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Coronavirus

Coronavirus - The Poll

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imanautie said:
I know to an extent they all do but wouldn't previous exposure likely cause the body to be ready to react?
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Yes (in fact a recent study suggests those who have had Covid and then have a vaccine have a 6 x stronger immune response than those who haven’t). But it’s still not really predictable how strongly people will get symptoms. My parents have both had Covid and they got mild arm ache with their vaccine, yet some people I know who haven’t had Covid had the full set of side effects.
 
Out of interest; for anyone who’s had the Pfizer vaccine, roughly how long did it take for the side effects to subside, if you had any? Only asking as I’ve still got a pretty sore arm 1 day after having it, and have felt quite tired and a little achy all day today.
 
Took two or three days for me. Arm was slightly sore for a couple of days, and I got a headache while at work two days after having the vaccine. It's situations like this which explain exactly why I have paracetamol and ibuprofen in my work bag. :p Didn't feel too tired or achy, though, but I guess I got quite lucky.
 
Had my jab this evening, local site had a surplus of vaccinations that would otherwise go to waste so emergency service workers get called up to use it.

I'm a bit needle phobic with a history of not remaining conscious when pricked, but this was fine. Didn't even feel it go in, just the coldness of the alcohol wipe and it was done.

I won't be letting my guard down, but I'll be feeling a lot more comfortable about the inevitable close contact with all sorts at work now.
 
Matt N said:
Absolutely; everyone reacts differently to these things. I was reading the informational booklet that came with my Pfizer vaccine, and it listed a whole plethora of side effects of variable severity. I haven’t developed any yet besides a slightly sore arm, but I only had the jab a few hours ago.

Apparently your chances of side effects are increased if you’ve had COVID before; the man who vaccinated me said that people who’ve previously been infected are more predisposed to longer-lasting and more severe side effects.
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Really? I had no idea about that. I did feel completely drained and had trouble sleeping for a 2 week period last summer. I did 2 tests and both came back negative. If I had caught it, it might explain why I felt crap after my vaccine.

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Excellent, excellent vaccine news; a study conducted by the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (better known as the CDC) in the USA would suggest that the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are incredibly effective at stopping transmission of the virus as well as symptomatic disease: https://apple.news/A9U52EyxwSEyozlUfzwZsjA

The CDC conducted this study using 4,000 early recipients of the mRNA vaccines in the USA, and the results were as follows:
  • 2 weeks after the first dose, the Pfizer and Moderna jabs were thought to reduce disease transmission by 80%.
  • Once the second dose has been administered, this rises to 90%.
Personally, I think this is terrific news. For all intents and purposes, these vaccines effectively block the vast majority of virus transmission; 90% blockage of transmission after two doses is phenomenally high, and 80% after one still bodes very well for the UK’s vaccine strategy. Based on what scientists have said, vaccines with this level of transmission blockage could prevent the need for NPIs (non-pharmaceutical interventions) once the predicted uptake of adults have been vaccinated, meaning that it bodes very well for Boris Johnson’s lockdown easing roadmap.

It’s also worth remembering that both of these vaccines have 95% efficacy against symptomatic COVID of any kind.
 
Dr Gloom and Prof Doom on form again at the press conference tonight, one outright fib and some handpicked figures to makes sure we don’t step out of their fantasy world.
Apparently no one under fifty has been vaccinated unless they have underlying health issues or work for the NHS, this is a outrageous lie and he knows that.
I’m 46 and am about the only person I know not vaccinated, several in their 30’s done in the last couple of weeks by just booking appointments online and turning up.

I have to say I’m slightly frustrated at the moment, I’m now at the highest risk of becoming seriously ill in this country despite being in the top 5% of earners, not had a single day off or any handout, thats gratitude for you but don’t worry I will keep on working to pay my taxes to pay for all of this whilst receiving zero protection what so ever.
 
BigT said:
Dr Gloom and Prof Doom on form again at the press conference tonight, one outright fib and some handpicked figures to makes sure we don’t step out of their fantasy world.
Apparently no one under fifty has been vaccinated unless they have underlying health issues or work for the NHS, this is a outrageous lie and he knows that.
I’m 46 and am about the only person I know not vaccinated, several in their 30’s done in the last couple of weeks by just booking appointments online and turning up.

I have to say I’m slightly frustrated at the moment, I’m now at the highest risk of becoming seriously ill in this country despite being in the top 5% of earners, not had a single day off or any handout, thats gratitude for you but don’t worry I will keep on working to pay my taxes to pay for all of this whilst receiving zero protection what so ever.
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Some GP’s have been playing it a little with the age limits but you have to remember the sheer volume of adults under the age of 50. Just because you know some folk who’s GP’s have been a bit generous with the definitions doesn’t make a trend.

No one I know in my area under 50 have been vaccinated, I know some folk further south who have but they are the exception not the rule. It’s frustrating as it’s a post code lottery but most GP’s are private companies contracting NHS services so want the jab money (sad but true).

To be fair I think what they where trying to remind people is 1) it takes 3 weeks for the vaccine to kick in and 2) you only get full protection after jab 2 so don’t think you are super human
 
Out of interest, have any of the vaccine candidates actually failed thus far, or even been approved with somewhat low efficacy results (e.g. 50-60%, like the scientists were originally psyching us up for)?

Only asking because it seems as though despite there being a number of high-profile vaccine candidates, and the success rate for vaccines in development often being quite low, all of them seem to have been approved, and with reasonably high efficacy; even some of the less effective vaccines in circulation, like Janssen and AstraZeneca, still have 70-80% efficacy against symptomatic disease, and the likes of Pfizer and Moderna have 95% efficacy against symptomatic disease and up to 90% blockage of transmission!

I’d merely be intrigued to know, because the success rate thankfully seems to be very high for the COVID vaccines currently in development and circulating!
 
Matt N said:
Out of interest, have any of the vaccine candidates actually failed thus far, or even been approved with somewhat low efficacy results (e.g. 50-60%, like the scientists were originally psyching us up for)?

Only asking because it seems as though despite there being a number of high-profile vaccine candidates, and the success rate for vaccines in development often being quite low, all of them seem to have been approved, and with reasonably high efficacy; even some of the less effective vaccines in circulation, like Janssen and AstraZeneca, still have 70-80% efficacy against symptomatic disease, and the likes of Pfizer and Moderna have 95% efficacy against symptomatic disease and up to 90% blockage of transmission!

I’d merely be intrigued to know, because the success rate thankfully seems to be very high for the COVID vaccines currently in development and circulating!
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Bear in mind that the labs originally tested dozens if not hundreds of combinations of ingredients, proportions and dosage before settling on the final product. And there are probably many smaller projects that never got off the ground due to lack of funding.
There are twelve vaccines approved for emergency use in at least one country but who knows how many attempts those took to get to what we have now.

Edit: This article by the Scientific American is very interesting and answers a lot of questions about how the vaccine is produced and tested. It also says that by early April "almost 80 companies and institutes in 19 countries were working on vaccines".
https://www.scientificamerican.com/...ovid-19-vaccine-in-months-rather-than-years1/
 
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Matt N said:
Out of interest, have any of the vaccine candidates actually failed thus far, or even been approved with somewhat low efficacy results (e.g. 50-60%, like the scientists were originally psyching us up for)?

Only asking because it seems as though despite there being a number of high-profile vaccine candidates, and the success rate for vaccines in development often being quite low, all of them seem to have been approved, and with reasonably high efficacy; even some of the less effective vaccines in circulation, like Janssen and AstraZeneca, still have 70-80% efficacy against symptomatic disease, and the likes of Pfizer and Moderna have 95% efficacy against symptomatic disease and up to 90% blockage of transmission!

I’d merely be intrigued to know, because the success rate thankfully seems to be very high for the COVID vaccines currently in development and circulating!
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I can't quite recall which it was, but I think there was one where early trial results showed it to be a lot less effective than those that have been successful and the company decided to stop it completely rather than carry on development. Pretty sure I've not just dreamed that up!
 
Matt N said:
Out of interest, have any of the vaccine candidates actually failed thus far, or even been approved with somewhat low efficacy results (e.g. 50-60%, like the scientists were originally psyching us up for)?
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Australia had a vaccine candidate which they abandoned after it caused some people to develop HIV antibodies. Not a problem per se, but those people would then get false-positive reactive results to a HIV test which isn't ideal.
 
So now Germany are at it and have suspended rollout of the AZ vaccine in people aged below 60 (after initially not allowing it for people over 65). The German regulator has found 31 cases of a type of rare blood clot in around 2.7 million people who have received the vaccine. That equates to 0.0011%. Canada have also followed suit, despite there being no reported cases of blood clots in 300,000 people who have had the vaccine.

I'm guessing more readily available supplies of other vaccines such as Pfizer and Moderna allow for them do make these decision without too much of an impact.
 
Seems like the leaders of some countries have taken leave of their senses. Perhaps that's what being stuck indoors does to you.

I bet AZ are wondering why they bothered. They went to the trouble to create it and produce it not-for-profit and it just gets questioned and criticised without any scientific justification.
 
Out of interest, what do we think it was that made the AstraZeneca vaccine’s reputation turn so bad all of a sudden? Even before the blood clots, and even before things like the EU supply row, a lot of the news stories about it, and its general reputation among the public, seemed to suddenly become quite negative for no apparent reason, and it’s in very stark contrast to last year.

In 2020, AstraZeneca was all over the news, and in a very positive light too. You could hardly move without hearing about how Oxford University and AstraZeneca were developing a vaccine that would “save the world”, and there was a hell of a lot of hype around their product (in Britain, at least). By contrast, some of the other current high-profile candidates were far more of a drop in the ocean, and received far less excitement and press coverage; you barely heard anything about the likes of Moderna, for instance, and I hadn’t even heard of Pfizer prior to them releasing their phase 3 trial results. In 2020, most of the discussion surrounding COVID vaccines seemed to begin and end with Oxford/AstraZeneca’s vaccine, with none of the others really getting a look in.

But then all of a sudden, the climate turned very negative for AstraZeneca’s vaccine, and I can’t quite work out when or why. Even during the initial phases of Britain’s vaccine rollout, I still heard stories of people only wanting the AstraZeneca vaccine and rejecting the Pfizer because they only wanted a British vaccine, so this must have been a fairly recent development.

I’m struggling to work out why this is. Is it because the AZ vaccine was less effective than initially hoped, or is it just because the competition ended up being far more effective than expected? Compared to the scientists’ original predictions of the first COVID vaccines having only 50-60% efficacy against symptomatic disease and very limited transmission blocking abilities, the AstraZeneca vaccine still comes out leagues ahead (76% efficacy against symptomatic disease in the recent US trial, and thought to reduce transmission by between 50% and 67%), so is it just that the unexpectedly high efficacy of the vaccines from the likes of Pfizer and Moderna is skewing the world’s perceptions of effectiveness? Or is it genuinely because the AstraZeneca vaccine is less effective than originally hoped?

Or is it for a different reason entirely?

What do you guys think?
 
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