nudge

Just to clairify, that's Astrazeneca's data - the German expert panel is simply claiming that there's no proof of efficacy in over 65 age group because of lack of data; they are not claiming the efficacy is 6%!

Handelsblatt still stand by their claim, despite everyone (including German government) denying the 8% figure, so I honestly don't know what to think. You'd think that the biggest business and financial publication in the country would have enough statistically and mathematically literate people to evaluate the numbers before posting something as controversial? But take a look at the table in the twitter post I just copy pasted, the confidence interval of the over 65 group clearly indicates lack of data, but the calculated efficacy based on existing data is 6% - that maybe the source of Handelsblatt claims?

In the interview with AZ's CEO I posted earlier, I really didn't like the way he answered the question about vaccine's efficacy in older age groups. He denied the reports that it's only 8%, but failed to provide any actual number, even if a very preliminary one from the new trials, and just kept on talking about immunogenicity instead. Also, while I agree that the EU placed their order later and thus shouldn't expect same delivery times as the UK, there are still quite a few questions regarding the supply and delivery times that AZ hasn't answered clearly, either. All these recent developments are very worrying indeed. While I think it is highly unlikely that the AZ vaccine is not working in those over 65, the lack of transparency is far from ideal, and the apparent rise of "vaccine nationalism" is the last thing we need right now.

Such a huge loss for the motorsports community, especially junior formula RIP.

This is the reason why the first astronauts who went to the Moon had to spend a month in quarantine after they returned...simply to avoid bringing any extra-terrestrial microorganisms back to Earth. That of course was a bit over-cautious, but in a hypothetic scenario where we make contact with alien life forms, quarantine and other preventative measures would definitely be high priority. It works both ways though, we want to protect other planets from contamination as well. Robotic spacecraft gets sterilised before leaving Earth for this reason. Planetary protection is an important principle in space exploration.

Is there beer on Mars? I DON'T THINK SO!!!

I second @Stan's recommendation for Stellarium, it's the best app for this purpose, in my opinion. I bought a SkyQuest scope a few months ago, but even a pair of decent binoculars is a huge step up, and it's by far more convenient (and much cheaper). Can see soooo many objects with it.

Could be Spica! It's a blueish star (actually two stars, but indistinguishable) Virgo constellation, very bright, and should be seen in the east-southeast at this time of the year.

Current life is very unlikely indeed, but signs of life that has potentially existed there millions of years ago... That would be huge! I hope they find biosignatures in solar system during my lifetime, and if I had to bet, I'd bet on Europa!

A very interesting interview with the CEO of AstraZeneca: https://www.repubblica.it/cronaca/2021/01/26/news/interview_pascal_soriot_ceo_astrazeneca_coronavirus_covid_vaccines-284349628/ "Anyway, we didn't commit with the EU, by the way. It's not a commitment we have to Europe: it’s a best effort, we said we are going to make our best effort. The reason why we said that is because Europe at the time wanted to be supplied more or less at the same time as the UK, even though the contract was signed three months later. So we said, “ok, we're going to do our best, we’re going to try, but we cannot commit contractually because we are three months behind UK”. We knew it was a super stretch goal and we know it's a big issue, this pandemic. But our contract is not a contractual commitment."

They race them so hard!

Evil

It's not you're just messing with me

No they don't!

I have bad news for you...

You should probably catch up on Snowpiercer... I watched the new episode such a loooong time ago, I can barely remember it!

Not gonna lie, it makes me hungry for a proper schnitzel

Looks very nice! Chicken, right?

I assume that's the reason why the EU now wants transparency and is pushing AstraZeneca to reveal how many doses were produced in their EU supply chain and where those doses went... All speculation at this point; could be actual production issues, but it appears that the European Commission wasn't satisfied with AstraZeneca's explanations, and I've also heard suggesstions that a part of those vaccine doses intended for the EU were sold to the UK and US instead - but as you said, no evidence so far, so just pure speculation. I honestly don't like where it's all going. Yeah, the sample size in their trials was too small and didn't reach statistical significance to draw any conclusions, so there's pretty much no efficacy data for this age group. The report in Handelsblatt cites undisclosed sources in the German government, so it's a bit vague, but they are a serious and quite trustworthy newspaper, normally. There are other media reports now also claiming that EMA will only approve the vaccine for those under 65 only. Frankly, efficacy of only 8% seems unlikely to me, can't see there being such a huge difference between the age groups.

According to Handelsblatt, AstraZeneca vaccine is only 8% effective in population over-65 Would be a huge blow.

Different supply chains. EU Commission seems to imply that AstraZeneca sold the doses intended for EU to somebody else.

It's a bloody disaster, isn't it? Both Oxford/AstraZeneca and Pfizer seem to be unable to respect the initial contracts. Pfizer has shortages now but they are expected to be temporary, and they said they will reach their goal of their Q1 deliveries nevertheless (we'll see about that...). As for Ox/AZ... The EU has ordered 400m doses from them early on, with a 100m doses promised to be delivered in Q1 of 2021, and now they are saying that it'll likely be just 40m at best because of "a production error". That's less than a half, and considering that it's supposed to be distributed between the countries, that's frankly a laughable amount. This whole thing is doing my head in.

He's on loan from Juventus, so can't say much. Barely seen him play, as I don't tend to watch many WSG games...