Australia loosing their minds at being offered the Oxford Vaccine..

[MoirasRoses]

I’ve just been pottering through Twitter & came across a trending thread re-Australia mostly buying the Oxford vaccine. They are losing their minds at being offered the less effective vaccine & accusing the government of wanting to ‘kill them’ & being corrupt & pals with Trump (no idea what he’s got to do with a vaccine from the UK).

Why this major over reaction? Compared to the much more positive & hopeful reaction here? I thought more recently data showed Oxford to be 90% if given 12 weeks apart? And even if only 60%, more than good enough? I was reading an article where a couple doctors were saying almost 100% of people did not need hospital treatment or became seriously ill after one dose. That’s incredible..

@CarolEffingBaskin

Perhaps Australia could formulate their own vaccine if the one another country has put money and effort to isn't good enough?

Australia were developing a vaccine which had got to the trial stage, it was giving false positive HIV results. Because of this and the fact that 3 other vaccines had proven successful around that time, they decided not to move ahead any further with their vaccine.

To be fair tho the Australian cmo has said our vaccine is high quality and will do the job so it's just jo public moaning.

@QualityRoads

Hm. Australian logic? Not famous for it, are they?

Mmmm - Australia’s economy is strong and for the majority of the general public it’s business as usual while the UK and Europe are struggling. Can’t see how it makes sense to criticise Australia!

Australians are big on vaccinations - they also give children the chicken pox vaccine as part of the childhood schedule which is not offered in the Uk. In fact in some parts an up-to-date vaccine schedule is a requirement if you want your kids to enrol in nursery so it’s unlikely there will be limited up take.

@Forgetmenot157 Australia was developing its own vaccine. It didn't work out. That information and knowledge gained has been shared with the scientific community.

@Forgetmenot157

Haha typical country.... Closed themselves off from the world.

Refusing to come out to play until everyone else fixes the problem.. And then refuses a vaccine haha... I would like to ask what gives them the right to refuse when they have given little effort in the global race to fix this problem.

I don’t understand how they have given little effort into the global race to fix the problem? Can you explain this further?

@TooManyKidsSendHelp

No point getting a load of Pfizer somewhere and it has spoiled in route.

Believe it or not, Australia has refrigerators and is able to keep things cold whilst they are transported from one part of the country to another. Just like almost every other country on the planet.

Australia does not have the facility to manufacture the Pfizer vaccine so they would have to import it from Europe or the US. Not impossible, but not easy either.

Source
amp.smh.com.au/politics/federal/government-races-to-secure-more-vaccines-but-stares-down-astrazeneca-critics-20210113-p56tv8.html?btis=&

@Wakeupalready

So some Australians are pissed for the following reasons.

The AZ ( Oxford) vaccine only offers 60-64% efficacy. The 90% result was a glitch, that hasn't yet been analysed fully and it's felt this needs more study to show this can be replicated at the higher level of effectiveness. We have the opportunity for full elimination of Covid and this vaccine is not likely to deliver that.

Secondly, several of our politicians engaged in insider trader, buying stocks in the company that makes it, prior to the government announcement. The CEO of CSL is a former LNP ( our government) party member, so there is a conflict of interest.

Thirdly, we have been told it is possible to buy the Pfizer vaccine privately, which is absolutely shite as it will only be the wealthy that benefit. Many of us are enraged that useless celebrities pay the big bucks and skip the quarantine in hotels and get special treatment. Same with business people, the cricket team and other individuals whose travel is unnecessary and their return trips take places on planes away from our citizens desperate to return. This is grossly unfair. The Australian cricket team was responsible for a plane load of people desperate to come home being bounced of the flight.

Fourth our government was incredibly slow in ordering and getting in line for the more effective Pfizer vaccine, indeed any vaccines .We never bid for the Moderna one. Our Prime Minister is big on making announcements then nothing happens.
( For an example, post our bushfires last year 2 billion dollars was announced for the victims of it to rebuild - early 2020 , and NONE of this money has been delivered, and folk who lost everting are still living in tents or cargo containers.

Fifth, our politicians will not lead by example and are all queueing up for the more effective Pfizer and they are not key workers ( parliament has rarely sat this year, and most of the heavy lifting has been done by our state leaders) , as our PM fucks off and disappears when any difficult questions have to be answered. We were told it's good enough for Australia's which was fairly insulting.

Sixth, virologists have raised questions about this, saying we need to hold off while further testing is done to see if the efficacy increases and were shut down the next day by the government.

So.
While many of us think that countries that are in a world of shit like the US are more in need of the better vaccines due to the high levels of carnage right now, it means ( according to the virologists who spoke out and were gagged) that we will be dealing with Covid for longer as a result.

If necessary , happy to dig out multiple sources confirming all this.

I'm Australian and I think the first reason covered it particularly well. We've largely achieved elimination so we're in a very different situation to the UK and US. We do realise that we're very lucky to be in this position. Our PM will want to reduce restrictions as soon as people are vaccinated as he's heavily focused on the economy. The immunology council are saying that with 60% effectiveness and very reduced restrictions we'll see COVID spreading more than it currently is. We won't be able to acheive herd immunity. This debate was heavily featured in The Age over the last two days with our CMO arguing with the the Australian and New Zeland Society for Immunology. A link to a relevant Age article is here for those who want to read it: www.theage.com.au/national/scientists-call-for-pause-on-astrazeneca-vaccine-rollout-20210112-p56tjt.html. In Victoria most people are just furious at the Australian Open going ahead and potentially reintroducing COVID. Many people also want state borders to remain shut to keep everyone safe.

@Antipodeancousin

I’ve never heard anyone here is Australia in real life express an opinion about which vaccine they receive.

I agree, but that won’t stop posters in the UK passing off their opinions of what we are saying as facts. Figuring this will turn into another Australian bashing thread soon enough.

@Forgetmenot157

Haha typical country.... Closed themselves off from the world.

Refusing to come out to play until everyone else fixes the problem.. And then refuses a vaccine haha... I would like to ask what gives them the right to refuse when they have given little effort in the global race to fix this problem.

As Takethereigns said above, the vaccine gave a very mild HIV positive result. This would have eliminated HIV screenings and created another problem. These results were shared with the scientific community. These scientists did their best despite the outcome.

Oxford vaccine is 60% efficient at stopping any symptoms. It is 100% efficient at stopping serious disease and hospitalisation.

Any sources for this? A genuine question (not trying to trap anyone) - I just hadn't heard this bit and am interested to read more...

Am struggling little bit to find anything with good old Google.

I agree, but that won’t stop posters in the UK passing off their opinions of what we are saying as facts. Figuring this will turn into another Australian bashing thread soon enough.

Yep.

I don't much like the divisional and nastiness of this thread. So what if a few people are unhappy about the vaccine, they are present in every country why would Australia be any different

The Oxford vaccine is outstanding both in terms of cost, storage and efficacy - I am sure most intelligent Australians will know that.

Posted this on another thread - sorry to those who read both! But seems interesting for this debate. Not sure if circulation amongst the young would be acceptable to Aus/NZ? (presumably 'young' = unvaccinated in this context?)

Interesting comment from Dr Mary Ramsay, PHE head of immunisation (ie in UK!), to science and technology committee (taken from news report rather than transcript) that in due course we may need to accept a degree of circulation:

"We may need to accept, if the vaccine doesn't prevent transmission, that we're going to protect the people who are really vulnerable and going to die and have serious disease, but we allow the disease to circulate in younger people where it's not causing much harm.
"That may be the situation we go to, like we are with things like flu, that we accept that a lot of people get flu but we protect those who are most vulnerable.
"That may be the outcome, I'm hoping it will be a bit better than that."

It's odd, our parents are all demanding the British one!

In Australia they have not rules out vaccinating children once there is evidence this is safe. This is noted on the vaccination phase schedules made public

*ruled out

@PinkSparklyPussyCat

No. It doesn't show that. Some people have drawn that conclusion, but the science does not demonstrate that.

I read today that the 'research chief' at AstraZeneca showed an 8-12 week interval is "the sweet spot for efficacy". I couldn't find any actual figures though.

No. It doesn't show that. Some people have drawn that conclusion, but the science does not demonstrate that.

That’s strange, where have you read that? The data do show that. It turned out that the ‘half dose first’ regimen had a confounding variable; the length of time between doses. The ‘half dose’ group had gaps of between 3-26 weeks between their first and second dose. When they looked at the data they showed that a gap of 8-12 weeks gave 90% efficacy.

@Blessex

Do people in Australia realise that even with vaccines Covid will spread? It the vaccines don’t stop you catching it. They just lessen the symptoms when you do.

No we are all really stupid here...

Ps lack of evidence is not the same as saying they don’t

@eaglejulesk

I agree, but that won’t stop posters in the UK passing off their opinions of what we are saying as facts. Figuring this will turn into another Australian bashing thread soon enough.

Yep.

I fail to see why anyone in the UK gives a fuck about what is happening in Australia.

Other than Covid has not been quite so badly managed as in the UK.

@Forgetmenot157

Haha typical country.... Closed themselves off from the world.

Refusing to come out to play until everyone else fixes the problem.. And then refuses a vaccine haha... I would like to ask what gives them the right to refuse when they have given little effort in the global race to fix this problem.

Fuck off. Australia has put funding and research in, was actually involved in the initial identification of the structure of the virus. NZ is a tiny country which is funding vaccines for its neighbours. Some people need to get off their arrogant high horse that Britain is the best and is the only one doing anything.

In Australia we have almost no transmission. I am happy with that as is everyone I know even if it means keeping the borders closed longer until we are happy we can open safely. It would be silly to vaccinate inadequately and then open up and end up with increased deaths. This is COMPLETELY different to the UK and so the strategy is different.

Some people seem to REALLY struggle with that concept on these threads.

Also vaccination is planned to start next month but actually our highest risk people are quarantine workers and flight crews so they will likely go first

The figures aren't comparable. In the Oxford trial it is based on regular PCR tests whereas the Pfizer is based on symptomatic infection.

@CuriousaboutSamphire

www.ft.com/content/8def3a81-9b80-46a1-9742-f64b80bfc74f

Ah! They too have their Monster Shouters

Is this a Stand reference?

No-one I know is demanding a specific vaccine - they are just grateful to get either!

60% efficacy and 100% no hospitalisation or death sounds very positive to me.

I fail to see why anyone in the UK gives a fuck about what is happening in Australia.

Maybe read some of the earlier posts?

I give a fuck because my son is living in Sydney and I'd like to see him again!