Coronavirus - Part Two.

[petemcewan 27]

Thirty Relic,

Respect to you. I do share your view regarding medication not working. In the parlance it's called ,"Iatrogenesis".

https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/nursing-and-health-professions/iatrogenesis

 

Take care and stay safe.

Edited February 2, 2021 by petemcewan

[El Cid 214]

3 hours ago, Thirsty Relic said:

What does worry me is the fact that we are still stockpiling vaccines in greater numbers than needed, and also suggesting annual vaccinations will be the norm.

We do seem to have a lot of vaccines, a news report said we could give them to our friends in the Common Wealth and our other friends. It did make me chuckle, give them away, friends, does Boris have any friends.

But since the track and trace is obviously useless, perhaps a vaccine will be needed every 4/6 months.

[redruby 279]

3 hours ago, Thirsty Relic said:

Pete,

I don't think there is anything wrong with them for those at most risk, especially through damaged immune systems.  I do think people in general have more medication than is necessary, and that it leads to medication not working for them in the future.  I was pressed to have the flu jab when we had a major alert about 15/20 years ago (I and my contacts were not in the at-risk age groups), but didn't - then saw it become an annual flu jab for those (inc mates) who did have it.  I can see many similarities here with Covid.

 

NHS are to be congratulated for their great work with Covid rollout, especially as local GP's etc have stepped up vaccinations recently and all care home residents have had the chance of vaccination, and we are on target to have vaccinated all over 80's who want it by mid February.  As they are of greatest risk of death or serious outcomes, once we have got to those groups (and HNS front line staff), we are ready to "open up" the economy again.  We are seeing adverts of Summer holidays and politicians forecasting summer/autumn relaxing of measures as hospitals empty of Covid patients.  There is a light at the end of the tunnel.

 

What does worry me is the fact that we are still stockpiling vaccines in greater numbers than needed, and also suggesting annual vaccinations will be the norm.

Hmm, it’s looking like annual vaccinations will become the norm in order to deal with the virus mutating.  No one knows how how long immunity will last after vaccination yet either.

Great as vaccinations are they can’t be relied on as the sole solution for the pandemic. We need a strategy to squash the virus as far as possible and part of that has to be tough restrictions on  international travel for some time and ensuring that those in low paid employment can afford to self isolate if they have symptoms. 

[El Cid 214]

2 hours ago, redruby said:

Hmm, it’s looking like annual vaccinations will become the norm in order to deal with the virus mutating.  No one knows how how long immunity will last after vaccination yet either.

Great as vaccinations are they can’t be relied on as the sole solution for the pandemic. We need a strategy to squash the virus as far as possible and part of that has to be tough restrictions on  international travel for some time and ensuring that those in low paid employment can afford to self isolate if they have symptoms. 

How about paying higher sick pay, since many of the COVID deaths are in care homes, so one would assume that COVID is brought in by staff, that struggle on measly sick pay.

On a side note, whilst Googling I have come accross a few web pages which question the efficacy of the flu vaccine. All these different percentages for effectiness of the COVID vaccine, we need to buy the most effective ones.

[apelike 10]

3 minutes ago, El Cid said:

All these different percentages for effectiness of the COVID vaccine, we need to buy the most effective ones.

I agree but the problem then is we would have to wait months to get the data back to fully understand the efficacy of each vaccine and even then it still may vary. That is why I stated before that its a bit like broadband speeds in that its an "up to" figure which is not guaranteed, possibly with a 10%-15% margin of error.

[El Cid 214]

The Pfizer vaccine showed efficacy of 95% at preventing symptomatic Covid infection after two doses.

The Moderna vaccine was 94.1% effective at preventing symptomatic Covid-19, after the second dose.

The J&J one-dose vaccine was shown to be 66% protective against moderate to severe Covid infections overall from 28 days after injection, though there was variability based on geographic locations. The vaccine was 72% protective in the United States, 66% protective in South America, and 57% protective in South Africa.

 

So if they are 66%-95% effective against all ages. How effective will they be in different age groups, 18-30, 30-65, 65-75 and over 75s?

I believe they will be more effective with the stronger people in ages up to 65 and then less effective as the age increases.

[Victor Meldrew 33]

Just watched a documentary showing the timeline of events for the initial outbreak in the US. It focussed on (often emotional) testimony by various scientists in the Centres for Disease Control & Prevention and health commissioners in the various states & cities, some of whom are no longer in office. What it illustrated was just how slow the political leaders were to act, in the face of overwhelming evidence. Much of it with the benefit of hindsight of course. But most would agree that the big tipping point in the US was the Mardi Gras celebration which was allowed to go ahead.

 

Quite riveting and very well produced. Well worth watching if you can get it on catch-up. Hopefully there'll be a similar documentary covering the UK story someday.

[apelike 10]

2 hours ago, El Cid said:

The Pfizer vaccine showed efficacy of 95% at preventing symptomatic Covid infection after two doses.

The Moderna vaccine was 94.1% effective at preventing symptomatic Covid-19, after the second dose.

The J&J one-dose vaccine was shown to be 66% protective against moderate to severe Covid infections overall from 28 days after injection, though there was variability based on geographic locations. The vaccine was 72% protective in the United States, 66% protective in South America, and 57% protective in South Africa.

Here is some CDC data on some of the above:

 

The Pfizer vaccine:

 

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/different-vaccines/Pfizer-BioNTech.html

 

The Moderna vaccine:

 

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/different-vaccines/Moderna.html

 

Cant find much data on the J&J one or the Sputnik V one.

 

2 hours ago, El Cid said:

So if they are 66%-95% effective against all ages. How effective will they be in different age groups, 18-30, 30-65, 65-75 and over 75s?

I don't know and neither will you because that data is not available only the data that came out as a result of testing all age groups at once in the same trials and it seems the figures given for its efficacy would probably be an average of that. As said before it will take months if not years to have a big enough sample to determine the above with any degree of accuracy and we simply cant wait that long just for accuracy.

 

2 hours ago, El Cid said:

I believe they will be more effective with the stronger people in ages up to 65 and then less effective as the age increases.

That may or may not be the case but we simply don't know as yet. If a vaccine is 95% effective overall then a few percent less in someone that is over 65 is not a big deal.

[El Cid 214]

4 hours ago, apelike said:

That may or may not be the case but we simply don't know as yet. If a vaccine is 95% effective overall then a few percent less in someone that is over 65 is not a big deal.

Why do you say a few percent? People over 70 are 10x more likely to die of COVID than those under 70

[convert 10]

Paper here:  https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_i...

In the SD/SD group, after the second dose, efficacy was higher with a longer prime-boost interval: VE 82.4% 95%CI 62.7%, 91.7% at 12+ weeks, compared with VE 54.9%, 95%CI 32.7%, 69.7% at <6 weeks. These observations are supported by immunogenicity data which showed binding antibody responses more than 2-fold higher after an interval of 12 or more weeks compared with and interval of less than 6 weeks GMR 2.19 (2.12, 2.26) in those who were 18-55 years of age.

2nd dose *is* better at 12wks than upto 6wks - by some margin!

[RiffRaff 10]

I had the Pfizer jab at my local surgery early last Sunday morning, and my wife had her first there yesterday afternoon.

Yesterday was busier, as the surgery had been told to pause innoculating until next Monday.

Their supplies of vaccines were being re-routed to a London borough instead, so our surgery had to call a halt to their planned daily progress.

[Victor Meldrew 33]

9 hours ago, Victor Meldrew said:

Just watched a documentary showing the timeline of events for the initial outbreak in the US.

Sorry, it was on BBC2 at 9pm and was titled "54 Days: America And The Pandemic"