As stated earlier, you are of course entitled to your viewpoint. It just doesn’t match mine so you’ll excuse me if I don’t respond positively or encouragingly.
Meanwhile…
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Why don’t you read Dame Sarah Gilbert’s book on how they developed the Astra Zeneca Vaccine?
No short cuts were taken in developing this vaccine,but many of the long tortuous procedures were done away with.
All this has done is show that, when people put their mind to it, the long winded waits for approval can go alongside the research.
Personally, I am not in favour of those who choose not to be vaccinated because they choose to believe false arguments.
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Is it really worth the effort? People who would rather believe nonsense on social media are unlikely to be pursuaded by the overwhelming consensus of scientific evidence just as man made climate change deniers are. Probably better to ignore.
It’s just very sad that they are likely to suffer and worse, that those that come into contact with them do so.
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Citing Twitter posts or Wikipaedia items as ‘evidence’ isn’t likely to taken as a serious argument, it’s like Trump supporters who say he must have won because I saw lots of pro-Trump signs in peoples’ gardens.
I’m a doctor of philosophy not medicine, so although I’m not very experienced in saving lives, I do know how to construct a sound argument, whereas most anti-vaxers choose semi-random social media info-bits that reinforce their fears and prejudices and then collage these together into something that reinforces their pre-existing world view.
I started this thread by contrasting two governments’ differing approaches to compiling their countries’ respective death tolls, but even though different countries apply differing criteria, looking at annual average death tolls around the world is informative. So, for instance even though Russia’s official COVID death toll is comparatively low, since the outbreak of the pandemic the official count of annual deaths has increased considerably over previous years. It would seem therefore that even in countries where there is a tight control over the media, other sources of official information can inadvertently(?) sidestep this.
I’m not providing a link because I don’t want to be accused of directing people to my sources - search for it yourself if it’s important to verify
However, I find this statistical phenomenon far more interesting than the boring vax / anti-vax debate because it demonstrates the inability of totalitarian regimes to adequately control even all their official sources of information.
Would be interested to read Geof Cox on the above
Neither medium is peer reviewed, anyone can post anything.
For a decade or more, it’s been a common practice amongst university lecturers who want to discourage students from using unreliable Wikip as ref material for essays to insert false info into potentially relevant entries and then remove it after the essay deadline. I know, I’ve done it.
It’s not that it bars it from being discussed - it’s simply that it’s an untested opinion rather than a more criticically tested authoritative assessment.
Rather than amending the post I’ll just note that the link you cited is from a UK gov website that I was citing to show the background to my argument, rather than the sources I was mentioning in the context of my previous post about social media. In other words two different types of source. I wasn’t suggesting these figures were accurate I was merely contrasting the anomaly between different ways of publicly presenting statistics.
Got to admit “dr” doesn’t mean expert in the field they’re discussing.
the virus is in the micron sizing, any mask has to be near impermeable to stop it entering the mouth?
it’s when in droplet suspension as we exhale the mask is effective… and probably work better when wet from a little sustained wearing
like vehicle air filters work better with a small amount of contamination, plugging the gaps in the material
but, from the day we were ordered to wear masks… the “cases” went up… coincidence… or we’re re-breathe polluted particles?
you wouldn’t wear one of these blue, or any mask you see on people… if you were working with the gas from PVC welding…
look at the massive range of particle filters and specialist masks for specific substances…
when you consider the sixe of the virus is countless times smaller than smoke… down to the PM2.5 scale. the simple mask just isn’t going to stop a virus as an aerosol gas?
certainly, any face covering should help reduce spatter and larger moisture particles of breath exhaled,
dilute that particle in free air… how good is a mask with a weave like a football net to catch a grain of rice?
There is so much “info” and “disinformation”.
we have to see these videos and decide for ourselves if any of it makes sense?
no matter what title the person has delivering it?
nice to have a reasoned and friendly discussion about this
cheers
No it doesn’t because you’re using a false equivalent.
And if that’s your best shot at a pun, I wouldn’t bother wasting your time typing - touché !
these mRNA things have been known from way back 2007-ish
and used for many purposes
as a vaccination… they couldn’t get it into our system without it being attacked within a short time, not long enough to get into the outer layer of a cell
the nanolipids get it past the body defences… and into the cell wall…
once they were sure it could be used as a vaccine, it took 8 weeks for EUA use
the long, torturous procedures are now in progress…
the long winded waits for appro are what those killed, injured, disabled and otherwise affected would like to have been conducted before they took the shots?
if it’s so active now, mid summer… and with so many jabbed having “breakthrough”…
what is going to happen once the winter arrives… as this is supposed to be more prevalent in cold weather?
It wasn’ t that his post was from Twitter - it was that his citation, evidence or argument (if you want to dignify it with any of those terms) was from Twitter - that’s not quite the same thing - it’s just ridiculous thinking that anyone can seriously cite a Twitter post as ‘evidence’ of anything - it’s just unsubstantiated opinion.
Can’t you see the difference?
I think English has the largest vocabulary of any language, if you know the meaning of words it gives precision . Unfortunately many anglophones lack these skills, sadly; that’s not merely a matter of inadequate academic precision, I encounter it every day on R4 News and in UK printed news sources too.
Try reading the NYTimes if you want good, well-written analytical journalism with a surprisngly wide spread of political opinion, and then take the time to read the very wide spread of polite, well-written, well argued comments posted below the line -there’s a massively embarrassingly difference to those in the UK press (left or right).
I gave a reasonable answer to the first part of your post, but what on earth do you mean by ‘anyone truly searching for truth’ .
I’m old enough to remember when we used to use phrases like that in hippie magazines like ‘Gandalf’s Garden’- I dropped lots of acid ‘looking for the truth’ and hitch-hiked to Kabul ‘looking for the truth’ … it’s a silly self-indulgent pastime - trying to define 'how to live well, or harmlessly, and to ‘give what one is best able to give’ might be a more useful philosophy.
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Dear Vero,
The Covid19 debate on statistics on SFN was largely banter and not that informative.
As there is too much mis-information around as it is, as well as fake news, Tory bashing, social media, gutter newspapers and anti-vaxers, l am simply promoting the sane voice of Dr John Campbell on YouTube, which at times I was following on an almost daily basis.
I’m sorry I did not make that clear.
Regards
Ken
Never enough Tory bashing 
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Fixed it:
As there is too much mis-information around as it is, as well as fake news, Tories, social media, gutter newspapers and anti-vaxers.
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You too Dr. Spock!
Cheerio…let’s just hope you don’t get a dose and end up ICU.
But as you don’t like most of us on SF we’ll never know !
Big Yawn!