COVID-19: Vaccine and testing procedures Megathread Part 2 [Mod Warning - Post #1]

stephenjmcd

Away With The Fairies wrote: »

I hope it's inaccurate. I'm hoping for concerts back for 2022.

Its based on 40k doses a week MAX. Doesn't take a range of factors into account. Its a waste of time going near it

Stark

Away With The Fairies wrote: »

I hope it's inaccurate. I'm hoping for concerts back for 2022.

It only takes into account current rates of vaccination. It doesn't include ramp up plans.

CrabRevolution

lbj666 wrote: »

Yet we've other gob****es saying it was rolled out in hospitals in Cork first only cause the Taoiseach from there. You can't win with some people and those on the PR side can't play whack a mole with every moronic narrative that pops up. It was made very clear to the media these mvcs were pilot runs to trial the system , they just choose to leave that bit out of the headline. Moron choose not to read beyond it.

That's exactly it. There are a few people in places like Cork who see "blah blah blah blah Dublin" and it's like a red rag to a bull. They then create a narrative that Cork is being discriminated against and spread that story among anyone who'll listen, many of whom do willingly. The official government info won't matter to these people because they prefer this local side of the story.

Then there will be people in Waterford who only need to see "blah de blah Cork" and this infuriates them too, and they start spreading the idea that they're being hard done by.

These are the narratives that people listen to, not the official government line. You're wasting your time trying to keep up with them and actively counter them.

Tom Mann Centuria

Got my first dose of the vaccine (Pfizer/BioNTech) on Tuesday evening before night shift, arm was a bit sore and felt a bit grotty Wednesday night shift but fine after that.

lbj666

Away With The Fairies wrote: »

I hope it's inaccurate. I'm hoping for concerts back for 2022.

Could you not tell its flawed and inaccurate.

Melanchthon

CrabRevolution wrote: »

That's exactly it. There are a few people in places like Cork who see "blah blah blah blah Dublin" and it's like a red rag to a bull. They then create a narrative that Cork is being discriminated against and spread that story among anyone who'll listen, many of whom do willingly. The official government info won't matter to these people because they prefer this local side of the story.

Then there will be people in Waterford who only need to see "blah de blah Cork" and this infuriates them too, and they start spreading the idea that they're being hard done by.

These are the narratives that people listen to, not the official government line. You're wasting your time trying to keep up with them and actively counter them.

But if we had a more detailed view of whats been done this would be easier to rebut.
I still stand by the Cork receiving positive discrimination myself, I dont see how Cork would have been ahead of the bigger Border hospitals in terms of need and it was one of the few positive news thing for Martins base, cynical I know but we have seen nakedly self interested regional politics political influence in Irish health care choices before see James Reilly,

Datacore

VG31 wrote: »

Further year of Covid curbs needed to protect public, says top health official



https://www.irishtimes.com/news/health/further-year-of-covid-curbs-needed-to-protect-public-says-top-health-official-1.4460359

So vaccinations are supposed to be completed by September, yet we will have at least another year of restrictions? I hope this is just an extremely conservative outlook otherwise it's a completely ridiculous thing to say.

That’s beyond depressing. Why would we have restrictions until Jan 2022 if the vaccine programme was complete by then?

If that’s the case, I think I wouldn’t be the only one considering emigrating.

By the looks of it much of Europe will be a no go area for years, certainly based on some of these very pessimistic pronouncements.

Micky 32

Datacore wrote: »

That’s beyond depressing. Why would we have restrictions until Jan 2022 if the vaccine programme was complete by then?

If that’s the case, I think I wouldn’t be the only one considering emigrating.

By the looks of it much of Europe will be a no go area for years, certainly based on some of these very pessimistic pronouncements.

It’s a worse case scenario. If the population are vaccinated by September i can’t see restrictions next Christmas. They’ll be gradually lifted throughout the year as the vaccines begin reducing numbers in hospitals and deaths.

VG31

is_that_so wrote: »

He has no idea but he also can't say we'll be free in September because people will party in June!

I know they won't/can't say all restrictions will be gone by X date. However coming out with bleak statements like this is just going to be make people depressed and less likely to follow the rules if there's no clear end in sight.

hmmm

VG31 wrote: »

I know they won't/can't say all restrictions will be gone by X date. However coming out with bleak statements like this is just going to be make people depressed and less likely to follow the rules if there's no clear end in sight.

The media have a lot to answer for with their headlines.

He seems to have said we would need restrictions until we can get a large enough percentage of the population vaccinated.

That's true and will depend on the number of vaccines we receive and what the take-up is - it could be anytime between April/May and the end of the year. It's the paper which has decided to headline this with "another year of restrictions".

snotboogie

VG31 wrote: »

I know they won't/can't say all restrictions will be gone by X date. However coming out with bleak statements like this is just going to be make people depressed and less likely to follow the rules if there's no clear end in sight.

Agreed, it's poor communication that directly contradicts what Donnelly said yesterday. If you read the article he stressed that it was a best case scenario.

99nsr125

hmmm wrote: »

The EMA were the subject of a cyberattack a few weeks ago, where the hackers stole some vaccine and internal correspondence data. It's interesting how this data has been used:

In their latest press release (https://www.ema.europa.eu/en/news/cyberattack-ema-update-5) the EMA says
"This included internal/confidential email correspondence dating from November, relating to evaluation processes for COVID-19 vaccines. Some of the correspondence has been manipulated by the perpetrators prior to publication in a way which could undermine trust in vaccines. "

I see bots on social media going full speed trying to push the Norwegian "the vaccine is killing old people" fake-news story also.

Well it is

VG31

hmmm wrote: »

The media have a lot to answer for with their headlines.

He seems to have said we would need restrictions until we can get a large enough percentage of the population vaccinated.

That's true and will depend on the number of vaccines we receive and what the take-up is - it could be anytime between April/May and the end of the year. It's the paper which has decided to headline this with "another year of restrictions".

I didn't hear the interview so I'm just going by what the IT are saying, but I would be very surprised if they completely misprinted what he said. I agree in general the media (RTE in particular) are always exaggerating or misrepresenting what politicians/experts say but this does not appear to be the case in this instance.

social distancing and restrictions in some form were likely for the rest of 2021 at least, until enough of the population could be vaccinated to grant general or herd immunity.

“The answer, and not everyone likes it but it’s the truth... is that the public in general won’t have protection from Covid-19 for at least a year"

That suggests that early 2022 is the earliest restrictions will be gone by which is unnecessarily pessimistic based on the general vaccine outlook.
We don't need anywhere near 100% of the population to be vaccinated for the vaccines to be effective so why would the public not have protection for at least a year? That appears to be a direct quote from the interview.

The cynic in me thinks that these people are just trying to stay relevant for as long as possible.

odyssey06

VG31 wrote: »

That suggests that early 2022 is the earliest restrictions will be gone by which is unnecessarily pessimistic based on the general vaccine outlook.
We don't need anywhere near 100% of the population to be vaccinated for the vaccines to be effective so why would the public not have protection for at least a year? That appears to be a direct quote from the interview.
The cynic in me thinks that these people are just trying to stay relevant for as long as possible.

A lot will depend on the extent to which the vaccine prevents transmission in the non-vulnerable population and how effective it is in the very vulnerable population of over 80s. We only have provisional data indicating that, nothing solid so far.

We've seen from Norway there may be a certain % of people who cannot take the vaccine... who are also very vulnerable to covid.
If the vaccine doesn't prevent transmission then we're still on a sticky wicket and can't just let this rip.

LessOutragePlz

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-01-16/norway-vaccine-fatalities-among-people-75-and-older-rise-to-29

Are the 29 deaths of the elderly people that received the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine in Norway anything for us to be concerned about?

dominatinMC

odyssey06 wrote: »

A lot will depend on the extent to which the vaccine prevents transmission in the non-vulnerable population and how effective it is in the very vulnerable population of over 80s. We only have provisional data indicating that, nothing solid so far.

We've seen from Norway there may be a certain % of people who cannot take the vaccine... who are also very vulnerable to covid.
If the vaccine doesn't prevent transmission then we're still on a sticky wicket and can't just let this rip.

The scenario you are describing is totally unsustainable. I completely agree that we need restrictions/distancing of some sort until the majority are vaccinated, but that's the end point of this. The goal we are aiming for is mass vaccination/herd immunity. Continuing with restrictions any further, to protect a tiny minority (who unfortunately cannot take the vaccine) would not be economically (think of the cost of this), politically (governments will not want to have this as their legacy), or morally (it is right to let the rest of the nation suffer for a very very few?) viable.

odyssey06

LessOutragePlz wrote: »

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-01-16/norway-vaccine-fatalities-among-people-75-and-older-rise-to-29
Are the 29 deaths of the elderly people that received the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine in Norway anything for us to be concerned about?

To a certain degree, yes. Catch 22, the people most vulnerable to covid may not be able for the strain the vaccinations causes due to relatively minor side effects.

“There is a possibility that these common adverse reactions, that are not dangerous in fitter, younger patients and are not unusual with vaccines, may aggravate underlying disease in the elderly,” Madsen said.
“We are not alarmed or worried about this, because these are very rare occurrences and they occurred in very frail patients with very serious disease.”
The Norwegian government and the Norwegian Institute of Public Health has updated its Covid-19 vaccination guide with more detailed advice on vaccinating the elderly who are frail. This means that doctors will now weigh up the side effects of the vaccine for elderly and very frail patients against the risk of Covid-19 for the patient.
https://www.thejournal.ie/norway-vaccine-elderly-patients-5326967-Jan2021/

odyssey06

dominatinMC wrote: »

The scenario you are describing is totally unsustainable. I completely agree that we need restrictions/distancing of some sort until the majority are vaccinated, but that's the end point of this. The goal we are aiming for is mass vaccination/herd immunity. Continuing with restrictions any further, to protect a tiny minority (who unfortunately cannot take the vaccine) would not be economically (think of the cost of this), politically (governments will not want to have this as their legacy), or morally (it is right to let the rest of the nation suffer for a very very few?) viable.

There's a lot of 'known unknowns'.
We don't know the scale of the % yet, we don't know how effectively the vaccines prevent transmission.
If it is a tiny %, or the vaccines prevent transmission, it's a moot point.
If there's a lot of vulnerable people who cannot tolerate the vaccine or the vaccine doesn't effectively prevent transmission, then I would not be surprised to see limited restrictions continue such as no mass spectator indoor events, keep up with masks, distancing i.e. those with minor economic costs.

Happydays2020

odyssey06 wrote: »

To a certain degree, yes. Catch 22, the people most vulnerable to covid may not be able for the strain the vaccinations causes due to relatively minor side effects.

“There is a possibility that these common adverse reactions, that are not dangerous in fitter, younger patients and are not unusual with vaccines, may aggravate underlying disease in the elderly,” Madsen said.
“We are not alarmed or worried about this, because these are very rare occurrences and they occurred in very frail patients with very serious disease.”
The Norwegian government and the Norwegian Institute of Public Health has updated its Covid-19 vaccination guide with more detailed advice on vaccinating the elderly who are frail. This means that doctors will now weigh up the side effects of the vaccine for elderly and very frail patients against the risk of Covid-19 for the patient.
https://www.thejournal.ie/norway-vaccine-elderly-patients-5326967-Jan2021/

Some of the other vaccines may be a better fit.

hmmm

odyssey06 wrote: »

I would not be surprised to see limited restrictions continue such as no mass spectator indoor events, keep up with masks, distancing i.e. those with minor economic costs.

Mmmm I don't see distancing as being a minor economic cost. I think once everyone who wants a vaccine has had a vaccine, it will be unsustainable to keep restrictions in place even if herd immunity is not achieved. That'll be a difficult debate for the country if hospitals are still in danger - it's the point where I can see the government choosing to require vaccine certificates for entry into high-risk locations as the alternative is continued restrictions for everyone.

The good thing is that Israel is so far ahead that they are going to be a test-case for everyone over the next few months.

Hmmzis

Happydays2020 wrote: »

Some of the other vaccines may be a better fit.

Protein + adjuvant based might be the best fit for those people (i.e. Novavax, Clover, Sanofi). These people are very frail, as it was discussed a few pages back, a fire drill could be lethal to some of them. Both mRNA and viral vector vaccines induce a robust interferon response, important part of the immune response, but also raises the inflammatory background. For someone very old and sick that might not be all that good to get. It's valuable information and the health regulators are and will be taking that into account.

AdamD

Ultimately you can't require social distancing when the vast majority of the population has been vaccinated because the logical conclusion to that line of thinking is social distancing forever. If a vaccination doesn't end it, what does?

Unless I'm missing something here?

odyssey06

AdamD wrote: »

Ultimately you can't require social distancing when the vast majority of the population has been vaccinated because the logical conclusion to that line of thinking is social distancing forever. If a vaccination doesn't end it, what does?
Unless I'm missing something here?

I think to really end it we need a combination of vaccines that either effectively prevent transmission and\or protect the most vulnerable - those dying and ending up in ICU. I'm not saying we won't ever have that.

But right now we don't know that for sure and that's why I could potentially see scenarios with some restrictions continued even if the majority have been vaccinated. The trials were not about transmission and included small numbers of the most vulnerable groups.

Russman

odyssey06 wrote: »

I think to really end it we need a combination of vaccines that either effectively prevent transmission and\or protect the most vulnerable - those dying and ending up in ICU. I'm not saying we won't ever have that.

But right now we don't know that for sure and that's why I could potentially see scenarios with some restrictions continued even if the majority have been vaccinated. The trials were not about transmission and included small numbers of the most vulnerable groups.

Agree with this. At the moment we just don’t know enough to say with any degree of certainty what we might or might not have in 3, 6, 9 months time. Imo it’s definitely not going to be a linear thing of reaching x amount of vaccinations means we do y. But, like everything it’s pure speculation for the moment.

Water John

If all that want the vaccine are done by next Sept, why would we still maintain restrictions? The only people at risk are those who cannot get vaccinated, a group which I believe is very small and those who disagree with vaccination. IWT if it's trialled and necessary, young people will have the option of being vaccinated.

polesheep

odyssey06 wrote: »

I think to really end it we need a combination of vaccines that either effectively prevent transmission and\or protect the most vulnerable - those dying and ending up in ICU. I'm not saying we won't ever have that.

But right now we don't know that for sure and that's why I could potentially see scenarios with some restrictions continued even if the majority have been vaccinated. The trials were not about transmission and included small numbers of the most vulnerable groups.

If enough people are vaccinated we will move on. It has always been thus.

Apogee

Irish Times wrote:

Almost all GPs in the State have now received their first Covid-19 vaccine dose after some 1,800 primary care staff were vaccinated on Saturday. GPs and nurse practice managers were vaccinated in centres in St Mary’s Hospital in the Phoenix Park, Dublin, in Portlaoise and in Galway with the recently arrived Moderna vaccine.

The HSE’s national director for quality improvement Dr Philip Crowley said he anticipated that all 3,600 GPs and nurse managers in the State will have received both vaccine doses by the end of next month.

Once all GPs have been vaccinated they will be able to administer vaccines to the general population. This should happen once the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine is rolled out, Dr Crowley said.

Some GPs, who have already been vaccinated, gave the vaccine to other GPs in St Mary’s Hospital. Approximately half the GPs in the country had received the vaccine either in a nursing home setting or in a hospital prior to today.

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/almost-all-gps-receive-first-dose-as-mass-vaccination-centres-open-1.4460396

dublin_paul

Enough vaccinations that hospitals admissions and deaths go way down and we'll have to drop restrictions, society won't accept restrictions continuing longer than that

hmmm

Water John wrote: »

If all that want the vaccine are done by next Sept, why would we still maintain restrictions? The only people at risk are those who cannot get vaccinated, a group which I believe is very small and those who disagree with vaccination. IWT if it's trialled and necessary, young people will have the option of being vaccinated.

I doubt we will ever be vaccinating under-18s for Covid. I suspect, and this is just speculation on my part based on some chatter, that when we get to vaccinating people at very low-risk (under 35s with no known pre-conditions perhaps) there will be an argument made to not vaccinate them and re-open as the small risk of side-effects from mass vaccination of this group outweighs their risk from Covid. At that stage you will have an endemic infection, with a mixture of natural and vaccine immunity.

dominatinMC

odyssey06 wrote: »

I think to really end it we need a combination of vaccines that either effectively prevent transmission and\or protect the most vulnerable - those dying and ending up in ICU. I'm not saying we won't ever have that.

But right now we don't know that for sure and that's why I could potentially see scenarios with some restrictions continued even if the majority have been vaccinated. The trials were not about transmission and included small numbers of the most vulnerable groups.

I understand your view, but I just don't agree with it. Your view seems to be seeking the "perfect" solution - something which the medical profession will also be advocating. However, I think many other sectors of society will accept a compromise - a "very good" solution, whereby the virus won't ever "end" as you put it, but will be endemic and continually in the background.

If the vaccines perform as expected, the virus will be sufficiently suppressed to render it manageable under normal living conditions, without any restrictions.