Current Affairs Coronavirus Thread - Serious stuff !!!

[roydo]

of course not, but they can have the best level of protection that vaccine is going to give them

Ideally, yes. But unfortunately we are not rolling out the annual flu jab to protect the elderly.

We are rolling out the first (as far as I know) global vax programme to protect everyone, and start to rebuild countries across the planet.

Basically, a high level of protection is way better than none, and 60% to 90% for a relatively small number of folk is not that big a deal, vax wise.

 

[davek]

All true, but you to try to look at it from the UK eyes out. Everyone knew that the Uk economy would be hit by Brexit and it was heading into likely its most challenging period economically in its very recent history anyway. Then Covid hit. i wouldnt be a fan of brexit, Johnson or the government. But i can see very real dangers to the UKs welfare both economically because of Brexit and from a public health point of view with Covid. Its a tricky balancing act for the politicians of juggling public health and the economy - both things broadly impact on the wellbeing of Uk citizens. Do i think the UK has done either well, not really, but it has been a horrible perfect storm for the UK and the UK has considerations other countries dealing with this dont.

I do think the above explains some of the logic of the Uks decisions, the initial herd immunity, struggle with PPE, the eat out to help out stuff, the reluctance to go into lock down in the second wave, then did it to late, you cant protect one aspect without hurting the other and really didnt get either right and UK citizens have suffered holistically in terms of health, economically and subsequently from a whole holistic wellbeing point of view.

I don't agree with the UK current approach, it might be fine, but its a feeling your way in the dark strategy with no evidence really to back it up. It might be grand, but i dont think if the UK hadnt had such a bad time in terms of public health or their were not real fears economically, they would be making different decisions on this. They are desperate to get the vaccines out there and i dont blame them. Granted much of Europe is way behind, they dont seem to be making the same desperate decisions. I think they are making them because of a desperate position both on public health and economically and to be fair the county has had a really, really hard time during this in every way - so from that point of view if you can accept that is there position i can understand the logic of decisions, even if i dont agree with them. Perhaps everywhere else has the benefit of being patient and risk adverse - like not rolling out AZ for over 55s for example.

Lets hope it works out though, whatever happens in Ireland will affect the Uk and vice versa, we have seen this with both Brexit and the Uk variant, so we have to hope for both Islands the whole thing works out.

That's not really a mitigating argument for their performance with the Covid19 crisis. I could easily turn that around and say that the Irish government had all those uncertainties over Brexit and how it would face up to them and that they too were faced the other way when Covid19 hit, but they didn't bungle every major decision from PPE to track and trace to failure's over lockdowns.

Their latest balls up will be with spacing out these vaccines. No other western nation is doing that. I'd suggest that the UK are the outlier again. We have people in charge of this country that dont give a toss about lives lost. THAT is the top and bottom of it.

 

[davek]

2.4 million people have died because of this Chinese pandemic. The U.K. strategy is to reduce the future total and will probably aid understanding to allow the rest of the world to do similar. You should be proud of what our universities, scientists, drug manufacturers, NHS, Army, and volunteers are doing. You should also be proud that your government did not behave like the EU, got off its arse and got the procurement sorted early.....

Bankrupt. Chinese pandemic perfected by your UK government.

Well done.

 

[tsubaki]

Ideally, yes. But unfortunately we are not rolling out the annual flu jab to protect the elderly.

We are rolling out the first (as far as I know) global vax programme to protect everyone, and start to rebuild countries across the planet.

Basically, a high level of protection is way better than none, and 60% to 90% for a relatively small number of folk is not that big a deal, vax wise.

its a small number of the most at risk people, and again we do not know if that 60% will last (edit) the twelve weeks it might have to

 

[peteblue]

Well, for a start the AZ one works like that - we know it does, its been tested. As you say, it appears to be the predominant one being given out.

The issue is (as has been said repeatedly), the Pfizer one - where even the bloke who runs the firm that developed it said we should not be doing this because we do not know if the 2-5 million folk who've only had a first dose will still be protected by the time we give them the second dose.

So your "60% protection" could be rather less than that when they get the second dose.... again a reminder that these people affected will be those in the higher risk categories.

The logic of doing that seems to me to be flawed.

Doesn‘t really matter does it, the strategy of a delayed second jab is being followed, so the only progress worth recording is against that strategy. You and Dave can howl at the moon, but it won’t make a blind bit of difference to the rollout...however, it may upset people who are unsure of the process, and your howling will not reassure them and indeed may even make some refuse a Pfizer dose...is that really what you want......

 

[roydo]

Their latest balls up will be with spacing out these vaccines. No other western nation is doing that. I'd suggest that the UK are the outlier again. We have people in charge of this country that dont give a toss about lives lost. THAT is the top and bottom of it.

Do you have any idea who procured the UK's vaccine stockpile?

 

[peteblue]

Do you have any idea who procured the UK's vaccine stockpile?

You may need to give him several clues.....

 

[Neiler]

That's not really a mitigating argument for their performance with the Covid19 crisis. I could easily turn that around and say that the Irish government had all those uncertainties over Brexit and how it would face up to them and that they too were faced the other way when Covid19 hit, but they didn't bungle every major decision from PPE to track and trace to failure's over lockdowns.

Their latest balls up will be with spacing out these vaccines. No other western nation is doing that. I'd suggest that the UK are the outlier again. We have people in charge of this country that dont give a toss about lives lost. THAT is the top and bottom of it.

Yeah fair point mate! Just trying to look at from the UKs eyes out.

 

[roydo]

You may need to give him several clues.....

I didnt have a clue till last night. Didnt give it a moments thought, and when my sister told me, I frankly didnt believe her.

 

[Wizard]

What are you trying to prove there? That efficacy of Pfizer's first vaccine is strong after the first dose? We knew that. What we still dont know (because we have no data from a regime spacing 1st and 2nd jabs out by 12 weeks) is whether they're as effective way after the 3 weeks advised by their makers.

I'm not trying to prove anything. I was simply sharing some positive information on how the vaccine rollout is going in the country that is currently miles ahead of everyone else. We knew it was effective in trials and now we are seeing those results playing out in the wider population. Unsurprisingly some positive news about the vaccine has got your back up as usual.

 

[tsubaki]

Doesn‘t really matter does it, the strategy of a delayed second jab is being followed, so the only progress worth recording is against that strategy. You and Dave can howl at the moon, but it won’t make a blind bit of difference to the rollout...however, it may upset people who are unsure of the process, and your howling will not reassure them and indeed may even make some refuse a Pfizer dose...is that really what you want......

Thanks for taking the time to read all the medical, scientific and expert opinion that you asked me to provide you pete, the people who pointed out calmly and politely what the problem with this particular bit of the vaccination process is.

I can see it has really sunken in, and you've not at all responded with yet more straw man crap based on things that were never said.

 

[Barnfred 55]

I know for a fact that least one mass vaccination centre in north-east Wales is still giving out Pfizer doses, and there was nearly two million people who could only have been given a first Pfizer dose from the campaign's start until AZ started in early January (of which around 500000 have had their second dose and are fully protected now).

It is a shame that there isn't a breakdown of what vaccine has been given, but I'd be amazed if it wasn't between 2 and 5 million of the 15 million first doses being Pfizer ones - it had nearly a month's head start and they haven't stopped using it since AZ started.

Yeah. The government is cagey on the timing of Pfizer doses coming in. We know there was 800,000 in the first batch and that 2m had come in by the end of the year. AZ commenced vaccines on Jan 4th and there were 400,000 doses available at that time. But they were expected to ramp this up to 2/3m per week pretty quickly. On 8th Jan, 1.5m had received their first dose, so yes, you'd assume at least 1.2m of those would have been the Pfizer one. Some of those would also have been NHS staff though of which there are nearly 1.5m.

As you say, there's no way of knowing for certain what the exact split of vaccines is. I'm only going by what my sister told me is happening in Liverpool, and it seemed reasonable enough. It seems practicable for the easily stored and maintained AZ vaccine to be used out in the community. Added to this the old/vulnerable people who are given the Pfizer vaccine have to be monitored for 15 minutes because of side effect issues, and this would cause issues in the larger vaccination centres where they would want turnaround to be a lot quicker.

 

[COYBL25]

Do you have any idea who procured the UK's vaccine stockpile?

Leave him dangling for a bit longer

 

[peteblue]

I didnt have a clue till last night. Didnt give it a moments thought, and when my sister told me, I frankly didnt believe her.

Success of course has many fathers.....

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/944308/VTF_Interim_report_-_5th_publication.pdf

 

[Neiler]

Yeah. The government is cagey on the timing of Pfizer doses coming in. We know there was 800,000 in the first batch and that 2m had come in by the end of the year. AZ commenced vaccines on Jan 4th and there were 400,000 doses available at that time. But they were expected to ramp this up to 2/3m per week pretty quickly. On 8th Jan, 1.5m had received their first dose, so yes, you'd assume at least 1.2m of those would have been the Pfizer one. Some of those would also have been NHS staff though of which there are nearly 1.5m.

As you say, there's no way of knowing for certain what the exact split of vaccines is. I'm only going by what my sister told me is happening in Liverpool, and it seemed reasonable enough. It seems practicable for the easily stored and maintained AZ vaccine to be used out in the community. Added to this the old/vulnerable people who are given the Pfizer vaccine have to be monitored for 15 minutes because of side effect issues, and this would cause issues in the larger vaccination centres where they would want turnaround to be a lot quicker.

To be fair, I know a few in healthcare in the NHS who got two rounds of Pfizer in 21-28 days as well.