Chat about Novel Coronavirus - 2019-nCoV - COVID-19

Purely anecdotally there seems to be a lot more road works than usual

TfL pulled out of all road works about a week ago. I doubt many of the utility companies are doing anything other than emergency works.

Add on Taiwan to that list

Some types of disposable masks have a use-by date but hey are being tested after that to check still effective. If they fail they are destroyed, if passed they can get relabelled with new use by date

Yes. That’s a reasonable assumption. They won’t be getting worse.

Not entirely true. Have seen reports of people leaving hospital then relapsing-on post on Twitter today said a 25yr old was discharged then died of organ failure.

Edit-also saw in the report on Sweden that some people are being released into care homes again then dying, but not being recorded as Covid deaths.

🤷‍♂️

What vaccines? theirs or all? What tech platform are they using? Who are these experts? Why is it difficult?

I'm pretty sure I could go out and find a couple of examples from experts stating the full range of right around the corner to impossible. Without context it's meaningless.

HS2 at Ruislip re-started last week.
So far hgvs bringing in aggregate for the construction/haul road parallel to
the ChilternLine.
CS jv, (Costain Skanska jv) the 'enabling works' contractor is close to completing,
and,
Strabag Costain Skanska the Tunnelling contractor is gearing up on site,
but reputedly the tunnel boring machine has not yet been built.

Biological research is rarely definitive, and experimental evidence for a particular model can often be considered more or less convincing at best. It is the very nature of science that most models are merely "works in progress" which only remain valid until they are supplanted by a refined model or are proven wrong and discarded.

Scientists are human and like politicians like to be highly regarded and right. Those who shout loudest, have most personality, access to press output, have their views aired most and unfortunately given more prevelance.

There has to be an arbiter, unfortunately our is a bumbling narcissist.

While there are lots of facts and figures and comparisons being made across countries, none whatsoever have been set with the base level of reference points so none can be taken as such. Apples and Oranges, or maybe more Cox and Pink Lady.

My completely uneducated 2d worth:-test, track and trace is the way forward. If folks getting it now, how and where did they catch it from? supermarket, hospital, park, bus.... Then we would find out what is working and what isn't. I can easily relate my wherabouts for the last 3weeks, so if I should succumb, it wouldn't be hard to correlate with others who may also have succumbed.

Enough, i've got an oil change to do.

Some scientists at Oxford uni have said the if their vaccine is effective that they can show efficacy and safety in clinical trials and manufacture 1million doses by September. Knowing a little bit about clinical research I don't see how this is possible. They could manufacture the doses at risk now and have them ready for when they get reg approval. I don't see how you can dose enough volunteers and let them have enough time with the vaccine in their system to show it's safe and have time for a proper review of the data and clinical outcomes by regulators in 4-5 months.

Not knowing much about PPE, I couldn’t understand how some of our stocks had expired. Latex gloves was about all I could come up with!?

I've got a packet of 2 dust masks I bought when putting some loft insulation in many years ago which are marked as expired in 2014. My other half wore one to Sainsbury's last week and it seems okay but the elastic in the straps is most of the way to perished. If you have ever stretched an old elastic band only for it to snap and crumble then that is what it feels like it is about to do.

I can imagine things like gowns have similar issues with cuffs etc.

Is there any major work on infrastructure like roads + rail going on during this period?

Not sure about major, there are quite a few roadwork still going on (and completed).

Not to mention the changing of guidelines to make it look like we've got enough PPE. That is absolutely crazy.

According to wife, you can't speed up the clinical trial times, but you can remove every single "red tape" barrier or paperwork queue from in front of a covid-19 vaccine trial.

That speeds up the process a fair bit.

Remembers those trials where people exploded.

https://twitter.com/tb_doc/status/1251962957933752320

This is likely very unusual.

If you have tested possitive for covid and die within 30 days of that you are recorded as dead because of covid regardless of your death circumstances. Maybe even if you are in a traffic accident (tho im not sure about that .) ) but this is what we are beeing told at least.

Northwick Park hozzie - wasn't it?

Well

Monoclonal antibody

you can take greater risk for speed. That would include a lower 'red tape', less subjects and less time each subject is exposed before a decision is made.

Lower barrier = less certanty = greater risk.

In good old 'Murica they are pushing through the Keystone XL pipeline while the lockdown rules mean no-one can protest about it. So there's that.

Speed of clinical trial is defined by trial design and recruitment rate.

You could design a 3 week study of 100 subjects that simply gives them the potential vaccine and checks for antibodies. Who the fuck wants to scale that up to 1 billion doses tho. Eek

Someone on radio "an expert" when you go to trial, you also go into production, lessens the time to set up for that. If it trial fails, stop production, Go back to step one..

As I said, manufacture at risk. How much world capacity do you think we have to manafacture vaccines?

Construction works and small shop opening restarted here today. Roads back at (I’d guess) 50% of normal morning levels. Oddly lots more people obviously deciding that if builders and shop workers can go back then they can go back to the office. Interested to see how that works out as the official advice is we need to isolate and maintain social distancing.

I've read the Times article about what was happening in January and February. Just wondering if you still thought the same.