Will The Naysayers Pray This Doesn't Work?

[ToraToraTora]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-52374653
so they can s1agg off the government? is it more important to be able to berate a Tory government than to actually find an answer?
They said 18 months, we start trials on Thursday surely that is cause for optimism??

[weecalf]

I’ve said it afore I’ve said it in Brighton ....

[iluvmargie]

Let's hope this is the good news we are waiting for.

[Spicerack]

I know of at least one ABer who'll be eating humble pie if anything comes of this before next year.
I'll wait and see what happens before I post what he said about Trump.

[ToraToraTora]

"Peter is a classical scholar and a very learned man. " - he hides it well.

[jim360]

I've no idea who you're talking about, Spicey, but if an effective vaccine comes quicker than anybody hopes then I'd happily enjoy all the humble pie in the world.

Not sure what the reference to Trump is: again, if a vaccine is developed quickly it will certainly be nothing to do with him or what he's said about it. A guy who wonders whether it's worth using a "solid flu vaccine" is someone who doesn't have the insight required to be right except by accident.

[Spicerack]

Lol. Trump said he hoped there would be a vaccine in months. (last month)
And somebody, ahem, said he didn't have a clue what he was talking about and should shut his pie-hole. (or words to that effect)
I've actually found the post if you'd like me to paste it here?

[jim360]

Feel free, but it still won't prove anything. Trump also touted hydroxychloroquine as a potential cure, and the evidence for that even now is shaky at best: if anything it might make things worse. If you make enough bold and outlandish claims you're almost bound to get lucky once.

I'm aware about what Trump said on a Coronavirus vaccine, too. He had no real basis for saying so. Experts have suggested again and again that the expected time for a viable and widely available vaccine was typically 12-18 months. As far as I'm aware the only reason Trump suggested it would be sooner was because he "didn't like" those numbers, not because of any unique and remarkable insight.

[naomi24]

Jim, //As far as I'm aware ...//

That sums it up really. You, like the rest of us, have no idea what's said between politicians and their advisors.

[Spicerack]

jim360//Also I wouldn't expect Trump to be an expert scientist, but I *would* expect him to defer more often to medical experts on such matters. For some reason he seems to think that a deployable CoViD-19 vaccine is only a few months away, but it's closer to over a year.

It's important for him to get his facts right, and not to confuse the issue by making these sorts of mistakes. That's common sense and should be above politics. You know what I think of him, but I hope you can see past that to the more serious point that with an impending pandemic we need to rely on world leaders either to know what they are talking about, or to know when to shut up and let the experts speak.02:00 Wed 04th Mar 2020//

Let's hope Trump is right and you and the 'experts' are wrong, jim,,,,,,,,,,,for once, lol.

[ProfessorMaisie]

Is Prof Neil Ferguson still waiting for the BSE death toll to hit the hundreds of thousands? Well it's in the 100s so, that's a start.

[naomi24]

spicerack. The 'experts' wouldn't be getting it wrong 'for once' though. It certainly wouldn't be the first time.

[naomi24]

Precisely Maisie.

[ProfessorMaisie]

Although vCJD would be more accurate, naomi (before the pedants pile in) sorry, my error!

[Mozz71]

Hydroxychloroquine is being tested, but it has yet to be rolled out as a treatment, despite Trump claiming that it's a miracle cure.

[jim360]

In today's press briefing Chris Whitty said that the chances of a vaccine being developed for use this year are "very small". No, there's nothing in this announcement that makes me change my mind.

Also, on the subject of what Trump and his advisors have said to each other, I *do* know because the exchanges I refer to were in a public meeting. Ditto the flu vaccine, where Spicey is his usual model of inaccuracy. Trump asked if a flu vaccine could be used for a coronavirus. The answer was no. I don't know anything much about medicine and I could have told him that. Anybody could have realised that with even a hint of sense. I make no apology for what I said at the beginning of March, when Trump failed to appreciate the danger and seemed determined to ignore the threat and then get things wrong when he did talk about it.

[jim360]

Also I never said Trump claimed you could use the vaccine. I said he asked about it, and I said it was a stupid question.

[jim360]

Finally, as to experts getting it wrong. Yes, they do. Repeatedly. But there's some perverse logic in treating the pronouncement of someone who's studied epidemiology their entire career, let alone the entire community, as worth less than people who haven't. Expert opinion is better-informed, better-considered, and often still wrong because life is simply too complicated.

[jim360]

https://news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-malaria-drug-pushed-by-trump-as-covid-19-cure-has-no-benefit-research-finds-11976830

Trials are ongoing, and the study cited above isn't definitive, but the indications currently are that it isn't an effective treatment.

[ProfessorMaisie]

The great pity is that when the professor got it wrong he simply blamed it on insufficient data - but said it was still great science!
So, science is still great when it wastes billions of pounds of the tax payer's money - you just can't lose in that 'discipline'.
Why not wait until you've got sufficient data? Or be more modest about what you claim to know.