Other countries offering choice of vaccine

[doireallyneedaname]

I have relatives in Cyprus who are able to choose with vaccine they’d like - AZ or Pfizer.

They have been given an appointment for next week and told that they will be told beforehand which vaccine they are having, and if they want the other they can reschedule for that one.

I just read a news article which seems to confirm this.

Appreciate the population is minuscule compared to the UK and many other countries but given the recent news re AZ efficacy against the SA strain (which I believe will likely be the same against further mutations) - I can’t help but wish we’d order more Pfizer and give people the choice.

@CoffeeandCroissant
Thank you. I missed thIs information about Pfizer. I’m not surprised as Pfizer looks stronger in a way for the immune system, it’s actually my concern about it. However I will take whatever is available personally, there is always an option of booster to top up. Also we don’t know which variant will be prevalent by autumn and Oxford-AstraZeneca are working on changes atm.

OP- I just checked with my German friend and her grandmother (late 80s) has still not had her vaccine. Locally (South East England) we are on 65 plus and group 6. So speed is definitely worth something. Even if Az proves to only be worth 50 pc effective it is worth it, given hospital rates. That is why people are getting frustrated at you. The science speaks for giving the readily available AZ vaccine to as many people as possible. Even if it has to be tweaked and updated next year. Nobody is saying you can’t have another Pfizer vaccine next year, if AZ proves to not be as effective as you hoped. The NHS will put the elderly and vulnerable first, they would get third doses of vaccines before us younger healthy lot. Hence I do not understand what you are worrying about. The U.K. is just following a different strategy to some of the other European countries.

@Butterfly44

OP actually there has been a small trail testing the AZ vaccine on the SA variant and while it showed less efficacy and doesn't prevent mild moderate symptoms NONE OF THOSE IN THE TRIAL DEVELOPED SERIOUS EFFECTS THAT THEY HAD TO BE HOSPITALISED. In Nature Medicine journal. Do keep up and stop reading sensationalist headlines

But neither did any of the control group that didn’t have the vaccine. The answer is we don’t know. There just weren’t enough people in the study. There’s nothing to say it does stop you getting severe illness, there’s nothing to say it doesn’t. If you look at all the AZ data, I don’t see any reason to think it would stop you getting severely ill if you got the SA strain. Even if the confidence intervals are wide, data on the other strains suggests there is a lowering of severity in all people who get covid after a vaccine. There’s not much evidence of that having happened with the sa strain.

That’s not relevant in the U.K. yet. Atm we’d be better off getting a vaccine into as many arms as possible now and then revaccinating all the AZ vaccinated people in a few months if we can’t restrict the spread of the SA strain.

We do not have enough vaccine, as yet too much burocracy, they seem to go for full vaccinations and it is different in different Länder.
DB (HCP) and DMil (95, care home) - 2 different Länder - have been done.
There are 3,6 million patient facing HCPs to vaccinate and it is slow going, be grateful that it goes well for you and take whatever you are offered.

impfdashboard.de/

@CoffeeRunner

Well you can sort of choose. The vaccination centre I’m working at is currently (and has been for the last 3 weeks) only giving the AZ vaccine. This is because we have only been sent the AZ vaccine. The last Pfizer delivery was late January.

So you can decline the AZ vaccination & wait in the hope that we will get another Pfizer delivery soon and book in again for that.

But having a choice at the point of booking would slow down the rollout terribly. And anyone wanting Pfizer in our location wouldn’t even have an appointment or a likely date for one at the moment 🤷🏻‍♀️.

Do you have any indications in advance which one you will be sent? When will they start getting more Pfizer back in? I assumed that some of the AZ lately has been because GPs have been taking it out to long-term care homes and things.

The last Pfizer delivery my GP had was at the end of January as well, and I'm curious if it's a permanent switch to AZ until time to do second doses on the January people, or if they are waiting for more for everyone.

A person I know who was offered a vaccine recently, was offered 3 different places to have it from.

If you book online you have several different places to choose from, depending on how far you are prepared to travel. But that is a choice of geography not vaccine - there is nothing on the website to indicate which vaccine you will be given. As a PP said upthread, her vaccine centre has currently changed from Pfizer to AZ, so it’s not a simple case of “ my friend had Pfizer at X centre, so I’ll choose to go there”.

I’d think more highly of your motives OP if you’d made a bit more of the fact that you said you wouldn’t necessarily refuse the AZ vaccine despite your concerns about it. A lot of people will just read the “AZ doesn’t work” scenario and start freaking out.

Obviously we would all like the most efficacious vaccine, but I’d rather have one now that works reasonably well than sit on my hands for six months waiting for the perfect solution (by which time more disease will have circulated and probably the SA variant will be old news as we’ll have given the virus chance to mutate even more). And you clearly know nothing about production and supply in the real world.

I'd take any offered, as would most people.

To be honest as the other poster highlighted, you all sound like the same posters that belittled worried folk in the beginning of the pandemic, claiming we had nothing to worry about.

I’m completely baffled as to how you read that into the mostly well-informed and measured responses on this thread, many of which agree with you up to a point but feel that a rapid and comprehensive vaccine rollout albeit with an arguably slightly less effective vaccine is the better option in the current situation.

My relative went to his vaccine centre in the morning and got Pfizer and his friend went the same day in the afternoon and got Oxford AstraZeneca. I’ll be happy with either.

@MrsFezziwig I never said people should refuse AZ in favour of another vaccine, and as you have pointed out I also never said I would refuse the AZ vaccine myself.

I pointed out what we know to be true - the AZ vaccine is not the most effective vaccine at taking on all current circulating variants, and others are. I questioned why we are not given a choice or why people are not being vaccinated more strategically with what we do currently have available. The logistics of giving people a choice is not my problem, all I care about is the most people having the best protection they can get.

I don’t need to know about “production and supply” - 12 months ago nobody believed we’d have any vaccine in such a short timeframe and we have several. Last year I’m sure we all learnt just how much is possible with strong global effort. I also pointed out how a pharmaceutical company who failed to produce an effective vaccine abandoned that plan and instead used their facilities to help Moderna mass produce their own vaccine. Admirable. My thought was... surely then, we could do this on a global scale to produce the most effective vaccine available, for all? Money and politics does get in the way.

I’ve just read in the news that the UK is apparently working on a universal covid vaccine too.

My thought was... surely then, we could do this on a global scale to produce the most effective vaccine available, for all

BECAUSE - You can't just have ONE vaccine. Too limiting. Too dangerous. Too stupid.

Also, just in case you haven't noticed, MOST of the world cannot handle the Pfizer vaccine. The cold-chain delivery and storage is too limiting.

Just give up OP. You are going round in circles.

@Crumpetycrump

My relative went to his vaccine centre in the morning and got Pfizer and his friend went the same day in the afternoon and got Oxford AstraZeneca. I’ll be happy with either.

Apparently pfizer vaccines are likely to be offered earlier in the day than Az. Something to do with storage.

@BigWoollyJumpers It’s not JUST Phizer though, is it? There are others equally as effective which don’t require those conditions 🙄 Don’t be so rude, there is absolutely no need.

I don’t think money is the issue here OP. Typically, pharmaceutical companies do not make huge profits from vaccines and I think there will be lots of competition in the Covid vaccine market. There is too much political focus on these companies to profit too much from the situation. Their brand/PR is important too.
The mRNA technology itself is likely to be lucrative though when applied to other possible vaccinations for eg ovarian cancer etc

At the risk of engaging, we have a professor of immunology from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine seconded to my workplace (she's called Helen Fletcher and is amazing!). She spoke on a webinar to us all recently as she has been closely involved with the development of the AZ vaccine and she said she would happily have any of the vaccines that are currently licensed. She answered loads of questions and the most commonly asked is which vaccine is better, but in her (very professional) opinion none are better and all are effective.

Listen to expert opinion, honestly.

Also, my parents have both been vaccinated at our local hub and my mum had Pfizer and my dad AZ. Seems like it's pot luck but they're both glad to have had their first jabs

@MrsFezziwig I never said people should refuse AZ in favour of another vaccine, and as you have pointed out I also never said I would refuse the AZ vaccine myself.

And I didn’t say that you said people should refuse it - but presumably that would be what you hoped would happen given your opinions - you’re being totally disingenuous to pretend that’s not your aim.

I pointed out what we know to be true - the AZ vaccine is not the most effective vaccine at taking on all current circulating variants, and others are. I questioned why we are not given a choice

So if everybody chose Pfizer after reading your opinions - what then? Do
we halt the vaccination programme while we go to the back of the queue for more Pfizer vaccine, while people go unvaccinated? I’m sure if we were in a country with very few cases and a less broken economy, then we might have the luxury of pondering about the most perfect way forward, but we have to move quickly in the best way we can with what we have for now.

Some people are never satisfied.

The work that has gone into development of these is Herculean! Not that long ago, we weren’t sure we would even HAVE vaccines and now people are complaining they aren’t allowed to choose?? Would you like a menu, OP?

@MrsFezziwig I find you very judgemental and rude, so this is the last thing I’m going to say to you.

Don’t throw around wild accusations about people you don’t know - my aim was not to “stop people taking up AZ” - my aim was to voice my thoughts and worries on a public forum like millions of others in a time of crisis. No more, no less.

@Wherediditgo

Some people are never satisfied.

The work that has gone into development of these is Herculean! Not that long ago, we weren’t sure we would even HAVE vaccines and now people are complaining they aren’t allowed to choose?? Would you like a menu, OP?

This! Exactly...

@doireallyneedaname I think if you only wanted to voice your “thoughts and worries” you might not be quite so intransigent about engaging with other people’s points of view if they don’t agree with you. Laughable that you think I’m the judgemental one.

I'll talk to you, @MrsFezziwig, if you like, about having to move quickly etc.

"Other countries" OP?

Or just one small country?

It's obviously your right to believe that the AZ vaccine is shit, but you might have come out and said that straight away, instead of all this 'other countries' nonsense.

More interesting would be whether any of the leading vaccines injected today will offer any or much protection about being reinfected and passing on the virus etc?

Is there any preliminary scientific evidence as yet?

EileenGC

You still haven't answered my question OP. Ok, so the SA variant may become dominant. What's your suggestion? We stop using AZ vaccines? Do you realise it'll be months before a similar supply of Pfizer is available“

Also, as someone who is not as knowledgeable as some on here, what do we then do if the, I don’t know, Venezuelan or Icelandic variant emerges and isn’t responsive to Pfizer?

Seems to me we’ll have to chop and change anyway as mutations naturally occur, as they always do.

Can’t wait for my letter and will gratefully receive any vaccination, all of which offer outstanding protection against death and serious illness. That’ll do for me!

Can’t wait for my letter and will gratefully receive any vaccination, all of which offer outstanding protection against death and serious illness. That’ll do for me!

This, although I've got a long wait! I'm not bothered if I can still catch a mild illness, there's plenty of those around and I don't worry, it's the protection against death and serious illness that I want.