News COVID-19 pandemic

[Urwumpe]

Meanwhile in Germany, Merkel persuaded the collected executive late at night to extend Easter by merely two holidays, for at least having a short somewhat real lockdown (instead of this "lockdowns" we have had in the past, with supermarkts and many other shops still open and many people going to work as usual). This happened after, as reports go, she reached completely unknown levels of cynism while having to deal with the concentrated incompetence of the ministers and minister presidents around her (Quote: "At least you managed to call one airline." after the minister of transportation merely managed to reach the Lufthansa in 1.5 hours).

A few hours later this plan had to be scrubbed because of the many legal issues related to it (and the speed how fast the states might solve them). Merkel excused for the her failure and took full personal responsibility for that failed plan and the resulting confusion. The opposition demands her to step down, as they do everyday (Germany is somewhat special, in that you can't simply vote in parliament to remove a chancellor from office - you need to elect a new chancellor, like it happened with Helmut Kohl. Thus such demands are pretty weak.)

So, we are right in the middle of a bad third wave, the executive is broken at the weakest link in its chain (the minister presidents, which are not even half-wit anymore.), vaccination is extremely slow and it seems like it is up to the citizens again to handle things.

The current progress of the vaccination campaign can be traced here: https://impfdashboard.de/

Yeah, it is THAT bad. Especially pay attention to how many doses are available in a state and how poor the other manufacturers deliver to Germany compared to BionTech/Pfizer. AstraZeneca now faces really bad legal troubles, after almost 30 million doses of undeclared vaccine had been found in a warehouse in Rome, while AZ fails to comply to the delivery contract with the EU. It looks like the batch was produce in a factory in the Netherlands before it came to Rome and was supposed to go to Belgium for packaging and was likely destined to be sold to the UK (Which is out of reach for the EMA now).

We achieve 230,000 doses per day now. Thats not bad in absolute numbers, but poor compared to the size of Germany. Just compare it to the UK (despite the statistics of the UK looking strangely like a sawtooth signal. No idea how to produce this. The German data just shows the usual weekend effect and poor reporting delays)

The German tank museum will close again from next week on. While they could legally stay open, both the museum and the town have decide that its better to close again after a few days in 2021 since the museum is the main source of tourism for that town with people travelling long distances to visit it (which is no surprise, since the town is really in the middle of nowhere, between Hanover and Hamburg)

 

[4throck]

Very unfortunate that many politicians across Europe don't realize that vaccine production is the key.
They spend time with pointless measures, instead of actually solving the problem.
They keep talking (blaming AZ, new variants, whatever) but that doesn't make doses appear.

Due to variants we'll need to take the vaccine every year (at least)... Can't they see this ?
Vaccine production must be local and in large scale. It's not hard, we do it with food for example... And guess what, it seems to work....

 

[Urwumpe]

Due to variants we'll need to take the vaccine every year (at least)... Can't they see this ?
Vaccine production must be local and in large scale. It's not hard, we do it with food for example... And guess what, it seems to work....

Not really - many vaccines remain useful even for other variants.

BUT: Would we have gone to zero-COVID, we could have slowed the evolution of the virus down to the point that we might even no longer need any vaccine for about 10 years before it evolved so much that the resistance in the vaccinated population would have been overcome again.

And yes, vaccine production and vaccine development is the key, especially when there are politicians that prefer medieval ignorance over solving a problem.

 

[jedidia]

(Quote: "At least you managed to call one airline." after the minister of transportation merely managed to reach the Lufthansa in 1.5 hours)

That's surprisingly polite for a German. It's what I'd expect in Switzerland, but usually you guys are a lot more... direct in your criticism. ?

 

[N_Molson]

Belgium is closing schools Monday "for one month".

 

[Urwumpe]

That's surprisingly polite for a German. It's what I'd expect in Switzerland, but usually you guys are a lot more... direct in your criticism. ?

Well, for Merkels standards, that already a few miles beyond any known red line. When Merkel gets even slightly direct things are really dire. Thats one aspect why her speech one year ago was so noteworthy. Usually she leaves the direct attacks on her opponents to others in parliament.

The longer the pandemic runs, the more I get the impression, she and her minister of the chancellery, Helge Braun, are are the only people there who really understood what this epidemic means.

 

[TheShuttleExperience]

The longer the pandemic runs, the more I get the impression, she and her minister of the chancellery, Helge Braun, are are the only people there who really understood what this epidemic means.

Uh, don't tell this all the "Truthers" out there...

Most people in fact don't really understand the situation. There is not a single day going by without meeting an unenlightened halfwit on the street or on the internet, babbling that this is nothing but a flu and that the entire scientific and political world either has no clue or is corrupt or both at the same time ?‍

What I just don't understand is all the medieval backward thinking and defiant behaviour of physically grown people with a mental matureness of a special school teenager. I am literally surrounded by such people. But maybe it's just more obvious now due to the pandemic.

 

[Urwumpe]

Uh, don't tell this all the "Truthers" out there...

Most people in fact don't really understand the situation. There is not a single day going by without meeting an unenlightened halfwit on the street or on the internet, babbling that this is nothing but a flu and that the entire scientific and political world either has no clue or is corrupt or both at the same time ?‍

Yeah... just like what happens when you expose yourself as native from Wolfsburg and suddenly people have the urge to explain you that BEVs can't work and how bad for the environment those BEVs are. Filling the tiny 40l tank of my car consumes about 3 huge barrels of crude oil from well to tank for merely 600 km, but hey, the lithium production for those batteries that can last one million kilometers before reaching the EOL capacity is evil.

 

[N_Molson]

Filling the tiny 40l tank of my car consumes about 3 huge barrels of crude oil from well to tank for merely 600 km, but hey, the lithium production for those batteries that can last one million kilometers before reaching the EOL capacity is evil.

Careful, in Germany townsfolk could burn you as an heretic for saying such things. Diesel engines and cars are a pillar of the german economy !

 

[Urwumpe]

Careful, in Germany townsfolk could burn you as an heretic for saying such things. Diesel engines and cars are a pillar of the german economy !

I know, I know.... and they are reacting pretty confused if you mention that gas does not grow on trees... and Biodiesel well... We burn our food, maybe we can eat our money.

 

[Artlav]

how bad for the environment those BEVs are

Interesting. So no one complains about BEVs being ludicrously impractical and the lack of charging infrastructure in most of the world, but the little problem of lithium mining suddenly concerns everyone?

 

[Urwumpe]

Interesting. So no one complains about BEVs being ludicrously impractical and the lack of charging infrastructure in most of the world, but the little problem of lithium mining suddenly concerns everyone?

Yeah - though even the impractical depends on what you are up to. Funnily, the cheap 45 km/h BEVs suddenly get a huge fan club here. You need no full drivers licence, full loading the battery takes just 2 hours at a standard AC socket and the 100 km range of those is usually good enough at that speed.

Thus those are getting pretty interesting for young and old people.

 

[N_Molson]

I'd say they are extremely impractical if you have to drive Petersburg-Vladivostok in Russia, but are perfect in Monaco. Except that, in Monaco, they have enough money to buy Tesla's. ? Still, there's a middleground, and in the relatively densely populated countries of Western Europe they are probably enough for regional buisness (car jams and automatic police radars ruin the point of a decent top speed anyways...).

 

[Artlav]

Ah, yes. The bafangs are indeed rather popular even here, and they are a lot more practical since you can charge them at home, drive around the traffic or even ride the train with one.
On the minus side, it's too damn cold to ride one in winter...

I've been contemplating getting an electric car, but then Chevy Volt got discontinued, nothing new like it was made, and battery only cars are paperweights here. There are maybe a few dozen working chargers per larger city, and none in-between. Oh, and most people live in apartments, so having your own charger isn't really an option either.

 

[Urwumpe]

Ah, yes. The bafangs are indeed rather popular even here, and they are a lot more practical since you can charge them at home, drive around the traffic or even ride the train with one.
On the minus side, it's too damn cold to ride one in winter...

I've been contemplating getting an electric car, but then Chevy Volt got discontinued, nothing new like it was made, and battery only cars are paperweights here. There are maybe a few dozen working chargers per larger city, and none in-between. Oh, and most people live in apartments, so having your own charger isn't really an option either.

Yeah, and a PHEV sounds nice at first, but isn't really a good option as long as the electric part of it is merely a "maneuvering thruster" on a parking lot.

The big issue is finding a solution to the problem of getting electrical chargers to apartment blocks - especially if the trend continues and 800V cars become more common, that can charge at 350 kW.

 

[N_Molson]

Yeah one of the things that made thermic engines popular is that they gives you... heat as long as they are running, which is very nice during (russian) winter ! That and batteries, even advanced ones really really don't like extreme cold, and their thermal management is a big thing in spacecraft design. Russia or Canada are sure not the best places for E-cars. Now I guess liquefied natural gas could be a thing in Russia, you have plenty of that. But again anything that requires a specific infrastructure won't work, because as you say, there is pretty much nothing between major towns, and too little inter-regional traffic to make such investments profitable.

The big issue is finding a solution to the problem of getting electrical chargers to apartment blocks - especially if the trend continues and 800V cars become more common, that can charge at 350 kW.

You could have something like a "common charge point" in parking lots, where the plugs would be smart enough to track the ID of your car and charging you for the power used at the end of the month. Given it isn't randomly wrecked every night by an alcoholic or psychotic guy, which tends to happen. A couple of years ago I worked as an handyman in residential lots as a side-job, and in every block you have someone to wreck things. Worst things I saw is an Internet optic fiber relay ripped open for no obvious reason (some obscure vengeance or rivalry ?), and a quite reasonable girl that flattened a hedge and made a huge hole into it trying to park her car. And let the car struck on the hedge, of course. ?

 

[TheShuttleExperience]

There are only two things preventing me from buying an electric car: prime cost and charging time (and availability). It's like vegan and vegetarian food. I am not against it. But as long as it is so expensive although it consists of cheap industrial ingredients, and tastes like anything but meat and cheese, I'm not going. The idea behind all this is good, but not yet ready for the public really. Same with those strange straws you now get at Mc Donalds. No plastics, nice, but I don't like to chew on wet carton ?

Sorry for the little off topic rant ?

 

[kuddel]

Same with those strange straws you now get at Mc Donalds. No plastics, nice, but I don't like to chew on wet carton ?

Easy...just ask that you don't want a straw.
I'm doing this since ages, so no change for me. No carton-straw tastes exactly like no plastic-straw

 

[ChrisRowland]

Several people I know have Teslas. For local travel it's no problem, you install a charging point at home that will charge it overnight.

For longer journeys the Tesla has a massive route planner so you know where to stop to get a rapid change while you have a coffee or lunch.

We're based in southern UK and have a regular gliding holiday in Scotland - Deeside - where we stay in a log cabin in the middle of nowhere. One of our people turned up with a Tesla. And it was connected to the mains through a 13 A plug. This gave him enough to get by, including showing us the massive acceleration it had.

There are plans to produce rocket fuel on Mars from CO2 and H2O and wonder if it could be used on Earth. Use solar power in the sunny parts to capture CO2 and H2O and convert it to methane and O2. I know that people are proposing using hydrogen but I wonder if methane (or propane) would be better because it's easier to handle, transport and store. We are already transporting liquid natural gas from the oil producing areas, they are mostly sunny so could transition to solar methane.

 

[ChrisRowland]

Easy...just ask that you don't want a straw.
I'm doing this since ages, so no change for me. No carton-straw tastes exactly like no plastic-straw

My experience of McDonalds is limited but how do you tell the difference in taste or texture between the straw, the bun or the burger?