Vaccine Megathread - See OP for threadbans

Got my vaccine, feeling very relieved and grateful. They are doing great work in the MVCs fair play to them.

Russman

PhilOssophy wrote: »

Great to hear that we've got 200k more Pfizer. But what next for AZ/J&J?

If MVC's aren't at full capacity, then we should 100% be moving to an "opt-in" model rather than seeing these sitting there.
I will be the first person in the queue for any vaccine which has been approved by the EMA and don't care which it is.

Otherwise, NIAC are going to have to do next week what they should have done this week - say "This vaccine is perfectly safe for all age groups" once the over 50's are finished using up the Pfizer vaccine which I am sure is where this is going.

If somebody wants to sit around and wait for their mis-guided belief of a silver bullet from Pfizer (in spite of it having the same immunity against hospitalisation/death/serious illness, except the SA variant which it has less protection than J&J) then be my guest.

There will be no shortage of volunteers to take any vaccine going who want to start living again as quick as possible.

Don't think that's going to happen, not anytime soon anyway. We're, thankfully, not in a desperate enough situation as a whole (obviously individuals own circumstances will vary) to need to do that yet. Its way too soon IMO to open it up and go outside the age cohorts.
I do think most people though are pragmatic enough to accept the NIAC advice and take whatever they're offered. Unfortunately there is a view forming of "I want Pfizer or nothing" but I think its mostly a minority or said in jest amongst people. I know my father has been slagging my mother over her getting AZ and him Pfizer but they'd both have taken whatever was offered without hesitation.

Van.Bosch

Wolf359f wrote: »

Still need groups 1-3 second doses out of that!

The second doses left in 1 and 2 are mainly AZ.

titan18

Wolf359f wrote: »

Still need groups 1-3 second doses out of that!

Surely most of 1-2 is done completely now as they got their vaccines from January to March.

Qrt

JP Liz V1 wrote: »

https://twitter.com/irishexaminer/status/1387372432726577160

I don’t get why people seem shocked by this, they’re private pharmaceutical companies, of course they’re going to say stuff like this. After all, their end goal is profit.

I reckon it’ll be annual for groups that would currently be advised to get the flu jab, and then boosters every few years for the general population. Is antibody measuring an expensive affair? Because I had the Hep B jab, then I had my levels measured and it was concluded that I needed a booster, which I got. I’d say we’ll go into that kind of territory.

jimmycrackcorm

Qrt wrote: »

I don’t get why people seem shocked by this, they’re private pharmaceutical companies, of course they’re going to say stuff like this. After all, their end goal is profit.

I reckon it’ll be annual for groups that would currently be advised to get the flu jab, and then boosters every few years for the general population. Is antibody measuring an expensive affair? Because I had the Hep B jab, then I had my levels measured and it was concluded that I needed a booster, which I got. I’d say we’ll go into that kind of territory.

It's more a dose of realism. This virus isn't going away particularly when there is going to be a large cohort of people who will refuse to get vaccinated, and immunity doesn't last forever.

snotboogie

We are currently 17th out of the 26 EU countries not offering Chinese or Russian vaccines. For whatever reason Malta are on a totally different schedule at the top and Croatia, Latvia and Bulgaria are on a total different schedule at the bottom. If you exclude these 4 we are 16th out of 22. We are comfortably the last in Western Europe, all of these countries now have at least 30 per 100 vaccinated. Spain, Austria and Denmark are leading the pack at 32 per 100. We are at 28.5. No idea how MM was saying we were leading Europe, we have been comfortably the worst in class in Western Europe in April. These European numbers are mostly from the 27th so the uniquely late reporting in Ireland only gives us a day, so does not account for the difference.

The good news is we have made massive improvements over the past week. We now have the 7th highest daily average for 7 days at 0.56 per 100 per day. At this rate we should hit 30 per 100 by the end of the Bank Holiday. We are a week behind our peers in Europe but of we keep this up we won't fall further behind, which is not the end of the world. I was very worried one week ago when our daily updates we languishing at 0.4 over 7 days.

PhilOssophy

Russman wrote: »

Don't think that's going to happen, not anytime soon anyway. We're, thankfully, not in a desperate enough situation as a whole (obviously individuals own circumstances will vary) to need to do that yet. Its way too soon IMO to open it up and go outside the age cohorts.
I do think most people though are pragmatic enough to accept the NIAC advice and take whatever they're offered. Unfortunately there is a view forming of "I want Pfizer or nothing" but I think its mostly a minority or said in jest amongst people. I know my father has been slagging my mother over her getting AZ and him Pfizer but they'd both have taken whatever was offered without hesitation.

I hope you are right, I still think the media and commentators have whipped up a "Pfizer = great, everything else = bad", mantra, even though nothing could be further from the case.

I'm not so sure the over 50's are viewing it as "take what you are given" at all. People like Kingston Mills describing it as "The less effective vaccine" on Morning Ireland don't help matters.

Does anybody know how close we are to peak capacity in the MVC's. We should be absolutely doling these out at this stage, every spot should be full from the minute they open in the morning to the time they close at night.

TheDoctor

Lmkrnr wrote: »

Stop kissing me MM and throw it onto me..

Good lord.

Can we get a moderator over here please.

ACitizenErased

ACitizenErased wrote: »

we owe biontech a pint or 100000000

EU vaccine saving the world

Russman

PhilOssophy wrote: »

I hope you are right, I still think the media and commentators have whipped up a "Pfizer = great, everything else = bad", mantra, even though nothing could be further from the case.

I'm not so sure the over 50's are viewing it as "take what you are given" at all. People like Kingston Mills describing it as "The less effective vaccine" on Morning Ireland don't help matters.

Does anybody know how close we are to peak capacity in the MVC's. We should be absolutely doling these out at this stage, every spot should be full from the minute they open in the morning to the time they close at night.

Agreed on the first two points.
Re the MVCs, I don't doubt that we're still constrained by supply, but I'd say as the deliveries flow in in May/June they'll be flat out. Its still relatively early in the rollout (purely because of deliveries). You'd hope with the big bump today from Pfizer, even allowing for a certain percentage of second doses, we'll really see the numbers climb.

Really hard to know which way the HSE will go, it seems like the two choices they have are:
1) fire ahead with what we have and possibly/probably have a load of J&J unused by end of June. This might extend to roll out.
2) keep going but when cohorts 4 & 7 are done, start the 50s with whatever stock of J&J and AZ we have, but also start the 40s with Pfizer. Difficult politically but might be the most efficient.

PhilOssophy

Russman wrote: »

Agreed on the first two points.
Re the MVCs, I don't doubt that we're still constrained by supply, but I'd say as the deliveries flow in in May/June they'll be flat out. Its still relatively early in the rollout (purely because of deliveries). You'd hope with the big bump today from Pfizer, even allowing for a certain percentage of second doses, we'll really see the numbers climb.

Really hard to know which way the HSE will go, it seems like the two choices they have are:
1) fire ahead with what we have and possibly/probably have a load of J&J unused by end of June. This might extend to roll out.
2) keep going but when cohorts 4 & 7 are done, start the 50s with whatever stock of J&J and AZ we have, but also start the 40s with Pfizer. Difficult politically but might be the most efficient.

Another option might be they use the Pfizer on the over 50's (because that one is great, right? Just don't mention the SA variant....) and use J&J/AZ on a volunteer basis for younger age groups (because in spite of the media frenzy, these 2 are just as effective against serious illness and death, but without the media love-in).

See how quick those J&J are snapped up once they are open season! They'd be gone in record time. At this stage, its all down to getting people vaccinated, the age factor is becoming increasingly irrelevant once all the risky cohorts are done.

dominatinMC

jimmycrackcorm wrote: »

It's more a dose of realism. This virus isn't going away particularly when there is going to be a large cohort of people who will refuse to get vaccinated, and immunity doesn't last forever.

Of course it's not going away, I think people need to accept that. Maybe there is a misconception out there that vaccination will eliminate it, but I've always understood the objective to be suppression - effectively reduce the virus to endemic levels to the point where it makes no meaningful difference to our everyday lives.

However, as others have pointed out, there needs to be a recalibration of our (some peoples) moral compasses so that cases, hospitalisations and even deaths from this disease, although hopefully relatively few, will be tolerated and part of life going forward.

Strazdas

Russman wrote: »

Agreed on the first two points.
Re the MVCs, I don't doubt that we're still constrained by supply, but I'd say as the deliveries flow in in May/June they'll be flat out. Its still relatively early in the rollout (purely because of deliveries). You'd hope with the big bump today from Pfizer, even allowing for a certain percentage of second doses, we'll really see the numbers climb.

Really hard to know which way the HSE will go, it seems like the two choices they have are:
1) fire ahead with what we have and possibly/probably have a load of J&J unused by end of June. This might extend to roll out.
2) keep going but when cohorts 4 & 7 are done, start the 50s with whatever stock of J&J and AZ we have, but also start the 40s with Pfizer. Difficult politically but might be the most efficient.

I think people are worrying unnecessarily on this score. It's anyone's guess what would happen in mid to late June, especially if we still had 500k-750k people left to vaccinate and were rapidly running out of authorised vaccines. Perhaps NIAC could issue an emergency authorisation at this point : I can't really imagine a scenario where the rollout would be forced to slow down dramatically midsummer, when we would have hundreds of thousands of spare J & J doses in the freezer ready to be given.

PhilOssophy

dominatinMC wrote: »

Of course it's not going away, I think people need to accept that. Maybe there is a misconception out there that vaccination will eliminate it, but I've always understood the objective to be suppression - effectively reduce the virus to endemic levels to the point where it makes no meaningful difference to our everyday lives.

However, as others have pointed out, there needs to be a recalibration of our (some peoples) moral compasses so that cases, hospitalisations and even deaths from this disease, although hopefully relatively few, will be tolerated and part of life going forward.

Sure people die of flu every year, it'll just become similar, albeit with booster shots, etc needed on an on-going basis.

Also, Valneva I think have been working on a vaccine which will kill off all Covid-related variants, by targeting the root rather than the spike protein variants. Or that is my understanding of it. If we get to that stage, it'd be fantastic.

funnydoggy

PhilOssophy wrote: »

Sure people die of flu every year, it'll just become similar, albeit with booster shots, etc needed on an on-going basis.

Also, Valneva I think have been working on a vaccine which will kill off all Covid-related variants, by targeting the root rather than the spike protein variants. Or that is my understanding of it. If we get to that stage, it'd be fantastic.

Plus Pfizer's pill! We're on the way out of this thing

timsey tiger

Strazdas wrote: »

I think people are worrying unnecessarily on this score. It's anyone's guess what would happen in mid to late June, especially if we still had 500k-750k people left to vaccinate and were rapidly running out of authorised vaccines. Perhaps NIAC could issue an emergency authorisation at this point : I can't really imagine a scenario where the rollout would be forced to slow down dramatically midsummer, when we would have hundreds of thousands of spare J & J doses in the freezer ready to be given.

Well, they have said that under 50s can use J&J if there are issues with getting another 2 dose vaccine, xo in this scenario they can just use the J&J. I'd be happy to take it and on with the hols.

cameramonkey

jimmycrackcorm wrote: »

It's more a dose of realism. This virus isn't going away particularly when there is going to be a large cohort of people who will refuse to get vaccinated, and immunity doesn't last forever.

Who says immunity does not last forever?

Russman

Strazdas wrote: »

I think people are worrying unnecessarily on this score. It's anyone's guess what would happen in mid to late June, especially if we still had 500k-750k people left to vaccinate and were rapidly running out of authorised vaccines. Perhaps NIAC could issue an emergency authorisation at this point : I can't really imagine a scenario where the rollout would be forced to slow down dramatically midsummer, when we would have hundreds of thousands of spare J & J doses in the freezer ready to be given.

Absolutely, it wouldn't bother me in the slightest if it played out that we binned the J&J left unused (or donated it etc). I doubt we'll run out of authorised vaccines though, the Pfizer supply has been pretty rock solid and only looks likely to improve as time goes on. To be fair, if we're going at full steam in June and, for the sake of argument, we had half a million J&J shot unused because the 50s were already done, that would likely be less than two weeks worth of delay if we had to wait for additional Pfizer, hardly a disaster in the greater scheme of things.
I honestly can't see NIAC being swayed to change their advice based on us having the shots available, I'd guess they'd need a better reason, which more real world data could well give them by then.

snotboogie

Russman wrote: »

Absolutely, it wouldn't bother me in the slightest if it played out that we binned the J&J left unused (or donated it etc). I doubt we'll run out of authorised vaccines though, the Pfizer supply has been pretty rock solid and only looks likely to improve as time goes on. To be fair, if we're going at full steam in June and, for the sake of argument, we had half a million J&J shot unused because the 50s were already done, that would likely be less than two weeks worth of delay if we had to wait for additional Pfizer, hardly a disaster in the greater scheme of things.
I honestly can't see NIAC being swayed to change their advice based on us having the shots available, I'd guess they'd need a better reason, which more real world data could well give them by then.

500k J&J unused would need a million Pfizer to make up the shortfall. That's quite the gap to fill.

Russman

PhilOssophy wrote: »

Another option might be they use the Pfizer on the over 50's (because that one is great, right? Just don't mention the SA variant....) and use J&J/AZ on a volunteer basis for younger age groups (because in spite of the media frenzy, these 2 are just as effective against serious illness and death, but without the media love-in).

See how quick those J&J are snapped up once they are open season! They'd be gone in record time. At this stage, its all down to getting people vaccinated, the age factor is becoming increasingly irrelevant once all the risky cohorts are done.

You're right, but I just can't see them going to open season for quite a while yet, if at all. We may never have the need to do that. They're giving them out almost as fast as we're getting them in. The full amount of J&J by end of June is supposed to be around 600k, even if we couldn't use any of them, we'll probably be dishing out more than 300k per week by then (the guy on Prime Time suggested 450k per week), so would it be worth going to a free for all, for the sake of a month ? Maybe, maybe not.

Russman

snotboogie wrote: »

500k J&J unused would need a million Pfizer to make up the shortfall. That's quite the gap to fill.

You're right, my bad, I forgot about the double dose.

Bit cynical

GLaDOS wrote: »

Sounds like we might be moving past supply being the main rate limiting factor?

I don't think so to be honest. When you look at the EU countries that have done outside deals, they are way ahead. Then you look at certain countries outside the EU that are vaccinating at a rate which is a multiple that of the bulk of EU countries.

Most EU countries are within a few percent of each other with outliers such as Hungary and Malta ahead and likes of Bulgaria falling behind by a large margin.

Only in places like Bulgaria and Latvia and Croatia would supply not be an issue.

Russman

snotboogie wrote: »

500k J&J unused would need a million Pfizer to make up the shortfall. That's quite the gap to fill.

Also probably strengthens the argument to start the 40s early and save the J&J for the 50s.

ddarcy

snotboogie wrote: »

500k J&J unused would need a million Pfizer to make up the shortfall. That's quite the gap to fill.

I think it is being forgotten that Ireland did order way more than needed. There are 18.5 million vaccine doses on order. So we were always going to not use a lot. Obviously that’s over the year and there are a couple still going through the approval process like Curevax/ Novavax. Both those are looking to submit imminently as well so could be online by June.

duffman13

Talk in work maybe rather optimistically was that if they were vaccinating 50s, and 40s wanted to register for J&J they could do so (as technically no other vaccine available). Any fully formalised official announcement that has details?

is_that_so

duffman13 wrote: »

Talk in work maybe rather optimistically was that if they were vaccinating 50s, and 40s wanted to register for J&J they could do so (as technically no other vaccine available). Any fully formalised official announcement that has details?

J&J is 26K this month, 136k next month (for now) and the remainder in June. Once the over 50s are done that's the end of its useful life for us. CureVac, another mRNA vaccine, may be approved by the end of June.

adam240610

is_that_so wrote: »

J&J is 26K this month, 136k next month (for now) and the remainder in June. Once the over 50s are done that's the end of its useful life for us. CureVac, another mRNA vaccine, may be approved by the end of June.

"End of us useful life for is" is simply just not true, firstly an age limit hasn't been confirmed, and NIAC said it would be acceptable if no other options are available, these aren't just gonna end up in the trash.

is_that_so

adam240610 wrote: »

"End of us useful life for is" is simply just not true, firstly an age limit hasn't been confirmed, and NIAC said it would be acceptable if no other options are available, these aren't just gonna end up in the trash.

As our advice stands it is, over 50s only, and there are others in the wings likely to take its place. NIAC does like mRNA options. Who said anything about it being wasted? It will be used, but probably not so much here.

duffman13

is_that_so wrote: »

J&J is 26K this month, 136k next month (for now) and the remainder in June. Once the over 50s are done that's the end of its useful life for us. CureVac, another mRNA vaccine, may be approved by the end of June.

The talk is coming through the IPU in relation to pharmacies potentially administrating J&J. Otherwise pharmacies will play no part in the roll out. IPU potentially clinging on to hope rather than expectation as the industry has done a lot in terms of preparation to administer vaccinations