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

ACitizenErased

Varadkar said in the Dail the HSEs decision could possibly mean a slower rollout for over 70s

Cork2021

ACitizenErased wrote: »

Varadkar said in the Dail the HSEs decision could possibly mean a slower rollout for over 70s

That’ll be due to logistics mostly.
Quicker rollout for the under 70’s group

daydorunrun

Very little positive news on effective treatments lately or have I just missed them?

I always thought treatments and vaccines together would get us out of this mess, seems like all our eggs are in the vaccine basket at the moment.

Galwayguy35

Well that didn't take long to turn into a complete balls up, meanwhile our nearest neighbours are showing how it should be done.

Happydays2020

frozen3 wrote: »

Reading our propaganda filled news you would be right to come to that conclusion

Wife, her family and friends have many good Russian friends and are always buying Russian products, take from that what you will and believe what you want, I have given my perspective.

Nice to see someone bringing badly needed nuance into the western narrative. Never straightforward. There are extremes on each side and most people are in the middle just getting on with life. Speaking of which - if they get a vaccine now that means they can get on with life sooner then they will take it, as opposed to being way down the queue from EU sourced vaccines.noting of course the actions by the EU to stop exports.

titan18

Cork2021 wrote: »

That’ll be due to logistics mostly.
Quicker rollout for the under 70’s group

I would assume they'll target remainder of group 2,4 and 6 first as they'd all be together, and then probably group 5 (65-69).

Happydays2020

Galwayguy35 wrote: »

Well that didn't take long to turn into a complete balls up, meanwhile our nearest neighbours are showing how it should be done.

Which neighbours are these?

Marty Bird

It would great to start rolling the AZ vaccine to the teachers ASAP get them in and jabbed.

frozen3

daydorunrun wrote: »

Very little positive news on effective treatments lately or have I just missed them?

I always thought treatments and vaccines together would get us out of this mess, seems like all our eggs are in the vaccine basket at the moment.

Poland have a clinic trial starting this month for Amandatine

GP's give out as treatment there

Polish friend was pretty sick, got it and was fine few days later, will be interesting to see results of trial

https://www.pharmacytimes.com/news/evaluating-amantadine-as-a-potential-treatment-for-covid-19

Paddygreen

funnydoggy wrote: »

This man will save the world.

It never fails to amaze me how much he cares about upgrading our health. Better do what he says, he’s an expert.

CIARAN_BOYLE

Marty Bird wrote: »

It would great to start rolling the AZ vaccine to the teachers ASAP get them in and jabbed.

Well that would be skipping the que.

Quantum Baloney

Lisa Chambers sounded far more liberal minded than Richard 'police state' Barrett on Claire Byrne. What a world.

Hmmzis

frozen3 wrote: »

Thats the variant they found before Christmas that started travel carnage, Pfizer has no efficacy loss against that as it doesn't have that E484K mutation

They found a new one a few days ago that's some sort of hybrid of the SA/Brazil variant that has that E484K

As it was found a few days ago they've obviously not grown that in the lab to test against it

Pfizer/all vaccines vs E484K is the battle now

Israel like you said should have good data soon on that battle

The E484K mutation is interesting in the way that it should have been an easy one to get early on if it provided any sort of advantage on its own. An A to G flip happened early on and stuck as it proved to be advantageous (the infamous D614G), even though it's a far less likely change than the other way around.

The E484 codon has the following nucleotides - GAA, in the K version that on G is flipped to an A giving an AAA codon for the lysine. Interestingly enough, our own cellular defenses are doing two predominant edits to viral RNA:

G -> A
C -> U

Also the N to Y change at codon 501 is a replacement of an A to a U.

There are multiple papers describing this sort of host factored editing of viral genomes (one here: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0006291X20320210).

To my untrained eye that looks like our own innate/cellular immune systems are driving these changes more than any antibody or other adaptive immune system pressures on the viral genome replication cycle. It also explains why in various parts of the world the changes are almost identical.

Might well be a case of our own immune systems shooting themselves in the foot, at least in the short term. The changes to K484 do look a bit more restricted going forward, it can get a Q(CAA) there with a simple and easy nucleotide flip but that brings it dangerously close to a stop codon (UAA) and would likely result in poorer expression (also lesser binding) of the S protein due to the C->U flips mentioned above. The ones that look more likely are:

N(AAU) better binding/slightly diminished expression
I(AUA) poorer binding/slightly diminished expression
R(AGA) better binding (beats even K)/slightly diminished expression
T(ACA) better binding/no change to expression

Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7310626/

Sanjuro

Paddygreen wrote: »

It never fails to amaze me how much he cares about upgrading our health. Better do what he says, he’s an expert.

He's just interested in getting the microchips into our systems.


/s

marno21

CIARAN_BOYLE wrote: »

Well that would be skipping the que.

There will now be 2 queues running in parallel.

PhoenixParker

daydorunrun wrote: »

Very little positive news on effective treatments lately or have I just missed them?

I always thought treatments and vaccines together would get us out of this mess, seems like all our eggs are in the vaccine basket at the moment.

Keep an eye on ivermectin especially as a prophylactic.
There's a dozen low quality studies suggesting giving it to contacts reduces infection rates by about 80% and for those that catch covid, they get a milder course if disease.

Theyre finally doing a big trial on it in the UK and there are another handful of bigger high quality studies close to finishing up.

Its an off patent drug, in use since the 70s, billions of doses administered around the world, ie long history of safe use and cheap

Stark

marno21 wrote: »

There will now be 2 queues running in parallel.

Hope I end up in the queue with all the other pathetic single men. Only vax, no chit-chat.

AdamD

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/feb/03/one-pfizerbiontech-jab-gives-90-immunity-from-covid-after-21-days

Should we now be following the British approach and just get as many first doses into people as possible? Does seem the like most efficient way out of this

IrishStuff09

Not sure if already posted yet but:

First dose vaccinations
152,200

Second dose vaccinations
67,000

Vaccinations per 100 people
~4.4/100

Total vaccinations
219,200

CIARAN_BOYLE

IrishStuff09 wrote: »

Not sure if already posted yet but:

First dose vaccinations
152,200

Second dose vaccinations
67,000

Vaccinations per 100 people
~4.4/100

Total vaccinations
219,200

Any chance you know last weeks number for comparitive purposes?

PhoenixParker

AdamD wrote: »

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/feb/03/one-pfizerbiontech-jab-gives-90-immunity-from-covid-after-21-days

Should we now be following the British approach and just get as many first doses into people as possible? Does seem the like most efficient way out of this

Astra Zeneca was tested and approved with doses 4-12 weeks apart so going with a 12 week dosing regimen for AZ should be uncontroversial.

Happydays2020

PhoenixParker wrote: »

Astra Zeneca was tested and approved with doses 4-12 weeks apart so going with a 12 week dosing regimen for AZ should be uncontroversial.

I think they now need to move to a parallel strategy. AZ age profile has now changed everything.

Apogee

CIARAN_BOYLE wrote: »

Any chance you know last weeks number for comparitive purposes?

Increase of 57,700 in just over 1 week:
https://twitter.com/DonnellyStephen/status/1354785246714228744

https://twitter.com/DonnellyStephen/status/1357327605997969412

Multipass

ACitizenErased wrote: »

Varadkar said in the Dail the HSEs decision could possibly mean a slower rollout for over 70s

I think that’s a huge mistake which will cost lives. The elderly should be first for any vaccine, not waiting around unprotected. My parents thought they’d be able to choose between AZ soon, or Pfizer later - and they would like the soonest. Just had to break to them that they won’t have that choice.

Cole

Happydays2020 wrote: »

Nice to see someone bringing badly needed nuance into the western narrative. Never straightforward.

Agreed...seems to be something increasingly missing from most topics/discussions.

titan18

So NIAC now saying AZ is being used on over 70s.

https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/arid-40220420.html

Amirani

Multipass wrote: »

I think that’s a huge mistake which will cost lives. The elderly should be first for any vaccine, not waiting around unprotected. My parents thought they’d be able to choose between AZ soon, or Pfizer later - and they would like the soonest. Just had to break to them that they won’t have that choice.

The elderly should only be first for any Covid vaccine that is known to work properly on them.

Deeper Blue

frozen3 wrote: »

Thats the variant they found before Christmas that started travel carnage, Pfizer has no efficacy loss against that as it doesn't have that E484K mutation

They found a new one a few days ago that's some sort of hybrid of the SA/Brazil variant that has that E484K

As it was found a few days ago they've obviously not grown that in the lab to test against it

Pfizer/all vaccines vs E484K is the battle now

Israel like you said should have good data soon on that battle

There could already have been a tonne of cases of the E484K mutation in Israel for all we know, hopefully that's the case.

is_that_so

Galwayguy35 wrote: »

Well that didn't take long to turn into a complete balls up, meanwhile our nearest neighbours are showing how it should be done.

What nature of ballsup is this? If you mean the UK, they are taking a route some do not agree with nor recommend, with that 12 week gap. It's effectively a live experiment. We have done a far higher number of people with their second dose.

IrishStuff09

CIARAN_BOYLE wrote: »

Any chance you know last weeks number for comparitive purposes?

These are all the updates we've been given so far. Hopefully we'll get more regular ones soon enough

Date|Total Vaccines Given
Dec-31|1,800
Jan-04|4,000
Jan-07|15,314
Jan-10|40,000
Jan-13|77,303
Jan-17|94,000
Jan-20|121,900
Jan-24|143,000
Jan-27|161,500
Jan-31|199,800
Feb-3|219,200


Source


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