Australia says no to AZ and J&J vaccines--vax rollout likely to be delayed by months

[Kokeshi123]

www.theguardian.com/society/2021/apr/13/australia-wont-buy-johnson-johnsons-one-dose-covid-vaccine-due-to-astrazeneca-similarities

I know quite a lot of Ozzies who are completely stranded outside their country due to the fact that they cannot keep small children within a hotel room for two weeks and pay a fortune for the priviledge. As it is, it's looking like Oz will not be removing its quarantine requirements until well into 2022 at the earliest.

I mean, I do think that a basic strategy of "(1) Hold borders tight with Zero Covid until the vax>(2) Unroll vax> (3) Open borders" is a sound one, but it does depend on the second and third bits of the plan actually happening...

[quote MarcelineMissouri]@Tealightsandd
AZ is only around 62% effective (the higher rates of 70% were associated with the half dosing regime, which we didn't adopt). Pfizer and Moderna, especially if given on the 3 week schedule, are over 90% effective. We can see how well things are going in Israel, with the majority vaccinated (on Pfizer with 3 week gap).

This is not correct. The higher AZ efficacy came from spacing out the second dose to at least 12 weeks later. And the real world data is pointing to AZ being on par with the others for results.

twitter.com/thegazmanrants/status/1382369894096855043?s=21[/quote]
Yes and no.

You're correct to point out the higher efficacy against symptomatic infection came about from changing the dose spacing. Personally I think that against the UK dominant strains, there is nothing to choose between any of the vaccines when it comes to this.

However, there's a big question mark over the efficacy at stopping onward transmission - a prerequisite for herd immunity.

Data from Israel suggested quite high efficacy from Pfizer
www.reuters.com/article/health-coronavirus-israel-vaccine-int-idUSKBN2AJ08J

By contrast I've heard (can't find a ref) that PHE believes in the UK the impact of vaccines is only halving the number of transmissions. Obviously still useful, but I really hope it is much higher, because at 50%, herd immunity as Israel appears to be achieving, would be quite impossible.

Data from Israel suggested quite high efficacy from Pfizer

By contrast I've heard (can't find a ref) that PHE believes in the UK the impact of vaccines is only halving the number of transmissions.

Could it be because, compared to the UK, Israel has a much higher proportion of people who have had both jabs?

By contrast I've heard (can't find a ref) that PHE believes in the UK the impact of vaccines is only halving the number of transmissions. Obviously still useful, but I really hope it is much higher, because at 50%, herd immunity as Israel appears to be achieving, would be quite impossible.

Even if that's true, it wouldn't be impossible... My understanding is that AZ has been 100% effective against severe disease, so once we have very high vaccine take up, we could let it rip with little consequence - with very significant transmission occurring asymptomatically, and build up herd immunity that way.

Early indications of reduction in transmission by AZ vaccine was 67%:
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

Both fully vaccinated but vaccines are not 100%

Look, Teas, what is these people's endgame? Are they going to live like this for decades? No vaccine is ever 100% effective, no country is going to have a 100% vaccine takeup and most developing countries are going to struggle to offer the vaccine to everyone in any case--this virus is not going away.

@MarshaBradyo
They were indeed British backpackers, I live at the beach where they were having huge day parties and breaking all the rules. Local residents were disgusted. Our northern beaches were in lockdown and had their Christmas cancelled but the backpackers thought they were special.

I'm completely gutted that the vaccine rollout is such a shambles, I'm from the uk, my entire family is there, I was due to visit last year, then this year and I now have to accept it may be 3 more years before my 8yo and I can see our family.

I do understand why they are making these decisions though, why risk the lives of people in order to vaccinate faster. We have no restrictions here, there's nowhere I can't go, and nothing I can't do, except travel overseas. we are off on another holiday (this afternoon.

@6thFormCircleofHell

So what happens to the 700,000 doses of AZ that the UK sent to Australia last week during a month of massively decreased vaccination in the UK due to lack of supply?

I’m sure they will be used on the over 50s, and possibly distributed to the likes of PNG who are having a really hard time with covid.

As a side note it’s not the Uk that sent them, it’s Astrazenica fulfilling its orders. Sending them via the Uk factories is due to the EU stopping shipments.

@notagainmummy

So the hideously infective Kent variant hasn't hit australia yet. I can't imagine the chaos if and when it does. To keep it out means virtual isolation or vaccination programmes.

This variant is what sent both Brisbane and Melbourne into snap lockdowns when it breached quarantine. It has resulted in an audit of the hotels and workers used for quarantine (amongst other things). So yes it is an issue over here, one that is being managed (so far).

@Kokeshi123 "what is these people's endgame"
As I said further up thread the narrative is changing over here in Australia.

The rhetoric is now leaning towards living with covid and accepting it won't go away. The timing for this narrative change was based around the az vaccine roll out with October being the original goal for everyone (who can/wants to have one) to have their first shot. I'm guessing this will be pushed back now time wise.

The first step is navigating a bubble with NZ, then likely Singapore. Each step will throw up different issues that Cana be worked through to inform future options.

@MoppaSprings correct- continuing to be used on over 50s, under 50's where they have had the first one already, NZ anyone else based on a risk-benefit analysis (vulnerable, border/health workers)

*and... not NZ

I have a higher standard of evidence. News reports don't cut it.

Mar 2020 "Care home vulnerability just started to be documented on 18 March: as a report in MMWR on the Kirklands outbreak (WA State). The first case in the Kirklands outbreak was identified 28 Feb 2020. First report that clearly identified all the factors that made CH so vulnerable, had counts of those affected, description of outcomes, showed link between staff & resident infection timelines, etc.

Rumours about superspreading is one thing, actually getting documented is different. The earliest quality scientific reports were in April 2020. I'm still waiting for decent COVID-19 reports on superspreading to be published. Compare Emma Hodcraft's useless waffle speculation with a proper epidemiological report on the first British-linked SS events.

Funny to mention the Skagit valley SS event which happened in mid-March 2020 but wasn't well-described until May, and how that might have informed policies being developed in April. The experimental evidence to establish that singing could generate aerosols containing virons came even later (and is still theoretical). It remains moot point among epidemiologists how covid spread there, given the choristers socialised heavily away from their moments of singing. Aerosol generating procedures almost only happen in medical/dental settings.

If we start calling tabloid media reports of news event as definite, informative and reliable for making policy decisions as scientific summaries might be, then Lord Help Us.

[quote beingsunny]@MarshaBradyo
They were indeed British backpackers, I live at the beach where they were having huge day parties and breaking all the rules. Local residents were disgusted. Our northern beaches were in lockdown and had their Christmas cancelled but the backpackers thought they were special.

I'm completely gutted that the vaccine rollout is such a shambles, I'm from the uk, my entire family is there, I was due to visit last year, then this year and I now have to accept it may be 3 more years before my 8yo and I can see our family.

I do understand why they are making these decisions though, why risk the lives of people in order to vaccinate faster. We have no restrictions here, there's nowhere I can't go, and nothing I can't do, except travel overseas. we are off on another holiday (this afternoon.[/quote]
Beingsunny it was more the indication from pp that visas to travel were granted around Christmas then revoked.

I can understand why a lot of people are ok with the decision. Bar seeing family holidaying within Aus is fine for many.

I think once we get back to normal in the same way and drop restrictions perceptions around the world will start to shift but we are still getting there.

April 2020: PCR tests still very scarce & worldwide PPE shortage; no strong evidence in favour of mask wearing to prevent transmission.

You mean the UK didn’t want to look at the evidence in favour of mask wearing to prevent transmission.

I live in mainland Europe and mid-April 2020 is when we started wearing masks (by law). Most countries in Europe adopted this measure in April 2020.

Compare that to the UK, where I went to in July and I can’t remember if it was shops or public transport, but masks were only becoming compulsory then. One of them was June and the other July, I can’t remember which came first. That’s a whole 3 months behind.

I think I prefer to to be UK, vaccinated before Christmas than waiting for it to hit. It’s been hard but you can’t really keep a bug like this out so people have to live (or sadly die) with it.

I do think a policy of zero Covid is a double bind now for Australia and NZ. What if Australia changes it’s mind and decides to accept some risk. Bang goes the travel bubble with NZ unless NZ agrees to this too. It is very fraught politically. More so than it will be here in Europe.
Would Australians continue a travel bubble with NZ indefinitely and sacrifice one with the rest of the world? It would have to be a conversation for Australians to have.
Closed borders does create this paradox of no Covid in the community in order to test treatments and vaccines on the population and equally no incentive for large numbers of the population to take said vaccines (due to risk reward) to get you out of the hole you are in.

I think another interesting question is what effect Australia's brutal policies on discouraging asylum seekers have had on the national psyche. A nation that has a terror of being overrun, and an 'I'm alright, Jack' attitude is going to be very happy to shut everything down very tight when a disease like Covid comes along.

And as other people have said on this thread, the policy of trying to preserve one's life and way of life at all costs will never lend itself to taking the risks that are going to be necessary to open up and vaccinate.

I do have skin in this game: two elderly parents, and adult children in Australia. I missed my son's wedding, and one parent is sinking into dementia. Without Australians getting vaccinated and the country opening up, I won't be seeing any of them for a long time, and perhaps ever in the case of my parents.

"The point is that everywhere, every country in the world, should've temporarily closed their borders. The whole thing would've been over with pretty much a year ago."

And yet, the WHO's advice at the time was for countries to NOT do that. But actually in the case of Europe and the USA (and possibly other places too), there is evidence that corona was already in their countries, spreading invisibly (analysis of Italian sewage showed it was already in the country in Sept 2019, I believe), long before December 2019. So perhaps it wouldn't have worked anyway.

twitter.com/9newsaus/status/1318632532716457986?s=21

A country that is content to allow babies to die to maintain border controls might be said to have its priorities out of whack.

newseu.cgtn.com/news/2020-11-17/COVID-19-was-spreading-in-Italy-by-September-2019-study-indicates-VuSqUttP8s/index.html

Actually, it was a cancer study that showed it in blood samples in Sept. The sewage study showed it was present in Italy by December.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-53106444

Both of these were BEFORE China reported cases of coronavirus in Wuhan, so BEFORE any borders would've been closed.

I know wealthy people who have bought houses and moved to Australia during the past 12 months while Australians who can’t afford to quarantine had to stay away even when loved ones have died. It’s this inequality that makes Australia’s response substandard compared to other countries - they have a small population, I believe India has vaccinated more people than live in the whole of Australia, and should have sorted it out ages ago but have mismanaged things from the beginning.

God knows I'm no fan of the UK government. They could have saved so many lives if they had made better decisions. But we literally could not have closed our borders and fed ourselves. I'm not sure Australians have any concept of how our island is different from their island when they start criticising the UK's response to Covid (and there is a lot to legitimately criticise).

I have relatives in NZ and was talking to them last week. The mindset in NZ is still very much closed borders, harsher restrictions etc. They are still on the narrative that the world looks enviously at them and their response is the best in the world. Of course to an extent this is true, but that narrative is changing rapidly and he is concerned they will be left behind as the world moves on to living with the virus. He doesn’t think Kiwis are ready for this conversation yet, they are still thinking like it’s 2020.
But they are pro vaccine so that might help lift some of the fear.

I can see why attitude to vaccination may be different in Aus, even speaking to family there I can hear it as the urgency isn’t there understandably.

We have a huge carrot here - normal life / no restrictions and we can see it happening partially but still some way to go.

Also we’ve been hammered mentally in the large part and the reality of flu level deaths as we go forward isn’t psychologically difficult for most. But if you’ve not had almost no deaths then it’s harder to accept.

@parentalhelpline

God knows I'm no fan of the UK government. They could have saved so many lives if they had made better decisions. But we literally could not have closed our borders and fed ourselves. I'm not sure Australians have any concept of how our island is different from their island when they start criticising the UK's response to Covid (and there is a lot to legitimately criticise).

I agree. It's all very well to be smug when you live on a huge island that is largely food self-sufficient and geographically isolated, but the UK is 22 miles from mainland of Europe. It's not just our food system, but manufacturing, medicines and many other parts of our economy that are intrinsically and physically linked to Europe. If we closed our border this country would grind to a halt.

The thing is, this past year I'm sure many of us wish we had been in Australia or NZ or at least that the UK had been able to do what they did and isolate themselves, but going forward I don't think their situation is going to look so enviable as the UK, US, Israel and others who've cracked on with vaccinations open up to international travel again.

As for those 36,000 stranded Australians, I can only imagine how angry and frustrated they must feel. I remember listening to a podcast on The Guardian website last year of a family with something like six kids who were stranded here in the UK. They'd come over for a family wedding in Feb 2020 and couldn't get home, because as eight economy ticket holders they were continually bumped off flights. They were staying with the dad's brother, who has nine kids of his own, and they weren't being paid their salaries any more, so they were completely reliant on their hosts to feed them and provide them with everything they needed - it was absolutely awful. God knows if they're still here or if they ever got home. It's just unimaginable to be stranded 12,000 miles from you home, jobs, kids' schools, your friends, your whole life - unable to get home because your government doesn't prioritise getting its own citizens home. Together with the vaccines fiasco Scott Morrison makes the UK response actually look surprisingly competent. At least we allowed our citizens to come home and then vaccinated them!