Covid 19 Part XXXV-956,720 ROI (5,952 deaths) 452,946 NI (3,002 deaths) (08/01) Read OP

Bellie1

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118289244#Comment_118289244

I know someone queuing at MVC on bad weather for ages..She left queue and said ten others left too as we're sick of waiting. Shes got poor health so wasn't willing to wait in lashing rain when heard queues of over an hour and a half.

ACitizenErased

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118289737#Comment_118289737

I got my result two weeks ago after 21 hours but have heard of a few up to 72 hours over the past week

Wibbs

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118289252#Comment_118289252

I suppose sticking one in a hoover is sort of easy in that You know where the air's going, straight up the nozzle. 😁 And aircraft are a much more closed system circulating air around the inside of a tube. A hoover with wings,😁 well not really, but y'know what I mean. A room is much more leaky and I'd imagine you'd want to be pushing a fair bit of air through the filters to keep viruses and the like as low as possible, especially in something the size of an classroom?

JRant

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118289685#Comment_118289685

It's funny that you make that comparison. It's undoubtedly true that some people do just that. Look at a couple of MM addresses to the nation where he rabbitted on about Scotland and more recently SA to just either their abundance of caution or reintroducing restrictions.

I can understand anonymous Internet users spouting shītė, I've zero tolerance when someone in government does it.

Cork2021

F U omicron!!!

https://twitter.com/sailorrooscout/status/1468569718420389891?s=21

Wibbs

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118289244#Comment_118289244

I'd reckon it's a mix of logistics gone arseways and some not bothering to turn up. Though the percentages are anyone's guess. Why might some not turn up? That's guesswork too. Those who don't want to stand in a queue for ages could be one type. In summer that's an easier sell than in cold wet November. Others might play a wait and see approach because panic levels aren't what they were. Others may have been reticent the first time out, but figured take them and get it over with, but now, again with less panic in the air are not bothered or waiting. Some might have had a crappy reaction to the first or second jab and just don't want a third. Some might want the same vaccine they got before as a booster and can't get it. I'd reckon logistics and crappy weather and queues are the biggest factors. Again who knows.

iamwhoiam

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118289867#Comment_118289867

I queued in City west in the freezing cold for 3.5 hours .No chairs and people were frozen to the bone .Many left as they were too cold

seamus

^^ Yeah, I saw elsewhere that the level of vaccine evasion in omicron is 10 times larger than Delta. Which means vaccines are still effective, but less so. But the booster jab effectively restores protection nearly completely.

Great fodder for the paranoid among us who'll no doubt believe it "convenient" that a booster is required against Omicron.

What it does tell us is that we're absolutely leagues away from where we were in January 2021. We have a very effective weapon against Omicron, which only requires a single dose, for which there are not really any supply constraints, and the infrastructure to deploy it is already up and running. Coupled with the likelihood that Omicron is at most as dangerous as Delta. Deploying boosters this time won't be tailing into September 2022. We'll be functionally finished by March/April.

Where we'll be in September 2022? New variant? Maybe. But with the ability to run booster campaigns more like the 'flu jab and therefore no need for any actual restrictions.

giveitholly

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118289737#Comment_118289737

Got my result 27 hours after the test on Monday

growleaves

L. Varadkar already pushed out the restrictions to mid-decade the other day (or rather he 'indicated' that they 'might' be 'needed' every winter until 2025).

As I said last winter when Martin and Varadkar were hinting at restrictions for winter 2021, that means its going to happen.

Working class heroes

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118290008#Comment_118290008

Ah, now I see. I suppose they could be of more use in one of those more modern fully sealed buildings as opposed to the leaky buildings you mention. The argument against makes a bit more sense now, thanks.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118290239#Comment_118290239

UK government scientific advisors said last week that it will be a minimum of 5 years from now until Covid becomes endemic and predictable. And until then some element of behavioural restrictions will be needed in response to waves that threaten the health system (masks, WFH etc) as well as boosters. Was headline in the Times in the UK on Thursday

that would suggest 2026/27 until we see normality, not 2025

Spiderman0081

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118289534#Comment_118289534

So either the big bad scary storm was just a bit of wind, or not even a storm would stop the Irish from getting tested for the big bad scary cooooovvvvvviiiiddddd.

Cluedo Monopoly

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118290095#Comment_118290095

I have to agree. We are entering the end game now. I expect there will be very few restrictions come April 2022. Booster attendance rates will improve in January too.

growleaves

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118290314#Comment_118290314

Its already predictable of course. Will crescendo between December and February (happens every flu season pre- and post-covid), then recede as the spring comes in and be at a low in summer. Will start to become a problem again in Sep or Oct.

Also we are told that ICU can't be meaningfully expanded in the short term. I wonder what are posters here defintions of "the short term"? Is two years the short term? Is five years?

By mid-decade will ICU have been expanded much? Feel free not to think about it at all because hey whatever, right?

xhomelezz

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118289283#Comment_118289283

I could be wrong, but by the time kids end up in classrooms are after meeting plenty of bugs etc. so immune system is pretty much up to speed.

Gusser09

Vaccine approval for use in 5-11 year olds.

A group who are not in any immediate danger of illness. We know that having the vaccines does not stop you catching or spreading Covid so would those vaccines not be better off used as Boosters?

Seems no logic in vaccinating young kids when they or society won't really benefit from it.

FintanMcluskey

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118289244#Comment_118289244

I have anecdotally heard, that for some reason, in certain places, the HSE are double booking people for booster appointments and not cancelling the second when informed to do so by the attendees.

Thus, the already boostered folk are considered no shows, because they didn't show up for a scheduled appointment they tried to cancel.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118290515#Comment_118290515

Do you have any evidence that the vaccines do not reduce catching/spreading of covid? Sounds like conspiracy talk to me.

Wolf359f

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118290515#Comment_118290515

We know it reduces the chance of you catching it and reduces the chance of you spreading it. Can't spread what you didn't catch.

Also the active ingredient is 1/3rd the regular dose, so you would only get 2 boosters from a vial.

Best I can see it will help lower the spread in kids (0-12 make up 25% of daily cases and that % is growing week on week)

ACitizenErased

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118290515#Comment_118290515

They're different than the boosters, it's a lower dose.

floorpie

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118290588#Comment_118290588

Many high profile studies have been posted in this thread and you've read/replied to these posts.

Wibbs

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118290095#Comment_118290095

Great fodder for the paranoid among us who'll no doubt believe it "convenient" that a booster is required against Omicron.

Boosters were in play long before omicron. The vaccine evasion is centred around antibodies(which seems to be the obsession around measuring waning effectiveness). Lower antibodies = higher risk of symptomatic infections, but antibodies are just one part of the immune system and they always wane after any vaccination or infection(which has long surprised me that this came as a surprise). However the B and T immune memory cells who produce antibodies when required and recognise previous infections/vaccines and are what help reduce the risks of serious illness and death, they hang around, even grow over time as borne out by studies of Pfizer and J&J(up to 8 months in the latter). They also track more of the viral structure so makes it harder for a virus to evade. Put it another way; if you were vaccinated against or caught measles as a kid, good luck in finding high levels of antibodies to measles in your blood, yet if you were exposed to it today your body would kick its arse. Same for polio, or chickenpox. Now how long this "memory" hangs around varies so measles is essentially for life, but tetanus is more like a decade, but that memory is down to the B and T lads.

In Israel these cells in the elderly were seen to drop off over time, again hardly unexpected as the old don't produce as many or hang onto them for as long as the young, so it made and makes good sense to boost the elderly and other vulnerable groups to get those levels and antibody levels back up, because their death rates started to climb again. What I'm not seeing are the reasons to boost everyone else and get 5 year olds up vaccinated hunting antibody levels when they're at a very small to tiny risk of serious illness and death. Now if we see a spike in hospitalisations and death in the prevously vaccinated last year under the age of say 50 then OK, but I've not seen of any evidence of that. Indeed the opposite seems to be the case and again before Omicron and boosters were in play. Hospitalisations and deaths are way down on previous waves and society is much more open because of the vaccines and around half(depending on who you read) in hospitals and graves are the completely unvaccinated.

seamus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118290647#Comment_118290647

Looking at some of the data from the 5-11 trials, it seems like a different dose may be more appropriate for adolescents, might be something worth looking at, but they may not now.

In short, the adult dose is 30ug. The first stage of the 5-11 trials included the use of 30ug dose, a 20ug dose and a 10ug dose. They found an increased incidence of reported fever in the 30ug group than the other two.

They also found that the 10ug dose generated a sufficiently strong response in phase 1 trials, that they were happy to go ahead with that one for the second phase.

Overall the amount of adverse events was very small, and none of the serious. About a third of kids had a bit of tiredness or a headache. The most serious outcome was a single incident of a fever of 40c lasting less than a day.

Since there's a relationship between fever/immune response and pericarditis, it seems possible that a smaller dose (20ug?) for adolescents (12-16), or maybe some bodyweight calculation, would be beneficial in reducing the incidence of these events.

Report here: https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2116298

Aside, one bit I found amusing, and if there was ever a question about how thorough these studies are, this surely dispels it:

Three serious adverse events in two participants were reported by the cutoff date; all three (postinjury abdominal pain and pancreatitis in a placebo recipient and arm fracture in a BNT162b2 recipient) were considered to be unrelated to the vaccine or placebo.

😂

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118290772#Comment_118290772

You were cherry picking lines out of a paper, not actually analysing the paper as a whole.

Gusser09

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118290647#Comment_118290647

Again I'd ask where the logic is in giving kids a vaccine that doesn't really offer them or society as a while any real protection.

Wibbs

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118290850#Comment_118290850

I love how you consider a study in the effects of any medicine to be thorough when:

During the phase 1 study, a total of 48 children 5 to 11 years of age received 10 μg, 20 μg, or 30 μg of the BNT162b2 vaccine (16 children at each dose level)

Conducted over two months on only forty eight test subjects. Just sixteen at each dosage level. And a "study" with that tiny a sample size is now passed as a good one? You have got to be having a laugh.

Lucas Hood

So have we gone from being terrified of Omicron for it now to be somewhat of a good thing with it being suggested that it is likely less severe than Delta but more transmissible.??

That's what we would have wanted right a less severe variant that's more transmissible so that it becomes the dominant strain?

Gusser09

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118290629#Comment_118290629

Hmm not what we are being told though. Anytime some points to the fact that we were told that the vaccines were our way out of this and we would open fully once we had them administered they are quickly put back in their box and told that the vaccines don't stop you from spreading Covid.

seamus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118290906#Comment_118290906

That's the phase 1 part of the trial, which is just the initial phase to establish the appropriate parameters for the next one. It's a sanity check to ensure that they don't inject a couple of thousand people with something that's dangerous. Instead you inject 48 of them and if anyone experiences anything serious, you stop and go back to the drawing board.

The second phase had 2,300 participants, which is slightly above average size for a typical clinical trial.