What exactly is happening with AstraZeneca?

Sam Russell wrote: »

Switching to age rather than occupation is the right thing to do.

4. Spare left over vaccines should be given to the Gardai as they could be at the vaccination point in a short time (they have the blue lights that speed them on their way), and they could be safer vaccinated for everyone (as they come into contact anyone) than any other group. Not only that, as there are only 14,000 or so Gardai while there are 100,000 teachers, they would not be an extra burden on the vaccination scheme - one days list at the current rate.

I find it hard to see how you can reconcile these two things. When the lists were first produced, it was stated to be based on a number of factors, including the risk of serious illness as well as decreasing transmission (it also includes things like the ordinary functioning of society, but lets leave that aside for now as it isn't directly related to the overall best health outcome). You seem to accept that Gardai or indeed anyone who is obliged through their job to interact with the public ought to be vaccinated, not for their own sake, but because by vaccinating them you reduce the risk of it spreading.

There are some elderly and vulnerable people who can't or won't get the vaccine and others who will not gain full immunity from it. There are also people who, due to an undiagnosed underlying condition or even, it would seem, for causes unknown, will get covid and suffer awful consequences. These people, albeit limited in number need to be protected but cannot be directly inoculated.

So, after the most vulnerable people have been inoculated, it becomes important not just to reach the next most vulnerable people, but also to stop the spread of the disease generally. There are clear public health benefits to providing a vaccine to a 24 year old Garda over a 50 year old who is working from home.

And by the way, it's not like I'm just making this up. It's the advice that our own government originally had, and is the current advice of the CDC, the WHO have included stopping transmission as a SAGE group and sensible other EU countries such as Germany have also prioritised people such as the police, rather than doing it by age.

There is also an unproven but supported theory that severe symptoms can be linked to a higher level of exposure to virus particles, which certainly makes sense in the context of the disproportionate number of otherwise healthy health care workers who had serious doses

Sam Russell wrote:

1. Age is just a number on your passport, driving licence, PSC, PPS number, etc and is not up for discussion.

I would agree with you that it is a lot easier to verify age as opposed to profession. However, that doesn't mean it can't be done. Healthcare workers have already been identified, with some small amount of slippage, but that seems unavoidable.

It wouldn't be too difficult to ask the Garda Commission to identify all serving members of AGS and give them priority shots. It isn't up for discussion if they are a serving member of AGS or not, absent some form of fraud or deceipt (e.g. a retired garda's buddies saying he was still serving). But such things will be few and far between, and it's a lot harder to get away with that than, say, using a fake ID with a fake date of birth.

2. People in general have been scandalised by the queue jumpers of the privileged, and the entitled who consider themselves more worthy than us.

Which is terrible, but the fact that such things occurred does not mean we should alter the priority list for vaccines. Instead, we should prosecute people who have jumped the queue.

3. The older you are the more at risk you are from bad outcomes if you get Covid, so working down the age list is a much better strategy.

I don't dispute that age increases bad outcomes, specifically death. However, that does not mean that the best strategy to prevent that is to work down the age list. It is an easier strategy, not a better one. The reason being that you can protect people by vaccinating them, but you can also protect people by dramatically reducing the number of overall cases of Covid in a country.

If we are guaranteed a full supply of vaccines such that we can guarantee that everyone who wants it can be fully vaccinated by e.g. the summer or the end of the year, then by age makes sense. But if we can't guarantee that, then the government should not just look at increased risk, but should also look at risk of transmissibility. And for all those who will call me callous for saying so, we are talking here about how to distribute the vaccines after those groups identified as most at risk have already been vaccinated. Conveniently, those highest risk groups also include a group by reason of their profession who are more at risk rather than by age.

It appears to me, everyone is shouting 'I should be first - I am more vulnerable, more exposed, more important, richer, etc etc etc'. They should grow up and wait their turn.

100% agree. But so too the government should say that to them, instead of reacting in a way that they say "rather than say no to people, lets just do it by age instead". Again, politically more expedient, but is it a better option for the vaccine rollout?

Strazdas wrote: »

I've heard it suggested that vaccinating by profession would almost certainly be very messy and a bit chaotic. Simply doing it by age seems to have a lot more going for it.

Fully by profession would be utter madness. But targetting specific people who are at higher risk isn't too difficult. The Gardai is a good example.

astrofool wrote: »

It's as simple as asking someone (caveated by it being someone who has living parents):

"Who should be vaccinated first, your parents, or someone else?"

This works all the way down.

Interesting. Well, if my parents were in their 50s and I was asked who should be vaccinated first them or someone in their 70s, I could selfishly say my parents.

Or if I was vaccine hesistant, I would say that someone else should go first and then my parents.

I'm not sure that the man on the street, including myself, is sufficiently knowledgable in terms of public health to know whether giving the vaccines directly to the most at risk or seeking to protect them indirectly by stopping it spreading is a better strategy to protect them.

But ultimately, the correct answer to your question is "I don't know and I don't want to make that decision on overly personal and emotive grounds. I expect the government to take the best approach based on public health expert advice, and not make it a political issue".