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

They've given two days data at once and the reporting lag is now smaller.

Saw this article on RTE this morning about GPs starting to vaccinate vulnerable under-65s. It says 1,100 GPs are participating, what percentage of GPs is that and what happens to people who's GP isn't participating?

I know I qualify for this category based on the criteria, but I also know I have next to no medical records in Ireland because I was living in the UK for a long time. I called my GP last week and they weren't particularly helpful, the receptionist said they'd "take a note of it" but that they're just vaccinating the older groups for the forseeable future.

quokula wrote: »

Saw this article on RTE this morning about GPs starting to vaccinate vulnerable under-65s. It says 1,100 GPs are participating, what percentage of GPs is that and what happens to people who's GP isn't participating?

I know I qualify for this category based on the criteria, but I also know I have next to no medical records in Ireland because I was living in the UK for a long time. I called my GP last week and they weren't particularly helpful, the receptionist said they'd "take a note of it" but that they're just vaccinating the older groups for the forseeable future.

Same, and I'm registered with a GP, where I get regular monthly prescriptions for two inhalers. They told me the same story that they were just vaccinating over 70s. Was given this number 012408787 (Dublin Vaccination hotline) which didn't yield much results either.

TomOnBoard wrote: »

Have you references to some of the studies that established these findings? Thanks.

Unfortunately not, they were articles based on studies that I read a couple of months back, so I'd need to find the articles first, and as you can imagine there's a lot of COVID articles out there to sift through

Seems like the FDA will be quicker approving the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine for 12-15 year olds than they were with 16+.

WSJ reports ...

The FDA expects to take a few weeks to review the request, a person familiar with the matter said. The agency doesn’t plan, the person said, to ask a panel of outside experts to review the submission, as the agency did before first authorizing the shot in December. Health authorities say it will be important to vaccinate children to protect them from the virus and help reach the communitywide immunity needed to move past the pandemic, known as herd immunity.

Will the US expand their vaccination programme from 16+ to 12+ around 1 May?

Could Ireland start vaccinating those aged 12-15 around 1 July?

I'm hearing that the much reported vaccine hesitancy in France and Germany is dropping rapidly - it seems that now the numbers are up around 10m in each country, people are realising it is probably very much in their interest to be vaccinated (it was much easier to be vaccine hesitant when very few people had had one).

stephenjmcd wrote: »

Highly unlikely to be that far down the age groups at that stage. Would expect 18-25 to only be offered vaccine in July I'd say

The government have said, that based on projected supplies, that 82% of those aged 16+ will be able to get a vaccine by 30 June. Leo has said there might be "surprises" (CureVac etc) that might quicken that up. Also, 6% do not want a vaccine and 15% are unsure, so 82% might be close to the full scope of those interested. Hence, I would have thought that we could move to 12-15 year olds by 1 July at the latest, assuming the EMA have approved Pfizer-Biontech for 12-15 year olds by then which it seems they will have.

JTMan wrote: »

The government have said, that based on projected supplies, that 82% of those aged 16+ will be able to get a vaccine by 30 June. Leo has said there might be "surprises" (CureVac etc) that might quicken that up. Also, 6% do not want a vaccine and 15% are unsure, so 82% might be close to the full scope of those interested. Hence, I would have thought that we could move to 12-15 year olds by 1 July at the latest, assuming the EMA have approved Pfizer-Biontech for 12-15 year olds by then which it seems they will have.

I would be very happy if my Husband, 2 kids and I were all vaccinated by the end of the Summer.

JTMan wrote: »

The government have said, that based on projected supplies, that 82% of those aged 16+ will be able to get a vaccine by 30 June. Leo has said there might be "surprises" (CureVac etc) that might quicken that up. Also, 6% do not want a vaccine and 15% are unsure, so 82% might be close to the full scope of those interested. Hence, I would have thought that we could move to 12-15 year olds by 1 July at the latest, assuming the EMA have approved Pfizer-Biontech for 12-15 year olds by then which it seems they will have.

We might be due to get enough vaccines to vaccinate 82% by the end of June, but that doesn't mean we will have vaccinated 82% by the end of June. We had 1.1m doses 10 days ago but have just passed 1m vaccinations.
We have also got some very unwelcome curve balls in the last week. I can see us following other countries in limiting AZ to older age groups. This will slow our program, especially in June when we are due to be vaccinating the younger age groups. If J&J is also linked with these rare clots(very early to know if there is any link), then our June target would likely become an end of July target.

sd1999 wrote: »

I was talking to my GP last week and he initially said that they would be doing over-70s for now. I then mentioned that the HSE site said GPs would be doing Cohort 4 & 7 to which he replied that he couldn't officially commit to that as the contracts had not been confirmed at that point but that they would be towards the end of the week as it seems they have been. They just had to cover themselves by saying they had no info on Cohort 4 & 7 and were only doing over-70s until the contract was official in case something went wrong but he basically said 'yeah we'll be doing those cohorts'.

So it’s game on from Monday 19?

From a country that has an electronic app. This is enough to grant access to malls, cinemas, large events and best of all, to avoid quarantine after foreign travel.

Scuid Mhór wrote: »

So it’s game on from Monday 19?

Well they’re starting next week according to the RTE article. Cohort 7 are due to start on 3rd May according to the HSE site.

hmmm wrote: »

France and Germany are going to offer mRNA second doses to some groups who have received the AstraZeneca vaccine:
https://www.ft.com/content/db295bb9-d1fe-47f8-bc0f-eb40dfaf545f

Interesting, I'm not sure there is much in the way of data on how effective or safe this approach is?

The UK has been running trials with this. They are still ongoing, but with the rolling review there may be enough evidence to do so. Also Astra is 69-76% effective after one dose (on par with Johnson and Johnson) and 76% after 2. So really no reason to get the second dose. Their BS 90% number which was shown to not be replicable in more rigorous clinical trials is the whole basis for two doses in Europe. Really the EMA has some explaining to do.