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

CIARAN_BOYLE

IRISHSPORTSGUY wrote: »

I believe the EMA are giving a timeline for the approval of Astrazeneca in the next few days?

If it's February, I predict everyone will give them the 2 fingers and just approve it anyway - especially when the see the Brits doing millions a week.

Tell me what approach we should follow with Astra Zenaca

Full dose wait 3 weeks full dose; the trials were done on this basis but the efficacy was poor
Half dose wait 3 weeks full dose; a small group of the trial was done on this basis and appeared to have good efficacy but it was too small to be statistically valid
Full dose wait 12 weeks full dose.: this is what the UK is doing. It wasn't in the trials but there is some degree of evidence that it works better than full dose wait 3 weeks full dose.

Everyone says we need to move on astrazeneca. Well tell me what approach you want to follow.

JacksonHeightsOwn

Treseemme. wrote: »

We'd want to be moving on from 2000 quickly

You've got that right.

With us supposed to be getting 40,000 a week from now (just Pfizer)

Then the bare minimum should obviously be the full amount.

But ideally we'd want to be banging out 100,000 a week, if not more. Its only a needle ffs.

is_that_so

Treseemme. wrote: »

We'd want to be moving on from 2000 quickly

That was really a trial run last week. Donnelly has said we can expect the nursing homes to be done by the end of the month, that's 70K including staff. He also said we'll see data on it daily. The rest should be going into the hospitals/front line and Moderna is likely to be available from the end of this week.

is_that_so

CIARAN_BOYLE wrote: »

Tell me what approach we should follow with Astra Zenaca

Full dose wait 3 weeks full dose; the trials were done on this basis but the efficacy was poor
Half dose wait 3 weeks full dose; a small group of the trial was done on this basis and appeared to have good efficacy but it was too small to be statistically valid
Full dose wait 12 weeks full dose.: this is what the UK is doing. It wasn't in the trials but there is some degree of evidence that it works better than full dose wait 3 weeks full dose.

Everyone says we need to move on astrazeneca. Well tell me what approach you want to follow.

Oxford have made a bit of a bags of the data on it. In normal times this wouldn't be an issue but with supply pressures it puts a spotlight in them. EU countries will follow the EMA.

Treseemme.

is_that_so wrote: »

That was really a trial run last week. Donnelly has said we can expect the nursing homes to be done by the end of the month, that's 70K including staff. He also said we'll see data on it daily. The rest should be going into the hospitals/front line and Moderna is likely to be available from the end of this week.

I'm not hearing anything about vaccination centres being setup

I see the UK has 1000 centres setup or planned

stephenjmcd

Treseemme. wrote: »

I'm not hearing anything about vaccination centres being setup

I see the UK has 1000 centres setup or planned

Why would there be vaccination centres set up when all the doses are currently in hospitals and care homes ?? Those requiring them the most are where the supplies are going.

Theres a list of planned sites (already published) in Ireland when rollout moves into the wider community.

You can't vaccinate people with non existent vaccines.

is_that_so

Treseemme. wrote: »

I'm not hearing anything about vaccination centres being setup

I see the UK has 1000 centres setup or planned

The first two groups are in self-contained settings and that will take us well into February. We also tend not to announce things like that. The UK have to show that are getting something right.

Leftwaffe

Gov is lucky there’s not hundreds of thousands of vaccines being dumped on them as I firmly believe they’d all just be sitting there for weeks whilst we vaccinate 5 or 6 hundred a day.

is_that_so

Redordeadqwwer wrote: »

Gov is lucky there’s not hundreds of thousands of vaccines being dumped on them as I firmly believe they’d all just be sitting there for weeks whilst we vaccinate 5 or 6 hundred a day.

Plan is to do 20,000 this week -17K homes and 3k hospitals. That should be higher next week.

Treseemme.

is_that_so wrote: »

Plan is to do 20,000 this week -17K homes and 3k hospitals. That should be higher next week.

Thats 1million a year , still small potatoes

Should be ramped up though , but that's only a maybe here

ixoy

is_that_so wrote: »

Plan is to do 20,000 this week -17K homes and 3k hospitals. That should be higher next week.

I'm hoping the media keeps an eye on us and uses the various press panels to question any failure to meet targets or not use the maximum allocations. This is the way out of this mess and is a far more productive point to drive home than the umpteenth question about shops opening.

is_that_so

Treseemme. wrote: »

Thats 1million a year , still small potatoes

Should be ramped up though , but that's only a maybe here

It's planning based on the available supplies of vaccines. It should change as early as next week.

afatbollix

My Sister in law got the Vaccine yesterday.

Shes had a terrible year as a NICU nurse, Babys born with Covid, Parents getting Covid and barred from seeing the baby's.

Shes had loads of scares of potential exposures and going home waiting for test results where she could of potentially brought it home to the kids.

It's going to be a great year.

AdamD

Not to be a conspiracy theorist but my bet is that we don't get the official numbers on vaccinations adminstered until the end of this week, as they won't want to release a small number. I highly doubt they don't already have daily numbers they could release.

Russman

cheezums wrote: »

i would imagine most countries including ireland are purposely stalling until the one jab easy to refrigerate vaccine comes online to be honest. i think i heard varadkar almost say as much the other day.

I don't know about most countries but I can easily believe it about here. I do think the HSE are depending on GPs and Boots to do the bulk of their work for them with the AZ vaccine, and then claim they ran a successful vaccination program.

Russman

CIARAN_BOYLE wrote: »

Tell me what approach we should follow with Astra Zenaca

Full dose wait 3 weeks full dose; the trials were done on this basis but the efficacy was poor
Half dose wait 3 weeks full dose; a small group of the trial was done on this basis and appeared to have good efficacy but it was too small to be statistically valid
Full dose wait 12 weeks full dose.: this is what the UK is doing. It wasn't in the trials but there is some degree of evidence that it works better than full dose wait 3 weeks full dose.

Everyone says we need to move on astrazeneca. Well tell me what approach you want to follow.

Back in work this morning so forgive me for having my cynical hat on me, but the best thing for AstraZeneca would be for J&J to come on stream soon and relegate it to where it belongs.

Edit, ok thats a bit harsh but they need to stop guessing and go back and run proper trials with the various dosing options and come back with statistically sound results, good or bad, to see where they stand.

Micky 32

Maybe it’s already posted apologies if so.

The UK has began the Oxford/Astra Zeneca vaccinations.

“An 82-year-old retired maintenance manager has become the first person in the world to receive the Oxford University and AstraZeneca vaccine outside clinical trials.”

Another step closer to normality.

FrStone

afatbollix wrote: »

My Sister in law got the Vaccine yesterday.

Shes had a terrible year as a NICU nurse, Babys born with Covid, Parents getting Covid and barred from seeing the baby's.

Shes had loads of scares of potential exposures and going home waiting for test results where she could of potentially brought it home to the kids.

It's going to be a great year.

Great news.

It does make me wonder if we should be giving the vaccine to those who already had covid at this point. Considering it's highly unlikely they will catch it again, maybe we should be giving it to someone else until we have greater supply.

Melanchthon

stephenjmcd wrote: »

Why would there be vaccination centres set up when all the doses are currently in hospitals and care homes ?? Those requiring them the most are where the supplies are going.

Theres a list of planned sites (already published) in Ireland when rollout moves into the wider community.

You can't vaccinate people with non existent vaccines.

We should be hearing about recruitment and training of people to administer the vaccines it they ever start coming in at full flow, in the UK they have been training St Johns Ambulance members, haven't heard anything similar here.

JTMan

More on the SA variant ...

Matt Hancock has said he is " ‘incredibly worried’ about South Africa Covid variant".

The University of Oxford have said "there is a “big question mark” as to whether the vaccines currently being rolled out would work on the South African variant."

More here.

(As mentioned, possible that current vaccines will respond, to this variant, but be less effective).

nommm

Micky 32 wrote: »

Maybe it’s already posted apologies if so.

The UK has began the Oxford/Astra Zeneca vaccinations.

“An 82-year-old retired maintenance manager has become the first person in the world to receive the Oxford University and AstraZeneca vaccine outside clinical trials.”


Another step closer to normality.

Should they not be saving this vaccine for younger healthcare workers? I thought the MHRA said they had insufficient data in the over 65s.

Sweet.Science

afatbollix wrote: »

My Sister in law got the Vaccine yesterday.

Shes had a terrible year as a NICU nurse, Babys born with Covid, Parents getting Covid and barred from seeing the baby's.

Shes had loads of scares of potential exposures and going home waiting for test results where she could of potentially brought it home to the kids.

It's going to be a great year.

That's wonderful news . So lucky my kid was born in 2019 and not 2020

WoollyRedHat

nommm wrote: »

Should they not be saving this vaccine for younger healthcare workers? I thought the MHRA said they had insufficient data in the over 65s.

Germany considering following UK lead of second dose delay... seeking advice on whether to delay administering a second dose of the Covid-19 vaccine from BioNTech and Pfizer to make scarce supplies go further

ACitizenErased

Ah jaysus....

https://twitter.com/paulcolgan/status/1346056063628566529?s=21

Cork2021

ACitizenErased wrote: »

Ah jaysus....

https://twitter.com/paulcolgan/status/1346056063628566529?s=21

Ffs they need to start communicating! We deserve to know how many will be arriving

stephenjmcd

ACitizenErased wrote: »

Ah jaysus....

https://twitter.com/paulcolgan/status/1346056063628566529?s=21

Press departments don't talk to each other. Nothing new at all.

Dept of Arts & Dept of Taoiseach both issued different releases contradicting each other back in September or October I think it was. Took a few days to actually get them both singing off the same hymn sheet.

For all the press advisors they have they seem to do sweet fa

Wallander

AutoTuning wrote: »

I get the impression that the EU is in cost control mode instead of “just get it done”. The few quid we might save as a block by not throwing everything and the kitchen sink at this will be hugely outweighed by the costs of disruption to the European economy by a dragged out vaccine programme.

There’s been far too much “business as usual” approaches in what is the biggest emergency we have had to deal with probably since WWII.

I’m really not feeling there’s any sense of great urgency being expressed.

If it doesn’t move quickly, countries will end up bypassing the programme and that would be of huge political consequence for the EU as it would look totally incompetent.

I mean we can’t realistically go on with lockdown after lockdown and these huge spiking numbers while someone drags their feet or argues over whether vaccine prices are value. That leak in Belgium of the pricing seemed to be a local debate about whether we were getting value for money. Is it
Really the time for that?! Even at high costs we can *easily* afford it. It needs all the blocks removed and all the stops pulled out.

Cautious approval processes are one thing, but slow movement and cautious ordering or penny pinching will lead to a lot of disappointment and political problems in the months ahead.

I’m very pro European but it’s beginning to look like we might have been better off just ordering a billion worth of vaccines in Ireland and rolling out at maximum speed. Delaying is costing us billions upon billions. I don’t want to turn it into a political debate, but I think we need to start putting pressure on both domestically and at EU level to get this done.

It’s really not good enough. Europe and Ireland shouldn’t be behind the curve on this at all. We have huge resources - financial, social, logistical, technological, manufacturing and scientific. There no reason to be the laggards on this. Europe should be leading the field.

I don’t get the sense of urgency in Ireland either from the HSE or department. It’s all far too easygoing.

What would be the possible consequences if a country like Ireland started administering a vaccine before it gained EMA approval having seen it be approved and in mass use in the UK? Not that I'm advocating such an approach, I have no knowledge of the issue and expect it could bring major legal problems after side effects, but I am curious if it fits into the realms of possibility in a grave crisis situation.

ixoy

Wallander wrote: »

What would be the possible consequences if a country like Ireland started administering a vaccine before it gained EMA approval having seen it be approved and in mass use in the UK?

Do we even get the vaccine until it's approved?

Gile_na_gile

Russman wrote: »

Back in work this morning so forgive me for having my cynical hat on me, but the best thing for AstraZeneca would be for J&J to come on stream soon and relegate it to where it belongs.

Edit, ok thats a bit harsh but they need to stop guessing and go back and run proper trials with the various dosing options and come back with statistically sound results, good or bad, to see where they stand.

I agree on this, as the pressure to authorise the AZ vaccine, with its possibly limited effects on transmission blocking based on Phase I/II data, is coming from desperation in the UK but I still think they are making the right choices re: vaccination.


I have looked for any insider information on Jannsen / J&H but there is very little to go on yet. It is not improbable that it also reaches the dizzy heights of ~60-70% efficacy, with anything better dependent on a booster shot and thus we are back to square one.


A second scenario is a a high efficacy of 80% single dose and 90% with booster but the slow-moving EMA then take the usual extra three weeks to a month to approve in contrast to the FDA, and thus further indebting the EU economies relative to Asia and elsewhere.


Perhaps post-Covid will be Western countries totally dependent on Chinese credit lines to keep the taps open and a rerun of 1980s US paranoia about Asian power. Clearly, even democracies like Taiwan and Australia/NZ are handling this far, far better. No rush to authorise if the situation is under control. There will have to a be a full 'zero covid' strategy for Europe to get this under control even with vaccines.

noserider

Wallander wrote: »

What would be the possible consequences if a country like Ireland started administering a vaccine before it gained EMA approval having seen it be approved and in mass use in the UK? Not that I'm advocating such an approach, I have no knowledge of the issue and expect it could bring major legal problems after side effects, but I am curious if it fits into the realms of possibility in a grave crisis situation.

Are you mad,we won’t even use the vaccines we have!
Keep the fridge door closed lads..