Current Affairs Coronavirus Thread - Serious stuff !!!

[BlueToff]

Well that's the problem now - people sceptical of the Tories will jump on that story.

It needs a firm, hard, bilateral rejection if it's untrue. No politics; this is proper "greater good" stuff.

Of course they will. It's going to just be yet another excuse for people (as if the government hadn't given them enough, I know).

8% - as you say, that wouldn't get through the first round of testing.

Also, who would be daft enough to believe that it's all just a coincidence that a few days after AZ (for whatever reason, wrongly or rightly) pulled back from their EU order, it just so happens to leak from the German government that it was next to useless - not only that, but downright dangerous - anyway.

Nah, not a chance.

 

[peteblue]

Never bought the 'us needing them more' argument (or the other way round).

I don't think this is as such a Brexit thing, but as @Tubey points out it is sure to be used as a tool and whoever published those reports knew that, as did the sources.

It's a disagreement between a big Pharma company and a trading block.

Come on AZ, pull the plug on the EU, just leak a story saying you will do so and watch the response.....

 

[peteblue]

The Tories deserve no benefit of the doubt. They are in lock step with that Oxford vaccine. If the EU and US regulators dont back it then the Tories have tried to kill multiple times more people than the virus.

What now they are actually poisoning people.....ffs.....

 

[Dymak]

They literally are being prioritised.

If you're 'vulnerable' (no matter your age), you are getting offered the vaccine by Feb 15th (as a target).

There are loads of vulnerable people that won’t be included in the cohort you are talking about. You don’t have to be in receipt of Continuing Healthcare to be vulnerable to this virus.

PHE, the LA and the CCG’s will do their roll out. It isn’t a perfect one. I know office workers that are fit and healthy, just turned 50 and have the option of working from home getting them.

 

[Tubey]

The Tories deserve no benefit of the doubt. They are in lock step with that Oxford vaccine. If the EU and US regulators dont back it then the Tories have tried to kill multiple times more people than the virus.

That's fine mate, but all Tory bashing aside (and I agree they deserve pretty much everything that comes their way), do you honestly believe that vaccine has an 8% efficacy? Does that ring true in any way?

For that to be the case, AZ lied about everything they did. The UK authorities lied about their processes - not the Tories, but independent regulators. India and other countries turned a blind eye to their own data to approve it. All for a placebo that would obviously come back and bite them hard.

8%.

I'm sorry mate but... nah.

 

[BlueToff]

There are loads of vulnerable people that won’t be included in the cohort you are talking about. You don’t have to be in receipt of Continuing Healthcare to be vulnerable to this virus.

PHE, the LA and the CCG’s will do their roll out. It isn’t a perfect one. I know office workers that are fit and healthy and have the option of working from home that have just turned 50 getting them.

Well of course not but there are people who are categorically more vulnerable than others.

People with serious respiratory conditions. People who have recently had lung cancer, or any other bout of serious problems etc. No matter their age, they will be included in the top four categories, along with health and careworkers (I doubt many of them are over 80!) and the over 80s.

How in the world are those people getting them? They don't count in the categories. The ONLY way they would be getting one is if they were offered it because the phials weren't being used and would be expired so they are basically ensuring as little wastage as possible, or those people have somehow jumped the queue (£££). I doubt 'office workers' have a spare few hundred grand lying about.

 

[Neiler]

True, but if the immunogenicity of the AZ vaccine was 8% mate, we'd already be seeing hundreds of vaccine recipients flooding hospitals. Similarly, post-vaccine research would be showing in the UK of loads of vaccine recipients coming down with COVID, even if asymptomatic.

But there's nothing.

Not only that, but 8%??! If that's true, then the EU wouldn't be licencing that for under 65s; they wouldn't be licencing it at all. Imagine - you're 64, and because your birthday is one month earlier you're going to be given basically a placebo instead of the Pfizer/Moderna one - nah!!!!

It's clearly bollocks.

I think it’s a foolish to believe a tabloid paper, but the other paper seems eminent enough and they aren’t backing down. I’m with you mate, I’d veer on a published study as opposed to news paper reports.

I was saying to Pete earlier, I was glad the AZ was being drilled into by the EMA as their initial data was sketchy and then revised. But it’s been published and it’s up to the EMA & FDA to accept or rebuke.

On evidence, It’s something I was actually looking into today, there is loads of data on the Pfizer vaccine in Israel, but not a lot coming out of the UK on AZ. I’m not saying that’s good or bad I just haven’t seen it. So we don’t really know.

8%, is a ridiculously low number like you say placebo stuff, in a funny way it makes this easy to prove or disprove, it’s that stark, even at 20 or 30% your not getting this approved.

We will find out soon enough, someone will have to come out from the EU, German Government and dismiss this, if not may be smoke and fire. If it’s not true then heads need to roll as it’s massively irresponsible.

Imagine the worried people tonight or tomorrow who got or going for the jab and their families, I’m hoping it’s very much untrue. If there is any truth in it, everyone’s a looser.

 

[coollino]

I'm very much pro-EU but this really is indefensible stuff.

But what gets me is the 8% thing. Basically a number plucked from thin air, effectively a placebo at that point - a number that so obviously was wrong that it sent alarm bells ringing immediately about it being remotely true, yet these journalists - in their nationalists anti-British glee - ran with it immediately with no public source they could use to back up the claim.

Stunning. So many scummy, lowlife decisions led to that info being published, and the damage it will do will be irrevocable; it's an anti-vaxxers wet dream.

I voted remain and I still very much would but some of the rubbish the FBPE people spout pretending the EU is some kind of utopia is nonsensical. There are plenty of problems within the EU but there are many more problems without it.

 

[peteblue]

Well if the excuse for a delayed approval of the Oxford vaccine is that Europeans are more likely anti-vaxxers and sceptics is true, then this German newspaper has pretty well saved the EU from buying any vaccines.....

 

[Dymak]

Well of course not but there are people who are categorically more vulnerable than others.

People with serious respiratory conditions. People who have recently had lung cancer, or any other bout of serious problems etc. No matter their age, they will be included in the top four categories, along with health and careworkers (I doubt many of them are over 80!) and the over 80s.

How in the world are those people getting them? They don't count in the categories. The ONLY way they would be getting one is if they were offered it because the phials weren't being used and would be expired so they are basically ensuring as little wastage as possible, or those people have somehow jumped the queue (£££). I doubt 'office workers' have a spare few hundred grand lying about.

It’s happening alright. I know a team of LA debt collectors that seldom meet with the public when they are actually in the office, and all have the option of working from home, as they have had for years tbh. The benefits of working for a LA. All have been given dates for injection.

 

[Tubey]

I think it’s a foolish to believe a tabloid paper, but the other paper seems eminent enough and they aren’t backing down. I’m with you mate, I’d veer on a published study as opposed to news paper reports.

I was saying to Pete earlier, I was glad the AZ was being drilled into by the EMA as their initial data was sketchy and then revised. But it’s been published and it’s up to the EMA & FDA to accept or rebuke.

On evidence, It’s something I was actually looking into today, there is loads of data on the Pfizer vaccine in Israel, but not a lot coming out of the UK on AZ. I’m not saying that’s good or bad I just haven’t seen it. So we don’t really know.

8%, is a ridiculously low number like you say placebo stuff, in a funny way it makes this easy to prove or disprove, it’s that stark, even at 20 or 30% your not getting this approved.

We will find out soon enough, someone will have to come out from the EU, German Government and dismiss this, if not may be smoke and fire. If it’s not true then heads need to roll as it’s massively irresponsible.

Imagine the worried people tonight or tomorrow who got or going for the jab and their families, I’m hoping it’s very much untrue. If there is any truth in it, everyone’s a looser.

But that's why the story rings untrue - the fact it'd STILL get authorisation for the under 65's???

Human biology doesn't work that way. Yes, immune responses vary somewhat between ages, like there's minor variations with the seasonal flu vaccine, but not to the point where it drops off a cliff magically once you hit the age of 65!

 

[peteblue]

We can take up the 31 million that was going to the EU now, we’ll be done by the end of April, nice one Bild.....

 

[BlueToff]

Come on AZ, pull the plug on the EU, just leak a story saying you will do so and watch the response.....

I mean I don't want loads more people to die so I just hope it can get resolved.

The EU's approach seems to have been, for whatever reason, an extremely strange one. They didn't secure enough vaccines early enough.

Now, they clearly did secure these AZ ones but now AZ can't fulfil that.

Looking at it objectively, the UK would obviously be fuming if that was the other way round, but then again it's the EU's slow processes (which the German government were/are apparently furious about) which basically ensured that Pfizer could fulfil all of its early orders and then some to the UK and same for Moderna when that comes.

EU nations, for a variety of reasons, have been so slow on the uptake. Not all of them political or down to the EU, but all it turns into is a Brexit-based slagging match or as we're seeing from our favourite angry orange, Tory-bashing.

I can't stand the UK government's decisions for the majority of this but the vaccination is going well and it seems far too convenient that this - which if it was true, which it quite clearly can't be, would be tantamount to a war crime from AZ - just happens to come out days after AZ pulled out on their obligation. Again, I don't know enough about that to know why but I guess if it was the UK we'd be pretty unhappy about that.

 

[davek]

What now they are actually poisoning people.....ffs.....

They have gone along, it seems, with an over-reach claimed by the AZ/Oxford vaccine makers that they have robust data on efficacy for over 65s - their own regulators dance to the Tory tune.

It's obvious now that the ERA have determined the AZ vaccine is not suitable for pver-65s (and I guess the US will follow suit).

 

[peteblue]

But that's why the story rings untrue - the fact it'd STILL get authorisation for the under 65's???

Human biology doesn't work that way. Yes, immune responses vary somewhat between ages, like there's minor variations with the seasonal flu vaccine, but not to the point where it drops off a cliff magically once you hit the age of 65!

Apparently the Germans have said it only works if you are blond with blue eyes, 25-45 years of age and 6 foot or over....not a clue where they are going with this......