On Astra I'd probably add 30 - 39 yr old women to the non provision list, keep men on it.
It really all depends on the risk factors involved. If we get to 1 in 20k for prevalence then the official guidance will almost certainly change, and we're probably close to that already after the drop off in the infection rate. In addition the new vaccines are actually better because they have 95% and 97% efficacy against symptoms and well over 90% efficacy against infection vs 90% against symptoms for AZ and abut 80% against infection and AZ needs 14 weeks to get to that level, Moderna and Novavax only need 5 weeks.
There really is no reason to give under 40s AZ given the supply situation we're heading for and the logistical issues posed by requiring 12 weeks in between doses. I also think that increasing the relative value of Pfizer, Moderna and Novavax will be helpful for overall take up among 18-39 year olds.
it's not just about us. It is about the PR signal we are sending very loudly around the world. "The British are not using the British vaccine on the under 30s, no., wait, and now the under 40s!!"
Many countries will now boycott the best vaccine for the developing world. Because we are over-reacting to a tiny risk, and announcing this in very bold colours, without any proper PR management. It is shoddy British amateurism at its worst
Ultimately the regulator has made a sound case based on differential risk. In other countries the risk factors are significantly higher from COVID than they are here so the calculation has different inputs meaning pausing the vaccine rollout there for under 40s will lead to more people dying.
No, you're totally wrong. This is fucking terrible PR which will kill many people worldwide based on infinitesimally marginal scientific data
The MHRA remit is to look at the situation in the UK. It has made the case based on UK data. They literally said that in other scenarios where the prevalence of COVID was medium or high they wouldn't have changed the recommendation. The EMA has agreed with them and told European countries to keep jabbing all age groups because their risk level is so much higher in the EU.
I get that you know more about our vaccine supply than me. And I am always hugely grateful for your insight on that. But, as an artisan creating things, I suspect I know more about stories than you, and the story being sold here is a dead puppy
I understand that looking in from the outside other countries and regulators are probably pretty confused about it. However, the remit of the MHRA is to the British public not to anyone else. I'm not sure what else they could have done. My solution was just to use the automatic provisioning system to remove AZ for affected cohorts still waiting for the first dose and just have a hugely technical paper with loads of stuff common man and idiot journalist doesn't understand released down the line.
And your solution would have been much better than this disaster, and a professional PR operation with skilled politicians working alongside would have come up with an even better solution. There were ways of doing this, without any lies, with absolutely no "cover up", which would have reduced the worldwide panic. Because that is what we have kicked off. Worldwide panic.
Half a dozen countries have either banned or severely restricted AZ since our decision. And it is our decision which is driving this
I see that the UK is now out of the top 10 countries for deaths per capita (excluding microstates)
Top 10 now are:
Czechia Hungary Bosnia Montenegro Bulgaria Belgium Macedonia Slovenia Slovakia Italy
Surprisingly the US is not far behind the UK now. 893 deaths today despite what is supposed to be a great vaccine roll out.
I would expect most of the South American countries to go past the UK over the summer for deaths per capita. For the rest of Europe, they have the summer to get their act together.
11-20 globally are:
UK USA Portugal Spain Peru Brazil Mexico Croatia France Poland
Eastern Europe has done horribly badly especially as it was little touched in the first wave.
I wonder how much complacency the luck they had last spring induced.
The country who stands out for having a very low death rate compared to all their neighbours is Serbia (a third of Montenegro and Macedonia). That is probably due to starting their vaccination campaign earlier (or they are lying)
Well that's the little riot pretty much over in West Belfast. The police, despite leaving it somewhat late in turning up, appear to have handled it rather well.
One thing I don't quite understand about the clotting statistics. When the initial UK clotting statistics came out, there were (something like) 9 clotting cases for Astra and 10 for Pfizer in however many millions. The rate for Astra was a bit higher, because we'd used more of those. So, what was with the Pfizer clots? Have they all been proven to be unlinked to the vaccine? If so, should clots following Pfizer be considered a 'control' number and us only really be worried about however many clots over and above that number are occurring with other vaccines?
I see that the UK is now out of the top 10 countries for deaths per capita (excluding microstates)
Top 10 now are:
Czechia Hungary Bosnia Montenegro Bulgaria Belgium Macedonia Slovenia Slovakia Italy
Surprisingly the US is not far behind the UK now. 893 deaths today despite what is supposed to be a great vaccine roll out.
I would expect most of the South American countries to go past the UK over the summer for deaths per capita. For the rest of Europe, they have the summer to get their act together.
11-20 globally are:
UK USA Portugal Spain Peru Brazil Mexico Croatia France Poland
Eastern Europe has done horribly badly especially as it was little touched in the first wave.
I wonder how much complacency the luck they had last spring induced.
The country who stands out for having a very low death rate compared to all their neighbours is Serbia (a third of Montenegro and Macedonia). That is probably due to starting their vaccination campaign earlier (or they are lying)
"Thirtysomethings could be asked to take an alternative jab to Astra Zeneca, members of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) have said.
The Government’s independent scientific advisers said a fresh risk/benefit assessment of the vaccine in different age brackets would be made before the rollout reaches those below the age of 40.
Prof Anthony Harnden, deputy chairman of the JCVI said that safety data will be examined “in scrupulous detail” before the programme is rolled out to the under 40s.
The scientist said “everybody should remain confident” in the vaccine programme which he said was going “full steam ahead”, saying any link with blood clots was a “very, very rare, extremely rare safety signal”."
So it's a "very very rare, extremely rare safety signal", BUT they might ban it for an entire new cohort, the under 40s. So that's fine, "everyone should remain confident"
A case of pragmatic self refutation by the eminent scientist.
A conspiracy theorist, of which there are millions when it comes to vaccinations, would say this is a scientific establishment in panic, as they discover a vaccine is really quite dangerous, but they can't admit it to 20 million people just jabbed in the UK alone
Now, if that is the case, they need to admit their fears IMMEDIATELY. I do not believe it is the case, I believe, as I have said, that it is truly terrible PR. But I cannot prove it
"Thirtysomethings could be asked to take an alternative jab to Astra Zeneca, members of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) have said.
The Government’s independent scientific advisers said a fresh risk/benefit assessment of the vaccine in different age brackets would be made before the rollout reaches those below the age of 40.
Prof Anthony Harnden, deputy chairman of the JCVI said that safety data will be examined “in scrupulous detail” before the programme is rolled out to the under 40s.
The scientist said “everybody should remain confident” in the vaccine programme which he said was going “full steam ahead”, saying any link with blood clots was a “very, very rare, extremely rare safety signal”."
So it's a "very very rare, extremely rare safety signal", BUT they might ban it for an entire new cohort, the under 40s. So that's fine, "everyone should remain confident"
A case of pragmatic self refutation by the eminent scientist.
A conspiracy theorist, of which there are millions when it comes to vaccinations, would say this is a scientific establishment in panic, as they discover a vaccine is really quite dangerous, but they can't admit it to 20 million people just jabbed in the UK alone
Now, if that is the case, they need to admit their fears IMMEDIATELY. I do not believe it is the case, I believe, as I have said, that it is truly terrible PR. But I cannot prove it
I see that the UK is now out of the top 10 countries for deaths per capita (excluding microstates)
Top 10 now are:
Czechia Hungary Bosnia Montenegro Bulgaria Belgium Macedonia Slovenia Slovakia Italy
Surprisingly the US is not far behind the UK now. 893 deaths today despite what is supposed to be a great vaccine roll out.
I would expect most of the South American countries to go past the UK over the summer for deaths per capita. For the rest of Europe, they have the summer to get their act together.
11-20 globally are:
UK USA Portugal Spain Peru Brazil Mexico Croatia France Poland
Eastern Europe has done horribly badly especially as it was little touched in the first wave.
I wonder how much complacency the luck they had last spring induced.
The country who stands out for having a very low death rate compared to all their neighbours is Serbia (a third of Montenegro and Macedonia). That is probably due to starting their vaccination campaign earlier (or they are lying)
Serbia has had a good covid overall I think
There is some shifty stuff going on Serbia. The media aren't free.
On Astra I'd probably add 30 - 39 yr old women to the non provision list, keep men on it.
It really all depends on the risk factors involved. If we get to 1 in 20k for prevalence then the official guidance will almost certainly change, and we're probably close to that already after the drop off in the infection rate. In addition the new vaccines are actually better because they have 95% and 97% efficacy against symptoms and well over 90% efficacy against infection vs 90% against symptoms for AZ and abut 80% against infection and AZ needs 14 weeks to get to that level, Moderna and Novavax only need 5 weeks.
There really is no reason to give under 40s AZ given the supply situation we're heading for and the logistical issues posed by requiring 12 weeks in between doses. I also think that increasing the relative value of Pfizer, Moderna and Novavax will be helpful for overall take up among 18-39 year olds.
Short: Oxford is ok but they ended up doing a University of Exeter job not an Oxbridge job.
Others did better.
They did an Oxford job.
It's a neat bit of science, and the non-profit plan was a good deed in a less than good world.
But the trials were ameturish in terms of getting solid data to send to the regulators, and production has stubbornly refused to take off. The PR doesn't matter if the doses don't exist.
I'm reminded of Beardy Branson's bids to run the National Lottery. He said he'd do that as a nonprofit, but it turned out that the profit-taking consortia were likely to raise more for good causes.
The Astrazeneca company made some unforced errors but the bloodclot type issue is pure bad luck. It could happen to any of vaccines. It's a shame because the vaccine itself is a good one and what Oxford University is trying to do with its distribution model is inspiring.
Fully agree- and for most people being vaccinated, it's a tiny problem (and weren't there some German doctors who had tracked the issue and worked out the treatment?)
Unfortunately, AZ had burnt up a lot of the initial goodwill. Partly because of the initial messy data, partly because of the sense that the PR was running a step or two ahead of what the data were showing at any given moment.
But the biggest problem is the simple lack of doses. And whilst making biological stuff is hard (I'm a science teacher, it's blooming hard to make biological experiments work reliably), AZ's inexperience in the field can't have helped.
Agreed. The biggest mistake that AZ made was to promise a number of doses they had no prospect of supplying. Actually, I think production has gone as well as could be expected. eg 40 million doses to the EU in Q1 is OK, but why did they promise 100 million? Also they have a casual attitude to data, and poor relationship management and communications. Suggests to me a corporate culture that lacks transparency and doesn't encourage people to face up to issues and own problems. Undoubtedly they also got greater scrutiny by being one of the first out the blocks.
But the vaccine is good. That needs to be stressed.
Encouraging. Single shot of the Pfizer vaccine, in individuals previously infected, generates strong neutralising activity against the variant that previous infection didn’t. https://twitter.com/NEJM/status/1380135841905799172
On Astra I'd probably add 30 - 39 yr old women to the non provision list, keep men on it.
It really all depends on the risk factors involved. If we get to 1 in 20k for prevalence then the official guidance will almost certainly change, and we're probably close to that already after the drop off in the infection rate. In addition the new vaccines are actually better because they have 95% and 97% efficacy against symptoms and well over 90% efficacy against infection vs 90% against symptoms for AZ and abut 80% against infection and AZ needs 14 weeks to get to that level, Moderna and Novavax only need 5 weeks.
There really is no reason to give under 40s AZ given the supply situation we're heading for and the logistical issues posed by requiring 12 weeks in between doses. I also think that increasing the relative value of Pfizer, Moderna and Novavax will be helpful for overall take up among 18-39 year olds.
it's not just about us. It is about the PR signal we are sending very loudly around the world. "The British are not using the British vaccine on the under 30s, no., wait, and now the under 40s!!"
Many countries will now boycott the best vaccine for the developing world. Because we are over-reacting to a tiny risk, and announcing this in very bold colours, without any proper PR management. It is shoddy British amateurism at its worst
Ultimately the regulator has made a sound case based on differential risk. In other countries the risk factors are significantly higher from COVID than they are here so the calculation has different inputs meaning pausing the vaccine rollout there for under 40s will lead to more people dying.
No, you're totally wrong. This is fucking terrible PR which will kill many people worldwide based on infinitesimally marginal scientific data
So, you think British people should lay down their lives for foreigners?
Just so I'm not completely out of the loop, what does leon want to nuke currently, Brussels, France, or the JCVI meeting rooms? It's exhausting trying to keep track.
Just so I'm not completely out of the loop, what does leon want to nuke currently, Brussels, France, or the JCVI meeting rooms? It's exhausting trying to keep track.
JCVI exclusively. I am being moderate. We need to conserve ammo
""Hi David, apologies for the delay. I think the proposals in the end did require a change to the Market Notice but I have pushed the team to explore an alternative with the Bank that might work. No guarantees, but the Bank are currently looking at it and Charles should be in touch. Best, Rishi"
Not going to end his career.
Probably not but as @NickPalmer has pointed out would any other company without such links have received even this response?
We have not seen all the relevant emails. Nor do we know the basis on which Greensills did get Covid loans. So it is not possible to judge.
But what has happened is that a niche story involving an ex-PM now involves the current Chancellor.
Is someone drip-feeding these emails out? An awful lot have come out. Is Sunak getting his defence in early? What else is to come?
And who benefits?
I have little doubt that Gove is behind it; he's quite the modern day Brutus.
For those following the Greensill affair - a murky business - the main characters in the frame have been Cameron, an ex-PM, and the late Jeremy Heywood, Cabinet Secretary.
All very interesting but a bit niche relating to long ago and people no longer active in politics.
And now we find emails being disgorged at record speed following an FoI request which suggest that Sunak may have pushed officials to consider Greensill's requests for Covid-related loans, which the doomed company did in fact get.
Dear me. Would it be impertinent to ask who might benefit from the Chancellor being dragged into this mess?
Didn't the Chancellor drag himself into this mess by 'giving a push' to his former PM's request?
Hmm, what he texted to Dave and what he did were probably two very different things.
It's may be like when a friend asked me to recommend his very dim younger brother for a job at Goldman and I said "I'll see what I can do", and then I promptly did nothing.
You've misunderstood that tweet a bit, that isn't 24m total doses, it looks like a 24m monthly run rate of doses. Even if 43% of those aren't available for under 40s that still leaves us with more than enough. Look at how Novavax is expected to ramp up, that alone will cover us.
Not really, we're pretty much at herd immunity now, which appears to be starting to be reflected in the case data.
We're also heading towards summer with a very seasonal virus - last year with no vaccine we had very few cases between June and September. If we completly stopped jabbing now we could almost certainly have a pretty much normal summer, but things might get a bit exciting next winter - but that's plenty of time to obtain plenty more vaccines of various different varieties and use them as appropriate.
You've misunderstood that tweet a bit, that isn't 24m total doses, it looks like a 24m monthly run rate of doses. Even if 43% of those aren't available for under 40s that still leaves us with more than enough. Look at how Novavax is expected to ramp up, that alone will cover us.
Following up before bed time, under 40s make up 14m of the phase 2 roll out, that's 28m doses maximum needed from non-AZ vaccines. We're easily going to cover that number from Moderna and Novavax alone, plus our remaining Pfizer order. I wouldn't be surprised if the government buys more Pfizer for H2 delivery for school children.
You've misunderstood that tweet a bit, that isn't 24m total doses, it looks like a 24m monthly run rate of doses. Even if 43% of those aren't available for under 40s that still leaves us with more than enough. Look at how Novavax is expected to ramp up, that alone will cover us.
Is the run rate of Moderna really going to be that slow? Also I would have expected our Pfizer order to be fully delivered long before July, unless we've ordered more of it?
For those following the Greensill affair - a murky business - the main characters in the frame have been Cameron, an ex-PM, and the late Jeremy Heywood, Cabinet Secretary.
All very interesting but a bit niche relating to long ago and people no longer active in politics.
And now we find emails being disgorged at record speed following an FoI request which suggest that Sunak may have pushed officials to consider Greensill's requests for Covid-related loans, which the doomed company did in fact get.
Dear me. Would it be impertinent to ask who might benefit from the Chancellor being dragged into this mess?
Didn't the Chancellor drag himself into this mess by 'giving a push' to his former PM's request?
Hmm, what he texted to Dave and what he did were probably two very different things.
It's may be like when a friend asked me to recommend his very dim younger brother for a job at Goldman and I said "I'll see what I can do", and then I promptly did nothing.
This is a great analogy. Like when you bump into someone you haven’t seen for ages who you aren’t that fond of and they say “we should meet up for a drink” and Rishi is just being too polite not to ghost him but definitely isn’t interested in that drink.
I can’t believe Cameron thought this was a good idea. He’s wisely tried to stay out of the limelight after leaving office and perhaps was very slowly beginning to rebuild his reputation. This has probably set him back another 5 years.
Not really, we're pretty much at herd immunity now, which appears to be starting to be reflected in the case data.
We're also heading towards summer with a very seasonal virus - last year with no vaccine we had very few cases between June and September. If we completly stopped jabbing now we could almost certainly have a pretty much normal summer, but things might get a bit exciting next winter - but that's plenty of time to obtain plenty more vaccines of various different varieties and use them as appropriate.
This is another reason why I am bewildered by the global reaction to the AZ problem (which we have made worse with our own terrible PR)
The UK is now an enormous multi-million-person real-life study into the efficacy and dangers of AZ. We have given 20m doses. Our cases, hospitalizations and deaths have cratered (just as they did in Israel, which used Pfizer). Our excess deaths are now BELOW normal. Bodies are not piling up in morgues due to blood clots.
AZ works. Brilliantly. Use it. Stop faffing about, stop angsting about a side effect that may impact one in 100,000 people. There is no time to lose. Get jabbing. People are dying.
A whole bunch of countries have successfully scared each other into avoidance of the best vaccine there is (in terms of cost and ease of use). What a mess
You've misunderstood that tweet a bit, that isn't 24m total doses, it looks like a 24m monthly run rate of doses. Even if 43% of those aren't available for under 40s that still leaves us with more than enough. Look at how Novavax is expected to ramp up, that alone will cover us.
I mean: if we get this vaccine slowdown plus a hefty dose of anti-vaxxery (it is now exploding on social media)
Not really, we're pretty much at herd immunity now, which appears to be starting to be reflected in the case data.
We're also heading towards summer with a very seasonal virus - last year with no vaccine we had very few cases between June and September. If we completly stopped jabbing now we could almost certainly have a pretty much normal summer, but things might get a bit exciting next winter - but that's plenty of time to obtain plenty more vaccines of various different varieties and use them as appropriate.
This is another reason why I am bewildered by the global reaction to the AZ problem (which we have made worse with our own terrible PR)
The UK is now an enormous multi-million-person real-life study into the efficacy and dangers of AZ. We have given 20m doses. Our cases, hospitalizations and deaths have cratered (just as they did in Israel, which used Pfizer). Our excess deaths are now BELOW normal. Bodies are not piling up in morgues due to blood clots.
AZ works. Brilliantly. Use it. Stop faffing about, stop angsting about a side effect that may impacts one in 100,000 people. There is no time to lose. Get jabbing. People are dying.
A whole bunch of countries have successfully scared each other into avoidance of the best vaccine there is (in terms of cost and ease of use). What a mess
I have to remove the name of educational institutions.
However I worked at educational institution Student’s Union during my studies.
Do we think I have to redact or remove that too?
Yes -- do not get yourself disqualified on a technicality in the first round. Typically applications will be screened by HR before they are passed to hiring managers.
Not really, we're pretty much at herd immunity now, which appears to be starting to be reflected in the case data.
We're also heading towards summer with a very seasonal virus - last year with no vaccine we had very few cases between June and September. If we completly stopped jabbing now we could almost certainly have a pretty much normal summer, but things might get a bit exciting next winter - but that's plenty of time to obtain plenty more vaccines of various different varieties and use them as appropriate.
This is another reason why I am bewildered by the global reaction to the AZ problem (which we have made worse with our own terrible PR)
The UK is now an enormous multi-million-person real-life study into the efficacy and dangers of AZ. We have given 20m doses. Our cases, hospitalizations and deaths have cratered (just as they did in Israel, which used Pfizer). Our excess deaths are now BELOW normal. Bodies are not piling up in morgues due to blood clots.
AZ works. Brilliantly. Use it. Stop faffing about, stop angsting about a side effect that may impacts one in 100,000 people. There is no time to lose. Get jabbing. People are dying.
A whole bunch of countries have successfully scared each other into avoidance of the best vaccine there is (in terms of cost and ease of use). What a mess
At least one person a month dies of a blood clot on the lungs on arrival at Heathrow Airport, say doctors.
They believe at least 2,000 people a year in the UK may die from blood clots linked to long-haul air travel.
Indeed.
I’m with this American scientist in that FT piece
‘In the US, Lawrence Gostin, professor in public health law at Georgetown University, called on regulators to take a global view or risk undermining the public’s trust in vaccines further. The AstraZeneca jab is seen as key for vaccination programmes for poorer countries as it is cheaper and easier to store and handle than many of the others.
“We have a dizzying array of different judgments from different regulatory agencies. Each country going its own way can be very destructive,” Gostin said. This might have a particularly bad impact on lower-income countries, which look to Western regulators for seals of approval. “This is a global mess, not just a European mess.”’
The UK government has awarded 25 suppliers places on a framework deal for software design and implementation which could be worth up to £1.5bn.
Big names like Deloitte, Accenture, and Fujitsu join the list of tender winners who will be expected to provide the services "required when deploying a new cloud-based ERP system or upgrading a legacy IT system," according to a contract award notice. https://www.theregister.com/2021/04/08/uk_software_framework_agreement/
The 25 lucky vendors are listed as: Agilisys Accenture Advanced Business Software & Solutions Aryaa Associates Atos IT Services AWTG Bedigital Bramble Hub Cadmidium Services Ceox Services CGI IT Civica Digital cloudThing Cognizant Technology Solutions Covoxa Deloitte EAPPSYS Engine Partners Entserv Equiniti Ernst & Young Evolutionary Systems Fujitsu HCL Technologies Hitachi Solutions Europe
None past the letter H. It is so remarkable that a professional would check it is not the Register's journalists who have missed the rest of the list but that sounds like hard work so I'm content to laugh at the government.
At this rate, by that thinking, it will very soon be statistically perverse for the healthy under 50s to take any vaccine at all.
Not sure the government has thought this through?
That's not the issue here. What's happened with AZ (and maybe J&J) is that young people generate a huge immune response to both the vector and the vaccine, this, in some rare scenarios, can lead to blood clots and in even rarer scenarios - death. These are cases in addition to the background rate of these kinds of events, as in - if that person didn't take the vaccine they would probably not be dead right now.
With the other vaccines, Pfizer, Moderna and Novavax, that isn't the case. Yes they have some side effects, Moderna in particular seems to generate a lot of them in patients in the US, but they are all fleeting and none of them have been associated to any deaths. On an individual risk basis it doesn't make sense for under 40s to take AZ when COVID prevalence is so low when other vaccines are available to us.
It is the right decision based on individual risk, clearly. But expressing it in such a way is the problem.
As we all know, the gain in getting vaxxed isn't just a reduction in your own risk of getting ill, it is also a reduction of risk to everyone you meet. That concept was not expressed in JVT's figure. It should have been included by expressing the balance as _total_ lives saved per jab and that would have made all the vaccines a positive choice, even if eg Pfizer is marginally better for the young.
The British public have clearly got this and everyone (apart from a few, who we rightly laugh at/condemn) has seen it as a duty to go and get jabbed. Many might have been reluctant but 'for Queen and Country', or perhaps just their elderly relatives, they've got it done.
This conference went completely against that.
They should have just made the allocations carefully if they wanted to stop a few blood clots and not made a song and dance about it.
At this rate, by that thinking, it will very soon be statistically perverse for the healthy under 50s to take any vaccine at all.
Not sure the government has thought this through?
That's not the issue here. What's happened with AZ (and maybe J&J) is that young people generate a huge immune response to both the vector and the vaccine, this, in some rare scenarios, can lead to blood clots and in even rarer scenarios - death. These are cases in addition to the background rate of these kinds of events, as in - if that person didn't take the vaccine they would probably not be dead right now.
With the other vaccines, Pfizer, Moderna and Novavax, that isn't the case. Yes they have some side effects, Moderna in particular seems to generate a lot of them in patients in the US, but they are all fleeting and none of them have been associated to any deaths. On an individual risk basis it doesn't make sense for under 40s to take AZ when COVID prevalence is so low when other vaccines are available to us.
It is the right decision based on individual risk, clearly. But expressing it in such a way is the problem.
As we all know, the gain in getting vaxxed isn't just a reduction in your own risk of getting ill, it is also a reduction of risk to everyone you meet. That concept was not expressed in JVT's figure. It should have been included by expressing the balance as _total_ lives saved per jab and that would have made all the vaccines a positive choice, even if eg Pfizer is marginally better for the young.
The British public have clearly got this and everyone (apart from a few, who we rightly laugh at/condemn) has seen it as a duty to go and get jabbed. Many might have been reluctant but 'for Queen and Country', or perhaps just their elderly relatives, they've got it done.
This conference went completely against that.
They should have just made the allocations carefully if they wanted to stop a few blood clots and not made a song and dance about it.
There is another question. Why did regulators not respond more quickly after their foreign peers identified these risks earlier?
"Germany’s vaccine advisory committee sees no disadvantages or risks from giving younger recipients of AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine a second dose of an alternative shot, two of its members said on Wednesday.
“Nobody expects from an immunological perspective that there will be a disadvantage to getting a second dose of another vaccine,” Marianne Roebl-Mathieu, a member of the standing committee on vaccinations, told an online briefing."
At this rate, by that thinking, it will very soon be statistically perverse for the healthy under 50s to take any vaccine at all.
Not sure the government has thought this through?
That's not the issue here. What's happened with AZ (and maybe J&J) is that young people generate a huge immune response to both the vector and the vaccine, this, in some rare scenarios, can lead to blood clots and in even rarer scenarios - death. These are cases in addition to the background rate of these kinds of events, as in - if that person didn't take the vaccine they would probably not be dead right now.
With the other vaccines, Pfizer, Moderna and Novavax, that isn't the case. Yes they have some side effects, Moderna in particular seems to generate a lot of them in patients in the US, but they are all fleeting and none of them have been associated to any deaths. On an individual risk basis it doesn't make sense for under 40s to take AZ when COVID prevalence is so low when other vaccines are available to us.
It is the right decision based on individual risk, clearly. But expressing it in such a way is the problem.
As we all know, the gain in getting vaxxed isn't just a reduction in your own risk of getting ill, it is also a reduction of risk to everyone you meet. That concept was not expressed in JVT's figure. It should have been included by expressing the balance as _total_ lives saved per jab and that would have made all the vaccines a positive choice, even if eg Pfizer is marginally better for the young.
The British public have clearly got this and everyone (apart from a few, who we rightly laugh at/condemn) has seen it as a duty to go and get jabbed. Many might have been reluctant but 'for Queen and Country', or perhaps just their elderly relatives, they've got it done.
This conference went completely against that.
They should have just made the allocations carefully if they wanted to stop a few blood clots and not made a song and dance about it.
Perhaps the government should have backed the Imperial vaccine, not just the Oxford one, both from the standpoint of current and future jabs and to put a British stake in the RNA vaccines ground.
CNN) A man in the Philippines has died after being forced to do 300 squats for breaching Covid curfews, making him the latest victim of the country's often brutal approach to enforcing restrictions.
On April 1, Darren Manaog Peñaredondo, 28, left his home in General Trias, a city in Cavite province, which is under lockdown due to rising Covid-19 cases, to buy water, his family said, according to CNN affiliate CNN Philippines.
But he was stopped by police and told to do "pumping exercises" 100 times, according to the report. Police made him repeat the exercises, meaning he ultimately did about 300 repetitions.
He started to convulse on Saturday, but we were able to revive him at home. Then his body failed so we revived him again, but he was already comatose," his family said, according to the report. Peñaredondo died at 10 p.m., the family said.
Comments
You can’t shake The Drake.
https://twitter.com/Kenny__Stewart/status/1380271235876204544?s=19
https://twitter.com/AFP/status/1380219996572418048
I'm sure he will take it well
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VajgBW2g9VY
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-9451351/J-J-vaccinations-paused-North-Carolina-site-18-people-adverse-reactions.html
But the vaccine is good. That needs to be stressed.
https://twitter.com/equusonthebuses/status/1380277783876796418?s=21
Next up, the Shankhill Butchers carving knife set.
https://twitter.com/BNODesk/status/1380284854793875458?s=20
Single shot of the Pfizer vaccine, in individuals previously infected, generates strong neutralising activity against the variant that previous infection didn’t.
https://twitter.com/NEJM/status/1380135841905799172
https://twitter.com/FinancialTimes/status/1380294439034359808?s=20
https://twitter.com/jayjamescarter/status/1380260612043898883
(And yes, I know it's a chair joke)
We're also heading towards summer with a very seasonal virus - last year with no vaccine we had very few cases between June and September. If we completly stopped jabbing now we could almost certainly have a pretty much normal summer, but things might get a bit exciting next winter - but that's plenty of time to obtain plenty more vaccines of various different varieties and use them as appropriate.
I can’t believe Cameron thought this was a good idea. He’s wisely tried to stay out of the limelight after leaving office and perhaps was very slowly beginning to rebuild his reputation. This has probably set him back another 5 years.
The UK is now an enormous multi-million-person real-life study into the efficacy and dangers of AZ. We have given 20m doses. Our cases, hospitalizations and deaths have cratered (just as they did in Israel, which used Pfizer). Our excess deaths are now BELOW normal. Bodies are not piling up in morgues due to blood clots.
AZ works. Brilliantly. Use it. Stop faffing about, stop angsting about a side effect that may impact one in 100,000 people. There is no time to lose. Get jabbing. People are dying.
A whole bunch of countries have successfully scared each other into avoidance of the best vaccine there is (in terms of cost and ease of use). What a mess
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/1109406.stm
At least one person a month dies of a blood clot on the lungs on arrival at Heathrow Airport, say doctors.
They believe at least 2,000 people a year in the UK may die from blood clots linked to long-haul air travel.
I’m with this American scientist in that FT piece
‘In the US, Lawrence Gostin, professor in public health law at Georgetown University, called on regulators to take a global view or risk undermining the public’s trust in vaccines further. The AstraZeneca jab is seen as key for vaccination programmes for poorer countries as it is cheaper and easier to store and handle than many of the others.
“We have a dizzying array of different judgments from different regulatory agencies. Each country going its own way can be very destructive,” Gostin said. This might have a particularly bad impact on lower-income countries, which look to Western regulators for seals of approval. “This is a global mess, not just a European mess.”’
Right of centre parties:
Con 44%
UKIP 4%
Reform UK 3%
No other poll has had these three as high as 51%.
http://www.deltapoll.co.uk/polls/voting-intention-210327
The UK government has awarded 25 suppliers places on a framework deal for software design and implementation which could be worth up to £1.5bn.
Big names like Deloitte, Accenture, and Fujitsu join the list of tender winners who will be expected to provide the services "required when deploying a new cloud-based ERP system or upgrading a legacy IT system," according to a contract award notice.
https://www.theregister.com/2021/04/08/uk_software_framework_agreement/
The 25 lucky vendors are listed as:
Agilisys
Accenture
Advanced Business Software & Solutions
Aryaa Associates
Atos IT Services
AWTG
Bedigital
Bramble Hub
Cadmidium Services
Ceox Services
CGI IT
Civica Digital
cloudThing
Cognizant Technology Solutions
Covoxa
Deloitte
EAPPSYS
Engine Partners
Entserv
Equiniti
Ernst & Young
Evolutionary Systems
Fujitsu
HCL Technologies
Hitachi Solutions Europe
None past the letter H. It is so remarkable that a professional would check it is not the Register's journalists who have missed the rest of the list but that sounds like hard work so I'm content to laugh at the government.
As we all know, the gain in getting vaxxed isn't just a reduction in your own risk of getting ill, it is also a reduction of risk to everyone you meet. That concept was not expressed in JVT's figure. It should have been included by expressing the balance as _total_ lives saved per jab and that would have made all the vaccines a positive choice, even if eg Pfizer is marginally better for the young.
The British public have clearly got this and everyone (apart from a few, who we rightly laugh at/condemn) has seen it as a duty to go and get jabbed. Many might have been reluctant but 'for Queen and Country', or perhaps just their elderly relatives, they've got it done.
This conference went completely against that.
They should have just made the allocations carefully if they wanted to stop a few blood clots and not made a song and dance about it.
"Germany’s vaccine advisory committee sees no disadvantages or risks from giving younger recipients of AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine a second dose of an alternative shot, two of its members said on Wednesday.
“Nobody expects from an immunological perspective that there will be a disadvantage to getting a second dose of another vaccine,” Marianne Roebl-Mathieu, a member of the standing committee on vaccinations, told an online briefing."
https://www.reuters.com/article/health-coronavirus-germany-astrazeneca-s/german-vaccine-experts-no-risks-in-vaccine-switch-after-first-astra-dose-idUSS8N2ET03E
https://twitter.com/jdimick1/status/1380159770422874124
On April 1, Darren Manaog Peñaredondo, 28, left his home in General Trias, a city in Cavite province, which is under lockdown due to rising Covid-19 cases, to buy water, his family said, according to CNN affiliate CNN Philippines.
But he was stopped by police and told to do "pumping exercises" 100 times, according to the report. Police made him repeat the exercises, meaning he ultimately did about 300 repetitions.
He started to convulse on Saturday, but we were able to revive him at home. Then his body failed so we revived him again, but he was already comatose," his family said, according to the report. Peñaredondo died at 10 p.m., the family said.