Anyone else a bit wtf? with all the different vaccines?

[Throwaway99]

It's giving me a headache trying to make sense of who is having what vaccine when. And it seems there are new ones every day. I have visions of eventually having several different ones!

It's not chaotic at all. It's many different respected research centres working their socks off to get a vaccine and several coming up with something that works. It's science not chaos.

I don't think it is chaotic but I feel all the news is overwhelming.

This has been a very overwhelming year all round and psychologically good news can be as impactful as bad news. The vaccines are good news but still another change.

So I think the way you feel op is understandable, I am feeling 'vaccine hesitant' purely due to high base stress levels not any vaccine worries, my approach is to take a deep breath and focus on what I know to be rationally true.

The worry about third works vaccines is first world angst!

If we take the example of Kenya (a relatively wealthy country by 3rd world standards), 3% of the population is over 65, compared to 12% in the U.K. It is why the latest COVID IFR estimate from Imperial is 1.15% in the first world but only 0.23% in the third world. On the other hand, in Kenya 3.5 mio people get malaria every year and nearly 11,000 die of it.

In the third world, Covid is a minor annoyance compared to the daily travails they face due to poverty, hunger and endemic tropical diseases.

The only reason we should be worrying about the third world with respect to COVID is the selfish reason of preventing mutation and vaccine escape.

@ChocOrange1

Do you know which brand of flu jab you had

I do, yes, and I've also read the prospectus carefully

When the dust settles on all of this, it will be necessary to understand exactly the effectiveness and risks of each individual Covid vaccine on each age group and comorbidities so you can assess appropriately which vaccine you take (if you want one)

I am about 8 months from getting mine, so it feels like everyone elses thing right now. while i continue to figure out how to survive the upcoming months with a 3 month old and a just turned 2 year old, going to the same playground every day, seeing absolutely nobody, while my 85 year old neighbours see 3 different sets of family weekly because they have had their vaccine.

Comparing the efficacy rates is a bit of a false science. All the approved ones have incredibly good efficacy when compared to other vaccines, and protect very well against serious illness. The cumulative affect of vaccine roll out will offer additional protections for us all regardless of who gets what.

@Throwaway99

I'm not denying it's an amazing achievement. It just all seems so, I dunno, chaotic?

Which is understandable I know.

Basically all the worlds pharmaceutical companies are successfully developing vaccines. That means the world has increasing numbers of vaccines and supply chains. The more we have the more people can be vaccinated and the faster that can happen. There are options and there are choices. We don’t rely on one manufacturer and their production ability.

The UK uses two vaccines and two suppliers for COVID. We use many more for flu. The choice of two has meant we can vaccinate more people than the EU. They only have one vaccine and the production of that has slowed. They have had to slow their vaccine programme. We can just change to the other vaccine.

It’s not really that hard to understand. Unless you are trying to deliberately pick holes for another reason. Which is a bit teenage. If you have an opinion on vaccination just come right out and say it.

You don’t need to make sense of it. When you’re invited, go. Have the jab, without worrying overly about which one it is. If it’s been approved, it works and is safe, that’s all you need to know.

Statements like this give antivaxxers so much ammunition, people are allowed to ask questions.

And these questions should be able to be answered.

@ChaBishkoot

There are 22 different flu vaccines globally. And countries do exactly what they have done here. Stock up with different suppliers. It’s just that you don’t know about it. Now everyone is an expert in vaccine distribution!

It’s not confusing. It’s an amazing scientific achievement. The only thing is that the efficacy against the SA variant is low or unknown. And I remain really worried and appalled about third world access to these vaccines. These pharmaceutical companies are conducting clinical trials in countries and not giving them the resultant vaccine till 2024-2025. Canada meanwhile has enough vaccines to vaccinate everyone 2-3 times over. Same with the US and UK.

Completely agree

Chaotic? How go you see it as that?
There are 3. Pfizer. Oxford. Now Novavax.

What's the problem?

"Third world" is a outdated terminology that indicated political alignment in the cold war. It shouldn't be used now.

Like Ebola, if we don't sort it out "over there" then those low/middle income countries turn into disease reservoirs that export cases back to us. I'm not bothered about that, but most the world seems to have made different choice, by going to great lengths to try to avoid covid free-flowing in their populations.

Well yes I prefer the Global South to the Third World but since this is not my undergraduate class I wasn’t quibbling about terminology.

Actually the Global South has a far more robust public health system than many Western countries and COVID has demonstrated that. That still doesn’t justify the vaccine hoarding especially when we are using these populations to test vaccines. You cannot test vaccines on black and brown bodies of the global south and then say you won’t give them access to those same vaccines for 2-3 years but supply the West instead. That’s not okay ethically.

There’s more than 3. There’s Moderna which the UK has also ordered and Johnson and Johnson which is a single jab (with efficacy that matches AZ).

[quote trulydelicious]@ChocOrange1

Do you know which brand of flu jab you had

I do, yes, and I've also read the prospectus carefully

When the dust settles on all of this, it will be necessary to understand exactly the effectiveness and risks of each individual Covid vaccine on each age group and comorbidities so you can assess appropriately which vaccine you take (if you want one)[/quote]
That is very uncommon however good for you!

[quote trulydelicious]@ChocOrange1

Do you know which brand of flu jab you had

I do, yes, and I've also read the prospectus carefully

When the dust settles on all of this, it will be necessary to understand exactly the effectiveness and risks of each individual Covid vaccine on each age group and comorbidities so you can assess appropriately which vaccine you take (if you want one)[/quote]
I'm sure you know this is unusual and the vast majority have no idea, including the OP I would wager.

I think we have 5 in total so far.
Information about each of them is very accessible online and to be honest I'm not sure whether it's always possible to choose which one you could have. There are some very good threads such as the Good News Part 7 thread which helped me understand more about each of them as the posters are always linking to very useful articles regarding each of these vaccines.

Personally once my turn comes, I'll be happy to have any. DH is a frontliner and had the Pfizer one.

I am not fancying getting the vaccine, but I may have it when the time comes.
But if and when I do, I want to know its effectiveness, as it was being said, not sure if it still is, that if you have had covid, which I have, then the Oxford one for example, is less effective that the protection I may already have. So no point having the oxford vaccine. Someone else who wants that particular one can have it. More info is bound to come out about each one, sooner rather than later.

‘Third World’ vs ‘Global South’-who cares?! It makes no difference to the poverty or problems that they face. ‘Global South’ is a really moronic choice of words, though, as the countries are not South, they are mostly equatorial and the adjective global’ implies anywhere on a globe....

So, I will stick to my archaic ‘third world’ which everyone understands and, for which COVID is the least of their problems.

Nothing moronic about the Global South btw. It’s a fairly common term used in academic language. (I am an academic).
All these terms are subject to controversy.

A nice bit from NPR on this for those who have 5 minutes to spare.
www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2015/01/04/372684438/if-you-shouldnt-call-it-the-third-world-what-should-you-call-it

@ChaBishkoot,

If you care about language and words, it is moronic-for all the reasons I said. Many moronic terms are used in academic language, especially in the social sciences. To call countries half way down the globe (or even less) ‘South’ just shows your unconscious bias towards the northern hemisphere.

‘The developing world’ might be better, and again most would know what you were on about, although it certainly misdescribes a lot of very small countries, some of which are not really developing, or worse, going backwards (Zimbabwe, for many years, for example).

But the semantics make no difference to the problems or solutions, which should be the focus.

Very poor countries- not small.

@ChaBishkoot

Nothing moronic about the Global South btw. It’s a fairly common term used in academic language

I agree it's moronic. Being used in academia doesn't make it right. Australia is in the southern hemisphere, would you consider it Third World?

Why the need to rename every single word that already exists to fit a certain agenda?

@Againstmachine

You don’t need to make sense of it. When you’re invited, go. Have the jab, without worrying overly about which one it is. If it’s been approved, it works and is safe, that’s all you need to know.

Statements like this give antivaxxers so much ammunition, people are allowed to ask questions.

And these questions should be able to be answered.

Exactly this, the more the bossy boots try to shut down questions, the more they add grist to the anti-vaxxers' mill.

It is natural to be cautious about new things. It is rational to read the science. The science backs up the vaccine - so people who are pro-vaccine (the majority) should just calmly and factually state reality.

No absolutely not. We are lucky we have all of them.

Look honestly as an academic who literally does this for a living I don’t want to debate this on a weekend on MN.

And semantics does make a difference to how we view these countries and their solutions. There is enough literature on this.

But if we are talking language you might not want to use the word ‘moron’ so frequently. I hope you know it has a disturbing eugenic past. Just pointing that out.