Coronavirus

[Bigmac]

But the same guidelines say that contact sports such as Football, Hurling, Karate, Rugby and everyfucking thing else is grand.

Is that Dublin or elsewhere? I was told my Muay Thai gym had to close,  but it's all a bit confusing.

Derry

Ah sound, I'm in plague central, so I guess we aren't allowed batter each other again for another few weeks.

[Black Shepherd Carnage]

The kickback against Whitty and Vallance has gone mainstream:
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2020/sep/22/scientists-disagree-over-targeted-versus-nationwide-measures-to-tackle-covid
(Prof Sunetra Gupta features)

[Kurt Cocaine]

But the same guidelines say that contact sports such as Football, Hurling, Karate, Rugby and everyfucking thing else is grand.

Is that Dublin or elsewhere? I was told my Muay Thai gym had to close,  but it's all a bit confusing.

Londonderry.

[Black Shepherd Carnage]

 

I was disappointed no one got my Putrefy/Londonderry reference in the Cruiscin Lan thread... too many fuckin' blow-ins and weekend MI'ers! 

[StoutAndAle]

I was disappointed no one got my Putrefy/Londonderry reference in the Cruiscin Lan thread... too many fuckin' blow-ins and weekend MI'ers! 

I have to admit that I didn't/don't get it. Then again, I can be slow at joining the dots.

[Caomhaoin]

Corey had some kind of blood vendetta against them on MI.

[lifeeternal]

Corey had some kind of blood vendetta against them on MI.

A bunch of people did iirc

[Black Shepherd Carnage]

I was disappointed no one got my Putrefy/Londonderry reference in the Cruiscin Lan thread... too many fuckin' blow-ins and weekend MI'ers! 

I have to admit that I didn't/don't get it. Then again, I can be slow at joining the dots.

It happened quite a few times over the years that Conor from Putrefy referred to Derry as Londonderry on MI, just spontaneously I presume (Conor having always been a bang on lad, I found), but more than once it led to forum ructions.

[astfgyl]

The kickback against Whitty and Vallance has gone mainstream:
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2020/sep/22/scientists-disagree-over-targeted-versus-nationwide-measures-to-tackle-covid
(Prof Sunetra Gupta features)

Something tells me that Whitty and Valance will win the day on this one, to the detriment of everyone else, even the risk groups that they speak of protecting.

I came across a bit of a read about the RT-PCR tests last night, and I'd like to hear what you in particular think of it as the only one here with experience and knowledge of them. I know everything is a minefield and god knows the motivations behind anything, but if you have the time to rubbish this one for me it'd be great. Makes interesting reading for anyone if true and supports the Heneghan/Gupta line of thinking of basing the response on numbers of sick people and not simply "cases". Here anyway: https://bpa-pathology.com/covid19-pcr-tests-are-scientifically-meaningless/  It seems to be saying that they are meaningless as a diagnostic tool because of how accurate they are, not because of their inaccuracy and that they were never intended for that purpose.

And for anyone else who wants to hear the not so shoved in our faces reporting on the situation so far here is what appears to be independent reporting on it (though who knows what is the motivation for anything anymore) https://cassandravoices.com/science-environment/science/covid-19-in-ireland-elusive-facts/

Heard a joke a while back.. What is the only city in the world with 6 silent letters in its' name? Derry.

[Black Shepherd Carnage]

It would take a week to go through all the things that article picks out, which would be time wasted since I keep repeating my agreement that the number of cases overall is not the most important figure. Personally, I do think it is important though, because it provides one of the upper limits in calculating proportions, and they are important. For example (with "daily" meaning "average daily over 7 days"), "daily tests: daily confirmed positive cases", "daily confirmed positive cases: daily confirmed symptomatic positive cases", "daily confirmed positive cases: daily hospitalizations", and so on. In other words, it's the proportions that count, that really matter, not any of the specific values in isolation.

I will say, because it's fundamental to how science advances, that whatever purpose Kary Mullis (who, besides being a brilliant scientist, was also an absolute head-the-ball, which is an entertaining story in itself) intended PCR to be used for is absolutely independent of what purposes it can be used for. In fact, it's particularly ironic in the case of genetics to use "not the intended purpose" as an argument, since the entire science of genetics is based on us discovering how to creatively co-opt (i.e. "hack") biological functions and use them for something they were absolutely not "intended" for in nature. The PCR method itself is a canonical example of that.

[Caomhaoin]

Corey had some kind of blood vendetta against them on MI.

A bunch of people did iirc

We played with them years ago in Ballymoney or wherever they are from, and after emerging from the bass player's gaff in a hungover haze the next morning, I noticed (you couldn't miss the fucker) the house across the way had a massive UDA flag in the front garden. I got extremely paranoid about the reg on the car, and like the old Harp lager said, 'time for a quick exit'!

[Black Shepherd Carnage]

We went by train when we played there and very self-consciously walked up the Union Jack bunting decorated main street towards the venue 

[The Butcher]

Anathema gone on indefinite hiatus ->

[astfgyl]

It would take a week to go through all the things that article picks out, which would be time wasted since I keep repeating my agreement that the number of cases overall is not the most important figure. Personally, I do think it is important though, because it provides one of the upper limits in calculating proportions, and they are important. For example (with "daily" meaning "average daily over 7 days"), "daily tests: daily confirmed positive cases", "daily confirmed positive cases: daily confirmed symptomatic positive cases", "daily confirmed positive cases: daily hospitalizations", and so on. In other words, it's the proportions that count, that really matter, not any of the specific values in isolation.

I will say, because it's fundamental to how science advances, that whatever purpose Kary Mullis (who, besides being a brilliant scientist, was also an absolute head-the-ball, which is an entertaining story in itself) intended PCR to be used for is absolutely independent of what purposes it can be used for. In fact, it's particularly ironic in the case of genetics to use "not the intended purpose" as an argument, since the entire science of genetics is based on us discovering how to creatively co-opt (i.e. "hack") biological functions and use them for something they were absolutely not "intended" for in nature. The PCR method itself is a canonical example of that.

I did end up reading a little about Kary Mullis as I was going and the whole HIV doesn't cause AIDS thing, which is new to me and I don't have an opinion on. Fair point about intention there though, there are many examples of things invented for one purpose and used for another very well. The part that was really getting me going is the bit at the end when the authors said there is no way to test the test itself beyond doing something which hasn't been done so far, and the responses from the four study authors at the end were interesting in that sense.

There was another link within the text of that one which went into much greater detail including a bit of an interview with Mullis himself, but the first paragraph or two were all anti Bill Gates stuff, so I didn't bother quoting that one. It's an extremely interesting debate to me though, given how the whole response to the current situation is based on these tests, that there is such a question mark over what exactly it is that they are telling us. Sort of a bad way to make decisions affecting billions of people worldwide given the unknowns involved. So not saying that the test appears to give false positives as such, but that the data it provides can be very misleading in terms of what is actually going on. It certainly hasn't been mentioned on RTE or Newstalk or indeed anywhere mainstream that I've seen other than the NY Times so far.

The article about the whooping cough here https://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/22/health/22whoop.html seems to be a similar situation where the results of the tests weren't telling what was going on, and not saying that they were wrong either.

[Kurt Cocaine]

Ah balls. I love all Anathema's stuff, old and new.