Coronavirus

[Dave]

So you reckon that they could have a working vaccine identified by October as opposed to September?

You never really know at the moment; it usually takes years to even get to phase 1 human trials, yet they managed it within 3 months of the virus being sighted in China and it passed phase 1 trials 6 months after the virus was first identified. With the amount riding on this vaccine, it wouldn’t surprise me if they have plans to vaccinate people more quickly. Under normal circumstances, it might take 6 months to vaccinate 50% of the population. But I wouldn’t be at all surprised if the government has a plan; Matt Hancock is apparently devising a large-scale COVID vaccination programme for this winter if a vaccine is approved, in order to go alongside the largest ever flu vaccination programme.

1) And who is doing all the injections?

2) You need to cold store the drug, where is this all being stored?

3) You need somewhere to inject everyone, you can’t do this in the street.

4) Today’s report suggests this is a 2 dose vaccine, you need a national recording system to track those doses and send reminders. This also means that you need somewhere in the order of 140,000,000 doses.

5) The government hasn’t shown any competent plan for the last 4 months, why would they start now?

The Flu vaccine proves that it’s hard to quickly vaccinate a population in a short period hence why they limit it to at risk groups and that’s a single dose vaccine

 

[Matt N]

1) And who is doing all the injections?

2) You need to cold store the drug, where is this all being stored?

3) You need somewhere to inject everyone, you can’t do this in the street.

4) Today’s report suggests this is a 2 dose vaccine, you need a national recording system to track those doses and send reminders. This also means that you need somewhere in the order of 140,000,000 doses.

5) The government hasn’t shown any competent plan for the last 4 months, why would they start now?

The Flu vaccine proves that it’s hard to quickly vaccinate a population in a short period hence why they limit it to at risk groups and that’s a single dose vaccine

They could set up Nightingale vaccination stations, like how they set up Nightingale hospitals at the height of the pandemic. They could also use the backlog of NHS volunteers & retired health staff from the height of the pandemic to vaccinate people or at least assist with vaccination.

Also, the government has a total of 190 million vaccine doses reserved for the UK, coming from various different sources. AstraZeneca is making 100 million, and other companies, such as Pfizer and BioNTech are sourcing the other 90 million. There will be more than enough vaccine for everyone in Britain, and besides, this will not require the whole population to be vaccinated. Only around 60% would need to get vaccinated to achieve herd immunity, and I’ve even heard lower estimates than that elsewhere.

With regard to logistics and procedures, I think the thing to remember is that any previous definition of “normal procedure” has been thrown out the window over the last few months. Many people would have thought the way in which they’re developing the vaccines in the first place sounded ludicrous prior to 2020, but look at where we are now. Other things like Nightingale hospitals and the whole principles of lockdown and social distancing would also have sounded completely ludicrous pre-COVID, but look what happened there. The sheer scale of government spending sounded ludicrous pre-COVID, but look what happened there. In a situation like this, I think the world will find a way. Pretty much every previous “normal procedure” has been thrown out of the window.

 

[Craig]

The 190 million vaccine doses are not all the Oxford vaccine. 100 million are the Oxford, 30 million doses of the BioNtech/Pfizer vaccine of the 60 million doses of the Valneva. Essentially, the government are hedging their bets among three completely different vaccines.

In any case, vaccines are not for delivery all at one specific time, those 100 million doses would be delivered over many months. As much as we would like to scale up manufacturing to ridiculously high levels, there just isn't the equipment and especially not the skills in place to do so.

On the logistics front, of course there will be some creative thinking on that front to get it out to as many people as possible. But even with that, you have to be realistic and also consider the government's performance so far in this pandemic. For example, we're still under 100k tests per day, and we still do not have an antibody test available outside of high risk groups.

 

[Dave]

They could set up Nightingale vaccination stations, like how they set up Nightingale hospitals at the height of the pandemic. They could also use the backlog of NHS volunteers & retired health staff from the height of the pandemic to vaccinate people or at least assist with vaccination.

Also, the government has a total of 190 million vaccine doses reserved for the UK, coming from various different sources. AstraZeneca is making 100 million, and other companies, such as Pfizer and BioNTech are sourcing the other 90 million. There will be more than enough vaccine for everyone in Britain, and besides, this will not require the whole population to be vaccinated. Only around 60% would need to get vaccinated to achieve herd immunity, and I’ve even heard lower estimates than that elsewhere.

With regard to logistics and procedures, I think the thing to remember is that any previous definition of “normal procedure” has been thrown out the window over the last few months. Many people would have thought the way in which they’re developing the vaccines in the first place sounded ludicrous prior to 2020, but look at where we are now. Other things like Nightingale hospitals and the whole principles of lockdown and social distancing would also have sounded completely ludicrous pre-COVID, but look what happened there. The sheer scale of government spending sounded ludicrous pre-COVID, but look what happened there. In a situation like this, I think the world will find a way. Pretty much every previous “normal procedure” has been thrown out of the window.

A lot of normal procedures have been sped up but there are some issues here the government and the health system will want to be very cautious about.

The primary issue is this is a drug, there are laws around the administration of drugs that exist to ensure safe administration. For this reason the drug has to be administered by a registered health care professional OR you need to create a lot of exemptions. They won’t want to take any major liberties with this as they want people to get vaccinated and any administration errors leading to harm knocks people confidence in the programme (a major problem with all the idiotic anti-vaccers spouting their BS). Effectively this means you can only quickly and easily use the following people:

1) Doctors
2) Nurses/ midwives
3) some pharmacists
4) AHP’s (Radiographers, Physiotherapists, Paramedics etc).

The problem is all these people are pretty busy already and we have a national shortage in pretty much every profession in the list. Now that’s not to say it’s impossible, it’s just that it’s very very difficult. Add to that the vaccine is likely to become available as we head into winter and it makes the job that much harder. Add production constraints (you don’t just need to make the vaccine, you have to make vials, needles and sterilise the whole lot) and it’s a big big project.

For this reason they will vaccinate the health care professionals first, then at risk groups, then general population. If you have a fair wind I would say you might be able to start vaccination of the general population in March/ April.

 

[delta79]

They could set up Nightingale vaccination stations.

Here is your vaccination. Ability administered by Mr Scutter, he pass after 3 mins of training.

Sent from my SM-J600FN using Tapatalk

 

[Thameslink Rail]

Here is your vaccination. Ability administered by Mr Scutter, he pass after 3 mins of training.

Sent from my SM-J600FN using Tapatalk

I think the army should be doing the mass vaccination scheme because they have been running the testing sites, they were really efficient when I went.

 

[Jonathan]

Here is your vaccination. Ability administered by Mr Scutter, he pass after 3 mins of training.

Sent from my SM-J600FN using Tapatalk

Mr Scutter? MR?! He's called Bob, for crying out loud!

 

[imanautie]

Mr Scutter? MR?! He's called Bob, for crying out loud!

We can't get confused with big Bob.

 

[delta79]

Mr Scutter? MR?! He's called Bob, for crying out loud!

No that's his brother, stabhim scutter.

Sent from my SM-J600FN using Tapatalk

 

[Swarm Chris]

I find it annoying when incomplete guidance is given like this. It makes it seem that your friendship group is fine to stay together, when the guidance is still: no more than 6 people outdoors; 2 families indoors (including pubs and restaurants) and everyone from different households must stay socially distant.

 

[Matt N]

Interesting! Germany is asking for 4,200 healthy volunteers between the ages of 18 and 50 to take part in an experiment to see how COVID-19 spreads. The experiment will actually be a concert by a German musician in an arena in Leipzig: https://apple.news/AnvY_sEtmQQSBgxMuLECkQA

They are taking precautions, and everyone who takes part must have tested negative for COVID-19 beforehand. It’s being held on 22nd August and the results will be available by October.

It sounds like a very interesting experiment to me!

 

[Alsty]

I was recently reading an interesting article - it's called Sweden Has Become the World’s Cautionary Tale.

Sweden, unlike most countries in Europe, did not have a strict lockdown. The idea was to allow for economic activity to continue, thus allowing for quicker recovery after the virus had retreated. Restaurants, gyms, shops and playgrounds all stayed open along with most schools.

What happened is:

• They had significantly more deaths than their Scandanavian neighbours (see below), perhaps to be expected; but also
  
• Their economy did not fair any better than their neighbours either.

Their strategy was a complete failure on both fronts.

Deaths per million people:
Sweden - 561
Denmark - 106
Finland - 59
Norway - 47

Sweden's economy is expected to contract by 4.5% this year and unemployment jumped to 9% in May (from 7.1% in March). By comparison, Denmark, which did a full lockdown, expects their economy to contract by 4.1% and unemployment jumped up to 5.6% in May (from 4.1% in March). Essentially the economic damage is the same, but Sweden has a higher death toll as well with nothing to show for it.

The problem Sweden faced is that Coronavirus does not stop at the borders. While they tried to keep everything running domestically, their businesses were still subject to the conditions that were causing recessions elsewhere. For instance, their manufacturing industries still had to shut down due to problems with their international supply chains. Additionally there were still large numbers of people limiting their shopping and avoiding going out, and that also had an economic impact.

The article draws a cautionary tale for countries exiting lockdowns. It is not the lockdown that is causing the economic damage but the virus itself; it's a fallacy to end them prematurely on the assumption that that alone will recover the economy.

 

[Skyscraper]

A heads up, masks will also be compulsory in train stations and airports from tomorrow.

 

[Burbs]

A heads up, masks will also be compulsory in train stations and airports from tomorrow.

Makes perfect sense - anywhere public and indoors, much like the rest of Europe.

 

[BigT]

I was recently reading an interesting article - it's called Sweden Has Become the World’s Cautionary Tale.

Sweden, unlike most countries in Europe, did not have a strict lockdown. The idea was to allow for economic activity to continue, thus allowing for quicker recovery after the virus had retreated. Restaurants, gyms, shops and playgrounds all stayed open along with most schools.

What happened is:

• They had significantly more deaths than their Scandanavian neighbours (see below), perhaps to be expected; but also
  
• Their economy did not fair any better than their neighbours either.

Their strategy was a complete failure on both fronts.

Deaths per million people:
Sweden - 561
Denmark - 106
Finland - 59
Norway - 47

Sweden's economy is expected to contract by 4.5% this year and unemployment jumped to 9% in May (from 7.1% in March). By comparison, Denmark, which did a full lockdown, expects their economy to contract by 4.1% and unemployment jumped up to 5.6% in May (from 4.1% in March). Essentially the economic damage is the same, but Sweden has a higher death toll as well with nothing to show for it.

The problem with these reports is they assume this is over, well it isn’t look at all of the countries that have “done well” they are now seeing or will about to see a re-emergence of the virus as they release lock downs.
Sweden could actually be close to achieving herd immunity soon, I expect in the long term ie next 3 years that Sweden will actually end up with less deaths than their neighbours and the UK’s figures will also be well down the list.

This thing isn’t over by a long shot, this is just the beginning.

 

[John]

Unless, of course, immunity turns out to be short lived in which case Sweden's approach will prove to be even less effective.

 

[BigT]

Then we will all be buggered.

 

[Dave]

Then we will all be buggered.

Maybe.

immunity from natural infection can be less impactful than immunity gained from a vaccine. Or we get effective treatments so we stop severe illness.

Final option, like with most virus’s it will mutate to be less deadly (makes evolutionary sense not to kill your host). There are 4 known Coronovirus that cause mild illnesses in humans, it’s perfectly possible that when we first encountered these versions it was as nasty as Covid is now but they mellowed over time.

 

[Skyscraper]

Luton has been made an "area of intervention" due to a spike in cases. Leisure facilities will remain closed on Saturday.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...rea-intervention-spike-coronavirus-cases.html

 

[Themeparksandy1981]

With the 80% furlough payments coming to a end on the 31st July. Bosses won’t want to be paying staff 30% wage to stay at home. Do u think the government will force companies to provide masks for workers who can’t maintain social distancing when they fully reopen?