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A thank you to Brexiteers.

There are only really Mini, Toyota, Honda and Nissan which are British made. Anything else is niche/high end.

Honda are also closing, so that doesn't leave much.

minis are the only patriotic choice - if you havent got the union jack etched into your indicators you should probably think about moving to russia

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There are only really Mini, Toyota, Honda and Nissan which are British made. Anything else is niche/high end.

Honda are also closing, so that doesn't leave much.

About 1.5m cars are built/assembled here every year. The capacity to build more exists. In the West Midlands alone we could easily double capacity at Solihull, Castle Bromwich and Wolverhampton.
 
I agree with some of that. However, the UK's gamble on prioritising first jab does appear to be paying off. Agree that it's too early to tell for definite, but the first results are very encouraging, showing a high level of protection, even for the very old, from just one jab.

Covid-19 news: One dose of Pfizer vaccine greatly reduced transmission

First real world covid-19 vaccine studies show 'spectacular' results
Unfortunately there are screaming flaws in all those studies.
 
About 1.5m cars are built/assembled here every year. The capacity to build more exists. In the West Midlands alone we could easily double capacity at Solihull, Castle Bromwich and Wolverhampton.

920k in 2020.

I guess a big reduction is due to COVID, but how much can be attributed to Brexit. I guess 2021 figures will reveal that in time...

The issue that the majority of produced cars are exported, the Brits want to buy other cars.

We will no doubt see a change of habits over time, but will domestic consumption be enough to offset any loses in overseas markets?
 
Can you expand on what you mean by that? Do you mean that people who may be immune due to previous infection are potentially having their immunity wrongly attributed to the vaccine?
Poor baselines.

In the first study the proportion of seropositives was assumed to be tiny based on one previous small study at one hospital conducted some 8-9 months ago. There was no attempt to determine how many participants actually had previous exposure.

In the second study (PHS), they claim to have screened seropositives based on PCR test history, except that ignores the untested, non-PCR testing and false negatives (we have long known true number of infections has always easily far exceeded recorded cases). They also estimated vaccine effects against hospital admissions only, ignoring other outcomes. Also, biases due to non-uniform uptake of vaccine types across age cohorts and typical infection risk factors associated with receiving each vaccine type.

The third study I can only guess at (I don't have a subscription and that's even less likely now) but presumably it's the PHE vaccination study published the same day. Discussion of seropositives is poor (there is a footnote implying attempted but potentially flawed exclusion) but the results underlined (indeed, emphasised) how important a second dose of BNT162b2 is at the manufacturer's dosing interval, particularly in older cohorts. They did at least list some of the confounders (eg variation in risk per participant, misclassification, seropositives, wide variation in post-dose behaviours).

But this belongs in a different thread.
 
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Wtf is a seropositive and why does it need robust treatment?
No point conducting a study into the efficacy of a single dose if you don't establish exactly which participants were previously infected (seropositive). There are numerous good (well controlled) studies now out that indicate that a single dose swiftly induces a huge immune response in the previously infected (two or more orders of magnitude greater than seronegatives even achieve after their second dose, and that in a matter of a few days).
 
No point conducting a study into the efficacy of a single dose if you don't establish exactly which participants were previously infected (seropositive). There are numerous good (well controlled) studies now out that indicate that a single dose swiftly induces a huge immune response in the previously infected (two or more orders of magnitude greater than seronegatives even achieve after their second dose, and that in a matter of a few days).
Thanks for the explanations. I read somewhere that France was planning to only give one dose to people with previous positive tests for this reason. Effectively it's a second dose for such people.

Clearly it introduces noise into the data wrt the efficacy of one dose (and here in the UK, a lot of people fall into the 'previously infected' category), but it doesn't necessarily weaken the case for the policy to prioritise one dose. In fact, depending on the exact numbers, the fact that a single dose is massively effective for the previously infected could strengthen the case to prioritise one dose. So long as the second dose remains just as effective when it is eventually given (a big if, perhaps), it doesn't really matter why a single dose gives good results, just that it gives good results.

So these results are still tentatively good news. They just need a bit of an asterisk against them to warn what they don't say. One part of the study in Scotland was that it showed a 57 per cent decrease in the likelihood of death among the very old once they'd been vaccinated once. That's a more conservative figure to take as an indication of its effectiveness. Somewhere around 50-60 per cent in a group that is considered least likely to respond well to the vaccine is still pretty good.
 
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Being a cynical soul, I notice that's parties who do badly in elections who tend to want fairer electoral systems...

I wonder how many of the labour people calling for some form of PR were happily against it when FPTP was a system that had delivered them three straight victories in a row, and voted to retain FPTP in the referendum that so captivated the nation - I mean that everyone ignored...?
 
So wanting a fairer voting system makes you a 'loon' now?
They certainly are when they have some silly twitter handle denoting their liberal love in.
I wonder how many of the labour people calling for some form of PR were happily against it when FPTP was a system that had delivered them three straight victories in a row, and voted to retain FPTP in the referendum that so captivated the nation - I mean that everyone ignored...?
Is it Labour people that are calling for PR? (At least in the main, I know there are some). I think a lot of LP people realise that FPTP is what has kept their party alive - in contrast to the other European social democratic parties.

Seems to me the PR is most favoured by the piss yellow scum (ala Maggot above) and the Corbyn leaning, progressive coalition crowd that have now tended to have left the LP. What's bizarre is that the aims of these two groups are opposed.
I can understand why liberals want PR, they (correctly) believe it would reinforce their power, for the LDs giving them more seats (and effectively becoming the kingmakers), and for the liberals in the LP it provides a block on the left of the party. I cannot really understand the support of PR from the latter, it would block any possibly of democratic socialism (at least in the medium term).
 
Marks and Sparks have opened a Portuguese website and are rolling out A further 45 abroad. No food though.

Made the same mistake 20years ago when they tried to go global. They'd already trashed the quality of the clothing brand. Their food quality has always been good , and it does n't matter what culture your from alway going to miss the food culture you grew up with.... AT the time bloke made a fortune airfreighting Walker's crisps into HK
 
Made the same mistake 20years ago when they tried to go global. They'd already trashed the quality of the clothing brand. Their food quality has always been good , and it does n't matter what culture your from alway going to miss the food culture you grew up with.... AT the time bloke made a fortune airfreighting Walker's crisps into HK

Quite like this shirt though
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