Saw a lady on the news saying she liked the thrill of shopping more than clicking a mouse.
Guess it's a thrill if you're risking your life.

Black Friday, now with more THRILL.

People put at least as much emotional investment in imagined victories as they do in actual victories.

It’s especially dumb because retailers make specific Black Friday models now and they all suck.

black death friday

Thanks for sharing!

could potentially have some huge daily numbers next week if cases/deaths are not being counted cuz of thanskgiving weekend, and then all got added to monday and/or tuesday's totals

USA! USA!

Last week, my local Orange county Red Robin had a 20 person deep line waiting to get seated in their "outdoor" table area.

Going back to the discussion on challenge trials, I was listening to a Ted talk regarding these and apparently around 40,000 people have already signed up here to participate in covid challenge trials, so it seems perfectly reasonable to think that if governments offered a decent sum of money they’d get a glut of volunteers.

https://www.1daysooner.org/

Also, interestingly, the speaker was asserting that challenge trials only require 50-100 participants. They’d also yield results in around a month. Encouragingly, the UK are said to be organising one such trial for early 2020, although I haven’t confirmed if that’s true or not.

Just soaking up some all natural Vitamin D3 to boost my levels listening to this:

I seriously don't know why there isn't a huge public outcry that we haven't run challenge trials.

.

At this point I'm just cheering for the carnage that is coming, maybe once everyone has someone they know impacted/dying from this we will change our selfish behavior.

They're running a challenge trial at the Royal Free Hospital in Hampstead, London -- my local hospital, just across the Heath from where I am -- next month.

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/l...518-X/fulltext

57,

That article seems reasonable but it still makes my blood boil that somebody didn't start challenge trials months ago. How many hundreds of thousands of lives will be lost by not doing so?

I am fully on board with the idea that running challenge trials is an affirmative moral imperative.

YF

HT

Yeah I must admit, when it was originally being discussed and i hadn't given it any thought beyond a superficial level, it seemed ethically dubious. But now I'm of the opinion that it's ethically negligent to continue as we are, allowing cases, deaths, and serious disruption to life to continue unabated when we have willing, healthy volunteers who are at low risk of severe harm who could provide a pathway out of this within a month.

The trial starting is obviously a good thing but I agree, the more I think about it the more angry I am that we weren't doing this instead of beginning phase 3 trials back in July/August once we had a reasonable assumption that these vaccines could work. This could be a long way towards being over by now.

I'm not sure the vaccines could have been cleared for challenge trials much before this. It is a thing that rather needs doing, obviously.

At the phase 3 stage seems reasonable to me, I mean is that not the point of the phase 3 trial? Testing for efficacy and safety? It's just a change in methodology at that point.

Don't know, but a few weeks ago my kid bro, who is a pharmacoviligance compliance officer with a consultancy that does drug safety work for big pharma firms, said he didn't think challenge trials, with a virus of known and considerable lethality, could go ahead before January. We're kind of in uncharted waters because there's never been a hurry-up like this before and there are pretty obvious liability issues.

OTT, need your advice.

Should I go to the dentist? Developing a slight sensitivity in a tooth. I’m sure I can hold out for some time, but it’s one of those things. The longer I wait to get it sorted, the worse the fix will be.

Toothache or the corona? What say you?

I'd go to the dentist for acute care. It's a small number of people you're exposed to,and if it's like my dentist, they are being very careful.

Still not going for a cleaning or exam, though.

Anyway, the UK government suggests it could start sticking needles in arms next week, using the BioNTech-Pfizer vaccine. I guess most of us would take it if offered, but given the accelerated development you do wonder a bit.



I've got exactly pokeraz's problem about whether to go to the dentist and can't make me mind up. Some days the tooth is fine, and a dental surgery is a bit of a Covid hazard, so... hmm.

Absolutely. Dentists seem to be very, very proactive with protection/procedures etc.

This is what I’m doing, and my DAD is my dentist.

Just a cleaning? Wait until next year. Anything more serious than that? Make an appointment.