Private COVID vaccine?

[HorseyintheHouse14]

Normally I wouldn't be bothered by this at all, but DSIS lives in New Zealand and is getting married next Christmas. This has been planned for a few years now and we were/are planning on going. However I have a feeling we won't be allowed in unless we are vaccinated against COVID. DH is a key worker so likely will have had the vaccine - me and DD probably won't have, so was wondering if anyone knew if some vaccines will be made available privately? If it wasn't for this I would wait our turn but I really wouldn't want to miss this.

It's also a vaccine that must be stored at -75c. Those trucks absolutely cannot be held up trying to move the vaccine. Guess what's going to happen in January? The NHS is shocking at organization. We will get some vaccine but not nearly what we need because we pay low prices and couldn't organise a piss up in a brewery. Pfizer will not risk losing truckloads of the vaccine.

I think people are being wildly optimistic about the ability of the NHS to deliver this at speed.
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@ForBlueSkies

I kind of hate that it won’t be available privately as I use a private GP. I registered with an NHS practice years back, but I don’t even know if I’m on their books anymore. 🙁

unless your an OAP it wont be availible for a long time anyway (unless you work in a place that qualifies you but then you would get it through work not a GP)

@Smelliethenelephant

I think people are being wildly optimistic about the ability of the NHS to deliver this at speed. .

Plus isn't the vaccine coming from Belgium? As a pp mentioned, the big B will cause logistical nightmares from January onwards, especially for time-sensitive cold-chain logistics, like vaccines.

No one can control what Pfizer does here

True, but it would seem they have already sold all their production to various countries, are committing to Covax and have a standard sales price to ensure equity among nations. Can't see where they have intention or slack to sell privately. I might be proved wrong, but they have already made billions, they don't need to sell it privately.

I think 12 months is a long time, and we are likely to have other vaccines becoming available as they all target the same spike protein. The UK has ordered I think 360 million doses of various vaccines.

I wouldn't assume you won't get one on the NHS before next Christmas if you are an adult - I think it's quite plausible that you will. If your daughter is under 18, I think that would be a different question, as there are no plans currently to vaccinate under 18s.

@Ihaveyourback - They'll supply to private organisations as soon as they have the capacity to do so. Poorer countries don't have the infrastructure to distribute vaccines as quickly as rich countries, and many of them haven't had outbreaks bad enough to justify investment into it. When private companies are banging on the door of pharmaceutical companies, they're not going to say, "Sorry, but Ethiopia are still making their way through the first 1 million doses we delivered them, and we owe them another 9 million before we can sell to you"

All countries will be able to negotiate separately and will do so. If you think Pfizer won't maximise profit "because they've made billions" you don't understand how it works.

The United States, Japan, Britain and the European Union have struck their own deals to secure millions of COVID-19 vaccine doses for their citizens, ignoring the WHO's warnings that "vaccine nationalism" will squeeze supplies.

Warm poorer countries are going to have to wait for a different vaccine altogether. They simply don't have the infrastructure in place to do cold storage/logistics.

@Nacreous

I think 12 months is a long time, and we are likely to have other vaccines becoming available as they all target the same spike protein. The UK has ordered I think 360 million doses of various vaccines.

I wouldn't assume you won't get one on the NHS before next Christmas if you are an adult - I think it's quite plausible that you will. If your daughter is under 18, I think that would be a different question, as there are no plans currently to vaccinate under 18s.

This is a good point.

Just because Pfizer might gain the first licence doesn't mean it will be the best vaccine. It will be given to the most vulnerable as an urgent measure, but after that other vaccines will most likely have been licensed as well, and who knows which vaccine will be given to which people then.
At this stage, no-one knows if any one single vaccine will emerge as the predominant vaccine administered, or how many vaccines will be licensed.
That will affect availability. The UK has more control over the supply of the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine since PV used to work there and the vaccine is being manufactured in India rather than Europe, among other reasons.

I assume that the major cities of most functioning countries, even the very poor ones, would be able to vaccinate all their health care staff from a couple of central locations if backed up with enough support from international NGOs.

But when it comes to rural areas of developing nations then yes the Pfizer vaccine won’t be practical, and they’ll need something a bit less sensitive.

@Smelliethenelephant

I think people are being wildly optimistic about the ability of the NHS to deliver this at speed. .

That's why the military will be doing all the logistics, and possibly at least some of the administering in the pop up centres

Given the COVAX commitment and Van Tam's comment about only having it when it is both legally and morally right to do so, I suspect that the government will not permit any of the supplies entering UK to go to private providers until at least category 8 of the current priority list is reached

I really hope private vaccine supplies become available, I otherwise fear the rollout of this will be incredibly slow and the economy will not experience a rapid recovery. You can't fill theatres, stadiums, restaurants with pensioners. Yes many younger people will 'crack on' but many will not.

Interesting Downing St press conference just now when Alok Sharma was repeatedly asked if Brexit would cause problems for the UK getting the Pfizer vaccine - each time he consistently dodged the question and gave no assurances.

It is my understanding that the vaccines are coming in the next ten days. Additionally the Oxford vaccine will be ready at the end of next week. So I am not sure whether Brexit will make any difference.
He probably dodged the question because he did not have an agreed and confirmed government line just

The Oxford vaccine will be much cheaper and easier to store so lets hope we have confirmation - game changer

As in Brexit won't be for another seven week or so, so most if not all the ordered vaccines will already be here, and the rollout would have begun.

OK, hopefully! I guess the extra vaccines required to get down to the priority level 8 (?) might not be in the country before January though...
Yes, the Oxford AZ vaccine poses fewer political (and temperature) issues, but may not have a 90% efficacy. It will be interesting to hear the results and find out. Plus the general public might be happier because it is not a gene-changing type of vaccine, which might make it easier for the GBP to accept.

The gene changing issue maybe a problem, I am assuming they will need to think long and hard given its lack of testing before giving it anyone of child bearing age or worse a child.
I did listen to radio 4 and they were talking about it, and reassuring the public, but I came away thinking there is no way I would have it if I planned to have any more children. I guess most people that will get the vaccine will be much older.

Im sure you'll be able to buy this privately next year, just look at the private COVID testing, who would have thought that would be available a few months ago. Also wouldn't surprise me if having the vaccine was a condition of travel to certain countries.

Can I ask what you mean by the "gene changing issue"? @Ihaveyourback

The mRNA vaccine doesn't change your genes, and nor do any of the others in testing. If you want me to go through exactly how the mRNA ones work I can.

@Nacreous - You sound knowledgeable... am I right in thinking that the way viruses actually work is by inserting DNA into cells? (Yet nobody expresses any concerns about having children following a virus - it's a worry that is exclusive to vaccines!)

So viruses work by essentially hijacking your cells workings, so they make your cell make copies of the viruses DNA, and then also copies of the proteins needed for the virus itself. So then the copies of the virus form inside your cell and make the cell burst, killing it, and allowing the virus to escape and make more copies of itself.

Some viruses (HIV) work slightly different, but that's the basic set up.

What they are proposing here is injecting the mRNA for a single protein into you. So your cells will make lots of the single protein, but they won't be being instructed to make lots of copies of the whole virus. So it won't be able to infect you and you won't be able to infect anyone else. mRNA is used in your cells as a translator, to translate the instructions in DNA into something that the ribosomes (which assemble proteins) can read. So in this case the cells aren't getting the original instructions, just the translation. So they can't make copies of the original, just copies of the output.

So there's no interference with your DNA - and as you say, we don't generally worry about the fact that our cells copy viral mRNA and DNA every time we are infected with a virus.

Great explanation @Nacreous, thank you I know there's been some speculation that vaccines might only protect the recipient, not stop them spreading it, so it's fantastic to hear that this shouldn't be the case for the Pfizer one!

@Ilikewinter

Im sure you'll be able to buy this privately next year, just look at the private COVID testing, who would have thought that would be available a few months ago. Also wouldn't surprise me if having the vaccine was a condition of travel to certain countries.

Yes I think most countries will have it as a condition of travel too unfortunately!

@Nacreous

I think 12 months is a long time, and we are likely to have other vaccines becoming available as they all target the same spike protein. The UK has ordered I think 360 million doses of various vaccines.

I wouldn't assume you won't get one on the NHS before next Christmas if you are an adult - I think it's quite plausible that you will. If your daughter is under 18, I think that would be a different question, as there are no plans currently to vaccinate under 18s.

I think I'm probably last in line for eligibility - I'm 28 and DD is 1 so the likelihood of us getting it on the nhs is low I imagine!