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.
Apparently there are loads of “spare” vaccines being touted round on whatsapp groups and the like at the end of every day. Clinics are defrosting a certain amount at the beginning of each session but (amazingly!) not everyone is turning up. So they’re left with a load of doses that will have to get chucked out unless they find a spare arm to stick them in. Hospitals are offering any available staff the chance to rock up at the end of the day and community centres are looking round for someone, anyone, who is available/interested, via whatsapp groups, message boards, whatever. All completely ad hoc. Trying to do the right thing but making it up as they go along.

I’m sure everyone is doing their level best but how in the name of FECK could contigency plans not have been put in place for these scenarios weeks ago? Soul destroying to hear of potentially wasted doses when we know supply is going to be so tight in weeks/months ahead.
Is there anything more Irish than this.
 
Pfizer presumably? Let us know what aches and pains you get!

Yes, Cominarty is the name, I thought it would be well known by now, but a google search brings surprisingly few results, in portuguese italian and romanian. Perhaps it's branded differently in different countries.

Fine so far, feel just the sore from the needle, not even a local reaction.

Two doses, exactly 21 days apart. Vaccination as God intended.

Felt somewhat priviliged, was ecstatic when I got the message yesterday. I was afraid to be forgotten in the bureaucracy as I am a contractor, not technically an hospital employee.

Circa 5000 (double) doses for Azores in the first batch arrived 4 days ago. They announced they would start with nursing homes, but presumably that's more than enough for those so they started healthcare workers simultaneously.
 
Isn’t this the thinking driving the UK decision?



If this is correct wouldn’t only increase the risk of mutation marginally whilst getting a lot more people vaccinated?


That’s the rationale alright. The concern is the duration. If the protection starts to decline rapidly and you’ve loads of people only partially protected that provided selective pressure for a mutation which is resistant to the immune response to the vaccine.

Of course, we also don’t know how long the full course provides protection. It will definitely be longer though.

I’ve come round to the “get one dose into as many different people as possible” approach anyway. Desperate times and all that. What I couldn’t understand would be taking a radical approach like this without the hardest possible national lockdown at the same time. Half strength vaccinations combined with half assed social distancing is a recipe for disaster.
 
If this is correct wouldn’t only increase the risk of mutation marginally whilst getting a lot more people vaccinated?
It would. The first problem is that as you slice down into the trial results the numbers of actual covid cases that you're looking at get smaller. So the statistical validity of the efficacy number gets less convincing.

The other problem is that we don't have data for what happens beyond that three to four week second dose window. Does the efficacy remain high, or does it soon tail off.

Checking some of the one dose group weekly for covid (with/without symptoms) might help answer that question quickly. As it happens, many health care workers and care home residents are tested regularly - so that might be easy.

Regular blood tests to look at antibody levels as the weeks pass might help as well. If they fall after 6 weeks, then we might get some early warning. I say some though - because as Pfizer warn they can't give a efficacy v antibody count rating, because that wasn't the trial they were running. No reason why that data can't be built now though, and again maybe that is planned in.
 


So half a million doses ready to go from tomorrow, considering that it's not really any different to flu vaccination I hope there are proper plans in place to use these as soon as possible
 
Any more talk about the Oxford
Vaccine being combined with the Russian one?
I read an article 3 weeks ago about it but haven't seen any update since
I still find it hard to believe that we'd consider buying the Russian vaccine
 
See that makes sense. It’s the more ad hoc stuff that bothers me. I get the impression a lot of centres don’t have a list like that so are improvising.
The key thing is to do it in multiples of 5 - so if you have a DNA you bring through people from the next appointment time into that slot. With Pfizer when prepared you only have around 1 hour to use it so it’s not as easy as having a reserve list for that slot - you need to backfill and push the spare slots to the end of the day or the end of the 5 day batch when you can add another session. We’ve had no wastage due to not finding anyone to jab.

Now in reality you can consistently get 6 doses and not 5 from the vials but unfortunately still no decision officially that we can start doing that yet...
 
Now in reality you can consistently get 6 doses and not 5 from the vials but unfortunately still no decision officially that we can start doing that yet...
That's one where the US has already acted. They've authorised sites to use the sixth dose, provided it's a complete dose (and taken from a single vial)
 
That's one where the US has already acted. They've authorised sites to use the sixth dose, provided it's a complete dose (and taken from a single vial)
Finland also and I think other EU countries as well.
 
Does anyone trust the Russian and Chinese vaccines? I’m extremely skeptical, but I also feel like a hypocrite because I’m so pro all the others. Im thinking the Chinese and Russian ones may be the saviour for third world countries (although I’m not aware of the storage requirements).
 
Any more talk about the Oxford
Vaccine being combined with the Russian one?
I read an article 3 weeks ago about it but haven't seen any update since
I still find it hard to believe that we'd consider buying the Russian vaccine
Pretty sure they were just in the early stages of exploring what that would offer, if anything, and would need to go through its own testing process as a pair so I can't imagine we'll hear anything substantial on that for a while.
 
That’s the rationale alright. The concern is the duration. If the protection starts to decline rapidly and you’ve loads of people only partially protected that provided selective pressure for a mutation which is resistant to the immune response to the vaccine.

Of course, we also don’t know how long the full course provides protection. It will definitely be longer though.

I’ve come round to the “get one dose into as many different people as possible” approach anyway. Desperate times and all that. What I couldn’t understand would be taking a radical approach like this without the hardest possible national lockdown at the same time. Half strength vaccinations combined with half assed social distancing is a recipe for disaster.
It would. The first problem is that as you slice down into the trial results the numbers of actual covid cases that you're looking at get smaller. So the statistical validity of the efficacy number gets less convincing.

The other problem is that we don't have data for what happens beyond that three to four week second dose window. Does the efficacy remain high, or does it soon tail off.

Checking some of the one dose group weekly for covid (with/without symptoms) might help answer that question quickly. As it happens, many health care workers and care home residents are tested regularly - so that might be easy.

Regular blood tests to look at antibody levels as the weeks pass might help as well. If they fall after 6 weeks, then we might get some early warning. I say some though - because as Pfizer warn they can't give a efficacy v antibody count rating, because that wasn't the trial they were running. No reason why that data can't be built now though, and again maybe that is planned in.

Thanks.


Does anyone trust the Russian and Chinese vaccines? I’m extremely skeptical, but I also feel like a hypocrite because I’m so pro all the others. Im thinking the Chinese and Russian ones may be the saviour for third world countries (although I’m not aware of the storage requirements).

It doesn’t appear the Russian public does. I think it’s 60% that have said they don’t trust it or want it in polls. Russian state media described the vaccine as ‘simple and unpretentious like the Kalashnikov rifle’ so perhaps that will win a few round.
 
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Does anyone trust the Russian and Chinese vaccines? I’m extremely skeptical, but I also feel like a hypocrite because I’m so pro all the others. Im thinking the Chinese and Russian ones may be the saviour for third world countries (although I’m not aware of the storage requirements).

Hungary, Algeria, Argentine, Bolivia, Mexico, Venezuela are some countries that ordered the Russian one
 
Does anyone trust the Russian and Chinese vaccines? I’m extremely skeptical, but I also feel like a hypocrite because I’m so pro all the others. Im thinking the Chinese and Russian ones may be the saviour for third world countries (although I’m not aware of the storage requirements).
I don't, and wouldn't like to get one of them.
 
Any more talk about the Oxford
Vaccine being combined with the Russian one?
I read an article 3 weeks ago about it but haven't seen any update since
I still find it hard to believe that we'd consider buying the Russian vaccine
I suspect one driver for that initiative was to get some solid data on the Russian vaccine, by getting them to engage with the UK research teams. I don't think we should write off the Russian vaccine out of hand, but I'd certainly want better, more reliable data before signing up for it.
 
Maybe it's time for another poll option "only if I'm given the manufacturer approved dose".

I have a big problem with the government effectively running it's own clinical trials with the population because they haven't got enough supply to keep vaccinations going.
 


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Maybe it's time for another poll option "only if I'm given the manufacturer approved dose".

I have a big problem with the government effectively running it's own clinical trials with the population because they haven't got enough supply to keep vaccinations going.

Yup.

All those things about China and its curtailment of freedom to beat covid, I don't think this kind of experimentation is any less of an infringement. And in their case, it worked - fast!
 


Obviously it’s major brownie points on woke Twitter to shit on this guy but it’s fairly fecking obvious this initiative is well intended. With murka’s messed up health service there’s a huge risk in vaccines going to those that pay the most, rather than those that need it most.

There might well be a better way to ensure this doesn’t happen than fines for dispensers deliberately ignoring prioritisation and requiring recipients to certify their eligibility but it’s not the worst idea ever. Implying this will mean loads of doses wasted is mean spirited nonsense. But hey, obviously web developers are experts on this sort of thing, so what would I know?
 
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Something else that seems insane to me is the bureaucracy around training up someone to stick a needle in someone’s arm.

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Most of those are certificates that junior docs and most hospital staff to be fair have and they last 2-3 years but agreed I’m having to use up an annoyingly large amount of my home time for the e-learning. Left it for Sunday evenings stupidly and working my way through them.

Will be giving out jabs next week, hopefully will get one soon too.
 
You dont have to find someone off the streets.
You ask people to come get a shot at the correct time.

What nonsense.
 
So the Indian government has authorized Bharat Biotech's vaccine without any Phase 3 or efficacy data. Fecking ridiculous.
 
So the Indian government has authorized Bharat Biotech's vaccine without any Phase 3 or efficacy data. Fecking ridiculous.
As an "emergency" measure to be executed with abundance of caution. I don't think it will see any actual roll out, Govt just wants to pump a home grown vaccine. It speaks very poorly about research / scientific set up in India though that something like this can be done.

More worryingly, politicisation of vaccine is well under way. Akhilesh Yadav has already said that they will not tale "BJP vaccine", which can be a catastrophic stance given his party enjoys patronage of majority of Muslim population in UP. BJP Health Minister has used "anti-national" rhetoric against any one questioning approval of any vaccine.
 
As an "emergency" measure to be executed with abundance of caution. I don't think it will see any actual roll out, Govt just wants to pump a home grown vaccine. It speaks very poorly about research / scientific set up in India though that something like this can be

The only thing I've read is that people would have to sign consent forms. All news articles seem to imply that both Oxford and Bharat Biotech's vaccine will be play an equal part in the national immunisation program.
I think you're overestimating Akhilesh Yadav's influence. Very few people give a feck about him in UP. Also, the majority of Indians seem to be immune to the whole anti-vaxx rabbit hole. Thats largely a first world thing.
 


Said this last week that the whole UK thing of we have to do things the right way will hurt the vaccination process
 
Looks like the doctors surgeries giving out the vaccine in my town are doing the 2 week dose thing, ignoring the idiots. Doing summit right.
 
Looks like the doctors surgeries giving out the vaccine in my town are doing the 2 week dose thing, ignoring the idiots. Doing summit right.

My Mum works for the NHS and is having the Phisor vaccine tomorrow. They’ve also booked in a second shot for 3 weeks time.
 
Serious progress must be made on the rollout for us to get away from this living hell!

Surely someone will see the sense of practically managing the bureaucracy linked to it all.
 
On the news last night before Boris' announcement a reporter said hospital admissions for over 80's were going down which gives early encouragement the vaccines were starting to work.

I can't remember if it was just for parts of the UK or the UK as a whole but either way it's a bit of much needed light.
 
Getting the jab this morning.

I have heard on the grapevine also though that in a local health Trust here there is due to be an emergency meeting this week because several patients in a local facility tested positive for covid about 10 days after receiving the vaccine. Could be nothing because my understanding is that the first jab wont necessarily stop you getting the virus, but should at least mean you get a milder disease.
 
Getting the jab this morning.

I have heard on the grapevine also though that in a local health Trust here there is due to be an emergency meeting this week because several patients in a local facility tested positive for covid about 10 days after receiving the vaccine. Could be nothing because my understanding is that the first jab wont necessarily stop you getting the virus, but should at least mean you get a milder disease.
That sounds horribly like the vaccinator (or the receptionist or whoever) has covid and something went badly wrong on the PPE front..

Fingers crossed that they're all going to be ok.