On Sat, 10 Jul 2021 08:59:52 +0100, Tom Gardner
<spamjunk@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:

>On 10/07/21 05:16, Anthony William Sloman wrote:
>> On Saturday, July 10, 2021 at 1:46:35 AM UTC+10,
>> jla...@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
>>> On Fri, 9 Jul 2021 12:15:24 +0100, Tom Gardner <spam...@blueyonder.co.uk>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> On 09/07/21 10:49, Anthony William Sloman wrote:
>>>>> On Friday, July 9, 2021 at 12:47:26 PM UTC+10, Sylvia Else wrote:
>>>>>> On 08-Jul-21 1:15 am, Rick C wrote:
>>>>>>> Vaccine skepticism is going to kill people. I think this is not
>>>>>>> news to anyone who can see the progress of the pandemic without
>>>>>>> injecting their own personal bias. I still have not found a lot of
>>>>>>> hard numbers to analyze, but I've read some articles that seem to
>>>>>>> be making a case that the delta variant is spreading rapidly in
>>>>>>> areas of the country where vaccination rates are low while the
>>>>>>> infection rate numbers are dropping in the areas of the US where
>>>>>>> the vaccination rate is high.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Denial is not just a river in Egypt.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>> "Think of it as evolution in action." (Oath of Fealty, Niven and
>>>>>> Pournelle)
>>>>>
>>>>> Pournelle was a thick-eared right-wing thug. He died in 2017. He was
>>>>> knowledgeable about quite a few areas, but his politics were
>>>>> antediluvian, which isn't uncommon in science fiction writers.
>>>>
>>>> Too many of them were influenced by Ayn Rand.
>>>>
>>>> I was never impressed by Pournelle, esp. his Chaos Manor column in Byte.
>>>> It seemed as if he didn't understand something immediately, then it had
>>>> to be crap. Mind you, that kind of reasoning does appear to be a typical
>>>> libertarian attitude.
>>>>
>>>> OTOH, he did write The Mote in God's Eye - with Larry Niven. Where Niven
>>>> posited libertarian views, he did have the decency to consider the
>>>> negative consequences of then.
>>>
>>> SF was and is juvenile fiction. I spent my allowance on electronic
>>> magazines.
>>
>> Some science fiction was written for the juvenile market - none apparently
>> juvenile enough to appeal to John Larkin.
>>
>> There's more serious stuff around. John Larkin likes Jane Austen, Dorothy
>> Sayers and Wodeshouse. If he likes Wodehouse, he ought to like Terry
>> Pratchett, whose fantasy novels follow closely in the same tradition, but
>> Terry Prachett knew a lot more about science than Wodehouse ever did, and
>> that may have worried John Larkin, who doesn't.
>
>I can't stand Sayers; she was a snob whose characters were
>designed to appeal to readers that thought good breeding was
>more important than competence gained through hard work.

But she was a very good writer. She worked in an advertising agency
and invented the Gunnness toucon. She wasn't so much a snob as a
critic of snobs. She sure did a job on Wimsey's brother the Duke and
his wife and a number of other twits. Harriet was a working girl and
was very (as in five years) resistant to marrying Peter precisely
because of his "good breeding." The main character in her mysteries,
Peter, was a soldier and a building contractor and an amateur
detective. His nephew, heir to the dukedom, died flying a Spitfire in
the Battle of Britain.

Pratchett gets tiring fast; not something to re-read.

--

John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc

The best designs are necessarily accidental.

On Sunday, July 11, 2021 at 1:00:53 AM UTC+10, jla...@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
> On Sat, 10 Jul 2021 08:59:52 +0100, Tom Gardner
> <spam...@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:
>
> >On 10/07/21 05:16, Anthony William Sloman wrote:
> >> On Saturday, July 10, 2021 at 1:46:35 AM UTC+10,
> >> jla...@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
> >>> On Fri, 9 Jul 2021 12:15:24 +0100, Tom Gardner <spam...@blueyonder.co.uk>
> >>> wrote:
> >>>
> >>>> On 09/07/21 10:49, Anthony William Sloman wrote:
> >>>>> On Friday, July 9, 2021 at 12:47:26 PM UTC+10, Sylvia Else wrote:
> >>>>>> On 08-Jul-21 1:15 am, Rick C wrote:

<snip>

> >> There's more serious stuff around. John Larkin likes Jane Austen, Dorothy
> >> Sayers and Wodeshouse. If he likes Wodehouse, he ought to like Terry
> >> Pratchett, whose fantasy novels follow closely in the same tradition, but
> >> Terry Prachett knew a lot more about science than Wodehouse ever did, and
> >> that may have worried John Larkin, who doesn't.
> >
> >I can't stand Sayers; she was a snob whose characters were
> >designed to appeal to readers that thought good breeding was
> >more important than competence gained through hard work.
>
> But she was a very good writer. She worked in an advertising agency
> and invented the Gunnness toucan. She wasn't so much a snob as a
> critic of snobs. She sure did a job on Wimsey's brother the Duke and
> his wife and a number of other twits. Harriet was a working girl and
> was very (as in five years) resistant to marrying Peter precisely
> because of his "good breeding." The main character in her mysteries,
> Peter, was a soldier and a building contractor and an amateur
> detective. His nephew, heir to the dukedom, died flying a Spitfire in
> the Battle of Britain.
>
> Pratchett gets tiring fast; not something to re-read.

To enjoy Pratchett, you have to be aware of stuff he is sending up, or playing with. If you don't know enough, you miss a lot of the jokes.
Realising that you are missing out may be "tiring".

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney

On 07/07/2021 17:57, legg wrote:
> On Wed, 7 Jul 2021 08:15:07 -0700 (PDT), Rick C
> <gnuarm.deletethisbit@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Vaccine skepticism is going to kill people. I think this is not news to anyone who can see the progress of the pandemic without injecting their own personal bias. I still have not found a lot of hard numbers to analyze, but I've read some articles that seem to be making a case that the delta variant is spreading rapidly in areas of the country where vaccination rates are low while the infection rate numbers are dropping in the areas of the US where the vaccination rate is high.
>>
>> Denial is not just a river in Egypt.
>
> We'll soon find out by monitoring the UK.
> So far >80% delta in a rising detection rate, but
> no increase in <1ppm/day fatalities.

That is misleading. UK is presently 66% of population double vaccinated
or about 80% of adults due to the age first priority rollout. The sad
thing is that the rich areas are ~80% done and poor ones ~40%.
(there is no charge for being vaccinated in the UK)

Delta was already well past 99% of all UK cases seen in late June.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jun/18/cases-of-covid-delta-variant-in-uk-rise-over-75000-phe-data

We are now watching cases rise by 1.5x per week on an almost perfect
exponential curve. It doesn't take long at that exponential growth rate
to overtop the 10x safety margin that the vaccine provides.

Hospitalisations are down by a factor of 6-10 depending on who you
believe. That buys you about 3-4 weeks before the health service
saturates completely if cases continue to rise on an exponential path.

We unlock completely a week on Monday to see what happens...
(or maybe not if the shit hits the fan first)

UK Covid cases at 100k/day is talked of as a real possibility. It is now
rampant in schools and universities and the students travelling home to
rural areas for the summer bring home unwanted gifts. It is pretty much
a rerun of the MFU that was Xmas but hopefully with somewhat fewer
fatalities.

https://www.ft.com/content/08577e07-faeb-4cd2-96ed-567151b539f6

The new "Health Secretary" is a right chancer so we are basically
stuffed. The world can probably learn from this crazy experiment and do
something else instead. Only time will tell how it pans out.

--
Regards,
Martin Brown

On 07/07/2021 16:29, Rick C wrote:
> On Wednesday, July 7, 2021 at 11:19:28 AM UTC-4, Ed Lee wrote:
>> On Wednesday, July 7, 2021 at 8:15:11 AM UTC-7,
>> gnuarm.del...@gmail.com wrote:
>>> Vaccine skepticism is going to kill people. I think this is not
>>> news to anyone who can see the progress of the pandemic without
>>> injecting their own personal bias. I still have not found a lot
>>> of hard numbers to analyze, but I've read some articles that seem
>>> to be making a case that the delta variant is spreading rapidly
>>> in areas of the country where vaccination rates are low while the
>>> infection rate numbers are dropping in the areas of the US where
>>> the vaccination rate is high.

>> Delta is rising everywhere. But relative numbers are higher in
>> lower vaccination area. Nothing new.

It would have to be a very high vaccination region to make much of a
difference. The UK is still seeing hard exponential growth of the delta
variant with some key Covid measures still in place. We are unlocking
completely a week on Monday aka "Freedom Day" thanks to Boris the moron
and Javid the chancer (the new "Health" Secretary).

> I've not seen any evidence of the delta variant rising in an absolute
> sense in the areas with high vaccination rates. Yes, the percentages
> may be rising, but that can be true even if the delta variant is
> slowing the spread rather than rising in any given area. Looking at

Are you serious? The UK has the delta variant endemic now for a couple
of months and new infections are rising exponentially with a factor of
1.5x per week. We have nominally 66% of all people double vaccinated
which seems to have broken the link between catching Covid and
hospitalisation. However, it isn't a complete solution. The young are
now heavily infected and it spreads like wildfire.

Hospital admissions remain low for the moment but it doesn't take many
weeks of exponential growth to overtop a 10x safety margin (which anyway
with the mix of vaccines in use here looks to me more like a factor of 6x).

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-51768274

See the comparative graphs of last Autumn vs present time - we have just
exceeded the Autumnal peak that triggered a lockdown by nearly 50%.

And so for good measure we will unlock completely in a weeks time to see
what happens. The Boris fancies himself as the mayor in "Jaws" who kept
the beaches open to keep on feeding the great white shark.

I am inclined to think that by the time we reach the new "Freedom Day"
(rescheduled from 21st June) UK levels will be over 50k cases/day. It
could be even higher if England win the UEFA cup tonight.

> the total US numbers involves too much averaging and mixing of
> different effects to be a useful indicator. I still have not found a
> useful source of infection rates by variant. At least not one that
> doesn't involve lots of data collection and number crunching. The

You can take a reasonable guess from the rates of infection. The delta
variant is so much more transmissible that once it gets into an area it
totally displaces even the previously most infective variants like Kent.
It represents about 99% of all UK cases now just 3 months from arriving.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jun/18/cases-of-covid-delta-variant-in-uk-rise-over-75000-phe-data

(it is an even higher proportion now)

> world-o-meter pages are fine for gross views, but continue to offer
> little detail and still proudly display collective per capita data
> rather than short term averages which is what is useful at this
> point, even without the variant data.

UK dashboard will let you see day by day. You have to look at ONS and
REACT surveys to get a breakdown by variant.

The other bad news is from Israel that they are seeing early vaccinated
people's double jab immunity begin to wane at around 6 months from the
date of the second jab. UK is presently planning a booster jab in
September for the most vulnerable in the light of this new info.

--
Regards,
Martin Brown

On Sunday, July 11, 2021 at 11:04:15 PM UTC+10, Martin Brown wrote:
> On 07/07/2021 16:29, Rick C wrote:
> > On Wednesday, July 7, 2021 at 11:19:28 AM UTC-4, Ed Lee wrote:
> >> On Wednesday, July 7, 2021 at 8:15:11 AM UTC-7,
> >> gnuarm.del...@gmail.com wrote:

<snip>

> The other bad news is from Israel that they are seeing early vaccinated
> people's double jab immunity begin to wane at around 6 months from the
> date of the second jab. UK is presently planning a booster jab in
> September for the most vulnerable in the light of this new info.

Presumably they are talking about antibody levels. The killer-T cells don't seem to go away.

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney

On Wed, 7 Jul 2021 08:15:07 -0700 (PDT), Rick C
<gnuarm.deletethisbit@gmail.com> wrote:

>Denial is not just a river in Egypt.

Racist!

On Sun, 11 Jul 2021 13:57:22 +0100, Martin Brown
<'''newspam'''@nonad.co.uk> wrote:

>On 07/07/2021 17:57, legg wrote:
>> On Wed, 7 Jul 2021 08:15:07 -0700 (PDT), Rick C
>> <gnuarm.deletethisbit@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Vaccine skepticism is going to kill people. I think this is not news to anyone who can see the progress of the pandemic without injecting their own personal bias. I still have not found a lot of hard numbers to analyze, but I've read some articles that seem to be making a case that the delta variant is spreading rapidly in areas of the country where vaccination rates are low while the infection rate numbers are dropping in the areas of the US where the vaccination rate is high.
>>>
>>> Denial is not just a river in Egypt.
>>
>> We'll soon find out by monitoring the UK.
>> So far >80% delta in a rising detection rate, but
>> no increase in <1ppm/day fatalities.
>
>That is misleading. UK is presently 66% of population double vaccinated
>or about 80% of adults due to the age first priority rollout. The sad
>thing is that the rich areas are ~80% done and poor ones ~40%.
>(there is no charge for being vaccinated in the UK)
>
>Delta was already well past 99% of all UK cases seen in late June.
>
>https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jun/18/cases-of-covid-delta-variant-in-uk-rise-over-75000-phe-data
>
>We are now watching cases rise by 1.5x per week on an almost perfect
>exponential curve. It doesn't take long at that exponential growth rate
>to overtop the 10x safety margin that the vaccine provides.
>
>Hospitalisations are down by a factor of 6-10 depending on who you
>believe. That buys you about 3-4 weeks before the health service
>saturates completely if cases continue to rise on an exponential path.
>

Fatality rates were being calculated based on detection rates +7days.
This should probably be +21days, based on previous bump.
UK detections started to rise on Dec 06 and reached 500ppm 21 days
later. Deaths did not start to rise (above 5ppm) until Dec24 and
reached 15ppm by Jan14.

Health care saturation in the west occurs above 5ppm/day.
In S.Africa and India, it's between 2 and 3ppm/day.

That may not be a useful measure in a vaccinated population, where
the age distribution of carriers has shifted downward into less
physically challenged groups.

As I recall, the delta variant was detected in India/Nepal, where
detection and death rates have actually been falling for the last
4 weeks.

This falling rate, without mass vaccination, suggests that symptomatic
cases are far less severe.

A less severe, more transmissible variant would perform, effectively,
as a naturally-occurring 'vaccine' - but the South African experience
seems to put the lie to this possibility.

South African death rates started to rise barely 7 days after the
rise in detections. SA detections have already reached the 300ppm
level peak of their Dec/Jan 'bump'.

UK test rates are also an order of magnitude higher than most other
countries and so may be less blind to asymptomatic cases.

So, UK fatality trends will be predictors of Delta variant impact
in a vaccinated population - it's the deaths that politicians are
trying to avoid.

RL

On 11/07/2021 15:01, Anthony William Sloman wrote:
> On Sunday, July 11, 2021 at 11:04:15 PM UTC+10, Martin Brown wrote:
>> On 07/07/2021 16:29, Rick C wrote:
>>> On Wednesday, July 7, 2021 at 11:19:28 AM UTC-4, Ed Lee wrote:
>>>> On Wednesday, July 7, 2021 at 8:15:11 AM UTC-7,
>>>> gnuarm.del...@gmail.com wrote:
>
> <snip>
>
>> The other bad news is from Israel that they are seeing early vaccinated
>> people's double jab immunity begin to wane at around 6 months from the
>> date of the second jab. UK is presently planning a booster jab in
>> September for the most vulnerable in the light of this new info.
>
> Presumably they are talking about antibody levels. The killer-T cells don't seem to go away.

Yes. Antibody titres go back almost to baseline just like with the
natural Covid infection (and somewhat faster than most other
coronaviruses). There was a hope that the adjuvants would extend it.

Israel is responding to their exponential growth of delta variant in a
population that is one of the most completely vaccinated on the planet
by imposing additional measures to try and bring the rate down again.

https://www.ft.com/content/8c3ec364-e687-4daf-9442-e73065aa2649

UK meanwhile is going to see if we can overtake Cyprus as the Covid sick
man of Europe by unlocking completely from next Monday.
(we have to win at something after last night)

--
Regards,
Martin Brown

On Monday, July 12, 2021 at 5:34:38 AM UTC-4, Martin Brown wrote:
> On 11/07/2021 15:01, Anthony William Sloman wrote:
> > On Sunday, July 11, 2021 at 11:04:15 PM UTC+10, Martin Brown wrote:
> >> On 07/07/2021 16:29, Rick C wrote:
> >>> On Wednesday, July 7, 2021 at 11:19:28 AM UTC-4, Ed Lee wrote:
> >>>> On Wednesday, July 7, 2021 at 8:15:11 AM UTC-7,
> >>>> gnuarm.del...@gmail.com wrote:
> >
> > <snip>
> >
> >> The other bad news is from Israel that they are seeing early vaccinated
> >> people's double jab immunity begin to wane at around 6 months from the
> >> date of the second jab. UK is presently planning a booster jab in
> >> September for the most vulnerable in the light of this new info.
> >
> > Presumably they are talking about antibody levels. The killer-T cells don't seem to go away.
> Yes. Antibody titres go back almost to baseline just like with the
> natural Covid infection (and somewhat faster than most other
> coronaviruses). There was a hope that the adjuvants would extend it.
>
> Israel is responding to their exponential growth of delta variant in a
> population that is one of the most completely vaccinated on the planet
> by imposing additional measures to try and bring the rate down again.
>
> https://www.ft.com/content/8c3ec364-e687-4daf-9442-e73065aa2649
>
> UK meanwhile is going to see if we can overtake Cyprus as the Covid sick
> man of Europe by unlocking completely from next Monday.
> (we have to win at something after last night)

That is why this is an appropriate topic for this group. The governments either don't listen to their health advisors or have namby-pamby advisors who won't explain reality to the leaders. The result is we end up with a control system with a fair amount of lag between the action and the result. What happens when you have that sort of lag? Oscillation! Add in the force exerted by various business factions to maintain a wide open economy and you have a control loop that is largely dysfunctional allowing large infection rates before appropriate action is taken.

In Israel the problem is they opened up during the lull in May and June thinking somehow the disease was over. Any epidemiologist who was behind that is an idiot. Even Ed Lee could see this coming. The Israeli infection rate has increased 45x from the low.

The irony is that India, the country earliest hit by the delta variant, is recovering well even if their numbers are still in the 10s of thousands per day and the rate of decrease is slowing.

--

Rick C.

--- Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
--- Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

On 12/07/2021 11:48, Rick C wrote:
> On Monday, July 12, 2021 at 5:34:38 AM UTC-4, Martin Brown wrote:
>>
>> Israel is responding to their exponential growth of delta variant
>> in a population that is one of the most completely vaccinated on
>> the planet by imposing additional measures to try and bring the
>> rate down again.
>>
>> https://www.ft.com/content/8c3ec364-e687-4daf-9442-e73065aa2649
>>
>> UK meanwhile is going to see if we can overtake Cyprus as the Covid
>> sick man of Europe by unlocking completely from next Monday. (we
>> have to win at something after last night)
>
> That is why this is an appropriate topic for this group. The
> governments either don't listen to their health advisors or have
> namby-pamby advisors who won't explain reality to the leaders. The

I think the problem is more that in the UK at least advisors advise and
ministers decide. Almost no scientists or engineers in government.
Mostly they do some wannabe professional politician course like PPE.

Government scientists on Sage have been muzzled from speaking out ever
since the infamous Barnard Castle eye test incident with Cummings.
Alternative Sage is a trustworthy alternative not beholden to the whims
of government and fiercely independent.

> result is we end up with a control system with a fair amount of lag
> between the action and the result. What happens when you have that
> sort of lag? Oscillation! Add in the force exerted by various
> business factions to maintain a wide open economy and you have a
> control loop that is largely dysfunctional allowing large infection
> rates before appropriate action is taken.

In the UK even the nightclub owners are saying that the current proposal
is insane since after less than a week open as normal they expect their
entire workforce to be pinged by the test&trace app to self isolate.

UK airport security staff have today just suffered the same mode of
failure - they have pretty much all been exposed in the past few days!
(and been told to self isolate by the app) Chaos at airports...

Government response to this is to hobble the contact tracing app to be
less sensitive which the opposition have described correctly in my
opinion as like taking the batteries out of a smoke alarm. Teachers are
already told to switch it off when they are working in schools...

> In Israel the problem is they opened up during the lull in May and
> June thinking somehow the disease was over. Any epidemiologist who
> was behind that is an idiot. Even Ed Lee could see this coming. The
> Israeli infection rate has increased 45x from the low.

There is a sweet spot somewhere during the summer where it should be
possible to decrease the restrictions gradually but a big bang approach
like we have in the UK will almost certainly end in tears.

We can only hope that other countries will learn from our mistakes.

> The irony is that India, the country earliest hit by the delta
> variant, is recovering well even if their numbers are still in the
> 10s of thousands per day and the rate of decrease is slowing.

They seem to be having a lot of other problems with lack of oxygen and
an opportunistic black fungal infection killing some survivors of Covid.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-57027829

Even in a country with an uncaring government prepared to throw its own
population to the wolves people do behave more sensibly when the threat
from Covid is seen to be very real indeed as in they know people who
have died from it in their local neighbourhood.

--
Regards,
Martin Brown

On Monday, July 12, 2021 at 8:30:10 AM UTC-4, Martin Brown wrote:
>
> They seem to be having a lot of other problems with lack of oxygen and
> an opportunistic black fungal infection killing some survivors of Covid.
>
> https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-57027829
>
> Even in a country with an uncaring government prepared to throw its own
> population to the wolves people do behave more sensibly when the threat
> from Covid is seen to be very real indeed as in they know people who
> have died from it in their local neighbourhood.

For some time now it has seemed to me that COVID has been a perfect storm of a pandemic in that it is deadly enough to kill millions, but not quite deadly enough to make the entire population concerned about catching it. Had this been a spread of Ebola in western countries or an antibiotic resistant, flesh eating bacteria (like the ones we've seen take off in hospitals) that spread more widely than a single hospital everyone would be screaming for lock downs, mass quarantines and shooting people in the streets. But this is just "the flu" with a kicker. In the spring this will "magically" disappear.

Oh well, all we can do is try to keep ourselves safe from the many idiots.

BTW, I was reading the other day how Branson, Missouri was the spreading center of the delta variant in Missouri. They don't wear masks and pack hundreds if not thousands into buses and auditoriums because someone seems to think the pandemic is over. Lord, what fools these mortals be!

--

Rick C.

--+ Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
--+ Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209