Coronavirus Sars-CoV-2/Covid-19 Megathread

[Sheilbh]

Good to know you've had enough of experts 

I feel like our positions are reversed here

[Tamas]

  Not really  I think the experts here are the researchers who actually created the vaccine. They are the ones being ignored.

[garbon]

I'm sort of glad to be so far down on priority list that there will be more data and hopefully supply will have but an end to need for suboptimal strategies by the time I'm offered a vaccine.

[Maladict]

It's like being offered a Paradox game on release. Yes it's free, but it's probably better to hold off for a while and keep an eye on the reviews. Plus, you might get a discount on the mutation DLC bundle.

[Sheilbh]

Not really  I think the experts here are the researchers who actually created the vaccine. They are the ones being ignored.

They're manufacturers with a vested interest - and what do they know about vaccine strategy and public health?

Edit: Incidentally I'd not seen this before, but it is useful in terms of tracking vaccine progress as the new numbers come out:

[Josquius]

Its grim, but considering the groups getting the vaccine I wonder quite how many who have recieved it have died. Statistically when you're going through a million pensioners you're going to be looking at some deaths every month.

[The Larch]

Regarding potential changes to dosage scheduling like the ones UK is contemplating.

EU says interval between Pfizer vaccine doses should be respected

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Medicines Agency said on Monday that the maximum interval of 42 days between the first and the second dose of the Pfizer-BioNtech vaccine should be respected to obtain full protection.

Evidence of the vaccine efficacy is based on a study where administration of doses was done 19 to 42 days apart, the agency said, noting that full protection comes only seven days after the booster.

It added: "Any change to this would require a variation to the marketing authorisation as well as more clinical data to support such a change, otherwise it would be considered as 'off label use'."

Off label use entails lower liabilities on vaccine makers.

Has the UK regulator said something about this?

[The Larch]

In different news, what the hell is wrong with some people.

Wisconsin police arrest hospital worker suspected of intentionally spoiling Covid vaccine doses
Investigation launched after medical centre says worker admitted leaving 500 doses out of refrigeration

Police in Wisconsin said on Thursday evening that they had arrested a hospital employee who was fired after being suspected of intentionally spoiling hundreds of doses of the Covid-19 vaccine.

Law enforcement and federal authorities in the US had already been investigating after a health center in the state said an employee admitted to deliberately spoiling 500 doses of the coronavirus vaccine.

Aurora medical center, in Grafton, first reported that the doses of the Moderna vaccine had been spoiled on Saturday, saying a staff member had accidentally left them out of refrigeration overnight.

On Wednesday, however, it said the doses appeared to have been spoiled deliberately.

Police in Grafton, about 20 miles north of Milwaukee, said the department, the FBI and the Food and Drug Administration were investigating the case.

A pharmacist at the suburban medical center deliberately removed hundreds of coronavirus vaccine doses from refrigeration and left them out overnight – twice, not just once as officials had initially believed, the health system's chief medical officer said later on Thursday.

Employees at the Aurora medical center in Grafton inoculated nearly 60 people with the ruined vaccine, not knowing the doses had been left out too long, rendering their shots less effective or ineffective, Jeff Bahr, the chief medical officer for Aurora Advocate Health, told reporters during a teleconference.

The recipients shouldn't be in any danger, he said, but the system is monitoring their conditions.

The pharmacist intentionally removed the vaccine from refrigeration, Bahr said, but he declined to comment on the individual's motive, saying the person has been fired and police are investigating.

He did not identify the pharmacist and stressed that the facility's security protocols are sound.

"This was a situation involving a bad actor, as opposed to a bad process," he said.

US pharmacist who tried to ruin Covid vaccine doses is a conspiracy theorist, police say
Officers say Steven Brandenburg told investigators he intentionally tried to spoil the doses because he believed the vaccine could change DNA

A Wisconsin pharmacist who was convinced the world was "crashing down" told police he tried to ruin hundreds of doses of coronavirus vaccine because he believed the shots would mutate people's DNA, according to court documents released on Monday.

Police in Grafton, about 20 miles north of Milwaukee, arrested Steven Brandenburg of Advocate Aurora Health last week after an investigation into the 57 spoiled vials of the Moderna vaccine, which officials say contained enough doses to inoculate more than 500 people. Charges are pending.

"He'd formed this belief they were unsafe," Adam Gerol, the Ozaukee county district attorney, said during a virtual hearing. The prosecutor added that Brandenburg was upset because he was in the midst of divorcing his wife, and an Aurora employee said Brandenburg had taken a gun to work twice.

A detective wrote in a probable cause statement that Brandenburg, 46, was an admitted conspiracy theorist and that he told investigators he intentionally tried to ruin the vaccine because it could hurt people by changing their DNA.

[Sheilbh]

Jesus - a pharmacist too

On the regulators I don't think there's been any update from the UK equivalent of the EMA (the MHRA). The updated guidance is from the Joint Committee on Vaccinations and Immunisation who advise on immunisation but particularly vaccination schedules and vaccination safety concerns (like the MMR nonsense). All the docs are here:
https://www.cas.mhra.gov.uk/ViewandAcknowledgment/ViewAlert.aspx?AlertID=103132

The key section of the letter from the Chief Medical Officers of all nations in the UK is this:

1)We have to ensure that we maximise the number of eligible people who receive the vaccine. Currently the main barrier to this is vaccine availability, a global issue, and this will remain the case for several months and, importantly, through the critical winter period. The availability of the AZ vaccine reduces, but does not remove, this major problem. Vaccine shortage is a reality that cannot be wished away.
2)We are confident that based on publicly available data as well as data available to the JCVI, the statutory independent body, that the first dose of either Pfizer orAZ vaccine provides substantial protection within 2-3 weeks of vaccination for clinical disease, and in particular severe COVID disease.The JCVI has issued a new evidence statement today and this is attached. 1
3)The second vaccine dose is likely to be very important for duration of protection, and at an appropriate dose interval may further increase vaccine efficacy. In the short term,the additional increase of vaccine efficacy from the second dose is likely to be modest; the great majority of the initial protection from clinical disease is after the first dose of vaccine.1
4)In terms of protecting priority groups,a model where we can vaccinate twice the number of people in the next 2-3 months is obviously much more preferable in public health terms than one where we vaccinate half the number but with only slightly greater protection.
5)This is why the JCVI has recommended that first doses of vaccine are prioritised for as many people as possible on the Phase 1 JCVI priority list, in advance of second doses which will subsequently provide more assured longer-termprotection. It is a classic public health approach centred on doing as much good for as many people in the shortest possible
timeframe, within the available vaccine supplies, against a background of immediate disease activity and still high population sero-susceptibility (despite the disease burden seen).
6)The JCVI is confident 12 weeks is a reasonable dosing interval to achieve good longer-termprotection.
7)The position is strongly supported by the UK Chief Medical Officerson public health grounds of maximising benefit.

We recognise that the request to re-schedule second appointments is operationally very difficult, especially at short notice, and will distress patients who were looking forward to being fully immunised. However,we are all conscious that for every 1000 people boosted with a second dose of COVID-19 vaccine in January (who will as a result gain marginally on protection from severe disease), 1000 new people can't have substantial initial protection which is in most cases likely to raise them from 0% protected to at least 70% protected.

From my understanding of the JCVI paper it's correct that you only get full protection after the second dose. The short term protection is around 85-90% of what it is after the booster - they have data from the AZ trial that the short-term effectiveness is still present in 8-12 weeks (and most of the vaccinations now will be AZ because we have more supply of that). There's no data on Pfizer but given the way other vaccinations work they view it as likely that the short-term protection should last long enough.

I'm not sure that in the context of a pandemic we should want the state to focus too much on apportioning liability or cost of the doses. In normal times they absolutely should, but given the context I feel like the state should just stand behind the risk and pay whatever they need to.

[Tamas]

In slightly different complaining, the Guardian had a photo of empty Oxford street this morning to illustrate the new lockdown. I hope that was for dramatic effect and not an actual illustration of difference between, say, yesterday's reality because I still can't see a single difference between the new lockdown and Tier 4 apart from the schools, so Oxford street had no business being busy last week either

[Sheilbh]

In slightly different complaining, the Guardian had a photo of empty Oxford street this morning to illustrate the new lockdown. I hope that was for dramatic effect and not an actual illustration of difference between, say, yesterday's reality because I still can't see a single difference between the new lockdown and Tier 4 apart from the schools, so Oxford street had no business being busy last week either

The difference, purely legally, is yesterday you could leave your house. Today you need a reasonable excuse to leave your house

It is definitely quieter round me but I'm not sure how much is general post-Christmas quietness and how much is anything to do with this new lockdown.

Edit: Also we both live in Tier 4 areas - it might be a bigger shift for people elsewhere?

[Grey Fox]

Apparently, BoJo's lockdown has triggered our Premier to do the same. Still unofficial but the rumors is that we'll get a 3 to 4 weeks lockdown with a 8 pm curfew.

[garbon]

Edit: Also we both live in Tier 4 areas - it might be a bigger shift for people elsewhere?

Yes, that's what someone pointed out to me when a bunch of people at work were complaining and I was thinking in my head, what's changed? Of course, I've been in voluntary lockdown since the end of March so...

[Sheilbh]

Yes, that's what someone pointed out to me when a bunch of people at work were complaining and I was thinking in my head, what's changed? Of course, I've been in voluntary lockdown since the end of March so...

Yeah it didn't really sink in to me how different things were until I was chatting with a friend who lives in Cornwall (Tier 1 ) who'd just got back from taking her kids to see the grandparents before Christmas.

Edit: Friend in the NHS getting vaccinated

[garbon]

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/05/martin-kenyon-gets-second-covid-vaccine-dose

'All done. I'm going to survive': Martin Kenyon gets second Covid vaccine dose

When Martin Kenyon went to receive his first coronavirus vaccination, his pithy responses after being accosted by a TV crew outside Guy's hospital in London secured him "national treasure" status.

He'd had trouble parking, and had consumed a "nasty lunch" before getting the jab after cold-calling Guy's and asking for it, he told the CNN crew who fortuitously bumped into him immediately afterwards. And he was hoping, he said, that he was "not going to have the bloody bug now".

Now Kenyon, a sprightly 91-year-old, who found internet fame after his interview went viral, is one of the few who have received their second jab.

"I went back to Guy's, and, well, it's become quite a machine there," said Kenyon, an Old Etonian and Oxford man who was very active in the anti-apartheid movement, and was friends with Desmond Tutu, and personally met Martin Luther King Jr and Nelson Mandela.

"When I went to get the first one, I was the only person there, I think. There was one man there, with a pencil and some paper and writing down a few names. This time it was very different. Very efficient."

Kenyon, who says the immunity from the vaccine means he can now hug his "enchanting" two grandchildren, said second-time round he had no trouble parking his "super little car", which he is "allowed to drive everywhere around London, because I have a badge, which is brilliant".

"This time, I was able to park absolutely outside the main building in a special slot. So, all was well. It was very painless."

"Now, I don't have to think about it again. It's all done. I am going to survive, and I'm looking at lovely pictures of my two delightful daughters and my two enchanting grandchildren [aged seven and 10]. They are very nice children, and they love their grandfather," he said.

Kenyon's recent fame saw him widely interviewed, including by Piers Morgan, causing further merriment when he asked ITV's Good Morning co-host: "Who are you?"

"I didn't intend to be rude," he says now. "I think when he was interviewing me I had bits of cotton wool in my ears, and the interview came from somewhere else that I couldn't see. So, when I said 'Who are you?' I think I meant who's talking, because I couldn't see the interviewer."

Despite his vaccination, Kenyon intends to continue wearing a mask. "I was given a rather fancy one for my birthday by my daughter," he said.

"In a few days I will be immune. I don't think I'll pass anything on to anybody else. I think all will be well. And my family are very pleased.

"I suppose it means I can do all sorts of things now. I can behave badly, now. I do most of the time, but generally in secret," he joked. "I am, of course being very frivolous. But it's new year, and I think we've got to cheer it up a bit."