COVID Vaccine !

[winjim]

I now have the code to unblind myself should I so wish, although the study group would rather I waited until I am offered a vaccine through a different channel, so I'll probably hold on for now. My hunch is that the first dose was the real deal, not sure about the second. My colleague has unblinded himself and had the control which makes sense as he did test positive albeit asymptomatically, shortly after we got the booster.

The suspense though...

 

[Adam4868]

Took my dad for his second injection this afternoon.Glad that's done,I was maybe thinking they weren't doing the second one.

 

[mjr]

EU approves Moderna vaccine (not yet approved in the UK) while Germany's health minister says all Germans will be offered a vaccine by summer. https://apnews.com/article/eu-authorizes-moderna-vaccine-925e91f8de26c517d18fd6b99458a132

 

[midlife]

Having tried for 3 weeks to book a covid vaccine via work the system has crashed......

 

[accountantpete]

EU approves Moderna vaccine (not yet approved in the UK) while Germany's health minister says all Germans will be offered a vaccine by summer. https://apnews.com/article/eu-authorizes-moderna-vaccine-925e91f8de26c517d18fd6b99458a132

The UK hasn't approved the Moderna vaccine because the first batch bought won't be available until the Spring. The thinking was that it was similar to the Pfizer and they were spreading out the risk/delivery times when ordering.

The USA funded most of the research on the Moderna vaccine and has first dibs. I'm not sure what agreement the EU has on the supply.

 

[midlife]

Well, that's the first Pfizer jab in the arm for me, I will be contacted for the second jab in 12 weeks. I used to think the only thing you got when born in the 50's was cheap car insurance....

 

[classic33]

They seem to be cancelling the second injection round these parts. People that should have been getting the second injection are being told it's cancelled, and wait until they hear from their doctors(6 - 8 weeks from now).

 

[mjr]

I've heard from one friend they had their second dose this week.

On the news today, it said the number of vaccine centres is being doubled next week, with some on the north Norfolk coast at last, in an area with a worrying mix of retirees and London second-homers.

 

[MrGrumpy]

Mate at work who works in a care home on his days off got his second jab in Tues but was told that was changing from Wednesday abs moving to 12 weeks.

 

[IaninSheffield]

They seem to be cancelling the second injection round these parts. People that should have been getting the second injection are being told it's cancelled, and wait until they hear from their doctors(6 - 8 weeks from now).

Postponing rather than 'cancelling'?

 

[mikeIow]

Good to hear people here getting their jab, & sometimes their second.
We are awaiting the MIL to get hers: 88, clinically vulnerable, but Nottinghamshire appear to be very slow with getting the vaccine out: nothing yet

I really wish that SAGE and the Government did not postpone the second dose beyond the 3 weeks Pfizer say it needs.
I couldn’t believe the SAGE scientist on the BBCQT show defending the decision.
From the link above: “Pfizer said their vaccine was not designed to be used in two doses 12 weeks apart, adding that there was no data to suggest the first shot continued to be effective after 21 days.”
WHO agree.

MAYBE it will all be fine.....
....or MAYBE it will dramatically reduce the impact of the vaccine, & in 6-12 weeks we could find cases of people who had the first shot getting COVID.
I hope I’m wrong, but it does royally p*ss me off when our Great Leaders talk about “following the science”, yet they and SAGE are clearly explicitly ignoring the science on this very important point, just in order to be able to say “we jabbed more people”
Good luck all.

 

[Julia9054]

Father in law aged 89 has had no word yet about his vaccine - we think.
He lives in retirement flats and several other residents have had theirs. He said he had a phone call from someone asking if he was ok but didn't know what it was about. We can't get through to his GP surgery to find out if it was them. He was told to isolate by test and trace. Does anyone know if it might have been them that rung him?

 

[midlife]

Not sure what happened there...

 

[midlife]

Aside from all our routine outpatient clinics canceled from this morning, our orthodontic department is being repurposed as a vaccination hub. I guess there is not enough capacity at GP surgeries.

 

[IaninSheffield]

...and SAGE are clearly explicitly ignoring the science on this very important point, just in order to be able to say “we jabbed more people”

Based on the thinking of the JCVI, I suspect they would argue otherwise:
"...the JCVI highlighted that the Moderna vaccine, which like the Pfizer jab is based on mRNA technology, does have data to support high efficacy up to '108 days after the first dose'.

The JCVI said: 'There is currently no strong evidence to expect that the immune response from the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine would differ substantially from the AstraZeneca and Moderna vaccines.'"

An understandably cynical view of politicians' intentions might indeed be that they want to say “we jabbed more people”, but the scientific argument is more along the lines of
"a classic public health approach centred on doing as much good for as many people in the shortest possible timeframe, within the available vaccine supplies, against a background of immediate disease activity"

As the article also says, some doctors have expressed concerns with this change, as outlined in this oped piece at the BMJ.

When I wondered about these matters on another thread, @brodiej provided some helpful perspective.