Vaccine Megathread No 2 - Read OP before posting

No such issues here given how much we have held back in storage.

Vaccinating young children is going to be contentious. Assume they will have to be "volunteered" by their parents. Possible those that refuse won't be allowed back to school in September.

White House press spokeswoman has just make an important announcement on this issue.

https://twitter.com/markusallenshow/status/1415476298957344772?s=19

That's from a couple of days ago and she clearly tripped over her words. I assume she meant 'Covid can still kill you, even if you are under the age of 27'.

She said 'it's important to get vaccinated, vaccines are safe' literally a second before this - saying that vaccines kill people in the same sentence would make no sense whatsoever. I assume she meant to say that Covid is killing even young people, but tripped over her words.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/under-16s-to-get-covid-jabs-this-summer-dr89zkrtk

A few interesting points in the Sunday Times article (mentioned above too in the Tweet):

• The government still has no delivery date for one million vaccines it has agreed to buy from Romania. A government source said the delay is being caused by “delivery schedules” and “operational issues” involving discussions between the EU, member states and vaccine manufacturers.
• “mix and match” vaccine booster programme in the autumn for at-risk adults. This means those who have already had a double dose of an mRNA vaccine — Pfizer or Moderna — would be given a booster shot of a viral vector, AstraZeneca or Janssen, and vice versa.
• Vaccine programme likely to be extended to (1) those at high risk of severe disease between the ages of 12 and 15, and then (2) 16 and 17 year olds and then (3) to all 12-15 year olds.

Good to see that an expansion of the programme to 12-17 year olds seems to be on the cards. The sooner this can be done in advance of schools reopening the better.

I read today that the one million vaccine purchase from Romania isn't progrrssing very well and the EU.are involved suggesting they should be returned to a central pool.

A pre by election instance of kite flying I suggest

Vaccinating children is mad really I think, and if this becomes a requirement for school we have really descended to new place. We spent so long listening to children are not spreaders or affected etc..

It's still under emergency approval, there seems to be little to no risk to children of Covid, so why would they even go there.

Like to see data on risk of vaccine vs risk of Covid to under 16s to justify vaccinating children.

Children all around country are in summer camps, gaa training -they seem pretty okay without this vaccine.

The way I see it we have to choose from one of three paths:

1. Put severe pressure on all eligible adults to get vaccinated, and hope that we achieve herd immunity despite all evidence to the contrary.
2. Offer vaccination for kids.
3. Live with high levels of infection amongst kids until herd immunity is achieved among them.

w.r.t (1), ironically we now have the moral reverse of the state of play up to this point: we are hoping for the remaining unvaccinated adults to take action (get vaccinated) in order to save us from having to give those vaccines to children. Will they do it? Unlikely IMO. Most of of antivaxxers I know don't have kids and don't particularly like them (that's not a criticism btw).

As far as (2) or (3) is concerned, I think it's rightly a matter of parental choice. I would personally prefer to vaccinate my kids, because whilst I see the risks of the vaccines and the virus to be both similarly small and uncertain, it is kinder both to society as a whole and to the subset of immunocompromised and otherwise vulnerable people to do what we can to stamp it out, and evidence suggests that immunity conferred by the vaccines is stronger than from infection.

Whatever course we choose, the pandemic has taught us that weak policy executed slowly leads of poor outcomes.

Just one obvious maths point - there are probably only around 250k 12-15 year olds in the country. That's equivalent to around 6% of the currently eligible population. We could easily achieve the same vaccination level by pushing up vaccinations in the under 40s. Would it have the same epidemiological effect? Doubtful. Is it morally right to nudge/coerce adults to be vaccinated so as to avoid vaccinating kids? Don't know.

She was ale to register yesterday using pps so it looks like hospital/hse never done it first time.

She did get a text message a few weeks back that they were focusing on women 28 weeks + but that's no good to her seen as she can get it with her age group now. No sense waiting 12 weeks for 28 weeks to come around.

Rang hse last night and guy on phone said she could register with her age group as normal. He didn't fill us with confidence though.

Based on what exactly? Here's what Martin said this week.

We'll only have to wait 13 days to see who's right and who's wrong.. That's my prediction. Everyone over 18 to be offered first dose by end of July.