COVID-19: Vaccine/antidote and testing procedures Megathread [Mod Warning - Post #1]

funnydoggy

El Sueño wrote: »

You'd think the HSE would let us know of their vaccine rollout plan.

The UK government have been talking about theirs for months at this stage. They've kept the public up to date with everything.

Is it that much to ask for a bit of communication on this from our government?

I genuinely don't know what the f*ck they're up to!

ACitizenErased

Hope County Italy do well in the all-Ireland this year

ThewhiteJesus

El Sueño wrote: »

You'd think the HSE would let us know of their vaccine rollout plan.

The UK government have been talking about theirs for months at this stage. They've kept the public up to date with everything.

Is it that much to ask for a bit of communication on this from our government?

i work in the hse and have done in the office throughout covid,
they don't even tell us anything, and it took till june before we even got hand sanitizer, and a month ago we got screens !
The truth is they don't care

brick tamland

tobefrank321 wrote: »

The ideal scenario in my opinion is that Pfizer would bypass the HSE and work directly with companies like Boots who have experience administrating vaccines.

You just know somewhere along the line the HSE are going to screw this up.

That'd be a bigger disaster IMO. Imagine everyone trying to call/get into their local pharmacy to get an appointment for a vaccination. Its hard to get an appointment normally this time of year for a flu vaccine and I imagine the take up on these is about 5%

We need a national plan, a set up like the testing centers were in March/April where the government took over local GAA clubs and the likes.
as well as Mobile teams to visit hospitals and Nursing homes ect. Id like to think training should be already underway to have enough staff to administer the vaccine as well as having the administration in place to contact people and make appointments ect.

tobefrank321

brick tamland wrote: »

That'd be a bigger disaster IMO. Imagine everyone trying to call/get into their local pharmacy to get an appointment for a vaccination. Its hard to get an appointment normally this time of year for a flu vaccine and I imagine the take up on these is about 5%

We need a national plan, a set up like the testing centers were in March/April where the government took over local GAA clubs and the likes.
as well as Mobile teams to visit hospitals and Nursing homes ect. Id like to think training should be already underway to have enough staff to administer the vaccine as well as having the administration in place to contact people and make appointments ect.

Definitely need a national plan and that's where NPHET and HSE focus needs to move now. They should be giving daily updates on plans to roll out the vaccine. A media campaign with ads might also help. Poor communication will not help and such a vacuam will no doubt be filled by anti vaxxers.

tobefrank321

El Sueño wrote: »

You'd think the HSE would let us know of their vaccine rollout plan.

The UK government have been talking about theirs for months at this stage. They've kept the public up to date with everything.

Is it that much to ask for a bit of communication on this from our government?

The UK government for all their faults have advanced plans for the vaccine, priority age groups, etc. So do the Germans.

In Ireland, all we've heard is we are "cautiously optimistic" and keeping an eye on things.

You can see why people don't have much faith in them. But they might get it right.

ixoy

Has any journalist asked them about the logistics of a national vaccine rollout plan?
Regardless of whether it's Pfizer or not, the logistics themselves will likely be broadly similar with the temperature control the primary difference. So an "we're waiting to see" answer should be unacceptable - it should be under proper planning by now for a variety of different possibilities.

normanoffside

El Sueño wrote: »

You'd think the HSE would let us know of their vaccine rollout plan.

The UK government have been talking about theirs for months at this stage. They've kept the public up to date with everything.

Is it that much to ask for a bit of communication on this from our government?

I think it’s pretty obvious that they don’t have one.

Le Bruise

ixoy wrote: »

Has any journalist asked them about the logistics of a national vaccine rollout plan?
Regardless of whether it's Pfizer or not, the logistics themselves will likely be broadly similar with the temperature control the primary difference. So an "we're waiting to see" answer should be unacceptable - it should be under proper planning by now for a variety of different possibilities.

They've set up a planning committee for Ireland's vaccine rollout as far as I know. Assume they'll tell us very little until the vaccine(s) is (are) officially approved?

stephenjmcd

ixoy wrote: »

Has any journalist asked them about the logistics of a national vaccine rollout plan?
Regardless of whether it's Pfizer or not, the logistics themselves will likely be broadly similar with the temperature control the primary difference. So an "we're waiting to see" answer should be unacceptable - it should be under proper planning by now for a variety of different possibilities.

They tried yesterday, all they got was advance planning is underway and when we're ready to make the detail public we will.

Wouldn't expand further

ixoy

stephenjmcd wrote: »

They tried yesterday, all they got was advance planning is underway and when we're ready to make the detail public we will.

Wouldn't expand further

Hmm, I'd have little faith there. Probably set up another working group, appoint a slew of highly paid managers, and produce a paper six months from now.

Government planning in many areas like this can be poor - look, for example, at how Brexit might impact ports due to the logistics involved.

stephenjmcd

ixoy wrote: »

Hmm, I'd have little faith there. Probably set up another working group, appoint a slew of highly paid managers, and produce a paper six months from now.

Government planning in many areas like this can be poor - look, for example, at how Brexit might impact ports due to the logistics involved.

Personally when it comes to logistics if I were in the HSE my first call would be to the defence forces to help set it all up in terms of logistics etc

Deeper Blue

stephenjmcd wrote: »

They tried yesterday, all they got was advance planning is underway and when we're ready to make the detail public we will.

Wouldn't expand further

Translation: "So far we've copied and pasted the UK's priority group list into an Excel spreadsheet"

Irish Stones

hmmm wrote: »

You don't live in this country, so personally I don't find your description of people running the country as "scum" to be welcome.

Wow, what a kind welcome from an Irish, this is the first time an Irish talks to me this way.

What makes you think that you Irish have the exclusive for "scumbag politicians and managers"?

I was talking of our men, that apparently played the same tricks as yours, if not even worse.
Fake or not authorized masks, dangerous hand sanitizers, dangerous PPEs, very bad management of the emergency, along with overpaid equipment, lack of masks when they were needed, backdated (2006) pandemic plans, covered up WHO reports, and so on. We are masters at duping the public.

I thought that, since the shipping of the vaccine will have the same procedure around the world, it would have been useful to know that somewhere certain procedures might not be followed to specs.

Irish Stones

seamie78 wrote: »

well seeing as you live in Italy and are completely Italian we are talking about different politics, economy and health service, maybe you should address your concerns on the Italian version of boards. I must take this time to compliment your use of hiberno english

Unfortunately we don't have an "Italian Boards", as far as I know.
Thanks for your compliments, but I am far beyond what I would like to master.

El Weirdo

ThewhiteJesus wrote: »

i work in the hse and have done in the office throughout covid,
they don't even tell us anything, and it took till june before we even got hand sanitizer, and a month ago we got screens !
The truth is they don't care

I also work for the HSE and we got hand sanitizer before I'd say half the people commenting on this thread even knew what Covid 19 was.

CIARAN_BOYLE

ixoy wrote: »

Has any journalist asked them about the logistics of a national vaccine rollout plan?
Regardless of whether it's Pfizer or not, the logistics themselves will likely be broadly similar with the temperature control the primary difference. So an "we're waiting to see" answer should be unacceptable - it should be under proper planning by now for a variety of different possibilities.

They explained in yesterdays press conference that it is under planning. They can't comment as there are differing considerations based on which vaccine, how many vaccines are available (theres an EU commission planning note on differing vaccines for different groups) etc.

So basically they said there is a group doing the planning but they wont publish anything as it depends.

Sky King

El Weirdo wrote: »

I also work for the HSE .

Any inside line on vaccine distribution?:pac:

ixoy

El Weirdo wrote: »

I also work for the HSE and we got hand sanitizer before I'd say half the people commenting on this thread even knew what Covid 19 was.

When was that out of curiosity? Certainly by March, I know civil service offices had their sanitiser.

El Weirdo

ixoy wrote: »

When was that out of curiosity? Certainly by March, I know civil service offices had their sanitiser.

Yep, would have been around then alright.

Maybe even late February.

tobefrank321

CIARAN_BOYLE wrote: »

They explained in yesterdays press conference that it is under planning. They can't comment as there are differing considerations based on which vaccine, how many vaccines are available (theres an EU commission planning note on differing vaccines for different groups) etc.

So basically they said there is a group doing the planning but they wont publish anything as it depends.

I think you could be agnostic on what vaccine to use but still have some advanced plans in place.

We know nursing homes have to be high priority - if it works on residents or not - staff would be very high priority. After that frontline medical staff to prevent hospitals and staff being overwhelmed going into the future. Then elderly non nursing home residents.
The sooner we have key groups vaccinated the sooner life can return to normality.
You'd hope the current lockdown is the last one, even if they have to extend it to early January - most people would accept this, if there was a proper vaccine rollout program happening at the same time.

lbj666

tobefrank321 wrote: »

I think you could be agnostic on what vaccine to use but still have some advanced plans in place.

We know nursing homes have to be high priority - if it works on residents or not - staff would be very high priority. After that frontline medical staff to prevent hospitals and staff being overwhelmed going into the future. Then elderly non nursing home residents.
The sooner we have key groups vaccinated the sooner life can return to normality.
You'd hope the current lockdown is the last one, even if they have to extend it to early January - most people would accept this, if there was a proper vaccine rollout program happening at the same time.

Jan/Feb lockdown with a concrete vacine roll out plan in place and possibly jabs commencing is a way easier sell than continuing the current one.

is_that_so

lbj666 wrote: »

Jan/Feb lockdown with a concrete vaccine roll out plan in place and possibly jabs commencing is a way easier sell than continuing the current one.

There'll still be trial data coming until near the end of the month, which is the supposed end of L5. Whatever plans they have for December will probably stay in place anyway.

Russman

So, for the sake of argument, assuming this vaccine gets authorised, what’s a realistic number for the amount of doses the EU would get out of the 50m the Pfizer say they’ll have this year ? Would they get 20m (40%) ? That’d give us in Ireland around 200k doses this year, so 100k people could be vaccinated.

Pfizer say they’ll have 1.3BN doses next year, so let’s call it 100m per month. Again, if the EU got 40% that’s 40m, with 400k for Ireland, allowing 200k people to get it. Six months worth of that and you’re starting to put a big hole in the problem. Plus if Oxford and any of the others came through in similar numbers you’d have to think some semblance of normality by the summer.

But, vaccinating between one hundred and three hundred thousand people per month is massive undertaking, not too dissimilar to the amount of testing we’re doing. I think they’ll definitely need the defence forces to roll it out.

No idea if the numbers above are accurate, just trying to get a sense of potential scale.

MintyMagnum

How many over 85yr olds do we have in the country does anyone know?

tobefrank321

MintyMagnum wrote: »

How many over 85yr olds do we have in the country does anyone know?

We're projected to have 96,000 over 85 year olds next year, but this year we'd have about 88,000.

https://www.hse.ie/eng/about/who/population-health/population-health-approach/population-projections-2011-to-2041.pdf

Another interesting point:

People aged 85 and over represent 1.4% of population and use 13.5% of inpatient beds.

https://www.hse.ie/eng/about/who/cspd/icp/older-persons/#:~:text=People%20aged%2085%20and%20over,use%2013.5%25%20of%20inpatient%20beds.&text=4.1%25%20of%20the%20population%20provide,%3E24%20hrs%20are%20%3E75.

hoody

I thought this was an interesting article: give the vaccine to popular people first.

https://www.wired.com/story/covid-19-vaccine-super-spreaders/

I'd say this only becomes relevant once the vaccine is being rolled out to the general population, it's obvious we should vaccinate the most at risk first.

Sky King

Russman wrote: »

No idea if the numbers above are accurate, just trying to get a sense of potential scale.

Yeah it really interesting when you start teasing out the numbers like that - try to get a sense of the scale of what is involved. The scale of the challenge soon becomes apparent.

I am no logistics expert but I think rather than trying to put together a crazy ass national logistical distribution system which could quite easily be ballsed up, they would be better off having one or two national drive through centres in a location that is capable of handling a lot of traffic - somewhere like a stadium, a racecourse or airport carpark, or the disused ferry terminal in Dun Laoghaire or similar.

It's a LOT easier to bring a person to a vaccine than to go and create a novel, specialised cold chain to bring a vaccine to the person.

You could augment this with mobile services for care homes if needs be.

brisan

Russman wrote: »

So, for the sake of argument, assuming this vaccine gets authorised, what’s a realistic number for the amount of doses the EU would get out of the 50m the Pfizer say they’ll have this year ? Would they get 20m (40%) ? That’d give us in Ireland around 200k doses this year, so 100k people could be vaccinated.

Pfizer say they’ll have 1.3BN doses next year, so let’s call it 100m per month. Again, if the EU got 40% that’s 40m, with 400k for Ireland, allowing 200k people to get it. Six months worth of that and you’re starting to put a big hole in the problem. Plus if Oxford and any of the others came through in similar numbers you’d have to think some semblance of normality by the summer.

But, vaccinating between one hundred and three hundred thousand people per month is massive undertaking, not too dissimilar to the amount of testing we’re doing. I think they’ll definitely need the defence forces to roll it out.

No idea if the numbers above are accurate, just trying to get a sense of potential scale.

might work ,but still not enough

hmmm

Russman wrote: »

So, for the sake of argument, assuming this vaccine gets authorised, what’s a realistic number for the amount of doses the EU would get out of the 50m the Pfizer say they’ll have this year ? Would they get 20m (40%) ? That’d give us in Ireland around 200k doses this year, so 100k people could be vaccinated.

I'm not sure of the manufacturing capacity, but the Pfizer CEO on CNN said they had 3 plants in the US manufacturing "for America", and the plant in Belgium is for "the rest of the world".

Italy has said they will get the Pfizer vaccine beginning January 20 2021. So not before the end of the year & they are part of the EU contract.

The US and UK had also signed deals with Pfizer before the EU, you'd assume they would be first to get deliveries. It'd be a lovely gesture if in return for the Irish passports after Brexit our new UK brethren could send a support package of tea and vaccines.