COVID-19: Vaccine and testing procedures Megathread Part 2 [Mod Warning - Post #1]

Cole

titan18 wrote: »

So NIAC now saying AZ is being used on over 70s.

https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/arid-40220420.html

They're not saying anything different. It's the (mis) communication from different sources (Colm Henry, Michael Martin interviews etc.) that's making it look that way.

salmocab

Multipass wrote: »

I think that’s a huge mistake which will cost lives. The elderly should be first for any vaccine, not waiting around unprotected. My parents thought they’d be able to choose between AZ soon, or Pfizer later - and they would like the soonest. Just had to break to them that they won’t have that choice.

Were they ever going to have that choice?

is_that_so

titan18 wrote: »

So NIAC now saying AZ is being used on over 70s.

https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/arid-40220420.html

Last resort only. General policy will be not to use it with that age group.

Prof Butler said that in situations where older people may not have access to the first preference Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, they may be offered the AstraZeneca vaccine but ensures there will be no untimely delay of the first preference vaccines for the over 70s:

astrofool

salmocab wrote: »

Were they ever going to have that choice?

No, the science drives the decision, not people's personal vaccine choice, if there is no good data on efficacy in older people, administering AZ will be held off until that data is there and it shows good efficacy, which means administration of AZ begins in the groups where efficacy is good. When data comes in later (probably about 2-3 weeks from the UK mass rollout) that guidance can change.

CIARAN_BOYLE

Gael23 wrote: »

Listening to Paul Reid earlier it seems that not all GPs wll be administering the Pfiizer vaccine. So patients of a small single handed doctor will have to goto a larger better equipped practice. Makes sense in theory but lots of administration involved

Thats the way the UK does it too. A larger gp practice acting as a vaccination hub for a number of local practices.

Multipass

salmocab wrote: »

Were they ever going to have that choice?

No, there shouldn’t be a need for a choice. It should be a no brainer that the first vaccines that land in the country go to the people at highest risk of imminent death. On the principle that some (probably a good amount) of protection is a hell of a lot better than none.

Gael23

CIARAN_BOYLE wrote: »

Thats the way the UK does it too. A larger gp practice acting as a vaccination hub for a number of local practices.

It makes perfect sense but how would it work in terms of adminstration?The practice would have no record of the patients medical history or even their personal details

Multipass

Amirani wrote: »

The elderly should only be first for any Covid vaccine that is known to work properly on them.

If you’re looking for perfection, there isn’t a great deal of data for any of them yet. Funny how it’s only the EU having these sudden doubts, just after their public spat with Astrozeneca. I call bulls@t.

is_that_so

Multipass wrote: »

If you’re looking for perfection, there isn’t a great deal of data for any of them yet. Funny how it’s only the EU having these sudden doubts, just after their public spat with Astrozeneca. I call bulls@t.

The real fact is that very few on the AZ trial were over 65 and the decisions made by medical authorities are based on this lack of data.

josip

Gael23 wrote: »

It makes perfect sense but how would it work in terms of adminstration?The practice would have no record of the patients medical history or even their personal details

The same way the Coombe was able to give out lots of vaccines to relatives called in after 9.30pm in the night perhaps?

Amirani

Multipass wrote: »

If you’re looking for perfection, there isn’t a great deal of data for any of them yet. Funny how it’s only the EU having these sudden doubts, just after their public spat with Astrozeneca. I call bulls@t.

There's excellent data for the mRNA vaccines in the elderly. There were large trial cohorts for 65+ in Modern and Pfizer trials, so you're just making this up.

It's not just the EU, the US have done the same. They insisted on additional Phase 3 trials for AZ because of the lack of strong data.

Multipass

is_that_so wrote: »

The real fact is that very few on the AZ trial were over 65 and the decisions made by medical authorities are based on this lack of data.

The most vulnerable in the UK have had the AZ vaccine. Speed and ease of access should be factored in too.

brickster69

IrishStuff09 wrote: »

These are all the updates we've been given so far. Hopefully we'll get more regular ones soon enough

Date|Total Vaccines Given
Dec-31|1,800
Jan-04|4,000
Jan-07|15,314
Jan-10|40,000
Jan-13|77,303
Jan-17|94,000
Jan-20|121,900
Jan-24|143,000
Jan-27|161,500
Jan-31|199,800
Feb-3|219,200


Source


In line graph form:

What is the time window that the 2nd doses have to be administered by ?

Cole

Gael23 wrote: »

It makes perfect sense but how would it work in terms of adminstration?The practice would have no record of the patients medical history or even their personal details

It would be a hub for a number of practices. If the UK GPs can figure out the admin working as a hub, I'm sure ours can.

Cole

CIARAN_BOYLE wrote: »

Thats the way the UK does it too. A larger gp practice acting as a vaccination hub for a number of local practices.

Yes. I've had 3 relatives in the UK receive Pfizer this way.

is_that_so

Multipass wrote: »

The most vulnerable in the UK have had the AZ vaccine. Speed and ease of access should be factored in too.

That is a live experiment, one that other countries are not prepared to countenance. It may be considered useful data later in the year but not now. As pointed out above the data is both good and plentiful for the other two.

IrishStuff09

brickster69 wrote: »

What is the time window that the 2nd doses have to be administered by ?

For Pfizer/Moderna its 28 days for anyone who got vaccinated after Jan 15th.. Anyone done before that will be given the second dose in and around 21 days later I think (true in my mam's case anyway).

franciscanpunk

adam240610 wrote: »

I'd rather them evaluate the risks properly than inadvertently give out something that could have bad side effects and that would fuel anti-vax for a generation

One of the risks they need to evaluate also though is the risk to health\life by not acting as quickly as possible. I obvioisly don't know the evaluation process but it appears to be quicker in the UK, US etc. and not that after the application the EMA they dont decide fast, the time between application and approval is very fast it just seems that companies prefer to apply for approval with other markets first.

CIARAN_BOYLE

franciscanpunk wrote: »

One of the risks they need to evaluate also though is the risk to health\life by not acting as quickly as possible. I obvioisly don't know the evaluation process but it appears to be quicker in the UK, US etc. and not that after the application the EMA they dont decide fast, the time between application and approval is very fast it just seems that companies prefer to apply for approval with other markets first.

For what its worth we haven't given any emergency use authorisation in relation to cover vaccines.

All our approvals are conditional marketing approval which is a higher standard of approval requiring a higher standard of data.

Multipass

is_that_so wrote: »

That is a live experiment, one that other countries are not prepared to countenance. It may be considered useful data later in the year but not now. As pointed out above the data is both good and plentiful for the other two.

That’s great if all are available. It’s a gamble that should be a personal choice, would you like a vaccine now that is already shown to be effective, but didn’t have enough participants fall ill over 70 to clinch the proof. Or would you like to wait.... how long, we’re not being told, until the government figures out the logistics of how they’ll get the more difficult to handle vaccine out to where it’s needed. But you might get sick and die while you wait.

frozen3

El Sueño wrote: »

There could already have been a tonne of cases of the E484K mutation in Israel for all we know, hopefully that's the case.

That's true

Israel might have an update for us soon

frozen3

IrishStuff09 wrote: »

These are all the updates we've been given so far. Hopefully we'll get more regular ones soon enough

Date|Total Vaccines Given
Dec-31|1,800
Jan-04|4,000
Jan-07|15,314
Jan-10|40,000
Jan-13|77,303
Jan-17|94,000
Jan-20|121,900
Jan-24|143,000
Jan-27|161,500
Jan-31|199,800
Feb-3|219,200


Source


In line graph form:

Are they tracking the uptake percentage?

That will give us a clearer path to next groups

UK last I checked was pretty high at 90% uptake

brickster69

IrishStuff09 wrote: »

For Pfizer/Moderna its 28 days for anyone who got vaccinated after Jan 15th.. Anyone done before that will be given the second dose in and around 21 days later I think (true in my mam's case anyway).

When is the next delivery of those vaccines due ?

frozen3

Hmmzis wrote: »

The E484K mutation is interesting in the way that it should have been an easy one to get early on if it provided any sort of advantage on its own. An A to G flip happened early on and stuck as it proved to be advantageous (the infamous D614G), even though it's a far less likely change than the other way around.

The E484 codon has the following nucleotides - GAA, in the K version that on G is flipped to an A giving an AAA codon for the lysine. Interestingly enough, our own cellular defenses are doing two predominant edits to viral RNA:

G -> A
C -> U

Also the N to Y change at codon 501 is a replacement of an A to a U.

There are multiple papers describing this sort of host factored editing of viral genomes (one here: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0006291X20320210).

To my untrained eye that looks like our own innate/cellular immune systems are driving these changes more than any antibody or other adaptive immune system pressures on the viral genome replication cycle. It also explains why in various parts of the world the changes are almost identical.

Might well be a case of our own immune systems shooting themselves in the foot, at least in the short term. The changes to K484 do look a bit more restricted going forward, it can get a Q(CAA) there with a simple and easy nucleotide flip but that brings it dangerously close to a stop codon (UAA) and would likely result in poorer expression (also lesser binding) of the S protein due to the C->U flips mentioned above. The ones that look more likely are:

N(AAU) better binding/slightly diminished expression
I(AUA) poorer binding/slightly diminished expression
R(AGA) better binding (beats even K)/slightly diminished expression
T(ACA) better binding/no change to expression

Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7310626/

Thanks Hmmzis

Most of that is way over my head, but good read here from experts in the field on that UK E484K strain that might interest you

http://www.sciencemediacentre.org/expert-reaction-to-document-from-phe-about-the-b-1-1-7-variant-including-reference-to-detection-of-the-e484k-mutation-in-some-b-1-1-7-genomes/?cli_action=1612452197.064

Sky King

Yeah I don't get it either.

Though the confused messaging about the AZ / Over 70's was a bit annoying.

Irish Stones

A first study from AIFA reveals that the rate of ADR's post Pfizer Vaccine is 469 cases every 100k doses.
These ADR's are mostly mild (92.4%) with headaches, light temperature, fatigue and dizziness.
The remaining 7.6% of ADR cases were more severe, with about 140 people which needed hospitalization.
Also, 13 people died post vaccine, but these deaths don't seem directly related to the vaccine, more likely to underlying conditions in the patients who received the vaccine.
This study confirms the high reliability and safety of the mRNA vaccine and the quality of the population monitoring - says AIFA.

Wondering if other countries have done a similar investigation after 4 weeks in the roll out.

lbj666

Yevon wrote: »

https://twitter.com/charliebird49/status/1357347199332405253?s=19

Genuinely curious as to what he thinks the mess up on roll out has been? We have administered almost every vaccine we have received apart from a small buffer which is being maintained as a precaution.

That doesnt mean there isnt waffling and there has been plenty, latest being HSE , NIAC , CMO and the Taoiseach all seem to be slighting contradicting what the plan is.

is_that_so

Yevon wrote: »

https://twitter.com/charliebird49/status/1357347199332405253?s=19

Genuinely curious as to what he thinks the mess up on roll out has been? We have administered almost every vaccine we have received apart from a small buffer which is being maintained as a precaution.

If you're a journalist there's been a mess up! They seem to be allergic to simple truthful answers. Most of the last year has been a "mess up" anyway, according to some of them.

cameramonkey

frozen3 wrote: »

Are they tracking the uptake percentage?

That will give us a clearer path to next groups

UK last I checked was pretty high at 90% uptake

https://twitter.com/peterdonaghy/status/1357358077780119554



COVID-19 vaccine NI yesterday, 17,064 first doses administered (0.91% of the population).




LATEST #COVID19 VACCINE UPDATE FOR NI: 289,274 vaccines have been administered, of which 263,735 were first doses and 25,539 were second doses.

is_that_so

lbj666 wrote: »

That doesnt mean there isnt waffling and there has been plenty, latest being HSE , NIAC , CMO and the Taoiseach all seem to be slighting contradicting what the plan is.

Well, the HSE are the only ones who matter as they are running it. A lot of the contradictions are imagined. NIAC and HSE agree, CMO probably does too and the Taoiseach as a politician is most likely to be waffling.