard more about it by now. That said, I wouldn't be surprised and it would be entirely in keeping with the UK's approach so far if people who had received their second dose after 12 weeks were picking up the virus and passing it on later this year.

Firstly, you don't know this. Secondly, even if it's true, being in prison for the rest of his life is a greater punishment than being put out of his misery.

What the hell is Europe doing with the vaccines? Some countries on track to take 4 years to get the job done. Are governments fucking things up or is this just how lucky we are to have the NHS? Or a bit of both?

I went to go and start watching these during the original lockdown but F1TV doesn't work in the Isle of Man .

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/healthandwellbeing/bulletins/coronavirusandthesocialimpactsongreatbritain/22january2021 You can see here that ONS suggest public compliance remains high. Long article but the main points: This week, over the period 13 to 17 January 2021, based on adults in Great Britain: Yet polling shows the public are increasingly blaming each other more than the government for the increases in cases, deaths, hospitalisations. It's a stark reminder that British people don't need to be asked twice to get cross at each other and blame each other for stuff. A real shame and arguably a product of years of grooming by popular newspapers to scapegoat each other for all the bad in our lives. Our media including social media are a lot more likely to project stories about people having house parties or breaking the rules than they are to go on at length about the government bringing in or lifting restrictions at the wrong times. I don't know if it's the same in other countries or whether they show a bit more solidarity. That said, there isn't a lack of acknowledgement that the government have handled the crisis poorly.

I'd love to see more stuff set in this world but they've got to be careful on the fan service that blighted the final two seasons because if they go too far with it the first spin off will flop and that'll be it. Stick to the story telling, politics and character development that made it great in the first place.

I like a lot of this guy's stuff. This has to be the best rant about Trump I've heard to date.

This thread is a year old tomorrow.

Yeah, I don't think US and UK politics have really ignored change that much, things are always dawdling along in the right direction when you have a pretty boring mainstream leader. Racial equality, gender equality, women's rights, LGBT rights, trans rights, all of these things have improved in our lifetimes and will continue to improve. That's not to say that all of those things have reached a good or even acceptable level, but they tend to plod along in the right direction even under Republican/Conservative leadership. Trump is the obvious exception which is why I'm just slightly reluctant to pray for a real out-there progressive Messiah type. If someone comes in and promises the world and under-delivers (or even if they do deliver to be honest) it makes me think now that 'the right' in the US in particular will use it as ammunition to respond by bouncing back to another Trump type and I don't know if I have it in me to watch another 4 years of that. I don't know, for me it's just you'd rather accept guaranteed slow progress than reach too far and end up with the one step forward, two steps back Obama-Trump decade model. I think you're right about the stagnation though, and if Biden delivers the kind of boring, centrist Presidency that quite a lot of people think he will, then I'll be back on your side on this when everyone's had a chance to get over the Post Trumpatic Stress Disorder and things have settled down a bit. Yeah, maybe. Lots of hurdles to overcome. I just think in the current climate that it's hard for the left wing political parties to convince the public that they actually want to help them. Marcus Rashford is a good example from the past year. He never would have had as much cut through as he did if he was a Labour politician because of the 'bloody Marxists' rhetoric in the UK that the right-wing press finally managed to get to stick when Corbyn was the leader. Maybe the US is different.

There's a very decent chance that this might not be Gavin Williamson's fault but still, another DfE screw up on his watch to add to the old CV.

I think we've seen enough evidence over the past decade that boring politics is better than identity politics. A real liberal revolutionary would be great but that's a once in a lifetime thing if you're lucky enough to find someone that's both capable of delivering a better life to a lot of people in a major way, and also capable of convincing enough of the sceptical public to give them the opportunity. Biden is an unexciting President beyond the fact that he isn't Trump but until you find the occasional person who's going to do something really special and successfully break the status quo, that's what you want. A boring person with standards and principles who just gets on with the nitty gritty of running the country. I know we've all been inspired to different extents in recent years by Jeremy Corbyn or Bernie Sanders but every time you elect someone like that who's hated rather than begrudgingly tolerated by the 45% of the electorate that didn't want them, you get a massive backlash like you did with Trump following on from the first black President in the US eight years later. A few years of steady, middle of the road, competent governance is what the US are crying out for at the moment. Two weeks ago there were domestic terrorists storming government buildings with guns and cable ties. You can't understate just how volatile things have gotten in the US. I'm not saying things would necessarily go that way if it was a significantly left-wing President who is the next one they get when they want to shake up the establishment but that's why a lot of people voted for Trump, because he was different from the hopeless, dry, established political order. There's a lot to be said for boring politics in my opinion. Especially in the US, the President should be a unifying figure. Your revolutionaries are better off making a difference from outside of government to be honest.

Being jealous of America if only for a day feels a bit mad as I'd forgotten it was even a thing. I can't even think of another vote since I was really an adult that's gone the way I'd hoped. An election result all the way across the world really shouldn't have a profound effect but I do feel a palpable sense of relief that this chapter in the horror of 2010s politics is over.

He's gone.

The WHO had a word about richer countries hoarding the vaccines the other day. At this point it's obvious that supply and demand, and the logistics of transporting and storing the Pfizer vaccine in particular are the forces at work. However, I'm not having that when we reach a point where over 50s and front line workers have been given the jab, summer's on its way and we begin to transition slowly back into a normal way of life again, that it's beyond the capabilities of richer, Western governments (and Russia, China, South Korea etc.) to designate a certain portion of their vaccine supply to go to countries that are still on their vulnerable groups and health workers having been crowded out early on, even if it isn't directly at the behest of Presidents/prime ministers. I don't expect it to happen but that's the conversation we're having. If indeed supply is still the limiting factor at the point where the vaccine can either go to a mid-30s office worker in the UK or a front-line medic in a third-world country, it's obvious where it should go if we're talking about the greater good yet for reasons of politics and geography, it'll go to the wrong person. This conversation is about whether there's a viable solution to that. You don't have to stop the vaccination process in the UK until all over 60s in the world have been vaccinated or something, but it would be wrong to still expect to be treated with the same urgency when it comes to supply. In my naive, ideological little bubble, I'm just saying it would be nice, and surely achievable for something like G7 countries agreeing to cut their vaccine supply by 33% when they've reached certain targets (over 50s, healthcare workers, police, teachers and lecturers, whatever) so that developing countries can start their vaccination programs in earnest. If that's truly too much to ask of the world then it's a sad indictment of our priorities.

@Steve Bruce Almighty I'll apologise in advance if this is a needlessly confrontational retort but the unfairness of this sort of thing winds me up and knowing how many people out there (not you) think it's just fine that people in other countries should lose out just because of where they were born winds me up more. My world view is unrealistic, but I don't think you shouldn't therefore hope to see what you want from the world, and I don't think it would be too much to ask to see the green shoots of better global strategy and cooperation in future to emerge from what we've faced over the past year.

Sounds like you completely missed the point of my post because decrying the lack of international leadership isn't viewing the world through a broken lens. With the communications and technology available to us we should have done better than this across the world, and we should be trying to do better in the vaccination phase. I'm not an epidemiologist or a WHO expert so I'm not going to pretend to understand all the logistics, but someone should be shouting from the rooftops for the WHO or the G7 to at least signal some sort of plan to look beyond their own countries, even if they only do so once they've got their own house in order. My point was about the lack of a global approach to a global problem. This pandemic has exposed massive flaws with how we work together in the face of shared adversity. Throwing a bit of pocket change at the WHO as an after thought isn't really enough. Luckily you can rely on a vaccine to dig us out of the hole here, but 9 months into the pandemic the best we came up with was more or less each nation taking a complete scatter gun approach to their own testing and tracing programs, their own border controls, their own lockdown rules, and let's just hope the scientists pull through with a vaccine. I'm talking about genuine global leadership. The WW2 example is merely the closest thing I can think of to what I'd like to see. Countries in the strongest position stepping up and leading a global effort. Of course it's completely different and there's loads to it and of course it can't be simplified down to easy comparisons to irrelevant historical events, but I want to see the countries that have the political and financial grunt to do so take this issue by the scruff of the neck for once and help put out this fire across the world after they've dealt with their own back yard.

It's not up for debate. Not an opinion, simply a fact, that vulnerable people and health care workers in other countries should get the vaccine first. I expect nothing from the US or UK under current leadership but hopefully there will at least be some compassion from the EU or somewhere else. I know what the arguments will be. "The sooner we can get Brexit done Britain vaccinated, the sooner we can get the economy up and running again and that will put us in a better position to help our friends around the world. No questions, thanks." The media will just take that as an answer and then not ask about it when we do fuck all to help. This argument actually has some value and I'd take it if I believed that we'd take advantage of our position as the early "leaders" of vaccination among major nations by using our head-start to start forming a plan to help poorer countries at least get started on their vulnerable groups. I don't think the pressure is there though nationwide because we obviously need to "look after our own (unless they're undernourished and impoverished children)". It's really disappointing. If only some of those that call themselves 'world leaders' would actually act like world leaders instead of just looking after their own interests. There's been an increase in hubristic nationalism over the past decade and leaders who want to call themselves and their country 'great'. In the UK, many of us fetishise Churchill as a modern Great British hero, none more than the current Prime Minister. My parents' generation have grown up believing that Churchill was great because he made Britain win the war, because he allowed post-imperialist Britain to believe that we're still just somehow great for being British. World War 2 wasn't about Britain, it was about civilised society saying no to Hitler's values and Churchill's greatness derives from his position as one of or the key figurehead of this movement. Any leader of note who led a concerted effort towards global vaccination would instantly go down as the greatest leader I've seen in my lifetime. The lack of a coordinated global strategy in this day and age has been pretty abysmal throughout the pandemic. More or less every major country has curled up in its shell and just tried to wait it out. The WHO haven't really helped with mixed messaging throughout. It won't happen in my lifetime but at some point humanity is going to have to accept the next phase of globalism which is to start looking at the whole world as 'the hive' instead of just your own country. We'll come out the other side of this pandemic eventually, but one area of lasting damage has been the loss of 2 years' serious conversation about climate change. Covid-19 has been almost like a test run for how the world faces a global crisis and we've failed miserably by failing to collaborate with each other effectively. Climate change is the next global crisis that requires international coordination to overcome instead of individual countries making empty promises about "net-zero by 2050" designed for political gain over practical solutions. We need to sort our shit out because you can't vaccinate against a climate crisis once you've shit the bed and let it run riot throughout the world like you can with a virus.

Concerning. I'm cautious in saying so but I think Trump has pretty much shot his bolt now. He's chosen the legal protection of making public statements that cover his backside instead of continuing the incitement. But the damage has been done, so it remains to be seen now how extreme the actual reaction is and to what extent these armed riots actually go ahead.

There is much more to it than this. First off, the right information is out there, literally everywhere. I haven't had to read an academic paper to relay what I told you, it's on Sky News and the BBC literally every day for the past year. If you're curious about the different measures that I described you can look it up pretty easily and find the information I posted above. I follow a lot of news and politics stuff on Twitter so maybe I know a bit more than the average Joe but the people who spout the shite we're talking about have chosen to commit to the conspiracy that the mainstream media, or the 'lamestream' media as many of them call it, are complicit in the con. Don't ask them what the conspirators' motivation is, because they can't name it. They've been given the information and rejected it. This isn't like Brexit, where the right information was drowned out by the shouting of lies and false rhetoric by a number of prominent and reputable public figures to the point that you could understand why a lot of people voted for the option of something that was clearly worse. This is people rejecting cold, hard facts that every reputable source is in agreement on. And there are plenty of phone-ins where people ring in with this nonsense and get taken apart. More of them prefer Twitter and Reddit where they can block people who rip them to shreds with science and evidence or hide in a sub-reddit of like-minded dangerous individuals, that's the bigger problem. I honestly wouldn't waste your time and energy worrying about these people. Give them the facts, that's all you can do, if they reject the facts then it's time to move on and it's on them if life teaches them the hard way the lesson of listening to science and people who actually know things. I am interested to know, though, what the take of the world's leading psychologists is on why people end up in this hole. I'm yet to see a convincing explanation but the best one so far is that people in the Western world especially have just lived such a comfortable life and taken it for granted for so long that they're simply incapable of processing this lose-lose scenario where lockdown is terrible, but not having lockdown would have even more terrible consequences.

By how much? Less than a thousand and that's being generous for me. Roughly 1% of people might have died anyway, I wouldn't even say that much. That's not enough to cede ground to the anti-sciencers I'm afraid. It's a method of counting that includes a small but acceptable and insignificant possibility of error which is quite common in statistical analysis.

Honestly I can't remember which measure the UK government uses but the number of people we're talking about is so small that it makes no significant difference. It's just one of the straws they clutch at, all the morons who have spent January deleting their tweets from the summer about how there wouldn't be a second wave and the government have no reason left to take away their fweedom anymore.