Vaccine Megathread No 2 - Read OP before posting

Well I got my second dose yesterday (in my local GP) and made sure to ask the lady checking people in what the story was when I was leaving. She said she thought it takes about 2-3 weeks, but wasn't sure. Couldn't even tell me whether I will receive it by post or email, but to hold onto my card as that is valid (laminating it in work tomorrow).

Absolutely delighted to be fully done, but am hoping I not waiting too long for the DCC.

Yes.

I have some advice for you .

The next time why don't you just ring up the HSE and check yourself , and save yourself all that grief 🤨 ...and the poster that was obliging you and doing his best to answer your very vague question.

This is not an expert advice line so what do you expect ?!

Why would anyone bother , really !

Second vaccine at half 10 in a GP yesterday morning and vaccine cert was sent to my email at half 11 last night, I know HSE and government etc are low hanging fruit during the pandemic but the vaccination programme deserves a lot of commendation.

A small update about the booster tweet from yesterday, here is the actual presentation:

Slides 25 to 32 are where it's at, though the other programs they have running are also super interesting.

In slide 30 you can see the source of the 42 fold increase in titers claim. It's from a 6+ months waned titer to a boosted titer (2 weeks post booster). Overall the booster brings the VOC related titers within the original titer against the WT variant. While the numbers against Beta do look a bit lower, real world data would suggest that it's well above (like an order magnitude) the levels that provide a greater than 90% efficacy against it (96% in the Qatar study).

The one important thing not mentioned in the slides is the relative difference between the WT titer and the VOC titers after the boost. Those are significantly less pronounced after boost.

After dose 2:

WT to Beta - 14 fold difference

WT to Gamma - 6.4 fold difference

After booster (3rd dose)

WT to Beta - 5.3 fold difference

WT to Gamma - 3.6 fold difference (Delta looks similar to Gamma there, but no direct comparison available)

That's significant as it tells us that antibody maturation has happened over those 6 months post dose 2 and the recall response after the booster is much more potent than straight after the 2nd dose. The thing is, the same maturation process should now happen after the 3rd dose as well. Since two weeks isn't a long enough time for that to happen, the response is most likely to improve even more over time. The exact same effect that has been seen in convalescent individuals and in the Janssen eight month checkup data for their vaccine.

PS. This is just antibodies shown here, there is much more happening. Otherwise we wouldn't be seeing anywhere near the protection we're seeing out in the wild given the 6+ month titers against VOCs.

PS2. They're also throwing some shade on their Beta booster, saying there is no distinct advantage to using it, the WT booster works well enough.

21 is and always was the manufacturers recommendation for Pfizer. 28 was the HSE stretching limited stocks.

You can down load app again, scan the cert and use the cert without having the app on

It's a handy way to keep it.

Other than that people have used some other app that they have downloaded.

Ireland now has a higher % of the population vaccinated than the UK, and for about a month the Irish % has been fairly close to the UK. Ireland has had much more stringent rules on indoor gatherings and mask wearing then the UK (especially England). Yet the Irish daily case rates are rising and those in the UK have been falling.

Why is this? Different testing rates leading to different apparent case rates? A bigger gap between formal rules and actual compliance with those rules? (no snide Healy-Rae or Zappone-Varadkar remarks please!). I know cases don’t matter as much as they used to, but hospitalisations do matter - even if only because they spook NPHET.

The longer we wait for a turning point in the data the more acute these questions become

Finally, the HSE must have information on the number of tests on a daily tests, as well as reported cases, so why is there almost no information on positivity rates? Either the HSE are flying blind because of the hack (last May, for heaven’s sake), or else they are not giving us full information. In that case, why not? Or maybe there is more information, but the journalists are useless at reporting it?

Testing data hasn't been updated since May, that's old data

Delta has been totally dominant (80 to 90%) in Ireland for over a month, so in that respect we have caught up with the UK. Now why the differences in case trends that I first asked about?

If you have an iPhone you can scan it and it will appear as a card which can be stored in your iPhone wallet. I’m sure there is a similar wallet on androids. No need to have COVID app at all.

Any ideas why it is that there is no control on airports? I travelled recently and although there were checks in my destination country, nobody in Dublin Airport asked to see any documents at all on departure or arrival? Such a fuss over the covid passport and then they don't even ask to see it

We seem to be celebrating the vaccine rollout.

But if we look at where Israel are now they are having to move to booster jabs and talk of more restrictions it looks pretty depressing.

I don't personally think this vaccine will be the solution , I think it's given people hope so as species we latched onto what we could do and made ourselves feel good by thinking we have control and have beaten back Covid.

I've taken both jabs myself , but I think there is a lot more twists and turns left yet in this and this virus is still kicking our ass.

Tomorrow's Sunday Times suggests everyone will be offered a booster shot before the end of the year. They add that 7m new vaccine doses are expected to arrive in the country in that time frame.

They have next to no restrictions in the UK compared to Ireland. Restrictions tend to delay the peak as well as flatten it. Consequently we've had a much more dragged out wave than the UK but at the same time less pronounced. The UK had a dramatic but brief rise and fall with vaccinations meaning comparatively few deaths compared to earlier waves.