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

Hmob

brickster69 wrote: »

Yes, it was a very stupid mistake. Fancy someone making a vaccine that is not as effective against something that did not even exist until the vaccine was completed.

It's not alone that

He's screwed up by using a 12 week interval

People are not even bothering with the 2nd jab

ek motor

funnydoggy wrote: »

Good morning folks. Here's to another week of positivity and great news.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dguz0IsCuKU

Ooh child
Things are gonna get easier
Ooh child
Things'll get brighter

:D

Now I know where 2pac sample came from thanks

seamus

Gael23 wrote: »

How long are the 85+ group expected to take?

"3 weeks" is in my head, I must have heard someone say it somewhere. We can make half-decent guesses at it though.

Here are the number of people in each cohort according to the CSO from 2016;
Age|Number
65-69|202,294
70-74|153,686
75-79|107,628
80-84|72,173
85+|51,503

Based on 40,000 Pfizer/Moderna doses per week, you're looking at 7-10 days to cover the 85+ (though it'll take time to get up to full steam; I'd give it two weeks).

The number of available doses is set to ramp up though. There are 400,000 people over 70, which in theory means 800,000 doses required. That's 20 weeks at 40,000 per week, but it will ramp up much faster than that, especially into April.
Large sections of this group have also been covered already in nursing homes.

brickster69

Hmob wrote: »

It's not alone that

He's screwed up by using a 12 week interval

People are not even bothering with the 2nd jab

I would be quite certain that the people who have been spending a year developing this are finding out things about it every day, which they did not know beforehand. If they think that a 12 week interval is as good or maybe better then why not change things.

Varients will be popping up all over the place and some vaccines might be better than others. What are you going to do stop using them and wait for the cure.

eastie17

I think our vaccine rollout plans are completely proportionate with the information to hand. Yes the UK have higher numbers but from what I can see, Boris has basically bet the farm on the AZ vaccine when their testing info is patchy in places to say the least.

Its a miracle there is a vaccine at all, not to mention several, not to mention one (the Pfizer/Moderna ones) with amazing science behind them that have a very high effectiveness rate.
If we have all front line medical workers and all of the over 70s, which are the majority of our most vulernable done by he end of April then I think that is a fantastic achievement.
Much prefer that, then to have higher numbers vaccinated sooner with a somewhat questionable vaccine and be sh*itting it for every new set of data that comes from the AZ experimental vaccine with the UK as a giant petri dish.

Gile_na_gile

All you can realistically do with the course of the pandemic is change strategy / adjust expectations. Despairing or having a rant against the status quo may be cathartic, but it won't change anything. There was some discussion in this thread that the variants are convergent and likely to settle on some of the changes we are seeing independently across the world, as already linked (i think) to this article in the BMJ
https://www.bmj.com/content/372/bmj.n359

Again, I would hope Donnelly, and more importantly NPHET and NIAC, will be checking on the Commission and national health ministers to ensure we can swap to a modified vaccine as soon as possible, and that we will have sufficient production and supply and not a further fiasco like at present. At least we have the solace that racing ahead early means having to run a second or concurrent vaccination later with the booster for all vaccines, at least to maintain the earlier levels of efficacy. It depends on whether such a vaccine is possible in the near term.

Irish Stones

timsey tiger wrote: »

Dr John Campbell can be very annoying, but he had a woman from US describing her experience of getting vaccinated in US. Shey said that they put a sticker on her car to show how long she had to wait in carpark, so I'm guessing somebody then told her to go when her time was up.

Don't know in the US, but in certain parts of the world, holding someone without the presence of the police as a law enforcement might make it as taking someone hostage.
I know that the intentions are good, but in certain parts of the world people can't be held against their will.

Gael23

Gael23 wrote: »

When the over 85s start next week will Pfizer doses be held back just for them in the next few weeks ensure they get their second dose or how does that work?
Or will the pay jump ahead and start 80-84 year olds?

As long as there is security of supply you basically just overlap the groups as much as possible, so when say a GP knows they have 75% of their over 85's done/booked in, they then start contacting the over 80's in addition to the remaining over 85's and so on. By the fourth week or so you'd expect GP's will be making it available to everybody over 70 (hopefully).

I'm presuming as well by the time we get to the above, we should have given out up to 200,000 AZ doses to Groups 4, 5 & 6 and maybe even group 7. I'd hope for group 7 though for the especially vulnerable, they go with Pfizer/Moderna as much as possible.

seamus

Irish Stones wrote: »

Don't know in the US, but in certain parts of the world, holding someone without the presence of the police as a law enforcement might make it as taking someone hostage.
I know that the intentions are good, but in certain parts of the world people can't be held against their will.

You're reading that wrong. Nobody was stopping the person from going; the purpose of the sticker is so that whoever is walking around checking on patients knows how long ago someone was injected.

It's no different to having someone sit in the waiting room post-jab. You can stand up and walk out, nobody can stop you.

iguana

seamus wrote: »

Large sections of this group have also been covered already in nursing homes.

How will independently living people of 85+ arrange for their vaccination? Will they be contacted or will they have to register themselves? A lot of people of that age, even if living fine by themselves might need someone to help them arrange this if they have to do it themselves. Especially if it's online registry.

seamus

All of these people will be contacted by their GP to make arrangements. Colm Henry has said this morning that arrangements for vaccination at home will be made if there's no other option.

I imagine it's quite unlikely that there are any 85+ in the country who are not registered with a GP, so this should cover all of them, if not 99.9%.

iguana

iguana wrote: »

How will independently living people of 85+ arrange for their vaccination? Will they be contacted or will they have to register themselves? A lot of people of that age, even if living fine by themselves might need someone to help them arrange this if they have to do it themselves. Especially if it's online registry.

They are leaving it to GPs to contact these people.

DaSilva

Original reported Oxford trial population:
18-55: 10,218 (88%)
56-69: 974 (8%)
>= 70: 444 (4%)

Moderna trial population:
18-65 22,839 (75%)
>= 65 7,512 (25%)

Pfizer/BioNTech trial population:
16-55 21,785 (58%)
>= 55 15,921 (42%)

Why are we giving Oxfords vaccine to any adult over 55/65/etc and Moderna/BioNTech to 20 year old medical workers? Oh right, logistics...

I will be grateful and accept any vaccine offered to me, but I will be making a lot of effort to get my parents the Modern/BioNTech vaccines, it would be stupid not to. You can all call me ungrateful but I really think its foolish to be not saving these proven vaccines for the proven at risk people

seamus

DaSilva wrote: »

Why are we giving Oxfords vaccine to any adult over 55/65/etc and Moderna/BioNTech to 20 year old medical workers?

Because we haven't had any Oxford in the country yet.

From this week, the Pfizer & Moderna vaccines are going to be prioritised for the over-70s and the Oxford vaccine given to everyone else.

DaSilva

seamus wrote: »

Because we haven't had any Oxford in the country yet.

From this week, the Pfizer & Moderna vaccines are going to be prioritised for the over-70s and the Oxford vaccine given to everyone else.

The numbers above were published in December before any EMA approval or rollout started here, but we still prioritized young healthy health care workers with minimal risk.

Lets really be honest, the plan was all along nothing to do with the data / efficacy. It was all about logistics, lets dole out the more awkward vaccine in hospital staff and the other to the rest. The reasons for the choice are all to do with ease of administration

AdamD

Hmob wrote: »

It's not alone that

He's screwed up by using a 12 week interval

People are not even bothering with the 2nd jab

Eh? Has it even been 12 weeks since somebody in the UK got a first jab?

lucernarian

Mitch Connor wrote: »

Doesn't tell a full picture because there are two different strategies.

From what I can see 16.5% of the UK Population (at end of last week) has received a vaccine. To have hit the same number in Ireland we would have to have got to about 750k (i think) jabs. We are at a bout 1/3 of that I think.

You can argue the rights and wrongs of the UK plan, but if they had done the same plan as us they'd be at 8% or so of the population 'done'. Ireland are at 1.4% according to your picture.

Indeed, it's not hard to understand why someone might feel a bit disappointed by the situation in Ireland even if there isn't much the country can do about it.

stephenjmcd

DaSilva wrote: »

The numbers above were published in December before any EMA approval or rollout started here, but we still prioritized young healthy health care workers with minimal risk.

Lets really be honest, the plan was all along nothing to do with the data / efficacy. It was all about logistics, lets dole out the more awkward vaccine in hospital staff and the other to the rest. The reasons for the choice are all to do with ease of administration

Prioritise those working in hospitals and dealing with covid daily regardless of the their age. They've a higher chance of contracting covid and bringing it home. It's not rocket science as to why healthcare workers were one of the first to be vaccinated along with long term care settings

Your dealing in whataboutery really, protect those with a higher chance of picking up covid. Simple really

Are you really trying to suggest that frontline healthcare workers shouldn't have been vaccinated as a priority above everyone else ?

DaSilva

stephenjmcd wrote: »

Prioritise those working in hospitals and dealing with covid daily regardless of the their age. They've a higher chance of contracting covid and bringing it home. It's not rocket science as to why healthcare workers were one of the first to be vaccinated along with long term care settings

Your dealing in whataboutery really, protect those with a higher chance of picking up covid and spreading it. Simple really

I am not "dealing in whataboutery" I am very simply stating we should not be giving the proven vaccines to those not at risk (although they are probably all done by now) and should instead be saving them and prioritising the people with a proven high risk of severe disease.

At the time of approval there was no compelling evidence of prevention of transmission, so that argument for their use in low risk healthcare workers is purely speculative. There are many other groups of people at high risk of exposure who were not prioritised. The real reason all healthcare workers were prioritised is because they are considered higher value by society and it was easy to vaccinate them.

DaSilva

stephenjmcd wrote: »

Are you really trying to suggest that frontline healthcare workers shouldn't have been vaccinated as a priority above everyone else ?

You added this in after I initially replied. Lets be really clear here, there are more than "frontline" healthcare workers being prioritised over other higher risk populations. We are prioritising healthcare workers not in contact with patients over 65+ year olds with serious medical conditions...

stephenjmcd

DaSilva wrote: »

I am not "dealing in whataboutery" I am very simply stating we should not be giving the proven vaccines to those not at risk (although they are probably all done by now) and should instead be saving them and prioritising the people with a proven high risk of severe disease.

At the time of approval there was no compelling evidence of prevention of transmission, so that argument for their use in low risk healthcare workers is purely speculative. There are many other groups of people at high risk of exposure who were not prioritised. The real reason all healthcare workers were prioritised is because they are considered higher value by society and it was easy to vaccinate them.

Right so you've an issue with the fact that health care workers were prioritised for vaccination. Thank god the large majority of people don't share that view.

So tell me a nurse in their mid 20s working in ICU who would be in a position where they could be subjected to high viral load being spread shouldn't be vaccinated as a priority purely because of their age ?

DaSilva

stephenjmcd wrote: »

Right so you've an issue with the fact that health care workers were prioritised for vaccination. Thank god the large majority of people don't share that view.

So tell me a nurse in their mid 20s working in ICU who would be in a position where they could be subjected to high viral load being spread shouldn't be vaccinated as a priority purely because of their age ?

I am not suggesting its so black and white, I would have no problems with young ICU and other direct covid staff being prioritized, but I cant see the justification in giving a non patient facing young healthcare worker a proven better vaccine before giving a 6X year old with COPD a worse vaccine...

Pete_Cavan

Aren't health care workers being prioritised to avoid mass absenteeism?

ixoy

DaSilva wrote: »

I will be grateful and accept any vaccine offered to me, but I will be making a lot of effort to get my parents the Modern/BioNTech vaccines, it would be stupid not to.

What makes you think they'll have any choice? What exactly are you expecting to be able to do?

DaSilva

ixoy wrote: »

What makes you think they'll have any choice? What exactly are you expecting to be able to do?

Why is that of any concern to you or this thread? Obviously there is no official process...

timsey tiger

ixoy wrote: »

What makes you think they'll have any choice? What exactly are you expecting to be able to do?

Apply political pressure, it's already worked.

stephenjmcd

timsey tiger wrote: »

Apply political pressure, it's already worked.

Politics has no input as to what vaccine someone will get. It's a medical decision that'll be made for you.

Someone's choice is vaccine or no vaccine

monkeybutter

ixoy wrote: »

What makes you think they'll have any choice? What exactly are you expecting to be able to do?

he is going to go full border fox on it

stephenjmcd

DaSilva wrote: »

Why is that of any concern to you or this thread? Obviously there is no official process...

There is, their GP will decide what vaccine is most suitable. If they're over 70 it'll be Pfizer or Moderna.

There's no choice for the paitent to make here.

is_that_so

DaSilva wrote: »

Why is that of any concern to you or this thread? Obviously there is no official process...

Your posts are public and you have no say in who replies to them. Not sure why you imagine there is no official process. The vaccine groups were published back in December along with justifications for each one. There are also very logical explanations as to why some HCWs were done first.