Tesseraction posted:

The BBC had an interesting segment on variants arising and had new findings by scientists in South Africa who, very cautiously, noted that immuno-compromised people are a fertile breeding ground for variants, and that in particular HIV/AIDS sufferers who aren't receiving treatment (either because they don't want to admit they have the disease or those who just don't know) should start receiving treatment ASAP.

I say cautiously because the scientists also stressed that there's all kinds of causes of being immuno-compromised and that HIV/AIDS sufferers should not be stigmatised or blamed. Obviously it's a sensitive topic.

ThomasPaine posted:

E: there's definitely something to be written about covid as the first true pandemic of the information age, and the way our global and interpersonal connectedness through social media etc has shaped our responses to the whole thing and the discourse around it. Could the antivaxxers have ever gained so much support in an era without twitter, I wonder?

Guavanaut posted:

gently caress the aids denialists in the 90s

Convex posted:

lol wtf is this magazine

goddamnedtwisto posted:

The shelter I got my cat from in Canning Town is only a couple of doors down from the ominously-named "Bargain Meat Centre".

Tesseraction posted:

The BBC had an interesting segment on variants arising and had new findings by scientists in South Africa who, very cautiously, noted that immuno-compromised people are a fertile breeding ground for variants, and that in particular HIV/AIDS sufferers who aren't receiving treatment (either because they don't want to admit they have the disease or those who just don't know) should start receiving treatment ASAP.

I say cautiously because the scientists also stressed that there's all kinds of causes of being immuno-compromised and that HIV/AIDS sufferers should not be stigmatised or blamed. Obviously it's a sensitive topic.

Inexplicable Humblebrag posted:

this may shock and alarm you but there exists a media landscape outside of the UKMT

Guavanaut posted:

I agree with the rest of your post but I think they could, it all depends on how much support they got from institutional power, like lolbertarian Tories and inveterate contrarians in the press. I think it's as (if not more) possible that the "oh poo poo this is serious" messages on twitter got people demanding action as it is that the antivaxxers got a pulpit, David Icke and Christine Maggiore got enough publicity in the 90s without any of that and

Jaeluni Asjil posted:

A friend of mine has MS and is on immunosuppresants (sp?) so has to be extremely careful.

This is why I've started lurking on reddit ukpol (but not posting) because it is moderated and people seem to be similarly 'thoughtful' as posters ITT, but some have bad opinions don't necessarily agree with my views.

Guavanaut posted:

Yeah the main thing that I've heard from South Africa is "man gently caress the aids denialists in the 90s, they hosed things up for a generation" and "we still need to do more about the stigma and access to antiretrovirals" and no disagreement there. The reaction against that has left them with very good viral pandemic monitoring tools though, and a fair chunk of our worldwide antiviral research now helping with Covid stems from that.

Jaeluni Asjil posted:

A friend of mine has MS and is on immunosuppresants (sp?) so has to be extremely careful.

Total Meatlove posted:

In order of how much they're like this thread;

Green and Pleasant
UKPOL
Conservatives



LabourUK

ThomasPaine posted:

But even if they did, it would hardly matter. Britain's 'lockdown', outside of a few overzealous coppers using it as an excuse to hassle ramblers and do racism, was never really meaningfully a lockdown. At best it was a glorified neighbourhood watch scheme. It's honestly not even clear that it did much at all to slow the spread of covid, the waves we saw could easily have been the natural ebbs and flows of the pandemic. Maybe it was better than nothing, maybe not

Convex posted:

lol wtf is this magazine

ThomasPaine posted:

Possibly! But I think there's something to be said about the knock on effects of the internet's promotion of niche subcultures. A lot of conspiracy bullshit grew out those 90s/00s forums. Social media, and Twitter in particular, has provided probably the largest, most ubiquitous, and (ostensibly) horizontal, non-hierarchical public messageboard the world has ever seen.

NotJustANumber99 posted:

I think this is nonsense. Some or even a lot of people might have broken rules willy nilly but it certainly felt like a lockdown to me.

Guavanaut posted:

True, but it also spread like wildfire through South Africa in the mid-90s, when there was very little non-academic internet access there. A lot of the spread was via the successors of anti-apartheid social communications, where "and everyone in power is a psychopath who hates you and is lying to you" wasn't exactly wrong, so I think the success of those kinds of messages depends more on social trust and cohesion rather than the actual electronics behind it.

NotJustANumber99 posted:

I think this is nonsense. Some or even a lot of people might have broken rules willy nilly but it certainly felt like a lockdown to me.

Tesseraction posted:

*scowls while trying to determine level of trolling*

Total Meatlove posted:

Have you read some of the LabourUK posts?

Guavanaut posted:

Yeah the main thing that I've heard from South Africa is "man gently caress the aids denialists in the 90s, they hosed things up for a generation" and "we still need to do more about the stigma and access to antiretrovirals" and no disagreement there.

Tarnop posted:

If course it's nonsense. "The natural ebbs and flows of the pandemic" where huge drops in infection rate mysteriously lined up with the strictest containment measures and huge spikes lined up with letting 'er rip.

Jedit posted:

On the other hand in 2014 the South Africans re-elected Jacob Zuma as President after he infamously said that you could prevent the transmission of HIV by showering after sex. Not that it's a bad habit, but come on.

Jedit posted:

On the other hand in 2014 the South Africans re-elected Jacob Zuma as President after he infamously said that you could prevent the transmission of HIV by showering after sex. Not that it's a bad habit, but come on.

ThomasPaine posted:

Correlation doesn't imply causation, come on now. If you look at the figures for, say, Sweden - a country that famously rejected lockdown measures - you get the same peaks and troughs. You also get the same when you look at historical mortality rates for other epidemic diseases like the Spanish flu. Cases almost always come in waves for a multitude of factors. I'm not saying lockdown did nothing, but it certainly isn't the deciding factor, especially once you're well past the containment stage and the official policy is drawn up on the back of a cigarette packet and implemented about as well.

Lord of the Llamas posted:

Triple jabbed

ThomasPaine posted:

I'd put good money on workplaces + HMO houses being the major driver of transmission, not people going round their pals for a drink.

Tarnop posted:

Congrats! Be ready for a fuckin rough day tomorrow, have paracetamol and lots of water ready. I felt like total poo poo for about 36 hours (AZ + AZ + Moderna)

Lord of the Llamas posted:

Triple jabbed

fuctifino posted:

My coping mechanism is weed. Today is day 619 of an unbroken chain of waking and baking until bedtime.

OwlFancier posted:

The only vegetable that is better than the sprout is the potato and that is because the potato is just nature's bread.

Arglebargle III posted:

Tarnop posted:

Correlation doesn't imply causation, but it would be one hell of an impressive feat if the government somehow predicted exactly when infections would start to fall due to whatever other factors you're failing to specify and consistently brought restrictions into force two weeks beforehand.

Social distancing measures and restrictions on mass gatherings were imposed for Spanish flu. The third wave of Spanish flu coincided with the lifting of those restrictions, but I guess that was just a coincidence too.

ThomasPaine posted:

Fine, explain Sweden? Explain any of the other countries that did next to nothing and still saw multiple distinct waves?

Gort posted:

Huh, I felt nothing following my third jab except the obvious "someone stuck a needle in your arm" stuff. Maybe they just gave me saline.

quote:

A senior barrister who sued the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) after a colleague asked him to stop breaking wind in the room they worked in together has lost his case.

Tarique Mohammed sued for harassment and told an employment tribunal that his repetitive flatulence was caused by medication he was on for a heart condition.

He said the comment from his colleague Paul McGorry was “embarrassing” and violated his dignity – but the panel found it was a reasonable request to have asked him to stop.

The prosecutor, who suffered a heart attack in 2014, also alleged he was discriminated against because of his disabilities and made a number of further allegations against his co-workers and bosses.

He claimed they threw away his water bottles, asked him to work one day a week 60 miles away and failed to pay for his barrister’s practising certificate while he was on sick leave.

The claims of disability-related discrimination were also thrown out by the panel, chaired by the employment judge Emma Hawksworth, in Reading, Berkshire.

The CPS did accept that it treated Mohammed unfairly by not allowing him to work from home two days a week and leave work at 4pm to help him manage his condition, and by removing him from court duties, meaning he will receive compensation.

His heart condition meant he had to take daily medication, the side-effects of which meant he had to remain at home for several hours after taking it. In 2016, he began sharing an office with McGorry, where the issue of his persistent flatulence was raised.

“Mr McGorry was aware the claimant had had a heart attack but he was not aware of what medication the claimant was taking or that flatulence was a side-effect of the medication,” the tribunal was told.

“There were repeated incidents of flatulence in the quiet room. On one occasion Mr McGorry asked [Mr Mohammed]: ‘Do you have to do that Tarique?’”

Mohammed said it was due to his medication and when asked if he could step outside to do it, he said he could not.

In February 2016 he was moved to another team that meant he did not have to attend court and was asked to work one day a week in Brighton, East Sussex, more than one hour’s drive from Guildford.

He launched a grievance, which concluded that the CPS should have made allowances for him, and went on sick leave. His employment was terminated in April 2020.

The tribunal threw out Mohammed’s claims of disability-related harassment and victimisation. “Many of the incidents about which [he] complains were unrelated to his disability … or were caused or aggravated by [him] overreacting,” the panel said.

Of the flatulence, the tribunal commented: “Mr McGorry’s questions to [Mr Mohammed] were not asked with the purpose of violating [his] dignity or creating such an environment. It was not an unreasonable question to ask, when there had been repeated incidents of flatulence in a small office.”

Just Another Lurker posted:

Congratulations on reaching the centre of your Euler/Venn Diagram!

ThomasPaine posted:

Fine, explain Sweden?