Percentages for vaccine

Paperbackwriter

EllanVannin

I was told yesterday that the vaccine I had ( AstraZeneca ) has a high level of immunity. I don't know how high as I haven't read up about it. The second dose is in 6 weeks time.
However I still have to stick to the rules

I had mine on Saturday too - did you have any side-effects? I was fine till the evening then had shivers and shakes and I felt a bit flu-ish all Sunday. Fine again today!

No side-effects---which usually worries me slightly as I always think that it hasn't worked Then again, where there's no sense there's no feeling.

paperbackwriter very similar for me. Jab late Saturday morning. I was fine until lunchtime on Sunday, when I just could not get myself properly awake, kept falling asleep, felt chilled and achey. By Monday morning I was fine again.

Crossed post Jaxjacky

I think the figures given for effectiveness are what was seen in the controlled trials. In the real world this may change, depending on many variables. and could be more or less, or similarly as effective as seen in the trials.

Data is being collected constantly and in time there will be much more information available. Hopefully the vaccines will be extremely effective, and if not will be tweaked according to virus variants.

effalump the point of the vaccine is that if you do get it it’s unlikely you’ll be hospitalised, thus reducing strain on the NHS or suffer complications. You may infect someone who is not yet vaccinated, especially if you don’t carry on with hands, face, space. It’s all a moving, changing situation, particularly with new variants, so quoting guidance from months ago may not be relevant to the current situation.

It means that 70% of vaccinated people will be protected but for the 30% remainder the vaccine won't be effective. Unfortunately no one will know if they ARE protected so everyone will have to continue to behave as if they are still vulnerable.

There's not enough clarity from the Govt.'s health/scientific advisors. What with the percentages and now they're saying that a) the vaccine won't stop you from getting it more than once and b) you may be passing it round even if you're asymptomatic. So a few months ago they were saying you could "kill Granny" if you visited them, so what is it now? I'm beginning to wonder what the point of this vaccine is.

Cagsy, no, it won't work like that. Some people will build good immunity, others won't.

Thanks Scottydog good to have the opinion of a professional!

As I understand it means that each individual has 70 to 80% immunity, so still a small chance of catching it and even less chance of it being serious or life threatening. I think the real benefit would be if it proved to block transmission - and if everyone offered it accepted it.

My brother is a retired professor of pharmacology. His first comment on the vaccine was “Don’t think it will make you immune”. He was pretty keen to get his, though!

Remember we may still be carriers despite vaccinations

EllanVannin

I was told yesterday that the vaccine I had ( AstraZeneca ) has a high level of immunity. I don't know how high as I haven't read up about it. The second dose is in 6 weeks time.
However I still have to stick to the rules

I had mine on Saturday too - did you have any side-effects? I was fine till the evening then had shivers and shakes and I felt a bit flu-ish all Sunday. Fine again today!

Squirrelnutkin I thought the same as you. Otherwise it would just be like Russian roulette

I am having some difficulty processing the information regarding the vaccines. We are told that vaccination does not protect against contracting the virus, but will reduce the severity. Also it will probably not prevent transmission to others. Considering that the majority of people previously having contracted the virus were either asymptomatic, or only mildly affected, how can they quantify this? If you have been vaccinated and then develop a serious reaction to the virus you'll be in the unfortunate percentage for whom it is not effective, but mild ,or no symptoms will show the vaccines success (even though this would probably have been the outcome without the vaccine). Further, if the vaccine does increase the number of people contracting the virus being asymptomatic, some schools of thought suggest that it is this aspect of the disease that causes the high level of transmission.

The vaccine is another one of the precautions we should be following to help control infection eg cleaning hands, surfaces, wearing masks. Just like all other vaccines it is not 100% failsafe.

As an Advanced Nurse Practitioner in general practice (now retired) who carried out annual flu vaccination clinics for many years, this is a question I was often asked in relation to the effectiveness of the flu jab. The most important thing to remember is that no vaccine confers 100% immunity to a disease! If the Covid-19 vaccine is 70% effective, then that will be the percentage who will acquire immunity to the disease though receiving the vaccine. The remaining 30% may not build up sufficient antibodies to the disease, even although they are vaccinated! It does mean that they have a slightly increased risk of getting Covid-19, but it's by no means certain this will happen, as it's dependent on many other factors. Viruses constantly change which is why we need an annual flu jab. Only time will tell us whether the Covid-19 jab confers immunity lasting for a long time, even lifelong, or whether we might need annual boosters! Hope this helps!

Well that’ll be an interesting study. Nonetheless it would take a long time for the trial to be done and treatment to be licensed, so possibly something for the future.

Interesting Alegrias1 Thank you.
We will have to wait for the result of that trial.

There must be a theoretical possibility that two different ones could work better or the idea would have been dismissed.

In the meantime we will be grateful for whichever one we are given.

Well, it might....

www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-55228415

JenniferEccles

Oh ok thank you.
I thought that was probably the case but then I began to wonder if we might possibly get better protection from two different vaccines which work in different ways like the Pfizer and AZ ones.

I was comparing it with how for instance some people take both paracetamol and ibuprofen together for certain pains.

It doesn't work like that.

Let's face it very little in life is 100% certain except death. Regardless of percentages you are better having a vaccine than not having it. I have no room in my brain to worry about things like that.

Oh ok thank you.
I thought that was probably the case but then I began to wonder if we might possibly get better protection from two different vaccines which work in different ways like the Pfizer and AZ ones.

I was comparing it with how for instance some people take both paracetamol and ibuprofen together for certain pains.

JenniferEccles

One thing I am curious about is whether it’s absolutely essential that we have the same vaccine for both doses.

I imagine it would be desirable but it could be around June before I am due for my second (first possibly March) and by then the already approved Moderna one could be in use, and possibly others.

Presumably which one any of us has will depend on several factors, one of which of course, would be a plentiful supply.

The government has said people should only be given different vaccines in exceptional circumstances. They work differently, so people won't get the full effect of two doses of the same vaccine.

Fizog

The flu vaccine has 64% efficacy so that seems to work pretty well. I will however be masking up and avoiding crowds for the foreseeable future

The flu vaccine is actually more effective than that against the strains which are the target of the vaccine. The trouble is that there are many different strains and the vaccine only targets a few of them. Medics try to guess which strains are going to be most prevalent, but sometimes they get it wrong. One year, it was only 29% effective because it didn't vaccinate against new strains.

The Covid vaccine currently only targets one strain and its efficacy will depend on how similar variants are to the original strain and whether the vaccine can be adapted to cope with new variants.