Carbuncle

A small correction: Nadine Dorries' quote (at least according to the BBC) was actually ambiguous: "I have known Stanley for 15 years. He is a gentleman. It never happened to me. Maybe there is something wrong with me." In reference to the last sentence: (1) Is she ruing the fact that a possible sex pest in her circle may not find her attractive: or (2) Deciding Stanley Johnson cannot be a sex pest because he didn't assault her; or (3) Accepting in a rare moment of self-awareness that her powers of logical deduction may have failed during the first three sentences of the quote. Ms Dorries certainly delivered good value with this particular quote.

It's what gullible conspirasheeple call normal people.

Under your 'theory' of viral transmission how does ventilation help? Are there bad things in the air? How did they get there? I'm asking for a friend.

We are not gullible conspirasheeple and therefore know about asymptomatic transmission.

I don't think the civil law would be much help. "Damages" are limited to the value of the damage (you can prove) you have suffered. The relevant branch of law is called tort law. For a start, take a look here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tort .

Chinese GDP growth has been slower since the start of the pandemic.

What kills and is spread by gullible conspirasheeple?

I am not fighting Boris's corner nor that of the MSM. I think both those parties have behaved poorly. Boris in particular should be held responsible for the death of tens of thousands who did not need to die. The MSM should be holding him responsible.

Same nonsense as usual. I am not particularly trusting of the MSM and Boris is a versatile liar.

Nope. You can be challenged on the street by the same people.

Ah, sorry. I thought you were saying the shop could have a rule saying 'we can search customers" and that would override their customers' rights to say 'no' to shop staff searching them.

It was the starkest example I could think of how it cannot be right as a general principle to allow contract law to modify criminal law.

Maybe this might help: https://www.inbrief.co.uk/offences/security-guards-shoplifting/

Yes, but their rules would not over-rule the criminal law. You could for example agree (say by entering a shop) to abide by their rules including to being searched upon exit. When it comes time to exit, you say 'no thanks' I do not wish to be searched and if they search you they would be committing an assault. Of course, if you say 'ok' at the exit then they can search you. Of course the police do have powers of search under prescribed conditions. A more fruity example: a man hands over money to a prostitute who agrees to have sex with him. She then declines to have sex thus breaching their contract. Were he to attempt to have sex with her despite her not consenting he would be guilty of rape or attempted rape. He can take her to court for the return of his money but neither he nor the court can insist she have sex with him.

I wasn't kidding but if you notice I pointed out that tops (top4718) had behaved badly. For what it is worth you have posted two bits of supporting evidence (the Spectator graphs recaptioned from a research paper and the Ioannidis paper) which did not support what you were saying. The Ioannadis paper is (1) junk and (2) does not say what you implied it said. My junk claim is not on the basis that I, an anonymous poster, have examined his analysis and in my opinion it is flawed but rather that his main conclusion (p10) that infection fatality rates (IFRs) are much lower than generally thought at less than 0.2% for most places is off, way off. My reasoning is that quite a few places (including the UK and US) have lost greater than 0.2% of their entire population to covid and some places have lost very considerably more than 0.2% of their entire population. You yourself have suggested an (unvaccinated) IFR of 0.5-1%. Suspicious right? You're quoting a paper to establish a particular fact but if you had paid close attention you would know that the paper was simply not consistent with your own broad outlook. Secondly you had been asserting that poorer countries have had lower IFRs because of younger populations. I said we don't really know they have had lower IFRs. You said "The 1 in 450 IFR figure [from the Ioannidis paper] was for countries with young age profiles, where have you seen stats which say it is lower (i.e. worse) ?" But now, after a severe prodding, you are saying that (p7) of the paper gives a figure of approximately 1/450 ... except now it is not for poorer countries in particular. So a paper that has proved to be wrong in its conclusions, contradicts your own broad outlook on IFR also fails to do the specific job you intended for it which was to support your contention that poorer countries have had lower IFRs. Do you see why I might suspect that you had not read the paper? It is of course tedious to work through a sequence of posts in the way I have just done when one could adopt the charitable explanation that you (or I) have made a minor slip. Unfortunately, its your slip and its one of a number and I am not feeling particularly charitable on account of seeing tops behave badly over a significant period.

Right now? No, I do not think the new variant weighs in that calculation ... at the moment. I see our current situation as precarious with a lot healthcare capacity being lost to covid and a concern that the situation could potentially rapidly deteriorate but that is because of delta. The stuff on the new variant is largely speculative although the travel restrictions seem reasonable. There are lots of mutations, particularly in the spike protein so it creates a worry about vaccine effectiveness but interestingly the variant has first appeared in southern Africa where there is less evolutionary pressure from vaccine-induced immunity so I would be equally worried about loss of infection-induced immunity.

As a relatively newcomer to the thread has Chekhov read much of the thousand pages or so of past comments and references? We have seen the pattern where a poster makes a comment and links to supposedly supporting material which the poster has not in fact read ... a lot. Tops used to do it a lot. He was copy-and-pasting from covid sceptic sites and often he had not understood even the material on the covid sceptic site. Of course, one should be more forgiving if it is a mere one-off slip as opposed to systematic bad behaviour. I tend to give posters the benefit of the doubt when they first post though I am prepared to go to the other extreme and talk nonsense as a way of "mocking" posters once it becomes clear they really are behaving badly as opposed to for example making mistakes. I put mocking in inverted commas because is it really mocking when both parties are in fact transparently speaking nonsense?

The 1 in 450 IFR figure was for countries with young age profiles, where have you seen stats which say it is lower (i.e. worse) ? Have you actually read/ skimmed the paper you linked to?

It's all in here, though there may be more recent research of anyone has time to look it up : WHO / Stanford study : https://www.who.int/bulletin/online_first/BLT.20.265892.pdf I think the Stanford study estimated the death rate per infection at about 1 in 450 but that was for (or included) poorer countries ? I find it hard to believe that you have read both my post and the paper you have linked to since the paper seems to have no connection to my post. I would also note with suspicion that the author of the paper is John Ioannidis. He's famous enough that I have heard of him for two different things. One claim to fame relates to a paper he wrote: "Why Most Published Research Findings Are False". By a curious irony, his other claim to fame relates to a paper he wrote early in the pandemic in which most of the research findings were, according to the consensus view amongst experts, false. That paper was on the same theme as this paper and came to similar conclusions. You seem to have misremembered the 1 in 450 or at least I couldn't see it. Be that as it may we now know this paper's conclusions are junk because the population fatality rate for many countries now exceeds his computed infection fatality rate and by some margin. This should never happen!

I suggested your argument was a strawman. You have found somebody, Mike Buckley, who made the argument. To which I can only reply: who the **** is Mike Buckley? Painting your toenails pink absolutely does not stop covid. Oh, you didn't say that ... well my friend Jen did so I am going to argue against it rather than addressing the points you have made.

I have looked at the graphs. One thing I would say is that the labeling the Spectator has put on these graphs seems unhelpful and is easily misinterpreted so you may want to look at the original paper. They pose no problems for my understanding of how cause and effect is working in regards to suppression.

It's a thing, but whether is is worthwhile is another thing entirely. I do not believe (2) can occur, and neither do most "experts", certainly not by vaccination anyway, so. ironically, if you think we should be going for herd immunity the only other way is by infection, and therefore trying to suppress Covid is working against you for that ! (1) well yes that is obviously correct, how is that different from what I have said ? But, bearing in mind vaccines are not that effective at stopping infection, you will stand a better chance of achieving that by, ironically, more people catching Covid Slow down there. I asserted a few posts back that (2) crossing the herd immunity threshold is what did for the classic and alpha variants. Are you prepared to accept that? [You suggested that they had been out-competed by delta which as far as I can see is not an explanation for classic and alpha being (virtually) eliminated other than through the workings of herd immunity.] In reality, I think essentially all eliminations of a virus (variant) can be interpreted as arising through crossing a herd immunity threshold. [I am not asserting covid will be eliminated this way. I am uncertain whether covid will be eliminated in the next few decades, though I think most probably it will not.]

Bloody hell, I find myself agreeing with @The_DADDY . I don't want random or indeed systematic spot checks. My privacy is important. If you don't have reasonable suspicion go away. If you do have reasonable suspicion call the police. Agreeing with @The_DADDY ..., I need to lie down.

This is a strawman. I just asked you to acknowledge that herd immunity (my usage) is a thing. But you are jumping ahead and talking about suppression. For what it is worth, suppression obviously does work at least in the short term. Every time the restrictions were tightened in 2020 the trajectory of daily case counts responded after a short lag. Yes of course turning society upside down has costs. On the other hand, choosing to lockdown early if you are going to have lockdown at some point gives a fairly straightforward gain. Are you arguing there should never have been a lockdown? Now how about acknowledging that herd immunity (my usage) really is a thing.

@Chekhov , this is ridiculous. You are attributing things to us we have never said. You are arguing with strawmen.