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Coronavirus
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Alsty
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They'll probably initially use the Pfizer BioNTech vaccine for the high risk groups, then use the Oxford vaccine for the lower risk groups.
The Oxford vaccine is considerably cheaper than the Pfizer one and also easier to distribute and store, although not quite as effective.
There will, of course, also be new vaccines and therapeutics as time goes on.
A couple of considerations are whether Covid19 is a seasonal virus that comes back every few years, and whether the vaccine offers lifetime immunity or whether it wanes after a year or two. These are questions that will be answered in due course.
The Oxford vaccine is considerably cheaper than the Pfizer one and also easier to distribute and store, although not quite as effective.
There will, of course, also be new vaccines and therapeutics as time goes on.
A couple of considerations are whether Covid19 is a seasonal virus that comes back every few years, and whether the vaccine offers lifetime immunity or whether it wanes after a year or two. These are questions that will be answered in due course.
Dave
TS Founding Member
Edit to prevent double post: Looks like putting the care homes at the top of the priority list could be a non starter
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/coro...hnson/ar-BB1bzfu7?ocid=mailsignout&li=BBoPWjQ
It looks like the issue is the pack size, if you can’t split a pack and there are 1000 doses in a pack then you would have to sequentially visit enough care homes in 5 days so give 1000 doses or risk wastage which would be impossible.
They haven’t approved the smaller packs yet and the Oxford vaccine will likely get approval next week (unless the dosing issue causes complications), so it makes sense to focus this vaccine on those people who can get to a vaccine hub.
They'll probably initially use the Pfizer BioNTech vaccine for the high risk groups, then use the Oxford vaccine for the lower risk groups.
The Oxford vaccine is considerably cheaper than the Pfizer one and also easier to distribute and store, although not quite as effective.
There will, of course, also be new vaccines and therapeutics as time goes on.
A couple of considerations are whether Covid19 is a seasonal virus that comes back every few years, and whether the vaccine offers lifetime immunity or whether it wanes after a year or two. These are questions that will be answered in due course.
All respiratory virus’s are seasonal but that’s due to behavioural changes with humans. I suspect if we are lucky the vaccines will produce 1yrs worth of immunity, it will be amazing if it gets to two years. In theory the virus itself should become less dangerous over time as it’s never a good idea to kill your host so vaccines might get us over the worst of the virus until it mutates into something less nasty.
BigT
TS Member
But why would you need herd immunity if you have vaccinated those most at risk?
99% of people below 55 years old get very mild if any symptoms, once you stop the hospitals being overwhelmed with old people every time you unlock everything then you don’t need herd immunity.
It may be a simplistic view but I don’t trust any government when it comes to ways of saving money, I’m surprised they haven’t come up with the idea of charging everyone that earns over 25k yet, I’m sure they would if they could get away with it.
pluk
TS Member
Considering the cost and demand for the vaccine I'm surprised I've not heard any mention of blood tests prior to vaccination to confirm whether a person already has antibodies from having had the virus.
My old shift I was on was me and 5 others, all three who have had an antibody test have come back as positive, we work so closely with a frequent inability to social distance or wear full ppe I'd be shocked if we hadn't all had it. Why waste a vaccine on the likes of us when the chance of reinfection is astronomically low?
My old shift I was on was me and 5 others, all three who have had an antibody test have come back as positive, we work so closely with a frequent inability to social distance or wear full ppe I'd be shocked if we hadn't all had it. Why waste a vaccine on the likes of us when the chance of reinfection is astronomically low?
Matt N
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That’s a good point actually @pluk; I never thought about immunity for those who’ve already had it.
Immunity to the virus is now thought to last far longer than previously believed. Antibody levels were still high in a recent study of healthcare workers after even 6 months or more, and even if antibody levels decline, it’s thought that t-cells still protect you to some degree.
Even though there have been rumblings about people getting re-infected, they currently seem to be few and far between, and it’s worth noting that no one on Earth has yet tested positive for the virus twice, as far as I’m aware. A lot of the stories of reinfection seem to be false positives that are picking up traces of dead virus.
Given that COVID-19 has been widely circulating for nearly a year now, I think that this paints quite a promising picture for immunity. Given the sheer number of cases worldwide and its sheer prevalence (especially in certain countries), we would surely have far more cases of reinfection and we would have heard of people testing positive twice if immunity only lasted for a very short time period.
For this reason, I’m optimistic that vaccines should give fairly long-lasting protection. I do think it would still be a good idea to vaccinate regardless of previous history with COVID, because we don’t actually know how long immunity lasts, but it’s a point worth considering, nonetheless.
Swarm Chris
TS Member
The statistics are likely to be far less favourable than this. From a US study:
Reinfection is certainly a thing. I would guess data for determining reinfection rates and outcomes isn't currently sufficient, so probably simpler to just give everyone the vaccine.
BigT
TS Member
That study doesn’t show anything, it’s the US to start with and talks about patients needing ventilation from those admitted, it doesn’t show how many million cases it took to get to this hospital admission cases.
True statistics are hard to come by as they don’t follow project fear but anyone under 55 has more chance of being hospitalised or killed in a car crash than of Covid.
Rob
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Because as Dave has already said, some vulnerable people are not able to take the vaccine because of their health conditions. So herd immunity is the only way to protect them at present. Or do they not matter.
Another factor that has not been mentioned is long Covid. It is still not fully understood but to me it sounds like something worth protecting against. I sure don't want it.
BigT
TS Member
I think you are getting confused Rob, yes protect the vulnerable but that’s not what the vaccine is for, its to prevent the NHS and any other health service being overwhelmed.
It will never eradicate the virus or protect everyone, very few of any vaccines do.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy to take it if offered it but my opinion for what it’s worth is I’m very unlikely to be offered it on the NHS.
It will never eradicate the virus or protect everyone, very few of any vaccines do.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy to take it if offered it but my opinion for what it’s worth is I’m very unlikely to be offered it on the NHS.
BarryZola
TS Member
My next door neighbours have been off work suffering from Covid for over a month now. They're not Covid positive anymore but they're both still too ill too go to work. Probably mid to late 50s. The woman is still having pretty bad breathing problems and generally run down etc. Probably a bit of this 'long covid' or whatever. If it doesn't kill you it does have the potential to mess you up pretty good for quite a while. That's why it's probably worth vaccinating as many people as possible.
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Islander
TS Member
This is completely made up nonsense, a really sad example of the extreme misinformation that’s bounded about on the topic of COVID.
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Dave
TS Founding Member
Because as I said some people cannot be vaccinated for medical reasons.
One example: Patient with any of the many blood cancers, because the cancer is located in the stem cells of the bone marrow where most immune cells are created the treatments often disrupt their production. This often means they cannot develop immunity whilst on the treatment.
Alternatively some people have autoimmune conditions that preclude them from vaccination.
At 75% herd immunity you break the transmission of the virus in the population and protect those people.
Project fear is a myth, it’s just a convenient throw away term people use when they don’t understand statistics or want to ignore facts as it doesn’t align with their personal view.
IF (and it’s a big if) the immunity created by the vaccine lasts more than a year they will vaccinate the under 50’s for herd immunity as well as mitigating the economic impact of Covid absence at work (the young might not die often but they still often get unwell for 1-2 weeks and this thing spreads like wild fire.)
IF immunity lasts less than a year they won’t be able to get to the under 50’s as they will need to restart boosting the elderly and vulnerable.
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I think the GP on yesterdays lunch time news answering questions really put this into perspective. She said
"The vaccine is not 100% effective. Once you have the vaccine, you can't just simply go around and hug your friends and relatives. The first dose will give you some immunity, but the second dose will increase the effectiveness. She said that you should give it a month after the second dose before your risks are greatly reduced and only then can you relax a bit. She did go on to say that even once you receive the vaccine, you will need to still follow the social distancing rules and wear a mask"
Matt Handcock said on the news last night, don't worry where you are on the priority list, they are aiming to get this rolled out as quick as possible. It makes no difference where you are on the list, because they plan to roll this out as quickly as possible, the difference between those at the top and bottom of the list will be weeks if not just a few months.
I just hope that they have more success in rolling this out than their PPE, Track and trace etc... looks like they are already on course to messing this up by over promising and underdeliver (cough cough "care home and large boxes"
)
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Swarm Chris
TS Member
The US has been the best example of what happens when you let everyone go and do what they feel.
The study, limited by the data available from a disease that has been in acknowledged existence for under a year, then produced percentages of the sampled population who became ill enough to require hospitalisation. So they're relative values. Absolute numbers of admissions would only serve the purpose of determining the accuracy of the data.
Dave
TS Founding Member
I think the GP on yesterdays lunch time news answering questions really put this into perspective. She said
"The vaccine is not 100% effective. Once you have the vaccine, you can't just simply go around and hug your friends and relatives. The first dose will give you some immunity, but the second dose will increase the effectiveness. She said that you should give it a month after the second dose before your risks are greatly reduced and only then can you relax a bit. She did go on to say that even once you receive the vaccine, you will need to still follow the social distancing rules and wear a mask"
Nick Handcock said on the news last night, don't worry where you are on the priority list, they are aiming to get this rolled out as quick as possible. It makes no difference where you are on the list, because they plan to roll this out as quickly as possible, the difference between those at the top and bottom of the list will be weeks if not just a few months.
I just hope that they have more success in rolling this out than their PPE, Track and trace etc... looks like they are already on course to messing this up by over promising and underdeliver (cough cough "care home and large boxes"
Social distancing and mask wearing will be required until around 50% of the population are vaccinated. Some scientists would likely say we can never stop social distancing or mask wearing but I’m not convinced people will tolerate indefinite restrictions. I might be wrong but a lot of pressure will be applied to relaxing those rules once hospital admissions drop.
It gets difficult to justify the severity of the restrictions once the impact drops below that of other circulating diseases, even if there is a level of selfishness around that thought process on an individual risk level.
I was told yesterday ( I work in the NHS ) that we will have the vaccine before Xmas. It will be voluntary. We wont have a choice which one we have. Now just to get this clear, I am not an anti vaxxer and I will have a vaccine, but i'm not sure about this particular one. Its a mRNA vaccine, which is relatively new, never tested in large numbers over a long period of time in humans, which injects a piece of genetic code into the body. I cant help but feel this is like a huge experiment to see what will happen if people have vaccine a, b, or c over the next 10 years. If this is a vaccine that needs to be injected every year or so, are there any risks to having multiple does of this genetic material every year? Is there any chance the material could get damaged some way?
If I had a choice, I would go for the Oxford one personally as it uses a tried and tested method of vaccination. Its more stable at temperature and I personally would feel more comfortable having something based on technology used in other vaccines I have had over the years...
Like I said, I am not an anti vaxxer in any way, and will have a vaccine, but my own personal view is one of caution around these new mRNA vaccines. Others may and rightly so feel differently.
If I had a choice, I would go for the Oxford one personally as it uses a tried and tested method of vaccination. Its more stable at temperature and I personally would feel more comfortable having something based on technology used in other vaccines I have had over the years...
Like I said, I am not an anti vaxxer in any way, and will have a vaccine, but my own personal view is one of caution around these new mRNA vaccines. Others may and rightly so feel differently.
Dave
TS Founding Member
mRNA vaccines have been tested quite extensively as they are currently being explored for cancer treatments. It’s just the first time they have used it for an infectious disease vaccine.
I think it’s also important to note that they are not injecting genetic code in the sense many people consider it (Jurassic park style). RNA is a messenger system used in cells, it’s not a place genetic code is stored and it cannot edit existing DNA.
In normal cell operation DNA has the protein code stored but it is kept safe in the cell nucleus and has a double helix protection which the protein factories can’t use. The DNA is therefore split read by a complicated set of systems, recombined and the code is transcribed into mRNA, the mRNA then leaves the nucleus and travels to the part of the cell responsible for protein production. The RNA is then read by this system and the protein created, this process actually destroys the RNA strand as it occurs (otherwise you would have uncontrolled protein production).
Lots of mRNA gets into cells from other sources, most commonly virus’s so it’s not without precedence and happens all the time in nature. RNA cannot mutate DNA which is where the actual genetic instructions are stored.
If we could so easily edit people’s DNA diseases like Cystic Fibrosis would have been cured by now.
I think healthy questioning is good but avoid some of the scare stories. I work in the NHS and if I’m offered the mRNA vaccines I will happily take it.
I agree about avoiding scare stories, in particular YouTube videos from professors and doctors (so they say).
Good article on the BBC here about it :
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/explainers-54880084
Good article on the BBC here about it :
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/explainers-54880084
I be more worried about the short term and long term side effects of covid itself.
If you work in the NHS you will know that all treatments are or have been experimental at some point. Patients are sometime used as guinea pigs, this is how you get new treatment and make progress in medicines and treatments. Jess has two rare conditions and we often joke about the doctors using her as a guinea pig