The Vaccine

I have just turned 80 and at the moment I will definitely take up the offer of a vaccine.
Meanwhile I will continue taking my daily vitamin D tablets as I am convinced that it ,plus the flu jab must be helping to keep the virus at bay.

I have received some pretty scathing responses which I suppose is fair enough. Since my last post, I have had a long conversation with my GP, mainly about the vaccinations that are not actually ready for production as they have not been given approval.

If you go onto the Oxford website, there are points raised by THEM relating to the trial results needing to be 're evaluated due to differences in the methodology of trials which included half doses being given (accidentally), to a small group of over 60's prior to the full dose later.

In another of THEIR papers they talk about proposals to deliver vaccines to the prison population, to reduce the risk of mass infections spreading into the wider community. But, and I found this part very worrying, they were aware that large proportions of the prison community have psychiatric conditions as well as other co morbidities.

Apparently, they know that psychiatric patients both catch and fare less well when they do catch Covid, and are therefore at greater risk (news to me).

I read 9 papers in total on THEIR own website, before I started to realise that I don't have the capacity to clearly analyse the information and data. I therefore, following advice from my GP, emailed a list of specific questions, and sent the same questions to Moderna and Pfizer.

For the record my GP also said that if I was happy to share any responses with him and other surgery staff, he would be most grateful. I had the impression though he didn't say so, that he can't ask these questions himself.

Elliie666 is your moniker a deliberate choice? (Ref the numbers).
Anyway, I for one will have the vaccine when it becomes available. The alternative doesn't bear thinking about, i.e., living the way we are living now for years and years and years....

Daftbag. Maybe it would be easier and quicker to ask your GP a strait forward yes no question which is ‘will you be having the vaccine yourself’.

MayBee70

I think it is amazing that vaccines are on the horizon so quickly and they will definitely make a difference!
I am concerned though how fast the vaccines were made. I do think it's incredible but there is room for pause too.
I do not know how it is in other countries but in the United States (where I live) a drug/vaccine needs to be on the market for a minimum of 7 years before it is deemed 'safe' - when medications are new people that take them are all part of the data in figuring out if something is safe or not.

I will eventually get it but I definitely will wait until it's been out awhile. I am 67 and basically healthy, I did go through a serious illness a few years ago. I also had an allergic reaction to the pneumonia shot, which has been on the market for years.

Everyone's system is different and some people will tolerate it while others will not, just like any other medication. That being said, I think through time the vaccines will be adjusted so the majority of the population can safely be vaccinated.

I just hope this vaccine will be available asap. All this Covid business is really starting to have a negative effect on my DH and I. I have noticed we are bickering a lot as we are cooped up together day after day. I go out to do the shopping once a week and collect our medication when due as he is shielding. Last night we had another spat over Christmas and trying to sort out seeing the kids and GC, its all so complicated and i just want to stay in with the doors locked, phones switched off and hibernate till its all over!!!!

Nonni53

I think it is amazing that vaccines are on the horizon so quickly and they will definitely make a difference!
I am concerned though how fast the vaccines were made. I do think it's incredible but there is room for pause too.
I do not know how it is in other countries but in the United States (where I live) a drug/vaccine needs to be on the market for a minimum of 7 years before it is deemed 'safe' - when medications are new people that take them are all part of the data in figuring out if something is safe or not.

I will eventually get it but I definitely will wait until it's been out awhile. I am 67 and basically healthy, I did go through a serious illness a few years ago. I also had an allergic reaction to the pneumonia shot, which has been on the market for years.

Everyone's system is different and some people will tolerate it while others will not, just like any other medication. That being said, I think through time the vaccines will be adjusted so the majority of the population can safely be vaccinated.

Nonni53 I did a bit of an online search and couldn't find any evidence about drugs not being deemed safe for 7 years, in the US or anywhere. I did find one post from a consumer advocate's website that was telling people not to take drugs before they had been on the market for 7 years, which is a bit of a different thing. It did make me wonder, if no-one takes the drug for 7 years, how do they know its "safe" then? Would we have to wait another 7 years, or longer even?

pharmamkting.blogspot.com/2013/02/sydney-wolfes-7-year-drug-ruleitch-dont.html

Even so, he does make an exception: You should wait at least seven years from the date of release to take any new drug unless it is one of those rare ‘breakthrough’ drugs that offers you a documented therapeutic advantage over older proven drugs.

I think we could safely call covid vaccines "breakthrough drugs".

I am surprised at the responses referring to the lack of vaccines for other diseases, such as cancer, and using that as a reason not to take the Covid vaccine.
The situations are quite different. Just because one disease is not beaten, does not mean that others can’t be. I do not see the logic.

Daftbag1 interesting stuff, I’m amazed your GP was available for a discussion, ours are really busy.

The Oxford vaccine is expected to have been tested on 60,000 volunteers by the end of the year.

How many more thousand people tested would you need to know about before you would have the vaccine, Nonni53, and all others who are saying that they will wait and see how the rest of us get on.

You may find - like a friend of mine who refused the flu jab a couple of months ago, and now has changed her mind - that you won't be able to get the vaccine if you have a change of heart.

Prof Van Tam has specifically told his mother that when she is called for the vaccine, to take it up immediately.

With you sparklefizz. The government is having to employ a team to track down disseminators of fake news and ridiculous anti vax stories. It makes me so angry.

Apparently GCHQ have also been put of the case Lucca because of so much fake news from Russia and other "unfriendly" nations. I can't understand why Piers Corbyn hasn't been arrested as he seems to lead an anti-vax demo every weekend. Why not make a big example of him?

on the case, not of

If you wait seven years for proof that the vaccine is safe, that’s plenty of time in which to die of Covid.

People talk about side effects. Look at the small print on any medicine and there will be POSSIBLE side effects for goodness sake.
Agree piers corbyn is a menace. But isn’t there a little bunch of widdecombe farage etc types who are also anti masks etc. .

Nonni What is so suprising that science and technology are advancing all the time. Advances in science are and technology are happenening all the time. Go back to 1990 and most people had neither heard or used email, we were still using MSDos, Windows was still just a gleam in Bill Gates eye. Look where we are now.

Medecine and science have advanced just as fast if not faster. Scientists also build cumulatively on the discoveries of previous generations of scientists.

Your knowledge of scientific resaerch methods seems embedded in the 1950s. Time to catch up.

Can’t do a link but there was something on Facebook today showing that people that were protesting about having a smallpox vaccine were using exactly the same arguments that the anti COVID vacc’ers are using now. And that one of the doctors arguing against using the vaccine had actually had it himself.

Is this it MayBee70?

www.history.ox.ac.uk/article/covid-19-anti-vaxxers-use-the-same-arguments-from-135-years-ago

To those who are worried about the speed with which the vaccines are being rolled out.
This week I watched a webinar discussion between Tim Spector of the Covid Symptom study snd Peter Openshaw, a distinguished immunologist.
He explained that corners are not being cut, and all safety measures are being adhered to.
He likened the process to driving from A to B and having to go through 10 sets of traffic lights.
If all the lights are on red, your journey will take longer than if they are all set to green.

That is what is happening with the vaccines. They are being green-lighted through the various procedures so that they can be licensed and available for use as soon as possible. They aren't being pushed through without all the usual stringent checks being carried out.

Apart from anything else in these litigious days they wouldn't dare produce a dangerous vaccine or allow one to be to be used on the general public. Safety standards are rigorous. If JVT's mums having the vaccine then so am I.

Yikes...I am well aware of the advances made in science and in medicine. I'm not stuck in the 1950s...honestly... that comment was not necessary. I thought this was a safe place to express how we all felt without snide comments.

Time to move away from this site. Be safe and stay healthy everyone

Nonni53

Yikes...I am well aware of the advances made in science and in medicine. I'm not stuck in the 1950s...honestly... that comment was not necessary. I thought this was a safe place to express how we all felt without snide comments.

Time to move away from this site. Be safe and stay healthy everyone

Sorry but what a childish response. You seem unable to justify your standpoint. I wonder if you are aware how much false information is being spread via places like Facebook.

Thanks Algerias2 . Yes, that’s the one.

Janeainsworth that analogy really isn't reassuring. Traffic lights are there for a reason, they only turn green if the way ahead is entirely safe. The trouble is that many are saying the way may not be safe.
I don't understand how you can have "mass" immunisation in waves when you have no idea how long immunity lasts. I can understand it being done in areas because then that area would be Covid free. As it is you could immunise all 70+s but still leave an active virus which might be spread again if the vaccine only has a certain length of immunity.
I was part of the first oral polio mass immunisation when the whole city of Hull was treated. It made perfect sense then as the whole area was protected (and people just queued up for it). I was a bit narked because I'd had the injection the year before.