Oxford Vaccine approved

Chris Whitty explaining about balance of risk in the real world.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-55553302

Germany and Denmark considering it as well.
www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/04/germany-denmark-second-dose-covid-vaccine

Whitty does not know the risk because he has no data on which to back his statement.

I am not against the idea of a delayed booster, but I am against a delayed booster without the appropriate trials.

Witty and the others do know the risk, you don't need to have all the results of every trial to work out risk. That's what risk analysis is all about.

Whitty

I am of the opinion that there are a number of gambles here. Chief amongst them is the principle to provide a degree of immunity for as many individuals as possible, and the suggestion that the vaccine which are based on different technologies can be mixed.

I frankly see this as a huge gamble and a gamble without a shred of data to back it, particularly the mixing.

I don't disagree in principle WWM, but what you are calling a gamble I am calling a risk. It's my opinion we need to live with this level of risk.
I understand that the mixing thing is a bit of a red herring and that PHE have said this is not the plan and will only be used in extremis.

I totally agree with whitewave, and have done since the start of it all.

WHO have stated that there is no scientific evidence for a delay between the two vaccines.

However, when the U.K. is facing the sort of increases in cases, hospital admissions and deaths we are seeing the WHO says it understands why the authorities in the U.K. have reached the conclusion it has to go beyond the evidence

IMO, by refusing to lockdown when strongly advised to do so in the autumn, confusing the Christmas message, and mucking around with tiers that will prove to have been less than effective, HMG have not just placed the population at risk from disease and death, but is now acting in an entirely unethical manner by going beyond the guidelines and taking a further gamble with the health of
the nation. It is taking a high risk for short term gain but entirely unable to know what the long term risks are.

Whitty does not know the risk because he has no data on which to back his statement

With respect Whitewave people like Chris Whitty, Stephen Vallance, Neil Ferguson, Jonathan van Tam et al are scientists/doctors/epidemiologists.
Are you?

If not, this picture (ignoring the specific anti-vaxx slant) seems to sum up much of what I am reading these days from possibly well-intentioned but unqualified sources.

MawBe

^Whitty does not know the risk because he has no data on which to back his statement^

With respect Whitewave people like Chris Whitty, Stephen Vallance, Neil Ferguson, Jonathan van Tam et al are scientists/doctors/epidemiologists.
Are you?

If not, this picture (ignoring the specific anti-vaxx slant) seems to sum up much of what I am reading these days from possibly well-intentioned but unqualified sources.

What evidence are they using?

With respect mawbe I do have access to a scientist who has worked on one of the vaccines, and get information from that source.

Whitty is entirely aware that they are going beyond the evidence - he has said so.

My argument is that it is unethical and a risk that I feel very uncomfortable about.

If the government had taken the decisions that was being called for by the scientists in the autumn, the scientists would not have had to have made this gamble.

Whitewavemark2

With respect mawbe I do have access to a scientist who has worked on one of the vaccines, and get information from that source.

Apologies Whitewave - that’s why I did ask.

How to get the vaccine out quicker ?

I am a scientist, not a biological scientist but I do have a good understanding of risk as a scientific concept. I haven’t worked on vaccines, unlike WWM’s daughter.
So this is my view. Sorry its an essay.

The mixing of vaccines is not something I am worrying about. The BMJ have asked the NYT to withdraw or clarify the article the published suggesting that vaccines could be mixed, saying that this is not the recommendation at all. So we can discount that for now.

Oxford have trailed their vaccine with different dosing intervals and are not concerned about the dosing recommendation – please correct me if I’m wrong.

So we’re left with Pfizer. None of us were at the MHRA meeting so we can’t know what was said. But what do we know? We know that after 21 days the effectiveness of the Pfizer one is 89%. Not 52% as is often bandied about, because 52% is the average over the first 21 days, because immune response takes some time to happen. Although 52% would still be very good. After 21 days, immune response does not fall off a cliff, at least it doesn’t with immunity in any other situation, so its reasonable to assume the same is true here. Its reasonable to assume that the immunity given by the Pfizer vaccines works the same as immunity from any other source.
On balance of risks, with hundreds of people dying every day and tens of thousands contracting COVID, the MHRA have decided that the risk of a small reduction in immunity, and the risk of vaccine resistant mutations, are outweighed by the risk that thousands of people will die and our NHS will collapse. Its worth noting that is always the MHRA who decide on how a drug will be used, not the manufacturer. (Based on the manufacturer's trials, of course)

We don’t have the luxury of waiting until months of research are in to show us about the interval, and we don’t have the luxury of rolling out the vaccine slower that we could. I hope everyone watches the clip with Whitty because he talks very clearly about the balance of risk, and I agree with him.

No Oxford interval is not and has never been an issue.

I haven’t read about the decision over mixing. Haven’t spoken to DD since weekend, so missed that.

But it is welcomed news.

I will be uncomfortable over Pfizer until I can see the evidence supporting it.

I can absolutely understand why this is being done as a public health measure, but my argument apart from lack of evidence is that the would never have been needed if the government had acted responsibly over public health and followed scientific guidance.

The muddle and the need to push the rules should never had been necessary.

Alegrias Please feel free to correct me in my thinking if I'm wrong. I am somewhat reassured by posts such as yours.

I have always been aware that no vaccine would offer 100% protection, so I have always thought that it would be another tool to minimise (not eliminate) risk and, therefore, other measures would still be needed, at least until the whole picture becomes clearer. Although assumptions can be made, nobody yet knows how the vaccine will behave in real life situations.

My initial thoughts about spacing the vaccines (and thereby reducing efficacy but vaccinating more) were that it would reduce the total number without severe symptoms, which would reduce pressure on the NHS, which has to be a good thing. Nevertheless, I was concerned about the effect on individuals. If people thought that two doses would give them almost total protection, there are going to be some very disappointed people. On the other hand, maybe they need to accept that they need to continue following precautions anyway, albeit with a reduced risk.

I haven't watched the clip with Whitty, but I will. I guess my gut feeling is that some people expected vaccines to be magic wands (not helped by some of the cheerleading by you know who), but coming down to earth is painful.

Lucca

How to get the vaccine out quicker ?

Oh goody! I guess I've missed the Wednesday deadline. Will it be here tomorrow? I have Prime.

WWM I think we are both in agreement that we're in a situation that we wouldn't have wanted and that the government have a lot to answer for!

Alegrias1

WWM I think we are both in agreement that we're in a situation that we wouldn't have wanted and that the government have a lot to answer for!

? absolutely, and I think we are 99% in agreement about everything else.

I’m hoping for the Oxford vaccine tbh, but understand that I should feel lucky to have any vaccine.

Lack of pre planning is at the heart of the Government's failure to deliver on time.Surely they should have started planning procedures as soon as work began on the vaccine.
It's the same with the schools. Work on plans for 2021 should have started after the fiasco in the summer. It's a bit late starting to talk to Ofqual now.Schools need to know what to prepare for.Too much let's wait and see.

I'm in no way an expert in all this growstuff, but the post is just my view on things. I've always agreed with you about the 100% protection thing and I think we need a good public information campaign about how this vaccine rollout will proceed and what it means.

I thought Whitty was very good yesterday. I usually find him on the side of doom and gloom but his description of how vaccines would, essentially, save us, was very good indeed. Its not in the clip I posted, but he talked about the vaccines doing the "heavy lifting" to get us out of restrictions and how he thought we'd be able to get back to "no restrictions" this year.

He thought that we might need some restrictions in winter next year, but nothing like we have now. Which immediately triggered people on another forum into saying "Oh God, lockdown will last a year!!" That annoys me a lot....

I don't see any evidence of the government not planning for the rollout of the vaccine westendgirl. 1.3 million doses already and that's likely to rise substantially over the next few weeks. We're number five in the world when measured on number of doses administered per 100,000 people.
ourworldindata.org/covid-vaccinations.
That's based on old data and I expect we'll see even better numbers later today.

The Dutch, apparently, not so good. Not picking on the Dutch particularly, but at the moment I don't see any reason to knock the government for the vaccine plans. www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-55549656

What I don’t understand is this. They knew how many Pfizer vaccines they had: therefore they knew how many people could have a first dose followed by a second dose after the correct interval. They also said months ago that there would be millions of Oxford vaccines available by the end of the year so they could have used the available Pfizer vaccines correctly and then used the Oxford vaccine as soon as it was authorised. When we had our pneumonia vaccination the pharmacist said Boots had approached the government as they were prepared to vaccinate people with the covid vaccine but the government hadn’t replied. This was a couple of months ago. All I can assume is that the promised supplies of the Oxford vaccine haven’t materialised even though they’ve had months and months to prepare for this. On top of this, and I’m saying this as a staunch remainer/EU supporter, the EU don’t seem to be rolling out the Oxford vaccine as a matter of urgency. I can’t help but think that, because the Oxford vaccine is non profit making, Pfizer and the people who make the Moderna vaccine want to make money out of it. I hope I’m wrong.

Thank you for your reassuring posts Alegrias.

FWIW yesterday while out on our daily walk we met a friend who is a retired medical microbiologist. I asked him about the dose interval thing & he said waiting 12 weeks for a second dose doesn’t bother him in the slightest.