Interesting Links for 10-12-2020

[andrewducker]

Lost Muppet Christmas Carol song rediscovered

(tags:muppets movies Disney Christmas )

Covid in Scotland: Lockdown nearly eliminated it, but the second wave was reignited by summer holidays

(tags:pandemic Scotland holidays OhForFucksSake )

"A damn stupid thing to do"—the origins of the C programming language

(tags:programming history computers )

Looks like one in every few thousand people is allergic to the Covid vaccine

(tags:pandemic vaccine allergies )

Tyrannosaurs probably sounded like geese

(tags:birds dinosaurs sound )

Five reasons why the "Nordic Model" is a terrible approach to sex worker legislation

(tags:sexwork law )

Top 10 student and graduate design projects of 2020

(tags:design architecture )

I don't usually talk about new battery technology, but this one looks like it might actually happen

(tags:batteries technology )

British public now supports proportional representation 42% - 33%

(tags:voting reform polls )

Nicolas Cage To Host 'History Of Swear Words' At Netflix

(tags:niccage swearing Netflix )

Some more info on the Pfizer vaccine and its safety and efficacy

(tags:vaccine safety )

Comments

[mountainkiss]

Has Dan seen the PR one?

[andrewducker]

He hadn't, but we're on a walk right now, so I've told him.

[mountainkiss]

Lovely. ❤️ to both.

[danieldwilliam]

I am heartened especially by the generational divide. That offers the hope of the issue becoming one on which public opinion becomes settled on a change.

But too late I think to have any influence on Scottish independence.

[mountainkiss]

Generational divide also seems to speak positively for independence cause IIRC?

[danieldwilliam]

Very strongly. 75:25 IIRC.

[claudeb]

I tried to tell people that a vaccine rushed to market like that is going to have dangerous side-effects. They called me a pessimist. As always. All right then.

[andrewducker]

Those are entirely expected, and in line with what the tests found. There aren't any vaccines that someone doesn't have a reaction to. One in every few thousand is a really low level of allergic reaction.

[claudeb]

Allergic reactions can easily kill. Think again.

[andrewducker]

The disease kills. And in far, far higher numbers.

[claudeb]

Too bad you can't put those numbers into balance because we're talking human lives. And what about the much bigger cost of people losing their confidence in vaccines, when it's already tenuous to begin with?

[andrewducker]

We weigh up people's lives all the time! It's part of running any healthcare system!

[claudeb]

No, you don't. You help as many people as you can, as much as you can, no matter who they are. You don't do math with lives. Not ever, regardless of circumstances.

[andrewducker]

That's not how health systems work. We have limited resourced, and we weigh up how to help the most people possible, given those resources.

[anna_wing]

Governments, societies and individuals do the maths with lives all the time. Wants are infinite, resources are finite, aespecially in the health-care context. Your health care authorities are making decisions all the time as to how to assign them, ideally for maximum overall social benefit, rather than say, for individual private profit.

One hopes that the WHO will approve a range of vaccines, so you might have a choice of different ones eventually. I believe some of the Chinese ones are made by traditional vaccine technology - denatured or killed vaccines made in eggs, that sort of thing, so there wouldn't be the additional element of novel technology, if that is your principal concern.

[calimac]

That's true of every vaccine. Should we ban all of them? No, it's always a question of how risky it is vs. how much good it will do. That's the question raised for every vaccine, every medication, nay every other treatment, every surgical procedure, ever introduced.

[claudeb]

No, that's not true of every vaccine. How about just, simply, NO. I got dozens of vaccines as a kid. Only one ever caused me trouble, and it was never anywhere near life-threatening. You know why? Because the vast majority of vaccines are perfected thoroughly. Much like experts say these vaccines should have been perfected: until March at the earliest, if not June. You don't rush these things, much like you don't try to rush a pregnancy. And it's not the same thing if someone is killed in a fire, or by the firefighter who was supposed to help them. Even if you could weigh a life against another, which, again, you morally CAN'T.

[andrewducker]

You're talking nonsense. I just looked up a bunch of vaccines and all of them have allergy rates.

[snippy]

This. Every flu shot, every vaccine I've gotten has warnings about not getting it if you're allergic to X.

[calimac]

This is one of the most grotesque examples of "I didn't have any trouble, therefore nobody does" that I've ever seen.

[errolwi]

Even if you could weigh a life against another, which, again, you morally CAN'T.

I can't even parse this argument. There is a risk of infection if you perform surgery, so we should never do surgery, because that would be weighing a life against another?

[naath]

Some people get bad allergic reactions to 'flu vaccine, and to other regular vaccinations, the system tries to identify who will react badly ahead of time, to not give them it (if you are allergic to eggs you can't get the regular 'flu shot for instance), but for every allergic person there has to be a first time the allergy shows up. It is impossible to never have a single adverse reaction (this year's 'flu shot gave me a sore arm; a side effect I am entirely willing to put up with), and yes, the calculation of lives saved vs bad outcomes is done, it is done in all medical research, there is no medical intervention without risk, there is no possibility of a life lived without risk, There are experts in quantifying these risks, working hard to get it right.

One hopes of course for zero deaths by allergy, but part of that is ensuring that prompt treatment is available, this vaccine is being provided in health care settings where someone having an allergic reaction can be treated immediately.

[liv]

Currently over 500 people are dying of Covid-19 every day in the UK. If they had delayed vaccine production for another 6 months in order to acquire better statistics on the rate of allergic reactions, that would mean accepting another 90,000 preventable deaths. Maybe less, because maybe we're going to control the spread of the disease partially through non-pharmaceutical public health measures. So perhaps realistically half that number? A third of that number? Tens of thousands of deaths are highly likely.

If on the other hand we spend the next 6 months vaccinating the most vulnerable and most exposed third of the population, let's say 25M vaccinations, and of those 25M people, one in a thousand have a serious allergic reaction to the vaccine. So 25 thousand serious allergic reactions. Given that people will be receiving the vaccine in a medical environment, they will receive immediate medical attention and those allergic reactions are quite treatable. Most of the people who are unfortunate enough to suffer allergic reactions won't die; some may have a fairly unpleasant time but usually only for minutes or hours. I don't have to hand statistics on how many people survive anaphylactoid reactions with access to immediate and effective treatment, but I'd bet it's at least 90%. So worst case for licensing the vaccine now is 2-3000 deaths, and I would predict it will be a lot less bad than that. Best case for waiting 6 months for better data: tens of thousands of additional deaths.

The thing is that taking longer over the research is not going to make allergic reactions magically disappear; just as andrewducker points out, it's impossible to make a vaccine that nobody is allergic to. At best we'll have better data on which people are likely to suffer these allergic reactions. It's not a good trade-off IMO.

[simont]

British public now supports proportional representation 42% - 33%

Ah, but in what proportion of Parliamentary constituencies do they form the majority? :-)

[andrewducker]

Labour ones ;-)

[dewline]

So the Kingdom is doomed on this matter for the foreseeable, then. Same as Canada. :-(

[jack]

This. Also, if the other 15% of people had to pick one or the other as a second choice, which would they choose? :)

[anna_wing]

Right, I am getting a DVD of the "Muppet Christmas Carol" as soon as a full version is out.