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8th December 2020, 07:18 AM | #81 |
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8th December 2020, 07:36 AM | #82 |
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8th December 2020, 10:58 AM | #83 |
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Replying to my own earlier question about taking two vaccines: apparantly it's a serious suggestion, once two are approved, to try taking one dose of each, rather than two of the same, and this might work better. (Why you know it's safe, knowing each is safe separately, is not so clear to me. But I suppose the safety testing involves/should involve checking safety in people who already have antibodies.)
BBC article here. |
8th December 2020, 01:30 PM | #84 |
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The vaccines that have been released so far are designed and tested to produce best results with two doses scheduled within a narrow window. There apparently is no medical reason why you couldn't take one full treatment, then another down the road, if it becomes available and if for some reason it might be better, like producing longer immunity. But I can't why this would be the time to experiment on yourself. Note that your link reports the beginning of a study; it's not a conclusion, let alone a recommendation.
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8th December 2020, 04:41 PM | #85 |
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It would be a better beginning if our fearless leader had not passed on the suggestion to buy more vaccine.
May be a paywall, but.... https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020...es-report.html |
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8th December 2020, 04:57 PM | #86 |
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No it is a specific I. (Me, myself) I do not think I will have a choice of vaccine. At some point I will come to the top of the list and just be given the vaccine the hospital happens to have that day, but I am certainly not agitating to be vaccinated with Pfizer vaccine, but because I am in a 'high risk' hospital role I suspect I am going to be vaccinated fairly soon and with the Pfizer vaccine. Because of role model issues I feel obliged to enthusiastically accept whatever vaccine I am offered.
FWIW I'd rather go with a good solid British vaccine even if theoretically less effective than some fancy high tech German vaccine that stops working if you so much as look at it*. Without direct comparisons knowing about differences in efficacy is difficult. E.g. the AZ / Oxford vaccine used meningitis vaccine as the control. We have seen how there is some evidence of non specific benefit from vaccines e.g. MMR so this vaccine may look less good because the 'placebo' actually had some preventive effects. Also the AZ / Oxford vaccine was the only one to routinely swab to detect asymptomatic cases so the trial may have detected asymptomatic cases in the vaccine group that would not have been detected in trials for the mRNA vaccines. Until we have fairly detailed results of the vaccine trials published it is hard to know how comparable outcomes are. *This is an exaggeration, but bang it around and it stops working. |
8th December 2020, 05:40 PM | #87 |
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It may be the end for the rest of the world, but I forecast a lot of protest in the USA. "I have the right not to get the vaccine and get Covid 19 instead and pass it on to people who are not immune."
The correct response to people like that is for the Government to say "We are using our right to tax you heavily." |
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8th December 2020, 06:14 PM | #88 |
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Water under the bridge. People are gearing up for the vaccinations to start. I got a message from Kaiser what the plan is. The state has approved of providers who can administer the vaccine. In Denver, Colorado, they are making dry runs with the dry ice to see if they can get the vaccine to a mountain hospital (which is odd because there is an airport in Craig and I would think it was shorter from there east than from Denver west).
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8th December 2020, 06:17 PM | #89 |
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8th December 2020, 06:38 PM | #90 |
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I'm having a hard time tracking the specifics down of "The National Vaccine Program Office" that Trump supposedly shut down. I know he shut down the pandemic planning department and whatever that entailed.
But I've never heard of The National Vaccine Program Office. Doesn't mean there wasn't one but it not easy to find outside of that Stat article and the link in the link doesn't go to a page that describes that office. We have the ACIP and that's still in place. And AFAIK we still have the VAERS program and the Vaccine Injury Compensation Fund. I'd really like to know what the The National Vaccine Program Office was and how did it differ from the pandemic planning department which Trump dismantled. That whole article talks about the polio vaccine problems but if there ever was a The National Vaccine Program Office I don't understand how that could have been in operation and in my 30+ years of doing this work I never heard of it. They couldn't have been doing that much. Maybe it was folded into other departments. |
8th December 2020, 07:03 PM | #91 |
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My guess is it's the same thing. "National vaccine program office" could have started out as someone's description of the pandemic planning task force, and then got misinterpreted as a proper name. Kind of like when your elderly relative tries to find the web site for The Phone Company. |
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8th December 2020, 07:32 PM | #92 |
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https://web.archive.org/web/20111019172420/http://www.tpc.int/
For the next time they ask for The Phone Company’s website. HTH |
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8th December 2020, 07:41 PM | #93 |
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No, that guess makes no sense.
Pandemic planning pretty much emerged with all the deadly influenza sputtering, with SARS 1 and maybe the ebola scare spurred it along. Vaccine tragedies were never part of modern pandemic planning despite the polio, measles, and small pox tragedies in the past for which vaccines were the magic cure. H5N1HPAI was the first recent pandemic scare, in 1997 I think but I might have the year wrong. That's when people, in this country anyway, started thinking seriously that we really should start planning for another 1918 flu pandemic. Sadly, Trump's desire to dismantle anything Obama included tearing up the pandemic plan. |
8th December 2020, 07:45 PM | #94 |
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8th December 2020, 07:52 PM | #95 |
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Just for you
https://www.hhs.gov/vaccines/about/nvpoat30/index.html In 2017, the National Vaccine Program Office (NVPO) marked 30 years of providing strategic leadership to improve the vaccination system. NVPO coordinates and ensures collaboration of federal partners and external stakeholders from across the immunization enterprise around vaccines and immunization activity. |
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8th December 2020, 09:06 PM | #96 |
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8th December 2020, 10:36 PM | #97 |
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Maybe this?
Quote:
Quote:
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8th December 2020, 11:07 PM | #98 |
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This is one reason why I want to wait a few months before I get the vaccine. There is no point in me getting a vaccine if it can be shown it does not work very well. March would be a good time to get it. In time for winter.
There is no rush for Australia to start. There has been only one locally acquired case in Australia and that was a quarantine breach. What is scary is that there have been about 10 cases per day from people who have just entered Australia. This explains to me why some people overseas are saying "Get me back into Australia, money is no object." |
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9th December 2020, 12:26 AM | #99 |
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Thanks. I can see why I've never heard of this office. That description is incredibly vague. It consists of 17 people? They get travel expenses but I don't think they're paid, the budget is relatively small.
Nowhere on the page do I see any reference to the ACIP: Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices. It seems like a minor office. |
9th December 2020, 12:30 AM | #100 |
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9th December 2020, 01:56 AM | #101 |
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I'm thinking along those lines myself.
We have no Covid in either community, so the only result of getting vaccinated now is putting yourself at the top of the list of losing protection. If the vaccine gives 12 months' protection - and we still have no idea how long the it lasts - it would be wearing off at about the very time we'd be importing cases into the community. I reckon the start of next winter is about right down here. |
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9th December 2020, 03:14 AM | #102 |
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I prefer Churchill's take - this is the end of the beginning.
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9th December 2020, 05:05 AM | #103 |
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While it's nice that the vaccines are coming and that will hopefully stop the spread if it wasn't for Trump and the right-winger nuts anti-science actions, and people that seemed to think that the economy was more important than people, this pandemic would have been over and done with 6 months ago.
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9th December 2020, 05:12 AM | #104 |
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English regulator has issued an advisory regarding the Pfizer vaccine:
Quote:
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9th December 2020, 09:36 AM | #105 |
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It's goodbye to that vaccine, then.
Given the already-low rates of people wanting to take a vaccine, this happening on the very first day of vaccination will spell the end. How the hell that this was not known from the 15,000 who received the vaccine during testing concerns me more than the news itself. ETA:
Quote:
"Hmmm, shall I go get a vaccine that looks like it could kill me instantly, or keep wearing a mask?" |
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9th December 2020, 10:21 AM | #106 |
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And if there are questions about the Pfizer vaccine, the Russian Sputnik is an absolute no-way-no-how-never shot.
Quote:
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9th December 2020, 10:47 AM | #107 |
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It doesn't sound like something to take lightly:
Quote:
Even if a severe reaction is no more common than for a flu shot, allergies still have to be screened for. If one person dies from a covid shot, it will be catastrophic for the whole program. |
9th December 2020, 10:52 AM | #108 |
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A guide to interpreting announcements about vaccine test results:
Quote:
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9th December 2020, 11:13 AM | #109 |
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Questions raised about AstraZeneca research:
Quote:
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9th December 2020, 12:14 PM | #110 |
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Both of these were serious reactions, in people with a history of significant allergic reactions. The marker being the need to carry an epipen. These appear to be non-allergic (anaphylactoid) reactions rather than allergic (anaphylactic) reactions. This is a bit worse because you cannot just attribute it to e.g. egg allergy. Sometimes these are markers of manufacturing issues. However locally we have decided to delay roll out to non-health care centres until risk is clearer. To have two reactions on the first day of vaccinating is not good.
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9th December 2020, 12:27 PM | #111 |
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Alternatively they have four studies (two in UK and there is also a South African one) all of which individually meet the evidence required for licensing, all of which show a similar level of benefit. So the benefit has been shown in duplicate studies, I suspect a negative propaganda action here turning what is in fact a strength of having multiple studies all showing benefit in to an attempt to undermine vaccination.
But since this is the only vaccine to have published its results in a peer reviewed journal you can look for yourself and not rely on commentators. https://www.thelancet.com/journals/l...623-4/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/journals/l...661-1/fulltext The exciting data to come is that in the UK people were swabbed weekly so this is the first vaccine for which we should know whether it potentially stops transmission or does it just prevent illness but leave people with asymptomatic transmissible infections. |
9th December 2020, 02:36 PM | #112 |
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The Wired report appears more intent on undermining the Astra Zeneca vaccine compared to the pfizer vaccine than undermining vaccines completely. Note the date of the report is 25th November.
What would be most interesting would be the results (even interim) of the US tests of the AZ vaccine, which apparently started on the 23rd Oct after being held up from the end of August due to the illness of a UK trial subject. I seem to recall the other tests resumed within acouple of weeks but the US held back permission for 5 to 6 weeks. |
9th December 2020, 04:52 PM | #113 |
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What is the effectiveness of a single dose?
All of the 3 vaccines that appear to be ready or almost ready are 2-dose vaccines. But the following question occurred to me: If the goal is to achieve herd immunity as rapidly as possible, but we don't have enough vaccines for everyone to get one yet (much less to get both), would it make more sense to give everyone the first dose before people start getting the second dose? That way you cover twice as many people. |
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9th December 2020, 05:09 PM | #114 |
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9th December 2020, 07:10 PM | #115 |
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9th December 2020, 08:31 PM | #116 |
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9th December 2020, 09:03 PM | #117 |
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9th December 2020, 10:05 PM | #118 |
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That's probably not true, but...
When you study a new vaccine, you only have the data from the regimen studied. Not until people start getting a late 2nd dose will data trickle in about longer intervals between doses being effective or not. Technically you cannot say something is OK when you have no data to back that up. For other adult vaccines, they usually still work with longer intervals between doses. But a mRNA vaccine is new on the scene so doses should be given on the recommended schedule until proven effective with other schedules. |
9th December 2020, 10:19 PM | #119 |
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...let's look at the science.
52% v 95% looks like a no-brainer to me. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/08/h...ne-pfizer.html |
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9th December 2020, 11:52 PM | #120 |
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