Vaccine Progress, Approval, and Deployment

[brad465]

Breaking news just now: the Pfizer vaccine has now been approved for use on 12-15 year-olds in the UK.

UK approves Pfizer jab for 12 to 15-year-olds

The UK regulator says the vaccine is safe and effective and the benefits outweigh risks in this age group.

www.bbc.co.uk

Let the guilt tripping of parents commence.

I don't have anything against giving the vaccine to children/adults if it's safe for them, but what we definitely must not allow is our whole strategy and way of life to be dependent on these groups getting vaccinated. Besides, the developing world really needs more vaccines before we think about children given both low risk to children and a moral duty to support the world wherever possible.

 

[Chris125]

Nothing surreal about it. The peak per-100k infection rate in India was considerably lower than the UK's peak. It is the size of population in India that made for very high absolute numbers, which the healthcare system was unable to handle.

That's why you look at the numbers for individual cities and states, if you look at the entire country obviously it doesn't look so bad - alas their testing capacity was so limited and unavailable to so many that the official numbers are way out regardless. This was illustrated by the sheer number of people who flew back to the UK and tested positive, the root of our current situation.

How will something that will result in very little serious illness put excessive strain on the NHS?

Hospitals are rather busy right now with the huge backlog of delayed treatments. Infection control doesn't help capacity either.

 

[Bertie the bus]

Hospitals are rather busy right now? Infections controls don't help capacity either.

So the answer is it won't. You are just scaremongering. If people won't get seriously ill they won't go to hospital.

 

[Bald Rick]

How will something that will result in very little serious illness put excessive strain on the NHS?

Because there could be enough ill people filling beds on a normal ward, without being seriously ill (in ICU) ?

 

[Chris125]

Oliver Johnson finishes his stream of scaremongering bovine extrement by telling us he's based his predictions on the Delta variant being 100% more transmissible, which is the upper bound of the estimate given.

Do you mean this?

And there's still a further increase in R to come due to delta variant going from 60% to 100%.

That's 100% of cases - a proportion of UK cases are still Kent/Alpha but fading fast. When almost all cases are faster growing Delta it will fully reflect that variant's higher growth rate.

 

[adc82140]

Hospitals are rather busy right now with the huge backlog of delayed treatments. Infection control doesn't help capacity either.

Infection control measures are in place covid or no covid. There has been no reduction in bed capacity.

 

[Bertie the bus]

Because there could be enough ill people filling beds on a normal ward, without being seriously ill (in ICU) ?

I doubt it. Hospitals are always busy. The optimum bed occupancy rate is approx 90% and that is the sort of level they aim for. If a few more seriously ill people are admitted then a few people with non-serious conditions have to wait a bit longer for treatment. It's not ideal but is the way the NHS has always operated and certainly doesn't constitute some kind of national emergency.

 

[Chris125]

Because there could be enough ill people filling beds on a normal ward, without being seriously ill (in ICU) ?

Exactly

“The good news about that is that that means they are people who need critical care less and you are seeing low levels of death rates,” he said. These patients were instead being treated on general and acute wards, compared to previous waves when many hospitals had to double or treble critical care capacity to deal with a surge in coronavirus patients."

I doubt it. Hospitals are always busy. The optimum bed occupancy rate is approx 90% and that is the sort of level they aim for. If a few more seriously ill people are admitted then a few people with non-serious conditions have to wait a bit longer for treatment. It's not ideal but is the way the NHS has always operated and certainly doesn't constitute some kind of national emergency.

In that case there's nothing to worry about and Step 4 will continue as planned, we'll just have to wait and see.

 

[initiation]

That's why you look at the numbers for individual cities and states,

Serious question, can you highlight some examples? I've just checked Dehli (large capital city) and the region of Maharashtra (highest total death toll and containing city of Mumbai). Both have a significantly lower death tolls than the UK on a per capita basis which was the point the previous poster was making.

Of course, after the media panic a month ago announcing cases are exponentially increasing, positive test results in India are down 60%+ from the peak. No nationwide lockdown and (relevant to this thread) vaccine rollout still ongoing. Do we see that in the media....

 

[Bantamzen]

...and that's what the modelling suggests could happen, hence the concern. This is nothing to do with zero-covid nor does it suggest the vaccines aren't very effective, it's just maths.

Millions of unvaccinated + millions more with only one dose + an incredibly transmissible variant = a wave of new cases, a small percentage of which end up in hospital if only briefly.

That's perfectly fine when it's 5000 cases a day, but the current trend suggests a doubling every two weeks - that will hopefully slow, but until we vaccinate enough people to compensate later in the summer it's a genuine concern.

Well for a start it is maths based on assumptions, in reality no-one yet knows just what affect hospitalisations the vaccines will have. But the very fact that admissions amongst the most vulnerable who have been vaccinated indicates a massive slowing in rates. Add to that the fact that the younger you are, the lower the risk of serious illness and a pattern starts to emerge that doesn't reflect government modelling.

And that is no surprise, its been plainly clear from the off that the government's messaging has been based around using fear to gain compliance. And these models simply reflect that messaging. So the advisors to the government have been giving them what they want, bad news, worst case scenario, bodies in the streets and so on. And it worked, for a while. But now more and more people are seeing through the facade, and these apocalyptic predictions are now being seen for what they are, pure speculation.

 

[MikeWM]

A brief reminder of the opinion of the head of the UK vaccine task force:

Britain’s vaccine task force chair, Kate Bingham, said that vaccinating everyone in the country for the coronavirus was ‘not going to happen’, telling the Financial Times that they need to vaccinate only those at risk.

"There's going to be no vaccination of people under 18. It's an adult-only vaccine, for people over 50, focusing on health workers and care home workers and the vulnerable", Bingham said...

“People keep talking about time to vaccinate the whole population, but that is misguided,” she said to the FT, adding that vaccinating healthy people, who are much less likely to have severe outcomes from COVID-19, “could cause them some freak harm”.

https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-health-coronavirus-britain-vaccine-idUKKBN26P0YM

But that was 8 months ago, which is plenty of time to throw away everything we previously knew about such things, and replace that by doing whatever random stuff we feel like.

 

[Freightmaster]

And that is no surprise, its been plainly clear from the off that the government's messaging has been based around using fear to gain compliance. And these models simply reflect that messaging. So the advisors to the government have been giving them what they want, bad news, worst case scenario, bodies in the streets and so on. And it worked, for a while. But now more and more people are seeing through the facade, and these apocalyptic predictions are now being seen for what they are, pure speculation.

On it's own, this constant cycle of 'crying wolf' to scare non vulnerable adults into needlessly wearing masks, getting vaccinated, etc,
is bad enough, but my worry is that at some point in the next few months a variant might come along that is genuinely 100% more
transmissible and/or deadly, but by that point, the public will be so sick of the endless false alarms that the vast majority will simply
ignore the warnings and people will die unnecessarily as a result...


If that happened, the scientists would have blood on their hands due to their obsessive scaremongering.



MARK

 

[Class 317]

Interesting - I wasn't aware of this. Do you have a source of this (genuine question - the whole T&T thing seems like a bit of a dark art!)



On the flip side, just because someone isn't vaccinated doesn't guarantee being very unwell. I had Covid back in April, I was unvaccinated and didn't suffer particularly badly from it. I am now first dose vaccinated (be it only a week ago, so protection will still be building) and I am relatively young in my early 30s, the level we are now at in calling people forward. We have to start living with this and regaining our lives and livelihoods after the best part of 18 months of chaos

It's on the app how it works section.

Also listed in FAQ on NHS Website.

https://faq.covid19.nhs.uk/article/KA-01312/en-us

Sorry can't post quote from the site at the mo as phone will not let me

 

[hwl]

I don't have anything against giving the vaccine to children/adults if it's safe for them, but what we definitely must not allow is our whole strategy and way of life to be dependent on these groups getting vaccinated.

The current science and maths suggest differently though.

With the newer variants with higher nominal R values, the goal posts have been moved in two ways:
a) transmission and cases in secondary school age group are up (may indicate lower viral load on average required for transmission?)
b) with higher R, the proportion of population that needs to be vaccinated need to achieve herd immunity increases

This points to measuring vaccination targets as a proportion of 12+ (Pfizer min. age) instead of 18 (some media sources already re-base government stats and use total population).

Fully vaccinating the 18+ population gets you about 79% coverage so realistic vaccination rates are likely to max out at 74-75% of total population at best in reality which is going to be to low. Adding the 12-18 group with reasonable take up in that group would get to just over 80%

 

[Crossover]

It's on the app how it works section.

Also listed in FAQ on NHS Website.

https://faq.covid19.nhs.uk/article/KA-01312/en-us

Sorry can't post quote from the site at the mo as phone will not let me

Thanks - much appreciated

 

[greyman42]

I’d say that’s a matter of opinion. Masks - an inconveninece certainly. Track and trace in the pub - negligible. It takes a second. Social distancing? Inconvenient for some, less so for others. But not a significant intrusion for most, I’d argue.

You might think differently if you were trying to make a profit from a pub with silly anti-social distancing rules.

 

[westv]

I’d say that’s a matter of opinion. Masks - an inconveninece certainly.

It's what, what, almost a year (?) since I've been able to go into a shop/cafe etc and been able to smile to the person serving me and seen them smile back. Rather sad I think.

 

[brad465]

The current science and maths suggest differently though.

With the newer variants with higher nominal R values, the goal posts have been moved in two ways:
a) transmission and cases in secondary school age group are up (may indicate lower viral load on average required for transmission?)
b) with higher R, the proportion of population that needs to be vaccinated need to achieve herd immunity increases

This points to measuring vaccination targets as a proportion of 12+ (Pfizer min. age) instead of 18 (some media sources already re-base government stats and use total population).

Fully vaccinating the 18+ population gets you about 79% coverage so realistic vaccination rates are likely to max out at 74-75% of total population at best in reality which is going to be to low. Adding the 12-18 group with reasonable take up in that group would get to just over 80%

Maybe then we should keep on track for end of July offering to all adults and get as many under 18s done as possible before schools return in the autumn, but we can't keep finding reasons to hide away and we can't let the roadmap be delayed because these groups need doing.

I'm not against vaccination by any stretch, but why is it that this pandemic must rely so heavily on vaccinations bringing it to an end, when every other pandemic prior to this one had little or no vaccinations on offer to do so? Humans are not exceptional and as unfortunate as it is we can't win everything.

 

[Chris125]

Serious question, can you highlight some examples? I've just checked Dehli (large capital city) and the region of Maharashtra (highest total death toll and containing city of Mumbai). Both have a significantly lower death tolls than the UK on a per capita basis which was the point the previous poster was making.

I've just seen this about Excess deaths in Delhi - the only truly reliable data source in this kind of situation: https://twitter.com/DevanSinha/status/1400777312522706945

250% excess mortality April-May 2021 in Delhi, India (25k absolute). A city where randomised Ab surveillance survey had found 56% previously exposed by Feb 2021.

 

[Bertie the bus]

First we had people trying to scare us with Manaus, and amazingly what happened in a city full of slums and indigenous Amazonians who have no immunity to anything didn’t replicate itself here, and now it’s Delhi. Again a place full of slums and where a large number of people aren’t particularly healthy. What happened in Delhi may well have been a tragedy but that doesn’t mean the same or similar will happen here.

 

[Domh245]

There aren't going to be many Pfizer doses around to give if takeup of the vaccine remains high

There are just enough assuming AZ is largely topped out and uptake in the adult population stays at 90%.

If it goes higher, there definitely won't be enough, and we would have to wait for Moderna to arrive in any case to complete the programme, and its coming ludicrously slowly.

I think you've not included the 60m additional order placed earlier this year. Notionally for boosters but I wouldn't be surprised to see these used to give further first/second doses. All dependant on when they arrive of course

Maybe then we should keep on track for end of July offering to all adults and get as many under 18s done as possible before schools return in the autumn, but we can't keep finding reasons to hide away and we can't let the roadmap be delayed because these groups need doing.

I'm not against vaccination by any stretch, but why is it that this pandemic must rely so heavily on vaccinations bringing it to an end, when every other pandemic prior to this one had little or no vaccinations on offer to do so? Humans are not exceptional and as unfortunate as it is we can't win everything.

We're trying to vaccinate our way out of it, mostly because we can now, and couldn't before (though modern exceptionalism is no doubt a factor). The fact that we've never vaccinated our way out in the past shouldn't be justification for not doing it this time - it merely speeds up the build up of immunity that would previously be drawn out over years of restrictions (/or high body counts)

What I'm not so comfortable with is the sudden apparent fixation of "maximum vaccine, no deaths, no hospitalisation" which didn't seem to exist before (outside of a few fringe twitter groups perhaps). If the UK with it's world-highest vaccine coverage (and willingness) is worried about getting doses into arms for fear of overwhelming healthcare, god help everywhere else.

 

[HSTEd]

I think you've not included the 60m additional order placed earlier this year. Notionally for boosters but I wouldn't be surprised to see these used to give further first/second doses. All dependant on when they arrive of course

Yes, but since they are projected to arrive in time for the autumn, we may be waiting quite a while.

 

[philosopher]

The current science and maths suggest differently though.

With the newer variants with higher nominal R values, the goal posts have been moved in two ways:
a) transmission and cases in secondary school age group are up (may indicate lower viral load on average required for transmission?)
b) with higher R, the proportion of population that needs to be vaccinated need to achieve herd immunity increases

This points to measuring vaccination targets as a proportion of 12+ (Pfizer min. age) instead of 18 (some media sources already re-base government stats and use total population).

Fully vaccinating the 18+ population gets you about 79% coverage so realistic vaccination rates are likely to max out at 74-75% of total population at best in reality which is going to be to low. Adding the 12-18 group with reasonable take up in that group would get to just over 80%

Vaccinating 12 to 18 year olds is probably the right thing to do, but only providing their risk of death of Covid is greater than the risk of dying from an adverse reaction from the vaccines, for example from anaphylaxis. Obviously we are talking about two things that both are extremely low risk for that age group, it is more a question of which of those two things have a lower risk.

For 12 to 18 year olds I suspect they are safer getting the vaccine than getting Covid. However for those younger than 12, given their risk from Covid is so low I wonder if it is safer for them to get a Covid 19 infection than it is to get vaccinated.

 

[Bald Rick]

You might think differently if you were trying to make a profit from a pub with silly anti-social distancing rules.

The people I know who own pubs (4 of them) are doing very, very well at present. The two I spoke to this week have both said that they are going to continue with some aspects of the new way of working (eg table service, table booking) as their customers love it, and it has boosted takings.

It's what, what, almost a year (?) since I've been able to go into a shop/cafe etc and been able to smile to the person serving me and seen them smile back. Rather sad I think.

Sad yes. But in the scheme of things hardly the end of the world. Besides, the best smiles are in the eyes.

 

[Richard Scott]

Vaccinating 12 to 18 year olds is probably the right thing to do, but only providing their risk of death of Covid is greater than the risk of dying from an adverse reaction from the vaccines, for example from anaphylaxis. Obviously we are talking about two things that both are extremely low risk for that age group, it is more a question of which of those two things have a lower risk.

For 12 to 18 year olds I suspect they are safer getting the vaccine than getting Covid. However for those younger than 12, given their risk from Covid is so low I wonder if it is safer for them to get a Covid 19 infection than it is to get vaccinated.

I very much doubt it, risk to a 12-18 year old from Covid is virtually nil. I work with teenagers and know of none who've even been particularly unwell after testing positive for the virus.

 

[Yew]

It's not simple maths. It's weaponised maths being used to build dodgy models on utterly invalid foundations. There appears to be a growing trend to take some poorly thought through statistical observations, layer over some half-arsed mathematical "modelling" to come up with totally meaningless conclusions, and then pretend that the simplicity of the second layer of "maths" somehow makes up for the completely inadequate and often mendacious foundations.

This is perfectly illustrated by the fact that you are still calling these hospital "admissions", when the dramatic stats were actually for A&E attendance, with a decreasing proportion of the attendances actually being admitted.

Indeed, there is a phrase 'garbage in garbage out'. Your models can be as good as you want; but if your finger-in the air assumptions are wrong, then they're absolutely worthless.

For anyone interested in how to combine uncertainties correctly in multivariate analysis, I suggest looking at the methods of Klein and Mclintoch [1]

[1] Kline, S. J. and F. A. McClintock. "Describing Uncertainties in Single-Sample Experiments," Mechanical Engineering, January 1953, 3.

 

[35B]

We could listen to your scaremongering and vaccine efficacy denials, or we could listen to Tim Spector, who said this is a "ripple" not a "wave"

Hmm, a tough choice that.

I’ve read Spector’s latest press release, and his tone is markedly less sanguine than you assert from that video. The key quote is directly from him (emphasis mine):

The UK picture is changing quickly now. Cases are rising, but not nationwide, it’s very much a regional issue. The North West of England and Scotland are the two regions with the highest prevalence, with rates higher than in some parts of Europe. However, the data highlights that the increase is happening in the younger age groups, suggesting the start of an epidemic in the young. We can’t be too complacent, and we are monitoring things closely.

The ending of lockdown is on everyone's minds and given the current situation, I believe we should continue to soften restrictions but not lift them all just yet. While unlikely, it’s too early to tell if these increases are going to have any impact on hospital admissions or death rate. The government said it would use data, not dates to make key decisions. It’s sensible to continue measures like working from home as transmission rates are very high in offices, not to mention the impact of increased use of public transport. I’d also recommend we keep wearing masks on public transport and reduce overcrowding indoors. What’s really important moving forward is having the flexibility to deal with local outbreaks while letting the rest of the country and economy get back to normal at the same time.”

 

[Jonny]

Because there could be enough ill people filling beds on a normal ward, without being seriously ill (in ICU) ?

Ah, but we don't shut down for that when it is due to the 'flu, as has happened in most of the years prior to 2020!

 

[Chris125]

For those saying we don't need to worry about cases because we've 'broken the link', the Health Secretary Matt Hancock today:

"...the critical thing is the impact on the number of people who end up in hospital for any given number of cases. That link has been broken by the vaccine, but it hasn't been completely severed yet.'"

On many things I give Matt Hancock the benefit of the doubt, but he got way too cocky about this - it's obviously weaker, but repeatedly describing it as 'broken' gave many people the wrong idea and was asking for trouble. A lesson learned I hope.

 

[yorkie]

For those saying we don't need to worry about cases because we've 'broken the link', the Health Secretary Matt Hancock today:

On many things I give Matt Hancock the benefit of the doubt, but he got way too cocky about this - it's obviously weaker, but repeatedly describing it as 'broken' gave many people the wrong idea and was asking for trouble. A lesson learned I hope.

You really are sounding desperate to scaremonger; it has been broken to such a huge extent that we need to get on with our lives, and that is what really matters.

I would say it is you who has the wrong idea. As for a lesson learned? I wish you would!

The reality is that those who have been vaccinated have excellent protection; even just one dose will almost certainly keep severe symptoms at bay. All those who are in age ranges that are the most likely to develop severe symptoms have been offered vaccines; vaccine take-up has been very high.

Those who remain unvaccinated are, for the most part, overwhelmingly people who are not at all likely to become severely ill. There will be a small proportion of exceptions and we will not achieve 100 per cent vaccination, and yes we need to continue offering vaccines to those who have not yet had offers, but none of this should detract from the successful vaccine roll-out and we must not delay the unlocking of society.