Smartphone Lobby Wants Conference for 50,000 People in June (bloomberg.com) 42
The global wireless industry is planning to allow tens of thousands of international visitors to congregate for its flagship event in Barcelona in June, more than a year after it was axed due to the pandemic. From a report: The GSMA trade body said everyone present will have to show a negative Covid-19 result to access the Fira Gran Via venue and repeat the test every 72 hours. Rapid testing centers will be made available on site and organizers are considering using hotels for more. Additional measures being put in place for one of Europe's most important business gatherings include a new contact tracing mobile app, real-time occupancy monitoring, improved air conditioning at the venue, and an increased number of on-site medical staff. "We believe that we can have around 45,000 to 50,000 attendees, as of today," Stephanie Lynch-Habib, the GSMA's chief marketing officer, said in an interview on Monday, adding that visitor interest is expected to be strong.
What could possibly go wrong? (Score:4, Informative)
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Re: What could possibly go wrong? (Score:2)
My wife's nursing home was doing rapid tests daily pre shift own employees and came across that many times and then the infected person showed symptoms of covid. Honestly the rapid tests are accurate against more variants than the pcr. Some of the newer strains show negative PCR.
We also got real world data on vaccinated 1 dose , vaccinated 2nd dose. And unvaccinated.
The unvaccinated fared far worse.
However they were testing at t start of every shift. So daily. And one day good next day positive and out wa
WTF? (Score:2)
> Some of the newer strains show negative PCR.
Wow, that’s impressive! Even multiple strains! I’m curious, do you have a source for that?
(And I don’t mean B117 showing a single dropout in Applied Biosystems TaqPath Combo, I mean a negative PCR test result. Name a strain.)
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PCR can fail if there is too little virus in the body. This is usually around 1-2 days after exposure and at the end of exposure.
Generally speaking, after that PCR is highly effective, and will detect it before you show symptoms.
The thing is, a negative PCR te
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Make more sense if they required proof of vaccination.
President Biden has said that any American who wants a vaccination will have one by the end of May. But most other developed countries are way behind. Only Israel, the UK, and the UAE will be done by June. Many developing countries haven't even started.
If a vaccine is required, the June conference will have to be pushed back to late summer or autumn.
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President Biden has said that any American who wants a vaccination will have one by the end of May. But most other developed countries are way behind.
Operation Warp Speed [wikipedia.org]. But Biden is claiming credit anyways.
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Operation Warp Speed. But Biden is claiming credit anyways.
Trump's White House had no national vaccine distribution plans, and provided zero collaboration during the transition period.
https://www.reuters.com/articl... [reuters.com]
https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/... [ctvnews.ca]
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Trump's White House had no national vaccine distribution plans, and provided zero collaboration during the transition period.
"...new President Joe Biden's chief of staff, Ron Klain, said on Sunday..."
Lol.
Re: What could possibly go wrong? (Score:2)
Who cares who said it? Is it true or not? Leave your personality cult worship out of it and answer the question.
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And no, shouting WARP SPEED is not evidence of a plan.
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Perhaps because Biden has accelerated the program goals and turned the handwaving into concrete plans that can be executed. Perhaps we should call it Operation Transwarp.
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Only Israel, the UK, and the UAE will be done by June. Many developing countries haven't even started.
Not just developing countries:
Germany should have led the world at handling the pandemic. But experts slam Merkel's vaccine response as a disaster [cnn.com]
Even worse, some politicians seem to have used the pandemic to enrich themselves:
German lawmaker from Merkel's conservatives quits over face mask scandal [reuters.com]
On the conrtray . . . my sister who lives in New Jersey has already had her second Pfizer dose. And she said the National Guard who are running it were very efficient and friendly.
I have no idea when I (in
Re:What could possibly go wrong? (Score:4, Informative)
Germany probably could have vaccinated many more people if the EU had enacted an export ban like the USA and the UK did. Because right now even Canada gets their vaccine from the EU.
If you get vaccinated in early June (Score:2)
So yeah, June wouldn't be a safe bet even if 1/3rd of our population was anti-vaxx...
Also, vaccines don't make you immune, they just drastically reduce the odds you'll get it and end up in a hospital. I don't want to be doing big crowds until there's solid numbers that things are under control.
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In this situation false positives are fine. You just get kicked out. False negatives are a problem, and the PCR tests have them too.
Take any reasonable false negative rate estimate, multiply by 50,000 and you'll get a number greater than 1.
Fixed the headline (Score:3)
"Absolute dumbfucks put their profits over public safety as usual"
Not Smart Lobby Don't Conference Call... (Score:1)
...Resulting In A 50k+ Covid Cluster!
Tech lobbies - worse for your health than Republicans!
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As I was saying before some Republican/Tech lobbyist tried to bury the uncomfortable yet simple truth that he is an accomplice in a genocide...
Not Smart Lobby Don't Conference Call... Resulting In A 50k+ Covid Cluster!
Tech lobbies - worse for your health than Republicans!
Can you explain? (Score:3)
"Absolute dumbfucks put their profits over public safety as usual"
As of today, the US has vaccinated 90 million people [ourworldindata.org] total and are increasing by about 2.5 million per day.
June is 3 months away, which is about 100 days, which is about 250 million more vaccinations at the time of the conference.
The conclusion of absolute dumbfuckery isn't obvious to me.
Can you explain it in more detail? Is there some *other* reason not to hold the conference?
(Also of note: The 2.5 million per day figure seems to be going up, and deaths due to covid have fallen off of a cliff. At some poin
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90 million + 250 million = 340 million. The population of the USA is less than 330 million including children, it has a moderate number of anti-vaxxers, and I don't believe that the FDA has approved any vaccine for children yet. Your extrapolation makes slightly more sense than XKCD 605 [xkcd.com], but it's still not entirely sensible.
And that's without even mentioning the elephant in the room that figures for the USA, while not completely irrelevant to an international conference held in Europe, fall a long way short
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90 million + 250 million = 340 million. The population of the USA is less than 330 million
Most of these people will need a 2nd shot.
The J&J vaccine is single-shot, but the mRNA vaccines need a 2nd booster.
The 2.5M/day is for single shots. The number vaccinated is half that.
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As of today, the US has vaccinated 90 million people total and are increasing by about 2.5 million per day.
June is 3 months away, which is about 100 days, which is about 250 million more vaccinations at the time of the conference.
The conclusion of absolute dumbfuckery isn't obvious to me.
Can you explain it in more detail? Is there some *other* reason not to hold the conference?
It's an international event held in Barcelona. Not all countries are vaccinating as quickly as the US, and the target audience for the conference wouldn't mostly be in one of prioritized groups. Getting all international mutations of coronavirus into one place at one time seems liek a great way to get some sort of super mutation once the UK and SA variants get it on :)
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It's not about how many are vaccinated per se (Score:2)
The issue is that vaccination doesn't guarantee you won't get the virus, it makes it less likely, and it makes it *much* less likely you'll end up in a hospital.
But if we go back to allowing super spreader events before things are completely under control we risk a lot of people getting it, not getting sick, but eventually creating a mutation that *will* get people sick.
That's what p
So they won't eat their own dogfood... (Score:1)
So they won't eat their own dogfood, and just use their fucking phones. Just goes to show... phones suck; the need for their conference clears negates any [real] need for their conference.
Good luck with that (Score:2)
Spain had one of the strongest outbreaks of COVID in Europe and by extension enacted some of the strongest rules. I wish you the best of luck telling a government currently still fighting the virus, one of the few governments that has closed intra-EU borders, and one of the only governments to propose a mandatory vaccination program that you want to host 50000 foreigners just so you can show off shitty gadgets.
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Indeed. But zoom in on some of the sub regions in Spain and you start getting a different story than just taking names. They intend to kick arse too. I hesitate to provide a direct link though because it could quite as well be fake news considering I can't find reference to it from a news website I actually know, but then Google has blacklisted most Spanish papers due to their anti-google law.
Take this with a grain of salt: http://www.surinenglish.com/na... [surinenglish.com] but there are plenty of sites saying that this law
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In Europe it might be easier for them to mandate vaccines, even in
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Here in the US it's probably between 12-24 months away before it will be legal for anyone to require vaccinations
I sincerely doubt that. You couldn't even get people to wear masks :-)
is going to be achieved not through government mandates, but through commercial inconvenience.
Actually this is very likely. If I had to compare the USA to a European country I'd say the Netherlands. They also have a constitutional right to freedoms to the point where every time the government imposed a mask mandate some activist group took them to court. It took 6 months of legal wranglings to actually get to a point where the police could issue legally enforceable fines for not wearing a mask.
However in this country there is curr
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Here in the US it's probably between 12-24 months away before it will be legal for anyone to require vaccinations
I sincerely doubt that. You couldn't even get people to wear masks
Oh, there will be no state or federal mandate for vaccinations (though I could see some hyper-liberal local municipalities in CA or NY for example maybe trying it). In this instance I'm talking very specifically about employers requiring vaccinations of their employees. For reasons of productivity and liability, this is definitely going to be A Thing as soon as it's legal (several small employers have already tried it, many larger employers have said they are looking at implementing it when lawful).
I'm not one of those freedom loving flag waving nuts, but I do worry about the implications of a potential two tiered system. ...
Withou
Smart phones, dumb people (Score:2)
Bring the convention to Moscow (Score:2)
Vaccines have been generally available for three months (two months for those over 65) in Moscow and its surrounds. Life is back to normal. Whomever has chosen not to get vaccinated, it's their fault.
Insurance (Score:2)
Unlikely to go the way they expect (Score:2)
FWIW, I know My Current Employer has banned corporate travel to any trade shows at least through 2Q without a C-level waiver.
Maybe the organizers are in DGAF-mode expecting carriers & handset makers to beat down the doors for a chance to wheel & deal again, but I'm not seeing it.
Devices for remote communication (Score:2)
should not need meatbag gatherings, which are obscenely wasteful of all kinds of resources.
Technology should find more and better ways to reduce travel. Shipping ~50,000 humans to and from an event plus their support personnel, equipment and all that is required to make the gathering happen is waste. It is PROFITABLE waste which is why promoters want it to happen, but there is good beyond money. Not that I don't enjoy massive drunken junkets but call them what they are and understand there are alternative w