Coronavirus Sars-CoV-2/Covid-19 Megathread

[celedhring]

In "politicians jumping Covid restrictions" news, the Catalan VP went and had a paella party with 20 other people in southern France (or northern Catalonia as they refer to it). He claims that this wasn't against French restrictions (it would be very much against the Catalan ones), which is doubtful, and even if this were true, that's not the best of looks 

He's the most lunatic proindy dude in the government, so I would be happy if this cost him, but it won't.

[mongers]

More good news from Bhutan, in the last week starting 20th they've vaccinated 500,000 people via a network of 22,000 volunteers and medical staff. That now means more than 90% of the adult population have had their 2nd shot*.


*first shot were via the Covax scheme, the 2nd shot was J&J mainly supplied/donated by the USA.   

[Sheilbh]

I thought Bhutan was a huge donation from India right at the start?

Great news though - as is that Sinopharm and Sinovac have signed up for Covax and more and more low income countries are announcing they're now ready/prepared to get vaccines.

[mongers]

I thought Bhutan was a huge donation from India right at the start?

Great news though - as is that Sinopharm and Sinovac have signed up for Covax and more and more low income countries are announcing they're now ready/prepared to get vaccines.

Oops, my bad, I misheard, the report did say India donated them, but what confused me was the film of covax branded boxes arriving for distribution underneath that voice-over.

Also it was Moderna sent by the USA, not J&J

[Tamas]

Hungary is likely facing a problem around the tons of old people vaccinated with Sinopharm. There's a national study on efficacy but it's being kept secret by the government so it can be safely assumed it shows the crappyness of the highly politicised Chinese vaccine (the opposition's call for not giving to the 60+ age groups who had not been tested for it was used to label them "anti-vaxx" by the government).

So the problem is that they want to give actual working boosters to the elderly before winter but they cannot admit they were wrong (they are never wrong). Luckily, the solution has been figured out: they are inviting EVERYONE to get booster third shots, but nobody is allowed to get the same vaccine they had for the first two shots. Voila - Sinopharmed elderly will get a non-Chinese booster and nobody needs to say why.

[Sheilbh]

NHS urged to redistribute near-expiry vaccines as take-up slows in young
Doctors across England raise alarm as 170,000 Moderna doses at risk of expiry within fortnight
Jessica Elgot
@jessicaelgot
Sun 1 Aug 2021 15.00 BST

The NHS is facing pressure to redistribute tens of thousands of vaccine doses nearing expiry as demand from younger adults drops.

An internal email seen by the Guardian warned of 170,000 doses of the Moderna vaccine at risk of expiry within the next fortnight, as doctors across England have raised alarm at the unpredictability of vaccine take-up among young people meaning more doses will go to waste.

The government is to unveil a raft of new initiatives to increase vaccine uptake among young people, including discounts on car-hailing companies such as Uber and Bolt, as well as the delivery service Deliveroo.

It is understood the NHS has managed to redistribute 40,000 of the spare Moderna jabs. However, concerns have been raised about the number of jabs wasted as uptake slows among younger people eligible for the Moderna and Pfizer jabs.

The Joint Committee for Vaccination and Immunisation recommends an interval of eight to 12 weeks between doses, initially as a way to offer more people first doses because of limited supply, but studies have since shown that the larger gap could give longer protection.

One NHS doctor in the north-east, Dr Alison George, said colleagues had been forced to routinely discard Pfizer doses, rather than give second shots early to people who requested them. "We have very high rates of infection here and the local hospital is already under significant pressure with some elective surgery cancelled," the GP said.

"Wastage at this stage of unlocking is wholly unjustified and to turn young people away as well is, in my opinion, completely unforgivable."

Dr Rosemary Leonard, an NHS GP, tweeted last week that doctors were keen to be able to give the jabs earlier to avoid wastage. "Please, please, could young people be allowed to get their vaccines earlier than eight weeks. Numerous colleagues telling me of 100s of doses being thrown away, yet 'early requesters' at clinics being turned down."

"I've heard of one clinic having to bin 1,000 doses of Pfizer cos it had expired, yet turning people away for second dose."

Leonard said that because GPs were mostly no longer running clinics, pop-up centres often had no discretion. "Unlike GP-led clinics, no one dares make commonsense decisions," she tweeted.

Beccy Baird, a senior fellow at The King's Fund, said it was getting more difficult to predict vaccine uptake.

"Uptake is getting lower as the cohorts get younger and matching the supply of vaccines to demand will get harder as demand becomes less predictable. This is made all the harder as the vaccines have a limited shelf life," she said.

"Making sure that everyone who wants and needs a vaccine can access both doses at the right time, and at a convenient location, is a complex task on a huge scale and it's testament to all those involved in the vaccine programme that so many people have already received both doses.

"In the early stages of the rollout, you could be confident that wherever vaccines were delivered there would be sufficient demand for them. Now that a majority of adults have been vaccinated, and with uptake getting lower as the cohorts become younger, demand for the vaccine is more unpredictable, making it harder to know exactly where the doses are needed."

An NHS spokesperson said: "The NHS is continuing to encourage vaccine uptake among young people by jabbing at convenient locations and popular destinations, including Thorpe Park and Latitude festival as well as community hubs at places of worship and shopping centres.

"There is plenty of vaccine supply and everyone aged 18 or over is now eligible for a lifesaving Covid jab, which is why the NHS is urging people to come forward as soon as possible to protect themselves and their loved ones."

Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are now mostly distributed to the under-40s, who cannot receive the AstraZeneca vaccine. Those vaccines have a shorter shelf life of up to one month in the fridge, compared with the AstraZeneca vaccine, which can last for up to six months.

Though Pfizer and Moderna doses can be administered at an interval of just three weeks, studies have shown that an eight- to 12-week interval can offer greater longer term immunity against Covid-19.

The UK is to distribute 9m doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine to poorer countries from this week, though concerns have been raised that those doses are also nearing expiry, putting pressure on developing countries' healthcare systems to distribute the doses in time.

Fuck's sake

I think wasting vaccines is wrong at this point. I feel like incentives might work better than vaccine passports - not least because it's increasingly clear that state mandated vaccine passports don't have the votes. Having said that I'm aware that  number of businesses are implementing their own - so 1/3 of employers plan to require vaccinations for on-site premises and, say, Costa are doing something similar for customers (I assume - I saw the anti-vax lot going wild on #boycottCosta but didn't look into the details). That's helpful but I also think incentives may play a part - I'm not sure Deliveroo or Uber discounts are super helpful. I'd honestly look at £1,000 of cash for anyone who gets double vaxxed.

The issue with young people isn't anti-vax sentiment and it isn't even vaccine hesitancy: it's inertia. The risk to them on an individual level is so much lower, but polls show they want to get vaccinated at the same sort of rate as other age groups - I just think because they're lower risk there's no urgency to it. So incentives might help create that demand/pressure. And in fairness we shouldn't get too panicked - 67% of the 18-24 age group have had their first dose which is good in international comparisons (and probably would have been seen as okay six months ago) but, given Delta and given up-take in other age-groups we should be driving that much higher.

Separately - good that we're actually going to donate doses instead of just money to covax but they better not be nearing expiry

[garbon]

I see that small NHS study is being used to justify not letting people get jab earlier...

[Sheilbh]

I see that small NHS study is being used to justify not letting people get jab earlier...

Yes - although I did see an Israeli writer note that the Israeli MoH is wondering if the reason they're seeing some evidence of waning effectiveness with the Pfizer vaccine is the three week second dose schedule.

And while it isn't necessarily that a slower second dose maximises the effectiveness, it might delay when the effectiveness starts waning (so there's that cost/benefit again) - but that is all based on similarly small Israeli MoH studies at this stage which haven't been fully researched or released and, so far, I only see being discussed by Israeli writers and journalists.

[Admiral Yi]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yp18IwIaMS4

US has reached 70% with at least one shot.

Dude also says big increase in vaccinations recently.  Trumptards  Republicans are clearly scared by delta.

(I didn't watch the whole thing.)

[Valmy]

Wooo!

Well hopefully all those people will get their second shots.

One issue I keep hearing about is that the vaccines are still not FDA approved and that spooks some people. Is there a timetable on that? I don't know anything at all about that whole business, as I was willing to take on a pretty big risk to try to end the pandemic.

[Berkut]

The FDA has, like several federal agencies around the pandemic, pretty much stepped on their dick in getting it approved. There is a lot of procedure and shit that has to be done, and a lot of it COULD have been done in parallel, but wasn't.


It makes no fucking sense. The FDA is publicly stating that everyone should get vaccinated, that the vaccines are safe and effective....but they can't formally approve them just yet because reasons reasons reasons. It makes no fucking sense.


It's not like if it turns out the vaccines have some kind of surprising negative effect the FDA will be able to say "See! We were right to be cautious!" because they are already publically stating that despite them not formally approving the vaccines, you should get vaccinated anyway!

[The Larch]

One issue I keep hearing about is that the vaccines are still not FDA approved and that spooks some people. Is there a timetable on that? I don't know anything at all about that whole business, as I was willing to take on a pretty big risk to try to end the pandemic.

Vaccines are FDA approved under the Emergency Use Authorization mechanism, which was created in response to the pandemic as a way to respond in a more agile manner rather than waiting for the full authorization procedure. Tos ay that vaccines are not FDA approved is misleading.

[Sheilbh]

Wooo!

Well hopefully all those people will get their second shots.

One issue I keep hearing about is that the vaccines are still not FDA approved and that spooks some people. Is there a timetable on that? I don't know anything at all about that whole business, as I was willing to take on a pretty big risk to try to end the pandemic.

I think they're approved for emergency use but not fully approved. I think that's still the position in the UK too (but no-one here cares) - and I'm not sure if the vaccines have applied for full authorisation here.

But this feels like one of those things where business as usual doesn't necessarily work - and you need a public-facing comms strategy in the context of a pandemic explaining why they're safe and effective which is why you've allowed millions of Americans to take them and that's what matters, not the admin of a full authorisation. And, from a distance, I don't think I've really seen that sort of focus - instead it's lots of stuff about wanting to do it right and being cautious which I know public health people really want to thing boost confidence, but I think has the opposite effect

To be honest I think - from a distance - my impression is that the US agencies have not been great at the public comms piece and I think similarly a lot of the US media (not just Fox) have not covered themselves in glory on this. Even at this minute I'm having a "the worst person you know just made a great point" about conservative commentators complaining about coverage of breakthrough infections in the sort of respectable institutional media.

[Berkut]

Wooo!

Well hopefully all those people will get their second shots.

One issue I keep hearing about is that the vaccines are still not FDA approved and that spooks some people. Is there a timetable on that? I don't know anything at all about that whole business, as I was willing to take on a pretty big risk to try to end the pandemic.

I think they're approved for emergency use but not fully approved. I think that's still the position in the UK too (but no-one here cares) - and I'm not sure if the vaccines have applied for full authorisation here.

But this feels like one of those things where business as usual doesn't necessarily work - and you need a public-facing comms strategy in the context of a pandemic explaining why they're safe and effective which is why you've allowed millions of Americans to take them and that's what matters, not the admin of a full authorisation. And, from a distance, I don't think I've really seen that sort of focus - instead it's lots of stuff about wanting to do it right and being cautious which I know public health people really want to thing boost confidence, but I think has the opposite effect

To be honest I think - from a distance - my impression is that the US agencies have not been great at the public comms piece and I think similarly a lot of the US media (not just Fox) have not covered themselves in glory on this. Even at this minute I'm having a "the worst person you know just made a great point" about conservative commentators complaining about coverage of breakthrough infections in the sort of respectable institutional media.

The private sector gets an A+. They bio and pharma industry developed a set of vaccines in record time that have been shown to be safe, and incredibly effective. Hell, if I were Pfizer I would not care if I made a nickel off of the vaccines - their public goodwill for one of the most hated industries in the world has to be worth billions.

But the public sector from top to bottom gets a D-. As a dress rehearsal for how to handle a pandemic, governments everywhere, but most certainly in the US, have failed badly.

[Tamas]

My experience working on projects with public organisation(s) is that for the individual working for these orgs, it is predominantly about minimising, nay, removing, any kind of personal responsibility for anything. I mean, that's a thing in the private sector as well but not even close to degree I have seen it in public spaces (my experience, though, is limited). Just absolutely no delay is too much to pay for avoiding having to say anything definitive on anything that has even the most miniscule chance of biting them in the ass later.