WHO urges Britain to pause covid jabs after treating the vulnerable

[Jay2020]

Link

www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/30/who-urges-britain-to-pause-covid-jabs-after-treating-vulnerable

I am beyond broken if this means we can't get to any kind of normality.

The Spiegel article hints that Russia and China will start supplying inferior vaccines in an attempt to create influence over poorer countries.

I think that's a given. China blamed India for the Bangladesh refusal due to cost. Good for India.

If anything China should be helping out in vaccine production

Cost definitely

@Raindropsonrosesand

Quite a few pp have said that it's in our interests to ensure the vaccination is rolled out at the same rate worldwide, in order to stop the virus mutating into new variants.

That argument holds no water. Mutations happen when the virus passes from one person to the other. Whether the patient dies has no bearing on it at all. Vaccinating vulnerable people first doesn't reduce the risk of the virus mutating.

The most effective way to limit new variants is to vaccinate the people most likely to transmit the virus, not those most likely to die from it. The incidence of the virus in that country is the biggest factor. It's no coincidence that the worrying new variants have come out of the UK, South Africa and Brasil - where there is a high incidence of the virus and it's spreading fast.

To limit the risk of virus mutation, a 22 year old shopkeeper in San Paolo, Jo'burg or London should be prioritised over an 82 year old in Ethiopia or Australia.

Of course, there's a separate humanitarian drive to limit deaths - but let's not conflate these goals.

And within a country, there are other factors as well as the risk of new variants: a duty of care to the whole population; the need for perceived fairness, so that people will accept political choices and continue to pay tax; keeping shared resources like the NHS afloat, maintaining the economy. In choosing vaccine priority groups, each government weighs all these up.

I don't feel we're anywhere near the point where it would be responsible for the UK to slow our vaccine roll out and give our vaccine supplies away. Not when the virus incidence is so high here. And that's both on a humanitarian basis (UK deaths per population still one of the highest in the world, and our NHS is barely coping) as well as being the best way we can reduce the risk of virus mutation worldwide (since we are currently one of the highest risk places for that to happen)

Excellent post with a lot of food for thought. And to add an obvious point re the humanitarian priority of avoiding deaths: a 49 year old in a country with sky high covid rates isn't necessarily at lower risk than an 82 year old in a country with very low rates. Particularly if they work in a high contact job.

Lost agree here too. It’s pretty sad to see the efforts made to be pretty much ignored

Not sure why same word twice there

But really it’s a skew on here, many are quite anti own efforts by U.K.

As soon as we get close to a positive it’s overturned with the highly negative

The American State department said:
'Wuhan Institute of Virology has not been transparent nor consistent about its work with RaTG13 or other similar viruses, including possible 'gain of function' experiments to enhance transmissibility or lethality"

Wasn't it just after this that China announced the virus had actually come from an American lab??

Have China and Russia's vaccines completed Phase III?

How would we know?

@Bluethrough as they don't own the 2011 patent, no they can't. AZ have set up lots of partner factories, so they are sharing, but in a way that protects the patent and ensures quality standards are met. Getting versions out with no quality control isn't good for anyone.

Meanwhile, friends are saying goodbye to their uncle.

He has been vaccinated and is off to places far flung. He is part of a team, one of many, going out to help set up vaccination programmes; to deal with all the paperwork; to train people to vaccinate; to vaccinate people in the poorest countries... using Covax provided vaccines, promises of UK produced vaccines when they become available.

Other countries will be doing the same but the UK are the first/one if the first to do so.

Maybe some posters, newspapers, politicians around the world need to take a small step back, sit down, take a deep breath, pour a cup of coffee and reflect. The world may have gone to hell in a hand basket but we don't have to eat each other, literally or metaphorically, to survive!

China is lending money to third world countries to fund their vaccinations, I wonder what the terms are?
The WHO don’t come out of this well which is unfortunate because they do have some of the world’s best talent in their midst, but they are being let down at the very top, and that must be heartbreaking.
As for “sharing” our vaccines it should be with countries who haven’t had the opportunity to order in the way we have, not with an institution that has had every opportunity that we had but chose not to use those opportunities at the same speed.

@Musicaldilemma

Why the suspicion towards China and Russia in a global health crisis

No one is being suspicious.

Russia and China need to complete Phase III trials on their vaccines and submit the documentation to be peer reviewed like everyone else is doing. Until they do that, there's not much point in considering them seriously due to the lack of transparency

I would very much like to have a traditional inactivated virus vaccine like Sinovac if it was proven that it was safe and effective

Why the suspicion towards China and Russia in a global health crisis

What the global health crisis that China covered up. No evidence of human to human transmission.

😆

@CuriousaboutSamphire good post. I will try & be more mindful.

@bluethrough nobody knew there would be a new variant, and most of the world still had open borders in the summer .
Although we actually only had travel corridors , technically you could only go to certain places without having to quarantine.
There are not much flights onto heathrow which is why a lot will be furloughed and loosing jobs.
My friend had to take a huge oaycut and now is likely to loose job , unfortunately despite a virus you still have to maintain some kind of economy.
The time for closed borders was right at the beginning , but didn't Trump get slaughtered for doing that?
And the who was advising not needed, the countries that didn't listen have done better.
Cases may of been lower in summer but now we know asymptomatic is quite a few it was prob lot higher than we realised , plus testing is way better now so we pick up more . People in some places can be tested with no symptoms.
The uk have made mistakes but they are certainly not alone in that and the vaccines is one thing they have got right , both for people in the uk. Also donations to Covax and vaccines secured which will be given elsewhere which has been said .

There needs to be a concept of countries with huge outbreaks to get help quickly like Brazil at the moment. However, there also needs to be a concept of countries with high risk of exposure if the virus takes hold, basically all countries with slums (for want of a better word), refugee camps etc - we all know that if the virus gets there it will be too late to vaccinate then. We just need to look at how the virus spread through Mumbai slums, as an example.
As for China and Russia, African countries have huge mines especially relevant for modern battery technology (see Tesla etc). It is in our interest too to make sure they don’t sell themselves out for vaccines. So I think transparency on all vaccine contracts is the way forward but it can’t cause delays. So somehow we need to all work today including with Russia and China.

@curiousaboutsapphire thats good to know

I had heard AZ have agreements with partner companies to produce vaccine around the world , definitely in India and South America.

And the who was advising not needed, the countries that didn't listen have done better.

Yes often this is overlooked. Certain countries were very ahead of the game because they did the opposite of what WHO said. I remember news saying shutting borders to China was wrong.

It is isn't it? I am not sure why it is not in the news!

He flies out somewhere next week. Sorry, I don't have any details but the gist of it seems to be that he is in one of few teams that are being sent out to countries with high need so that as soon as Covax can supply vaccines there will be a process in place to use them.

My friend, also a nurse working long hours vaccinating, said she thinks he said that the UKs bulk buy will be sent to these teams as it becomes available. I would assume for free / at cost depending on a specific country's circumstances.

It's not Medicine Aans Frontiers, apparently. It's a UK initiative.

I'm trying to find out about it online... and failing 😁

Speaking of the vulnerable, someone upthread made a point about vaccine resistance among the BAME community

Given that the usual response on here is "sod 'em, they can take their chances" if people won't accept the vaccines, it'll be interesting to see how that turns out

It sounds fair to me, tbh. It's not very palatable to think that people who are least at risk might get vaccinated whilst another country's CEV population can't get any vaccination.

Yes this of course is the only humane approach to take. It’s disgusting to read the posts justifying why so many people feel they simply must be vaccinated while other countries can’t get any.

Good news doesn't generate the clicks.

There needs to be a concept of countries with huge outbreaks to get help quickly like Brazil at the moment

And the US and the UK. Not to be told to pause vaccinations whilst the rest of the world catches up

Or get read as quickly as other threads...

Yes the whole story actually makes little sense unless you are thinking politically.

There are vulnerable sections of society who are not in the priority groups for vaccination. This needs to be addressed.
A global vaccination programme also needs to negotiated.
Evidence from Public Health England (PHE) shows that people with a learning disability in England have died from coronavirus at morethan 6 times therate of the general population.
65 per cent of people with alearning disability who have died from diagnosed or suspected coronavirus in England had a mild or moderate learning disability.
Despite this, not all people with a learning disability are being prioritised alongside other vulnerable people for coronavirus vaccines.
Currently, the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) have prioritised adults with Down's Syndrome (priority group 4) and people with severe and profound disabilities (priority group 6) to receive the vaccine.
This is great news, but they have not indicated that people with mild or moderate learning disabilities should also be prioritised, leaving out huge numbers of people.
..young people with learning disabilities aged 18-34 are thirty times more likely to die from Covid-19 than those without a learning disability
Please sign this petition if you feel people with mild to moderate learning disabilities should be in a priority group fro the Covid vaccine
petition.parliament.uk/petitions/562694