Vaccine rollout in Europe

[Baileysforchristmas]

The vaccine rollout in Europe is turning into a complete disaster.

www.theguardian.com/world/2021/feb/19/german-politicians-counter-astrazeneca-covid-vaccine-scepticism-with-show-of-support

@Dongdingdong

Depends who you ask - many European countries are actually well ahead of the UK in fully vaccinating. The UK has decided to opt for partial vaccination which is off Licence. I rather suspect in the desire for tabloid headlines to hide their complete Covid catastrophe, they won't actually get around to second doses for many.

Oh for God’s sake - not another one. How many times?

How many times for what? Challenging this governments catastrophic management of the pandemic planning and response? Questioning an extremely right wing press? Being gullible enough to think Weatherspoons opening is to benefit ordinary people?

There are nations who have done a really good job. Sadly, the U.K. is not one of them.

AZ vaccine has no data at all how it affects transmission. And that's an issue based on journalistic lies based on journalistic misunderstandings and a desire for a fucking good headline - no matter what the cost.

a) Many vaccines are less effective at reducing transmission. It doesn't matter when there is mass vaccination as they do confer ptotection against the disease

b) First results from real life situations show that there is as much reduction of transmission in AZ as in Pfizer. Neither are 100%, both attain about 70% after the first jab, increasing after the second.

I've said this a lot, but when all of this is over we need a global commission to look at the role of the press in this. Just when we really needed proper journalism we got charlatans and mountebanks who deliberately spread disinformation and revelled in lurid, scaremongering headlines and on live television when they thought they had a Gotcha!

They should all be ashemd of themsleves and, more importantly brought to book, for their selfish twattery! Look at the damage they did, are doing!

Az is a very good vaccine. Doctors favour the az, public favour Pfizer. Says it all. The (rich) world has gone bloody barking mad over this. It’s a fucking life saving medicine that’s literally sat on shelves. I can’t wait till it’s goes back to people not giving a flying fig about the brand of medicine their using and let doctors and regulators decide.

[quote Motorina]@Alondra up to 67% reduction in transmission for Ox/Az.

www.astrazeneca.com/media-centre/press-releases/2021/covid-19-vaccine-astrazeneca-confirms-protection-against-severe-disease-hospitalisation-and-death-in-the-primary-analysis-of-phase-iii-trials.html[/quote]
It's the company reporting data. It doesn't mean its being verified.

I don't want my posts to begin another free for all between the British against the world.

As I said before, the ultimate goal in every country is to get on top of the virus.

Another aspect is side effects. Again... Same side effects as you get in every other vaccine, Pfizer included. Long known in the base vaccine AZ is made from.

That's another thing we have been made cautious of by journailsts and anti vaxxers alike.

I

independently verified

@CherryRoulade

There are nations who have done a really good job. Sadly, the U.K. is not one of them.

Agree 100% for the handling of the pandemic.

For the vaccination program UK is head & shoulders above the EU.

It doesn't matter how many times you disagree and say 'fully vaccinated' it is what it is and it's pretty indisputable.

I don't get why lives list going forward due to lack of vaccination can be compared to lives lost before vaccine made an impact.

Serious questions need to be asked once this 8a over and hopefully that will mean repercussions for BJ and his cronies.

As to why Israel has so much data.... Is that some new conspiracy theory?

We know that Israel is unquely set up to complete it's vaccinations quickly and that they bet heavily on Pfizer in the vaccinatin race. They were the winners there. And bloody good luck to them!

The fact that we all get the benefot of the research data they have is bloody brilliant too. A real time global sharing of data, quite unprecedented!

@CherryRoulade

There are nations who have done a really good job. Sadly, the U.K. is not one of them.

Except for the vaccine development that is highly useful

Actually a bit of an understatement

Life saving scientific breakthrough

But some are down on it

@CherryRoulade

There are nations who have done a really good job. Sadly, the U.K. is not one of them.

The UK has done an excellent job regarding vaccination roll out. To say otherwise is completely ignoring all evidence and downright wrong.

It's the company reporting data. It doesn't mean its being verified. As is the Israeli data! That's how it works!

FFS!

@Alondra actually I think AZ was first with evidence that it reduced transfer. In their studies they swabbed asymptomatic subjects and found some became infected but with low amount of virus, so were not spreading. While AZ was first to show this, it's assumed likely other vaccines do similar.

ALL seem to be 100% at stopping hospitalisation and death.
(I'm currently training to be a vaccinator )

Both AZ and Pfizer are reporting side effects. So much so that workplaces are staggering admin, so not to have too many off at the same time. But it's mostly just a sore arm and feeling a bit

Alondra, AZ does reduce transmission. There was a lot of reporting on this back in Feb. Here is one example of an article but you can google for more amp.cnn.com/cnn/2021/02/03/health/astrazeneca-vaccine-transmission-gbr-intl/index.html

I think scientists generally do accept now that all the vaccines will reduce transmission. That makes obvious sense to me too as a non scientist as they will reduce the viral load a person has.

I don’t think it’s for companies like AZ to convince people to take their jabs. They release the data and the regulators decide then it is up to the politicians to communicate to the public. That’s not AZ’s job at all.

I do think this will fade as a problem in time anyway as certainly the first world will be awash with many types of vaccine relatively soon.
I think the whole world will have to live with Covid circulating to some extent in their countries maybe every winter like flu does. It’s endemic in the world now and is not going anywhere and maybe the messaging in Australia needs to change a bit from zero Covid, one case is too many, to the public accepting this.
Europe is abit further down the road of understanding this as I think most people here do accept this now.

@CherryRoulade

There are nations who have done a really good job. Sadly, the U.K. is not one of them.

In about 5 years we'll see. When all the data is in.

So far we have the UK at the top end of the death toll, but we are not at the end of that road, we don't know what the end figures will be. See Germany's 3rd wave etc etc.

We don't yet know why, what all the confounding factors are, but we do know that the UK is a temperate climate at the edge of a cold climate. The reasons we can't deal with ice on the roads like say Finland does, may well be a factor here. Who knows? We will in a few years time, but not now!

At this point in time laying blame on a government that did much as many others did, made some of the same and some different mistakes dealing with a novel situations is just lazy! Again fed by a press pack that also needs to to be closely looked at. All involved need scrutiny.

And which nations? What mechanisms did they use to do better? Could the UK have done the same? Even with hindsight the honest answer to most is no!

And think about it further. So much was said about the UKs lack of a Pandemic Plan, or a lot of overlooking it. Yet that same Plan paid for the vaccine research we are now so very thankful for. NONE of the journalists baying for blood over PPE have commended the government on its vaccine procurement. After baying for more blood over who the contracts went to they prefer to focus on the networking that wasted money rather than the same networking that garnered some success.

I am no Tory voter but cannot, for the life of me, see how the errors and blunders of this government have been very much worse than those of many other governments. They've been different!

Almonda you do have a point about the press. Its clear you are being influenced by the negative AZ press where you are. Some of what you are saying is completely incorrect.

I would probably have a different opinion of the AZ press if I was elsewhere. But I'm not and the press is all positive thankfully. Positive for all the vaccines which are licensed...........

I do think oxford (much of the trials was done by Oxford itself) were a bit naive with their trials. They have messed up a bit and they do not have the slickness or the commercial savy of the other trials. Why else would they test asymptomatic when Pfizer didn't?

Possibly Oxford would have been better partnered with another company with more experience but then we may not have UK doing so we'll or a low cost vaccine.

Possibly Oxford would have been better partnered with another company with more experience but then we may not have UK doing so we'll or a low cost vaccine. Yes! That was the financial punt that was initially so bloody good.

Pfizer's breakthrough is bloody stunning and will probably have a huge effect on future medicines. But AZ and it's gorilla snot base is, again, proving itself to be ever adaptable. Nothing wtong with having 2 competely different approaches to vaccines.

sashagabadon

Thank you so much for the information. My problem yet again, and I promise you I'm not trying to be difficult, is that the release preprint it refers to takes you to the University of Oxford webpage which developed the vaccine.

I agree with you we need to learn to live with the virus. I think that's the reasoning behind the Australian government, get people vaccinated, and open up knowing there will be deaths but most of the population will be protected.

I'd love to see my family in Spain and UK again but I still loathe what opening up means if the vaccines can't protect 90% of Australians against transmission of the virus compared to what we have now.

This is off topic but to any Aussies on this thread, well done for your Facebook victory. That was great to see and is definitely a gift you have given the world. I hope the U.K. government follows suit!
And yes I agree Oxford were naive with the trails. I’m on the trial , had more blood tests yesterday! And they were being maybe too ethical not including older people immediately. With hindsight they should have done this. Plenty of 70 year olds here in the U.K. would have volunteered. Pfzier did recruit older volunteers in U.K. early as one of my parents friends in his 80’s was in that trial.

I work with scientists and it’s true that PR is not their strong suit 😅

@Alondra

sashagabadon

Thank you so much for the information. My problem yet again, and I promise you I'm not trying to be difficult, is that the release preprint it refers to takes you to the University of Oxford webpage which developed the vaccine.

I agree with you we need to learn to live with the virus. I think that's the reasoning behind the Australian government, get people vaccinated, and open up knowing there will be deaths but most of the population will be protected.

I'd love to see my family in Spain and UK again but I still loathe what opening up means if the vaccines can't protect 90% of Australians against transmission of the virus compared to what we have now.

That was just a quick article I googled Alondra. I think there is other real world stuff too and certainly it will come out more and more. Anyway, my point really is it that it up to the Aussies whether they take the AZ vaccine or another one. That’s totally up to the people that live there but it is not for AZ to convince them, that’s on the politicians to communicate. There does seem to be a disinformation campaign against AZ maybe because it is cheaper. I have no personal skin in that game, but we are all going to have to live with Covid

Unfortunately it's not up to us, it's up the government. I will be having the AZ vaccine like most of the population. We can't choose.

As I said before the vulnerable groups are given the Pfizzer.

I agree with Sasha if Aus is using AZ for proportion of population it’s up to that government to do the campaigns to get the take up high.