Vaccine Problem?

[The Cat]

I don't mind not drinking say 3 days before it whenever it is and 3 after - my Mum had it last week and was a little bit rough for a couple of days so I don't think it's too bad an idea to have a little break when it happens.

 

[Leon103]

I may be wrong but i thought the idea behind this was they only have a limited amount of people who can give the jab so if they were doing both it would slow down the amount of people getting protection from the first one, i would rather they gave the first jab to as many as they can and the fastest they can than give a lot less full protection and slowing down the first.

That's what they are saying but a number of doctors have come out saying we shouldn't be waiting 12 weeks, WHO are saying the same and the companies making them say they were tested at 3 weeks apart. So we don't even know if this is effective practice and could be costly in the long run.

 

[Dutto]

An update!

I wrote to my Doctor and pointed out that the 12 week decision was ONLY to be found in the UK and got the following response:

"Good morning, Unfortunately none of the doctors here at the surgery are in a position to over turn the governments decision on this. You will be invited for your second dose in due course."​

​

I presume that my Doctors Surgery have had this time limit thrust upon them and even if they disagree with it, they have to follow the rules laid down by the NHS/Government!

Apparently, SWMBO was told by the nurse that the 1st jab provided somewhere around 80% of the Pfizer vaccine and that the 2nd jab was only a "booster" that provided a further 20%. This was apparently reiterated on TV during tonight's Coronavirus Update!

I'm still not happy with the "12 weeks" gap but I don't intend to do what this Canadian CEO and his wife did!

"A casino company boss has resigned after reports he travelled to a remote indigenous community in northern Canada ith his wife and received the coronavirus vaccine intended for vulnerable residents.​

Rod Baker, the former CEO of Great Canadian Gaming Corp, and his partner Ekaterina, reportedly chartered a private plane to Beaver Creek, in the Yukon territory near the Alaskan border.​

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The couple were said to have posed as motel workers at a mobile clinic and tricked authorities into receiving the jab, as reported by Yukon News.​

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The sparsely populated territory, which is home to many indigenous people, has a faster vaccination rate than in the rest of Canada, government data shows.​

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Baker, 55, and his wife, 32, were found out after they asked to be taken straight to the airport after receiving the inoculation.​

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Documents filed in the Yukon court registry show the pair were charged on Thursday with having failed to behave in a manner "consistent with (their) declaration." ​

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/ceo-casino-indigenous-people-b1792731.html
BTW, a German article that stated the Oxford/Astra Zeneca vaccine was only effective with 8% of the elderly, has been discounted by the German Health Ministry and it was put down to a misinterpretation of the data.

Apparently, the 8% figure came from the fact that only 8% of the people involved in the trials for the vaccine were "over 65"; and whoever wrote the report, got it wrong!

Enjoy!

 

[IanG]

Having had the jab (pfizer) here is my general advice so suck eggs grandma, my main side effect was tiredness

Stock up on microwave meals. If the instructions aren't remove packaging pierce lid and nuke, don't buy
get a bag of fruit
get a load of fruit juice (any WOW recipe without the brewing stuff)
vitamin pills would not go amiss

Don't drive for a few days after. You can drive to and from the injection site (they make you sit there for 15 min to make sure you don't go into shock) but the day after is another matter

I do note the problem with the 12 week gap especially with the bumpf saying tested at 3 weeks

 

[Leon103]

Having had the jab (pfizer) here is my general advice so suck eggs grandma, my main side effect was tiredness

Stock up on microwave meals. If the instructions aren't remove packaging pierce lid and nuke, don't buy
get a bag of fruit
get a load of fruit juice (any WOW recipe without the brewing stuff)
vitamin pills would not go amiss

Don't drive for a few days after. You can drive to and from the injection site (they make you sit there for 15 min to make sure you don't go into shock) but the day after is another matter

I do note the problem with the 12 week gap especially with the bumpf saying tested at 3 weeks

What happens if you don't own a microwave, asking for a friend.

 

[Shirley Bassett]

Getting back to the original post re alcohol use and vaccination.

I note that Professor Van Tam is taking questions about the vaccine on “The One Show” this evening.

I’ve emailed the show to ask if you have to abstain from drinking alcohol, prior to and post vaccination.

I also asked if it is the case, then can he recommend a period for each phase.

On the subject of vaccination, it looks like some of you will get your second injection before I get my first, as I’m in group 8 on the list.

 

[An Ankoù]

The day after we got our first Pfizer jab the row started as to how long we can leave it before we have the 2nd jab!

ONLY the UK Government has moved the 2nd jab out to "within 12 weeks" whilst the rest of the world have either stuck with the Manufacturers target of "3 weeks" or moved it out to "within 6 weeks".

A comment from Pfizer said "We only tested the vaccine at three weeks separation." so how come Boris and his gang feel that they can move the 2nd jab out to 12 weeks?

I have to ask "Will it be worth the time, effort and money to go for the 2nd jab?"

Our own 2nd jab is booked for 11 weeks after the original one, but I'm beginning to wonder what useful (if any) purpose there will be to having it; bearing in mind that we have already attempted to give the first jab the best possible chance of producing antibodies by avoiding alcohol, eating a healthy diet etc.

It's hard to separate the science from the politics, especially so when some of the "scientific"advisers seem to be changing their tune. It makes me wonder whether they've been nobbled, but them I'm a cynic. The only thing I've heard that makes sense (to me at least) is the more they can reduce the overall amount of virus in circulation, the less chance there is of a new variant arising which is resistant to current vaccines. It's a race against time, then. Whether it's better to give some immunity to more people or more immunity to fewer people is frankly beyond me.
But what is clear from yesterday's Royal Command Performance of Boris' mea culpas and his reluctance, in spite of all this, to impose hotel quarantine, is that the ONLY thing that matters is political expediency. Australia and New Zealand are virtually free of the infection because they've bitten the bullet and stopped anyone coming in without a period of enforced quarantine. Britain's an island; why can't they do the same? I don't think I like Scomo much more than Bojo, but at least he seems to have his eye on the ball.

 

[Covrich]

Having had the jab (pfizer) here is my general advice so suck eggs grandma, my main side effect was tiredness

Stock up on microwave meals. If the instructions aren't remove packaging pierce lid and nuke, don't buy
get a bag of fruit
get a load of fruit juice (any WOW recipe without the brewing stuff)
vitamin pills would not go amiss

Don't drive for a few days after. You can drive to and from the injection site (they make you sit there for 15 min to make sure you don't go into shock) but the day after is another matter

I do note the problem with the 12 week gap especially with the bumpf saying tested at 3 weeks

I know this is going to look like a health nazi here

Just maybe a healthy alternative to microwave meals maybe batch cook some meals in advance and freeze.

This is what I will do if I am ever to be offered a vaccine, I appreciate the advise by the way

 

[An Ankoù]

I know this is going to look like a health nazi here

Just maybe a healthy alternative to microwave meals maybe batch cook some meals in advance and freeze.

This is what I will do if I am ever to be offered a vaccine, I appreciate the advise by the way

Wise words @Covrich . In the unlikely event I'm called up any time soon, I shall prepare to go on a nutritious liquid diet for at least a fortnight in case my flagging system is incapable of dealing with solids.

 

[IanG]

Sage food advise from fellow posters. Definately do and give to your parents

@Leon103 buy your friend a microwave

 

[marshbrewer]

Britain's an island; why can't they do the same?

Because we have a huge amount of road based freight coming to these shores from the continent. Australia and NZ do not. We also have a much more highly populated (per sq/mile) island than both Australia and NZ, and our reliance on international business and trade is much greater. Its isn't as simple of pulling up the drawbridge, the down sides of cutting ourselves off are huge.

 

[Rifleman Harris]

......
Apparently, SWMBO was told by the nurse that the 1st jab provided somewhere around 80% of the Pfizer vaccine and that the 2nd jab was only a "booster" that provided a further 20%. This was apparently reiterated on TV during tonight's Coronavirus Update!
.....

The problem is that the20% boost may also be what gives the longevity. There is no data to say that after 6 weeks all your immunity hasn't gone because nobody waited longer than this for a second jab. (I think the data allows for a second jab to be up to 42 days after the first one)

 

[Clint]

Wonder if the queen will be waiting 12 weeks?

 

[Clint]

News now....the factory making the vaccine is directly over the road from where I work...a lad from work got this photo from the boardroom of the bomb squad arriving as they've had a suspicious package left there...

 

[MmmBeer]

Sorry to read about your side effects after the vaccine @IanG. I took my 85 year old Mum for hers about a week before xmas and she had no issues whatsoever from it, she even enjoyed a glass of wine that evening (and most evenings before and since).

Some people are just more susceptible than others to such issues, my brother complained of severe aches in his arm and shoulder after his flu jab last year, I just had a very slight tenderness at the injection site itself.

As for the change in the interval between 1st and 2nd jabs, I would have been happier if they had stuck to the known facts and kept to the shorter interval, but its a balancing act, so we have to listen to the experts and not the doom mongers.

 

[Leon103]

Sage food advise from fellow posters. Definately do and give to your parents

@Leon103 buy your friend a microwave

No, they will damage his health. Think he will take a few man up pills before the vaccine and crack on.

 

[marshbrewer]

News now....the factory making the vaccine is directly over the road from where I work...a lad from work got this photo from the boardroom of the bomb squad arriving as they've had a suspicious package left there...

For goodness sake, as if we aren't in a big enough nightmare already; what numpty would send a suspect package to a vaccination factory.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

That's what they are saying but a number of doctors have come out saying we shouldn't be waiting 12 weeks, WHO are saying the same and the companies making them say they were tested at 3 weeks apart. So we don't even know if this is effective practice and could be costly in the long run.

Actually WHO are not saying that. If you read what they actually say it's to play by the book unless there are “exceptional circumstances of vaccine supply constraints and epidemiologic settings to delay the administration of the second approach for a few weeks in order to maximise the number of individuals benefiting from a first dose". When you're at war you sometimes have to not do things by the book, but the people who like to do things by the book will always complain. In this case it's more than just people wanting to do things by the book, it's clearly a gamble, but I think it's a gamble that worth taking.

This BMJ article (or the BBC here) gives a good overview of the arguments, and the BMJ have published the view of a group of sceptics led by a surgeon. Broadly the immunologists seem pretty happy that it shouldn't affect the working of the vaccine, if anything the limited data we have suggests that the Oxford-Zeneca vaccine works better with a longer gap. On the flip side, the BioNTech-Pfizer vaccine may not persist so long in the bloodstream which would give less time ("only" 4 weeks or so) for an immune reaction, but it seems to work so well that it's probably OK.

The sceptics include :
Some virologists who are worried about the 12-week regime giving more scope for new mutants to arise. Always a worry - but the possibility of new mutants has to be traded against the certainty of more deaths from a 3-week gap and the fact that new mutants seem to be arising anyway.

GMC and GPs worrying about the short notice of the switch, and the ability of the admin system to cope with rearranging lots of appointments (and the effect on those who get messed around). Obviously it would help if we had a government who didn't treat everything like a last-minute essay crisis.

The pharma company lawyers will always worry about multi-£££bn lawsuits unless the book is followed to the letter, so don't expect the companies to say anything other than "do it by the book".

They're not negligible concerns, but I'd still say it's worth the gamble given that eg the BioNTech-Pfizer vaccine gives 89% protection from one jab if you give it 2 weeks for immunity to develop, and the second jab only takes you from 89% protection to 95%.

The COVID actuaries group has published a basic analysis of the different priority groups, summarised in the table below. For the sake of argument say we can jab a constant 2m people per week. So in 6 weeks, you can either vaccinate 6 million people twice, so giving 95% protection to the over 80s and most healthcare workers, or you can vaccinate 12 million people once and give 89% protection to almost all shielders and over 70s.

The first group account for 68% of deaths, the second group account for 88% of deaths, so as a very crude calculation using the BioNTech-Pfizer vaccine at 6 weeks rather than 3 weeks would reduce deaths by nearly 14%. Since we're running at over 8000 deaths per week at the moment that means moving from 3 weeks to 6 weeks will save over 1000 deaths per week, moving to 12 weeks saves 100-200 more.

The significance of the 12 week gap is that there are 20.5 million people in the groups that account for 97% of deaths - over 60, healthcare etc workers or high-risk under 60's - and we jabbed 2.5 million in the last week, so potentially in 12 weeks we could jab everyone in the groups that have 97% of the deaths, plus key groups like the million who work in schools. That prize is worth the gamble in my view - it's a combination of the vaccines giving good protection after 1 jab, the ability to jab all the high-risk groups within 12 weeks and the current huge death toll - 14% of the death toll in August would be a dozen a week, which would reduce the pressure to take this gamble.

 

[Timiuk]

I wonder how long the current 12 week wait for the second injection will be extended with emerging EU claims over deliveries of UK produced vaccinations.

 

[marshbrewer]

I wonder how long the current 12 week wait for the second injection will be extended with emerging EU claims over deliveries of UK produced vaccinations.

I doubt any UK produced vaccine will be diverted to the EU before we have adequate supplies. Their claim on them look legally and morally empty and I suspect are really just sabre rattling for their home audience to deflect from their poor performance at obtaining and running their own scheme. Don't forget, they haven't even approved the AD vaccine yet.