Coronavirus - are we all doomed?

[Jon]

In Russia, my understanding is that they got to just Phase 2 trials, and have ignored Phase 3 which spreads the testing to thousands of people.

 

[Isaac]

I've been thinking along the lines of what Jon said. I've seen CNN run their usual Scare Articles (in addition to the other daily 20-30 Covid-related headlines, rather than reporting actual news), whose point is basically: "Be alarmed, because we already believe many people will not get vaccinated".

Maybe there is some obscure aspect of epidemiology that I don't understand that's relevant here? But my reaction was basically, Who cares?? Whoever gets the vaccine (for example I would without hesitation), will then be protected from getting Covid. Those who don't want to, won't be protected. But they chose not to. And the problem is ..?

The medical/pharmaceutical field is already regulated about 1000x more than I think is necessary. (think of the fact that every medicine bottle you've ever picked up in your life has to mention the fact that it may cause nausea, vomiting, heart attacks and death - in one out of every 10 million people). I for one am quite happy with the common sense aspect of the current trade-off for Covid vaccine. For once in our lives, I'm OK with cutting that typical hugely over-done testing phase down to about 1/3 or 1/4 of its usual course. If any situation calls for it, this one does. The odds that this will finally be "the" time that something like this causes some major problem unexpectedly, at just this particular time, seem extremely small .... and the need for it is extremely high.

 

[AccessBlaster]

The more successfull vaccine is the more likely people will take it.

I saw a report in the UK with a woman in charge of buying the vaccine. She said they bought 3 times the amount needed. Asked if it will work, she didn't know for sure.

 

[Jon]

I think they might have bought 3 different vaccines, and so they booked up some stock just in case one didn't work and that demand meant they couldn't get any. e.g. if they went for Vaccine A, but it didn't work, Vaccine B & C might be sold out and so the UK would be left with no working vaccine.

 

[Isaac]

Every nation with the means to do so is, in some way or another, setting aside a certain amount of "protocol", out of appreciation for the urgent nature of the situation. Some companies are actually taking the risk of producing huge amounts of the vaccine prior to approval. Why? Based on the same "99% sure" position that I stated in my previous post...We may not all agree on the relative safety, less or more, of the potential vaccines, but when a multi billion dollar pharmaceutical company's management decides to risk billions on the "it's safe" bet, that tells you at least something about just how safe it most likely is....

 

[AccessBlaster]

The good news is private industries are spear heading the effort, the bad news the Governments will be the administrators.

 

[Isaac]

The good news is private industries are spear heading the effort, the bad news the Governments will be the administrators.

True ... And I've already heard many comments that some authorities wish to target certain minority races for right of first refusal. Quite the privilege, IMO.
But I like the idea of giving it to the elderly and front line workers first, maybe.

 

[AccessBlaster]

Pandemic learning pods may deepen inequities in education

Parents fearing a coronavirus surge as some schools return to in-person schooling have found an alternative solution for their child's education — learning pods of a few students, being taught by an educator hired privately by their parents. However, critics worry what might be a solution for some may serve to deepen the inequity already prevalent with online learning.

Newton's third law is: For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. The statement means that in every interaction, there is a pair of forces acting on the two interacting objects. The size of the forces on the first object equals the size of the force on the second object.

They will call this the lost generation... So sad.

 

[Jon]

Oh, if only they knew about Access! Excel maxed out and led to a disaster with reporting Covid cases, adding to the calamity of the UK government.

Blame game after 16,000 Covid cases missed due to Excel glitch

A clearer picture of the country's outbreak has emerged after some 16,000 confirmed infections had to be added to the daily totals running back more than a week.

www.dailymail.co.uk

 

[The_Doc_Man]

Obviously, they were using 32-bit Excel. Should have converted to Access sooner.

 

[Minty]

Apparently, they hit the 1,000,000 row limit.

 

[Isaac]

Oh, wow, Jon - great find. What an amazing story - that's crazy! Anyone who was placed at the helm, doing the technical piece on the CSV imports should have thought Gee, what happens if it goes over a million? Unfortunately many people have Excel program set as the default program/file association with CSV, which makes CSV icons look like Excel workbooks, and leads over time to users thinking "when I see a CSV file that's an Excel file", which could then lead to them thinking "it must contain records with the same Excel limitations".

Gee. That's crazy. At the very least they should have been using Access, or for something this important, maybe even something a bit more industrial strength. That's crazy.

Sounds like a non-technical person was put in charge of a technical job. That's what happens. But it's cheaper up front!

 

[Jon]

When I used to do Access consultancy, many a company were coming up with the limitations within Excel, although most of that was around the relational structure of the data. But even managing huge rows of data in Excel seemed clumsy and slow to me.

 

[Isaac]

True.
Yet, I've been surprised at how fast Excel is at returning a formula value that's a calculation on hundreds of thousands of rows. It definitely gives Access a run for its money, so to speak. Say you have a Sum on 300,000 rows. It'd be interesting to compare the speed an Access form control can render a DSUM() compared to how fast a single formula (if you really only have a single formula - and nothing else is trying to update in the book) can render the sum of 300k rows.

 

[Jon]

Things are probably different with Excel nowadays compared to when I was doing Access stuff. No doubt lots of optimisations done.

 

[Isaac]

Things are probably different with Excel nowadays compared to when I was doing Access stuff. No doubt lots of optimisations done.

Just enough to make Excel users wonder, Hmm, do I really need a database? I'll bet I can do this in Excel!

 

[Jon]

He he, cheeky!

 

[Uncle Gizmo]

Emails indicate COVID was man made by China... Will this statement get me canceled?

 

[NauticalGent]

And funded by the US..

 

[The_Doc_Man]

The medical/pharmaceutical field is already regulated about 1000x more than I think is necessary.

On the tech side, probably so. On the financial side? Do you recall the furor over the sudden massive increase in the cost of insulin? A lot of drugs cost thousands of dollars a month long after their initial release. I think the Big Pharma financial model still needs regulation. They are scared witless (or something that rhymes with that) over the idea of allowing foreign competition and they DON'T want you to know what they actually charge in foreign countries for the same drug that costs $500 per dose here in the USA.