Coronavirus (COVID-19)

[superbigal]

The dentists were certainly offered £15 a jag for the flu vaccine when desperate for numbers. Most worked out it was actually not worthwhile. Different for a gp practice.

[Elixir]

4 minutes ago, djchapsticks said:

Efficacy is only going to be really noticeably altered by many mutations over a long period of time. Mutations in a virus are almost a microcosm of evolution - thousands upon thousands of tiny, sometimes barely distinguishable changes that mould into something else over an extended period.

It's of course not impossible but it's highly, highly unlikely that any single one of these virus mutations would have anything other than a negligible effect on a vaccine. Especially as Covid-19 has been described as a relatively stable and unremarkable virus with no characteristics showing that it mutates outwith the norm.

If we are still using the exact same vaccine in say 18 months or 2 years from now and mutations were allowed to happen without vaccines being upgraded and tweaked to meet these changes, I'd concede that yes, efficacy may be affected. However, like you most certainly wouldn't run a PC without upgrades for 2 years, you wouldn't plough on with the same vaccine when the virus you are vaccinating against changes.

Going back to what was being discussed last night, the language being used to describe these mutations and variants is a very, very deliberate tactic to keep the public at large in line with restrictions. 'Mutation' is a very scary word to those who don't fully understand it and those who want to keep folk in line know that fine well.

Fantastic post.

The best analogy I've heard regarding this relates to a person's face. If a feature changes, like a haircut, a spot, someone puts makeup on, and so on, then you will still recognise that as the same fundamental human face belonging to the same person.

Likewise, a fucking lion isn't going to not target prey just because it might happen to be an albino.

[welshbairn]

14 minutes ago, Billy Jean King said:

Seriously ? No wonder they are desperate to do the jagging. Clearly Davidson was oblivious to the fact GPs are not the ones doing the over 70s, over 65s etc.

Not hard to see why the GPs are trying to lobby MPs to get a bigger slice of the action at that sort of recharge.

They're doing the 75s to 80s now in my local surgery, but they have to close down to all other patients when they do it so it's obviously better for the dedicated centres to take on most of the load.

[Billy Jean King]

My wifes surgery is doing over 65’s, not sure where you’re getting that assertion from. Shes also not getting £12 a jag. 

There was acknowledgement that in some areas GPs were involved but the vast majority are being done via the mass centres. Welshbairn I think it was gave the GP payment figure.

[DMCs]

7 minutes ago, Billy Jean King said:

11 minutes ago, DMCs said:

We should pay them £1k each to do the jags if it gets it done quicker. Main issue is supply however not ability to jag. 
There are about 40k care home residents in Scotland - with us having vaccinated 462k surely we must be able to move onto 80+ now and increase the proportional rate of vaccinations.

Eh, 80+ are nearly finished and we are on to 70+ simultaneously. Mass vaccination centres will be quicker than hundreds if not thousands of small GP practices. If the figure quoted per jag is right that will be the major driver behind the GP mewling.

According to Sturgeon's statement yesterday it's 56%.

[vikingTON]

25 minutes ago, Jambomo said:

Again, as was said in the briefing, trial data doesn’t take into account the real-world application and different variables that come into that. They use it as an indication it will work but still have to be careful ans keep gathering and analysing the data. when rolling the vaccine out.

Which part of the Israel mass vaccination data does not involve 'real-world application? So we have:

1) overwhelming clinical trial evidence showing that vaccines are effective

2) 'real world' evidence from mass vaccination rollout showing that it is also highly effective

Your complaints about incomplete data from 2) can be pointed to the completed data in 1), and vice versa for the 'real world' application claim.

There's no way of slicing and dicing the above to claim that we still don't know if they will be effective or not. We absolutely do. That governments want their public to be kept in the dark about it to justify continued restrictions does not change the facts. 

[Elixir]

3 minutes ago, Burnieman said:

42 minutes ago, Burnieman said:

Can anyone provide the annual stats for influenza infections and deaths in the UK/Scotland?  would be interesting for comparison.

To answer my own question, Public Health England state around 15,000 deaths annually from Influenza between 2014-2019. In 2014/15, there were 28,000 deaths. I can't find stats on actual infections rates, but they will be large I'd expect.

The winter of 2017/18 was very bad as well, I believe in part due to an ineffective vaccine. There are countless headlines from the BBC, Guardian etc, about a winter crisis and the NHS running out of beds.

Of course, nobody cared about that then and they won't care now either.

[welshbairn]

9 minutes ago, Inanimate Carbon Rod said:

My wifes surgery is doing over 65’s, not sure where you’re getting that assertion from. Shes also not getting £12 a jag. 

That figure's from the BMA but could be a different amount in Scotland.

Quote

A £12.58 IOS (item of service) fee will be provided per dose.
NHSEI has agreed to increase the supplementary funding available for care home vaccinations (residents and staff) to support the vaccination of all care home residents and staff by the end of:
- £30 for first doses administered Monday 14 December - Sunday 17 January
- £20 for first doses administered Monday 18 - Sunday 24 January
- £10 for first doses administered Monday 25 - Sunday 31 January
- £10 for all second doses administered

https://www.bma.org.uk/advice-and-support/covid-19/vaccines/covid-19-vaccination-programme

[Inanimate Carbon Rod]

7 minutes ago, Billy Jean King said:

13 minutes ago, Inanimate Carbon Rod said:

My wifes surgery is doing over 65’s, not sure where you’re getting that assertion from. Shes also not getting £12 a jag. 

There was acknowledgement that in some areas GPs were involved but the vast majority are being done via the mass centres. Welshbairn I think it was gave the GP payment figure.

 

Just now, welshbairn said:

That figure's from the BMA but could be a different amount in Scotland.

https://www.bma.org.uk/advice-and-support/covid-19/vaccines/covid-19-vaccination-programme

The over 65’s and clinically vulnerable/shielders are being done by the GPs, the HSCP is doing the mass vaccinations. To avoid having to shut down the centre most of the practices in Inverclyde were going to use the town hall in a combined effort, however they’ve been papped in favour of the HSCP so that now means scrambling about to find a suitable venue to avoid closing the practice. This is causing further delays. 

[Detournement]

Whatever is getting fucked up here at least we're not American.

I don't see Florida holidays happening anytime soon.

Edited January 28, 2021 by Detournement

[dirty dingus]

2 minutes ago, Inanimate Carbon Rod said:

 

The over 65’s and clinically vulnerable/shielders are being done by the GPs, the HSCP is doing the mass vaccinations. To avoid having to shut down the centre most of the practices in Inverclyde were going to use the town hall in a combined effort, however they’ve been papped in favour of the HSCP so that now means scrambling about to find a suitable venue to avoid closing the practice. This is causing further delays. 

My auld dear is to go to the town hall to get hers on the 6th

[ICTChris]

Long read about the EU vaccination programme

https://www.politico.eu/article/europe-coronavirus-vaccine-struggle-pfizer-biontech-astrazeneca/amp/?__twitter_impression=true

[Blootoon87]

Did we get an up to date figure on vaccinations today?

[LongTimeLurker]

9 minutes ago, Burnieman said:

48 minutes ago, Burnieman said:

Can anyone provide the annual stats for influenza infections and deaths in the UK/Scotland?  would be interesting for comparison.

To answer my own question, Public Health England state around 15,000 deaths annually from Influenza between 2014-2019. In 2014/15, there were 28,000 deaths. I can't find stats on actual infections rates, but they will be large I'd expect.

COVID-19 is roughly comparable statistically on IFR and deaths occuring to a once every 25 years or so event on influenza pandemics with particularly bad strains. Those historically have not resulted in the sort of lockdowns we have had over the last year. It was more of an unknown quantity though with a scarily high R0 number and longer incubation time so there were rational reasons for it being handled differently but some of the measures implemented have been over the top at times and more about populism than public health.

COVID-19 isn't even close on mortality compared to the 1918 Spanish flu, so it could have been much worse and we may still experience something much worse in future in the decades ahead. Once the vulnerable groups get vaccinated the population needs to start being told to get a grip on their hysteria and prepare for a return to normality.

[Michael W]

Germany won't approve the Oxford/AZ vaccine for over 65s because of insufficient trial data. No idea what the EU will decide when it makes a decision tomorrow. 

AZ's CEO seems fairly comfortable as well with that approach. 

[Burnieman]

28 minutes ago, Elixir said:

The winter of 2017/18 was very bad as well, I believe in part due to an ineffective vaccine. There are countless headlines from the BBC, Guardian etc, about a winter crisis and the NHS running out of beds.

Of course, nobody cared about that then and they won't care now either.

So we all know that Covid is worse than Influenza, and we're at a particularly bad point (but it's gradually getting better), but Influenza still takes thousands of lives a year in the UK.

At what point, with vaccinations ongoing and better treatments coming on-stream, do we accept that we need to live with Covid and remove restrictions?

Yes people will continue to get Covid, yes people will die from Covid, but that's not going to go away.

Like has been mentioned, we're being subject to a constant stream of doom and fear from politicians and media, probably to keep us all in line.  This in itself doesn't come without cost.

[LongTimeLurker]

Looking good on the Valneva vaccine (the one fae West Lothian) apparently:

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-55840567

[Jambomo]

31 minutes ago, virginton said:

Which part of the Israel mass vaccination data does not involve 'real-world application? So we have:

1) overwhelming clinical trial evidence showing that vaccines are effective

2) 'real world' evidence from mass vaccination rollout showing that it is also highly effective

Your complaints about incomplete data from 2) can be pointed to the completed data in 1), and vice versa for the 'real world' application claim.

There's no way of slicing and dicing the above to claim that we still don't know if they will be effective or not. We absolutely do. That governments want their public to be kept in the dark about it to justify continued restrictions does not change the facts. 

I’ll have to make this my last post in the subject as I have a bloody Zoom training session for 3 bloody hours.

Nobody is saying that it’s not a real world application but as pointed out by the Israelis themselves in the article I linked to and as said in the briefing last night - whilst it looks very positive, they are initial findings which still need to be verified and peer-reviewed. Whist a good indicator, they will only to be used as such until these stages are done.  

This isn’t especially unusual as a way of scientific studies to be done, initial findings are normally subject to review and verification by more data. This is a part of the process and needs to be followed. 

[madwullie]

It's pretty well known that science, especially health and medicines, doesn't work on assumptions, no matter how absolutely definitely obvious the hypothesis is. Medical outcomes have to be proven by trial, real life applications and (peer reviewed) data. It's an extremely onerous process. 

If this isn't done, companies, governments, institutions are wide open to being sued, and people can die. 

This is why no-one is saying we will be able to do x, y and z by date a, b or c. There's been a number of times during this whole shitshow that specific dates have been given, or promises made, that have subsequently had to be rolled back - and this pissed people off, lost people money, lost people jobs. People lost their lives because of the over-egged optimism about what was going to be possible at Christmas. 

Just because we as (generally) laymen know that vaccines will work, until all the data has been gathered (no matter how obvious it is), no scientist is going to use a word like "will". Scientists know more about this than us, they are 99.9999% certain that things will go as predicted, but implementing plans because they know without proof just isn't the way medical trials work. 

It's the same reason doctors don't just chuck medicine they think might work at patients. The same reason why it can take 5+ years to get a cancer drug to market that will undoubtedly work and save lives. 

I think everyone knows this but they're just understandably frustrated that this has gone on for so long. 

 

Edited January 28, 2021 by madwullie

[LongTimeLurker]

1 minute ago, madwullie said:

It's pretty well known that science, especially health, doesn't work on assumptions, no matter how absolutely definitely obvious the hypothesis is. Medical outcomes have to be proven by trial, real life applications and data. 

If this isn't done, companies, governments, institutions are wide open to being sued, and people can die....

...with pandemics there is scope for emergency approvals and removing the ability to sue.