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Sure, or it may do nothing at all, or even turn out to be unsafe in some edge cases which would probably be the worst possible scenario. An Indian lab has announced that they are starting mass-production of a vaccine whose development isn't even close to complete -- they just started phase I trials in late April, meaning they still have two additional testing phases to go through, each with increasing typical failure rates. Sounds more like a sales pitch or a move to get their stock appreciated than genuine evidence that there will be a vaccine in circulation in September. I wasn't exaggerating when I said the attrition rate for vaccine development is about 90%. The Finnish vaccine timetable you mention is more in line with what people familiar with the process of drug development are quoting, but even then, with the caveat that efforts aren't derailed for whatever reason. So yeah, about one year, and even that will be an unprecedented achievement if it works. It shouldn't. Being under capacity means that staff is able to handle their workload without increasing the risk to themselves. It means that patients can be isolated to avoid spreading the disease among themselves. It means that treating patients does not carry a risk of further spreading the disease. In any case, you're redefining what preventable means. Or rather, going outside of the meaning it has in the whole "flatten the curve" discussion. If you want to start preventing literally preventable deaths, we may need to ban all sea, air and road travel, most foods, all sources of pollution, sunlight, hospitals, sexual relations and so on and so forth. At least until safe alternatives exist that allow for prevention. Source? Specifically, where are you getting that "total number of infections is not the same when you change the speed of infection" from? I'm genuinely interested. From what I've read the reproduction number establishes the herd immunity threshold as Pi > 1 − 1/R0. Zoraptor used a R of 2.4 which returns a little under 60% for herd immunity. Now, R is not fixed and factors such as NPIs can affect it. So currently the number is likely lower as people are under lockdown and more or less strictly observing social distancing, but it'll go back to the "default" value once restrictions -and people- are relaxed. If all goes well, subsequent waves should be less dramatic among other things because fewer people will be susceptible. But that threshold is the same whether it's reached in six months or two years, in one go or ten. The only way to reach it without further infections is with a vaccine.

You are assuming that the patient is not being given ICU care a) because they are over 80 and b) it's in order to keep the bed free. That's not really how it works, except in very extreme cases, such as in Northern Italy at the peak. As I said, you don't "try" to build herd immunity. It's just something that happens naturally in any scenario where you can't stop the spread and the disease doesn't kill 100% of the infected. So yes, "building herd immunity" is not a very good strategy, unless doing nothing is a strategy. It will happen or not depending on how long immunity lasts, regardless of what we do. As for a vaccine being ready for deployment in autumn, there's simply no basis for that, sorry. You can perhaps speed things up and cut down the time needed from several years to just one year, but on top of completing a development process with 90%+ attrition rates, you need to set up the logistical chains for manufacture and distribution of millions of doses. An ineffective (if not defective or dangerous) vaccine can be even worse than no vaccine because it would be difficult to maintain NPIs while also declaring that the vaccine works. The flu vaccine, for reference, is only 40-60% effective. That may not be enough to achieve herd immunity against SARS-CoV2. Whether there are treatments that can help is irrelevant to the amount of people who die in a scenario where you are not at 100% capacity, because in that scenario everyone who needs treatment will get it, and if they die anyway it will not be because they couldn't get treatment. Those deaths are non-preventable: they didn't die because they couldn't be treated -- they died because people get sick and die at the best of times. If they died because they couldn't get treatment, that is a preventable death whether they died of corona or from drinking fish tank cleaning fluid. The problem is when you assume that we'll have a miracle or vaccine really soon. It's not strictly impossible, but it's also not very likely, and making policy based on that strikes me as foolhardy.

Herd immunity is only "meant to protect" when politicians claim it can be used as a strategy so as to make it look as if they have a plan. Herd immunity simply means that as a certain threshold of individuals become immune, the spread is slowed or stopped because of a dearth of susceptible hosts. This makes it varying degrees of unlikely (if not impossible) that a non-immune individual will be exposed, independent of whether that individual belongs to a risk group or not. However it's not really something you can direct or target in such heterogeneous transmission scenarios, which is why the assumption is that as the infection inevitably progresses through the population, it's going to kill the same amount of people over time. That's people who would die of the disease regardless of the amount of medical resources available. Non-preventable. NPIs are intended to slow the spread so as to avert total healthcare collapse, thus preventing additional deaths from the epidemic and other causes. Preventable. NPIs aren't meant to stop it altogether because we're too far past the point of "elimination" strategies being viable, as Zoraptor explained earlier. If you have a scenario where you cannot give proper intensive care for people over a certain age because you are over capacity, then yes, you have failed to "flatten the curve". However, not every patient is going to get ICU treatment, corona or not, because that's a case-by-case medical decision that looks at several factors. (and now it's me with the long winded multi-paragraph responses)

The reasoning is that the same amount of people die in either scenario -- the only really preventable deaths are those resulting from overwhelmed healthcare, and that justifies measures aimed at "flattening the curve". Herd immunity isn't meant to protect a specific segment of the population. It's simply the only way out of the pandemic situation, absent a vaccine regarding which there are no guarantees. There's virtually no chance that we'll have a vaccine ready for deployment before 2021, and even that is extremely optimistic. edit: problem is we don't really know how immunity works so "herd immunity" may not be a watertight strategy either.

Well, I played it for a dozen hours after 2.6 dropped. The good news: performance no longer takes a nosedive upon reaching the mid game, so in that sense they fulfilled their promise of improving performance. The game runs pretty well even in the huge-ass fully populated New Horizons galaxy. The bad news: they accomplished that by disabling the daily/per tick pop job checks, which means pops will just stand around unemployed even though there are free jobs for them to take, forcing you to micromanage it (the AI can't do that). Also the country AI seems to randomly give up and not build or move fleets for no apparent reason, preferring to sit on immense stockpiles of resources instead. Game optimization in 2020: just # the **** out of everything. genius.jpeg In short, still cannot recommend it, even "free".

Fiscal resistance.

Honestly I don't remember too well what happened if you let guards arrest you. IIRC your loot was confiscated and you got put in a cell, but I'm not sure what further repercussions could it have, if any. Of course, if being a known thief or murderer of guards has no ramifications whatsoever then yes, that's a pretty shallow excuse for "consequences". Ideally, your reputation being tarnished thus would close certain doors while opening others. Much as you'd expect in a P&P session. I don't think DOS2 went that far though.

Yes that's in line with what I've read elsewhere as well. What I said before was in the context of the apparent narrative shift going on -- from "flattening the curve" i.e. preventing an uncontrolled spread from overwhelming healthcare capacity a month ago, to "defeating" corona so as to be able to go back to normal ASAP, now. The former is reasonable and (probably) sustainable. The latter isn't at this point, and the notion that it is is counterproductive and possibly harmful as it's being used as an excuse to abrogate rights. R0 is already back to >1 in Germany, as models, unexplainable "stochastic" and otherwise, predicted once NPIs cease. I have serious doubts that it's feasible to keep inner borders closed in the EU indefinitely, either. And without that, it's going to be hard for DK to keep numbers low, considering there's a fat chance that RoK-levels of case and contact tracing will be applied here. Thanks for the link, it's always useful to have a grasp on the lingo.

Yeah, you're right. Not sure why I jumped to cases today. Brain fart indeed.

Johns Hopkins says 529 total, so ~9 per 100k. Purely looking at the numbers though, lifting restrictions is not warranted. Look at what DK's curve looks like compared to places where it's considered to be contained. There's just no containing it in Europe anymore, so whatever the reasons are for "unlockdown" (wtf) they sure aren't epidemiological. Or maybe Imperial's black box "stochastic" model has decided it's time, who knows at this point. Anyway, either I brain farted yesterday or the figures have massively changed, but the US have many more cases per 100k than Sweden (some 402 vs 260).

Yeah, I had seen a piece about that with a few highlights, but not the interview itself. Thankfully Tegnell was smart enough to point out that this just isn't going away.

French pensioner ejected from fighter jet after accidentally grabbing bang seat* handle

Sweden's numbers aren't really "respectable". They have 314 deaths per 100k, way higher than any of her neighbors. Meanwhile the US has 233. We have 561. Italy 499. China... 3 (three). It's a complete crapshoot. Someone will make sense of it at some point, maybe.

So city officials can now suspend the Constitution as they please. But at least you won't die from corona, right?

I loved the visuals and atmosphere. The story wasn't bad either. The gameplay... I liked it at first, but grew bored with it fairly quickly. I mean, the basic loop comes down to playing hide-and-seek with a psychic alien that is tethered to your ass at all times. Once you figure how the routine works, the tension goes away because it boils down to waiting for it to go back into the vents so you can go about your business. It does have a few really cool scripted moments, but outside of those, ho-hum. Played it on hard, maybe it's different on Nightmare. I guess it's one of those ideas that's great in a movie, but not so much in a game. Or maybe survival horror games just aren't for me.

That sounds like it's been a long road, getting from there to here...

Yep. Technically it's a military force that has extensive law enforcement purview. It depends on the MoD for personnel matters because they are officially military personnel with military ranks and pay grades. Officers come out of the same academy as those of the rest of the branches of the military. It's also the largest "police" force here and they have the most exclusive capacities nationally. Technically really is the operative word though because they lack most of the things that you'd expect a proper military outfit to have such as heavy weapons of any kind, armored vehicles, military drills and so on. They are also laughably underfunded and consistently get the short end of the stick compared to other law enforcement organizations when it comes to even basic policing equipment. A regional command asked in 2019 to have their crappy 80's-era service rifles replaced -- they were handed a bunch of vintage 1964 battle rifles normally used for parades. Cops carrying guns here is more a tradition than something necessitated by the job if you look at violent crime figures.

Ah. An optimist, I see.

There's no militarization of police around these parts. Plenty of cops are still little more than state-sanctioned thugs. The only difference is that there's a judicial review if they use their guns and the bar on proportionality regarding lethal force is higher. They'll still literally beat you and your mum up for talking back to them, and then give you a fine, because that they can get away with 99% of the time. As you say, cops are just regular people. But without being held to the highest degree of scrutiny and accountability, the shortcomings of regular people tend to come to the surface rather unpleasantly. Clannish tendencies present in everyone manifest in the "blue shield" and a misunderstood sense of loyalty, which foment an environment that allows only for two kinds of cops: thugs and enablers. Good luck raising the standards, too.

Well, I recently started rewatching the old Trek films in lieu of new stuff. I've been surprised at how much I enjoyed The Shat's portrayal of older Kirk. He came a long way as an actor since TOS. Complaints of bad writing in old Trek, while valid, do not detract from similar criticism being leveled at new stuff. Sadly, an often overlooked side effect of bad writing is acting chops going to waste and actors' careers suffering as a result. Exhibit A:

Yeah -- more to the point, the fact that there's a focus on the weird, while plot, world-building and characters all take a back seat. There's probably nothing wrong with the game, it's just the way some trailers are done, I guess? More Dragon Age "tHiS iS tHe NeW ****" and less DOS2. After the demo a few months ago, they may simply be attempting to address impressions that the gameplay is clunky and unsophisticated, while taking for granted that the game will be great narratively. We'll see.

Hmm. Beating his ass wouldn't be in compliance with the 6ft rule I don't think. And he MUST observe social distancing guidelines lest he become a "covidiot" himself!

Therefore, ca. 1980. So... before I was even born. As for Kennedy being to blame, I honestly don't know either. She's the head of the studio so she gets the blame by default. I'd also snipe at J.J. but he's not involved this time. I think Jojo Rabbit is a pretty cool guy. Eh makes moveis and doesnt afraid of anything.

Well, to me the entertainment value of a SW film that isn't a massive dumpster fire far outweighs that of randos raging on social media, but whatever floats your boat.