What those four countries have in common is their use of Sinopharm. It seems safe to assume that the efficacy of Sinopharm has been significantly exaggerated.
It is unfortunate that it has been elevated to the same level as vaccines that have been rigorously tested and validated.
For countries using US/EU-approved vaccines —- Pfizer, Moderna, J&J, and Astra Zeneca —- increasing vaccination rates are clearly showing a “decoupling” of cases and hospitalisations. That prevention of severe disease is their stated objective, that’s all we need to end the pandemic, and they are clearly a huge success story.
I’m learning Polish (from English), which is very similar grammatically and even allows for some understanding of Russian (with many false friends of course).
Going back to an earlier point re English speakers understanding beginners/non-natives, I find Polish to be the opposite — I imagine it’s similar with Russian? Examples of errors that cause Poles to look at me like I have two heads:
1. Mistakes in declination: granted changing an ending can dramatically change the meaning of a noun/adverb/adjective, but the ability to infer the intended meaning seems to be largely absent.
2. Mispronunciation of syllables: neglecting to pronounce an accent, for example “mnóstwo” (plenty) vs “mnostwo” (meaningless).
3. Using a wrong conjugation with verbs or slightly mangling the conjugation, e.g., “napisałem list” (I wrote a letter) vs “napisem list” (meaningless).
4. Not breaking up a word correctly —- it’s not always obvious where one syllable ends and another begins, e.g., pronouncing “zadzwonić” (to call) as “zadz-wonić” vs “za-dwonić”.
5. When not accenting the correct syllable (usually second to last in Polish but I understand there’s no general rule in Russian).
My best guess as to why there is little natural tolerance for mistakes is because of lack of immigration. Poland is nearly entirely homogenous, and the biggest immigrant population is Ukrainians, who also speak Slavic languages.
I watched around 20 minutes till now. Seems like a professionally prepared documentary targeting younger Russian generation. Reminds me of a similar documentary by BBC some years ago. For sure a lot of effort has been put into the making of this.
I am not a Russian, but it looks to me even if all these allegations were to be true, still Putin remains the person that re-build modern Russia. This documentary can only make people in Russia like Putin even more. I will try to watch the rest next out of curiosity, but I doubt it will change my mind.
It is also heroic this guy takes a few months to recover and finds the energy to present so much well-researched evidence. I wounder because, I have seen the pattern in this documentary in some other documentaries before - last in one about Syria's Assad I watched - show some facts that are maybe true, then follow by a conclusion that me as someone who has no idea on those details cannot verify but is supposed to trust in context. Maybe these works on weak minds as they say in Star Wars. This is subtle propaganda in the making.
Not sure what is expected audience for such level of international manipulative politics here.
Competing in any market isn’t easy, especially with low margins. If it was, someone would be doing it, since people have a goal to earn money.
The comment I replied claimed Amazon didn’t have competition, to which I wanted to point out that the retail side of Amazon has a ton of competition. And single digit profit margins are pretty hard proof of competition, and/or low barrier to entry. Because again, people have a goal of earning money, and the only reason they would accept single digit margins is if others would take their business.
There are plenty of commercial air purifiers that will at least trap SARS-CoV-2 particles, and they can be added to air conditioning systems.
The IQAir HealthPro Plus, which can be bought for $899[1], filters particles as small as 0.003 microns (Coronavirus is approximately 0.1 microns[2]). And their Perfect 16 product is designed for HVAC systems[3].
I have to say I'm concerned about Shopify's growing dominance in the e-commerce market. They're selling a 'David vs Goliath' story about taking on Amazon, while at the same time becoming a Goliath themselves.
They are gradually building what seems to be an unassailable lead: preferential card processing rates with Stripe, hard-to-match discounts on shipping with the major logistics companies, warehousing to help retailers fulfil products, an anti-competitive app only for Shopify retailers, an exclusive arrangement with Facebook for Facebook Shops, and now a partnership with Walmart.
Shopify isn't remotely close to joining the big tech club, outside of their comically inflated bubble valuation (trading for 56 times sales).
Let's compare, trailing four quarters.
Amazon, $296b sales, $14b operating income
Apple, $268b sales, $65b operating income
Alphabet, $166b sales, $35b operating income
Microsoft, $138b sales, $52b operating income
Facebook, $73b sales, $26b operating income
Netflix, $21b sales, $3b operating income
Shopify, $1.7b sales, negative $178m operating income
One of these is very much not like the others. Investors think they've found the next Amazon, it's not. It's a slightly better Etsy as a business, and if they're really lucky, in 10 years they might be an eBay. Amazon is only what it is today, thanks to the AWS margins and op profit (not because of its retail business, which has very low growth and terrible margins). There's no evidence of stellar margins hiding in Shopify's business. 14 years, zero profit, and a weak gross profit margin (eBay's gross profit margin is 2x that of Shopify, and was even better in years past; even Etsy has a far better gross profit margin).
Compare Square to Shopify to further amplify the obviousness of the context:
Square has $5.1b in sales (3x larger, trading for 8 times sales), an operating profit for 2019, still growing fast, and is worth about 2/5 what Shopify is.
SHOP's valuation is obviously lunacy, which is quite common in this market at the moment (the Dave Portnoy market). See: Nikola or most any cloud company. It'll end in tears or a decade-long stagnation in the stock, there are no other possibilities. How long will it take SHOP to generate a $3b annual profit? That's the future stagnation clue, their market cap represents a decade or more of returns pulled forward (if everything goes right for them). The only thing qualifying SHOP for consideration among big tech, is their market cap.
If we were going to spread the insanity around more evenly, ETSY, adjusting for its slower growth rate relative to SHOP, should have a $25-$30 billion market cap. Every investor generation thinks their bubble is the one that is different and is going to last.
Shopify is incredible at marketing themselves, and so far they've been able to churn their way out of the bubbles this creates, but it's going to catch up with them.
WooCommerce still powers more eCom sites than Shopify. Shopify is definitely growing, but this is a place where OSS is and will continue to be a quality alternative that owns a lot of the market.
Why is that a bad thing? The point of capitalism is that a company will grow if it can grow. We let Amazon do it why not this? Anyways it's better that Amazon has competition minimally, right?
Technically, they are still negotiating, though negotiations stalled in 2016[1].
I can't ever see it happening; there is so much opposition. Human rights seems to be biggest sticking point, and is unlikely to be resolved any time soon.
Irishman here. Not to further a cultural stereotype but.. I know plenty of binge drinkers who could put away 20-30 pints[1] over the course of a day-long drinking session. Get a couple of them together and they'd finish a keg that size in 2-3 days.
It is unfortunate that it has been elevated to the same level as vaccines that have been rigorously tested and validated.
For countries using US/EU-approved vaccines —- Pfizer, Moderna, J&J, and Astra Zeneca —- increasing vaccination rates are clearly showing a “decoupling” of cases and hospitalisations. That prevention of severe disease is their stated objective, that’s all we need to end the pandemic, and they are clearly a huge success story.