Chris Whitty moves to head off GPs' rebellion over vaccine doses

That's besides the ethical problems, the lack of consent given by people to take part in a trial and the fact you leave vulnerable individuals at more risk for longer.

Which frankly should be enough to at least complete the courses of those who have already started, even if you are determined to then start a study in viral evolution in response to a novel selection pressure.

I think it's a bit weird. The Oxford/AZ vaccine is supposed to be rolled out within the next few days. I'm assuming there aren't any supply problems with it (or are there?) If there are no supply problems, everybody from next week could have the Oxford vaccination, so why the rush to vaccinate a couple of hundred people with the Pfizer jab?

Alarm bells started ringing about supply problems with the Pfizer vaccination a couple of weeks ago. During one of the briefings, Johnson refused to answer a question directly about it.

Assuming that we're now being told the whole story, what's been achieved?

About half a million extra people have been given "partial" protection, while half a million won't have the protection they thought they would have. Given that there are about 20 million in the high risk group, half a million is a small percent. After being restricted for nine months, I wouldn't have thought that two weeks would make that much difference.

So why not do the job as intended with the Pfizer vaccine and then start the Oxford/AZ one with the next group of people?

My mind is going round in circles with this. I really don't trust the government to tell the truth and Van Tam has gone down in my estimation. If there are supply problems with both vaccines, don't promise us cavalry coming over the hill (Hancock) and more of the same old rubbish, as Johnson did on Marr this morning. Just tell us the truth!

You wish!

We do know that the initial supply has to come to the U.K. from Europe, Germany and Netherlands in particular, as there are manufacturing problems in the U.K.
The FT has reported that less than 4 million doses are due.

The FT also suggested that Johnson’s pledge that everyone who wanted to be vaccinated will have been done so by Easter, is hopelessly incorrect.

Personally I think the push for a single vaccine and a delayed second, is as much to do with hopeless promises and the optics of the whole thing as much as anything else.

It will be a cold day in Hell before I swallow any GNers ( or any social media forum) musings whole on a subject as important as this one.
We can only go on what the majority of scientific evidence and a degree of wanting to give some Covid protection to as many older or vulnerable people as possible tells us.
On the supply chain, the Pfizer vaccine comes from Belgium and the AstraZ here in the UK.

Is the FT article behind a paywall WW?

lemongrove

It will be a cold day in Hell before I swallow any GNers ( or any social media forum) musings whole on a subject as important as this one.
We can only go on what the majority of scientific evidence and a degree of wanting to give some Covid protection to as many older or vulnerable people as possible tells us.
On the supply chain, the Pfizer vaccine comes from Belgium and the AstraZ here in the UK.

Nope wrong. Oxford coming from Germany and the Netherlands.

What were you saying about accuracy?

Laura ? I would certainly want to check his bridge building credentials thoroughly.

I wouldn’t say there was a majority scientific opinion that this is a grand idea outside government circles. Certainly isn’t within the international viral evolution research community (although some variation in opinion as to just how reckless this is).

That was from the BBC news website Whitewave.....so blame them.

growstuff

Is the FT article behind a paywall WW?

No - try Googling it only I can’t do links. Also The Irish Times has similar information.

lemongrove

That was from the BBC news website Whitewave.....so blame them.

But you alway check your sources, I believe that you advised me to do that a couple of posts ago?

Commenting on reports on mixing vaccines, Dr Mary Ramsay, Head of Immunisations at PHE, said: “We do not recommend mixing the COVID-19 vaccines – if your first dose is the Pfizer vaccine you should not be given the AstraZeneca vaccine for your second dose and vice versa.”

It's a little worrying to think that PHE England wouldn't meet lemongrove's definition of scientists or people who know what they're talking about.

Whitewavemark2

lemongrove

That was from the BBC news website Whitewave.....so blame them.

But you alway check your sources, I believe that you advised me to do that a couple of posts ago?

The BBC didn’t get it wrong, just didn’t print the whole story,
Which is that 80% of the AstraZ vaccine will be made by two biotech firms in England and ‘finished’ by a firm in Wrexham.
Until then it will be made in Netherlands and Germany.
There shouldn’t be problems with supply in any case.

growstuff I have never mentioned anything at all about mixing or not mixing the vaccines.

It's a little worrying to think that PHE England wouldn't meet lemongrove's definition of scientists or people who know what they're talking about.

She'd believe it if cuddly Boris said it...

Anti-intellectualism is scaring...

So if there aren't any supply problems with the Oxford/AZ vaccination, why the hurry to use the BioNTech/Pfizer one, which will result in 100s of thousands people only having "partial" protection?

Nezumi65

I wouldn’t say there was a majority scientific opinion that this is a grand idea outside government circles. Certainly isn’t within the international viral evolution research community (although some variation in opinion as to just how reckless this is).

There is plenty of variation in opinions of scientists/ virologists on many things to do with Covid, mainly because it’s so new.The ‘scientific’ pure view of handling the whole crisis would have been to shut the whole country down for a year...or more.Sadly we can’t always do the medically correct thing as the economy would sink and human beings go mad.
The same with the inoculations.....it makes more sense to get the old and the vulnerable a good measure of protection and to vaccinate more.

MaizieD

^It's a little worrying to think that PHE England wouldn't meet lemongrove's definition of scientists or people who know what they're talking about.^

She'd believe it if cuddly Boris said it...

Anti-intellectualism is scaring...

MaizieD pretending that I hold Johnson in high regard is getting tedious, particularly as I have said from the outset (easy to look up on here!) that I considered him a bad choice,
Not to mention writing many spoof Johnson posts as amusement.
Neither have I said anything at all about PHE and mixing vaccines..
So that’s your post shot down in flames.??

Much as I probably trust JVT more than most of them he did say,at the start of the pandemic, that masks were ineffectual. So even with someone like that I don’t trust everything he says. There’s something fishy going on here. And, if it looks like a fish and smells like a fish it’s probably a fish (or something like that...)

I see Professor Van Tamm has come out in favour of spacing the vaccinations to give protection to more people. Good enough for me.

France is way behind with vaccinations less than 500 people so far.

Scientist on BBC at the moment talking about the risk resistance & also the real need to suppress transmission eg via lockdowns because vaccination will take a while.

But you have accepted that the vaccines will be mixed. Just give some thought to it and you will see that it is exactly what you are supporting.

To lemon

I think this whole thread has more to do with politics/Brexit and general UK bashing than real concern ( from some quarters.)

Maybee Van Tamm felt that putting a mask on and carrying on much as normal wouldn’t do a great job of combatting the virus ( they are often unwashed/ fiddled about with).
As part of a hygiene and cautious ‘routine’ and kept very clean, then they help somewhat.