Coronavirus

Originally Posted by Chris

If the chairman of Germany's vaccination committee comes on and states, live on air, that he thinks his committees advice - and his government's subsequent spin on it - is contributing to a negative perception of the AZ vaccine in Germany, how is the BBC's impartiality (or otherwise) at play?

[Sephiroth]

Originally Posted by Hugh

Explanation in this article why it’s not been approved in the USA.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/leahros...-hasnt-the-us/

Makes sense. Well researched, Hugh.

Originally Posted by jfman

Yet they haven’t reversed the advice?

As I say I’d be very interested in the data. What is a negative perception? A personal preference for one vaccine with higher efficacy? Non-attendance? A rise in the anti-vax movement?

None of this offered by a British press literally foaming at the mouth at the prospect of EU failure. A press who no doubt will be the first to complain if the same EU keeps it’s borders closed to third countries later in the year.

Nice attempt at a pivot, but I'm not buying it.

You're not laying this at the door of the British press. Whatever their editorial agendas might be, this all blew up not because of Fleet Street EU skepticism but because of an interview given by a very senior German virologist in which he reflected on the consequences of his own advice.

Complaining at them all jumping on the story is simply a futile exercise in blaming the messenger.

[jfman]

Originally Posted by Chris

Nice attempt at a pivot, but I'm not buying it.

You're not laying this at the door of the British press. Whatever their editorial agendas might be, this all blew up not because of Fleet Street EU skepticism but because of an interview given by a very senior German virologist in which he reflected on the consequences of his own advice.

Complaining at them all jumping on the story is simply a futile exercise in blaming the messenger.

I’m not sure where the pivot is?

The headlines don’t really match what was actually said, or the current advice from the same German committee.

I fully accept that you will never buy it, you are all in on the view that our Government have played a blinder throughout and the EU a disaster, even though as others point out that it’s not just EU member states with qualified, or so far no, approval of the AZ vaccine.

Interestingly Wales and Scotland appear to be diverging from the 12 week wait for second doses and have been since about February 14. I wonder what caused them to pivot position.

If there were genuine issues with uptake on any meaningful level where supply was outstripping demand I’d expect Germany, France or anyone else to be doing drop in vaccinations for all age groups to get the numbers up. There’s no anecdotal evidence for this, let along empirical evidence.

[joglynne]

The UK's Covid-19 alert level has been down from level 5 to level 4 after the four Chief Medical Officers agree the risk of the NHS being overwhelmed within 21 days “has receded”.

The alert level was raised to level five on January 4, the day Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced the third national lockdown for England.

In a joint statement, the four chief medical officers and NHS England's national medical director Stephen Powis said the numbers of patients in hospital was "consistently declining" but warned "we should be under no illusions" because deaths and infections are still high.

https://www.lbc.co.uk/news/covid-19-...-from-level-5/

[Sephiroth]

I'll just sum all of this EU stuff up for clarity (taking as read the EU procurement shambles):

1/
The EU institutions, plus the French and German governments want to punish the UK for Brexit by two means:

1) Strict interpretation of the treaty;
2) Discrediting the Oxford vaccine under medical pretence but really because it's British.

2/
Millions of people in the EU are now suffering because they are not vaccinated because they believed the Oxford anti-vaccine propaganda.

3/
Germany, certainly, at governmental level, is now having to publicly withdraw its previous advice in order to get people to accept the Oxford vaccine.

4/
I'm hearing that France, through its health minister is now doing the same as Germany. Egg on that idiot Macron's face.

5/
European citizens are waking up to the efficiency and speed of action brought about by a single country free of the Brussels yoke. Hungary is now going its own way by buying the Russian vaccine; at one stage Germany was trying to do the same but I'm not sure where that is now.

Originally Posted by jfman

I’m not sure where the pivot is?

The headlines don’t really match what was actually said, or the current advice from the same German committee.

I fully accept that you will never buy it, you are all in on the view that our Government have played a blinder throughout and the EU a disaster, even though as others point out that it’s not just EU member states with qualified, or so far no, approval of the AZ vaccine.

Interestingly Wales and Scotland appear to be diverging from the 12 week wait for second doses and have been since about February 14. I wonder what caused them to pivot position.

If there were genuine issues with uptake on any meaningful level where supply was outstripping demand I’d expect Germany, France or anyone else to be doing drop in vaccinations for all age groups to get the numbers up. There’s no anecdotal evidence for this, let along empirical evidence.

Fine, you're going to act dumb so I'll indulge you ...

You're desperately trying to pivot attention away from yet another instance where British policy has been borne out and the policies of various European governments have been found wanting. You're demanding to see statistics in a fairly laughable attempt to obscure the extreme seniority of the source that kicked off the story this morning. And you're blaming British newspapers for 'quoting each other,' once again trying to draw attention away from the fact that this story isn't selective reporting of a press release but simple repetition of the words of someone who is best placed to know what he's talking about.

And, just for fun, you're now trying to insinuate - without having provided evidence - that the devolved administrations have abandoned the 12 week dosage strategy. If you could provide a link to some stats that would be helpful.

[jfman]

https://www.travellingtabby.com/uk-coronavirus-tracker/

Down the page you can toggle to second doses for vaccination and you'll see Wales and Scotland have nudged upwards since February 15, when there's no need to do so for a few weeks yet.

I'm not playing dumb I'm only asking where the evidence is that Germans/French are shunning one vaccine over another on any meaningful level. No such data appears to exist. If it did, then the Germans/French are missing the open goal of expanding the vaccination campaign into wider age groups and the opportunity to build trust based on fellow citizens being vaccinated.

[pip08456]

Originally Posted by jfman

I’m not sure where the pivot is?

The headlines don’t really match what was actually said, or the current advice from the same German committee.

I fully accept that you will never buy it, you are all in on the view that our Government have played a blinder throughout and the EU a disaster, even though as others point out that it’s not just EU member states with qualified, or so far no, approval of the AZ vaccine.

Interestingly Wales and Scotland appear to be diverging from the 12 week wait for second doses and have been since about February 14. I wonder what caused them to pivot position.

If there were genuine issues with uptake on any meaningful level where supply was outstripping demand I’d expect Germany, France or anyone else to be doing drop in vaccinations for all age groups to get the numbers up. There’s no anecdotal evidence for this, let along empirical evidence.

More than a million people in Germany are being left at risk of Covid because a “psychological problem” means stockpiles of AstraZeneca jabs are not being used, a leading vaccine expert has revealed.

Professor Thomas Mertens, who chairs Germany’s Standing Commission on Vaccination which advises the government, admitted there was a “problem” persuading people to have the Oxford/AstraZeneca jabs due to flawed perceptions about its efficacy.

“We have about 1.4 million doses of AstraZeneca vaccine in store and only about 240,000 have been given to the people,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/worl...e-b921196.html

[jfman]

Are the AZ supply chains adequate enough to allow them to release significant numbers of those vaccines? Presumably the 240,000 need a second dose after 3 weeks. That leaves 1.16 million or enough for 550,000 people. Which is about a week worth of first vaccines in Germany based on the current rates.

[Angua]

Originally Posted by jfman

Are the AZ supply chains adequate enough to allow them to release significant numbers of those vaccines? Presumably the 240,000 need a second dose after 3 weeks. That leaves 1.16 million or enough for 550,000 people. Which is about a week worth of first vaccines in Germany based on the current rates.

Only the Pfizer one recommended no more than a 3 week gap based on clinical trials, AZ never have.

[jonbxx]

Originally Posted by Sephiroth

[COLOR="Blue"]I'll just sum all of this EU stuff up for clarity (taking as read the EU procurement shambles):

1/
The EU institutions, plus the French and German governments want to punish the UK for Brexit by two means:

1) Strict interpretation of the treaty;
2) Discrediting the Oxford vaccine under medical pretence but really because it's British.

How does that tally up with the EMA approving the AZ vaccine for all adults;

Most of the participants in these studies were between 18 and 55 years old. There are not yet enough results in older participants (over 55 years old) to provide a figure for how well the vaccine will work in this group. However, protection is expected, given that an immune response is seen in this age group and based on experience with other vaccines; as there is reliable information on safety in this population, EMA’s scientific experts considered that the vaccine can be used in older adults. More information is expected from ongoing studies, which include a higher proportion of elderly participants.

Link

In the end, the safety and efficacy of the AZ vaccines in over 65s is, at best, an educated guess. It's a risk worth taking probably but still a guess.

I don't think honouring your international agreements is much of a crime to be honest....

[jfman]

https://twitter.com/rp131/status/136...423951366?s=21

It looks like England are upping their second doses too, albeit not by as much (as a proportion of all vaccines) as the increases in Wales and Scotland. Be interesting to know if the trend continues ahead of the 12 week threshold or whether it levels off. I suppose it’d also be interesting to know if they’re Pfizer, AZ or a combination of both.

[RichardCoulter]

A doctor said on TV yesterday that the vaccination works by exposing people to a mild dose of Covid, thus allowing their immune system to recognise the virus & prepare itself to fight it.

As a consequence, someone asked if they should have the vaccine if they've recently had the virus. The answer was yes, but to wait for four weeks before being vaccinated.

It seems odd that someone who naturally catches it doesn't become immune, but someone who is given it artificially obtains a varying level of immunity. If having and surviving Covid doesn't give one immunity, it's interesting that being given it artificially does.

Originally Posted by RichardCoulter

A doctor said on TV yesterday that the vaccination works by exposing people to a mild dose of Covid, thus allowing their immune system to recognise the virus & prepare itself to fight it.

As a consequence, someone asked if they should have the vaccine if they've recently had the virus. The answer was yes, but to wait for four weeks before being vaccinated.

It seems odd that someone who naturally catches it doesn't become immune, but someone who is given it artificially obtains a varying level of immunity. If having and surviving Covid doesn't give one immunity, it's interesting that being given it artificially does.

That's not factually accurate - neither the Pfizer or the Oxford vaccines give you a "mild dose" of COVID.

Many standard vaccines work by injecting a dead or weakened form of the pathogen into the body (as stated above) in preparations that are designed not to make you sick but rather to build immunity. The key to building this immunity is that the portion of the pathogen called the antigen trains the immune system to recognise and respond to the infectious agent.

The Pfizer vaccine works by introducing into the body a messenger RNA (mRNA) sequence that contains the genetic instructions for the vaccinated person’s own cells to produce the vaccine antigens and generate an immune response.

https://www.pfizer.co.uk/behind-scie...t-mrna-vaccine

The Oxford/AZ vaccine uses a harmless, weakened version of a common virus (not COVID) which causes a cold in chimpanzees. The virus is genetically modified so it is impossible for it to grow in humans. Scientists have transferred the genetic instructions for coronavirus’s specific “spike protein” – which it needs to invade cells – to the vaccine. When the vaccine enters cells inside the body, it uses this genetic code to produce the surface spike protein of the coronavirus. This induces an immune response, priming the immune system to attack coronavirus if it infects the body.

https://www.itv.com/news/2020-11-19/...d-vaccine-work