COVID-19: Vaccine and testing procedures Megathread Part 3 - Read OP

is_that_so

Living Off The Splash wrote: »

Leo is talking about a green passport for those fully vaccinated. I assume fully vaccinated means two jabs of the Pfizer or AZ.

Unfortunately the time between vaccinations for the AZ vaccine is up to 4 months wait. Long time to wait for your "passport".

The EU are working on it and Spain seem to think it will be ready in June so it's to give the impression of working on it too.

PhoenixParker

Living Off The Splash wrote: »

Leo is talking about a green passport for those fully vaccinated. I assume fully vaccinated means two jabs of the Pfizer or AZ.

Unfortunately the time between vaccinations for the AZ vaccine is up to 4 months wait. Long time to wait for your "passport".

You can get a passport if you get a negative test too, presumably it's a temporary passport of some description so not being fully vaccinated isn't a barrier to travel.

I think they'll start from the position that two jabs are necessary but very quickly be forced to move to the position that being two weeks out from your first jab is enough. Reality is you're well protected at that point and there'll have to be some mechanism to issue temporary passports (based on negative tests), so issuing a short validity passport on a single jab should be feasible too.

vienne86

Jane1012 wrote: »

Would a certain amount of those not have been covered in cohort 1 in nursing homes? So maybe reducing the figure by 80k? (I’ve made that number up, but just to show an example)

For sure......I would have thought 25K in congregated settings......just guessing.

Mark1916

https://twitter.com/forexlive/status/1379354946487914498?s=21

Rebelbrowser

GeorgeBailey wrote: »

I think conversations like this is another plus point to the age-based approach. There'll be less "what about that subsection of a priority group. surely they don't merit special treatment."

100%. It's why they changed the order. By category 13, before the mega 16 to 54 cohort, you had a sweep up category of people in jobs important to society's functioning or something like that. How the hell do you decide who goes in there? It would certainly have included lawyers (some of whom have unavoidable contact work as part of litigation, litigation being an essential service - but most of whom are completely desk bound) and other equally "popular" professions. Government saw there was a ****fest coming and did the right thing in moving to a 100% transparent (age based) system.

is_that_so

Mark1916 wrote: »

https://twitter.com/forexlive/status/1379354946487914498?s=21

But still projections contingent on supply. We still need to see what this quarter brings, including curveballs.

Irish Stones

is_that_so wrote: »

Rates of vaccination are expected to increase substantially.

This has been said for a few months now. Productions will ramp up, vaccination rates are expected to increase, an so on, and after over 3 months we're still at 5%.
End of January it was 0.5% on EU average.
End of February it was 2.2%.
End of March it was 4.5%.
End of April it may be 6.5-7.0%.

Well, I don't see this improvement

is_that_so

Irish Stones wrote: »

This has been said for a few months now. Productions will ramp up, vaccination rates are expected to increase, an so on, and after over 3 months we're still at 5%.
End of January it was 0.5% on EU average.
End of February it was 2.2%.
End of March it was 4.5%.
End of April it may be 6.5-7.0%.

Well, I don't see this improvement

Nobody really does, this month is where it supposedly starts. It'll be good news for everyone if/when it does.

JDD

Just wondering, weren't we supposed to get a massive delivery of vaccines on 31 March, or a day or two after that? I remember both Paul Reid and Stephen Donnelly mentioning it at the end of February. Has that large delivery arrived?

is_that_so

JDD wrote: »

Just wondering, weren't we supposed to get a massive delivery of vaccines on 31 March, or a day or two after that? I remember both Paul Reid and Stephen Donnelly mentioning it at the end of February. Has that large delivery arrived?

Yeah, about 100K of it - last Thursday I believe.

josip

JDD wrote: »

Just wondering, weren't we supposed to get a massive delivery of vaccines on 31 March, or a day or two after that? I remember both Paul Reid and Stephen Donnelly mentioning it at the end of February. Has that large delivery arrived?

Yes they arrived, the revised AZ Q1 doses.

JDD

is_that_so wrote: »

Yeah, about 100K of it - last Thursday I believe.

Jesus, that's a massive drop on what he told the JOC back at the start of March. He said that we were expecting 175,000 doses. Do we know when the remaining 75,000 is due to arrive, or is that just gone now? Do we know why we only got about 60% of what we expected?

viruxc

Mark1916 wrote: »

RE: 'EU reportedly may hit vaccination target by the end of June, much earlier than projected'

I thought this has been known for a while? Ireland's goal is to hit 80% of adults by June.

Bubbaclaus

JDD wrote: »

Jesus, that's a massive drop on what he told the JOC back at the start of March. He said that we were expecting 175,000 doses. Do we know when the remaining 75,000 is due to arrive, or is that just gone now? Do we know why we only got about 60% of what we expected?

Over 200k doses were received into the country in the period 27 March to 31 March, meaning there was at least 1.187m doses in the country by month end as I understand it.

ectoraige

seamus wrote: »

I agree with all of this, though I am disappointed that Gardai appear to be left out of the loop on the planning and will have to wait for the main cohorts.

The same argument can apply - are they more at risk? But given that paramedics and fire stations are being covered, it seems logical that Gardai should be on the list. The former attend medical emergencies which is why they're on the list, but do Gardai not also attend medical emergencies on occasion?

There aren't that many Gardai and their movements are well controlled, they could all be done inside a week. It seems bizarre that they've basically been ignored.

Absolutely. Gardaí do attend medical emergencies and sometimes travel in the back of the ambulance to ensure the paramedics' safety. It's a small space with no social distancing, and one can easily be in there for over an hour.

It's also worth pointing out that the emergency services work in uncontrolled environments. Shops, schools, GPs and even hospitals have a variety of measures they can put in place to reduce the risks, but the emergency services could literally be anywhere, among any number of people. Vaccination is one of the few controls that can be reliably put in place.

Gardaí are also the only people with the powers to enforce quarantine. If you're COVID-positive and decide to go around licking, spitting, and coughing in on people, the Gardaí are the people society relies upon to stop you.

While the statistical risk for Gardaí may be low, they do need to have confidence for their own safety in a way few other workers do.

It's galling to hear teacher unions describe themselves as essential frontline workers when schools have been closed for so much of this pandemic.

1huge1

8,446 doses administrated on Saturday the 3rd of April.

https://www.hse.ie/eng/services/news/newsfeatures/covid19-updates/vaccination-programme-dashboard-as-of-02-april-2021.pdf

higster

Bubbaclaus wrote: »

Over 200k doses were received into the country in the period 27 March to 31 March, meaning there was at least 1.187m doses in the country by month end as I understand it.

All 200k AZ?

ectoraige

plodder wrote: »

Pragmatic decisions have to be made to make the vaccination proceed efficiently. Teachers and gardai are easily identifiable as groups whereas supermarket workers and other essential retail workers, though just as deserving, are not easily identifiable. Hospitalisations are still dropping. So, hopefully the question is moot. But, if they take off as a result of cases originating in schools (or the re-opening is delayed to prevent that), then it might not have been the right course to take.

It's pretty easy to identify the supermarket workers - they are the ones you actually see working with the public throughout this pandemic.

Cases increasing with school reopenings appear to be as a result of increased mobility among adults rather than spreading among children.

Lucas Hood

Those numbers for Saturday are somewhat disappointing.

Bubbaclaus

higster wrote: »

All 200k AZ?

I've no idea what the breakdown between the vaccines was, just that they had 855k delivered by 26 March and stated they had met a target of 1,187k doses delivered by end of month.

hynesie08

Those Saturday numbers should be revised upwards over the next few days, as gps upload their data today because of the bank holiday.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/medicalxpress.com/news/2021-04-ema-links-astrazeneca-vaccine-thrombosis.amp

Will we act on this and pause Asterazeneca again?

ectoraige

History Queen wrote: »

I think you've hit the nail on the head here. The public will not row in behind teachers, so special school staff, SNAs etc get tarred with this brush also. I can't understand the lack of outcry to have other sectors such as carers and childminders vaccinated though. They are more at risk, with less mitigating factors open to them than the general populace.

Childminders probably aren't at that high an actual risk since children don't harbour and spread the virus as effectively as adults, but the perception of risk should certainly be no different to the risk the teacher unions claim. The lack of outcry is down to not having unions pushing their agenda.

stephenjmcd

[Deleted User] wrote: »

https://www.google.com/amp/s/medicalxpress.com/news/2021-04-ema-links-astrazeneca-vaccine-thrombosis.amp

Will we act on this and pause Asterazeneca again?

Act on what?

Just because there's a link doesn't mean they pause or even consider or recommend a pause. All vaccines come with the caveat of potentially rare side effects.

The benefits will continue to outweigh the risks I would think

JDD

Bubbaclaus wrote: »

Over 200k doses were received into the country in the period 27 March to 31 March, meaning there was at least 1.187m doses in the country by month end as I understand it.

Oh so there was more received in the few days before 31 March? So in fact around 300k doses received between 26 March and 31 March (855k to 1.187m)?

That's really good to know. So if we plug in last week's vaccinations (how many did we do, about 70-80k?) we should actually be ramping up massively this week? I mean, I can understand that they didn't want to book people in until they got the vaccines on to Irish soil, but we should have lots more appointments this week right? I mean, we should probably be vaccinating 200,000 people over the next seven days? Isn't that they way they said it would work - that once we got the supply we had the personnel to ramp up the vaccinations?

Do we know how many vaccines are due to be delivered this week, or do they publish vaccine delivery data anywhere?

Deenie78

I had a quick question about the second dose of Pfizer - does anyone know someone who has had their second jab and if so, was there any ill effects? My Dad's due to get his on Thursday and is only just out of hospital after having an infection, I'm hoping it doesn't set him back. Thanks in advance

Bubbaclaus

JDD wrote: »

Oh so there was more received in the few days before 31 March? So in fact around 300k doses received between 26 March and 31 March (855k to 1.187m)?

That's really good to know. So if we plug in last week's vaccinations (how many did we do, about 70-80k?) we should actually be ramping up massively this week? I mean, I can understand that they didn't want to book people in until they got the vaccines on to Irish soil, but we should have lots more appointments this week right? I mean, we should probably be vaccinating 200,000 people over the next seven days? Isn't that they way they said it would work - that once we got the supply we had the personnel to ramp up the vaccinations?

Do we know how many vaccines are due to be delivered this week, or do they publish vaccine delivery data anywhere?

Pretty sure we have broken 125k vaccinations in each of the last 2 weeks. Well over 70-80k anyway.

JDD

Bubbaclaus wrote: »

Pretty sure we have broken 125k vaccinations in each of the last 2 weeks. Well over 70-80k anyway.

Brilliant. Is there a tracker somewhere? We should definitely have the remainder of doses delivered last week gone in the next ten days so.

opinionated3

Deenie78 wrote: »

I had a quick question about the second dose of Pfizer - does anyone know someone who has had their second jab and if so, was there any ill effects? My Dad's due to get his on Thursday and is only just out of hospital after having an infection, I'm hoping it doesn't set him back. Thanks in advance

For what it's worth my 84 yr old uncle had his second jab last Saturday week. No ill effects whatsoever. My best friends 82 yr old mother had hers just last Friday. Got it in the a.m but had a pretty nasty headache in the evening. She was all good Saturday morning. I read somewhere before that a slight reaction when receiving the second dose is fairly common, the first dose is providing protection and might think the second dose is an attacker so to speak and reacts to this foreign entity before calming down again.

ectoraige

Deenie78 wrote: »

I had a quick question about the second dose of Pfizer - does anyone know someone who has had their second jab and if so, was there any ill effects? My Dad's due to get his on Thursday and is only just out of hospital after having an infection, I'm hoping it doesn't set him back. Thanks in advance

I received both with no side effect. A number of colleagues did experience a temperature spike and felt crappy for a day after their second dose. He should speak to his GP about his concerns, they might defer it for a week if he's still under the weather, but I wouldn't be worried about a major setback. Hope he does well.