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Which horse film is your favorite? This poll is closed. |
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| Black Beauty |
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2 | 1.06% |
| A Talking Pony!?! |
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4 | 2.13% |
| Mr. Hands 2x Apple Flavor |
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117 | 62.23% |
| War Horse |
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11 | 5.85% |
| Mr. Hands |
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54 | 28.72% |
| Total: | 188 votes | ||
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https://twitter.com/StephenMcDonell/status/1503602355799048194 This only adds up to about 3% of the total population but is still, unless I'm mistaken, a much larger and more widespread series of lockdowns than China's ever had before
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Mar 16, 2022 03:29
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eXXon posted:Is Eric Topol reporting on a bunch of divide by zeros? Something like that. It's obviously an error. It's impossible to know what exactly caused the error, but the data are completely useless regardless. And on Topol himself, his is of course one of the more prolific Twitter accounts tweeting about COVID, but his field is not virology or epidemiology or immunology. I believe he's a cardiologist? He seems to be sensationalizing covid news and research that he's not entirely qualified to do, leading to misinterpretation and misrepresentation of research and data. (Making even really basic stat mistakes like the recent examples.) He's not quite as bad as Feigl-Ding however still a good example on why scientists should keep their lane and defer to experts just like anyone else if it's a subject outside of their field.
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Mar 16, 2022 07:11
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Topol's a really longstanding Important Policy ThinkPerson in medicine, both for good and ill, long before twitter was a thing. He's either directly or indirectly done a lot of super prominent, effective, valuable research (since he runs the translational part of Scripps), is a take machine (with very good and very bad ideas), and is very well connected, including the weird nexus of pop science that flows through the new york times. Kind of another in the same broad vein as Ezekiel Emanuel, but more science/care and less overarching policy and bioethics. All of which is to say that while he does a whole lot of communications stuff I find infuriating, the comparison to Feigl-Ding's not entirely fair to Topol, who's in a different league of the people who put their degrees in their twitter handle. Discendo Vox fucked around with this message at 07:28 on Mar 16, 2022 |
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Mar 16, 2022 07:23
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Really hoping China keeps it locked down, but HK is going to see... a lot of dead elderly. 
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Mar 16, 2022 08:42
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Yeah I suppose it's unfair to compare him to Feigl-Ding, although I did say he's not as bad. 
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Mar 16, 2022 08:42
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mawarannahr posted:Cool. Any thoughts about it? It’s funny prioritizing human life over Number Going Up is treated as a nightmare.
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Mar 16, 2022 15:24
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Rust Martialis posted:Really hoping China keeps it locked down, but HK is going to see... a lot of dead elderly. Lol, triggering phrasing. Let's say we hope China keeps it under control which allows them to end the lockdowns. Hong Kong's cases thankfully appear to have peaked, but their death rate has now surpassed even the highest of London's waves, though I think it's still below that of New York, Milan etc: https://twitter.com/hkfp/status/1504116025440227333
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Mar 16, 2022 22:49
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UCS Hellmaker posted:Do you have any proof for any of what your posting or are you just going to stick with telling people in the countries you keep attacking that they don't understand covid and only you know the best ways to combat it, and that china is the absolute gold standard we all should strive for (ignoring that china's vaccine isn't as effective, they have slowboated the mRNA vaccine because it's not there's, and actively aren't as vaccinated as they could be) As far as the effectiveness of Zero Covid, the proof is in the pudding. The bolded part is a lie. https://www.med.hku.hk/en/news/press/20220210-modelling-the-omicron-fifth-wave https://www.med.hku.hk/en/news/press/-/media/DF5A2F6918764DC4B6517CE7B5F2796B.ashx https://www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-1440357/v1     Sinovac and Pfizer are both similarly effective at preventing hospitalization and death. Smeef posted:In HK a good chunk of disinfo, misinfo, and generally confusing info about Covid was coming from official sources and another good chunk from old distrust of the central government, so I'm not sure tighter control of the media would have helped much. And uh, they also did shut down the largest media company in HK and put its executives in jail. Hong Kong's official sources really let down the populace. It is sad to see that a lot of the distrust was driven by a generally hostile attitude towards the mainland government, because on covid they have been very good. I am aware they've done it before, which is why I brought it up as a possibility, since a good chunk of the disinfo was coming from anti-government sources, too. For a country that people assumed would be forcefully jabbing individuals, it is interesting to see that only 50% of 80+ year olds are jabbed. I would assume they face similar problems to America when it comes to vaccinating folks in rural areas. Judakel fucked around with this message at 19:29 on Mar 18, 2022 |
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Mar 18, 2022 19:13
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Judakel posted:As far as the effectiveness of Zero Covid, the proof is in the pudding. I assure you that I am not saying this as an "I told you so," or as a gloat, or in celebration*, but it appears somebody has taken a poo poo in the pudding.  This is a gigantic tragedy that could dwarf Hong Kong and I hope they are able to arrest the growth soon (or have already) - if anybody can, it's the Chinese government. It's just... can anybody? (* Honestly it really pisses me off that I feel a need to specify this, but I know what kind of assumptions you tend to make.) Mellow Seas fucked around with this message at 21:05 on Mar 18, 2022 |
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Mar 18, 2022 20:58
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Never mind.
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Mar 18, 2022 22:02
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Mellow Seas posted:I assure you that I am not saying this as an "I told you so," or as a gloat, or in celebration*, but it appears somebody has taken a poo poo in the pudding. You can't really discuss this topic with anyone who genuinely thinks that Sinovac is as effective as Pfizer/Moderna, to be honest.
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Mar 18, 2022 23:54
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Judakel posted:The bolded part is a lie. https://twitter.com/business/status/1480469486964813825
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Mar 19, 2022 09:30
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NoDamage posted:You realize your screenshots show estimates based on modeling and are not based on actual measurements right? The first screenshot explains the assumptions used to generate the graphs. Unfortunately the model doesn't appear to hold up against real world data. Like, I don't see the same arguments being made in favor of AstraZeneca, which is fundamentally similar. But hey, China didn't make that one.
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Mar 19, 2022 16:38
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dwarf74 posted:Yeah, if we've learned anything so far, it's that mRNA vaccines are more effective than adenovirus-vector ones for anything covid-related. Sinovac/Sinopharm aren't even adenoviral vector vaccines, they're old school inactivated virus vaccines.
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Mar 19, 2022 16:50
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Sinovac and Sinopharm are inactivated (killed) virus vaccines, not vectored. AZ and Pfizer are vectored vaccines which is a fairly new technology. China went with inactivated vaccines which are very tried-and-true reliable technology and easy to mass-produce and store. At this point you want three shots and at least one of those to be an mRNA jab to have good protection against severe disease from Omicron, I believe. efb kinda Actual edit: I don't think China made a mistake going for inactivated virus, that was totally 100% reasonable imo. The mRNA vaccines were a pretty big gamble and it paid off big-time, but it could well have flopped.
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Mar 19, 2022 16:54
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Going with the old school vaccine definitely was a reasonable play back in 2020, no doubt. It's the last two years of watching how demonstrably miraculous the mRNA vaccines have been and then not moving heaven and earth to either import them or make them themselves that's kind of baffling.
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Mar 19, 2022 17:09
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China should've stole the mRNA tech and made their own and dared anyone to say boo about it after the vaccine patent waivers didn't happen (incidentally, throw Bill Gates in the hague)
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Mar 19, 2022 17:52
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How are u posted:Going with the old school vaccine definitely was a reasonable play back in 2020, no doubt. It's the last two years of watching how demonstrably miraculous the mRNA vaccines have been and then not moving heaven and earth to either import them or make them themselves that's kind of baffling. It's more that. And it's not even a case of having to adapt the tech or importing the vaccines. A major Chinese pharma company (Fosun) has had the license and tech to make the Pfizer vaccine the entire time. Mr Luxury Yacht fucked around with this message at 18:23 on Mar 19, 2022 |
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Mar 19, 2022 18:00
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Fabricated posted:China should've stole the mRNA tech and made their own and dared anyone to say boo about it after the vaccine patent waivers didn't happen (incidentally, throw Bill Gates in the hague) Ok but also we’re two years in and they could’ve just started buying them or using the license.
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Mar 19, 2022 18:32
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Mr Luxury Yacht posted:It's more that. And it's not even a case of having to adapt the tech or importing the vaccines. A major Chinese pharma company (Fosun) has had the license and tech to make the Pfizer vaccine the entire time.
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Mar 19, 2022 18:52
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A huge part of the decision to purely stick with the locally sourced vaccines comes from the fact that China wanted to demonstrate that it will weather the storm without relying on western support. So far it worked quite well, but a lot of the incoming infections are due to that weird nationalistic pride.
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Mar 19, 2022 19:29
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That's definitely weird, because mRNA tech isn't, like, "Western" magick or something like that. It's just technology. Westerners created the nuclear bomb and the CCP sure as poo poo jumped on that train. 
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Mar 19, 2022 20:18
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How are u posted:That's definitely weird, because mRNA tech isn't, like, "Western" magick or something like that. It's just technology. Westerners created the nuclear bomb and the CCP sure as poo poo jumped on that train. It's not mRNA itself that's the problem, the issue is that there's a big difference between developing their own technology and buying it off another country. If China had researched and developed their own mRNA technology, they would have no issue using mRNA vaccines. It's an issue of being able to show they're a technological and industrial power in their own right, one that's capable of doing this kind of stuff themselves without Western help. To follow from that nuclear bomb example, it was a point of pride in Soviet nuclear science that they were able to develop their own nuclear bombs just a few years after the US, independently rediscovering most of the crucial ideas needed to make it work without any help from the American scientists' top-secret work. It was a sign that although the Americans had the most resources to throw at it, the Soviet scientists wouldn't lose in terms of knowledge or cleverness... ...and so later revelations of the full scope of Soviet nuclear espionage have become the subject of a fair bit of back-and-forth about whether the Soviet nuclear program was actually homegrown expertise or just shamelessly stealing the results of Western genius. Now, is this really the time for this kind of nationalistic posturing? Not really, but after spending this long pointing to China's successes in dealing with COVID, it's not so easy to back down and admit there's a storm on the horizon.
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Mar 19, 2022 22:31
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Marmaduke! posted:I hope it works too - and not just because it's where a kickstarter I'm signed up to is doing their manufacturing, and literally every world event is a reason to delay even more these days The entire small/ mid size board gaming community operates due to Shenzhen. The USA has only one place that makes components, but has a tiny selection and at way higher cost. Last year board gaming companies did great since so many people wanted to play games with close friends, now they're going out of business
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Mar 19, 2022 22:46
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Board games don't seem like they'd be all that hard to manufacture in the US. I mean, they're like colorful pieces of cardboard and little plastic tokens, not incredibly advanced microchips or whatever.
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Mar 19, 2022 22:48
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How are u posted:Board games don't seem like they'd be all that hard to manufacture in the US. I mean, they're like colorful pieces of cardboard and little plastic tokens, not incredibly advanced microchips or whatever. Have you seen the production quality of the big budget plastic miniature games nowadays? As comparison, I have the Harvest Moon board game that was made in the US mostly and the component quality is incredibly sub-par. EDIT: Another comparison would be The Game Crafter, where games cost essentially premium prices but are kinda printed on demand and the cards have slight alignment/color issues, components are generic cubes or 3D-printed tokens…. I mean, I like what they do, but they’re blown away by any mass-market Chinese-made game. JazzFlight fucked around with this message at 23:05 on Mar 19, 2022 |
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Mar 19, 2022 23:00
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cant cook creole bream posted:A huge part of the decision to purely stick with the locally sourced vaccines comes from the fact that China wanted to demonstrate that it will weather the storm without relying on western support. So far it worked quite well, but a lot of the incoming infections are due to that weird nationalistic pride. This ended up being a double-edged sword in HK, where China did allow the Fosan-manufactured BioNTech vaccine to be used. Portions of both the pro- and anti-mainland populations saw that action and thought "The central government knows something we don't. Otherwise they'd be using it in mainland. So I'm not using it." It also didn't help that there was a lot of disinfo about "Western" vaccines not being made for "Chinese genes." mastershakeman posted:The entire small/ mid size board gaming community operates due to Shenzhen. The USA has only one place that makes components, but has a tiny selection and at way higher cost. Last year board gaming companies did great since so many people wanted to play games with close friends, now they're going out of business It would not take long to re-source board game manufacturing to another country, without sacrificing quality and possibly at a lower cost. The reliance on Shenzhen is probably more a historical legacy than due to any capacity/capability factors. That's true for most products until you get to insanely large scales of production.
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Mar 20, 2022 01:05
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Smeef posted:It would not take long to re-source board game manufacturing to another country, without sacrificing quality and possibly at a lower cost. The reliance on Shenzhen is probably more a historical legacy than due to any capacity/capability factors. That's true for most products until you get to insanely large scales of production. Got some friends in that industry and that's 100% not true. The dedicated board game vendors in southern China are very good at what they do and cheaper by a long shot, and the business is pretty specialized. Obviously it's not microchip manufacturing but it's also not something that's likely to be moved to another country without sacrificing at least short term quality and certainly cost. And that's not going into the fact that even board game vendors in other countries get their injection molds through China because it's cheaper than doing them locally, and better quality. The major exception would be Monopoly which is mostly produced in the US because it's a fully automated production line and does huge numbers. Having said that, this is pretty far afield for the Covid thread.
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Mar 20, 2022 01:49
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Fritz the Horse posted:Sinovac and Sinopharm are inactivated (killed) virus vaccines, not vectored. AZ and Pfizer are vectored vaccines which is a fairly new technology. AZ is vector, Pfizer/BioNtech is mRNA like Moderna Other vector vaccines are Janssen/J&J and Sputnik V
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Mar 20, 2022 01:57
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spankmeister posted:AZ is vector, Pfizer/BioNtech is mRNA like Moderna Thanks I meant J&J as vectored, wasn't paying close enough attention Sputnik V is apparently sometimes just live virus there are also some protein subunit vaccines rolling out I believe but not anytime soon in the US
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Mar 20, 2022 02:08
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Jaxyon posted:Got some friends in that industry and that's 100% not true. The dedicated board game vendors in southern China are very good at what they do and cheaper by a long shot, and the business is pretty specialized. Obviously it's not microchip manufacturing but it's also not something that's likely to be moved to another country without sacrificing at least short term quality and certainly cost. And that's not going into the fact that even board game vendors in other countries get their injection molds through China because it's cheaper than doing them locally, and better quality. The major exception would be Monopoly which is mostly produced in the US because it's a fully automated production line and does huge numbers. What goes into board games besides printed stuff and static plastic, metal, or wooden pieces? I'm sure the Chinese vendors are very good, but none of that stuff would be difficult for manufacturers to do elsewhere if they wanted to. The paper/printing stuff would be a piece of cake. Plenty of places manufacture toys, too. A lot of my work is in supply chains and sourcing, and I can think of specific suppliers in multiple countries (including places that are lower cost than China for many industries now) that could make it at a high quality, including the molding. They wouldn't immediately be able to turn it around, but I'd guess they could be pumping them out in well under a year. It'd be more expensive initially but probably wouldn't be far off the cost in China. What would slow it down is business processes and getting the supplier to prioritize it over whatever else they're doing. But if you're expecting suppliers elsewhere to fill the gap during a short-term supply disruption of a few weeks or whatever, then it's probably just not worth it for anyone to respond on the supply side. Anyway, as you say, it's the Covid thread, so sourcing chat over for me. 
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Mar 20, 2022 02:18
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Smeef posted:
The actual machines that make all the highly demanded nice custom parts only exist there. It would take a huge capital investment to set that up somewhere else And that's without getting into labor costs that keep the costs way down compared to what they should be. My friend has done 500k kickstarters and bitched about this issue to me for ages
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Mar 20, 2022 02:21
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Fritz the Horse posted:Thanks I meant J&J as vectored, wasn't paying close enough attention Yeah Novavax is available in the EU now, the hope was that some of the sceptics would take it but it came so late it's not doing any kind of numbers.
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Mar 20, 2022 06:47
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cant cook creole bream posted:A huge part of the decision to purely stick with the locally sourced vaccines comes from the fact that China wanted to demonstrate that it will weather the storm without relying on western support. So far it worked quite well, but a lot of the incoming infections are due to that weird nationalistic pride. This isn't weird, its very deliberate. They know the west is moving to re-isolate them and they think the climate wars are going to be extra not good. You can disagree with the approach, but its a very rational response to an expectation of coming political and international crisis. They are doing what authoritarian states do when they see crisis on the horizon.
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Mar 21, 2022 18:47
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Perhaps the rational approach in the face of an impending climate crisis would be to acquire the capability to manufacture mRNA vaccines and, in the transition phase, secure a supply of internationally made mRNA vaccines to ensure the population is as healthy and secure as possible in the lead-up. Your statement relies on some pretty big assumptions and you don’t have to tweak them much to arrive at the opposite position.
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Mar 21, 2022 19:14
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Tiny Timbs posted:Perhaps the rational approach in the face of an impending climate crisis would be to acquire the capability to manufacture mRNA vaccines and, in the transition phase, secure a supply of internationally made mRNA vaccines to ensure the population is as healthy and secure as possible in the lead-up. Except China can already manufacture mRNA vaccines just fine? They are already producing it at Fosun Pharmaceuticals, who also just happens to be one of the big investors of BioNtech along with Pfizer. Also. quote:HK government has clarified that the mortality rate for HK elderly is similarly among people vaccinated with Sinovac and Pfizer. From HK statistics, one dose Pfizer gives better protection, two doses similar protection, three doses Sinovac gives better protection. GlassEye-Boy fucked around with this message at 20:41 on Mar 21, 2022 |
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Mar 21, 2022 20:39
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GlassEye-Boy posted:Except China can already manufacture mRNA vaccines just fine? They are already producing it at Fosun Pharmaceuticals, who also just happens to be one of the big investors of BioNtech along with Pfizer. Also. The issue was that they werent using mrna vaccines because they werent made by china, and instead sticking with their own homegrown, even when it was proven to be less effective overall with covid, and then especially with the delta and omicron strains. China dragged their feet while they instead wanted to make their own version leading to the issues at hand now.
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Mar 21, 2022 23:07
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GlassEye-Boy posted:Except China can already manufacture mRNA vaccines just fine? They are already producing it at Fosun Pharmaceuticals, who also just happens to be one of the big investors of BioNtech along with Pfizer. Also. Where is the first sentence in that quote (before the URL) from? I don't see it in the article.
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Mar 22, 2022 00:35
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Smeef posted:Where is the first sentence in that quote (before the URL) from? I don't see it in the article. That was added by me, hosed up the quote.
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Mar 22, 2022 01:36
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One of the things I find weird about the financial press types clucking their tongues and stroking their beards re: China's COVID-zero policy rendering it isolated from the world is that it seems to miss the point that an authoritarian government which was already becoming more authoritarian, not less, probably views making its citizens more isolated as an extra benefit of an efficient COVID policy, not a cost.
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Mar 22, 2022 01:59
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