Vaccines don’t work for everyone

[Castlepeak]

Somehow this news seems to have escaped some people’s notice.

Many of the people most at risk from Covid are showing no reaction to the Covid vaccine. You can find this news in a small article on your news source of choice, but most people don’t seem to be paying it much attention. Even our extended family didn’t notice and one of them was a living organ donor for DH.

So as restrictions relax, our world is becoming smaller. We have to be more cautious than ever. The vaccine helps, but rates aren’t nearly high enough. As mask restrictions and social distancing rules drop it makes it harder and harder to leave the house.

I’m not asking the world to stop for us. I know things are going to re-open and it’s just going to be dangerous. I’m just asking people to have a little perspective. Maybe think about other people before you rant and say some very callous things.

The medically fragile aren’t all bed bound people in care homes. We are active, employed people living full lives. We have spouses and children. We engage in mystery hobbies that must not be named on mumsnet. We just happen to have to deal with the extra burden of medical problems at the same time.

Sorry, do you mean the vaccine doesn't work for the vulnerable people its meant to help? Im confused by your post.

I’m also unsure by what you mean

Me too On immuno suppressant medication so nobody knows how much immunity I got from the vaccine. Probably not much to nil.
Very scary with dc in school.

Many transplant patients don’t generate any anti-bodies in response to the Covid vaccines. There are also concerns about the quality of the antibodies in people who do have any. People on immunosuppressive therapies in general are showing concerning responses to the vaccines. These are the people who are most at risk from contracting Covid in the first place and the vaccine may not work for them.

My DH is enrolled in a research study. He shows absolutely no response to the vaccine. The news was devastating.

I’m personally lucky because just before Covid hit I happened to switch my immune-suppressants to a new biologic drug that was developed specifically for my condition. Had that not happened, I would have to make some very hard choices.

Hopefully you will all have protection from herd immunity and now they know how to treat it much better than they did last March

As with other things we have vaccination programmes for, the more people who can safely have it, the safer those who cannot are as its less prevalent in society. We cannot keep just locking down forever, and it isn't going away though.

Difficult to feel confident about herd immunity when you have dc at school.

This is why the government need to follow MHRA expertise and vaccinate over 12s (and then any other age groups that the independent expert authority authorise the vaccine for).
The more people vaccinated, the better protection for the whole of society.
Plus border control (maybe one day the government will learn).

I thought that was quite clear from the start. So more elderly or vulnerable they are, they have less adverse effect because they have weak immune responce.
And that is why it's important we get as many people vaccinated so we can achieve herd immunity to suppress transmission of virus.

Yes! Not everyone will develop Covid antibodies from the vaccine because of pre existing health conditions. But that doesn't mean that the vaccine doesn't work on All vulnerable people. But it does mean that as many healthy people as possible need to be vaccinated in order to protect others.

I think Patrick Valance said the other day that if we didn’t have these vaccines then we would be facing even tighter restrictions.
Surely if we didn’t have vaccines then the country couldn’t be in a permanent state of lockdown and we would go bankrupt, and people’s mental health would just go out of control?
I cannot see how the world could continue if there was no vaccine, the global economy would collapse. The alternative would be just to live with.

What are your mystery hobbies?

I saw today that there are monoclonal antibodies on the way. They have trialled Regeneron I think and it is to be used in those who haven’t mounted an antibody response for treatment of Covid.

My mum is a transplant so I get the added fear. Hopefully these studies will show some more insight into whether T cells protect. On another Facebook forum for shielders, there are a lot of people who have checked their response post vaccination and have no antibodies but I don’t see this correlate with lots of infections amongst those groups.

I also read a third booster is being looked at for transplant patients. Hopefully that will be in the autumn.

My husband is immunosuppressed and ‘lucky’ was very ill after both doses of AZ so I’m hopeful is has worked for him. We are in our 30s with children under 6 yrs. Far from the image portrayed by the shielding info which suggested if he was bored during lockdown he tried sudoku - the reality was he worked full time, studying part time and has very young children plus home schooling. My Mum who is elderly and has multiple illnesses had no reaction at all to either jab. I have my fingers crossed that we get 85% of the population vaccinated.

There have always been people that vaccines don't work for, or who can't have it due to medical reasons, or are too young etc.
That's why we need herd immunity, as many people as possible to be vaccinated ASAP.

It's not all about antibodies. I dont make antibodies in response to COVID infection. I dont make them in response to the vaccine either, so it can't protect me 100%. However both the infection a d the vaccine do stimulate a t cell response meaning future infections will be mild.

So people with suppressed or malfunctioning immune systems cant be protected from infection at all. That's not new.

so are people saying if you do not have a reaction to the vaccine it has not worked?

It should definitely be made clearer.

Agree with PP about the new treatments. Hopefully these will help. One is the drug given to Trump. It was approved for use in America ages ago and has finally been given NHS approval. Work is also going on with other drugs.

We can't completely stop everything no but as a society we have a responsibility to take reasonable measures to protect every member. Your life and the lives of all the vulnerable is as valuable as anyone else's.

There's definitely money there when the government wants to find it. They spent billions just on the failed test and trace alone. And lost us billions from the stamp duty holiday.

There are compromises that should be made. Measures to properly contain now instead of allowing it to keep spreading would be what many countries would do. The government may not care about lives and health but the financial impact of Long Covid might motivate them.

The very least, even if nothing else is done, must be border control with proper quarantine.

The government is happy to take the tax money off CV and CEV, in return those people have the right to expect reasonable measures to protect them. Like other countries are doing.

I do hope the government hasn't confused elimination with suppression and containment. Almost no country in the world is just opening up with no containment measures in place.

I hope we can achieve the 80-90% majority vaccinated needed to achieve herd immunity. The good news is the UK has a very high take-up. The only issue for now is supply. It's the real reason why we haven't yet done the same as France, America etc and started vaccinating children. Hopefully we will soon have more deliveries. Novovax maybe?

@patchysmum what do you mean by reaction? Do you mean noticeable side effects? Because, no, that's no what people are saying.

There are some people whose immune systems just don't work, either due to illness or treatments for illness.

@shouldistop Thanks was getting a little worried as the only side effect I had was a sore arm

You are one of the reasons I’ve got my jab. To protect me but also protect those people who can’t have a vaccine or for whom they don’t work very well. I hope we reach herd immunity

There are compromises that can be had whilst opening up. Masks, for example. It's not too much to ask of people, as something to help protect CV and CEV taxpayers.

CV and CEV are taxpaying full members of our society. Their lives are as valuable as anyone else's.

This is really interesting/worrying. ExDP is CEV and uses methotrexate for RA. I don’t think anyone has told him about a possible blunted immune response.

Now I feel obliged to, and I know it’ll worry him. We have a 4 yo he hadn’t seen for a year while we waited for vaccines, so he could visit safely, and they’d just restarted seeing each other. I don’t want this news to derail that. They have such a lovely bond, and missed each other so much

Why isn’t this more publicised?!

Tealights tbf I pay tax but all of it (and a fair bit more) pays for my treatment!