SARS CoV-2 coronavirus / Covid-19 (No tin foil hat silliness please)

[Wolverine]

Just note to say that PPE is still comparably pretty basic for most staff in the NHS. Coveralls China-style should ideally be the norm for all healthcare workers in all any form of contact with covid patients + hoods or N95 or FFP3. But we have to make do with visors, flimsy aprons and surgical masks for covid patients unless its in ITU or wards with aerosol generating procedures.

I mean not complaining too much, there was a time we were asked to consider recycling or reusing the stuff. And a lot of community based healthcare providers/teams had to source some of their own materials.

Can't put a number on what the right amount is for that provision is, but I'm not certain its been a personal protective panacea for the NHS.

 

[0le]

Does anyone know what page in the thread that figure was posted which showed a cartoon representation of lockdowns and people who think lockdowns were useless because the death count was low?

 

[F-Red]

Stop attaching 3.4 Billion items to the £21m. They’re not linked. At all.

I'm not trying to link them, it's getting context of the numbers. £21m when the country is spending £15bn on supply is not outrageous for supply of product in global demand.

My mate runs the SE Asia division of Kuehne & Hagel.

Another friend is head of procurement for NZ Hospitals.

I have a half-decent second-hand understanding of procurement and logistics. I’m nowhere near an authority.

But £21m for a single stage procurement is a ransom. Not a fee.

If you have friends in all those high procurement places, then you'll understand that £21m isn't a huge sum of money in that procurement context for high demand products, volumes on a national/global level, and needed urgently.

The discussion for me is whether the NHS had the right procurement lines in the first place. It's well known that the NHS procurement framework prohibits competition even when it's not in pandemic mode. The wider issue was EU's competition laws were relaxed in the state of a pandemic, going the other way we would have had more rhetoric about red tape procurement stopping front line workers getting the PPE they need.

I have bigger issues with the Pestfix's of the world than brokers/agents of Far East factories. Considering the guy has clear links to fashion factories and was procuring gowns/gloves (not masks), the focus for me is on these new companies set up in the UK who were supplying goods that weren't even passing the basic checks to get it into the NHS. Money wasted for nothing.

Huh it’s not hard to find factories on Alibaba.com
Heck I registered as a company and got sent loads of catalogues from them. It’s not hard

If I can use an analogy, meant in the nicest possible way, what you've described is like taking a knife to a gun fight. Trying to procure on a national scale for billions worth of items, for rapid deployment, isn't as easy as signing up to Alibaba and paying for it via PayPal/Western Union.

 

[UnrelatedPsuedo]

@F-Red

I think we’re both getting a little protectionist of our views. We can disagree.

I see a £21m facilitation fee as a sign of ineptitude or corruption. You roll it up into the overall cost of a pandemic response.

You are 100% right if that fee saved lives.

I don’t think that fee benefited the country.

We probably never bridge that gap. I’m not saying I’m wrong or right, but I’ll stubbornly not concede any ground either.

Its all a bit fcuked and there’s no point the pair of us throwing excrement at each other.

I think my ultimate angry fall back is ‘Imagine if Labour did this’. That disparity of analysis and drama between Tory large scale feck up and Opposition low grade drama... it irks me.

 

[F-Red]

I think my ultimate angry fall back is ‘Imagine if Labour did this’. That disparity of analysis and drama between Tory large scale feck up and Opposition low grade drama... it irks me.

I'm fine with your opinion, and I actually agree in some respects when you look at it in isolation, especially with the governments form. For me the £21m is them paying a market rate of a pandemic, and the PestFix issue is by far the more corrupt elements of procurement which need fully scrutinised and uproar.

Labour unfortunately would have been in the same boat in March, and would have been paying the same rates for procurement for gowns/gloves. Commoditised products don't discriminate by political leaning sadly.

 

[RedRover]

Not an attack On you, but this is insanely naive.

A Spanish guy in Florida that trades in jewellery, has better access to latex glove and surgical gown suppliers, than the UK Government?

Think about what you’re saying. One inexperienced jeweller in America, has £21 million pounds worth of ability to buy latest gloves and plastic gowns.

If not corruption, then ineptitude. There is no third option.

You might think that I am naïve. I have advised on contracts where agents and brokers have been paid significant sums (sometimes millions in commission over a few years) as part of ordinary deals for very ordinary textiles etc. It's not uncommon for successful people in those fields to make big money. There is even specific European legislation to deal with agency and similar types of agreements which protect people who act as introducers.

I don't know the ins and outs of this, but the article refers to his connections in China but is otherwise scant on detail. He clearly had contacts, probably from designing and flogging cheap jewellery produced in China and shipped around the world.

At the outset of the pandemic there was huge demand for PPE and limited supply. Like it or not, people who like this who can deliver (probably for a massive fee) will profiteer, in the same way that the Pharmaceutical companies will from the vaccine.

Your argument, as it stands is that it's lots of money and therefore it must be "corruption". It may well be (or indeed inept), but the article doesn't offer enough information to make that conclusion. All of these arrangements should be investigated properly, but the article itself doesn't even seem to clarify what the overall deal was worth so I'm not sure what the point of it is, other than to try and get the public riled with little context.

 

[gormless]

So I posted the below in the vaccine thread but it got lost as last message on the page. Anybody able to enlighten me.



Hypothetically, if the vaccine has mutated to not have an S protein and this was then found in a small percentage of people, would this be an absolute disaster for the vaccines?

 

[RedRover]

Come on, are you telling me the U.K. couldn’t get another middleman to get/source PPE for less than 20m consultant fee? What kind of world do you live in. It’s not acceptable. I wouldn’t be surprised that it comes out in the wash that he’s connected to someone in the Tory party.

I have no idea, and seemingly neither does the person who wrote the article and that's largely my point.

Sadly, the world I live in is one where people who don't do a lot, get paid a lot because they have the right contacts and can put people over a barrel. I see it regularly in the field I work in, albeit on a smaller scale.

As I say above, all of these kinds of deals should be investigated but the procurement of PPE, which will save lives (or, more accurately cost lives if it's not obtained) was clearly vital. For the record, I think the Government have handled this whole thing appallingly, but I would have some sympathy if in a world where everyone is trying to get their hands on a limited supply of desperately needed items like this, they had to pay over the odds. If that was the case (and I don't know that) then I would actually say they probably made the right decision.

I hope all of these deals get properly looked into because its hard to conclude anything other than nepotism across the board. If it is that, fine.

 

[UnrelatedPsuedo]

I'm fine with your opinion, and I actually agree in some respects when you look at it in isolation, especially with the governments form. For me the £21m is them paying a market rate of a pandemic, and the PestFix issue is by far the more corrupt elements of procurement which need fully scrutinised and uproar.

Labour unfortunately would have been in the same boat in March, and would have been paying the same rates for procurement for gowns/gloves. Commoditised products don't discriminate by political leaning sadly.

Yep. I’m with you too on the internal award stuff like Pestfix. There’s clear line of sight to wastage. Through whatever means.

A Labour government casually paying £21m to an unknown entity would see a full court press from the Daily Mail, Sun, Express, Times, Telegraph...

The gap in response level is horrifying.

 

[UnrelatedPsuedo]

As I say above, all of these kinds of deals should be investigated but the procurement of PPE, which will save lives (or, more accurately cost lives if it's not obtained) was clearly vital. For the record, I think the Government have handled this whole thing appallingly, but I would have some sympathy if in a world where everyone is trying to get their hands on a limited supply of desperately needed items like this, they had to pay over the odds. If that was the case (and I don't know that) then I would actually say they probably made the right decision.

This is the thing. An acknowledgement of errors is a sign of good governance. That’s not happening.

Front foot this mess. Explain why it happened. Apologise. Tell the public why it won’t happen again.

 

[Drifter]

Tweet

— Twitter API (@user) date

 

[Tibs]

Hypothetically, if the vaccine has mutated to not have an S protein and this was then found in a small percentage of people, would this be an absolute disaster for the vaccines?

Quoting to increase visibility - is this possible through mutation, or do Corona bugs mutate in specific ways?

 

[calodo2003]

Don't be horrible

Wait. It’s not ‘fingers crossed’ for the worst, it’s ‘fingers crossed’ that he gets through it unscathed.

 

[calodo2003]

appreciate the well wishes except for nimic. feck to socdem dogs.

on day 8 now and actually feel better than i did yesterday. cautiously optimistic.

Great to hear. Hope you are truly on the mend.

 

[calodo2003]

Tweet

— Twitter API (@user) date

Wonder how many idiots following this idiot got covid because they thought the same way as this idiot?

 

[One Night Only]

Tweet

— Twitter API (@user) date

I love these god squad nuts it's amazing people actually believe their shite.

 

[Buster15]

Yep. I’m with you too on the internal award stuff like Pestfix. There’s clear line of sight to wastage. Through whatever means.

A Labour government casually paying £21m to an unknown entity would see a full court press from the Daily Mail, Sun, Express, Times, Telegraph...

The gap in response level is horrifying.

Certainly agree with your last point.
Unfortunately, this government, which coined the phrase 'magic money tree' as a response to Labour spending plans, is spraying taxpayer money like there is no tomorrow. Some necessary, some not.
And many people have become de-sensitised to the widespread waste of money.
But just like Brexit, there will be a reckoning.

 

[golden_blunder]

Tweet

— Twitter API (@user) date

I love karma

 

[Pogue Mahone]

Tweet

— Twitter API (@user) date

 

[Pogue Mahone]

So I posted the below in the vaccine thread but it got lost as last message on the page. Anybody able to enlighten me.



Hypothetically, if the vaccine has mutated to not have an S protein and this was then found in a small percentage of people, would this be an absolute disaster for the vaccines?

Quoting to increase visibility - is this possible through mutation, or do Corona bugs mutate in specific ways?

Two things make this not a big concern. First of all, coronaviruses are fairly stable. They don’t mutate much compared to most other viruses.

The other reason is the nature of mRNA vaccines. They’re very adaptable.

The appeal of mRNA vaccines - and a key secret to their speed - is they are plug-and-play: The mRNA vehicle does not need to change, only the specific genetic instructions it carries. If the virus changes or mutates, the details of the instructions can be altered accordingly.

Taken from this interesting article on the hard work that’s gone into getting us where we are. Hard work and sacrifice by employees of evil big pharma.

Work proceeded so fast that some researchers went weeks without seeing their families. Dormitzer hasn’t seen his wife and kids since March, apart from Zoom calls.

 

[Pogue Mahone]

Tweet

— Twitter API (@user) date

This is good.

 

[gormless]

Two things make this not a big concern. First of all, coronaviruses are fairly stable. They don’t mutate much compared to most other viruses.

The other reason is the nature of mRNA vaccines. They’re very adaptable.



Taken from this interesting article on the hard work that’s gone into getting us where we are. Hard work and sacrifice by employees of evil big pharma.

I hope they’re adaptable.
Without doxxing anyone, I know someone who knows someone pretty high up... who has says they’re already seeing that particular mutation in the lab testing.

 

[Pogue Mahone]

I hope they’re adaptable.
Without doxxing anyone, I know someone who knows someone pretty high up... who has says they’re already seeing that particular mutation in the lab testing.

I think you could be a bit more specific than “I know someone who knows someone pretty high up” without worrying about doxxing someone!

Do you know what mutation he/she is talking about?

 

[jojojo]

I hope they’re adaptable.
Without doxxing anyone, I know someone who knows someone pretty high up... who has says they’re already seeing that particular mutation in the lab testing.

The mink cull in Denmark was triggered by observations on mutations in the spike protein. It looks like those mutations weren't significant enough to stop the current trial vaccines from working. The worry is that at some point they might jump again, hence the need for culls and a lot of vigilance. Is that the speculation you're talking about?

 

[Tarrou]

So should he be working for free then? End of the day we wouldn’t have PPE if it wasn’t for his services. Left wing Caf at it again.

The £21m figure is probably not unreasonable given the scales involved, but why on earth is a jewellery designer brokering deals for the NHS?

I mean the NHS spends £100bn a year you'd think they have direct relationships to all major suppliers. And if they didn't, they have such enormous buying power they don't need to pay a finders fee. I don't understand the business obviously but I just find it really weird.

 

[gormless]

I think you could be a bit more specific than “I know someone who knows someone pretty high up” without worrying about doxxing someone!

Do you know what mutation he/she is talking about?

Keeping it as vague as possible: my colleagues partner has been on conference calls with people who have been in the Downing Street news conferences and is involved in the testing process.

my colleague dropped it in passing today that they’ve seen a small percentage of cases in testing without the S protein.Then she started talking about I’m a Celebrity and said she hadn’t asked anything further regarding this.

I’m hoping it’s a miscommunication, but sounded pretty significant to me.

 

[gormless]

The mink cull in Denmark was triggered by observations on mutations in the spike protein. It looks like those mutations weren't significant enough to stop the current trial vaccines from working. The worry is that at some point they might jump again, hence the need for culls and a lot of vigilance. Is that the speculation you're talking about?

Can’t seem to multi quote on my phone but see my other reply. Doesn’t seem like it, but I’m hoping it’s a miscommunication

 

[Andy_Cole]

The £21m figure is probably not unreasonable given the scales involved, but why on earth is a jewellery designer brokering deals for the NHS?

I mean the NHS spends £100bn a year you'd think they have direct relationships to all major suppliers. And if they didn't, they have such enormous buying power they don't need to pay a finders fee. I don't understand the business obviously but I just find it really weird.

This is a very fair comment. I disagree about direct relationships with suppliers though. Their relationship will be with agents.

 

[Tony Babangida]

Keeping it as vague as possible: my colleagues partner has been on conference calls with people who have been in the Downing Street news conferences and is involved in the testing process.

my colleague dropped it in passing today that they’ve seen a small percentage of cases in testing without the S protein.Then she started talking about I’m a Celebrity and said she hadn’t asked anything further regarding this.

I’m hoping it’s a miscommunication, but sounded pretty significant to me.

I don’t think the virus could lose the spike protein all together. Perhaps they were talking about the small deletion in the spike found in some mink strains. I think I remember seeing that this has also been picked up independently of mink.

 

[Tarrou]

This is a very fair comment. I disagree about direct relationships with suppliers though. Their relationship will be with agents.

This is probably a dumb question but why do you need agents if your buying power rivals any company in the world?

Surely suppliers will be desperate to have a direct conversation and strike a deal? At the end of the day, no business wants to use an agent and pay extra fees if they can avoid it

 

[Pogue Mahone]

Keeping it as vague as possible: my colleagues partner has been on conference calls with people who have been in the Downing Street news conferences and is involved in the testing process.

my colleague dropped it in passing today that they’ve seen a small percentage of cases in testing without the S protein.Then she started talking about I’m a Celebrity and said she hadn’t asked anything further regarding this.

I’m hoping it’s a miscommunication, but sounded pretty significant to me.

It does sound like a miscommunication. The most worrying mutation I’ve heard about was the mink one. Which was a mutation that affected the spike but certainly didn’t get rid of it altogether. Without the spike protein it’s almost a different virus. Can’t imagine it could be as infectious/dangerous with a mutation that drastic because the spike is needed to bind to our cells. Hence its a target for vaccines. They’re targeting the bit of the virus that is most critical for its function.

 

[Pogue Mahone]

I don’t think the virus could lose the spike protein all together. Perhaps they were talking about the small deletion in the spike found in some mink strains. I think I remember seeing that this has also been picked up independently of mink.

It’s infected people working in/near mink farms in Denmark. I haven’t heard of it spreading anywhere else yet. Have you?

 

[jojojo]

Keeping it as vague as possible: my colleagues partner has been on conference calls with people who have been in the Downing Street news conferences and is involved in the testing process.

my colleague dropped it in passing today that they’ve seen a small percentage of cases in testing without the S protein.Then she started talking about I’m a Celebrity and said she hadn’t asked anything further regarding this.

I’m hoping it’s a miscommunication, but sounded pretty significant to me.

That just sounds like an output from this kind of work:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...ations-which-cause-treatments-to-lose-potency

That leads to results like this mentioned in Nature

Since the start of the pandemic, researchers have identified thousands of viral mutations in the genomes of SARS-CoV-2 samples taken from infected people. David Robertson at the University of Glasgow, UK, Gyorgy Snell at Vir Biotechnology in San Francisco, California, and their colleagues examined a mutation called N439K in a protein that the virus uses to invade cells (E. C. Thomson et al. Preprint at bioRxiv https://doi.org/fhnp; 2020).

They have to monitor changes, but it's the specifics of the changes that matter, when it comes to things like vaccines etc. If it starts mutating as fast as flu does (which it hasn't done so far) it might mean vaccine cocktails that get updated every year, like with flu. Or it might even make it less deadly. Either way, they have to keep looking.

 

[Tony Babangida]

It’s infected people working in/near mink farms in Denmark. I haven’t heard of it spreading anywhere else yet. Have you?

No- I was wrong, double checked and I was thinking of the N439K mutant, not the short deletion.

https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.11.04.355842v1

 

[giggs-beckham]

If we have a vaccine which is around 95% effective why can't it be given to the 5-600 people a day that are on deaths door?
It must be more complicated than that i know, but if my mum was on a ventilator with days or hours to go and the doctors said well we've this vaccine but it hasn't been wide spread tested over a long period of time, I'd say give it to her. But again I guess its more complicated than that I just don't see how...

 

[NinjaFletch]

If we have a vaccine which is around 95% effective why can't it be given to the 5-600 people a day that are on deaths door?
It must be more complicated than that i know, but if my mum was on a ventilator with days or hours to go and the doctors said well we've this vaccine but it hasn't been wide spread tested over a long period of time, I'd say give it to her. But again I guess its more complicated than that I just don't see how...

Because it's a vaccine, not a treatment.

They've already got it and their body is already producing antibodies to fight it. Giving them a vaccine is going to do nothing.

 

[Compton22]

If we have a vaccine which is around 95% effective why can't it be given to the 5-600 people a day that are on deaths door?
It must be more complicated than that i know, but if my mum was on a ventilator with days or hours to go and the doctors said well we've this vaccine but it hasn't been wide spread tested over a long period of time, I'd say give it to her. But again I guess its more complicated than that I just don't see how...

Vaccine is a prevention of disease, not a cure unfortunately

 

[hobbers]

If we have a vaccine which is around 95% effective why can't it be given to the 5-600 people a day that are on deaths door?
It must be more complicated than that i know, but if my mum was on a ventilator with days or hours to go and the doctors said well we've this vaccine but it hasn't been wide spread tested over a long period of time, I'd say give it to her. But again I guess its more complicated than that I just don't see how...

A vaccine cant provoke the immune system any more than the actual disease does. And if it's at the point of being on a ventilator and probable organ failure there's nothing that can be done.

 

[sglowrider]

Wrong if you mean 'truthful'. Right if you mean 'official'.

Those two things don't necessarily coincide when it comes to matters of saving face for the CCP.

CCP! You drank the Koolaid? The virus doesn't have a political bias.

In an authoritarian society, it's just easier to do lockdown and do mandatory masking and social distancing. They sent in the army to both do mass testing and enforce lockdowns. The army can swoop in and do 10 million tests on a city.

Singapore has nearly 60,000 cases and only 28 deaths to date.

The inability to do lockdowns or enforce measures like masking/social distancing and a disproportionately higher death count is the price of perceived freedom and liberty. Own it.

 

[sglowrider]

Just note to say that PPE is still comparably pretty basic for most staff in the NHS. Coveralls China-style should ideally be the norm for all healthcare workers in all any form of contact with covid patients + hoods or N95 or FFP3. But we have to make do with visors, flimsy aprons and surgical masks for covid patients unless its in ITU or wards with aerosol generating procedures.

I mean not complaining too much, there was a time we were asked to consider recycling or reusing the stuff. And a lot of community based healthcare providers/teams had to source some of their own materials.

Can't put a number on what the right amount is for that provision is, but I'm not certain its been a personal protective panacea for the NHS.

I have a friend on the frontline in Singapore -- they are decked out in a full kit -- from shoe covers to N95s to face shields, aprons etc every time they see a potential patient.

If they have to pee then they have to remove everything and replace it all. The Health Minister told them that they will not cut any corners to protect the healthcare workers. Lessons learnt from the previous epidemic, SARs.

So she could potentially change a full kit four times per shift -- and the supervisors will not blink an eyelid.