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

Cork2021

josip wrote: »

Maybe I misunderstood this poster then when they said



Is there any reason given for why we are approving it for 65+ and some other EU countries didn't?

Nope, just what the EMA said last Friday that there is a immune response. It has to be a good response or they would have said from 18-64. We’ll know soon enough with the amount of jabs being given in the uk a la Israel with Pfizer.

Turtwig

Happy4all wrote: »

See some People spouting on about the risk of ADE from being vaccinated.

Is this just misinformation?

It depends what they're saying.? There is a risk. Can't deny that. However, it should be fairly low as vaccines have been designed with it in mind and trials to date show very strong neutralising antibodies responses. The kind of outcome that it is thought best mitigates this risk. Open to correction here but as I understand it the bigger risk to ADE is mAb therapies. Though I suspect that like with vaccines development the risk has been mitigated for as much as possible. I just haven't read up enough on them.

Happydays2020

The messaging coming from the EU today was about ensuring supply i.e PPPs for manufacturing capacity. There is a critical mass now of working vaccines - the next questions how can we produce more of these.

Meanwhile research will look at how the existing vaccines can be tweaked to provide greater protection against the mutants.

Happydays2020

Happydays2020 wrote: »

The messaging coming from the EU today was about ensuring supply i.e PPPs for manufacturing capacity. There is a critical mass now of working vaccines - the next questions how can we produce more of these.

Meanwhile research will look at how the existing vaccines can be tweaked to provide greater protection against the mutants.

Mark1916

Good news this morning:

Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly opted into the purchase of an additional 875,000 Moderna vaccines at the weekend, bringing Ireland’s total order from the US drug firm to 1.65 million.

It is hoped up to one million of the doses can be delivered to Ireland by July, thereby allowing for a significant ramping up of the overall vaccine rollout in the first half of the year.

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/health/cabinet-to-back-purchase-of-nearly-1m-extra-doses-of-moderna-vaccine-1.4473510

stephenjmcd

Mark1916 wrote: »

Good news this morning:

Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly opted into the purchase of an additional 875,000 Moderna vaccines at the weekend, bringing Ireland’s total order from the US drug firm to 1.65 million.

It is hoped up to one million of the doses can be delivered to Ireland by July, thereby allowing for a significant ramping up of the overall vaccine rollout in the first half of the year.

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/health/cabinet-to-back-purchase-of-nearly-1m-extra-doses-of-moderna-vaccine-1.4473510

The additional doses aren't outside our allocation already. The EU exercised its option to purchase the doses as per contract.

These would I assume already have been factored into the rollout plan here as they were basically a formality

Mark1916

stephenjmcd wrote: »

The additional doses aren't outside our allocation already. The EU exercised its option to purchase the doses as per contract.

These would I assume already have been factored into the rollout plan here as they were basically a formality

I believe you’re incorrect there! Per Brian MacCraith these are additional doses that were not factored.

Happydays2020

Mark1916 wrote: »

I believe you’re incorrect there! Per Brian MacCraith these are additional doses that were not factored.

That is positive news. As soon as we get the vulnerable and a critical mass vaccinated things will quickly normalise.

stephenjmcd

Mark1916 wrote: »

I believe you’re incorrect there! Per Brian MacCraith these are additional doses that were not factored.

Not sure why they weren't factored in then because Irelands order always was an inital 875,000 & another 875,000 as per the EU contract when the remainder of the contract was triggered after proven safe and effective.

Our total allocation of Moderna was always 1.65 million. There was only 2 options, take the 875,000 that your entitled to from the contract or don't. They were never not going to exercise the full contract.

Sky King

Is there any definitive guide online as to what vaccines we're due, and when we're due them?

Irish Stones

Cork2021 wrote: »

So Fergal Bowers on the 9 o clock news saying that the AstraZeneca vaccine is an option for over 65’s as is the Pfizer and moderna vaccines.
So looks like we’ll be vaccinating a large cohort of people in our local GP surgeries and pharmacies

Other countries don't advise AZ vaccine for over 55's, and had to review their vaccination plans.

Irish Stones

Ursula von der Leyen said she is positive that 70% of the European population will be fully vaccinated by next summer.
Currently, on an average, Europe has administered at least the first dose of the vaccines to 3% of the population, and the two doses probably only to about 1% of the population.
How can she say that they will meet that target in the next 5-6 months?
Even if we double that figure up every 4 weeks, it'll be only 65% by the end of July. And I don't think that figure doubles up every 4 weeks.

ACitizenErased

35k Astrazeneca doses arriving next week
https://www.rte.ie/news/2021/0202/1194478-covid19-ireland/

is_that_so

Irish Stones wrote: »

Ursula von der Leyen said she is positive that 70% of the European population will be fully vaccinated by next summer.
Currently, on an average, Europe has administered at least the first dose of the vaccines to 3% of the population, and the two doses probably only to about 1% of the population.
How can she say that they will meet that target in the next 5-6 months?
Even if we double that figure up every 4 weeks, it'll be only 65% by the end of July. And I don't think that figure doubles up every 4 weeks.

The plan here is to double vaccinations as soon as it can be done and then get to about 4 times that total weekly. We are looking at about September.

titan18

ACitizenErased wrote: »

35k Astrazeneca doses arriving next week
https://www.rte.ie/news/2021/0202/1194478-covid19-ireland/

Hopefully if we get them early in the week, they're vaccinating 35k people by the weekend.

funnydoggy

At this stage it would be great to have a summer like last summer, case and restrictions wise. That's gonna happen regardless I would imagine. Put the vaccine rollout on top of that, and the last people getting the vaccinations in September are the stragglers in the pub that are still there a half hour after closing time. Show's over folks, go home.

Irish Stones

Irish Stones wrote: »

Ursula von der Leyen said she is positive that 70% of the European population will be fully vaccinated by next summer.
Currently, on an average, Europe has administered at least the first dose of the vaccines to 3% of the population, and the two doses probably only to about 1% of the population.
How can she say that they will meet that target in the next 5-6 months?
Even if we double that figure up every 4 weeks, it'll be only 65% by the end of July. And I don't think that figure doubles up every 4 weeks.

You do realise its vaccine availability not ability to vaccinate that has kept it low? By April we will be swimming in vaccines

gmisk

[Deleted User] wrote: »

You do realise its vaccine availability not ability to vaccinate that has kept it low? By April we will be swimming in vaccines

Exactly we have had 207k vaccines in the country seemingly and 200k of them are administered can't do much more with what we have.

Sanjuro

Deleted User wrote: »

You do realise its vaccine availability not ability to vaccinate that has kept it low? By April we will be swimming in vaccines

Is it a case of levels of production that are holding things back? If so, where is production being ramped up? It's not that I don't believe that we could and should be swimming in vaccines by April. I'd just like to know where the production is going to increase.

gmisk

Irish Stones wrote: »

Other countries don't advise AZ vaccine for over 55's, and had to review their vaccination plans.

The only country I remember reading about was Germany and that was over 65, due to the lack of data. Are other countries not using on over 55s?

Irish Stones

Deleted User wrote: »

You do realise its vaccine availability not ability to vaccinate that has kept it low? By April we will be swimming in vaccines

Yes, I do realise, I never said it otherwise, but they were also sure to be swimming in vaccines a month ago, when Pfizer were to supply millions doses per week (and they didn't), Moderna were going to supply lots of doses (and they reduced them) and AZ's vaccine was the game changer and now it can only be administered to people under 55 in several countries.
So, before saying we'll be swimming in vaccines, I would wait to see them.

is_that_so

Irish Stones wrote: »

Yes, I do realise, I never said it otherwise, but they were also sure to be swimming in vaccines a month ago, when Pfizer were to supply millions doses per week (and they didn't), Moderna were going to supply lots of doses (and they reduced them) and AZ's vaccine was the game changer and now it can only be administered to people under 55 in several countries.
So, before saying we'll be swimming in vaccines, I would wait to see them.

Well that sounds like someone was spoofing. We have known for a good while that these months would be limited while providers scaled up.

Irish Stones

gmisk wrote: »

The only country I remember reading about was Germany and that was over 65, due to the lack of data. Are other countries not using on over 55s?

https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20210201-questions-surround-astrazeneca-vaccine-use-for-elderly

Irish Stones

is_that_so wrote: »

Well that sounds like someone was spoofing. We have known for a good while that these months would be limited while providers scaled up.

So, if the first couple of months were well known for having a limited supply while the manufaturers are going to ramp up the production capacity, why is EU sort of attacking these manufacturers for not respecting the contracts?

is_that_so

Irish Stones wrote: »

So, if the first couple of months were well known for having a limited supply while the manufaturers are going to ramp up the production capacity, why is EU sort of attacking these manufacturers for not respecting the contracts?

It's really AZ, Pfizer gave a heads-up on their reduction, well in advance, and are now back on track.

Mike3549

Irish Stones wrote: »

So, if the first couple of months were well known for having a limited supply while the manufaturers are going to ramp up the production capacity, why is EU sort of attacking these manufacturers for not respecting the contracts?

They attacked only one, for the reason. We started vaccinating only 5 weeks ago, chillax everythings going to the plan

hmmm

Sanjuro wrote: »

Is it a case of levels of production that are holding things back? If so, where is production being ramped up? It's not that I don't believe that we could and should be swimming in vaccines by April. I'd just like to know where the production is going to increase.

I think it's too early to be making any conclusions about how the year is going to go. A lot of the manufacturers have run into production difficulties which is not surprising, but they are also working to overcome this and they are signing up partners to assist with production. We know that Pfizer in particular have signed up a number of new partners (including Sanofi and Novartis, and are in discussions with several others). J&J is a big unknown as to their production capability, but they are making some confident statements. I'm also wondering whether Glaxo & Merck are having discussions with anyone.

All that we do know is we have a number of good vaccines, and we also know that supply is going to be limited at least until the end of March and probably only really starts ramping up in April/May. Personally I think that sometime in Summer we are going to be swimming in vaccines as someone says above, but that's an optimistic view - others think it will take to the end of the year.

The variants do seem to have an impact on reducing the overall effectiveness of vaccines, but so far they don't seem to be impacting on the ability of the vaccines to prevent serious disease.

Irish Stones

Irish Stones wrote: »

Yes, I do realise, I never said it otherwise, but they were also sure to be swimming in vaccines a month ago, when Pfizer were to supply millions doses per week (and they didn't), Moderna were going to supply lots of doses (and they reduced them) and AZ's vaccine was the game changer and now it can only be administered to people under 55 in several countries.
So, before saying we'll be swimming in vaccines, I would wait to see them.

When did Pfizer commit to millions of doses per week? They flagged that there would be a minor scale back in deliveries to allow production to ramp to higher numbers

Roger_007

Irish Stones wrote: »

So, if the first couple of months were well known for having a limited supply while the manufaturers are going to ramp up the production capacity, why is EU sort of attacking these manufacturers for not respecting the contracts?

I think that the EU commission are trying to give the impression that they are waving a big stick when they haven’t actually got a stick at all. Ursula is looking completely incompetent in dealing with the vaccine procurement and has resorted to panic measures to cover up her incompetence, as we saw at the weekend.
We probably would be much better off to go it alone in vaccine procurement and we still can.

Irish Stones

Deleted User wrote: »

When did Pfizer commit to millions of doses per week? They flagged that there would be a minor scale back in deliveries to allow production to ramp to higher numbers

When their vaccine was approved we, over here, were promised 479k doses a week, which turn out to be millions in a European scale.
The reduction in the supplies was something, apparently, unexpected, or there wouldn't have been so much upset from the EU's leaders.