Current Affairs Coronavirus Thread - Serious stuff !!!

[Dixieslaces]

and there it is

literally what I’ve been saying for weeks

Some been saying for much longer but hey Tin Hats everywhere, according to some!

Normality as we remember it, will be a distant memory for a very long time yet.

Until we can categorically state that this "live" vaccine trial has proven successful or not.

 

[Dixieslaces]

Is it just me, or does Johnson’s line about the relaxing of restrictions being “cautious, but irreversible” seem entirely the wrong principle?

Being tied down to a particular course of action with no plan to change direction or reverse if the situation changes doesn’t strike me as a good strategy. I’d want us to be pragmatic and able to react quickly.

He has done this throughout. He has no plan B, ever.

 

[roydo]

That is a lot of knowledge that isn't anything to do with this decision, though.

All the experts - here and abroad - agree that the best time to give people the second dose of Pfizer is 21 days after the first dose. This decision is not about how the virus works, or how its best treated in a patient, its about wider social issues - so that they can give more people partial protection via the first dose (edit) and thereby start to control an outbreak.

For that, there is no evidence as to give them an idea whether it will work - certainly not for this particular vaccine and I am not even sure its ever been tried with any other vaccination programme on this scale (in the sense of knowingly giving weaker protection to individuals so that you can you can spread what doses you have to more individuals).

It is a guess; whether people think that is a guess worth making in these circumstances and given what the alternative was, is up to them. Personally I hope it works, but if it doesn't there should be extremely serious questions asked.

If virologists have the data they have, I am far more happy for them to decide the quickest and best way out of this than listening to the internet.

Medicine isnt exact. Never has been, never will be. I know better than many how that can work.

And the logic of the idea behind their roll out makes perfect sense to me.

 

[tsubaki]

Are we though?. I was speaking to my sister the other night. She's a senior manager at Liverpool Royal. She said that the Pfizer vaccine is only being used by the larger hospital trusts that have the labs that can accommodate the strict storage requirements. In Liverpool, the hospitals, since January when the AZ vaccine became available, have hardly been vaxing the general public. The vast majority have been NHS staff (not just front line but all staff) and they are now also offering it to staff family members. I'm sure people on here who work for the NHS (or have family that do) will be able to verify that. Most of the general public (i.e the old and vulnerable) are receiving the AZ vaccine. Those who did receive the Pfizer one in December have already had their 2nd jab.

I suspect if this were happening in Liverpool the likelihood is that it is happening elsewhere too. Certainly down in Cornwall people are going to specialised vaccine centres rather than Truro hospital.

My sister also happened to mention that she was shocked by the large number of NHS declining the vaccine, but that's another matter entirely.

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.

 

[roydo]

are fully protected now

Sake. No one is EVER fully protected.

 

[tsubaki]

If virologists have the data they have, I am far more happy for them to decide the quickest and best way out of this than listening to the internet.

Medicine isnt exact. Never has been, never will be. I know better than many how that can work.

And the logic of the idea behind their roll out makes perfect sense to me.

It really shouldn't, though. If they'd got no idea if any of this would work, I could understand the guess - it would make sense.

However they know (and knew) that rolling out the vaccination programme in the way they'd originally planned it would have delivered a way out of this phase of the pandemic, with all the major at risk groups given as best coverage as they could get by the start of April and be well down the road of doing a big chunk of the remaining population. All of this would have been relatively safe and have ample evidence to back it up.

Why we've not done that is something that is, to me, baffling and not doing it brings in all manner of risk.

edit: and do they have that data? they've not released it, even when asked

 

[tsubaki]

Sake. No one is EVER fully protected.

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

 

[BlueToff]

To be fair, I watched the press conference and he didn't say it like that.

He was asked a question about vaccine passports and did his usual bumbling.

I can't see how you can do anything like that until everyone has had the opportunity to have a vaccine anyway.

I don't mean in relation to the passport thing, I mean that for events etc to go ahead, then that'll be the way it's done - just like at Goodison in December.

 

[grandjoeblue]

I highly doubt the dates between doses is going to have a significant impact.

The big issue for me is NHS and care staff avoiding vaccination. How can you work in an old people home and not get vaccinated?

Mandatory vaccine is required for ALL individuals in job roles who interact with the elderly.

 

[davek]

If the government had the two dose strategy, you would now be claiming that Boris is trying to murder the 7+ Million who would not have had the first jab yet. It doesn’t matter what the U.K. does, if it does it badly they are murderers, if they do it really really well as they currently are then it’s obviously wrong. Maybe, just maybe, we are doing the right thing very well.......

They're murderers regardless....or does 116,000 deaths count as success to you? Maybe you can graph that as well as 1st jab numbers?

 

[roydo]

It really shouldn't, though.

The logic? The prevalent vaccine is the OZ one.

Their knowledge of vaccinations is based on years of delivering and making them. The game is to get as many done asap. 60% protection in 15m folk is better than 90% in 3m folk. Both are better than 0% in 70m folk.

This isnt a cure. Its a coping mechanism. The more that can cope, the better.

Thats my logic, and theirs it seems.

 

[davek]

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.

 

[peteblue]

They're murderers regardless....or does 116,000 deaths count as success to you? Maybe you can graph that as well as 1st jab numbers?

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.....

 

[tsubaki]

The logic? The prevalent vaccine is the OZ one.

Their knowledge of vaccinations is based on years of delivering and making them. The game is to get as many done asap. 60% protection in 15m folk is better than 90% in 3m folk. Both are better than 0% in 70m folk.

This isnt a cure. Its a coping mechanism. The more that can cope, the better.

Thats my logic, and theirs it seems.

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.

 

[LinekersLegs]

For that, there is no evidence as to give them an idea whether it will work - certainly not for this particular vaccine and I am not even sure its ever been tried with any other vaccination programme on this scale (in the sense of knowingly giving weaker protection to individuals so that you can you can spread what doses you have to more individuals).

Appears to have been tried before although rather than dosing spacing it was reduction in the dose used,

https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2021/02/12/first-doses-vaccine-rules-fda/?arc404=true

(Partial doses of a yellow-fever vaccine were used to great effect in a 2018 outbreak in Brazil.)