Thread 'Grumbles, Glory and Covid-19'

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ProfileDave
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Message 97774 - Posted: 17 Apr 2020, 8:36:38 UTC - in response to Message 97761.  

It means it can kill the virus. The only problem could be if it's harmful to us.


Not true, there have been vaccines produced in the past that work with mice but the human body doesn't respond to them and produce the antibodies that stop the virus in question.
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robsmith
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Message 97786 - Posted: 17 Apr 2020, 12:49:49 UTC
Last modified: 17 Apr 2020, 12:51:51 UTC

The issue is that while a particular mammalian anti-body against a specific virus are very similar from one mammal to another the reaction of the mammal to them are not always the same. Also there have been very sad events where while a particular mammal has no adverse reaction another one has a very undesirable reaction to the same anti-body, hence the long time from "it works" on a mouse to "it works and is safe" on a human; generally there are several steps to animal testing, monitoring carefully at each to check for rate of anti-body build up and adverse reactions. One of the biggest hurdles is the rate of anti-body production, and the "half-life" of the anti-body - and those can vary wildly even within the same species.

(I learned a lot of this when I was involved in a trial of a "new" seasonal flu anti-body which, while it reproduced very well in a few folks fell flat on its face in the majority of the trial population and so it never went into general use)
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Message 97788 - Posted: 17 Apr 2020, 13:08:50 UTC - in response to Message 97763.  

Ok, maybe biology is more complicated than I thought. I would have thought you'd need some kinda clean room environment with tanks to grow things in, but why would they need to be different for each culture?


Manufacturing vaccines is a complex journey. It takes between 6 to 36 months to produce, package and deliver high quality vaccines to those who need them. It includes testing each batch of vaccine at every step of its journey, and repeat quality control of batches by different authorities around the world.

Vaccines manufacturing is a biological process where a very high level of expertise is required. We need to continually adapt production process to satisfy evolving regulatory demand which varies country by country.
In addition, the production process is under even greater pressure as demand for certain vaccines grows, such as pediatric combination vaccines and as demand increases from the global public health community to investigate new and emerging threats.
https://www.sanofi.com/en/your-health/vaccines/production
And see https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/00Hu3oeF5oA?rel=0, which explains how vaccines are made. And why this can't be done in an industrial scale, or at least not in the way you and I expect how a factory works.

https://www.businessinsider.nl/bill-gates-factories-7-different-vaccines-to-fight-coronavirus-2020-4?international=true&r=US
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Bernie Vine
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Message 97805 - Posted: 18 Apr 2020, 7:45:16 UTC

The interesting question from all of this is "How do we prevent it happening again"

Looking at the way the virus was originally transmitted it would appear unrestricted air travel was the main cause.

Governments were not prepared.

Personally I suspect we have seen the end of free movement around the world. Unless we can come up with a way to predict this sort of pandemic, and quickly come up with a cure, unrestricted air travel is likely to cause it to happen again and again.

It will also take a long time for the "social distancing" mindset to pass from the collective consciousness.

I am 69 this month, and have a strong feeling the world has changed and it will never return to the way it was in my lifetime.
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Richard Haselgrove
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Message 97806 - Posted: 18 Apr 2020, 7:53:24 UTC - in response to Message 97805.  

Looking at the way the virus was originally transmitted it would appear unrestricted air travel was the main cause.
Some of that was pure, hedonistic, unproductive, travel.

But a lot of it wasn't - especially, the first 'out of China' viral exodus.

I don't see the 'elite' - business people, politicians, sports stars, movie stars - accepting a total shutdown of their air travel in that way. Our package holidays may have gone for good, but that won't stop the initial spread of the next pandemic round the world, triggering little local clusters in every corner of the globe.
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Message 97807 - Posted: 18 Apr 2020, 8:40:20 UTC

As someone who travelled internationally for work I could see some reduction in non-leisure travel, but the biggest hit will undoubtedly be on the leisure travel. But one area which just about every country could do with having a serious look at is at the immigration/emigration control points, I accept there has to be passport & customs controls, but in so many places this is organised in a manner that is almost guaranteed to act as a cross infection breeding ground for any bugs - hundreds, if not thousands, of people standing in shuffling lines zig-zagging around large hot & stuffy room before there "15 seconds of glory" where the official (normally bored) glances at your paperwork, your face, then stamps the paperwork and you move onto the next queue....
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ProfileGary Charpentier
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Message 97825 - Posted: 18 Apr 2020, 16:07:37 UTC

The initial spreaders were not on commercial airlines, they were in airplanes they owned. They don't fly into huge airports and stand in queues, they fly into alternates and the customs official comes to them. Nothing is going to change for them at their level of money, except perhaps the customs person taking their temperature which may be the only way we slow the next bug. However I do suspect that the airliners that are now parked and going to rust where they sit.
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Bernie Vine
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Message 97838 - Posted: 19 Apr 2020, 7:58:30 UTC
Last modified: 19 Apr 2020, 7:59:17 UTC

The problem is the source, the wet meat markets in China


Well that is one possibility, but until there is scientific proof, which as yet there is not, you cannot hold any one responsible. If there was not unrestricted air travel then whatever happend anywhere would not spread with the speed this has. Don't get me wrong I am a big fan of air travel and was planning to visit the US next year and realised at my age that opportunity has now gone.

No country will be able to hold a county like China "Responsible" and if any legal or otherwise measures were tried how long to the think the arguing would go on.

No, what I am concerned with is preventing anything like this happening again, and to me one of the first things that need to be done is to restrict all air travel, rich and famous or someone like me.

I would like to live out the rest of my days without having the threat of premature termination hanging over me.
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Message 97839 - Posted: 19 Apr 2020, 8:09:43 UTC - in response to Message 97838.  

one of the first things that need to be done is to restrict all air travel, rich and famous or someone like me.
The Sunday Times (UK newspaper) has a story today that 545 private jets have landed at UK airports since the lockdown commenced, with some hirers having lied about the purpose of their travel. The UK is one of the few countries not to have restricted entry into the country that way. "The UK operates an open borders policy", the paper says, which might come as a surprise to people outside the rich and famous.

(or so the BBC image in their newspaper review shows. The paper itself is behind a paywall, so I can't confirm it.)
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ProfileGary Charpentier
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Message 97858 - Posted: 19 Apr 2020, 18:48:15 UTC - in response to Message 97855.  

The problem is the source, the wet meat markets in China


Well that is one possibility, but until there is scientific proof, which as yet there is not, you cannot hold any one responsible. If there was not unrestricted air travel then whatever happend anywhere would not spread with the speed this has. Don't get me wrong I am a big fan of air travel and was planning to visit the US next year and realised at my age that opportunity has now gone.

No country will be able to hold a county like China "Responsible" and if any legal or otherwise measures were tried how long to the think the arguing would go on.

No, what I am concerned with is preventing anything like this happening again, and to me one of the first things that need to be done is to restrict all air travel, rich and famous or someone like me.

I would like to live out the rest of my days without having the threat of premature termination hanging over me.


Stopping people from eating meat from dodgy markets is a lot nicer of a change to make than preventing tourism. It doesn't matter if you can't prove it and can't hold them responsible, you can still make them not do it again.

While the market may have been involved, it might as well have been the fruits and vegetables section and not the wet meat section. If that proves the case, patient zero just visited and passed it on, then are you willing to close every supermarket planet wide?

By the way, bat was not sold at the market. Pangolin was, but that has been ruled out. Human however has now been ruled in.

Tourism is one of those not so carbon neutral things humans do. Perhaps having restrictions is not such a bad idea.
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ProfileGary Charpentier
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Message 97866 - Posted: 19 Apr 2020, 21:16:15 UTC - in response to Message 97861.  

Stopping people from eating meat from dodgy markets is a lot nicer of a change to make than preventing tourism. It doesn't matter if you can't prove it and can't hold them responsible, you can still make them not do it again.

While the market may have been involved, it might as well have been the fruits and vegetables section and not the wet meat section.

I doubt it. Meat is what carries disease.
People carry disease. Doesn't matter if they shop for veggies, meat or clothing.

If we were all vegetarian, so many things would be solved. 16 times more efficient in land usage for a start.

If that proves the case, patient zero just visited and passed it on, then are you willing to close every supermarket planet wide?

By the way, bat was not sold at the market. Pangolin was, but that has been ruled out. Human however has now been ruled in.

Tourism is one of those not so carbon neutral things humans do. Perhaps having restrictions is not such a bad idea.
I'm an atheist, I don't believe in manmade climate change. It can do that all by itself and always has done.
Belief in deities or not and climate change don't seem to be related to me.
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Message boards : The Lounge : Grumbles, Glory and Covid-19

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