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

mean gene wrote: »

what are we aiming for with these vaccines normality by the summer?? can we get away from the sh1t weather here for a week??

I'm hoping ( and currently pricing) or annual holiday to Portugal next September. That's my aim. Trying to give us something to look forward to.

I would expect the vulnerable to be done in the first 4 months of next year. Broader rollout after that. I wouldn't be worried about that actual timeline, it will happen in 2021, which is astounding.

mean gene wrote: »

what are we aiming for with these vaccines normality by the summer?? can we get away from the sh1t weather here for a week??

I'm certainly hopeful of a semi-normal summer 2021.

There are some who think we need the majority of the population vaccinated to get to normality (possibly Q3 but more likely Q4 2021) and others who believe we can get back to normal once vulnerable/frontline are vaccinated (probably Q2 2021).

I'd be leaning towards the latter, but at the end of the day, it'll be a governmental decision based on the advice of NPHET/hospital capacity/economy/public fatigue.

Interesting and exciting times ahead, as the light at the end of the tunnel can definitely be seen. It's just how far away that light is is the debate!

opinionated3 wrote: »

I'm hoping ( and currently pricing) or annual holiday to Portugal next September. That's my aim. Trying to give us something to look forward to.

Looking at September too but I’m nervous. There’s 20% off the trip I’m interested in at the moment

Bursanc wrote: »

So what would people think would be a reasonable goal in terms of how many people we vaccinate say each month? Assuming that we have a constant supply from Pfizer/Moderna/Oxford

I read that last year they distributed 1.1m flu vaccines, but I'm not sure if that was over the whole year or just throughout the 3 months in Autumn.

Stephen Donnelly also said yesterday they now have the capacity to conduct 140,000 tests per week, which I know doesn't equate exactly to giving vaccines but I suppose gives us some indication of their capabilities.

You would think that medics employed to take covid swabs could also administer vaccines. When we got the flu jab at work last year, everyone had basically a five minute slot, and you had to hang around outside for another five minutes in case there was a reaction, but I'd say the process could be streamlined a bit. We really should be aiming to take whatever vaccine supplies we can get and not be limited by capacity to administer it. You'd think the testing centres could be good places for mass vaccination also. All speculation on my part of course.

Bursanc wrote: »

So what would people think would be a reasonable goal in terms of how many people we vaccinate say each month? Assuming that we have a constant supply from Pfizer/Moderna/Oxford

I read that last year they distributed 1.1m flu vaccines, but I'm not sure if that was over the whole year or just throughout the 3 months in Autumn.

Stephen Donnelly also said yesterday they now have the capacity to conduct 140,000 tests per week, which I know doesn't equate exactly to giving vaccines but I suppose gives us some indication of their capabilities.

I'd love to know that too.

For Pfizer I think its been said that the EU is getting 25m doses in Jan (presumably out of the 50m Pfizer say they can make this year) - from a link from Italy several pages back, might have been from Reuters. That equates to around 250k doses for us in Ireland.
If Pfizer say they plan to make 1.3BN doses in 2021 - in very rough terms that's 100M per month give or take. So based on the EU getting 50% of the original 50M batch made in 2020, they'd be getting 50M per month which would give us 500k doses per month. Even if we're conservative and say the EU only get 40M per month that would still give us say 400k doses each month.
With it being a two dose regimen, we could vaccinate 120k people in month 1 and 200k people per month thereafter. That's just for Pfizer.
Its a massive undertaking, but if we had similar numbers from Moderna and/or AZ-Oxford we could potentially have enough doses to do 400k people per month. Whether we have the ability to do that is another thing I guess.

The potential to have 2m people vaccinated by the summer is massive though. I'd be fairly sure we'll mess it up.

I'm trying to be optimistic but my optimism is tempered by the hard fact that the vaccine distribution and administration will be overseen by the twin disasters of the Irish Government and the HSE.
I'm wondering when a government party member will be caught out trying to create a nice little earner for a party acolyte or family member or when some Green Party nut job will baulk at the amount of CO2 emitted by the dry ice required to store the vaccine or whether sufficient staff are available and trained to distribute and administer the vaccine when it does arrive
You may say that this is an overly negative view of things but it's worth remembering that multiple similar examples have occurred in the past.

plodder wrote: »

You would think that medics employed to take covid swabs could also administer vaccines. When we got the flu jab at work last year, everyone had basically a five minute slot, and you had to hang around outside for another five minutes in case there was a reaction, but I'd say the process could be streamlined a bit. We really should be aiming to take whatever vaccine supplies we can get and not be limited by capacity to administer it. You'd think the testing centres could be good places for mass vaccination also. All speculation on my part of course.

Asked this before but how thorough is the record keeping on those who get flu jabs everyyear? Is there a central database kept or do they even bother since its only meant to last the season.

Would think it would have to be fairly robust for this for the purposes of travel work etc.

lbj666 wrote: »

Asked this before but how thorough is the record keeping on those who get flu jabs everyyear? Is there a central database kept or do they even bother since its only meant to last the season.

Would think it would have to be fairly robust for this for the purposes of travel work etc.

I doubt there is any central database for normal flu jabs. Some percentage is done by the private sector with no state involvement. But since the state is organising this effort, there would have to be for this though, not least to manage the two dose aspect.

There is a clause in the deal with Pfizer fur an insurance policy if shipments are diverted to the US. So the risk of this happening is real

Gael23 wrote: »

There is a clause in the deal with Pfizer fur an insurance policy if shipments are diverted to the US. So the risk of this happening is real

Aren't the European and rest of the world stocks being produced in Belgium though ? I can't see the US being able to get their hands on those doses that are earmarked for EU use tbh.

Gael23 wrote: »

There is a clause in the deal with Pfizer fur an insurance policy if shipments are diverted to the US. So the risk of this happening is real

I'm not sure how many times this has had to be said, its separate manufacturing facilties for US and Europe.

Pfizer aren't involved in any of this operation warp speed and aren't involved with the US government.

Rolling reviews already underway in Europe

stephenjmcd wrote: »

I'm not sure how many times this has had to be said, its separate manufacturing facilties for US and Europe.

Pfizer aren't involved in any of this operation warp speed and aren't involved with the US government.

Rolling reviews already underway in Europe

Why the insurance clause ?
It would hardly be standard
This is Trump we are talking about
Rule nothing out

brisan wrote: »

Trump is still in power until some time in January
I would not rule out a couple of last minute grandstanding gestures
The Americans done it with PPE on the tarmacs of Chinese airports

I hear ya, but they won't do it in Belgium or Germany.

The number of Chinese people administered with the Sinopharm vaccine has officially crossed 1 million.