It went down as expected - took about 3 naps throughout the day and gradually developed a sensation as if someone punched me in the arm at the injection site. Much better today after a full gym session.
The vaccines | vaxxed boosted unvaxxed? New poll
- Thread starter Badunk
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It went down as expected - took about 3 naps throughout the day and gradually developed a sensation as if someone punched me in the arm at the injection site. Much better today after a full gym session.
Good news, lots of countries doing the same now the data supports it. The EMA has also started evaluating the Russian vaccine for approval.
Here in Italy we are also apparently going to approve a single dose of the vaccines for anybody who has had Covid between 3 and 6 months ago.
Macron and Merkel look like complete tits now.
Take up of vaccines is pretty outstanding so far.
Jeepers, more than 100% of 75-79 year olds took it. Fair play to them
That made me doubt the rest of those stats.Fortunately someone has offered this update 
Seriously? Can’t believe they are vaccinating that age group already, that is brilliant!
Didnt they always?
Can anyone explain to me what AZ are playing at attempting to send from Europe to Australia after doing a horrific job on it’s delivery commitments to the EU? I can’t wrap my head around it.
Even worse is that EU vaccines will save lives now, which is supposed to be the whole fecking point.
What are Aussie jabs doing aside from getting them closer to “normal”, they and NZ should clearly be at the back of any queue.
Even worse is that EU vaccines will save lives now, which is supposed to be the whole fecking point.
What are Aussie jabs doing aside from getting them closer to “normal”, they and NZ should clearly be at the back of any queue.
Why should they be at the back of the queue? Their strategy all along has been to lock down hard and pay the cost with civil liberties rather than lives. As things stand, due to that approach, they have far lower herd immunity than other nations so have a greater need for vaccines if they too want to open things up like everyone else.
Because vaccines in affected countries save lives right now.
Vaccines in Aus get them back to international travel.
Vaccines in all countries save lives.
No they don’t.
Quaratine is Australia is currently saving all Aussie lives. Vaccines at this point there save none.
Vaccines in countries with widespread corona save lives right now.
I think it's a bit of a political move here, the EU have let some 150 shipments leave their shores already from AZ & Pfizer, but no answers as to why they're stopping this one. EU seem to be stockpiling volume at the minute due to a low take up rate, as of last week France had used around 16% of their 1.1m doses, Germany just over 20% of 1.45m doses, Italy 20% of 1m doses, and Spain with 30% of 800k doses.
I don't see how 250k is going to impact a delivery schedule when it's clear that some EU countries are doing a very poor job in terms of using the doses available.
I get that, but other EU countries desperately need doses now.
What I don’t understand is AZ saying they can’t deliver anything close to what was planned, yet having enough to try and send to Aus?
I’m not sure what’s going on in Italy but the AZ supply to Ireland has been a nightmare. Way more chaotic than Pfizer/Moderna. Extremely late notice of significant shortfall in weekly shipments. Which is causing chaos in GP surgeries that are trying to book patients in based on expected stock, week by week.
It’s definitely possible that there’s a surplus of stock in Italy overall while AZ are still failing to meet their supply commitments in a certain regions. Hence the Italians are in a strop.
Same over here, and it’s a part Swedish company. The late notice has been horrific by all accounts.
Gets more bizarre too because the other day the Swedish CEO invited all the top media peeps to an online meeting to “explain the difficulties”, but demanded everything be confidential and no filming or reporting of the things said.
Obviously the media bigwigs said no so AZ cancelled the meeting.
Odd.
The EU have made a call as a block on how they distribute amongst their nations. Based on their current supply levels, it would suggest that their distribution strategy isn't in line with their take up rate. As we've gone through in this thread already, the EU's contact of supply was loose at best in terms of being held to any delivery schedule (best endeavours of supply)
Italy released a Pfizer delivery mid-February to Australia, so it's definitely a political move on this. I would have more sympathy with the EU's situation if they're outstripping supply with demand for this vaccine, but the data shows that this isn't the case currently.
They can’t get enough supply here, or anywhere in the Nordics, or Ireland.
Pogue mentions the issues above for Ireland but it’s been an utter clusterfeck here, even in a country that part owns the company.
They've got surplus themselves on AZ vaccines, so their position isn't down to supply commitments, unless they're intentionally stockpiling.
We know why that is though, scepticism over the AZ jab.
It’s no excuse for such late notice on shortfalls to countries that need it though and can’t get stock fast enough, whilst AZ attempt to send stock from the EU to Aus.
The point I’m making is that Italy could have a surplus overall because of unused vaccines sitting in fridges in towns/regions with poor uptake, while other towns/regions are left short because the weekly delivery was 250k short of what was expected. I know for a fact that very late notice delivery shortfalls have been happening in Ireland ( we don’t have an overall surplus, though, because our uptake has been very high)
It’s particularly frustrating because the expectations were that the AZ vaccine would be far less of a logistical hassle than the extreme cold chain mRNA vaccines. Instead the opposite is turning out to be the case. So far anyway.
Then they need to fix their issue, they can't be sitting on unused vaccines in a pandemic.
Well the EU have decided to negotiate as a block, and demand supply as a block. I have no sympathy when they're not utilising all of the supply they're being given. As documented in that thread prior, we can't assume that all contracts of supply is the same. EU's supply agreement is down as best endeavours, there's nothing binding to get stock to a schedule other than at AZ's behest. Treating them as a block, they're currently oversupplied.
The thing we call the ‘flu’ is not actually a single disease called by a single virus. In fact, the flu shot actually contains 3 different shots for the most popular strain of three flu viruses: H1N1, H3N2 and influenza type B (there are many other flu viruses). Obviously, it’s efficiency is much lower, same as the efficiency of a coronavirus shot would be much lower if we also include the other coronaviruses (like SARS, MERS or the four coronaviruses that cause common cold).
I mean it's all conjecture again right? Based on the EU's track record with AZ I'm sure there is more than meets the eye here. They've released over 150 shipments out of the EU so far on both Pfizer & AZ - why is this one now such an issue?
Pick up the phone to the French! This from the 25th of February.
Surely you can see why that isn’t an option?
I don’t know. I’m just sharing our own experience of the AZ supply chain and speculating from there.
It’s even more vaccine going to a country with no corona whilst places like Ireland & Denmark, who have corona, can’t get it and are being let down at short notice constantly by AZ ?
If the vaccines supply was going well from AZ side or if they were shipping to corona hit countries, I don’t think this would happen. The most important thing surely at this point is to vaccine as many risk group people in Covid hit lands, as soon as humanly possible?
Of course, I was being facetious. However von der Leyen was key to negotiate as a bloc, but when it comes to supply then it's every country for themselves.
It's an irrelevant point, just because Australia got their shit together they should be at the back of the queue? They have health workers, vulnerable demographics like any other country.
How is it irrelevant? quaratine is currently saving all lives in Aus from corona.
That isn’t an option for many countries that AZ is currently letting down with it’s supply, often at incredibly short notice.
How can they at short notice keep telling countries they are getting 70% less than agreed, but then ship from Europe to Aus? It’s pretty ridiculous.
As I say, were it being shipped to say, Mexico, it wouldn’t be an issue.
It's irrelevant because you cannot direct priority of supply, sold at cost, on a best endeavours contract, to countries who have taken a poorer approach at managing covid. AZ haven't let anyone down on a best endeavours contract, there's nothing to hold them to, otherwise we would have seen a legal wrangle between the EU and AZ already.
By your logic, you must have an issue with the DR of Congo getting 1.7m doses through Covax when they've only had c700 deaths to date?
My logic is that a fair World would see all vaccines shared out per capita of over 80s, 70s, 60s, etc. Worldwide.
I’d start with the countries currently experiencing the highest rate of spread.
I had the same logic during the refugee crisis of 2015 when everyone aside from Germany, Sweden and some close neighbours to Syria utterly turned their backs.
Yes. The logic of stop being selfish cnuts.
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I’m not sure what you mean by this? The negotiations and supply should have worked out essentially the same with all of the vaccine manufacturers. But it’s AZ that is repeatedly being singled out as a headache to deal with. So this is much more likely an issue with the company than with the EU bloc.
To be clear, I work in pharma. So I understand how it can sometimes be difficult to meet supply commitments. With the best of intentions. But I also understand what a massive pain in the arse unpredictable stock shortages are for customers.
I cant speak for other countries, but there is a good reason why Italy hasn't been getting through the AZ jab quickly. Because the Pfizer and Moderna jabs were first, the vaccination machine has been centred around massive hubs with the facilities to store them, usually big hospitals. Anybody turning up there might as well get the already opened Pfizer jab, and that's the one most people wanted anyway. Most in Phase 1 were also medical staff and needed the most effective option.
Over the last week over a thousand smaller sites have been opened to give the AZ vaccine, with more to come. Those extra doses will be quickly used once the new locations are up and running.
Yet in ireland we are told that there are supply problems
EDIT: I see @Pogue Mahone has already addressed that
My point is that she was making it clear that as a negotiation as bloc was the best approach for supply, yet when it's clear that vaccines aren't being used in countries, she isn't managing the stock around the nations. It's common sense that if your 5 larger key nations are only using 20% of their supply, and others in their bloc are needing supply aren't they distributing internally? I've worked in procurement for years, and moving stock around estates is common sense to address the demand needs in a commodity market with limited supply, pharma should be no different.