As expected, the FDA’s independent vaccine advisory committee recommended approval of the Pfizer vaccine yesterday, “17 to 4 in favor of recommending the drug for emergency use for people aged 16 years and older, with one of the members withholding”.
A federal advisory panel on Thursday recommended the emergency use of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine. The Food and Drug Administration is expected to approve the drug, kicking off a massive nationwide operation to get nearly 3 million doses of the vaccine to hospitals and drug stores across the country. The experts voted 17 to 4 in favor of recommending the drug for emergency use for people aged 16 years and older, with one of the members withholding. Health care workers and nursing home residents will be among the first to get the vaccine. …….. Clinical trials showed the Pfizer vaccine was nearly 95% effective for adults 18 to 64 and was just as effective for people of all ethnicities. However, some groups — people with weak immune systems, individuals with severe allergic reactions, and pregnant women — could be restricted from getting the shot. However, British health officials on Wednesday warned that people with a history of “significant” allergic reactions to vaccines, medicine, or food should not be given Pfizer’s vaccine. Hahn said the FDA is working closely with its partners in the U.K. to understand what happened with the allergic reactions. “We study the data very carefully to say who should not receive the vaccine and these are the things the FDA does to ensure the safety and effectiveness” of the drug, Hahn said Thursday.
The advisory committee’s recommendation will probably lead to FDA approval by the weekend. The consensus is that the vaccine is safe and 95% effective. The Covid-19 pandemic is clearly out of control and there is a fear – quite justified – that without widespread acceptance of the vaccines the pandemic may continue unchecked. The Spanish flu pandemic (1918 – 21) lasted almost 3 years without any vaccine. Even with widespread and effective vaccination against Covid-19, this pandemic is set to last for at least two years until Spring 2022. Currently there is a widespread, global “information campaign” in favour of vaccination. Sometimes the simplistic and unnuanced messages are, I think, counter-productive. The WHO and UN information programs, in particular, talk down to the “great unwashed” and come close to being brainwashing attempts.
It can be expected that all members of an expert panel on vaccines will generally be in favour of vaccines. A key question then is why 4 of the expert panel did not recommend approval. In the current climate the dissenting expert views are of special importance. Unfortunately there is not much reporting of their views (with some exceptions).
Archana Chatterjee, dean of the Chicago Medical School at Rosalind Franklin University of Science and Medicine, said she dissented from the recommendation vote because there isn’t enough data justifying including 16 and 17 year olds in an emergency authorization. …. Oveta Fuller, a virologist at the University of Michigan Medical School, also dissented, saying in an interview that she would like to see at least two more months of data on trial participants that could help determine whether the vaccine reduces transmission.
The issue of using placebos in double-blinded trials for some patients and denying such patients vaccines came up (of effectively using humans as guinea-pigs). This is not really an ethical question at all, though the medical profession assuages its conscience by presenting it as such.
……. Doran Fink, deputy clinical director of the FDA’s division of vaccines, said further evaluation of the vaccine after its release will be necessary to see if its benefits continue to outweigh its risk, and whether any labeling changes will be required. Dr. Fink also addressed one major topic that has been in question—whether patients in the Pfizer trial who were randomly assigned to placebo should automatically be switched over and get the vaccine. FDA staffers told the committee they shouldn’t.
Steven Goodman, a Stanford University School of Medicine dean and epidemiologist, described that choice in testimony before the panel as an “ethical dilemma” in which both answers—getting vaccines to placebo patients and developing long-term safety and effectiveness—are right, and neither is unethical. ….. Marion Gruber, director of the FDA’s office of vaccines (and no relation to Bill Gruber), said she is concerned that if there is an unblinding of patients, that might limit the ability of the study to gather enough data about the vaccine’s safety.
Of course, there is no ethical dilemma. It is a simple case of the one being over-ruled by the many. Those patients involved in trials who get placebos instead of the vaccines are effectively human guinea-pigs whose health (and lives) are being adventured, without their knowledge, “for the common good”. Guinea-pigs (human or not) are not required to be told, or to understand, their fate. Their role is only to be counted in the appropriate column.
Throughout human history “the few” have always been sacrificed for “the many”. That, after all, is the essence of democracy. The reality is that the health of those receiving placebos in a vaccine trial is always subordinated to the results of the trial.
Tags: covid-19, Pfizer, vaccines Posted in Ethics, Health | Comments Off on FDA panel recommends approval of Pfizer vaccine, 17 to 4. But why did 4 oppose?
The FDA briefing reckons the Pfizer vaccine is safe and effective. (An expected conclusion and the EU will soon follow suit). The trial had around 44,000 participants.
The FDA’s independent vaccine advisory committee meets on Thursday, 10th December to consider emergency use of Pfizer’s coronavirus vaccine.
During the trial, one participant receiving the vaccine had a severe Covid-19 infection while three receiving placebos were severely infected. Four people in the placebo group died during the trial and two died in the vaccine group. None of the deaths are ascribed to the vaccine.
Antibodies are produced within 10 days.
How long immunity may last is not known. The meeting is expected to focus on safety aspects.
Efficacy Summary In the final efficacy analysis, among participants without evidence of SARS-CoV-2 infection before and during vaccination regimen, vaccine efficacy (VE) for the first primary endpoint against confirmed COVID-19 occurring at least 7 days after Dose 2 was 95.0%, with 8 COVID-19 cases in the BNT162b2 group compared to 162 COVID-19 cases in the placebo group. The 95% credible interval for the VE was 90.3% to 97.6%, indicating that the true VE is at least 90.3% with a 97.5% probability given the available data. For the second primary endpoint, VE against confirmed COVID-19 occurring at least 7 days after Dose 2 in participants with and without evidence of SARS-CoV-2 infection before and during vaccination regimen was 94.6%, with 9 and 169 cases in the BNT162b2 and placebo groups respectively. The 95% credible interval for the VE was 89.9% to 97.3%, indicating that the true VE is at least 89.9% with a 97.5% probability given the available data.
The AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccine and the Moderna vaccines will also soon get approval. Of course the AstraZeneca vaccine costs only about 10% of the cost of the Pfizer vaccine (excluding the storage and logistic costs) and – in the long run – may generate greater revenues if the vaccination becomes a recurring event. My guess is that the costs of the Pfizer vaccine are too high to be sustainable.
There is much I wish I had not seen or heard or smelled or learnt. But to unsee or unhear or unlearn or unremember or unknow are not permitted, by reality or by language.
There is much more unseen than seen.
But what has been seen cannot be unseen.
To unsee is not an action permitted by reality or by language.
What has been seen may not be remembered.
What is remembered is only a decaying image of what was seen.
What is remembered may be forgotten but cannot be erased selectively or voluntarily
To unremember is not an action in reality or in language.
What is known is a tiny part of what is knowable.
The size of the unknowable is unknowable.
To learn is to convert some of what is unknown (but knowable) to be known.
To convert knowledge to ignorance by unknowing is unreal.
Forgetting is real and ignorance is common, but how to unknow is unknown.
To unlearn is not an action permitted by reality or language.
To not hear many things is normal and to forget what has been heard is common.
But to unhear what has been heard is not permitted.
Doing is a temporal activity. Undoing in time is fundamentally impossible.
What the brain receives as sensory input cannot be undone.
Long-term effects can only show up in the long-term. The UK has won the Pfizer race but Russia and China already won their own races. The EU and the US are just slow (but claim credit for a prudence that is not possible). They are both so heavily invested that they cannot not approve. In fact, the world needs the vaccination initiatives to proceed with all speed, no matter the immunization conferred. Deployment of their own vaccines has started in Russia and China and the Pfizer vaccine will start being deployed in the UK next week. Other countries will follow – have no choice but to follow. The low cost vaccine is the Astrazeneca / Oxford vaccine which is probably 2 months away. Some few countries will deploy the Chinese and Russian vaccines. 2021 is vaccination year. It remains to be seen if this succeeds in preventing another Covid-19 spike in spring 2021.
Long-term effects are unknown but unlikely. The period of conferred immunization is unknown and will come out in the wash.
The French and the US do it. The Russians and the British do it. Iran and the Chinese and the Saudis do it. Iraq and Syria do it.
All nations give their agents a licence to act, in their own self-interest, even if against their own laws, when they are in foreign parts.
The Indians and the Pakistanis and the Afghans probably do it. So do most EU countries even if they would never acknowledge it. As long as nation states last, there is no nation not prepared to defend its nationhood.
In the latest case it is almost certainly Israeli agents who have eliminated a perceived threat.
My perception is that the main spreaders of Covid-19 are those between 20 and about 40 years old. Among this group there are some super-spreaders. It is said that the 80/20 rule applies and around 20% of those infected have infected the other 80%. The most number of deaths are among the old (>70) and especially the old in care homes (>80). The highest risk of death is for those having other complicating conditions.
Most countries seem to be setting vaccination priorities as follows:
health care workers
elderly people
people with complicating conditions
general population over 15 years old
It seems to me that the priority should be, after protecting health and care home workers, to vaccinate those between 20 and 40 years old. The old do not spread the virus and their mobility is so limited that infection is always brought in to them. Those in care homes have no mobility to speak of. Their best protection is if those taking care of them are vaccinated and if all their visitors are vaccinated rather than in being vaccinated themselves. Moreover it is the 20 – 60 year old who keep the economies going.
It is a question of attack or defense. Availability of vaccines gives the possibility of attack. Do you put armour on those inside the besieged castle or do you put a stop to the marauding invaders as they get off their boats? To put an end to the pandemic needs that the spreaders be stopped rather than putting armour on the besieged. After a year of cowering in our homes it is time to go on the offensive. It seems that the priorities for vaccination should be:
health care and care home workers
all between 20 and 40 years old
those with complicating conditions of whatever age
the general population between 40 and 70
the population over 70
Of course this will not be politically correct, and since I am over 70 this would push me down the vaccination priority list. But it will be rational and much more effective in ending the pandemic.
There is only one of me. Half of me or even 0.1 of me is no longer me. There cannot be two of me because then the one of me can no longer be. There cannot be many of me but there can be many like me. But me, together with one more like me, could only be one of something else, which would still not be me. Identity and existence go hand-in-hand. The essence of identity lies in oneness. There can only be one of any thing once that thing has identity. Once a thing is a thing there is only one of it. Half that thing is no longer that thing. There can be many of such things but every other such thing is still something else.
Numbers are abstract and do not exist in the physical world. They are objects (“words”) within the invented language of mathematics to help us describe the physical world. They enable counting and measuring. The logical one or the philosophical one or the mathematical one all emerge from existence and identity. Neither logic nor philosophy nor mathematics can explain what one is, except that it is. Every explanation or definition attempted ends up being circular. It is what it is. Mathematics presupposes that one exists but can only assume what it is.
The properties of one are prescribed by the assumptions (the “grammar”) of the language. One (1,unity), by this “grammar” of mathematics is the first non-zero natural number. It is the integer which follows zero. It precedes the number two by the same “mathematical distance” by which it follows zero. It is the “purest” number. Any number multiplied by one or divided by one remains that number. It is its own factorial. It is its own square or square root; cube or cube root; ad infinitum. One is enabled by existence and identity but thereafter its properties are defined, not discovered.
Numerical identity requires absolute, or total, qualitative identity, and can only hold between a thing and itself. ……. Numerical identity can be characterised, as just done, as the relation everything has to itself and to nothing else. But this is circular, since “nothing else” just means “no numerically non-identical thing”. It can be defined, equally circularly (because quantifying over all equivalence relations including itself), as the smallest equivalence relation (an equivalence relation being one which is reflexive, symmetric and transitive, for example, having the same shape).
What existence is the answer to is anybody’s guess. From existence emerges the identity of our universe as a smooth, homogeneous soup of energies and matter, spiced by waves and particles and flavoured both light and dark. Interspersed in this nebulous, existential soup are croutons of hard, firm, observable things. From identity emerges oneness. Every atom of the 1080 atoms thought to be in our universe is separate and distinct in its existence from every other atom at any given instant; and there is only one of each. And if we could assign identity to each of the particles making up these atoms, then each of those particles would be separate and distinct at any given instant, with only one of each such particle.
Humans have used many different bases for number systems but the use of base 10 is overwhelmingly dominant. There are instances of the use of base 5, base 6, base 20 and even base 27. In spite of many attempts to replace it by base 10, base 60 has fended off all rationalist suggestions and remnants remain entrenched for our current mapping of time and space. For time periods, base 60 is used exclusively for hours, minutes and seconds but base 10 for subdivisions of the second. Similarly for spatial coordinates, degrees, minutes and seconds of arc are still used but subdivisions of the second use base 10. (Some of the other bases that appear in language are listed at the end of this post).
In terms of mathematics there is no great inherent advantage in the use of one particular number base or another. The utility of a particular choice is a trade off first between size and practicality. The size of the base determines how many unique number symbols are needed (binary needs 2, decimal needs 10 and hexagesimal 16). There are many proponents of the advantages of 2, 3, 8, 12 or 16 being used as our primary number base. Certainly base 12 is the most “fraction friendly”. But all our mathematics could, in reality, be performed in any number base.
At first glance the reasons for the use of base 10 seems blindingly obvious and looking for origins seems trivial. Our use of base 10 comes simply – and inevitably – from two hands times five digits. In recent times other bases (binary – base 2- and hexadecimal – base 16 – for example) are used more extensively with computers, but base 10 (with some base 60) still predominates in human-human interactions (except when Sheldon is showing off). The use of base 10 predates the use of base 60 which has existed for at least 5,000 years.
It is ubiquitous now but (2 x 5) is not a consequence of design. It derives from a chain of at least three crucial, evolutionary accidents which gave us
four limbs, and
five digits on each limb, and finally
human bipedalism which reserved two limbs for locomotion and left our hands free.
The subsequent evolutionary accidents which led to increased brain size would still have been necessary for the discovery of counting and the invention of number systems. But if, instead of two, we had evolved three limbs free from the responsibilities of locomotion, with three digits on each limb, we might well have had base 9 at the foundations of counting and a nonary number system. The benefits of a place value system and the use of nonecimals would still apply.
It is more difficult to imagine what might have happened if limbs were not symmetrical or the number of digits on each limb were different. No human society has not been predominantly (c. 85%) right-handed. But left-handedness has never been a sufficient handicap to have been eliminated by evolution. Almost certainly right-handedness comes from the asymmetrical functions established in the left and right-brains. The distinction between the functions of the two sides of the brain goes back perhaps 500 million years and long before limbs and tetrapods. By the time limbs evolved, the brain functions giving our predilection for right-handedness must already have been established. So, it is possible to imagine evolution having led to, say, 6 digits on right fore-limbs and 5 digits on left fore-limbs.
I wonder what a natural base of 11 or 13 would have done to the development of counting and number systems?
Why four limbs?
All land vertebrates (mammals, birds, reptiles and amphibians) derive from tetrapods which have two sets of paired limbs. Even snakes evolved from four-limbed lizards.
Tetrapods evolved from a group of animals known as the Tetrapodomorpha which, in turn, evolved from ancient sarcopterygians around 390 million years ago in the middle Devonian period; their forms were transitional between lobe-finned fishes and the four-limbed tetrapods. The first tetrapods (from a traditional, apomorphy-based perspective) appeared by the late Devonian, 367.5 million years ago. – Wikipedia
It would seem that – by trial and error – a land-based creature, fortuitously possessing two pairs of limbs, just happened to be the one which survived and become the ancestor of all tetrapods. The evolutionary advantage of having 4 limbs (two pairs) – rather than one or three or five pairs – is not at all clear. Insects have evolved three pairs while arachnids have four pairs. Myriapoda are multi-segmented creatures which have a pair of limbs per segment. They can vary from having five segments (10 legs) to about 400 segments (800 legs). The genes that determine the number of limbs determine many other features also and why two pairs would be particularly advantageous is not understood. It could well be that the two pairs of limbs were incidental and merely followed other survival characteristics. The best bet currently is that
All of us backboned animals — at least the ones who also have jaws — have four fins or limbs, one pair in front and one pair behind. These have been modified dramatically in the course of evolution, into a marvelous variety of fins, legs, arms, flippers, and wings. But how did our earliest ancestors settle into such a consistent arrangement of two pairs of appendages? — Because we have a belly.
According to our hypothesis, the influence of the developing gut suppresses limb initiation along the midgut region and the ventral body wall owing to an “endodermal predominance.” From an evolutionary perspective, the lack of gut regionalization in agnathans reflects the ancestral absence of these conditions, and the elaboration of the gut together with the concomitant changes to the LMD in the gnathostomes could have led to the origin of paired fins.
The critical evolutionary accident then is that the intrepid sea creature which first colonised the land, some 390 million years ago, and gave rise to all tetrapods was one with a developing belly and therefore just happened to have two pairs of appendages.
The tail, however, is an asymmetrical appendage which may also once have been a pair (one on top of the other) but is now generally a solitary appendage. But it is controlled by a different gene-set to those which specify limbs. In mammals it has disappeared for some and performs stability functions for others. In some primates it has functions close to that of a fifth limb. But in no case has a tail ever evolved digits.
Why five digits on each limb?
When our ancestor left the oceans and became the origin of all tetrapods, four limbs had appeared but the number of digits on each limb had not then been decided. It took another 50 million years before a split distinguished amphibians from mammals, birds and reptiles. The timeline is thought to be:
390 million years ago – tetrapod ancestor leaves the oceans
360 million years ago – tetrapods with 6,7 and 8 digits per limb
340 million years ago – amphibians go their separate way
320 million years ago – reptiles slither away on a path giving dinosaurs and birds
The condition of having no more than five fingers or toes …. probably evolved before the evolutionary divergence of amphibians (frogs, toads, salamanders and caecilians) and amniotes (birds, mammals, and reptiles in the loosest sense of the term). This event dates to approximately 340 million years ago in the Lower Carboniferous Period. Prior to this split, there is evidence of tetrapods from about 360 million years ago having limbs bearing arrays of six, seven and eight digits. Reduction from these polydactylous patterns to the more familiar arrangements of five or fewer digits accompanied the evolution of sophisticated wrist and ankle joints–both in terms of the number of bones present and the complex articulations among the constituent parts.
By the time we reach the mammals, five digits per limb has become the norm though many mammals then follow paths for the reduction of the number of effective digits in play. Moles and pandas evolve an extra sort-of adjunct digit from their wrists but do not (or cannot) create an additional digit.
…….. Is there really any good evidence that five, rather than, say, four or six, digits was biomechanically preferable for the common ancestor of modern tetrapods? The answer has to be “No,” in part because a whole range of tetrapods have reduced their numbers of digits further still. In addition, we lack any six-digit examples to investigate. This leads to the second part of the answer, which is to note that although digit numbers can be reduced, they very rarely increase. In a general sense this trait reflects the developmental-evolutionary rule that it is easier to lose something than it is to regain it. Even so, given the immensity of evolutionary time and the extraordinary variety of vertebrate bodies, the striking absence of truly six-digit limbs in today’s fauna highlights some sort of constraint. Moles’ paws and pandas’ thumbs are classic instances in which strangely re-modeled wrist bones serve as sixth digits and represent rather baroque solutions to the apparently straightforward task of growing an extra finger.
Five digits is apparently the result of evolutionary trial and error, but as with all things genetic, the selection process was probably selecting for something other than the number of digits.
All land vertebrates today are descended from a common ancestor that had four legs, with five toes on each foot. This arrangement is known as the pentadactyl limb. Some species have subsequently fused these fingers into hooves or lost them altogether, but every mammal, bird, reptile and amphibian traces its family tree back to a pentadactyl ancestor that lived around 340 million years ago. Before, there were animals with six, seven and even eight toes on each foot, but they all went extinct at the end of the Devonian period, 360 million years ago. These other creatures were more aquatic than the pentadactyl animals. Evidence in the fossil record suggests that their ribs weren’t strong enough to support their lungs out of water and their shoulder and hip joints didn’t allow them to walk effectively on land.
Five digits on our limbs are an evolutionary happenstance. There is nothing special that we can identify with being five. It could just as well have been six or seven or eight. That the number of digits on each limb are not unequal is also an evolutionary happenstance predating the tetrapods. It is more efficient genetically, when multiple limbs are needed, to duplicate the pattern (with some variations for mirror symmetry and for differences between paired sets). When each limb is to carry many digits it is more efficient to follow a base pattern and keep the necessary genetic variations to a minimum.
By 280 million years ago, four limbs with five digits on each limb had become the base pattern for all land-based creatures and the stage was set for base 20. And then came bipedalism.
Why bipedalism?
Bipedalism is not uncommon among land creatures and even birds. Some dinosaurs exhibited bipedalism. Along the human ancestral line, bipedalism first shows up around 7 million years ago (Sahelanthropus). It may then have disappeared for a while and then appeared again around 4 million years ago in a more resilient form (Australopithecus) which has continued through till us. What actually drove us from the trees to bipedalism is a matter of many theories and much conjecture. Whatever the reasons the large brain evolved only in bipedal hominins who had a straightened spine, and who had maintained two limbs for locomotion while freeing up the other two for many other activities. The advantages of being able to carry things and throw things and shape things are considered the drivers for this development. And these two free limbs became the counting limbs.
It seems unlikely that a large brain could have developed in a creature which did not have some limbs freed from the tasks of locomotion. Locomotion itself and the preference for symmetry would have eliminated a three-limbed creature with just one free limb.
Two limbs for counting, rather than 3 of 4 or 4 of 4, is also happenstance. But it may be less accidental than the 4 limbs to begin with and the 5 digits on each limb. An accidental four limbs reduced inevitably to two counting limbs. Together with an accidental five digits they gave us base 10.
The Oksapmin people of New Guinea have a base-27 counting system. The words for numbers are the words for the 27 body parts they use for counting, starting at the thumb of one hand, going up to the nose, then down the other side of the body to the pinky of the other hand …… . ‘One’ is tip^na (thumb), 6 is dopa (wrist), 12 is nata (ear), 16 is tan-nata (ear on the other side), all the way to 27, or tan-h^th^ta (pinky on the other side).
2. Tzotzil, base-20 body part counting
Tzotzil, a Mayan language spoken in Mexico, has a vigesimal, or base-20, counting system. ….. For numbers above 20, you refer to the digits of the next full man (vinik). ..
3. Yoruba, base-20 with subtraction
Yoruba, a Niger-Congo language spoken in West Africa, also has a base-20 system, but it is complicated by the fact that for each 10 numbers you advance, you add for the digits 1-4 and subtract for the digits 5-9. Fourteen (??rinlá) is 10+4 while 17 (eétàdílógún) is 20-3. So, combining base-20 and subtraction means 77 is …. (20×4)-3.
4. Traditional Welsh, base-20 with a pivot at 15
Though modern Welsh uses base-10 numbers, the traditional system was base-20, with the added twist of using 15 as a reference point. Once you advance by 15 (pymtheg) you add units to that number. So 16 is un ar bymtheg (one on 15), 36 is un ar bymtheg ar hugain (one on 15 on 20), and so on.
5. Alamblak, numbers built from 1, 2, 5, and 20
In Alamblak, a language of Papua New Guinea, there are only words for 1, 2, 5, and 20, and all other numbers are built out of those. So 14 is (5×2)+2+2, or tir hosfi hosfihosf, and 59 is (20×2)+(5x(2+1))+(2+2) or yima hosfi tir hosfirpati hosfihosf.
6. Ndom, base-6
Ndom, another language of Papua New Guinea, has a base-6, or senary number system. It has basic words for 6, 18, and 36 (mer, tondor, nif) and other numbers are built with reference to those. The number 25 is tondor abo mer abo sas (18+6+1), and 90 is nif thef abo tondor ((36×2)+18).
7. Huli, base-15
The Papua New Guinea language Huli uses a base-15, or pentadecimal system. Numbers which are multiples of 15 are simple words. Where the English word for 225 is quite long, the Huli word is ngui ngui, or 15 15. However 80 in Huli is ngui dau, ngui waragane-gonaga duria ((15×5)+the 5th member of the 6th 15).
8. Bukiyip, base-3 and base-4 together
In Bukiyip, another Papua New Guinea language also known as Mountain Arapesh, there are two counting systems, and which one you use depends on what you are counting. Coconuts, days, and fish are counted in base-3. Betel nuts, bananas, and shields are counted in base-4. The word anauwip means 6 in the base-3 system and 24 in the base-4 system!
9. Supyire, numbers built from 1, 5, 10, 20, 80, and 400
Supyire, a Niger-Congo language spoken in Mali has basic number words for 1, 5, 10, 20, 80 and 400, and builds the rest of the numbers from those. The word for 600 is kàmpwòò ná ?kwuu shuuní ná bééshùùnnì, or 400+(80×2)+(20×2)
10. Danish, forms some multiples of ten with fractions
Danish counting looks pretty familiar until you get to 50, and then things get weird with fractions. The number 50 is halvtreds, a shortening of halv tred sinds tyve (“half third times 20” or 2½x20). The number 70 is 3½x20, and 90 is 4½x20.
11. French, mix of base-10 and base-20
French uses base-10 counting until 70, at which point it transitions to a mixture with base-20. The number 70 is soixante-dix (60+10), 80 is quatre-vingts (4×20), and 90 is quatre-vingts-dix ((4×20)+10).
12. Nimbia, base-12
Even though, as the dozenalists claim, 12 is the best base mathematically, there are relatively few base-12 systems found in the world’s languages. In Nimbia, a dialect of the Gwandara language of Nigeria, multiples of 12 are the basic number words around which everything else is built. The number 29 is gume bi ni biyar ((12×2)+5), and 95 is gume bo’o ni kwada ((12×7)+11).
It is never a bad time to invest in pharmaceuticals.
The risks are with the frauds and scams and the incompetent but never with the size of the market. The companies with successful coronavirus vaccines will have the added advantage of most of their costs being covered by public funds.
Over 300 projects for producing vaccines against Covid 19 are being funded. If we are lucky perhaps 4 or 5 will succeed. Each project carries its share of parasitic entrepreneurs.
There is a new story almost every day of some scam or other in the manufacture or supply of protective equipment.
Pandemic profiteering is flourishing among all the desperate cases of bankruptcies and small businesses destroyed.
The k2p blog 