Coronavirus Sars-CoV-2/Covid-19 Megathread

[Sheilbh]

Over here vaccination is ramping up nicely, too. The "70% by summer" target still looks too ambitious (and Pfizer is going to reduce shipments for a few weeks while they retool their facilities to cope with larger demand) but by autumn it should be feasible. Although at some point we will probably start having issues with non-coperative patients (vaccine is not mandatory here).

Yeah. In terms of timing I think the EMA is looking to approve AstraZeneca at end of January so that may help plug the gap with Pfizer's factory redevelopment? Which would be good.

[The Brain]

Over here vaccination is ramping up nicely, too. The "70% by summer" target still looks too ambitious (and Pfizer is going to reduce shipments for a few weeks while they retool their facilities to cope with larger demand) but by autumn it should be feasible. Although at some point we will probably start having issues with non-coperative patients (vaccine is not mandatory here).

Is vaccine mandatory anywhere?

[The Larch]

Phil Spector has died of Covid in jail, it has been announced.

[Richard Hakluyt]

Blackburn cathedral, admittedly not as grand as Salisbury, is also being used. Apparently these plans have been in the making for some months. The vaccine rollout is still going well by all accounts; Raab was saying we will have everyone done by September, I didn't see the interview but hope they are aware that come October it will nearly be time for the next round of vaccinations to commence.

Maybe. I'm not sure if there's any way to know the long-term effect of the vaccine because we've rushed the trials to prove their safe and effective (which makes sense) there's lots of things we don't know and may surprise us, hopefully on the upside. So for example there is now evidence in Israel that the vaccines significantly reduce transmission which we didn't know (and isn't necessary from a vaccine perspective).

We might need to do another round of vaccines - but by October there will be far more supply (also we should have at least the J&J and maybe the Sanofi vaccines too) in terms of manufacturing and it may just be that we need booster shots, or just need to vaccinate the vulnerable (like with flu). Or we might not need to at all - the protection may last longer than we expect. At the minute I don't think we've anyway to know, but it should be a lot easier to roll out because there'll be more manufacturing, the supply chains will be in place, we'll actually have vaccine records for everyone etc.

It'll be interesting to watch Israel because they are now at the sort of level that we'll start to see herd effects.

My motto for covid is plan for the worst and hope for the best 

The reduction in transmission in Israel is great news though.

[mongers]

snip...
Edit: Incidentally there are at least two cathedrals (Salisbury and Lichfield) being used as vaccine centres and they strike me as weirdly ideal - very well ventilated, large spaces and, in some cathedrals like Salisbury, there are cloisters for people to queue:

snip...

There's something kind of interesting/resonant about these spaces being used in this way. They're generally these medieval relics that have seen lepers and plagues and now being re-purposed in the fight against this current pestilence.

Maybe I should cycle to Salisbury to get my vaccination when it's available? 

[Josquius]

Over here vaccination is ramping up nicely, too. The "70% by summer" target still looks too ambitious (and Pfizer is going to reduce shipments for a few weeks while they retool their facilities to cope with larger demand) but by autumn it should be feasible. Although at some point we will probably start having issues with non-coperative patients (vaccine is not mandatory here).

Is vaccine mandatory anywhere?

Not heard of it. Just lots of conspiracy stuff about how it will be effectively mandatory or else you can't do anything.

Which is something I hope to see happen for limited events at least.

[celedhring]

So, as I said a few pages ago the Catalan regional election had been postponed until summer. This had very little legal basis (again, one of many things we don't have clear ways to handle amidst a pandemic). A couple microparties have seen this as a chance for free publicity and have announced they are appealing the decision. If the court takes up the case it is very likely - and the Catalan acting president has admitted it - that the court will rule against the cancellation.

[Sheilbh]

Just to come back to Wales' decision to deliberately slow down vaccinations because there'll be a lull in supply:

Mark Drakeford defends decision to delay deployment of Pfizer vaccine supplies on #r4today: "There would be no point and certainly it would be logistically damaging to use up all our vaccines in the first week and have our vaccinators standing around with nothing to do."

Vaccination isn't a make work scheme - the sooner people get the vaccine the sooner they'll have immunity so it'll save lives. I feel like that should take priority over having vaccinators with nothing to do

[Josquius]

I guess their reasoning is the people they want to vaccinate would otherwise be staying home so its not like they're at risk being delayed slightly, meanwhile having the people doing it working more days exposes them to more risk?
Which.. I dunno. Better to have 40 people at once or 20 people over 2 days? I guess spreading them out stops the risk of it spreading if someone from the latter group has it?
But yeah. Really weird if their thinking is anything like that.
Maybe it's a gambit to try and get vaccines quicker?

[Sheilbh]

I guess their reasoning is the people they want to vaccinate would otherwise be staying home so its not like they're at risk being delayed slightly, meanwhile having the people doing it working more days exposes them to more risk?
Which.. I dunno. Better to have 40 people at once or 20 people over 2 days? I guess spreading them out stops the risk of it spreading if someone from the latter group has it?
But yeah. Really weird if their thinking is anything like that.
Maybe it's a gambit to try and get vaccines quicker?

It's very weird given that all of the UK nations have a ramp up of vaccine supply about now I think, but then a bit of a lull until February.

And I think the Welsh government have generally made better decisions than England or Scotland. But this is just a bit baffling.

The arguments I've seen by the Welsh government are - they don't want to have vaccinators doing nothing and as they have a fixed supply they want to spread it out over six weeks rather than trying to distribute as quickly as possible. Neither of which make much sense to me in the context of vaccination. Like I get the people saying "it's not a race" but, in another very real way, it sort of is a race.

[garbon]

Yeah it is very odd that they don't appear to have a defensible reason for this approach.

[The Brain]

Idle hands are the Devil's workshop.

[Sheilbh]

UK vaccines now opening up to the over-70s - so I think we should be on course to have the over-80s and care home residents by the end of the month. On a personal level very glad because my dad's in the over-70s group

[Barrister]

Government of Alberta announced they are halting vaccine distribution because we've run out of doses.

We really need some more vaccines to be approved...

[Grey Fox]

We need Biden to let the Pfizer plants in the USA ship vaccine to Canada. Well, everywhere else.