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COVID-19: Vaccine and testing procedures Megathread Part 3 - Read OP

Beasty

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Thread 2

No anti-vax stuff in this thread - it's to discuss the various vaccines available and how they are getting rolled out, as well as testing procedures

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Stark

I'm sure flu vaccines also have adverse reactions.

[Deleted User]

trellheim wrote: »

Why has AZ 12 week and PFizer 4 - is there a real answer to this question can anyone tell me

Because there's only so much time and data that can happen.

Aside from anything else the variables of gender, age and weight will have a huge impact on which is marginally more effective than the other depending on timing of the jab.
We see it with other jabs, the gaps are the gaps, that's the accepted way to do it. Once it works then fine.
Otherwise you'd have to run multiple trials in multiple places at multiple times in order to find which gap provides the absolute best reaction. If there's a big difference in gender/age then you might have to run more trials all over again.
In the trials for Covid jabs the number of cases in the placebo groups were very small so even one in the dosed group could lead to a method being written off in favour of a different gap.

It's a problem in science and medicine where everything is "by the book". I, a 20+ stone man with asthma get the same dose of antibiotics and steroids as women half my weight get for a chest infection. Does that make sense? Not particularly but that's the level that was tested so that's the box that's ticked.
Things are more wooly and rough around the margins than people like to admit and so they cling to box-ticking and list checking.

CIARAN_BOYLE

My Father is 64.

He has some sort of immune condition but the doctor has not attached a label to it. As such it doesn't count as a risk factor for covid. 6 blood tests over the last 18 months showing chronically low white blood cell counts.

He had an unknown viral infection about 18 months ago that had him spend 6 weeks in hospital.

He is also epileptic and on strongly dailly medicines for that. After a seizure he tends to be confused for a period of 10-15 minutes. He wouldn't be able to follow social distancing during this confusion.

He is also on a waiting list for a knee replacement. His doctor has suggested that it would be wise to delay any operation until he has been vaccinated as he may need residential rehab.

He also has intermittent back problems although that shouldn't have any impact on vaccination.

His GP today said there's no chance he will be vaccinated until the 18-64 year old group is being done. His doctor had previously told him he would be in one of the risk groups.

Sometimes it feels very frustrating.

Stark

Anyone any idea how many people are in cohort 8 (adults 16 - 64 in long term care)? I imagine many of them were probably already covered through cohorts 4 and 7. I don't know if "long term care" includes prisons or is that the parallel cohort to cohort 9 (living in crowded accommodation). Looking the delivery numbers for April and how many have already been vaccinated, I'm of the opinion we could have first dosed everyone in cohorts 1-7 by end of April.

(My assumptions:
105k people in cohort 1
245k people in cohort 2
500k people in cohort 3
350k people in cohort 4/7 combined
250k people in cohort 5/6 combined).

stefanovich

CIARAN_BOYLE wrote: »

He had an unknown viral infection about 18 months ago that had him spend 6 weeks in hospital.

Covid was in Europe as far back as November 2019

eoinbn

snotboogie wrote: »

Is 850k still the goal for April? We have only done 80k in the first 6 days. That leaves us 770 to do in 24 days. That's an average of 32k per day. However there are 6 weekend days left. If we continue to average 5k per day on weekends we will need to average 41k per day on weekdays to reach 850k this month.

Even if we up the weekends to 10k, we still need to average 40k on weekdays.

Summary, the weekends are killing us at the moment and we will struggle to meet 850k in April at our current rate, especially if as I expect, we only hit 30k on Tuesday and Wednesday this week.

1.5 million total by the end of the month, or 600k total for April looks far more likely to me at the moment. We are going to either have to stop the weekend delays and match them to weekdays or start pulling out some 50k days to make up for the shortfall. I don't see either happening. A 50k day puts us at 1 per 100, that is globally notable and would put us top of the world in administration. Even 5 back to back 40k days would put us among the world's best.

860k was the target but it seems to have been revised upwards a bit.
Note delivery does not equal vaccinations. If 150k doses arrive very late in the month then it is hard to expect them to be all used. However we will be carrying over doses from last month so that will offset some of that.

Weekends aren't the issue - supply of vaccines are. The vaccines we do have in stock are been held for a special cohort that is proving hard to identify. Once the supply issue is addressed, which is happening, then we will see high vaccination figures throughout the week.

Turtwig

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Because there's only so much time and data that can happen.

Aside from anything else the variables of gender, age and weight will have a huge impact on which is marginally more effective than the other depending on timing of the jab.
We see it with other jabs, the gaps are the gaps, that's the accepted way to do it. Once it works then fine.
Otherwise you'd have to run multiple trials in multiple places at multiple times in order to find which gap provides the absolute best reaction. If there's a big difference in gender/age then you might have to run more trials all over again.
In the trials for Covid jabs the number of cases in the placebo groups were very small so even one in the dosed group could lead to a method being written off in favour of a different gap.

It's a problem in science and medicine where everything is "by the book". I, a 20+ stone man with asthma get the same dose of antibiotics and steroids as women half my weight get for a chest infection. Does that make sense? Not particularly but that's the level that was tested so that's the box that's ticked.
Things are more wooly and rough around the margins than people like to admit and so they cling to box-ticking and list checking.

This is an inaccurate post.

The Oxford trials initially tried short dosing intervals but werent getting the desired antibody responses. So they tried other intervals.

Medication such as steroids are frequently adjusted by weight. In fact, the dosages are usually given as mg per 5 kg of body weight. (Nurses btw are amazing here they usually calculate this stuff on the fly.)
Other factors such as individuals bloods levels, medication, previous illnesses are all taken into account when determining medication and dosage.

1huge1

nibtrix wrote: »

I've seen several posts from people on "other" immunosuppressive meds who have received a vaccine (or at least an appointment) but one of the largest public Rheumatology departments in the country told me today that they are only including patients receiving the named medications! Seems to be completely up to the individual department/consultant.

That is what I have noticed too, my Dad has rheumatoid arthritis and takes Humira (Adalimumab) which wasn't on any list I could find and his consultant had told him that he was not in cohort 4.

But, then his GP rang this morning and told him to expect an appointment to get AZ within the next 24hrs.

I think this proves the difficultly in identifying all those in cohort 4 and further shows the decision to move to an age based approach after this cohort was the correct decision.

CIARAN_BOYLE wrote: »

My Father is 64.

He has some sort of immune condition but the doctor has not attached a label to it. As such it doesn't count as a risk factor for covid. 6 blood tests over the last 18 months showing chronically low white blood cell counts.

He had an unknown viral infection about 18 months ago that had him spend 6 weeks in hospital.

He is also epileptic and on strongly dailly medicines for that. After a seizure he tends to be confused for a period of 10-15 minutes. He wouldn't be able to follow social distancing during this confusion.

He is also on a waiting list for a knee replacement. His doctor has suggested that it would be wise to delay any operation until he has been vaccinated as he may need residential rehab.

He also has intermittent back problems although that shouldn't have any impact on vaccination.

His GP today said there's no chance he will be vaccinated until the 18-64 year old group is being done. His doctor had previously told him he would be in one of the risk groups.

Sometimes it feels very frustrating.

I felt the same frustration, but hopefully it'll be very soon for your father too.

CIARAN_BOYLE

stefanovich wrote: »

Covid was in Europe as far back as November 2019

Wasn't covid. Definitely not.

The symptoms didn't match.

stefanovich

CIARAN_BOYLE wrote: »

Wasn't covid. Definitely not.

The symptoms didn't match.

A lot of the symptoms are not widely publicised. Rash, stomach pains etc...

irishlad.

https://twitter.com/ZaraKing/status/1380150292432437255

Good to see

eastie17

has anyone tried this: https://www.omnicalculator.com/health/ireland-vaccine-queue

Apologies if its already been posted

The supply issue is a load of BS in my opinion, the HSE have ****ed this up as they still dont have their logistics squared away.

This calculator is fairly simple maths, currently uses a vaccination rate of 137K per week and an uptake rate of 74%, which we hit last week but I dont think we'll be able to do it consistently. The fact that its not consistent tells you they haven't got their ducks in a row logistically.
Based on me having no underlying conditions or no special case and currently being in my late 40s this predicts I will get my first vaccination late July early August.
If I was 25 it will be November!
Its been almost 4 months of "the vaccines are coming lads", the vaccines are there, they just haven't setup the infrastructure to handle giving them out. Its always someone else's issue.
I call bull**** on the Ministers assertion that 80% of adults who want one will be offered one by the end of June. We'll get news on some other supply issues at the end of April or early May I predict.

Stark

Oh ffs. That's been posted many many times and it's total bull**** piece of ****.

nibtrix

1huge1 wrote: »

That is what I have noticed too, my Dad has rheumatoid arthritis and takes Humira (Adalimumab) which wasn't on any list I could find and his consultant had told him that he was not in cohort 4.

But, then his GP rang this morning and told him to expect an appointment to get AZ within the next 24hrs.

I think this proves the difficultly in identifying all those in cohort 4 and further shows the decision to move to an age based approach after this cohort was the correct decision.

Yeah this is similar to my meds (I'm on a combination of secukinumab and methotrexate) so it looks like it's up to the GP now. Unfortunately they told me earlier this week that they haven't even looked at cohort 4 yet as they are expecting to be vaccinating over 70s for another 2-3 weeks.

I agree that the age based approach is better as identifying all of the previously planned cohorts was going to be a nightmare.

irishlad.

https://twitter.com/PriscillaLynch/status/1380151314550775809

stephenjmcd

eastie17 wrote: »

has anyone tried this: https://www.omnicalculator.com/health/ireland-vaccine-queue

Apologies if its already been posted

The supply issue is a load of BS in my opinion, the HSE have ****ed this up as they still dont have their logistics squared away.

This calculator is fairly simple maths, currently uses a vaccination rate of 137K per week and an uptake rate of 74%, which we hit last week but I dont think we'll be able to do it consistently. The fact that its not consistent tells you they haven't got their ducks in a row logistically.
Based on me having no underlying conditions or no special case and currently being in my late 40s this predicts I will get my first vaccination late July early August.
If I was 25 it will be November!
Its been almost 4 months of "the vaccines are coming lads", the vaccines are there, they just haven't setup the infrastructure to handle giving them out. Its always someone else's issue.
I call bull**** on the Ministers assertion that 80% of adults who want one will be offered one by the end of June. We'll get news on some other supply issues at the end of April or early May I predict.

It's been around a few months and it's a load of rubbish, has been discussed here before. Anyone can input whatever numbers they want into it and it doesn't take into account any increase in supply at all.

Nothing more to say about it really

JDD

So I have a 1 in 250,000 chance of developing a serious blood clot condition when getting two shots of AZ...

whereas I had a 1 in 10,000 chance of developing blood clots (which in all cases can be serious) when taking the contraceptive pill. Which I took every day for 20 years.

And I have 1 in 1,000 chance of developing a blood clot when taking a long haul flight.

This panic is nonsense. Give me the AZ (or whatever you have) please.

Bubbaclaus

eastie17 wrote: »

has anyone tried this: https://www.omnicalculator.com/health/ireland-vaccine-queue

Apologies if its already been posted

The supply issue is a load of BS in my opinion, the HSE have ****ed this up as they still dont have their logistics squared away.

This calculator is fairly simple maths, currently uses a vaccination rate of 137K per week and an uptake rate of 74%, which we hit last week but I dont think we'll be able to do it consistently. The fact that its not consistent tells you they haven't got their ducks in a row logistically.
Based on me having no underlying conditions or no special case and currently being in my late 40s this predicts I will get my first vaccination late July early August.
If I was 25 it will be November!
Its been almost 4 months of "the vaccines are coming lads", the vaccines are there, they just haven't setup the infrastructure to handle giving them out. Its always someone else's issue.
I call bull**** on the Ministers assertion that 80% of adults who want one will be offered one by the end of June. We'll get news on some other supply issues at the end of April or early May I predict.

So you are saying that Ireland and all the other 26 countries in the EU are all simultaneously lying and involved in a big over up of how many vaccines are available?

That would require tens of thousands of people to toe the same line to keep that lie going.

[Deleted User]

eastie17 wrote: »

has anyone tried this: https://www.omnicalculator.com/health/ireland-vaccine-queue

Apologies if its already been posted

The supply issue is a load of BS in my opinion, the HSE have ****ed this up as they still dont have their logistics squared away.

This calculator is fairly simple maths, currently uses a vaccination rate of 137K per week and an uptake rate of 74%, which we hit last week but I dont think we'll be able to do it consistently. The fact that its not consistent tells you they haven't got their ducks in a row logistically.
Based on me having no underlying conditions or no special case and currently being in my late 40s this predicts I will get my first vaccination late July early August.
If I was 25 it will be November!
Its been almost 4 months of "the vaccines are coming lads", the vaccines are there, they just haven't setup the infrastructure to handle giving them out. Its always someone else's issue.
I call bull**** on the Ministers assertion that 80% of adults who want one will be offered one by the end of June. We'll get news on some other supply issues at the end of April or early May I predict.

Why 137k per week?

"ill believe the random calculator created on the internet that assumes everything stays the same as now rather than real projections, from all over Europe that are matching the actual vaccination ramp"

1huge1

eastie17 wrote: »

has anyone tried this: https://www.omnicalculator.com/health/ireland-vaccine-queue

Apologies if its already been posted

The supply issue is a load of BS in my opinion, the HSE have ****ed this up as they still dont have their logistics squared away.

This calculator is fairly simple maths, currently uses a vaccination rate of 137K per week and an uptake rate of 74%, which we hit last week but I dont think we'll be able to do it consistently. The fact that its not consistent tells you they haven't got their ducks in a row logistically.
Based on me having no underlying conditions or no special case and currently being in my late 40s this predicts I will get my first vaccination late July early August.
If I was 25 it will be November!
Its been almost 4 months of "the vaccines are coming lads", the vaccines are there, they just haven't setup the infrastructure to handle giving them out. Its always someone else's issue.
I call bull**** on the Ministers assertion that 80% of adults who want one will be offered one by the end of June. We'll get news on some other supply issues at the end of April or early May I predict.

What are you basing this on, a hunch?

You say that we are going to have supply issues again at the end of April or early May you "predict" but then say say that the HSE have F'd this up?

The fact remains, they got 98% of all vaccines recived last week within arms within 7 days and that has been fairly consistent throughout.

Also, that website, I don't see where it takes into account the amount of vaccines already administrated (not saying its not in the background), but anyway, why would you assume its going to stay at 137k, could you provide some evidence as to that been the peak of our weekly vaccinations?

Deeper Blue

People are still posting that ****ing calculator thing? Christ almighty

Bubbaclaus

Deeper Blue wrote: »

People are still posting that ****ing calculator thing? Christ almighty

At this stage we must assume they are clearly on a deliberate wind up.

snotboogie

eoinbn wrote: »

860k was the target but it seems to have been revised upwards a bit.
Note delivery does not equal vaccinations. If 150k doses arrive very late in the month then it is hard to expect them to be all used. However we will be carrying over doses from last month so that will offset some of that.

Weekends aren't the issue - supply of vaccines are. The vaccines we do have in stock are been held for a special cohort that is proving hard to identify. Once the supply issue is addressed, which is happening, then we will see high vaccination figures throughout the week.

Thought 1 million was the delivery target and 850k was the administration target? Was there any administration target given??

Bubbaclaus

irishlad. wrote: »

https://twitter.com/PriscillaLynch/status/1380151314550775809

Good stuff.

1huge1

nibtrix wrote: »

Yeah this is similar to my meds (I'm on a combination of secukinumab and methotrexate) so it looks like it's up to the GP now. Unfortunately they told me earlier this week that they haven't even looked at cohort 4 yet as they are expecting to be vaccinating over 70s for another 2-3 weeks.

I agree that the age based approach is better as identifying all of the previously planned cohorts was going to be a nightmare.

Well just to say, while the GP seems to have organised the appointment at the MVC to have the AC vaccine, the GP surgery themselves are giving Pfizer/Moderna to patients there to the over 70s and doesn't expect that cohort to be done for another 2 weeks or so.

So even if your GP is still on the over 70s, it doesn't appear to be a barrier for getting an appointment organised by your GP for the MVC.

But perhaps others on this thread understand the booking system better than me.

astrofool

speckle wrote: »

I dont agree entirely... reading across the boards covid thread and having family friends neighbours in that cohort and people I know working with(ngos) or/treating them.. Some gps and hospital consultants and even ngo's have definitly been more organised than others in getting their lists together and in some instances personally contacting the patients/clients.
...

Good post, and sorry to cut it, but it precisely highlights the issues that we just don't have the processes in place to handle ambiguous cohorts, you can be at the mercy of a digitised GP or non-digitised GP, where some will put in the extra hours by hand and some won't, there's lots of ways to gather the numbers, but all are time intensive leading to delays in the rollout, treating them as a parallel group after the initial 150,000 (maybe subject to cancellations) would probably have allowed the more elderly cohorts to keep moving ahead, again, the disarray in systems would have led to lots of hard luck cases "My GP knows nothing, hospital won't tell me what to do.", it's also led to a creep in what qualifies, people who aren't really at risk now identify as someone who is at risk pushing the numbers up, and there's nothing a politician hates more than having to say no to a sick person.

In reality, if there had been a quarter of planning done beforehand rather than a snap decision, then they'd probably be done by now, as people have said, hindsight is 20/20.

[Deleted User]

Turtwig wrote: »

This is an inaccurate post.

The Oxford trials initially tried short dosing intervals but werent getting the desired antibody responses. So they tried other intervals.

Got a link? Would be interested.
Also it doesn't address the longer-gap idea. Genuinely interested to see the initial stuff but I would have thought they increased it until an acceptable response was generated. That's often as far as they'll go, it can turn out even longer (or different doses) could be even more effective but "good enough" can win out in a hurry/time of scarcity. Again, not saying that's the case (Brits "took a chance" on 12 weeks, the data as I recall showed it shouldn't make much difference) in this particular case.

Medication such as steroids are frequently adjusted by weight. In fact, the dosages are usually given as mg per 5 kg of body weight. (Nurses btw are amazing here they usually calculate this stuff on the fly.)
Other factors such as individuals bloods levels, medication, previous illnesses are all taken into account when determining medication and dosage.

Depends on your definition of "frequently" but I'm going to make a guesstimate that at least 95% of medication is taken in a pre-made tablet form that no-one has touched since it left the factory. Whether it be over the counter or prescribed by a doctor. Probably closer to 99% of all medication I've ever taken has been either from blister packs or filled into a bottle.

For mass-medication best-guess averages are what's used and they're refined. Just in this week in Ireland hundreds of thousands of 500mg paracetamol will be taken this week by men, women, children, skinny people, smokers, fat people, diabetics, etc., etc. I'm sure there are a few people in hospitals will have specific amounts put into drips somewhere in hospitals but not for the vast majority of use. I find it incredible that the perfect dose of so many drugs just so happens to be a nice round number of units of a man-made measuring unit. :pac:

speckle

nibtrix wrote: »

Great post speckle. I'd add one point which is it seems the changing cohort requirements are not clear enough in some cases. For example the immunocompromised section states:

I've seen several posts from people on "other" immunosuppressive meds who have received a vaccine (or at least an appointment) but one of the largest public Rheumatology departments in the country told me today that they are only including patients receiving the named medications! Seems to be completely up to the individual department/consultant.

Yes..I have seen those also...I wonder is it due to some departments especially in cities having a large number of patients on their books and a smaller vaccine amount per % of patients or only so much time/staff spare in week to deliever them safely versus continueing care appontments?..

Have they(hospital/consultant) prioritised patients on the listed meds into an A group first but others with RA in a B group? Yes the changing dynamics of cohorts been messy due to understandably newer research evolving but it is the lack of communication of why that needs to be improved. ..ie why these meds and not others. Should have it very clear on the internet in mutiple sites on Irish gov.ie/HSE/Hpra/hospital/advovacy..they may have since I last checked or maybe hard to find?

Maybe the med list needs to be expanded or not...think ours is the same as they UK.

Maybe certain hospitals constrained because of higher numbers of positive cases in their area/patients/hospital?

Rheumatology very underfunded and staffed in this country towards other EU countrys. Maybe other Rhuemy departments have this B cohort on a backup list for spares?

Maybe some RA patients getting it via their gp as they will know they have other physical co morbidities or even severe mental health issues like bi polar which people will not necessarily and understandably post publically here on boards considering some people would even be embrassed to say they are obese or the extreme opposite here because of some posters trying to embarass/shame them.

Regarding the last paragraph.. I know some people with both RA and the above type co morbidtys who are going the GP route as they have a fuller patient risk history not skipping queue but taking respondibility of their health information and making sure GP up to date.

If you know some one with RA remind them of the other co morbidtys that make you high risk and maybe contact your GP pointing out/updating them... that the sum totality of your health makes you fall into a certain cohort?

I did come across an RA site think it was the USA or UK one that explained the rationale behind the narrower drug list and linked the Governments and research papers...

Hope this helps...RA and other rhuemy/autoimune diseases can make ones life hell and the waiting around so long for a diagnosis sometimes in the public health system only adds more stress and possibly deducts time off your lifespan let alone the ones spent in pain waiting or trying different meds with sometimes nasty side effects and people in public saying sure you can be ill as alot of the illness is invisible hidden behind closed doors...but it is great if you get meds/lifestyle that works... can bring a spring in your step back to life and joy.
Edit..Important..just checked site saying list of immunosuppressants niw not limited to those listed..not sure when this changed been buzy

https://www.gov.ie/en/publication/39038-provisional-vaccine-allocation-groups/

Wolf359f

JDD wrote: »

So I have a 1 in 250,000 chance of developing a serious blood clot condition when getting two shots of AZ...

whereas I had a 1 in 10,000 chance of developing blood clots (which in all cases can be serious) when taking the contraceptive pill. Which I took every day for 20 years.

And I have 1 in 1,000 chance of developing a blood clot when taking a long haul flight.

This panic is nonsense. Give me the AZ (or whatever you have) please.

Completely different blood clots you're comparing.

ACitizenErased

Wolf359f wrote: »

Completely different blood clots you're comparing.

If you watched the EMA briefing yesterday Dr. Peter Arlett was asked which other medicines have the same clots and he said contraceptives.