The vaccines | vaxxed boosted unvaxxed? New poll

How's your immunity looking? Had covid - vote twice - vax status and then again for infection status

  • Vaxxed but no booster

  • Boostered

  • Still waiting in queue for first vaccine dose

  • Won't get vaxxed (unless I have to for travel/work etc)

  • Past infection with covid + I've been vaccinated

  • Past infection with covid - I've not been vaccinated

Results are only viewable after voting.
When I was getting my first AZ vaccine, the nurse told me I'd have to wait 12 weeks for the NHS to text me about a second dose. But I couldn't be arsed waiting that long, so I thought I'd take a look to see what I could wrangle on the booking website. Thankfully, I've managed to manually get myself an appointment using only my NHS number.

The confirmation message seems to be fully aware that it's my second jab, so everything looks above board. The website also appeared to filter dates exclusively starting from 8 weeks after my first, so the timings appear to be getting tracked safely.

I'm happy with all of that. I've just saved myself 4 weeks of waiting. I think it's because I voluntarily chose AZ despite being under 40. It means I've somehow been included in one of the priority cohorts as a result.
 
I thought mine was tomorrow morning, but turns out it is halfway through the England game. No wonder there was a free slot :rolleyes:
 
Vaccines v Delta, current best guess fits on effectiveness. No split between AZ and Prizer in these figures as it's not available inside in the current published dataset, and in any case it's the overall effect of Delta that we're looking at.

Broadly, against any symptomatic disease from Delta 35% after one dose, 80% after two. Against hospitalisation and death, around 80% after one dose, better than 95% after two doses.

This thread describes some of the stats, the model assumptions (like Delta hospitalisations, without any vaccines would have followed roughly the same age profile as they did for the alpha variant) and limitations of the estimate.

 
jojojo said:
Vaccines v Delta, current best guess fits on effectiveness. No split between AZ and Prizer in these figures as it's not available inside in the current published dataset, and in any case it's the overall effect of Delta that we're looking at.

Broadly, against any symptomatic disease from Delta 35% after one dose, 80% after two. Against hospitalisation and death, around 80% after one dose, better than 95% after two doses.

This thread describes some of the stats, the model assumptions (like Delta hospitalisations, without any vaccines would have followed roughly the same age profile as they did for the alpha variant) and limitations of the estimate.

Click to expand...


I’ve had a rant before about the assumptions made when calculating effectiveness this way so might as well make the same point again. It’s a VERY crude estimation which is significantly flawed. It only holds up assuming the vaccinated and unvaccinated are equally matched cohorts with identical exposure to the virus (obviously not the case).

One very obvious cause of bias in that the vaccinated/fully vaccinated are more likely to be older, less socially active, more likely to WFH or be retired etc etc so will seem to be protected by the vaccine when actually they’re mainly protected by their behaviours. Conversely, the number of cases in the un-vaccinated cohort will be inflated by students and young employees working in e.g. meat packing plants (i.e. two of the most frequent locations of major outbreaks)

One of my bug bears about “covid twitter” are people looking to mathematicians for answers that should come from clinicians that have a much better understandIng of concepts like bias and causality.

To be fair, the trends are encouraging but I wouldn’t be taking the exact %’s mentioned seriously at all.

EDIT: Reading the whole thread he does seem to attempt to take the exposure bias into account but doesn’t show his workings so impossible to know if his approach holds up.
 
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massi83 said:
Pfizer told yesterday that numbers in July will be around 40% lower than in June. You probably will have enough in September but not really sooner. Good news on Moderna, that I wasn't aware of, but it doesn't compensate for Pfizer in July.
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bit of a bummer. I’m gonna push to get my second Pfizer 4 weeks after the first so I have a chance of going on holiday.

had my first yesterday, people just turning up for seconds as they had spare.
 
Dante said:
When I was getting my first AZ vaccine, the nurse told me I'd have to wait 12 weeks for the NHS to text me about a second dose. But I couldn't be arsed waiting that long, so I thought I'd take a look to see what I could wrangle on the booking website. Thankfully, I've managed to manually get myself an appointment using only my NHS number.

The confirmation message seems to be fully aware that it's my second jab, so everything looks above board. The website also appeared to filter dates exclusively starting from 8 weeks after my first, so the timings appear to be getting tracked safely.

I'm happy with all of that. I've just saved myself 4 weeks of waiting. I think it's because I voluntarily chose AZ despite being under 40. It means I've somehow been included in one of the priority cohorts as a result.
Click to expand...

I had my first yesterday and because there’s spares they pretty much said after 4 weeks just try turning up for a second.
 
On vaccine take-up and ethnicity, the UK continues to have a worrying imbalance. What the opinion surveys and local health authorities have warned about continues to be visible in the actual vaccination stats.



That's an overall over 50 stat so it probably overstates the case, as part of the difference may simply be that the age profile of the various ethnic groups is different. However, overall take-up even amongst the 50-54 group is around 85% (first dose) and 63% (both doses) so that doesn't really change the fundamental story.

Numbers come from https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/national-flu-and-covid-19-surveillance-reports
 
jojojo said:
On vaccine take-up and ethnicity, the UK continues to have a worrying imbalance. What the opinion surveys and local health authorities have warned about continues to be visible in the actual vaccination stats.



That's an overall over 50 stat so it probably overstates the case, as part of the difference may simply be that the age profile of the various ethnic groups is different. However, overall take-up even amongst the 50-54 group is around 85% (first dose) and 63% (both doses) so that doesn't really change the fundamental story.

Numbers come from https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/national-flu-and-covid-19-surveillance-reports
Click to expand...


Does anyone know why the uptake is lower in some groups? Are there different reasons depending on race, culture and religion? In the white group any non uptake seems to be down to ‘free thinkers’ on Facebook that believe all the usual conspiracy theories.
 
fergieisold said:
Does anyone know why the uptake is lower in some groups? Are there different reasons depending on race, culture and religion? In the white group any non uptake seems to be down to ‘free thinkers’ on Facebook that believe all the usual conspiracy theories.
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There will be a huge variety of reasons, which also vary within ethnic groups (reasons for lower Afro-Caribbean uptake will be necessarily be the same as lower Pakistani uptake) but I think tends to revolve roughly around difficulty reaching some communities, especially in lower SE class groups, a general distrust of authority, stupid conspiracy theories circulating around local groups, language barriers and perhaps difficulty getting to vaccination centres if you're always working/ have childcare commitments etc?
 
africanspur said:
There will be a huge variety of reasons, which also vary within ethnic groups (reasons for lower Afro-Caribbean uptake will be necessarily be the same as lower Pakistani uptake) but I think tends to revolve roughly around difficulty reaching some communities, especially in lower SE class groups, a general distrust of authority, stupid conspiracy theories circulating around local groups, language barriers and perhaps difficulty getting to vaccination centres if you're always working/ have childcare commitments etc?
Click to expand...

Seems like you could solve some of the access issues by making it as easy as possible to get a vaccine but the distrust one I’m not sure how you go about changing that. And the conspiracy theory people are almost beyond help!

I had an old school friend on Facebook posting anti vax stuff with a chorus of friends backing him up. The problem was they were all posting complete misinformation - I tried providing factual information to debunk what they were saying but those types of people just seem completely brain washed!
 
Pogue Mahone said:
I’ve had a rant before about the assumptions made when calculating effectiveness this way so might as well make the same point again. It’s a VERY crude estimation which is significantly flawed. It only holds up assuming the vaccinated and unvaccinated are equally matched cohorts with identical exposure to the virus (obviously not the case).

One very obvious cause of bias in that the vaccinated/fully vaccinated are more likely to be older, less socially active, more likely to WFH or be retired etc etc so will seem to be protected by the vaccine when actually they’re mainly protected by their behaviours. Conversely, the number of cases in the un-vaccinated cohort will be inflated by students and young employees working in e.g. meat packing plants (i.e. two of the most frequent locations of major outbreaks)

One of my bug bears about “covid twitter” are people looking to mathematicians for answers that should come from clinicians that have a much better understandIng of concepts like bias and causality.

To be fair, the trends are encouraging but I wouldn’t be taking the exact %’s mentioned seriously at all.

EDIT: Reading the whole thread he does seem to attempt to take the exposure bias into account but doesn’t show his workings so impossible to know if his approach holds up.
Click to expand...
It's flawed, but historically he's also been consistent with the overall stats that the PHE and PH Scotland produce for efficacy (they use more granular data and then create a kind of matching unvaccinated group as a control - except in the oldest cohorts where take-up is so high they can't match people now, there they use historic ratios).

But the hospital stats are interesting because age has been such a massive determinant in hospitalisation whereas they're only a partial one in case numbers. For expected case numbers this twitterer broadly uses Autumn Alpha stats to get ratios (though he says even if he changes those by 50% it scarcely moves the dial by more than 1%)

With the national stats, increasingly Wales are part of the story as well, because the age/dose/deprivation profiles of the vaccinated are different there. It's the epidemiological equivalent of a clinical trial but only the health service are allowed to see the potentially anonymity breaking details while the hospitalisation numbers are so low.

As you say, socialising/work/education patterns are massively different and therefore so are risks. We now have the effect of the most sociable (who are also probably going in to work/education) mostly uncaccinated populations mixing more or less freely again.

Meanwhile the vaccinated older ones will generally socialise with people in their own (probably also vaccinated) age group. Obviously families - particularly families who live in the same household - change the dynamic again, which is why the local demographics come into play so strongly when you try to look at Bolton say. Canary in the mine moment.
 
I had my Pfizer jab on the 17th May but received a text today saying it’s time to book my second - is this right? I thought it was around 8 weeks between jabs.
 
esmufc07 said:
I had my Pfizer jab on the 17th May but received a text today saying it’s time to book my second - is this right? I thought it was around 8 weeks between jabs.
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It was 4 weeks originally then extended to 6 weeks so more people got more first jabs in France.
Weird in the UK you don't get your appointments for the 1st and 2nd jabs when you book the first.
Mine were 6 weeks apart.
 
esmufc07 said:
I had my Pfizer jab on the 17th May but received a text today saying it’s time to book my second - is this right? I thought it was around 8 weeks between jabs.
Click to expand...

I think I read somewhere that they are accelerating the number of people who get their second does, but unfortunately I cannot fine the source for it.

Paul the Wolf said:
It was 4 weeks originally then extended to 6 weeks so more people got more first jabs in France.
Weird in the UK you don't get your appointments for the 1st and 2nd jabs when you book the first.
Mine were 6 weeks apart.
Click to expand...

You are given the option to book both appointments at the same time or to book just the first appointment.
 
Paul the Wolf said:
It was 4 weeks originally then extended to 6 weeks so more people got more first jabs in France.
Weird in the UK you don't get your appointments for the 1st and 2nd jabs when you book the first.
Mine were 6 weeks apart.
Click to expand...

You do, I had my first on Friday & I couldn't book without booking the 2nd but that's not until 30th August.
 
Santos J said:
You do, I had my first on Friday & I couldn't book without booking the 2nd but that's not until 30th August.
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I thought that’s how it worked but only got invited to book my first last month. Received a text today to say it’s time to book my second but when I click the link it says the vaccines should be 12 weeks apart.

I’ll just give them a call later.
 
esmufc07 said:
I thought that’s how it worked but only got invited to book my first last month. Received a text today to say it’s time to book my second but when I click the link it says the vaccines should be 12 weeks apart.

I’ll just give them a call later.
Click to expand...

Ah that's weird, wouldn't even let me book my first without booking the 2nd at the same time. Yeah seems it still is at the minute, wonder if that'll change later though as BoJo is 'likely to announce a drive to accelerate the vaccination programme.'
 
esmufc07 said:
I had my Pfizer jab on the 17th May but received a text today saying it’s time to book my second - is this right? I thought it was around 8 weeks between jabs.
Click to expand...
In Spain it's 3 weeks between jabs. Whether or not in the UK it's longer because they want as many people as possible with at least the first dose meaning a longer period between first and second I just don't know.

Just reading up on it and according to the UK it's more effective with a longer waiting period between dosis. Rules keep changing which I suppose is normal with something still relatively new.
 
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esmufc07 said:
I had my Pfizer jab on the 17th May but received a text today saying it’s time to book my second - is this right? I thought it was around 8 weeks between jabs.
Click to expand...

For AZ it was recommended for 8-12 weeks because that’s what most of the trial data was based on. For Pfizer and Moderna the trials were done with doses exclusively 3 weeks apart, and most countries followed that dosing timing quite closely, but the MHRA approved it for slightly longer based on some extrapolations and to align with the general vaccination strategy (maximise first dose coverage for gen pop). 3-6 weeks is the norm for those two I think.
 
esmufc07 said:
I thought that’s how it worked but only got invited to book my first last month. Received a text today to say it’s time to book my second but when I click the link it says the vaccines should be 12 weeks apart.

I’ll just give them a call later.
Click to expand...

I received a text inviting me to book the first dose. I already had it last month.
 
Santos J said:
Ah that's weird, wouldn't even let me book my first without booking the 2nd at the same time. Yeah seems it still is at the minute, wonder if that'll change later though as BoJo is 'likely to announce a drive to accelerate the vaccination programme.'
Click to expand...

It could be related to where the text comes from. I got a text for the first with a link to book a date and was told that they couldn't book the second so would have to wait for a second text (which I got a couple of weeks ago). Mine came through the company behind my GP rather than the NHS itself which may explain the difference. The jab was in one of the local surgeries.
 
Forevergiggs1 said:
In Spain it's 3 weeks between jabs. Whether or not in the UK it's longer because they want as many people as possible with at least the first dose meaning a longer period between first and second I just don't know.

Just reading up on it and according to the UK it's more effective with a longer waiting period between dosis. Rules keep changing which I suppose is normal with something still relatively new.
Click to expand...

Pfizer and Moderna disagreed with the UK approach, it was always supposed to be a month between doses. It was a risk the government took to get as many people with the first dose as possible, hoping some protection would be better than none. That did work but the new variants are causing problems and the second doses now need to be sped up as lots of people are walking around with just 1 in them.
 
11101 said:
Pfizer and Moderna disagreed with the UK approach, it was always supposed to be a month between doses. It was a risk the government took to get as many people with the first dose as possible, hoping some protection would be better than none. That did work but the new variants are causing problems and the second doses now need to be sped up as lots of people are walking around with just 1 in them.
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Damn. :(
 
11101 said:
Pfizer and Moderna disagreed with the UK approach, it was always supposed to be a month between doses. It was a risk the government took to get as many people with the first dose as possible, hoping some protection would be better than none. That did work but the new variants are causing problems and the second doses now need to be sped up as lots of people are walking around with just 1 in them.
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Thanks for the update. Haven't been following this thread as much as I should. Hard to know if the UK government have been extremely unlucky with the new variants or been completely irresponsible taking shortcuts. Probably somewhere in the middle.
 
Boris doing his press conference:
23/24 year olds in England can make bookings using the national system from tomorrow.

Expecting to be able to first dose vaccinate all over 18s by July 19th.

No further big rule changes in June now - or as the press describe it, June 21st has been postponed.
 
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Vaccines and Delta variant, early data on protection from hospitalisation. Numbers from the PHE. Big error bars, so don't take the exact numbers too literally - but reassuring.

E32-vZnXwAAtgEX
 
jojojo said:
Vaccines and Delta variant, early data on protection from hospitalisation. Numbers from the PHE. Big error bars, so don't take the exact numbers too literally - but reassuring.

E32-vZnXwAAtgEX
Click to expand...

Truly odd set of results. If anything, they make vaccines seem more effective against delta than alpha. As you said, though, those error bars are all over the place. The extreme variation in dosing intervals presumably doesn’t help in making sense of the data.
 
Had my first shot earlier today.

Have to say, really disappointed so far, not a single bar of 5G yet.

On the plus side, got to sit watching some gorgeous nurses running around for 15 mins after.
 
Still a lot of hesitancy in Australia, despite the latest outbreak and lockdown in Melbourne. Poll says 26% of surveyed "unlikely to get vaccinated", mainly due to fear of side-effects. I keep saying it, but the rollout here has been completely useless and so slow. Seemingly a portion of Australian is happy to keep living behind closed borders and under the threat of lockdowns indefinitely while waiting for the mRNA vaccines to be delivered. I suppose it's understandable when you think that outside of Victoria most of Aus has barely been touched by covid. Even the small risk of the AZ vaccines seems an unnecessary one to take.

https://www.theage.com.au/politics/...-say-unlikely-to-get-jab-20210615-p5812s.html
 
Vaccinating teenagers before sharing doses with vulnerable groups in other countries is shocking IMO.
 
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