AdamR28

Technically 'stronger', as the diameter is smaller for the same thickness and a sprocket of that size won't have the additional holes, but it won't last as long as the chain will only be running on ~7 teeth rather than ~9.

Gusset will be quieter, providing its a hardtail and you run the tension just off 'tight' (as it should be ideally).

Safe but don't last long in that design - need something to support the side plates as well, or be wide-narrow design for more roller support.

The dedication to detail here is nothing short of astounding. You've just taken me back in time 20 years brilliant work!

Exactly the same symptoms I've had this week, plus sore / scratchy throat. Negative Covid test. Listed Flu (NHS website) and Omicron (wherever you look) symptoms are pretty much identical now. Almost zero flu cases in the UK in winter 2020: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/995284/Surveillance_of_influenza_and_other_seasonal_respiratory_viruses_in_the_UK_2020_to_2021-1.pdf (pages 24, 27, 30). I am quite sure that will be the same this winter when to reports come out. Covid getting milder and is becoming the new flu, or was always just a strong strain of flu (at first glance, peak hospital admissions and ICU patients are approx 10x higher from Covid than normal flu years)?

Yeah man hope its not too bad. Interested to see what symptoms you get... some intriguing analysis here from 13:50 onwards:

Father Christmas?

That could explain it... though all the stats say (once in adulthood) your average chance of death within the next year increases year-on-year, without exception. Example: Loving the testosterone-related spike around age 13-14

True enough! Works both ways, too.

I'd love to find the study and have a proper read, for interest's sake, if the study design is detailed. I read an article yesterday about how certain areas of society can be targeted for research because the study designers know that these people will 'output' the data they really want to see. An example might be a newspaper, known to be read by Tory supporters having an average readership age of 55, running an opinion poll about Brexit (in or out). It's clear what the result of that poll will be. If they get 5000 participants they only have to list how many people were asked, not WHO they were, and then this can be used as 'marketing' to try and make others follow suit. Same deal with any trial - choose 2228 12-15 year olds who are autistic and home-schooled, and there is a pretty good chance there will be no Covid cases within that group - jabbed or not (extreme example but you get what I mean).

Weird. Perhaps a reporting thing - as in, we are so 'strong' we don't have any cases, or there are so many people living so remotely they don't have chance to log deaths, or they aren't doing any testing cos they have sold all their testing kits to us lot Or something more sinister...?

Ah, I didn't explain myself well... I went hunting for vaccine efficacy after your info about it varying with age, and found this from Pfizer: 100% for people ages 12 to 15; 95% for people age 16 and older; 94% for people age 65 and older; 61% for people 70 and older; 70% for people 80 and older. (Which they average out and publish as 94%) My point for discussion was that the drop in efficacy at age 70-80 seems at odds with what you'd expect. Could it be possible that this indicates a lack of reliability in the testing method, or statistical significance of this study as a whole? I don't know enough to comment. Just an observation on what looks like an odd set of data at first glance.

That's a lot of reading... thanks Mike. The drug test results Pfizer posted look promising. Going from a tiny number of deaths / hospitalisations to an even smaller number is an improvement. Not sure how I feel about the DMC's work being funded by the study 'sponsor'. 'A clinical trial DMC is a group of individuals with pertinent expertise that reviews on a regular basis accumulating data from one or more ongoing clinical trials’. The FDA guidance further explains that ‘The DMC advises the sponsor regarding the continuing safety of trial subjects and those yet to be recruited to the trial, as well as the continuing validity and scientific merit of the trial’. It is good that there is an extra level of accountability, but without a complete separation between those who stand to make billions and those reviewing their studies, it still feels like marking your own homework to me. I cannot imagine how a truly independent review of such studies could be implemented though! Put it this way... if Coca Cola carried out a study into the effects of drinking a can of their beverage per day, then paid a 3rd party to 'review' that, you can bet your ass the results would be different to if Pepsi did exactly the same study (on Coca Cola)

Thanks for pointing this out dude, honestly I didn't know that. We've all been constantly told it is X% effective, but delving into the actual numbers shows some weirdness - it behaves exactly as you'd mentioned, pro rata with age, apart from lower efficacy in their trials for patients aged 70-85 than 85 and above. Does that mean it IS actually working in such a manner, or the testing is unreliable? Either way, I guess they are entitled to blanket statement it with "95% effective", but I think allowing people to make their own choices - by clearly publishing the actual numbers - would be preferable. It might even get vaccine-sceptics to take it up, given that the apparent efficacy rates for younger people are even higher than the widely published rate.

Indeed. And marking ones own homework when people's lives are at stake, and there is a lot of money to be made, shouldn't be permitted IMO. But then again, who would fund such studies on a completely impartial basis?

Now that makes sense. Thanks dude! (Basic 101 stats right there, its been a while. Self-facepalm) And so by definition, 94% of that age group accounts for the remaining 81% of deaths. So the jabs do reduce chance of death, when compared with unjabbed, in this set of data. Edit: messed up all the above members by looking at the wrong table, ha. Those were overnight inpatient numbers. Death numbers are 2404 and 368 (jabbed / unjabbed), so the 6% unjabbed population make up 13% of the deaths, and the jabbed 94% make up 87% of the deaths. Still a 'win' for the jab.

Ok. So to look at that from another perspective... If the vaccines are as effective as they claim (95%+? Edit, Pfizer claim "95.3% effective in preventing severe disease as defined by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration") then wouldn't that mean older people - who you rightly pointed out are the most vaccinated age group - are actually going to be less likely to die from Covid? In the UK, official figures show ~94% of over 70s are double jabbed. At 95% efficacy, that should mean a 70s and over death rate from Covid of just over 5%, right? (As the other ~6% unjabbed are more likely to die, in theory) Between week 45 and 48 this year, there were a total of 2626 deaths among the over 70s within 28 days of a positive Covid test (rolls eyes). 503 of these were unvaccinated, which is 19%. Leaving 81% of deaths as double jabbed, when we'd expect more like just over 5% if the jab worked as advertised. I must be missing something... Happy to be shown a different way of looking at it!

That looks... a lot better than I thought it should / would! Nice work!

Exactly. All living organisms have the primary goal to reproduce. So once a virus knows it 'works' (has the ability to infect another organism and use it as a host to mutate and spread) its goal is to become more transmissible (maximum reproduction) but less severe. Becoming more severe is not on its agenda, because then it will end up having no more hosts available when they are all dead before having had chance to transmit. We also didn't hear about all the other variants identified, because they didn't 'work' in the sense of what viruses aim to achieve: https://www.who.int/en/activities/tracking-SARS-CoV-2-variants/ Omicron is an evolution and it looks to be heading down the usual virus path. Obviously big numbers of infections can be used to scare people, with the actual death rate going unreported. And I agree that we are not recording this properly, which is very frustrating for me as a numbers pedant / nerd! But even with the data skewed, I do think we can read into it.

BTW I must say it is great that we can discuss this in such a way. Pretty much every other Covid-related forum discussion I've seen goes south pretty quickly, or gets locked / deleted by admins. Thanks dudes.

Why not? I am very aware that the size of the groups makes a huge difference. The proportion of the UK population who have been double vaccinated is 69% - I mentioned that in my post - yet double vaccinated people make up 80% of the deaths. If the vaccines were as effective as claimed, surely this should be much lower. I'm trying to understand why that is. Combined with Pfizers report which also seems to indicate a higher death rate after having taken the jab, something feels wrong. I am not an average person (IQ at 99.997th percentile) and my degree did include some study relevant to this field. On the subject of the old and infirm passing away... I don't have a very popular range of thoughts in this area, but what I will say is that these opinions are formed in no small part due to what a number of my relatives are currently experiencing by trying to cling onto length of life rather than focusing on quality of life. When (if) I've had a good innings and the future looks bleak, I'll be going skydiving and packing my own 'chute thank you very much. I did read first page, those numbers are completely at odds with the data provided later in the same document. I assume they come from the drug company's own reports, and are from a handful of studies. The complete numbers appear to show something vastly different. On a similar note, I did my first home lateral flow test yesterday. There is no way they are as accurate (I would prefr to use the word inaccurate here, but I'll roll with it...) as claimed. You cannot trust the general population to carry out that procedure with consistency. Again, I am trying to see if other people interpret this data differently to me - why that is, and how they came to that conclusion. Having a covid jab is still a personal choice (just...) and while I would love to make life a lot easier for myself and "get boosted now" (lol), the more I research the worse an idea that seems. I am also concerned for the health of others, which is why I'm unearthing these papers and linking to them. Has anyone else had a look at Pfizers report I posted a few days ago? I'm keen to see if anyone else reads it the same way as me.

I may have done the maths wrong here... but I think that would make the US population 31.25 billion. Assuming a population of 330 million (latest data I can find from 2020), a 0.016% fatality rate would mean 53k deaths. The latest figures I can find show about 800k deaths. Perhaps that fatality rate isn't right? Edit: looks like its 800k deaths from 50m cases so far, which is 1.6%. Which would make 5m deaths if everyone in the US got Covid, based on current data, as you said. I am unsure if herd immunity would reach that high a death rate - a high proportion of deaths are made up by the old and infirm. Once they have gone, the rate will drop. **If someone could also look at this and make sure I'm not going made that would be good...!** Official UK government figures appear to show you are less likely to die from Covid if you haven't had any jabs: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1039677/Vaccine_surveillance_report_-_week_49.pdf (Table 10b, page 34) https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1032859/Vaccine_surveillance_report_-_week_45.pdf https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1025358/Vaccine-surveillance-report-week-41.pdf https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1018416/Vaccine_surveillance_report_-_week_37_v2.pdf "Between 16 Aug 21 and 05 Dec 21 there were 3,070 Covid-19 deaths among the unvaccinated population in England, compared to 12,058 deaths among the vaccinated population during the same time frame." "The official data shows the the vaccinated population have accounted for 56% of Covid-19 cases, 63% of hospitalisations, and 80% of deaths over the past 16 weeks in England." The UK currently has a 69% double vaccinated rate (and this figure will have been lower on 16th August) - less than the 80% double vaccinated death rate. The report does mention that those more "vulnerable" will have been offered the jab first, which could explain why double vaccinated people have a higher death rate than unvaccinated - but I don't believe this to be a factor now, since every adult has had plenty of time to get jabbed if they want. I think we all agree that the jab doesn't stop you getting it, and doesn't stop you spreading it - this is what the scientists and government officials are telling us, and is currently playing out with another spike in infections. We are also being told that having the jabs reduces the severity of symptoms (which I guess includes death). However, with government data showing there is little difference in chance of death between vaccinated and unvaccinated - and certainly wildly different from the effectiveness percentages the vaccine makers are claiming - I still don't understand why we are being pushed so hard to have it... Prediction: we'll be allowed a fairly normal Xmas but have to "be alert", then additional restrictions again very soon after.

That's good to know... cheers Ali. Yeah I guess with less tension that gives chance for mud / stones to move out from the belt / sprockets, rather than it constantly being rammed into them! See how it goes... easy enough to adapt... Had another blast last night. Rode some pretty steep / rocky stuff (local name for the line is 'Rampage', ha) which was a good test for the wheels, as well as the usual XC-type blasting, and all still well. Bike has an amazing forgiveness to it, so comfy for a hardtail!

Thank you! I do actually have a belt drive setup and a SS splitter knocking about... but I'm going to try it on a different bike (which sees less crud) first. Stories of issues with mud put me off going for it this time.

Ah, I misread, thanks for pointing that out! So the money goes to a PCN (primary care network? I think that does change things, but I wonder if the £20-30m that will be spent evey day this month on boosters could be better used elsewhere.