I saw Dingwall's arguments on twitter this morning - to my mind they are a nonsense, I sincerely hope he is in the minority of people within the JCVI.
Robert Dingwall Flag of Scotland Flag of European Union Reunite @rwjdingwall · 4h Given the low risk of Covid for most teenagers, it is not immoral to think that they may be better protected by natural immunity generated through infection than by asking them to take the *possible* risk of a vaccine
It's a shocking argument.
I don't feel especially strongly about this, but it strikes me as odd that schools are open if it was being contemplated that kids should get the vaccine. I get that we're still working our way through adults, so perhaps the JCVI don't need to decide just yet, but as far as I can tell, children are currently getting immunity the natural way. If they do decide that kids should be vaccinated, most of them will have probably had COVID.
Summer hols right around the corner, decision will be made during those. Don't forget there's loads of self isolation going on if there's a case right now. Gov't isn't onboard with either letting it rip through schools OR vaccinating right now.
I see the zero covidians new goal post moving is because school kids are getting covid we have to stop everything, until we get them jabbed.
Surely we just have to jab everyone they might infect.
@Andy_Cooke yesterday was saying there were "Several thousand children have been hospitalised. Well over a hundred thousand children have ended up with chronic illness."
I can't find the stats but I'm sure he'll provide them for me when he's next on.
But his was a response to why are we closing down the country on account of a group of people (children) who are at very low risk.
NB - I did not state that we had to close the country to protect them. I've stated that we are highly unlikely to want to do that - but that we should not blithely assume that it will not be an issue for them. Could you provide a link to anywhere that I've said we should lockdown again to protect the kids?
As it happens, I think that schools breaking up will do a lot to help.
Yeah it was really a non-point you were making. You asked me, when I queried if Freedom Day would really be Freedom day when children might be kept from school, why I persisted "in ignoring the thousands of hospitalisations of under-18s, and chronic illnesses there".
Whereas you don't think it will cause delay to July 19th. So it was just hand wringing on your part for no obvious reason.
No, it wasn't. As @Malmesbury says, it was in the context of "why vaccinate children."
That's why. The risk-benefit calculation is very much in favour of it.
I don't understand why you persist in trying to be so superciliously unpleasant.
What was the risk of the blood clot from the AZ vaccine? Was it much greater or lower than 0.045%?
I'm reckoning nowhere near 1-in-2,000, which is 0.045%
I see the zero covidians new goal post moving is because school kids are getting covid we have to stop everything, until we get them jabbed.
Surely we just have to jab everyone they might infect.
@Andy_Cooke yesterday was saying there were "Several thousand children have been hospitalised. Well over a hundred thousand children have ended up with chronic illness."
I can't find the stats but I'm sure he'll provide them for me when he's next on.
But his was a response to why are we closing down the country on account of a group of people (children) who are at very low risk.
NB - I did not state that we had to close the country to protect them. I've stated that we are highly unlikely to want to do that - but that we should not blithely assume that it will not be an issue for them. Could you provide a link to anywhere that I've said we should lockdown again to protect the kids?
As it happens, I think that schools breaking up will do a lot to help.
Yeah it was really a non-point you were making. You asked me, when I queried if Freedom Day would really be Freedom day when children might be kept from school, why I persisted "in ignoring the thousands of hospitalisations of under-18s, and chronic illnesses there".
Whereas you don't think it will cause delay to July 19th. So it was just hand wringing on your part for no obvious reason.
No, it wasn't. As @Malmesbury says, it was in the context of "why vaccinate children."
That's why. The risk-benefit calculation is very much in favour of it.
I don't understand why you persist in trying to be so superciliously unpleasant.
What was the risk of the blood clot from the AZ vaccine? Was it much greater or lower than 0.045%?
A lot lower. To put onto the same scale (chances per million), it was somewhere between 10 per million and 20 per million (as the numbers are so low, it's very very hard to pick them out of the "noise" of naturally occurring blood clots)
0.045% is 450 per million. (cf 10-20 per million)
Its quite impossible to make that utterly spurious claim, because the covid vaccines have been in existence for a much shorter time than many other vaccines. The time taken to develop them is also much shorter.
We simply don't know what the full effects might be.
Hasn’t this claim been dismissed because of the way vaccines work? It’s just scaremongering to suggest it.
Yep.
The antivaxxers and Putin-bots don't care, though. When asked which vaccines have ever been found to have long-term side-effects that were not apparent within the first few weeks, they tend not to answer.
smear, smear, insult smear.
Here's a question for your tiny little mind Andy. How could a long term side-effect become apparent after a few weeks ?
Hint: a few weeks is not a long time
His point, for your tiny mind, is that if you are going to wave around "long term side effects" of vaccines, you need to provide an example of a side effect, in a vaccine, that wasn't apparent in a few weeks.
I really don't because vaccines in the past have taken far, far longer to develop than covid vaccines. We are comparing apples with pears here.
As I say, what was taking thoselaggards of the past so long? So far we have the laughable argument from RobD that there was 'no rush'
I see the zero covidians new goal post moving is because school kids are getting covid we have to stop everything, until we get them jabbed.
Surely we just have to jab everyone they might infect.
@Andy_Cooke yesterday was saying there were "Several thousand children have been hospitalised. Well over a hundred thousand children have ended up with chronic illness."
I can't find the stats but I'm sure he'll provide them for me when he's next on.
But his was a response to why are we closing down the country on account of a group of people (children) who are at very low risk.
NB - I did not state that we had to close the country to protect them. I've stated that we are highly unlikely to want to do that - but that we should not blithely assume that it will not be an issue for them. Could you provide a link to anywhere that I've said we should lockdown again to protect the kids?
As it happens, I think that schools breaking up will do a lot to help.
Yeah it was really a non-point you were making. You asked me, when I queried if Freedom Day would really be Freedom day when children might be kept from school, why I persisted "in ignoring the thousands of hospitalisations of under-18s, and chronic illnesses there".
Whereas you don't think it will cause delay to July 19th. So it was just hand wringing on your part for no obvious reason.
No, it wasn't. As @Malmesbury says, it was in the context of "why vaccinate children."
That's why. The risk-benefit calculation is very much in favour of it.
I don't understand why you persist in trying to be so superciliously unpleasant.
What was the risk of the blood clot from the AZ vaccine? Was it much greater or lower than 0.045%?
A lot lower. To put onto the same scale (chances per million), it was somewhere between 10 per million and 20 per million (as the numbers are so low, it's very very hard to pick them out of the "noise" of naturally occurring blood clots)
0.045% is 450 per million. (cf 10-20 per million)
Its quite impossible to make that utterly spurious claim, because the covid vaccines have been in existence for a much shorter time than many other vaccines. The time taken to develop them is also much shorter.
We simply don't know what the full effects might be.
Hasn’t this claim been dismissed because of the way vaccines work? It’s just scaremongering to suggest it.
Is Professor Dingwall of the the JCVI scaremongering when he implies the argument for vaccinating teenagers and children is still a live one and not full decided on any basis?
Or are you just trying to shut down opposition to your bullsh*t argument?
Aren’t you conflating two different issues? I’m referring to your claim that there could be long term effects of the vaccine that we don’t know about.
"Given the low risk of Covid for most teenagers, it is not immoral to think that they may be better protected by natural immunity generated through infection than by asking them to take the *possible* risk of a vaccine."
It's certainly not immoral to think that (it is, in any case, due to 'may' a bit of a non-statement - I had AZN and I may have been better off taking my chances with infection, but probably not). It may be incorrect.
The ethical thing to do is compare the evidence as well as possible and then make a judgement, based on that, as to whether to make the vaccine available for younger people. If the evidence is stongly in benefit > risk then make it available* and let people make a choice. If not, then don't.
*By which I mean free to anyone who wants it. It's already approved, which means those who really want it will presumably be able to pay for it privately in the end, whatever the government conclusion
Is the evidence strongly benefit > risk?
Risk of hospitalisation (we don't know more than that) from Covid in 0-17yr olds = 0.045%
It seems to be from the numbers quoted on here and apparently not disputed so far. I'd like to see more evidence from other countries (and from here on the risks of infection and severe effects from Delta) in these age groups before deciding whether it should be offered (I'd also like to know what I'm talking about on this subject before making that decision, but I don't...). I do expect the evidence to settle in favour of offering on risk-benefit.
It might be much more borderline on costs - I don't have expertise in safety, but I've worked on some NICE economic evaluations. If Pfizer £15/dose so £30/course then it's crudely £67k per your 0.045% hospitalisation avoided (assumes ~100% vaccine protection from hospitalisation, so actually a bit worse than that, particularly if hospitalisaton due to vaccination). Not cost effective from a healthcare perspective in this group (unless there's a significant long term Covid effect on quality of life, which is possible or around 1/20 admitted die, which is unlikely - assuming that 1/20 eash lose 70 full health equivalent life years and assuming my mental maths is right!). But if it prevents future waves and gets to herd immunity, then with the wider societal costs, then maybe (but it may not be necesary to prevent future waves).
The second bit will play a part in whether it gets offered. If it's necessary to effectively end the pandemic (in UK), restricitons and get businesses back to normal then it's a no-brainer, economically. On purely health grounds, it would probably be better spent working through some of the care backlogs. Or it might be better spent on enanced schooling for these kids.
I see the zero covidians new goal post moving is because school kids are getting covid we have to stop everything, until we get them jabbed.
Surely we just have to jab everyone they might infect.
@Andy_Cooke yesterday was saying there were "Several thousand children have been hospitalised. Well over a hundred thousand children have ended up with chronic illness."
I can't find the stats but I'm sure he'll provide them for me when he's next on.
But his was a response to why are we closing down the country on account of a group of people (children) who are at very low risk.
NB - I did not state that we had to close the country to protect them. I've stated that we are highly unlikely to want to do that - but that we should not blithely assume that it will not be an issue for them. Could you provide a link to anywhere that I've said we should lockdown again to protect the kids?
As it happens, I think that schools breaking up will do a lot to help.
Yeah it was really a non-point you were making. You asked me, when I queried if Freedom Day would really be Freedom day when children might be kept from school, why I persisted "in ignoring the thousands of hospitalisations of under-18s, and chronic illnesses there".
Whereas you don't think it will cause delay to July 19th. So it was just hand wringing on your part for no obvious reason.
No, it wasn't. As @Malmesbury says, it was in the context of "why vaccinate children."
That's why. The risk-benefit calculation is very much in favour of it.
I don't understand why you persist in trying to be so superciliously unpleasant.
What was the risk of the blood clot from the AZ vaccine? Was it much greater or lower than 0.045%?
A lot lower. To put onto the same scale (chances per million), it was somewhere between 10 per million and 20 per million (as the numbers are so low, it's very very hard to pick them out of the "noise" of naturally occurring blood clots)
0.045% is 450 per million. (cf 10-20 per million)
Its quite impossible to make that utterly spurious claim, because the covid vaccines have been in existence for a much shorter time than many other vaccines. The time taken to develop them is also much shorter.
We simply don't know what the full effects might be.
Hasn’t this claim been dismissed because of the way vaccines work? It’s just scaremongering to suggest it.
Yep.
The antivaxxers and Putin-bots don't care, though. When asked which vaccines have ever been found to have long-term side-effects that were not apparent within the first few weeks, they tend not to answer.
smear, smear, insult smear.
Here's a question for your tiny little mind Andy. How could a long term side-effect become apparent after a few weeks ?
Hint: a few weeks is not a long time
His point, for your tiny mind, is that if you are going to wave around "long term side effects" of vaccines, you need to provide an example of a side effect, in a vaccine, that wasn't apparent in a few weeks.
I really don't because vaccines in the past have taken far, far longer to develop than covid vaccines. We are not comparing apples with pears here.
As I say, what was taking them so long. So far we have the laughable argument from RobD that there was 'no rush'
I see the zero covidians new goal post moving is because school kids are getting covid we have to stop everything, until we get them jabbed.
Surely we just have to jab everyone they might infect.
@Andy_Cooke yesterday was saying there were "Several thousand children have been hospitalised. Well over a hundred thousand children have ended up with chronic illness."
I can't find the stats but I'm sure he'll provide them for me when he's next on.
But his was a response to why are we closing down the country on account of a group of people (children) who are at very low risk.
NB - I did not state that we had to close the country to protect them. I've stated that we are highly unlikely to want to do that - but that we should not blithely assume that it will not be an issue for them. Could you provide a link to anywhere that I've said we should lockdown again to protect the kids?
As it happens, I think that schools breaking up will do a lot to help.
Yeah it was really a non-point you were making. You asked me, when I queried if Freedom Day would really be Freedom day when children might be kept from school, why I persisted "in ignoring the thousands of hospitalisations of under-18s, and chronic illnesses there".
Whereas you don't think it will cause delay to July 19th. So it was just hand wringing on your part for no obvious reason.
No, it wasn't. As @Malmesbury says, it was in the context of "why vaccinate children."
That's why. The risk-benefit calculation is very much in favour of it.
I don't understand why you persist in trying to be so superciliously unpleasant.
What was the risk of the blood clot from the AZ vaccine? Was it much greater or lower than 0.045%?
A lot lower. To put onto the same scale (chances per million), it was somewhere between 10 per million and 20 per million (as the numbers are so low, it's very very hard to pick them out of the "noise" of naturally occurring blood clots)
0.045% is 450 per million. (cf 10-20 per million)
Its quite impossible to make that utterly spurious claim, because the covid vaccines have been in existence for a much shorter time than many other vaccines. The time taken to develop them is also much shorter.
We simply don't know what the full effects might be.
Hasn’t this claim been dismissed because of the way vaccines work? It’s just scaremongering to suggest it.
Is Professor Dingwall of the the JCVI scaremongering when he implies the argument for vaccinating teenagers and children is still a live one and not full decided on any basis?
Or are you just trying to shut down opposition to your bullsh*t argument?
Aren’t you conflating two different issues? I’m referring to your claim that there could be long term effects of the vaccine that we don’t know about.
"Given the low risk of Covid for most teenagers, it is not immoral to think that they may be better protected by natural immunity generated through infection than by asking them to take the *possible* risk of a vaccine."
Yeah, but that's talking about the (real) short-term risks, isn't it?
No idea.
Then why post it in reply if you don't know what it is referring to? I was mainly picking up on the claim that there might be unknown long-term side effects.
I imagine unknown long-term side effects is a subset of "possible risk[s] of a vaccine".
I don't think that is a safe assumption. My point from the start has been that there is no concern scientifically about long-term effects given how the vaccines operate.
We might wonder, then, why vaccines have in the past taken so much longer to develop and introduce, relative to covid ones.
Why on earth were they wasting so much time?
Oh, I don't know, because there was no immediate rush perhaps? Vaccines all work in the same way, and I don't think there is any concern in the scientific community about a long-term side effect appearing after, say, three years.
Rafa Benitez is Everton manager. I am pleased we have a decent manager. Others aren't. My Everton groups are in open warfare reminiscent of the Eastern Front. With slightly less compassion and appreciation of the alternative POV.
I see the zero covidians new goal post moving is because school kids are getting covid we have to stop everything, until we get them jabbed.
Surely we just have to jab everyone they might infect.
@Andy_Cooke yesterday was saying there were "Several thousand children have been hospitalised. Well over a hundred thousand children have ended up with chronic illness."
I can't find the stats but I'm sure he'll provide them for me when he's next on.
But his was a response to why are we closing down the country on account of a group of people (children) who are at very low risk.
NB - I did not state that we had to close the country to protect them. I've stated that we are highly unlikely to want to do that - but that we should not blithely assume that it will not be an issue for them. Could you provide a link to anywhere that I've said we should lockdown again to protect the kids?
As it happens, I think that schools breaking up will do a lot to help.
Yeah it was really a non-point you were making. You asked me, when I queried if Freedom Day would really be Freedom day when children might be kept from school, why I persisted "in ignoring the thousands of hospitalisations of under-18s, and chronic illnesses there".
Whereas you don't think it will cause delay to July 19th. So it was just hand wringing on your part for no obvious reason.
No, it wasn't. As @Malmesbury says, it was in the context of "why vaccinate children."
That's why. The risk-benefit calculation is very much in favour of it.
I don't understand why you persist in trying to be so superciliously unpleasant.
What was the risk of the blood clot from the AZ vaccine? Was it much greater or lower than 0.045%?
Given that it's policy to offer anyone under 30 a vaccine that is not AZ, what is the relevance of the risk of blood clots from AZ?
(I know there are possible risks from the other vaccines too, but someone, may have been Andy, set out a comparison of risks a day or two ago)
I'm also in the probably makes sense to offer vaccination to children (based on risk-benefit, getting vaccinated should be in their interests) but not to delay unlocking until that has happened (costs of lockdown/school interruption to children very likely outweigh the risks of Covid)
The issue was side effects for the Pfizer vaccine (myocarditis) which were something like 7 per million, IIRC.
Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't myocarditis only an issue with people who did strenuous exercise in the days following the vaccine? (And isn't myocarditis a potential issue for those with, say, a cold who engage in such exercise?)
I see the zero covidians new goal post moving is because school kids are getting covid we have to stop everything, until we get them jabbed.
Surely we just have to jab everyone they might infect.
@Andy_Cooke yesterday was saying there were "Several thousand children have been hospitalised. Well over a hundred thousand children have ended up with chronic illness."
I can't find the stats but I'm sure he'll provide them for me when he's next on.
But his was a response to why are we closing down the country on account of a group of people (children) who are at very low risk.
NB - I did not state that we had to close the country to protect them. I've stated that we are highly unlikely to want to do that - but that we should not blithely assume that it will not be an issue for them. Could you provide a link to anywhere that I've said we should lockdown again to protect the kids?
As it happens, I think that schools breaking up will do a lot to help.
Yeah it was really a non-point you were making. You asked me, when I queried if Freedom Day would really be Freedom day when children might be kept from school, why I persisted "in ignoring the thousands of hospitalisations of under-18s, and chronic illnesses there".
Whereas you don't think it will cause delay to July 19th. So it was just hand wringing on your part for no obvious reason.
No, it wasn't. As @Malmesbury says, it was in the context of "why vaccinate children."
That's why. The risk-benefit calculation is very much in favour of it.
I don't understand why you persist in trying to be so superciliously unpleasant.
What was the risk of the blood clot from the AZ vaccine? Was it much greater or lower than 0.045%?
A lot lower. To put onto the same scale (chances per million), it was somewhere between 10 per million and 20 per million (as the numbers are so low, it's very very hard to pick them out of the "noise" of naturally occurring blood clots)
0.045% is 450 per million. (cf 10-20 per million)
Its quite impossible to make that utterly spurious claim, because the covid vaccines have been in existence for a much shorter time than many other vaccines. The time taken to develop them is also much shorter.
We simply don't know what the full effects might be.
Hasn’t this claim been dismissed because of the way vaccines work? It’s just scaremongering to suggest it.
Is Professor Dingwall of the the JCVI scaremongering when he implies the argument for vaccinating teenagers and children is still a live one and not full decided on any basis?
Or are you just trying to shut down opposition to your bullsh*t argument?
Aren’t you conflating two different issues? I’m referring to your claim that there could be long term effects of the vaccine that we don’t know about.
"Given the low risk of Covid for most teenagers, it is not immoral to think that they may be better protected by natural immunity generated through infection than by asking them to take the *possible* risk of a vaccine."
Yeah, but that's talking about the (real) short-term risks, isn't it?
No idea.
Then why post it in reply if you don't know what it is referring to? I was mainly picking up on the claim that there might be unknown long-term side effects.
I imagine unknown long-term side effects is a subset of "possible risk[s] of a vaccine".
I don't think that is a safe assumption. My point from the start has been that there is no concern scientifically about long-term effects given how the vaccines operate.
We might wonder, then, why vaccines have in the past taken so much longer to develop and introduce, relative to covid ones.
Why on earth were they wasting so much time?
Oh, I don't know, because there was no immediate rush perhaps? Vaccines all work in the same way, and I don't think there is any concern in the scientific community about a long-term side effect appearing after, say, three years.
Oh come on.
So, who in the scientific community is so worried about these long-term covid vaccine side-effects? Despite them not taking as long to approve, the principle behind them is the same as for other vaccines.
I see the zero covidians new goal post moving is because school kids are getting covid we have to stop everything, until we get them jabbed.
Surely we just have to jab everyone they might infect.
@Andy_Cooke yesterday was saying there were "Several thousand children have been hospitalised. Well over a hundred thousand children have ended up with chronic illness."
I can't find the stats but I'm sure he'll provide them for me when he's next on.
But his was a response to why are we closing down the country on account of a group of people (children) who are at very low risk.
NB - I did not state that we had to close the country to protect them. I've stated that we are highly unlikely to want to do that - but that we should not blithely assume that it will not be an issue for them. Could you provide a link to anywhere that I've said we should lockdown again to protect the kids?
As it happens, I think that schools breaking up will do a lot to help.
Yeah it was really a non-point you were making. You asked me, when I queried if Freedom Day would really be Freedom day when children might be kept from school, why I persisted "in ignoring the thousands of hospitalisations of under-18s, and chronic illnesses there".
Whereas you don't think it will cause delay to July 19th. So it was just hand wringing on your part for no obvious reason.
No, it wasn't. As @Malmesbury says, it was in the context of "why vaccinate children."
That's why. The risk-benefit calculation is very much in favour of it.
I don't understand why you persist in trying to be so superciliously unpleasant.
What was the risk of the blood clot from the AZ vaccine? Was it much greater or lower than 0.045%?
A lot lower. To put onto the same scale (chances per million), it was somewhere between 10 per million and 20 per million (as the numbers are so low, it's very very hard to pick them out of the "noise" of naturally occurring blood clots)
0.045% is 450 per million. (cf 10-20 per million)
Its quite impossible to make that utterly spurious claim, because the covid vaccines have been in existence for a much shorter time than many other vaccines. The time taken to develop them is also much shorter.
We simply don't know what the full effects might be.
Hasn’t this claim been dismissed because of the way vaccines work? It’s just scaremongering to suggest it.
Yep.
The antivaxxers and Putin-bots don't care, though. When asked which vaccines have ever been found to have long-term side-effects that were not apparent within the first few weeks, they tend not to answer.
smear, smear, insult smear.
Here's a question for your tiny little mind Andy. How could a long term side-effect become apparent after a few weeks ?
Hint: a few weeks is not a long time
His point, for your tiny mind, is that if you are going to wave around "long term side effects" of vaccines, you need to provide an example of a side effect, in a vaccine, that wasn't apparent in a few weeks.
I really don't because vaccines in the past have taken far, far longer to develop than covid vaccines. We are not comparing apples with pears here.
As I say, what was taking thoselaggards of the past so long? So far we have the laughable argument from RobD that there was 'no rush'
It has been explained previously, at some length.
Essentially, all the steps that are normally carried out in vaccine creation were carried out. Instead of performing them in a waterfall style manner (one following on from the previous), they were done (partially) in parallel.
This massively increased the costs of testing the vaccine and creating the production infrastructure.
I see the zero covidians new goal post moving is because school kids are getting covid we have to stop everything, until we get them jabbed.
Surely we just have to jab everyone they might infect.
@Andy_Cooke yesterday was saying there were "Several thousand children have been hospitalised. Well over a hundred thousand children have ended up with chronic illness."
I can't find the stats but I'm sure he'll provide them for me when he's next on.
But his was a response to why are we closing down the country on account of a group of people (children) who are at very low risk.
NB - I did not state that we had to close the country to protect them. I've stated that we are highly unlikely to want to do that - but that we should not blithely assume that it will not be an issue for them. Could you provide a link to anywhere that I've said we should lockdown again to protect the kids?
As it happens, I think that schools breaking up will do a lot to help.
Yeah it was really a non-point you were making. You asked me, when I queried if Freedom Day would really be Freedom day when children might be kept from school, why I persisted "in ignoring the thousands of hospitalisations of under-18s, and chronic illnesses there".
Whereas you don't think it will cause delay to July 19th. So it was just hand wringing on your part for no obvious reason.
No, it wasn't. As @Malmesbury says, it was in the context of "why vaccinate children."
That's why. The risk-benefit calculation is very much in favour of it.
I don't understand why you persist in trying to be so superciliously unpleasant.
What was the risk of the blood clot from the AZ vaccine? Was it much greater or lower than 0.045%?
A lot lower. To put onto the same scale (chances per million), it was somewhere between 10 per million and 20 per million (as the numbers are so low, it's very very hard to pick them out of the "noise" of naturally occurring blood clots)
0.045% is 450 per million. (cf 10-20 per million)
Its quite impossible to make that utterly spurious claim, because the covid vaccines have been in existence for a much shorter time than many other vaccines. The time taken to develop them is also much shorter.
We simply don't know what the full effects might be.
Hasn’t this claim been dismissed because of the way vaccines work? It’s just scaremongering to suggest it.
Yep.
The antivaxxers and Putin-bots don't care, though. When asked which vaccines have ever been found to have long-term side-effects that were not apparent within the first few weeks, they tend not to answer.
smear, smear, insult smear.
Here's a question for your tiny little mind Andy. How could a long term side-effect become apparent after a few weeks ?
Hint: a few weeks is not a long time
His point, for your tiny mind, is that if you are going to wave around "long term side effects" of vaccines, you need to provide an example of a side effect, in a vaccine, that wasn't apparent in a few weeks.
I really don't because vaccines in the past have taken far, far longer to develop than covid vaccines. We are comparing apples with pears here.
As I say, what was taking thoselaggards of the past so long? So far we have the laughable argument from RobD that there was 'no rush'
Andrew Lilico @andrew_lilico · 1h What are you all *doing* in Scotland at the moment? Is everyone kissing random strangers in the streets? Sharing soda cans? Holding "Who can shout loudest indoors?" competitions?
Andrew Lilico @andrew_lilico · 1h What are you all *doing* in Scotland at the moment? Is everyone kissing random strangers in the streets? Sharing soda cans? Holding "Who can shout loudest indoors?" competitions?
I see the zero covidians new goal post moving is because school kids are getting covid we have to stop everything, until we get them jabbed.
Surely we just have to jab everyone they might infect.
@Andy_Cooke yesterday was saying there were "Several thousand children have been hospitalised. Well over a hundred thousand children have ended up with chronic illness."
I can't find the stats but I'm sure he'll provide them for me when he's next on.
But his was a response to why are we closing down the country on account of a group of people (children) who are at very low risk.
NB - I did not state that we had to close the country to protect them. I've stated that we are highly unlikely to want to do that - but that we should not blithely assume that it will not be an issue for them. Could you provide a link to anywhere that I've said we should lockdown again to protect the kids?
As it happens, I think that schools breaking up will do a lot to help.
Yeah it was really a non-point you were making. You asked me, when I queried if Freedom Day would really be Freedom day when children might be kept from school, why I persisted "in ignoring the thousands of hospitalisations of under-18s, and chronic illnesses there".
Whereas you don't think it will cause delay to July 19th. So it was just hand wringing on your part for no obvious reason.
No, it wasn't. As @Malmesbury says, it was in the context of "why vaccinate children."
That's why. The risk-benefit calculation is very much in favour of it.
I don't understand why you persist in trying to be so superciliously unpleasant.
What was the risk of the blood clot from the AZ vaccine? Was it much greater or lower than 0.045%?
A lot lower. To put onto the same scale (chances per million), it was somewhere between 10 per million and 20 per million (as the numbers are so low, it's very very hard to pick them out of the "noise" of naturally occurring blood clots)
0.045% is 450 per million. (cf 10-20 per million)
Its quite impossible to make that utterly spurious claim, because the covid vaccines have been in existence for a much shorter time than many other vaccines. The time taken to develop them is also much shorter.
We simply don't know what the full effects might be.
Hasn’t this claim been dismissed because of the way vaccines work? It’s just scaremongering to suggest it.
Is Professor Dingwall of the the JCVI scaremongering when he implies the argument for vaccinating teenagers and children is still a live one and not full decided on any basis?
Or are you just trying to shut down opposition to your bullsh*t argument?
Aren’t you conflating two different issues? I’m referring to your claim that there could be long term effects of the vaccine that we don’t know about.
"Given the low risk of Covid for most teenagers, it is not immoral to think that they may be better protected by natural immunity generated through infection than by asking them to take the *possible* risk of a vaccine."
It's certainly not immoral to think that (it is, in any case, due to 'may' a bit of a non-statement - I had AZN and I may have been better off taking my chances with infection, but probably not). It may be incorrect.
The ethical thing to do is compare the evidence as well as possible and then make a judgement, based on that, as to whether to make the vaccine available for younger people. If the evidence is stongly in benefit > risk then make it available* and let people make a choice. If not, then don't.
*By which I mean free to anyone who wants it. It's already approved, which means those who really want it will presumably be able to pay for it privately in the end, whatever the government conclusion
Is the evidence strongly benefit > risk?
Risk of hospitalisation (we don't know more than that) from Covid in 0-17yr olds = 0.045%
It seems to be from the numbers quoted on here and apparently not disputed so far. I'd like to see more evidence from other countries (and from here on the risks of infection and severe effects from Delta) in these age groups before deciding whether it should be offered (I'd also like to know what I'm talking about on this subject before making that decision, but I don't...). I do expect the evidence to settle in favour of offering on risk-benefit.
It might be much more borderline on costs - I don't have expertise in safety, but I've worked on some NICE economic evaluations. If Pfizer £15/dose so £30/course then it's crudely £67k per your 0.045% hospitalisation avoided (assumes ~100% vaccine protection from hospitalisation, so actually a bit worse than that, particularly if hospitalisaton due to vaccination). Not cost effective from a healthcare perspective in this group (unless there's a significant long term Covid effect on quality of life, which is possible or around 1/20 admitted die, which is unlikely - assuming that 1/20 eash lose 70 full health equivalent life years and assuming my mental maths is right!). But if it prevents future waves and gets to herd immunity, then with the wider societal costs, then maybe (but it may not be necesary to prevent future waves).
The second bit will play a part in whether it gets offered. If it's necessary to effectively end the pandemic (in UK), restricitons and get businesses back to normal then it's a no-brainer, economically. On purely health grounds, it would probably be better spent working through some of the care backlogs. Or it might be better spent on enanced schooling for these kids.
I don't think a govt will take costs of vaccine into account when deciding anything.
I suspect a lot of children would jump at the chance.
I joke about sending the little 'un to boarding school aged eight (the same age a friend of mine started). Mrs J absolutely hates the idea of boarding school.
On the other hand, the little 'un loves the idea. He's an only child, but a very sociable one, and the idea of being with his friends all the time appeal to him. We're also fortunate that he loves school, and wants to spend more time there. (Hopefully that's not because he doesn't want to spend time with us...)
I'm unsure if the reality of boarding school would match up with the image I've sold him.
Tell him Hogwarts isn't real.
One of my younger relatives went to weekly boarding for her sixth form.
Had to be taken out a a State School as they could not prevent bullying when young. Then went to an independent day school.
The weekly boarding made her in terms of taking responsibility for herself. Just graduated.
I see the zero covidians new goal post moving is because school kids are getting covid we have to stop everything, until we get them jabbed.
Surely we just have to jab everyone they might infect.
@Andy_Cooke yesterday was saying there were "Several thousand children have been hospitalised. Well over a hundred thousand children have ended up with chronic illness."
I can't find the stats but I'm sure he'll provide them for me when he's next on.
But his was a response to why are we closing down the country on account of a group of people (children) who are at very low risk.
NB - I did not state that we had to close the country to protect them. I've stated that we are highly unlikely to want to do that - but that we should not blithely assume that it will not be an issue for them. Could you provide a link to anywhere that I've said we should lockdown again to protect the kids?
As it happens, I think that schools breaking up will do a lot to help.
Yeah it was really a non-point you were making. You asked me, when I queried if Freedom Day would really be Freedom day when children might be kept from school, why I persisted "in ignoring the thousands of hospitalisations of under-18s, and chronic illnesses there".
Whereas you don't think it will cause delay to July 19th. So it was just hand wringing on your part for no obvious reason.
No, it wasn't. As @Malmesbury says, it was in the context of "why vaccinate children."
That's why. The risk-benefit calculation is very much in favour of it.
I don't understand why you persist in trying to be so superciliously unpleasant.
What was the risk of the blood clot from the AZ vaccine? Was it much greater or lower than 0.045%?
A lot lower. To put onto the same scale (chances per million), it was somewhere between 10 per million and 20 per million (as the numbers are so low, it's very very hard to pick them out of the "noise" of naturally occurring blood clots)
0.045% is 450 per million. (cf 10-20 per million)
Its quite impossible to make that utterly spurious claim, because the covid vaccines have been in existence for a much shorter time than many other vaccines. The time taken to develop them is also much shorter.
We simply don't know what the full effects might be.
Hasn’t this claim been dismissed because of the way vaccines work? It’s just scaremongering to suggest it.
Yep.
The antivaxxers and Putin-bots don't care, though. When asked which vaccines have ever been found to have long-term side-effects that were not apparent within the first few weeks, they tend not to answer.
smear, smear, insult smear.
Here's a question for your tiny little mind Andy. How could a long term side-effect become apparent after a few weeks ?
Hint: a few weeks is not a long time
His point, for your tiny mind, is that if you are going to wave around "long term side effects" of vaccines, you need to provide an example of a side effect, in a vaccine, that wasn't apparent in a few weeks.
I really don't because vaccines in the past have taken far, far longer to develop than covid vaccines. We are not comparing apples with pears here.
As I say, what was taking thoselaggards of the past so long? So far we have the laughable argument from RobD that there was 'no rush'
There are three main reasons: 1 Money 2 Urgency 3 Prevalence
1 - Throw mor money at it and you can do it quicker - more people working on it, more people doing the assessments, more on production, more jabs in arms quicker 2 - Prioritised by companies as potentially a big money-spinner, also with government funding. Also prioritised by regulators for approvals 3 - Most important - in a trial you need enough events (cases, infections) to be able to make a valid statistical comparison between vaccine and control arms. In most trials of vaccines at least you're not going to have something that is sufficiently prevalent and enough pathogen-naive people to get to the required cases quickly. You either need many more enrolled or more time. With the early Covid trials, the population was largely unexposed and there were plenty of infections
(3 is easier for treatments where you take an affected group, but for vaccines you have to wait for people to get infected, unless you go for challenge trials)
Anyway, I've been adding to that visualisation I've been using. (@Topping - look away now; this won't fit with your worldview of me).
I think throughout this pandemic you have been a leading light on PB in trying to get to the figures and make assessments and draw some conclusions and of course I think you have done this out of a genuine concern for peoples' well-being.
The point we are discussing now is the reasons for vaccinating children which, for the risks they face in getting Covid and also once they have the disease, is in my opinion not a slam dunk.
Professor Dingwall and I completely agree with you on vaccinating children
Its not a clear cut decision whether to vaccinate 12-18 year olds, hence why no decision has been reached yet. I would support either approach, based on what the scientists on the panel decide.
I see the zero covidians new goal post moving is because school kids are getting covid we have to stop everything, until we get them jabbed.
Surely we just have to jab everyone they might infect.
@Andy_Cooke yesterday was saying there were "Several thousand children have been hospitalised. Well over a hundred thousand children have ended up with chronic illness."
I can't find the stats but I'm sure he'll provide them for me when he's next on.
But his was a response to why are we closing down the country on account of a group of people (children) who are at very low risk.
NB - I did not state that we had to close the country to protect them. I've stated that we are highly unlikely to want to do that - but that we should not blithely assume that it will not be an issue for them. Could you provide a link to anywhere that I've said we should lockdown again to protect the kids?
As it happens, I think that schools breaking up will do a lot to help.
Yeah it was really a non-point you were making. You asked me, when I queried if Freedom Day would really be Freedom day when children might be kept from school, why I persisted "in ignoring the thousands of hospitalisations of under-18s, and chronic illnesses there".
Whereas you don't think it will cause delay to July 19th. So it was just hand wringing on your part for no obvious reason.
No, it wasn't. As @Malmesbury says, it was in the context of "why vaccinate children."
That's why. The risk-benefit calculation is very much in favour of it.
I don't understand why you persist in trying to be so superciliously unpleasant.
What was the risk of the blood clot from the AZ vaccine? Was it much greater or lower than 0.045%?
A lot lower. To put onto the same scale (chances per million), it was somewhere between 10 per million and 20 per million (as the numbers are so low, it's very very hard to pick them out of the "noise" of naturally occurring blood clots)
0.045% is 450 per million. (cf 10-20 per million)
Its quite impossible to make that utterly spurious claim, because the covid vaccines have been in existence for a much shorter time than many other vaccines. The time taken to develop them is also much shorter.
We simply don't know what the full effects might be.
Hasn’t this claim been dismissed because of the way vaccines work? It’s just scaremongering to suggest it.
Yep.
The antivaxxers and Putin-bots don't care, though. When asked which vaccines have ever been found to have long-term side-effects that were not apparent within the first few weeks, they tend not to answer.
smear, smear, insult smear.
Here's a question for your tiny little mind Andy. How could a long term side-effect become apparent after a few weeks ?
Hint: a few weeks is not a long time
His point, for your tiny mind, is that if you are going to wave around "long term side effects" of vaccines, you need to provide an example of a side effect, in a vaccine, that wasn't apparent in a few weeks.
I really don't because vaccines in the past have taken far, far longer to develop than covid vaccines. We are not comparing apples with pears here.
As I say, what was taking thoselaggards of the past so long? So far we have the laughable argument from RobD that there was 'no rush'
It has been explained previously, at some length.
Essentially, all the steps that are normally carried out in vaccine creation were carried out. Instead of performing them in a waterfall style manner (one following on from the previous), they were done (partially) in parallel.
This massively increased the costs of testing the vaccine and creating the production infrastructure.
"Waste everything except time"
Ok let us say assume the risk of long-term side effects is, as you claim, zero, and the short term risk of vaccination to young people is, already, proven to be negligible, also as you claim.
It then follows that the label anti vaxxer must be applicable to anybody who opines the balance of risks for teenagers and children is at least debatable.
And that means you are calling members of the government's own vaxx committee anti-vaxxers.
I see the zero covidians new goal post moving is because school kids are getting covid we have to stop everything, until we get them jabbed.
Surely we just have to jab everyone they might infect.
@Andy_Cooke yesterday was saying there were "Several thousand children have been hospitalised. Well over a hundred thousand children have ended up with chronic illness."
I can't find the stats but I'm sure he'll provide them for me when he's next on.
But his was a response to why are we closing down the country on account of a group of people (children) who are at very low risk.
NB - I did not state that we had to close the country to protect them. I've stated that we are highly unlikely to want to do that - but that we should not blithely assume that it will not be an issue for them. Could you provide a link to anywhere that I've said we should lockdown again to protect the kids?
As it happens, I think that schools breaking up will do a lot to help.
Yeah it was really a non-point you were making. You asked me, when I queried if Freedom Day would really be Freedom day when children might be kept from school, why I persisted "in ignoring the thousands of hospitalisations of under-18s, and chronic illnesses there".
Whereas you don't think it will cause delay to July 19th. So it was just hand wringing on your part for no obvious reason.
No, it wasn't. As @Malmesbury says, it was in the context of "why vaccinate children."
That's why. The risk-benefit calculation is very much in favour of it.
I don't understand why you persist in trying to be so superciliously unpleasant.
What was the risk of the blood clot from the AZ vaccine? Was it much greater or lower than 0.045%?
A lot lower. To put onto the same scale (chances per million), it was somewhere between 10 per million and 20 per million (as the numbers are so low, it's very very hard to pick them out of the "noise" of naturally occurring blood clots)
0.045% is 450 per million. (cf 10-20 per million)
Its quite impossible to make that utterly spurious claim, because the covid vaccines have been in existence for a much shorter time than many other vaccines. The time taken to develop them is also much shorter.
We simply don't know what the full effects might be.
Hasn’t this claim been dismissed because of the way vaccines work? It’s just scaremongering to suggest it.
Is Professor Dingwall of the the JCVI scaremongering when he implies the argument for vaccinating teenagers and children is still a live one and not full decided on any basis?
Or are you just trying to shut down opposition to your bullsh*t argument?
Aren’t you conflating two different issues? I’m referring to your claim that there could be long term effects of the vaccine that we don’t know about.
"Given the low risk of Covid for most teenagers, it is not immoral to think that they may be better protected by natural immunity generated through infection than by asking them to take the *possible* risk of a vaccine."
It's certainly not immoral to think that (it is, in any case, due to 'may' a bit of a non-statement - I had AZN and I may have been better off taking my chances with infection, but probably not). It may be incorrect.
The ethical thing to do is compare the evidence as well as possible and then make a judgement, based on that, as to whether to make the vaccine available for younger people. If the evidence is stongly in benefit > risk then make it available* and let people make a choice. If not, then don't.
*By which I mean free to anyone who wants it. It's already approved, which means those who really want it will presumably be able to pay for it privately in the end, whatever the government conclusion
Is the evidence strongly benefit > risk?
Risk of hospitalisation (we don't know more than that) from Covid in 0-17yr olds = 0.045%
It seems to be from the numbers quoted on here and apparently not disputed so far. I'd like to see more evidence from other countries (and from here on the risks of infection and severe effects from Delta) in these age groups before deciding whether it should be offered (I'd also like to know what I'm talking about on this subject before making that decision, but I don't...). I do expect the evidence to settle in favour of offering on risk-benefit.
It might be much more borderline on costs - I don't have expertise in safety, but I've worked on some NICE economic evaluations. If Pfizer £15/dose so £30/course then it's crudely £67k per your 0.045% hospitalisation avoided (assumes ~100% vaccine protection from hospitalisation, so actually a bit worse than that, particularly if hospitalisaton due to vaccination). Not cost effective from a healthcare perspective in this group (unless there's a significant long term Covid effect on quality of life, which is possible or around 1/20 admitted die, which is unlikely - assuming that 1/20 eash lose 70 full health equivalent life years and assuming my mental maths is right!). But if it prevents future waves and gets to herd immunity, then with the wider societal costs, then maybe (but it may not be necesary to prevent future waves).
The second bit will play a part in whether it gets offered. If it's necessary to effectively end the pandemic (in UK), restricitons and get businesses back to normal then it's a no-brainer, economically. On purely health grounds, it would probably be better spent working through some of the care backlogs. Or it might be better spent on enanced schooling for these kids.
All good points.
An argument is that with vaccination, you can guarantee ending disruption to schools, for example.
In the region of £130 million on Pfizer to do the 12-18 age groups
Anyway, I've been adding to that visualisation I've been using. (@Topping - look away now; this won't fit with your worldview of me).
I think throughout this pandemic you have been a leading light on PB in trying to get to the figures and make assessments and draw some conclusions and of course I think you have done this out of a genuine concern for peoples' well-being.
The point we are discussing now is the reasons for vaccinating children which, for the risks they face in getting Covid and also once they have the disease, is in my opinion not a slam dunk.
Professor Dingwall and I completely agree with you on vaccinating children
Its not a clear cut decision whether to vaccinate 12-18 year olds, hence why no decision has been reached yet. I would support either approach, based on what the scientists on the panel decide.
My 17 year old has decided not to. He has thought it through quite logically and clearly, with strong supporting arguments. So, it isn't just a case of "the scientists deciding". Mind you, he just got an A in A level philosophy mock, so is not typical.
I see the zero covidians new goal post moving is because school kids are getting covid we have to stop everything, until we get them jabbed.
Surely we just have to jab everyone they might infect.
@Andy_Cooke yesterday was saying there were "Several thousand children have been hospitalised. Well over a hundred thousand children have ended up with chronic illness."
I can't find the stats but I'm sure he'll provide them for me when he's next on.
But his was a response to why are we closing down the country on account of a group of people (children) who are at very low risk.
NB - I did not state that we had to close the country to protect them. I've stated that we are highly unlikely to want to do that - but that we should not blithely assume that it will not be an issue for them. Could you provide a link to anywhere that I've said we should lockdown again to protect the kids?
As it happens, I think that schools breaking up will do a lot to help.
Yeah it was really a non-point you were making. You asked me, when I queried if Freedom Day would really be Freedom day when children might be kept from school, why I persisted "in ignoring the thousands of hospitalisations of under-18s, and chronic illnesses there".
Whereas you don't think it will cause delay to July 19th. So it was just hand wringing on your part for no obvious reason.
No, it wasn't. As @Malmesbury says, it was in the context of "why vaccinate children."
That's why. The risk-benefit calculation is very much in favour of it.
I don't understand why you persist in trying to be so superciliously unpleasant.
What was the risk of the blood clot from the AZ vaccine? Was it much greater or lower than 0.045%?
A lot lower. To put onto the same scale (chances per million), it was somewhere between 10 per million and 20 per million (as the numbers are so low, it's very very hard to pick them out of the "noise" of naturally occurring blood clots)
0.045% is 450 per million. (cf 10-20 per million)
Its quite impossible to make that utterly spurious claim, because the covid vaccines have been in existence for a much shorter time than many other vaccines. The time taken to develop them is also much shorter.
We simply don't know what the full effects might be.
Hasn’t this claim been dismissed because of the way vaccines work? It’s just scaremongering to suggest it.
Yep.
The antivaxxers and Putin-bots don't care, though. When asked which vaccines have ever been found to have long-term side-effects that were not apparent within the first few weeks, they tend not to answer.
smear, smear, insult smear.
Here's a question for your tiny little mind Andy. How could a long term side-effect become apparent after a few weeks ?
Hint: a few weeks is not a long time
His point, for your tiny mind, is that if you are going to wave around "long term side effects" of vaccines, you need to provide an example of a side effect, in a vaccine, that wasn't apparent in a few weeks.
I really don't because vaccines in the past have taken far, far longer to develop than covid vaccines. We are not comparing apples with pears here.
As I say, what was taking thoselaggards of the past so long? So far we have the laughable argument from RobD that there was 'no rush'
It has been explained previously, at some length.
Essentially, all the steps that are normally carried out in vaccine creation were carried out. Instead of performing them in a waterfall style manner (one following on from the previous), they were done (partially) in parallel.
This massively increased the costs of testing the vaccine and creating the production infrastructure.
"Waste everything except time"
Ok let us say assume the risk of long-term side effects is, as you claim, zero, and the short term risk of vaccination to young people is, already, proven to be negligible, also as you claim.
It then follows that the label anti vaxxer must be applicable to anybody who opines the balance of risks for teenagers and children is at least debatable.
And that means you are calling members of the government's own vaxx committee anti-vaxxers.
Wrong. The judgement is a movable feast. It depends on what level of COVID becomes prevalent in the community.
The risk of catching COVID is rising. At some point the lines will cross.
Anyway, I've been adding to that visualisation I've been using. (@Topping - look away now; this won't fit with your worldview of me).
I think throughout this pandemic you have been a leading light on PB in trying to get to the figures and make assessments and draw some conclusions and of course I think you have done this out of a genuine concern for peoples' well-being.
The point we are discussing now is the reasons for vaccinating children which, for the risks they face in getting Covid and also once they have the disease, is in my opinion not a slam dunk.
Professor Dingwall and I completely agree with you on vaccinating children
Its not a clear cut decision whether to vaccinate 12-18 year olds, hence why no decision has been reached yet. I would support either approach, based on what the scientists on the panel decide.
According to Andy Cooke, Malmsbury and others, it is a clear cut decision.
The short term effects of vaccination on teenagers and children have been proven to be negligible relative to covid, and the long term effects can be discounted because no example of long term vaccination effects exists in history.
The logical corollary of that is that there are anti-vaxxers on the government's own.....er......vaxx committee.
Anyway, I've been adding to that visualisation I've been using. (@Topping - look away now; this won't fit with your worldview of me).
I think throughout this pandemic you have been a leading light on PB in trying to get to the figures and make assessments and draw some conclusions and of course I think you have done this out of a genuine concern for peoples' well-being.
The point we are discussing now is the reasons for vaccinating children which, for the risks they face in getting Covid and also once they have the disease, is in my opinion not a slam dunk.
Professor Dingwall and I completely agree with you on vaccinating children
Its not a clear cut decision whether to vaccinate 12-18 year olds, hence why no decision has been reached yet. I would support either approach, based on what the scientists on the panel decide.
When I queried the merit of vaccinating young people @Andy_Cooke asked me why I persisted "in ignoring the thousands of hospitalisations of under-18s, and chronic illnesses there."
And yet as we are now accepting on here, it is by no means an obviously good idea to vaccinate such young people.
I see the zero covidians new goal post moving is because school kids are getting covid we have to stop everything, until we get them jabbed.
Surely we just have to jab everyone they might infect.
@Andy_Cooke yesterday was saying there were "Several thousand children have been hospitalised. Well over a hundred thousand children have ended up with chronic illness."
I can't find the stats but I'm sure he'll provide them for me when he's next on.
But his was a response to why are we closing down the country on account of a group of people (children) who are at very low risk.
NB - I did not state that we had to close the country to protect them. I've stated that we are highly unlikely to want to do that - but that we should not blithely assume that it will not be an issue for them. Could you provide a link to anywhere that I've said we should lockdown again to protect the kids?
As it happens, I think that schools breaking up will do a lot to help.
Yeah it was really a non-point you were making. You asked me, when I queried if Freedom Day would really be Freedom day when children might be kept from school, why I persisted "in ignoring the thousands of hospitalisations of under-18s, and chronic illnesses there".
Whereas you don't think it will cause delay to July 19th. So it was just hand wringing on your part for no obvious reason.
No, it wasn't. As @Malmesbury says, it was in the context of "why vaccinate children."
That's why. The risk-benefit calculation is very much in favour of it.
I don't understand why you persist in trying to be so superciliously unpleasant.
What was the risk of the blood clot from the AZ vaccine? Was it much greater or lower than 0.045%?
A lot lower. To put onto the same scale (chances per million), it was somewhere between 10 per million and 20 per million (as the numbers are so low, it's very very hard to pick them out of the "noise" of naturally occurring blood clots)
0.045% is 450 per million. (cf 10-20 per million)
Its quite impossible to make that utterly spurious claim, because the covid vaccines have been in existence for a much shorter time than many other vaccines. The time taken to develop them is also much shorter.
We simply don't know what the full effects might be.
Hasn’t this claim been dismissed because of the way vaccines work? It’s just scaremongering to suggest it.
Is Professor Dingwall of the the JCVI scaremongering when he implies the argument for vaccinating teenagers and children is still a live one and not full decided on any basis?
Or are you just trying to shut down opposition to your bullsh*t argument?
Aren’t you conflating two different issues? I’m referring to your claim that there could be long term effects of the vaccine that we don’t know about.
"Given the low risk of Covid for most teenagers, it is not immoral to think that they may be better protected by natural immunity generated through infection than by asking them to take the *possible* risk of a vaccine."
It's certainly not immoral to think that (it is, in any case, due to 'may' a bit of a non-statement - I had AZN and I may have been better off taking my chances with infection, but probably not). It may be incorrect.
The ethical thing to do is compare the evidence as well as possible and then make a judgement, based on that, as to whether to make the vaccine available for younger people. If the evidence is stongly in benefit > risk then make it available* and let people make a choice. If not, then don't.
*By which I mean free to anyone who wants it. It's already approved, which means those who really want it will presumably be able to pay for it privately in the end, whatever the government conclusion
Is the evidence strongly benefit > risk?
Risk of hospitalisation (we don't know more than that) from Covid in 0-17yr olds = 0.045%
It seems to be from the numbers quoted on here and apparently not disputed so far. I'd like to see more evidence from other countries (and from here on the risks of infection and severe effects from Delta) in these age groups before deciding whether it should be offered (I'd also like to know what I'm talking about on this subject before making that decision, but I don't...). I do expect the evidence to settle in favour of offering on risk-benefit.
It might be much more borderline on costs - I don't have expertise in safety, but I've worked on some NICE economic evaluations. If Pfizer £15/dose so £30/course then it's crudely £67k per your 0.045% hospitalisation avoided (assumes ~100% vaccine protection from hospitalisation, so actually a bit worse than that, particularly if hospitalisaton due to vaccination). Not cost effective from a healthcare perspective in this group (unless there's a significant long term Covid effect on quality of life, which is possible or around 1/20 admitted die, which is unlikely - assuming that 1/20 eash lose 70 full health equivalent life years and assuming my mental maths is right!). But if it prevents future waves and gets to herd immunity, then with the wider societal costs, then maybe (but it may not be necesary to prevent future waves).
The second bit will play a part in whether it gets offered. If it's necessary to effectively end the pandemic (in UK), restricitons and get businesses back to normal then it's a no-brainer, economically. On purely health grounds, it would probably be better spent working through some of the care backlogs. Or it might be better spent on enanced schooling for these kids.
All good points.
An argument is that with vaccination, you can guarantee ending disruption to schools, for example.
In the region of £130 million on Pfizer to do the 12-18 age groups
Yep, just totted it up after reading Topping's response, got £90 million for 12-16. That's miniscule if it reduces disruption (for schools, for parents having to look after isolating kids at home). It would be financially worthwhile.
I see the zero covidians new goal post moving is because school kids are getting covid we have to stop everything, until we get them jabbed.
Surely we just have to jab everyone they might infect.
@Andy_Cooke yesterday was saying there were "Several thousand children have been hospitalised. Well over a hundred thousand children have ended up with chronic illness."
I can't find the stats but I'm sure he'll provide them for me when he's next on.
But his was a response to why are we closing down the country on account of a group of people (children) who are at very low risk.
NB - I did not state that we had to close the country to protect them. I've stated that we are highly unlikely to want to do that - but that we should not blithely assume that it will not be an issue for them. Could you provide a link to anywhere that I've said we should lockdown again to protect the kids?
As it happens, I think that schools breaking up will do a lot to help.
Yeah it was really a non-point you were making. You asked me, when I queried if Freedom Day would really be Freedom day when children might be kept from school, why I persisted "in ignoring the thousands of hospitalisations of under-18s, and chronic illnesses there".
Whereas you don't think it will cause delay to July 19th. So it was just hand wringing on your part for no obvious reason.
No, it wasn't. As @Malmesbury says, it was in the context of "why vaccinate children."
That's why. The risk-benefit calculation is very much in favour of it.
I don't understand why you persist in trying to be so superciliously unpleasant.
What was the risk of the blood clot from the AZ vaccine? Was it much greater or lower than 0.045%?
A lot lower. To put onto the same scale (chances per million), it was somewhere between 10 per million and 20 per million (as the numbers are so low, it's very very hard to pick them out of the "noise" of naturally occurring blood clots)
0.045% is 450 per million. (cf 10-20 per million)
Its quite impossible to make that utterly spurious claim, because the covid vaccines have been in existence for a much shorter time than many other vaccines. The time taken to develop them is also much shorter.
We simply don't know what the full effects might be.
Hasn’t this claim been dismissed because of the way vaccines work? It’s just scaremongering to suggest it.
Yep.
The antivaxxers and Putin-bots don't care, though. When asked which vaccines have ever been found to have long-term side-effects that were not apparent within the first few weeks, they tend not to answer.
smear, smear, insult smear.
Here's a question for your tiny little mind Andy. How could a long term side-effect become apparent after a few weeks ?
Hint: a few weeks is not a long time
His point, for your tiny mind, is that if you are going to wave around "long term side effects" of vaccines, you need to provide an example of a side effect, in a vaccine, that wasn't apparent in a few weeks.
I really don't because vaccines in the past have taken far, far longer to develop than covid vaccines. We are not comparing apples with pears here.
As I say, what was taking thoselaggards of the past so long? So far we have the laughable argument from RobD that there was 'no rush'
It has been explained previously, at some length.
Essentially, all the steps that are normally carried out in vaccine creation were carried out. Instead of performing them in a waterfall style manner (one following on from the previous), they were done (partially) in parallel.
This massively increased the costs of testing the vaccine and creating the production infrastructure.
"Waste everything except time"
Ok let us say assume the risk of long-term side effects is, as you claim, zero, and the short term risk of vaccination to young people is, already, proven to be negligible, also as you claim.
It then follows that the label anti vaxxer must be applicable to anybody who opines the balance of risks for teenagers and children is at least debatable.
And that means you are calling members of the government's own vaxx committee anti-vaxxers.
Wrong. The judgement is a movable feast. It depends on what level of COVID becomes prevalent in the community.
The risk of catching COVID is rising. At some point the lines will cross.
I thought we had agreed that catching Covid is not the issue for the older age groups who have been vaxxed.
I see the zero covidians new goal post moving is because school kids are getting covid we have to stop everything, until we get them jabbed.
Surely we just have to jab everyone they might infect.
@Andy_Cooke yesterday was saying there were "Several thousand children have been hospitalised. Well over a hundred thousand children have ended up with chronic illness."
I can't find the stats but I'm sure he'll provide them for me when he's next on.
But his was a response to why are we closing down the country on account of a group of people (children) who are at very low risk.
NB - I did not state that we had to close the country to protect them. I've stated that we are highly unlikely to want to do that - but that we should not blithely assume that it will not be an issue for them. Could you provide a link to anywhere that I've said we should lockdown again to protect the kids?
As it happens, I think that schools breaking up will do a lot to help.
Yeah it was really a non-point you were making. You asked me, when I queried if Freedom Day would really be Freedom day when children might be kept from school, why I persisted "in ignoring the thousands of hospitalisations of under-18s, and chronic illnesses there".
Whereas you don't think it will cause delay to July 19th. So it was just hand wringing on your part for no obvious reason.
No, it wasn't. As @Malmesbury says, it was in the context of "why vaccinate children."
That's why. The risk-benefit calculation is very much in favour of it.
I don't understand why you persist in trying to be so superciliously unpleasant.
What was the risk of the blood clot from the AZ vaccine? Was it much greater or lower than 0.045%?
A lot lower. To put onto the same scale (chances per million), it was somewhere between 10 per million and 20 per million (as the numbers are so low, it's very very hard to pick them out of the "noise" of naturally occurring blood clots)
0.045% is 450 per million. (cf 10-20 per million)
Its quite impossible to make that utterly spurious claim, because the covid vaccines have been in existence for a much shorter time than many other vaccines. The time taken to develop them is also much shorter.
We simply don't know what the full effects might be.
Hasn’t this claim been dismissed because of the way vaccines work? It’s just scaremongering to suggest it.
Is Professor Dingwall of the the JCVI scaremongering when he implies the argument for vaccinating teenagers and children is still a live one and not full decided on any basis?
Or are you just trying to shut down opposition to your bullsh*t argument?
Aren’t you conflating two different issues? I’m referring to your claim that there could be long term effects of the vaccine that we don’t know about.
"Given the low risk of Covid for most teenagers, it is not immoral to think that they may be better protected by natural immunity generated through infection than by asking them to take the *possible* risk of a vaccine."
It's certainly not immoral to think that (it is, in any case, due to 'may' a bit of a non-statement - I had AZN and I may have been better off taking my chances with infection, but probably not). It may be incorrect.
The ethical thing to do is compare the evidence as well as possible and then make a judgement, based on that, as to whether to make the vaccine available for younger people. If the evidence is stongly in benefit > risk then make it available* and let people make a choice. If not, then don't.
*By which I mean free to anyone who wants it. It's already approved, which means those who really want it will presumably be able to pay for it privately in the end, whatever the government conclusion
Is the evidence strongly benefit > risk?
Risk of hospitalisation (we don't know more than that) from Covid in 0-17yr olds = 0.045%
It seems to be from the numbers quoted on here and apparently not disputed so far. I'd like to see more evidence from other countries (and from here on the risks of infection and severe effects from Delta) in these age groups before deciding whether it should be offered (I'd also like to know what I'm talking about on this subject before making that decision, but I don't...). I do expect the evidence to settle in favour of offering on risk-benefit.
It might be much more borderline on costs - I don't have expertise in safety, but I've worked on some NICE economic evaluations. If Pfizer £15/dose so £30/course then it's crudely £67k per your 0.045% hospitalisation avoided (assumes ~100% vaccine protection from hospitalisation, so actually a bit worse than that, particularly if hospitalisaton due to vaccination). Not cost effective from a healthcare perspective in this group (unless there's a significant long term Covid effect on quality of life, which is possible or around 1/20 admitted die, which is unlikely - assuming that 1/20 eash lose 70 full health equivalent life years and assuming my mental maths is right!). But if it prevents future waves and gets to herd immunity, then with the wider societal costs, then maybe (but it may not be necesary to prevent future waves).
The second bit will play a part in whether it gets offered. If it's necessary to effectively end the pandemic (in UK), restricitons and get businesses back to normal then it's a no-brainer, economically. On purely health grounds, it would probably be better spent working through some of the care backlogs. Or it might be better spent on enanced schooling for these kids.
None of the jabs are approved or licensed. They're authorised for emergency use (EUA).
What is a vast worldwide clinical trial may end in 2023.
Even after that, the vaccine manufacturers are unlikely to carry insurance. Governments have indemnified them. (Good luck suing the government if you become ill 10 days after being jabbed because some of the side effects won't be rare enough to prove that it was the vaccine.)
They only got EUA because pharma didn't want any cheap, generic, safe drugs developed 40-45 years ago competing with its $25-50 vaccines.
Anyway, I've been adding to that visualisation I've been using. (@Topping - look away now; this won't fit with your worldview of me).
I think throughout this pandemic you have been a leading light on PB in trying to get to the figures and make assessments and draw some conclusions and of course I think you have done this out of a genuine concern for peoples' well-being.
The point we are discussing now is the reasons for vaccinating children which, for the risks they face in getting Covid and also once they have the disease, is in my opinion not a slam dunk.
Professor Dingwall and I completely agree with you on vaccinating children
Its not a clear cut decision whether to vaccinate 12-18 year olds, hence why no decision has been reached yet. I would support either approach, based on what the scientists on the panel decide.
My 17 year old has decided not to. He has thought it through quite logically and clearly, with strong supporting arguments. So, it isn't just a case of "the scientists deciding". Mind you, he just got an A in A level philosophy mock, so is not typical.
As Foxy pointed out, he probably (as with nearly all over 16s) has the right to request/refuse the vaccine on his own, if it becomes available to his age group.
I see the zero covidians new goal post moving is because school kids are getting covid we have to stop everything, until we get them jabbed.
Surely we just have to jab everyone they might infect.
@Andy_Cooke yesterday was saying there were "Several thousand children have been hospitalised. Well over a hundred thousand children have ended up with chronic illness."
I can't find the stats but I'm sure he'll provide them for me when he's next on.
But his was a response to why are we closing down the country on account of a group of people (children) who are at very low risk.
NB - I did not state that we had to close the country to protect them. I've stated that we are highly unlikely to want to do that - but that we should not blithely assume that it will not be an issue for them. Could you provide a link to anywhere that I've said we should lockdown again to protect the kids?
As it happens, I think that schools breaking up will do a lot to help.
Yeah it was really a non-point you were making. You asked me, when I queried if Freedom Day would really be Freedom day when children might be kept from school, why I persisted "in ignoring the thousands of hospitalisations of under-18s, and chronic illnesses there".
Whereas you don't think it will cause delay to July 19th. So it was just hand wringing on your part for no obvious reason.
No, it wasn't. As @Malmesbury says, it was in the context of "why vaccinate children."
That's why. The risk-benefit calculation is very much in favour of it.
I don't understand why you persist in trying to be so superciliously unpleasant.
What was the risk of the blood clot from the AZ vaccine? Was it much greater or lower than 0.045%?
A lot lower. To put onto the same scale (chances per million), it was somewhere between 10 per million and 20 per million (as the numbers are so low, it's very very hard to pick them out of the "noise" of naturally occurring blood clots)
0.045% is 450 per million. (cf 10-20 per million)
Its quite impossible to make that utterly spurious claim, because the covid vaccines have been in existence for a much shorter time than many other vaccines. The time taken to develop them is also much shorter.
We simply don't know what the full effects might be.
Hasn’t this claim been dismissed because of the way vaccines work? It’s just scaremongering to suggest it.
Yep.
The antivaxxers and Putin-bots don't care, though. When asked which vaccines have ever been found to have long-term side-effects that were not apparent within the first few weeks, they tend not to answer.
smear, smear, insult smear.
Here's a question for your tiny little mind Andy. How could a long term side-effect become apparent after a few weeks ?
Hint: a few weeks is not a long time
His point, for your tiny mind, is that if you are going to wave around "long term side effects" of vaccines, you need to provide an example of a side effect, in a vaccine, that wasn't apparent in a few weeks.
I really don't because vaccines in the past have taken far, far longer to develop than covid vaccines. We are not comparing apples with pears here.
As I say, what was taking thoselaggards of the past so long? So far we have the laughable argument from RobD that there was 'no rush'
There are three main reasons: 1 Money 2 Urgency 3 Prevalence
1 - Throw mor money at it and you can do it quicker - more people working on it, more people doing the assessments, more on production, more jabs in arms quicker 2 - Prioritised by companies as potentially a big money-spinner, also with government funding. Also prioritised by regulators for approvals 3 - Most important - in a trial you need enough events (cases, infections) to be able to make a valid statistical comparison between vaccine and control arms. In most trials of vaccines at least you're not going to have something that is sufficiently prevalent and enough pathogen-naive people to get to the required cases quickly. You either need many more enrolled or more time. With the early Covid trials, the population was largely unexposed and there were plenty of infections
(3 is easier for treatments where you take an affected group, but for vaccines you have to wait for people to get infected, unless you go for challenge trials)
All good points. There's also the one that we develop a new flu vaccine every year.
I see the zero covidians new goal post moving is because school kids are getting covid we have to stop everything, until we get them jabbed.
Surely we just have to jab everyone they might infect.
@Andy_Cooke yesterday was saying there were "Several thousand children have been hospitalised. Well over a hundred thousand children have ended up with chronic illness."
I can't find the stats but I'm sure he'll provide them for me when he's next on.
But his was a response to why are we closing down the country on account of a group of people (children) who are at very low risk.
NB - I did not state that we had to close the country to protect them. I've stated that we are highly unlikely to want to do that - but that we should not blithely assume that it will not be an issue for them. Could you provide a link to anywhere that I've said we should lockdown again to protect the kids?
As it happens, I think that schools breaking up will do a lot to help.
Yeah it was really a non-point you were making. You asked me, when I queried if Freedom Day would really be Freedom day when children might be kept from school, why I persisted "in ignoring the thousands of hospitalisations of under-18s, and chronic illnesses there".
Whereas you don't think it will cause delay to July 19th. So it was just hand wringing on your part for no obvious reason.
No, it wasn't. As @Malmesbury says, it was in the context of "why vaccinate children."
That's why. The risk-benefit calculation is very much in favour of it.
I don't understand why you persist in trying to be so superciliously unpleasant.
What was the risk of the blood clot from the AZ vaccine? Was it much greater or lower than 0.045%?
A lot lower. To put onto the same scale (chances per million), it was somewhere between 10 per million and 20 per million (as the numbers are so low, it's very very hard to pick them out of the "noise" of naturally occurring blood clots)
0.045% is 450 per million. (cf 10-20 per million)
Its quite impossible to make that utterly spurious claim, because the covid vaccines have been in existence for a much shorter time than many other vaccines. The time taken to develop them is also much shorter.
We simply don't know what the full effects might be.
Hasn’t this claim been dismissed because of the way vaccines work? It’s just scaremongering to suggest it.
Yep.
The antivaxxers and Putin-bots don't care, though. When asked which vaccines have ever been found to have long-term side-effects that were not apparent within the first few weeks, they tend not to answer.
smear, smear, insult smear.
Here's a question for your tiny little mind Andy. How could a long term side-effect become apparent after a few weeks ?
Hint: a few weeks is not a long time
His point, for your tiny mind, is that if you are going to wave around "long term side effects" of vaccines, you need to provide an example of a side effect, in a vaccine, that wasn't apparent in a few weeks.
I really don't because vaccines in the past have taken far, far longer to develop than covid vaccines. We are not comparing apples with pears here.
As I say, what was taking thoselaggards of the past so long? So far we have the laughable argument from RobD that there was 'no rush'
It has been explained previously, at some length.
Essentially, all the steps that are normally carried out in vaccine creation were carried out. Instead of performing them in a waterfall style manner (one following on from the previous), they were done (partially) in parallel.
This massively increased the costs of testing the vaccine and creating the production infrastructure.
"Waste everything except time"
Ok let us say assume the risk of long-term side effects is, as you claim, zero, and the short term risk of vaccination to young people is, already, proven to be negligible, also as you claim.
It then follows that the label anti vaxxer must be applicable to anybody who opines the balance of risks for teenagers and children is at least debatable.
And that means you are calling members of the government's own vaxx committee anti-vaxxers.
Wrong. The judgement is a movable feast. It depends on what level of COVID becomes prevalent in the community.
The risk of catching COVID is rising. At some point the lines will cross.
Given the way teenagers and children behave, I would have thought it safe to assume they will almost all come into contact with COVID sometime.
Anyway, I've been adding to that visualisation I've been using. (@Topping - look away now; this won't fit with your worldview of me).
I think throughout this pandemic you have been a leading light on PB in trying to get to the figures and make assessments and draw some conclusions and of course I think you have done this out of a genuine concern for peoples' well-being.
The point we are discussing now is the reasons for vaccinating children which, for the risks they face in getting Covid and also once they have the disease, is in my opinion not a slam dunk.
Professor Dingwall and I completely agree with you on vaccinating children
Its not a clear cut decision whether to vaccinate 12-18 year olds, hence why no decision has been reached yet. I would support either approach, based on what the scientists on the panel decide.
My 17 year old has decided not to. He has thought it through quite logically and clearly, with strong supporting arguments. So, it isn't just a case of "the scientists deciding". Mind you, he just got an A in A level philosophy mock, so is not typical.
As Foxy pointed out, he probably (as with nearly all over 16s) has the right to request/refuse the vaccine on his own, if it becomes available to his age group.
Yes sure. He isn't an anti-vaxxer in the slightest. He has rather weighted the risk/reward. It is far from a clear cut argument at his age. And Gillick competence will kick in for many younger than him.
I see the zero covidians new goal post moving is because school kids are getting covid we have to stop everything, until we get them jabbed.
Surely we just have to jab everyone they might infect.
@Andy_Cooke yesterday was saying there were "Several thousand children have been hospitalised. Well over a hundred thousand children have ended up with chronic illness."
I can't find the stats but I'm sure he'll provide them for me when he's next on.
But his was a response to why are we closing down the country on account of a group of people (children) who are at very low risk.
NB - I did not state that we had to close the country to protect them. I've stated that we are highly unlikely to want to do that - but that we should not blithely assume that it will not be an issue for them. Could you provide a link to anywhere that I've said we should lockdown again to protect the kids?
As it happens, I think that schools breaking up will do a lot to help.
Yeah it was really a non-point you were making. You asked me, when I queried if Freedom Day would really be Freedom day when children might be kept from school, why I persisted "in ignoring the thousands of hospitalisations of under-18s, and chronic illnesses there".
Whereas you don't think it will cause delay to July 19th. So it was just hand wringing on your part for no obvious reason.
No, it wasn't. As @Malmesbury says, it was in the context of "why vaccinate children."
That's why. The risk-benefit calculation is very much in favour of it.
I don't understand why you persist in trying to be so superciliously unpleasant.
What was the risk of the blood clot from the AZ vaccine? Was it much greater or lower than 0.045%?
A lot lower. To put onto the same scale (chances per million), it was somewhere between 10 per million and 20 per million (as the numbers are so low, it's very very hard to pick them out of the "noise" of naturally occurring blood clots)
0.045% is 450 per million. (cf 10-20 per million)
Its quite impossible to make that utterly spurious claim, because the covid vaccines have been in existence for a much shorter time than many other vaccines. The time taken to develop them is also much shorter.
We simply don't know what the full effects might be.
Hasn’t this claim been dismissed because of the way vaccines work? It’s just scaremongering to suggest it.
Yep.
The antivaxxers and Putin-bots don't care, though. When asked which vaccines have ever been found to have long-term side-effects that were not apparent within the first few weeks, they tend not to answer.
smear, smear, insult smear.
Here's a question for your tiny little mind Andy. How could a long term side-effect become apparent after a few weeks ?
Hint: a few weeks is not a long time
His point, for your tiny mind, is that if you are going to wave around "long term side effects" of vaccines, you need to provide an example of a side effect, in a vaccine, that wasn't apparent in a few weeks.
I really don't because vaccines in the past have taken far, far longer to develop than covid vaccines. We are not comparing apples with pears here.
As I say, what was taking thoselaggards of the past so long? So far we have the laughable argument from RobD that there was 'no rush'
It has been explained previously, at some length.
Essentially, all the steps that are normally carried out in vaccine creation were carried out. Instead of performing them in a waterfall style manner (one following on from the previous), they were done (partially) in parallel.
This massively increased the costs of testing the vaccine and creating the production infrastructure.
"Waste everything except time"
Ok let us say assume the risk of long-term side effects is, as you claim, zero, and the short term risk of vaccination to young people is, already, proven to be negligible, also as you claim.
It then follows that the label anti vaxxer must be applicable to anybody who opines the balance of risks for teenagers and children is at least debatable.
And that means you are calling members of the government's own vaxx committee anti-vaxxers.
Wrong. The judgement is a movable feast. It depends on what level of COVID becomes prevalent in the community.
The risk of catching COVID is rising. At some point the lines will cross.
Given the way teenagers and children behave, I would have thought it safe to assume they will almost all come into contact with COVID sometime.
That is not the argument here.
Yes, it is.
if 100% of 12-18 get COVID, then on the available evidence, vaccination would reduce the amount of harm by orders of magnitude if 0% of 12-18 get COVID, then on the available evidence, vaccination would be more harmful - since there would be zero risk from COVID.
Somewhere between 0% and 100% is the number of 12-18s likely to get COVID in the next 6 months, say. The size of that number effects the judgement.
I see the zero covidians new goal post moving is because school kids are getting covid we have to stop everything, until we get them jabbed.
Surely we just have to jab everyone they might infect.
@Andy_Cooke yesterday was saying there were "Several thousand children have been hospitalised. Well over a hundred thousand children have ended up with chronic illness."
I can't find the stats but I'm sure he'll provide them for me when he's next on.
But his was a response to why are we closing down the country on account of a group of people (children) who are at very low risk.
NB - I did not state that we had to close the country to protect them. I've stated that we are highly unlikely to want to do that - but that we should not blithely assume that it will not be an issue for them. Could you provide a link to anywhere that I've said we should lockdown again to protect the kids?
As it happens, I think that schools breaking up will do a lot to help.
Yeah it was really a non-point you were making. You asked me, when I queried if Freedom Day would really be Freedom day when children might be kept from school, why I persisted "in ignoring the thousands of hospitalisations of under-18s, and chronic illnesses there".
Whereas you don't think it will cause delay to July 19th. So it was just hand wringing on your part for no obvious reason.
No, it wasn't. As @Malmesbury says, it was in the context of "why vaccinate children."
That's why. The risk-benefit calculation is very much in favour of it.
I don't understand why you persist in trying to be so superciliously unpleasant.
What was the risk of the blood clot from the AZ vaccine? Was it much greater or lower than 0.045%?
A lot lower. To put onto the same scale (chances per million), it was somewhere between 10 per million and 20 per million (as the numbers are so low, it's very very hard to pick them out of the "noise" of naturally occurring blood clots)
0.045% is 450 per million. (cf 10-20 per million)
Its quite impossible to make that utterly spurious claim, because the covid vaccines have been in existence for a much shorter time than many other vaccines. The time taken to develop them is also much shorter.
We simply don't know what the full effects might be.
Hasn’t this claim been dismissed because of the way vaccines work? It’s just scaremongering to suggest it.
Yep.
The antivaxxers and Putin-bots don't care, though. When asked which vaccines have ever been found to have long-term side-effects that were not apparent within the first few weeks, they tend not to answer.
smear, smear, insult smear.
Here's a question for your tiny little mind Andy. How could a long term side-effect become apparent after a few weeks ?
Hint: a few weeks is not a long time
His point, for your tiny mind, is that if you are going to wave around "long term side effects" of vaccines, you need to provide an example of a side effect, in a vaccine, that wasn't apparent in a few weeks.
I really don't because vaccines in the past have taken far, far longer to develop than covid vaccines. We are not comparing apples with pears here.
As I say, what was taking thoselaggards of the past so long? So far we have the laughable argument from RobD that there was 'no rush'
It has been explained previously, at some length.
Essentially, all the steps that are normally carried out in vaccine creation were carried out. Instead of performing them in a waterfall style manner (one following on from the previous), they were done (partially) in parallel.
This massively increased the costs of testing the vaccine and creating the production infrastructure.
"Waste everything except time"
Ok let us say assume the risk of long-term side effects is, as you claim, zero, and the short term risk of vaccination to young people is, already, proven to be negligible, also as you claim.
It then follows that the label anti vaxxer must be applicable to anybody who opines the balance of risks for teenagers and children is at least debatable.
And that means you are calling members of the government's own vaxx committee anti-vaxxers.
Wrong. The judgement is a movable feast. It depends on what level of COVID becomes prevalent in the community.
The risk of catching COVID is rising. At some point the lines will cross.
Given the way teenagers and children behave, I would have thought it safe to assume they will almost all come into contact with COVID sometime.
That is not the argument here.
If you accept that all come into contact with COVID then hospitalisation from Covid is 100 times more likely than myocarditis from Pfizer in the 12 - 17 yr old age range !
I see the zero covidians new goal post moving is because school kids are getting covid we have to stop everything, until we get them jabbed.
Surely we just have to jab everyone they might infect.
@Andy_Cooke yesterday was saying there were "Several thousand children have been hospitalised. Well over a hundred thousand children have ended up with chronic illness."
I can't find the stats but I'm sure he'll provide them for me when he's next on.
But his was a response to why are we closing down the country on account of a group of people (children) who are at very low risk.
NB - I did not state that we had to close the country to protect them. I've stated that we are highly unlikely to want to do that - but that we should not blithely assume that it will not be an issue for them. Could you provide a link to anywhere that I've said we should lockdown again to protect the kids?
As it happens, I think that schools breaking up will do a lot to help.
Yeah it was really a non-point you were making. You asked me, when I queried if Freedom Day would really be Freedom day when children might be kept from school, why I persisted "in ignoring the thousands of hospitalisations of under-18s, and chronic illnesses there".
Whereas you don't think it will cause delay to July 19th. So it was just hand wringing on your part for no obvious reason.
No, it wasn't. As @Malmesbury says, it was in the context of "why vaccinate children."
That's why. The risk-benefit calculation is very much in favour of it.
I don't understand why you persist in trying to be so superciliously unpleasant.
What was the risk of the blood clot from the AZ vaccine? Was it much greater or lower than 0.045%?
A lot lower. To put onto the same scale (chances per million), it was somewhere between 10 per million and 20 per million (as the numbers are so low, it's very very hard to pick them out of the "noise" of naturally occurring blood clots)
0.045% is 450 per million. (cf 10-20 per million)
Its quite impossible to make that utterly spurious claim, because the covid vaccines have been in existence for a much shorter time than many other vaccines. The time taken to develop them is also much shorter.
We simply don't know what the full effects might be.
Hasn’t this claim been dismissed because of the way vaccines work? It’s just scaremongering to suggest it.
Is Professor Dingwall of the the JCVI scaremongering when he implies the argument for vaccinating teenagers and children is still a live one and not full decided on any basis?
Or are you just trying to shut down opposition to your bullsh*t argument?
Aren’t you conflating two different issues? I’m referring to your claim that there could be long term effects of the vaccine that we don’t know about.
"Given the low risk of Covid for most teenagers, it is not immoral to think that they may be better protected by natural immunity generated through infection than by asking them to take the *possible* risk of a vaccine."
Yeah, but that's talking about the (real) short-term risks, isn't it?
No idea.
Then why post it in reply if you don't know what it is referring to? I was mainly picking up on the claim that there might be unknown long-term side effects.
I imagine unknown long-term side effects is a subset of "possible risk[s] of a vaccine".
I don't think that is a safe assumption. My point from the start has been that there is no concern scientifically about long-term effects given how the vaccines operate.
We might wonder, then, why vaccines have in the past taken so much longer to develop and introduce, relative to covid ones.
Why on earth were they wasting so much time?
Oh, I don't know, because there was no immediate rush perhaps? Vaccines all work in the same way, and I don't think there is any concern in the scientific community about a long-term side effect appearing after, say, three years.
Vaccines don't all work the same way. There are vaccines against both bacteria and viruses, there's a big difference between those two types of bug - they replicate totally differently - and mRNA antiviral vaccines are a type of vaccine that has never been used before.
The virus that's going around is a variant (or collection of variants) of SARS. (It really should have been called "a new SARS variant" in government messaging from the start.) Work was done on developing a vaccine against the first big variant of SARS (now known as "SARSCoV1") which came to nothing. Or at least it didn't result in a vaccine. Yes, recently there was a rush. A great freaking big rush. That shouldn't be a controversial statement.
Pippa Crerar @PippaCrerar · 8m Keir Starmer silences Commons with moving story of Olly who was unable to have his family by his side when he died of leukaemia because of Covid rules.
Boris Johnson accuses Labour leader of "focusing on stuff that's going on in the Westminster bubble".
Tone deaf.
#PMQs
But Sir Keir has supported tougher covid restrictions than Boris. ......Keir wants to have his cake and eat it.
Hopefully he'll be eating humble pie on Friday morning.
Anyway, I've been adding to that visualisation I've been using. (@Topping - look away now; this won't fit with your worldview of me).
I think throughout this pandemic you have been a leading light on PB in trying to get to the figures and make assessments and draw some conclusions and of course I think you have done this out of a genuine concern for peoples' well-being.
The point we are discussing now is the reasons for vaccinating children which, for the risks they face in getting Covid and also once they have the disease, is in my opinion not a slam dunk.
Professor Dingwall and I completely agree with you on vaccinating children
Its not a clear cut decision whether to vaccinate 12-18 year olds, hence why no decision has been reached yet. I would support either approach, based on what the scientists on the panel decide.
My 17 year old has decided not to. He has thought it through quite logically and clearly, with strong supporting arguments. So, it isn't just a case of "the scientists deciding". Mind you, he just got an A in A level philosophy mock, so is not typical.
And I'd fully support that.
My only question would be, is the decision a little premature - i.e. has it been offered yet? If not then the evidence available at the point of offering may lead to a different decision (changes in prevalence, more evidence on risks of Covid versus vaccine in this age group). Of course, it's also fine to come to a philosphical/theoretical position now and re-evaluate later when the question actually arises.
My children are much younger - my wife and I would have to make the decision for them, as with other childhood vaccinations (and at this point I'd need more evidence for that age group). But if I had an older child competent to make their own decisions I'd not push them either way.
Anyway, I've been adding to that visualisation I've been using. (@Topping - look away now; this won't fit with your worldview of me).
I think throughout this pandemic you have been a leading light on PB in trying to get to the figures and make assessments and draw some conclusions and of course I think you have done this out of a genuine concern for peoples' well-being.
The point we are discussing now is the reasons for vaccinating children which, for the risks they face in getting Covid and also once they have the disease, is in my opinion not a slam dunk.
Professor Dingwall and I completely agree with you on vaccinating children
Its not a clear cut decision whether to vaccinate 12-18 year olds, hence why no decision has been reached yet. I would support either approach, based on what the scientists on the panel decide.
My 17 year old has decided not to. He has thought it through quite logically and clearly, with strong supporting arguments. So, it isn't just a case of "the scientists deciding". Mind you, he just got an A in A level philosophy mock, so is not typical.
Interesting. Do you know what were the points that made him decide not too?
I see the zero covidians new goal post moving is because school kids are getting covid we have to stop everything, until we get them jabbed.
Surely we just have to jab everyone they might infect.
@Andy_Cooke yesterday was saying there were "Several thousand children have been hospitalised. Well over a hundred thousand children have ended up with chronic illness."
I can't find the stats but I'm sure he'll provide them for me when he's next on.
But his was a response to why are we closing down the country on account of a group of people (children) who are at very low risk.
NB - I did not state that we had to close the country to protect them. I've stated that we are highly unlikely to want to do that - but that we should not blithely assume that it will not be an issue for them. Could you provide a link to anywhere that I've said we should lockdown again to protect the kids?
As it happens, I think that schools breaking up will do a lot to help.
Yeah it was really a non-point you were making. You asked me, when I queried if Freedom Day would really be Freedom day when children might be kept from school, why I persisted "in ignoring the thousands of hospitalisations of under-18s, and chronic illnesses there".
Whereas you don't think it will cause delay to July 19th. So it was just hand wringing on your part for no obvious reason.
No, it wasn't. As @Malmesbury says, it was in the context of "why vaccinate children."
That's why. The risk-benefit calculation is very much in favour of it.
I don't understand why you persist in trying to be so superciliously unpleasant.
What was the risk of the blood clot from the AZ vaccine? Was it much greater or lower than 0.045%?
A lot lower. To put onto the same scale (chances per million), it was somewhere between 10 per million and 20 per million (as the numbers are so low, it's very very hard to pick them out of the "noise" of naturally occurring blood clots)
0.045% is 450 per million. (cf 10-20 per million)
Its quite impossible to make that utterly spurious claim, because the covid vaccines have been in existence for a much shorter time than many other vaccines. The time taken to develop them is also much shorter.
We simply don't know what the full effects might be.
Hasn’t this claim been dismissed because of the way vaccines work? It’s just scaremongering to suggest it.
Yep.
The antivaxxers and Putin-bots don't care, though. When asked which vaccines have ever been found to have long-term side-effects that were not apparent within the first few weeks, they tend not to answer.
smear, smear, insult smear.
Here's a question for your tiny little mind Andy. How could a long term side-effect become apparent after a few weeks ?
Hint: a few weeks is not a long time
His point, for your tiny mind, is that if you are going to wave around "long term side effects" of vaccines, you need to provide an example of a side effect, in a vaccine, that wasn't apparent in a few weeks.
I really don't because vaccines in the past have taken far, far longer to develop than covid vaccines. We are not comparing apples with pears here.
As I say, what was taking thoselaggards of the past so long? So far we have the laughable argument from RobD that there was 'no rush'
It has been explained previously, at some length.
Essentially, all the steps that are normally carried out in vaccine creation were carried out. Instead of performing them in a waterfall style manner (one following on from the previous), they were done (partially) in parallel.
This massively increased the costs of testing the vaccine and creating the production infrastructure.
"Waste everything except time"
Ok let us say assume the risk of long-term side effects is, as you claim, zero, and the short term risk of vaccination to young people is, already, proven to be negligible, also as you claim.
It then follows that the label anti vaxxer must be applicable to anybody who opines the balance of risks for teenagers and children is at least debatable.
And that means you are calling members of the government's own vaxx committee anti-vaxxers.
Wrong. The judgement is a movable feast. It depends on what level of COVID becomes prevalent in the community.
The risk of catching COVID is rising. At some point the lines will cross.
Isn't this all rather moot at the moment due to vaccine availability? My understanding is that we are using our vaccines on the over 18s because we have a finite supply at present and the reward:risk ratio is greater for over 18s - meaning we can put a decision about under 18s off?
In my far from complete understanding, there is still merit in jabbing the under 18s but we may as well concentrate finite resources on where the balance of risks and rewards is most favourable.
I see the zero covidians new goal post moving is because school kids are getting covid we have to stop everything, until we get them jabbed.
Surely we just have to jab everyone they might infect.
@Andy_Cooke yesterday was saying there were "Several thousand children have been hospitalised. Well over a hundred thousand children have ended up with chronic illness."
I can't find the stats but I'm sure he'll provide them for me when he's next on.
But his was a response to why are we closing down the country on account of a group of people (children) who are at very low risk.
NB - I did not state that we had to close the country to protect them. I've stated that we are highly unlikely to want to do that - but that we should not blithely assume that it will not be an issue for them. Could you provide a link to anywhere that I've said we should lockdown again to protect the kids?
As it happens, I think that schools breaking up will do a lot to help.
Yeah it was really a non-point you were making. You asked me, when I queried if Freedom Day would really be Freedom day when children might be kept from school, why I persisted "in ignoring the thousands of hospitalisations of under-18s, and chronic illnesses there".
Whereas you don't think it will cause delay to July 19th. So it was just hand wringing on your part for no obvious reason.
No, it wasn't. As @Malmesbury says, it was in the context of "why vaccinate children."
That's why. The risk-benefit calculation is very much in favour of it.
I don't understand why you persist in trying to be so superciliously unpleasant.
What was the risk of the blood clot from the AZ vaccine? Was it much greater or lower than 0.045%?
A lot lower. To put onto the same scale (chances per million), it was somewhere between 10 per million and 20 per million (as the numbers are so low, it's very very hard to pick them out of the "noise" of naturally occurring blood clots)
0.045% is 450 per million. (cf 10-20 per million)
Its quite impossible to make that utterly spurious claim, because the covid vaccines have been in existence for a much shorter time than many other vaccines. The time taken to develop them is also much shorter.
We simply don't know what the full effects might be.
Hasn’t this claim been dismissed because of the way vaccines work? It’s just scaremongering to suggest it.
Is Professor Dingwall of the the JCVI scaremongering when he implies the argument for vaccinating teenagers and children is still a live one and not full decided on any basis?
Or are you just trying to shut down opposition to your bullsh*t argument?
Aren’t you conflating two different issues? I’m referring to your claim that there could be long term effects of the vaccine that we don’t know about.
"Given the low risk of Covid for most teenagers, it is not immoral to think that they may be better protected by natural immunity generated through infection than by asking them to take the *possible* risk of a vaccine."
It's certainly not immoral to think that (it is, in any case, due to 'may' a bit of a non-statement - I had AZN and I may have been better off taking my chances with infection, but probably not). It may be incorrect.
The ethical thing to do is compare the evidence as well as possible and then make a judgement, based on that, as to whether to make the vaccine available for younger people. If the evidence is stongly in benefit > risk then make it available* and let people make a choice. If not, then don't.
*By which I mean free to anyone who wants it. It's already approved, which means those who really want it will presumably be able to pay for it privately in the end, whatever the government conclusion
Is the evidence strongly benefit > risk?
Risk of hospitalisation (we don't know more than that) from Covid in 0-17yr olds = 0.045%
It seems to be from the numbers quoted on here and apparently not disputed so far. I'd like to see more evidence from other countries (and from here on the risks of infection and severe effects from Delta) in these age groups before deciding whether it should be offered (I'd also like to know what I'm talking about on this subject before making that decision, but I don't...). I do expect the evidence to settle in favour of offering on risk-benefit.
It might be much more borderline on costs - I don't have expertise in safety, but I've worked on some NICE economic evaluations. If Pfizer £15/dose so £30/course then it's crudely £67k per your 0.045% hospitalisation avoided (assumes ~100% vaccine protection from hospitalisation, so actually a bit worse than that, particularly if hospitalisaton due to vaccination). Not cost effective from a healthcare perspective in this group (unless there's a significant long term Covid effect on quality of life, which is possible or around 1/20 admitted die, which is unlikely - assuming that 1/20 eash lose 70 full health equivalent life years and assuming my mental maths is right!). But if it prevents future waves and gets to herd immunity, then with the wider societal costs, then maybe (but it may not be necesary to prevent future waves).
The second bit will play a part in whether it gets offered. If it's necessary to effectively end the pandemic (in UK), restricitons and get businesses back to normal then it's a no-brainer, economically. On purely health grounds, it would probably be better spent working through some of the care backlogs. Or it might be better spent on enanced schooling for these kids.
None of the jabs are approved or licensed. They're authorised for emergency use (EUA).
What is a vast worldwide clinical trial may end in 2023.
Even after that, the vaccine manufacturers are unlikely to carry insurance. Governments have indemnified them. (Good luck suing the government if you become ill 10 days after being jabbed because some of the side effects won't be rare enough to prove that it was the vaccine.)
They only got EUA because pharma didn't want any cheap, generic, safe drugs developed 40-45 years ago competing with its $25-50 vaccines.
What are these cheap safe generic drugs that are as safe and effective as the vaccines ?
NEW with @GeorgeWParker: Johnson govt is investigating what legal action can be taken to stop Dominic Cummings from publishing further private information and messages.
But insiders are fearful that acting against Cummings could turn him into a “martyr"
Now there's a case that would have @DavidL off his death bed and back into court. Your Honour, the prosecution contends it is an official secret that Boris is "unfit" to be Prime Minister and that Matt Hancock is "fucking hopeless".
Anyway, I've been adding to that visualisation I've been using. (@Topping - look away now; this won't fit with your worldview of me).
I think throughout this pandemic you have been a leading light on PB in trying to get to the figures and make assessments and draw some conclusions and of course I think you have done this out of a genuine concern for peoples' well-being.
The point we are discussing now is the reasons for vaccinating children which, for the risks they face in getting Covid and also once they have the disease, is in my opinion not a slam dunk.
Professor Dingwall and I completely agree with you on vaccinating children
Its not a clear cut decision whether to vaccinate 12-18 year olds, hence why no decision has been reached yet. I would support either approach, based on what the scientists on the panel decide.
According to Andy Cooke, Malmsbury and others, it is a clear cut decision.
The short term effects of vaccination on teenagers and children have been proven to be negligible relative to covid, and the long term effects can be discounted because no example of long term vaccination effects exists in history.
The logical corollary of that is that there are anti-vaxxers on the government's own.....er......vaxx committee.
Try not to make it so divisive. There are risks to under 18's from covid. Small but not zero. There are risks from vaccination - small but not zero. Finding the balance is the key. If delta wasn't rampaging through the age group, and we were like Israel a couple of months ago with cases crashing towards zero, I would strongly support not vaccinating them. Now, with a much higher prevalence, and thus a greater risk of harm from covid, the balance has shifted more to offering them the vaccine.
Its not simple, and trying to make it black or white is just stupid.
I see the zero covidians new goal post moving is because school kids are getting covid we have to stop everything, until we get them jabbed.
Surely we just have to jab everyone they might infect.
@Andy_Cooke yesterday was saying there were "Several thousand children have been hospitalised. Well over a hundred thousand children have ended up with chronic illness."
I can't find the stats but I'm sure he'll provide them for me when he's next on.
But his was a response to why are we closing down the country on account of a group of people (children) who are at very low risk.
NB - I did not state that we had to close the country to protect them. I've stated that we are highly unlikely to want to do that - but that we should not blithely assume that it will not be an issue for them. Could you provide a link to anywhere that I've said we should lockdown again to protect the kids?
As it happens, I think that schools breaking up will do a lot to help.
Yeah it was really a non-point you were making. You asked me, when I queried if Freedom Day would really be Freedom day when children might be kept from school, why I persisted "in ignoring the thousands of hospitalisations of under-18s, and chronic illnesses there".
Whereas you don't think it will cause delay to July 19th. So it was just hand wringing on your part for no obvious reason.
No, it wasn't. As @Malmesbury says, it was in the context of "why vaccinate children."
That's why. The risk-benefit calculation is very much in favour of it.
I don't understand why you persist in trying to be so superciliously unpleasant.
What was the risk of the blood clot from the AZ vaccine? Was it much greater or lower than 0.045%?
A lot lower. To put onto the same scale (chances per million), it was somewhere between 10 per million and 20 per million (as the numbers are so low, it's very very hard to pick them out of the "noise" of naturally occurring blood clots)
0.045% is 450 per million. (cf 10-20 per million)
Its quite impossible to make that utterly spurious claim, because the covid vaccines have been in existence for a much shorter time than many other vaccines. The time taken to develop them is also much shorter.
We simply don't know what the full effects might be.
Hasn’t this claim been dismissed because of the way vaccines work? It’s just scaremongering to suggest it.
Yep.
The antivaxxers and Putin-bots don't care, though. When asked which vaccines have ever been found to have long-term side-effects that were not apparent within the first few weeks, they tend not to answer.
smear, smear, insult smear.
Here's a question for your tiny little mind Andy. How could a long term side-effect become apparent after a few weeks ?
Hint: a few weeks is not a long time
His point, for your tiny mind, is that if you are going to wave around "long term side effects" of vaccines, you need to provide an example of a side effect, in a vaccine, that wasn't apparent in a few weeks.
I really don't because vaccines in the past have taken far, far longer to develop than covid vaccines. We are not comparing apples with pears here.
As I say, what was taking thoselaggards of the past so long? So far we have the laughable argument from RobD that there was 'no rush'
It has been explained previously, at some length.
Essentially, all the steps that are normally carried out in vaccine creation were carried out. Instead of performing them in a waterfall style manner (one following on from the previous), they were done (partially) in parallel.
This massively increased the costs of testing the vaccine and creating the production infrastructure.
"Waste everything except time"
Ok let us say assume the risk of long-term side effects is, as you claim, zero, and the short term risk of vaccination to young people is, already, proven to be negligible, also as you claim.
It then follows that the label anti vaxxer must be applicable to anybody who opines the balance of risks for teenagers and children is at least debatable.
And that means you are calling members of the government's own vaxx committee anti-vaxxers.
Wrong. The judgement is a movable feast. It depends on what level of COVID becomes prevalent in the community.
The risk of catching COVID is rising. At some point the lines will cross.
Isn't this all rather moot at the moment due to vaccine availability? My understanding is that we are using our vaccines on the over 18s because we have a finite supply at present and the reward:risk ratio is greater for over 18s - meaning we can put a decision about under 18s off?
In my far from complete understanding, there is still merit in jabbing the under 18s but we may as well concentrate finite resources on where the balance of risks and rewards is most favourable.
The sole argument for not using Pfizer on the 12 - 17 cohort to my mind currently is that the 18+ double AZ vaxxed are boosted up with the available supply. Az hasn't passed trials in that age range so is a non starter. I don't know where the non vaxxed teenager's hospitalisation risk is vs double AZ jabbed mind (Both are very low), perhaps 50 years old ? Could be 50+ booster, 18 - 50 2 doses and single mRNA for teenagers.
I see the zero covidians new goal post moving is because school kids are getting covid we have to stop everything, until we get them jabbed.
Surely we just have to jab everyone they might infect.
@Andy_Cooke yesterday was saying there were "Several thousand children have been hospitalised. Well over a hundred thousand children have ended up with chronic illness."
I can't find the stats but I'm sure he'll provide them for me when he's next on.
But his was a response to why are we closing down the country on account of a group of people (children) who are at very low risk.
NB - I did not state that we had to close the country to protect them. I've stated that we are highly unlikely to want to do that - but that we should not blithely assume that it will not be an issue for them. Could you provide a link to anywhere that I've said we should lockdown again to protect the kids?
As it happens, I think that schools breaking up will do a lot to help.
Yeah it was really a non-point you were making. You asked me, when I queried if Freedom Day would really be Freedom day when children might be kept from school, why I persisted "in ignoring the thousands of hospitalisations of under-18s, and chronic illnesses there".
Whereas you don't think it will cause delay to July 19th. So it was just hand wringing on your part for no obvious reason.
No, it wasn't. As @Malmesbury says, it was in the context of "why vaccinate children."
That's why. The risk-benefit calculation is very much in favour of it.
I don't understand why you persist in trying to be so superciliously unpleasant.
What was the risk of the blood clot from the AZ vaccine? Was it much greater or lower than 0.045%?
A lot lower. To put onto the same scale (chances per million), it was somewhere between 10 per million and 20 per million (as the numbers are so low, it's very very hard to pick them out of the "noise" of naturally occurring blood clots)
0.045% is 450 per million. (cf 10-20 per million)
Its quite impossible to make that utterly spurious claim, because the covid vaccines have been in existence for a much shorter time than many other vaccines. The time taken to develop them is also much shorter.
We simply don't know what the full effects might be.
Hasn’t this claim been dismissed because of the way vaccines work? It’s just scaremongering to suggest it.
Is Professor Dingwall of the the JCVI scaremongering when he implies the argument for vaccinating teenagers and children is still a live one and not full decided on any basis?
Or are you just trying to shut down opposition to your bullsh*t argument?
Aren’t you conflating two different issues? I’m referring to your claim that there could be long term effects of the vaccine that we don’t know about.
"Given the low risk of Covid for most teenagers, it is not immoral to think that they may be better protected by natural immunity generated through infection than by asking them to take the *possible* risk of a vaccine."
It's certainly not immoral to think that (it is, in any case, due to 'may' a bit of a non-statement - I had AZN and I may have been better off taking my chances with infection, but probably not). It may be incorrect.
The ethical thing to do is compare the evidence as well as possible and then make a judgement, based on that, as to whether to make the vaccine available for younger people. If the evidence is stongly in benefit > risk then make it available* and let people make a choice. If not, then don't.
*By which I mean free to anyone who wants it. It's already approved, which means those who really want it will presumably be able to pay for it privately in the end, whatever the government conclusion
Is the evidence strongly benefit > risk?
Risk of hospitalisation (we don't know more than that) from Covid in 0-17yr olds = 0.045%
It seems to be from the numbers quoted on here and apparently not disputed so far. I'd like to see more evidence from other countries (and from here on the risks of infection and severe effects from Delta) in these age groups before deciding whether it should be offered (I'd also like to know what I'm talking about on this subject before making that decision, but I don't...). I do expect the evidence to settle in favour of offering on risk-benefit.
It might be much more borderline on costs - I don't have expertise in safety, but I've worked on some NICE economic evaluations. If Pfizer £15/dose so £30/course then it's crudely £67k per your 0.045% hospitalisation avoided (assumes ~100% vaccine protection from hospitalisation, so actually a bit worse than that, particularly if hospitalisaton due to vaccination). Not cost effective from a healthcare perspective in this group (unless there's a significant long term Covid effect on quality of life, which is possible or around 1/20 admitted die, which is unlikely - assuming that 1/20 eash lose 70 full health equivalent life years and assuming my mental maths is right!). But if it prevents future waves and gets to herd immunity, then with the wider societal costs, then maybe (but it may not be necesary to prevent future waves).
The second bit will play a part in whether it gets offered. If it's necessary to effectively end the pandemic (in UK), restricitons and get businesses back to normal then it's a no-brainer, economically. On purely health grounds, it would probably be better spent working through some of the care backlogs. Or it might be better spent on enanced schooling for these kids.
None of the jabs are approved or licensed. They're authorised for emergency use (EUA).
What is a vast worldwide clinical trial may end in 2023.
Even after that, the vaccine manufacturers are unlikely to carry insurance. Governments have indemnified them. (Good luck suing the government if you become ill 10 days after being jabbed because some of the side effects won't be rare enough to prove that it was the vaccine.)
They only got EUA because pharma didn't want any cheap, generic, safe drugs developed 40-45 years ago competing with its $25-50 vaccines.
What are these cheap safe generic drugs that are as safe and effective as the vaccines ?
Anyway, I've been adding to that visualisation I've been using. (@Topping - look away now; this won't fit with your worldview of me).
I think throughout this pandemic you have been a leading light on PB in trying to get to the figures and make assessments and draw some conclusions and of course I think you have done this out of a genuine concern for peoples' well-being.
The point we are discussing now is the reasons for vaccinating children which, for the risks they face in getting Covid and also once they have the disease, is in my opinion not a slam dunk.
Professor Dingwall and I completely agree with you on vaccinating children
Its not a clear cut decision whether to vaccinate 12-18 year olds, hence why no decision has been reached yet. I would support either approach, based on what the scientists on the panel decide.
According to Andy Cooke, Malmsbury and others, it is a clear cut decision.
The short term effects of vaccination on teenagers and children have been proven to be negligible relative to covid, and the long term effects can be discounted because no example of long term vaccination effects exists in history.
The logical corollary of that is that there are anti-vaxxers on the government's own.....er......vaxx committee.
Try not to make it so divisive. There are risks to under 18's from covid. Small but not zero. There are risks from vaccination - small but not zero. Finding the balance is the key. If delta wasn't rampaging through the age group, and we were like Israel a couple of months ago with cases crashing towards zero, I would strongly support not vaccinating them. Now, with a much higher prevalence, and thus a greater risk of harm from covid, the balance has shifted more to offering them the vaccine.
Its not simple, and trying to make it black or white is just stupid.
I think that's fair. Making vaccines compulsory for the very young is not supported by the evidence, I think. But there's a reasonable case for offering the vaccine.
Coronavirus latest news: Stop daily case updates as virus no longer 'important cause of mortality', says JCVI scientist
“It is well past time to panic about infection rates and to publish them obsessively. Even hospitalisation rates are increasingly misleading as better therapy reduces length of stay. Covid is now a long way from being an important cause of mortality,” the Nervtag scientist tweeted.
I see the zero covidians new goal post moving is because school kids are getting covid we have to stop everything, until we get them jabbed.
Surely we just have to jab everyone they might infect.
@Andy_Cooke yesterday was saying there were "Several thousand children have been hospitalised. Well over a hundred thousand children have ended up with chronic illness."
I can't find the stats but I'm sure he'll provide them for me when he's next on.
But his was a response to why are we closing down the country on account of a group of people (children) who are at very low risk.
NB - I did not state that we had to close the country to protect them. I've stated that we are highly unlikely to want to do that - but that we should not blithely assume that it will not be an issue for them. Could you provide a link to anywhere that I've said we should lockdown again to protect the kids?
As it happens, I think that schools breaking up will do a lot to help.
Yeah it was really a non-point you were making. You asked me, when I queried if Freedom Day would really be Freedom day when children might be kept from school, why I persisted "in ignoring the thousands of hospitalisations of under-18s, and chronic illnesses there".
Whereas you don't think it will cause delay to July 19th. So it was just hand wringing on your part for no obvious reason.
No, it wasn't. As @Malmesbury says, it was in the context of "why vaccinate children."
That's why. The risk-benefit calculation is very much in favour of it.
I don't understand why you persist in trying to be so superciliously unpleasant.
What was the risk of the blood clot from the AZ vaccine? Was it much greater or lower than 0.045%?
A lot lower. To put onto the same scale (chances per million), it was somewhere between 10 per million and 20 per million (as the numbers are so low, it's very very hard to pick them out of the "noise" of naturally occurring blood clots)
0.045% is 450 per million. (cf 10-20 per million)
Its quite impossible to make that utterly spurious claim, because the covid vaccines have been in existence for a much shorter time than many other vaccines. The time taken to develop them is also much shorter.
We simply don't know what the full effects might be.
Hasn’t this claim been dismissed because of the way vaccines work? It’s just scaremongering to suggest it.
Is Professor Dingwall of the the JCVI scaremongering when he implies the argument for vaccinating teenagers and children is still a live one and not full decided on any basis?
Or are you just trying to shut down opposition to your bullsh*t argument?
Aren’t you conflating two different issues? I’m referring to your claim that there could be long term effects of the vaccine that we don’t know about.
"Given the low risk of Covid for most teenagers, it is not immoral to think that they may be better protected by natural immunity generated through infection than by asking them to take the *possible* risk of a vaccine."
It's certainly not immoral to think that (it is, in any case, due to 'may' a bit of a non-statement - I had AZN and I may have been better off taking my chances with infection, but probably not). It may be incorrect.
The ethical thing to do is compare the evidence as well as possible and then make a judgement, based on that, as to whether to make the vaccine available for younger people. If the evidence is stongly in benefit > risk then make it available* and let people make a choice. If not, then don't.
*By which I mean free to anyone who wants it. It's already approved, which means those who really want it will presumably be able to pay for it privately in the end, whatever the government conclusion
Is the evidence strongly benefit > risk?
Risk of hospitalisation (we don't know more than that) from Covid in 0-17yr olds = 0.045%
It seems to be from the numbers quoted on here and apparently not disputed so far. I'd like to see more evidence from other countries (and from here on the risks of infection and severe effects from Delta) in these age groups before deciding whether it should be offered (I'd also like to know what I'm talking about on this subject before making that decision, but I don't...). I do expect the evidence to settle in favour of offering on risk-benefit.
It might be much more borderline on costs - I don't have expertise in safety, but I've worked on some NICE economic evaluations. If Pfizer £15/dose so £30/course then it's crudely £67k per your 0.045% hospitalisation avoided (assumes ~100% vaccine protection from hospitalisation, so actually a bit worse than that, particularly if hospitalisaton due to vaccination). Not cost effective from a healthcare perspective in this group (unless there's a significant long term Covid effect on quality of life, which is possible or around 1/20 admitted die, which is unlikely - assuming that 1/20 eash lose 70 full health equivalent life years and assuming my mental maths is right!). But if it prevents future waves and gets to herd immunity, then with the wider societal costs, then maybe (but it may not be necesary to prevent future waves).
The second bit will play a part in whether it gets offered. If it's necessary to effectively end the pandemic (in UK), restricitons and get businesses back to normal then it's a no-brainer, economically. On purely health grounds, it would probably be better spent working through some of the care backlogs. Or it might be better spent on enanced schooling for these kids.
None of the jabs are approved or licensed. They're authorised for emergency use (EUA).
What is a vast worldwide clinical trial may end in 2023.
Even after that, the vaccine manufacturers are unlikely to carry insurance. Governments have indemnified them. (Good luck suing the government if you become ill 10 days after being jabbed because some of the side effects won't be rare enough to prove that it was the vaccine.)
They only got EUA because pharma didn't want any cheap, generic, safe drugs developed 40-45 years ago competing with its $25-50 vaccines.
What are these cheap safe generic drugs that are as safe and effective as the vaccines ?
Please, please don't ask him. We know what he'll say. I did a search yesterday on his favourite cheap drug - evidence is very inconclusive. If it was as good as he thinks, the studies I've seen would have provided the evidence. They didn't.
Pippa Crerar @PippaCrerar · 8m Keir Starmer silences Commons with moving story of Olly who was unable to have his family by his side when he died of leukaemia because of Covid rules.
Boris Johnson accuses Labour leader of "focusing on stuff that's going on in the Westminster bubble".
Tone deaf.
#PMQs
But Sir Keir has supported tougher covid restrictions than Boris. ......Keir wants to have his cake and eat it.
Hopefully he'll be eating humble pie on Friday morning.
Hugo Gye @HugoGye · 2h Replying to @HugoGye Starmer spokesman confirms Labour backs the current hospital isolation rules: "I think everybody across the country including Ollie's family understand the need for people to make sacrifices in the national effort."
Anyway, I've been adding to that visualisation I've been using. (@Topping - look away now; this won't fit with your worldview of me).
I think throughout this pandemic you have been a leading light on PB in trying to get to the figures and make assessments and draw some conclusions and of course I think you have done this out of a genuine concern for peoples' well-being.
The point we are discussing now is the reasons for vaccinating children which, for the risks they face in getting Covid and also once they have the disease, is in my opinion not a slam dunk.
Professor Dingwall and I completely agree with you on vaccinating children
Its not a clear cut decision whether to vaccinate 12-18 year olds, hence why no decision has been reached yet. I would support either approach, based on what the scientists on the panel decide.
According to Andy Cooke, Malmsbury and others, it is a clear cut decision.
The short term effects of vaccination on teenagers and children have been proven to be negligible relative to covid, and the long term effects can be discounted because no example of long term vaccination effects exists in history.
The logical corollary of that is that there are anti-vaxxers on the government's own.....er......vaxx committee.
Try not to make it so divisive. There are risks to under 18's from covid. Small but not zero. There are risks from vaccination - small but not zero. Finding the balance is the key. If delta wasn't rampaging through the age group, and we were like Israel a couple of months ago with cases crashing towards zero, I would strongly support not vaccinating them. Now, with a much higher prevalence, and thus a greater risk of harm from covid, the balance has shifted more to offering them the vaccine.
Its not simple, and trying to make it black or white is just stupid.
I think that's fair. Making vaccines compulsory for the very young is not supported by the evidence, I think. But there's a reasonable case for offering the vaccine.
It's not compulsory for anyone except perhaps health and social care workers. And a good thing too.
Anyway, I've been adding to that visualisation I've been using. (@Topping - look away now; this won't fit with your worldview of me).
I think throughout this pandemic you have been a leading light on PB in trying to get to the figures and make assessments and draw some conclusions and of course I think you have done this out of a genuine concern for peoples' well-being.
The point we are discussing now is the reasons for vaccinating children which, for the risks they face in getting Covid and also once they have the disease, is in my opinion not a slam dunk.
Professor Dingwall and I completely agree with you on vaccinating children
Its not a clear cut decision whether to vaccinate 12-18 year olds, hence why no decision has been reached yet. I would support either approach, based on what the scientists on the panel decide.
According to Andy Cooke, Malmsbury and others, it is a clear cut decision.
The short term effects of vaccination on teenagers and children have been proven to be negligible relative to covid, and the long term effects can be discounted because no example of long term vaccination effects exists in history.
The logical corollary of that is that there are anti-vaxxers on the government's own.....er......vaxx committee.
Try not to make it so divisive. There are risks to under 18's from covid. Small but not zero. There are risks from vaccination - small but not zero. Finding the balance is the key. If delta wasn't rampaging through the age group, and we were like Israel a couple of months ago with cases crashing towards zero, I would strongly support not vaccinating them. Now, with a much higher prevalence, and thus a greater risk of harm from covid, the balance has shifted more to offering them the vaccine.
Its not simple, and trying to make it black or white is just stupid.
The only people making it black and white are those pouring out vitriol on anyone who suggests that it is not 100% the right thing to do to vaccinate the young.
Look upthread if you want to see who is making it black and white.
I see the zero covidians new goal post moving is because school kids are getting covid we have to stop everything, until we get them jabbed.
Surely we just have to jab everyone they might infect.
@Andy_Cooke yesterday was saying there were "Several thousand children have been hospitalised. Well over a hundred thousand children have ended up with chronic illness."
I can't find the stats but I'm sure he'll provide them for me when he's next on.
But his was a response to why are we closing down the country on account of a group of people (children) who are at very low risk.
NB - I did not state that we had to close the country to protect them. I've stated that we are highly unlikely to want to do that - but that we should not blithely assume that it will not be an issue for them. Could you provide a link to anywhere that I've said we should lockdown again to protect the kids?
As it happens, I think that schools breaking up will do a lot to help.
Yeah it was really a non-point you were making. You asked me, when I queried if Freedom Day would really be Freedom day when children might be kept from school, why I persisted "in ignoring the thousands of hospitalisations of under-18s, and chronic illnesses there".
Whereas you don't think it will cause delay to July 19th. So it was just hand wringing on your part for no obvious reason.
No, it wasn't. As @Malmesbury says, it was in the context of "why vaccinate children."
That's why. The risk-benefit calculation is very much in favour of it.
I don't understand why you persist in trying to be so superciliously unpleasant.
What was the risk of the blood clot from the AZ vaccine? Was it much greater or lower than 0.045%?
A lot lower. To put onto the same scale (chances per million), it was somewhere between 10 per million and 20 per million (as the numbers are so low, it's very very hard to pick them out of the "noise" of naturally occurring blood clots)
0.045% is 450 per million. (cf 10-20 per million)
Its quite impossible to make that utterly spurious claim, because the covid vaccines have been in existence for a much shorter time than many other vaccines. The time taken to develop them is also much shorter.
We simply don't know what the full effects might be.
Hasn’t this claim been dismissed because of the way vaccines work? It’s just scaremongering to suggest it.
Is Professor Dingwall of the the JCVI scaremongering when he implies the argument for vaccinating teenagers and children is still a live one and not full decided on any basis?
Or are you just trying to shut down opposition to your bullsh*t argument?
Aren’t you conflating two different issues? I’m referring to your claim that there could be long term effects of the vaccine that we don’t know about.
"Given the low risk of Covid for most teenagers, it is not immoral to think that they may be better protected by natural immunity generated through infection than by asking them to take the *possible* risk of a vaccine."
It's certainly not immoral to think that (it is, in any case, due to 'may' a bit of a non-statement - I had AZN and I may have been better off taking my chances with infection, but probably not). It may be incorrect.
The ethical thing to do is compare the evidence as well as possible and then make a judgement, based on that, as to whether to make the vaccine available for younger people. If the evidence is stongly in benefit > risk then make it available* and let people make a choice. If not, then don't.
*By which I mean free to anyone who wants it. It's already approved, which means those who really want it will presumably be able to pay for it privately in the end, whatever the government conclusion
Is the evidence strongly benefit > risk?
Risk of hospitalisation (we don't know more than that) from Covid in 0-17yr olds = 0.045%
It seems to be from the numbers quoted on here and apparently not disputed so far. I'd like to see more evidence from other countries (and from here on the risks of infection and severe effects from Delta) in these age groups before deciding whether it should be offered (I'd also like to know what I'm talking about on this subject before making that decision, but I don't...). I do expect the evidence to settle in favour of offering on risk-benefit.
It might be much more borderline on costs - I don't have expertise in safety, but I've worked on some NICE economic evaluations. If Pfizer £15/dose so £30/course then it's crudely £67k per your 0.045% hospitalisation avoided (assumes ~100% vaccine protection from hospitalisation, so actually a bit worse than that, particularly if hospitalisaton due to vaccination). Not cost effective from a healthcare perspective in this group (unless there's a significant long term Covid effect on quality of life, which is possible or around 1/20 admitted die, which is unlikely - assuming that 1/20 eash lose 70 full health equivalent life years and assuming my mental maths is right!). But if it prevents future waves and gets to herd immunity, then with the wider societal costs, then maybe (but it may not be necesary to prevent future waves).
The second bit will play a part in whether it gets offered. If it's necessary to effectively end the pandemic (in UK), restricitons and get businesses back to normal then it's a no-brainer, economically. On purely health grounds, it would probably be better spent working through some of the care backlogs. Or it might be better spent on enanced schooling for these kids.
None of the jabs are approved or licensed. They're authorised for emergency use (EUA).
What is a vast worldwide clinical trial may end in 2023.
Even after that, the vaccine manufacturers are unlikely to carry insurance. Governments have indemnified them. (Good luck suing the government if you become ill 10 days after being jabbed because some of the side effects won't be rare enough to prove that it was the vaccine.)
They only got EUA because pharma didn't want any cheap, generic, safe drugs developed 40-45 years ago competing with its $25-50 vaccines.
What are these cheap safe generic drugs that are as safe and effective as the vaccines ?
I'm willing to bet that the current approved dosage would prove every bit as 'dangerous' as the AZN vaccine.And of course the dosage required for antiviral activity is likely higher than the currently approved amount.
As for efficacy, whether it exists at all is a coin toss.
Coronavirus latest news: Stop daily case updates as virus no longer 'important cause of mortality', says JCVI scientist
“It is well past time to panic about infection rates and to publish them obsessively. Even hospitalisation rates are increasingly misleading as better therapy reduces length of stay. Covid is now a long way from being an important cause of mortality,” the Nervtag scientist tweeted.
I see the zero covidians new goal post moving is because school kids are getting covid we have to stop everything, until we get them jabbed.
Surely we just have to jab everyone they might infect.
@Andy_Cooke yesterday was saying there were "Several thousand children have been hospitalised. Well over a hundred thousand children have ended up with chronic illness."
I can't find the stats but I'm sure he'll provide them for me when he's next on.
But his was a response to why are we closing down the country on account of a group of people (children) who are at very low risk.
NB - I did not state that we had to close the country to protect them. I've stated that we are highly unlikely to want to do that - but that we should not blithely assume that it will not be an issue for them. Could you provide a link to anywhere that I've said we should lockdown again to protect the kids?
As it happens, I think that schools breaking up will do a lot to help.
Yeah it was really a non-point you were making. You asked me, when I queried if Freedom Day would really be Freedom day when children might be kept from school, why I persisted "in ignoring the thousands of hospitalisations of under-18s, and chronic illnesses there".
Whereas you don't think it will cause delay to July 19th. So it was just hand wringing on your part for no obvious reason.
No, it wasn't. As @Malmesbury says, it was in the context of "why vaccinate children."
That's why. The risk-benefit calculation is very much in favour of it.
I don't understand why you persist in trying to be so superciliously unpleasant.
What was the risk of the blood clot from the AZ vaccine? Was it much greater or lower than 0.045%?
A lot lower. To put onto the same scale (chances per million), it was somewhere between 10 per million and 20 per million (as the numbers are so low, it's very very hard to pick them out of the "noise" of naturally occurring blood clots)
0.045% is 450 per million. (cf 10-20 per million)
Its quite impossible to make that utterly spurious claim, because the covid vaccines have been in existence for a much shorter time than many other vaccines. The time taken to develop them is also much shorter.
We simply don't know what the full effects might be.
Hasn’t this claim been dismissed because of the way vaccines work? It’s just scaremongering to suggest it.
Yep.
The antivaxxers and Putin-bots don't care, though. When asked which vaccines have ever been found to have long-term side-effects that were not apparent within the first few weeks, they tend not to answer.
smear, smear, insult smear.
Here's a question for your tiny little mind Andy. How could a long term side-effect become apparent after a few weeks ?
Hint: a few weeks is not a long time
His point, for your tiny mind, is that if you are going to wave around "long term side effects" of vaccines, you need to provide an example of a side effect, in a vaccine, that wasn't apparent in a few weeks.
I really don't because vaccines in the past have taken far, far longer to develop than covid vaccines. We are not comparing apples with pears here.
As I say, what was taking thoselaggards of the past so long? So far we have the laughable argument from RobD that there was 'no rush'
It has been explained previously, at some length.
Essentially, all the steps that are normally carried out in vaccine creation were carried out. Instead of performing them in a waterfall style manner (one following on from the previous), they were done (partially) in parallel.
This massively increased the costs of testing the vaccine and creating the production infrastructure.
"Waste everything except time"
Ok let us say assume the risk of long-term side effects is, as you claim, zero, and the short term risk of vaccination to young people is, already, proven to be negligible, also as you claim.
It then follows that the label anti vaxxer must be applicable to anybody who opines the balance of risks for teenagers and children is at least debatable.
And that means you are calling members of the government's own vaxx committee anti-vaxxers.
Wrong. The judgement is a movable feast. It depends on what level of COVID becomes prevalent in the community.
The risk of catching COVID is rising. At some point the lines will cross.
Isn't this all rather moot at the moment due to vaccine availability? My understanding is that we are using our vaccines on the over 18s because we have a finite supply at present and the reward:risk ratio is greater for over 18s - meaning we can put a decision about under 18s off?
In my far from complete understanding, there is still merit in jabbing the under 18s but we may as well concentrate finite resources on where the balance of risks and rewards is most favourable.
The sole argument for not using Pfizer on the 12 - 17 cohort to my mind currently is that the 18+ double AZ vaxxed are boosted up with the available supply. Az hasn't passed trials in that age range so is a non starter. I don't know where the non vaxxed teenager's hospitalisation risk is vs double AZ jabbed mind (Both are very low), perhaps 50 years old ? Could be 50+ booster, 18 - 50 2 doses and single mRNA for teenagers.
I hadn't thought of that but yes I see where you are coming from, and perhaps that should, if the numbers justify it be the priority.
For me, the question is more should we be giving any jabs we have available to older people in nations that don't have supply first, e.g. Ukraine, or most of Africa. which would do far more for reducing total global deaths, but I get UK taxpayers have paid for the doses so understand why Uk has priority.
But ether way,
1) we need to open up fully, including abending or massifly scaling back the restrictions in schools.
I see the zero covidians new goal post moving is because school kids are getting covid we have to stop everything, until we get them jabbed.
Surely we just have to jab everyone they might infect.
@Andy_Cooke yesterday was saying there were "Several thousand children have been hospitalised. Well over a hundred thousand children have ended up with chronic illness."
I can't find the stats but I'm sure he'll provide them for me when he's next on.
But his was a response to why are we closing down the country on account of a group of people (children) who are at very low risk.
NB - I did not state that we had to close the country to protect them. I've stated that we are highly unlikely to want to do that - but that we should not blithely assume that it will not be an issue for them. Could you provide a link to anywhere that I've said we should lockdown again to protect the kids?
As it happens, I think that schools breaking up will do a lot to help.
Yeah it was really a non-point you were making. You asked me, when I queried if Freedom Day would really be Freedom day when children might be kept from school, why I persisted "in ignoring the thousands of hospitalisations of under-18s, and chronic illnesses there".
Whereas you don't think it will cause delay to July 19th. So it was just hand wringing on your part for no obvious reason.
No, it wasn't. As @Malmesbury says, it was in the context of "why vaccinate children."
That's why. The risk-benefit calculation is very much in favour of it.
I don't understand why you persist in trying to be so superciliously unpleasant.
What was the risk of the blood clot from the AZ vaccine? Was it much greater or lower than 0.045%?
A lot lower. To put onto the same scale (chances per million), it was somewhere between 10 per million and 20 per million (as the numbers are so low, it's very very hard to pick them out of the "noise" of naturally occurring blood clots)
0.045% is 450 per million. (cf 10-20 per million)
Its quite impossible to make that utterly spurious claim, because the covid vaccines have been in existence for a much shorter time than many other vaccines. The time taken to develop them is also much shorter.
We simply don't know what the full effects might be.
Hasn’t this claim been dismissed because of the way vaccines work? It’s just scaremongering to suggest it.
Yep.
The antivaxxers and Putin-bots don't care, though. When asked which vaccines have ever been found to have long-term side-effects that were not apparent within the first few weeks, they tend not to answer.
smear, smear, insult smear.
Here's a question for your tiny little mind Andy. How could a long term side-effect become apparent after a few weeks ?
Hint: a few weeks is not a long time
His point, for your tiny mind, is that if you are going to wave around "long term side effects" of vaccines, you need to provide an example of a side effect, in a vaccine, that wasn't apparent in a few weeks.
I really don't because vaccines in the past have taken far, far longer to develop than covid vaccines. We are comparing apples with pears here.
As I say, what was taking thoselaggards of the past so long? So far we have the laughable argument from RobD that there was 'no rush'
The sort of thick-as-pig-shit shite you are peddling is dangerous and might result in someone being influenced by your uninformed nonsense rather than people who know what they are talking about, resulting in them being hesitant about having the vaccine and subsequently dying.
I see the zero covidians new goal post moving is because school kids are getting covid we have to stop everything, until we get them jabbed.
Surely we just have to jab everyone they might infect.
@Andy_Cooke yesterday was saying there were "Several thousand children have been hospitalised. Well over a hundred thousand children have ended up with chronic illness."
I can't find the stats but I'm sure he'll provide them for me when he's next on.
But his was a response to why are we closing down the country on account of a group of people (children) who are at very low risk.
NB - I did not state that we had to close the country to protect them. I've stated that we are highly unlikely to want to do that - but that we should not blithely assume that it will not be an issue for them. Could you provide a link to anywhere that I've said we should lockdown again to protect the kids?
As it happens, I think that schools breaking up will do a lot to help.
Yeah it was really a non-point you were making. You asked me, when I queried if Freedom Day would really be Freedom day when children might be kept from school, why I persisted "in ignoring the thousands of hospitalisations of under-18s, and chronic illnesses there".
Whereas you don't think it will cause delay to July 19th. So it was just hand wringing on your part for no obvious reason.
No, it wasn't. As @Malmesbury says, it was in the context of "why vaccinate children."
That's why. The risk-benefit calculation is very much in favour of it.
I don't understand why you persist in trying to be so superciliously unpleasant.
What was the risk of the blood clot from the AZ vaccine? Was it much greater or lower than 0.045%?
A lot lower. To put onto the same scale (chances per million), it was somewhere between 10 per million and 20 per million (as the numbers are so low, it's very very hard to pick them out of the "noise" of naturally occurring blood clots)
0.045% is 450 per million. (cf 10-20 per million)
Its quite impossible to make that utterly spurious claim, because the covid vaccines have been in existence for a much shorter time than many other vaccines. The time taken to develop them is also much shorter.
We simply don't know what the full effects might be.
Hasn’t this claim been dismissed because of the way vaccines work? It’s just scaremongering to suggest it.
Is Professor Dingwall of the the JCVI scaremongering when he implies the argument for vaccinating teenagers and children is still a live one and not full decided on any basis?
Or are you just trying to shut down opposition to your bullsh*t argument?
Aren’t you conflating two different issues? I’m referring to your claim that there could be long term effects of the vaccine that we don’t know about.
"Given the low risk of Covid for most teenagers, it is not immoral to think that they may be better protected by natural immunity generated through infection than by asking them to take the *possible* risk of a vaccine."
It's certainly not immoral to think that (it is, in any case, due to 'may' a bit of a non-statement - I had AZN and I may have been better off taking my chances with infection, but probably not). It may be incorrect.
The ethical thing to do is compare the evidence as well as possible and then make a judgement, based on that, as to whether to make the vaccine available for younger people. If the evidence is stongly in benefit > risk then make it available* and let people make a choice. If not, then don't.
*By which I mean free to anyone who wants it. It's already approved, which means those who really want it will presumably be able to pay for it privately in the end, whatever the government conclusion
Is the evidence strongly benefit > risk?
Risk of hospitalisation (we don't know more than that) from Covid in 0-17yr olds = 0.045%
It seems to be from the numbers quoted on here and apparently not disputed so far. I'd like to see more evidence from other countries (and from here on the risks of infection and severe effects from Delta) in these age groups before deciding whether it should be offered (I'd also like to know what I'm talking about on this subject before making that decision, but I don't...). I do expect the evidence to settle in favour of offering on risk-benefit.
It might be much more borderline on costs - I don't have expertise in safety, but I've worked on some NICE economic evaluations. If Pfizer £15/dose so £30/course then it's crudely £67k per your 0.045% hospitalisation avoided (assumes ~100% vaccine protection from hospitalisation, so actually a bit worse than that, particularly if hospitalisaton due to vaccination). Not cost effective from a healthcare perspective in this group (unless there's a significant long term Covid effect on quality of life, which is possible or around 1/20 admitted die, which is unlikely - assuming that 1/20 eash lose 70 full health equivalent life years and assuming my mental maths is right!). But if it prevents future waves and gets to herd immunity, then with the wider societal costs, then maybe (but it may not be necesary to prevent future waves).
The second bit will play a part in whether it gets offered. If it's necessary to effectively end the pandemic (in UK), restricitons and get businesses back to normal then it's a no-brainer, economically. On purely health grounds, it would probably be better spent working through some of the care backlogs. Or it might be better spent on enanced schooling for these kids.
None of the jabs are approved or licensed. They're authorised for emergency use (EUA).
What is a vast worldwide clinical trial may end in 2023.
Even after that, the vaccine manufacturers are unlikely to carry insurance. Governments have indemnified them. (Good luck suing the government if you become ill 10 days after being jabbed because some of the side effects won't be rare enough to prove that it was the vaccine.)
They only got EUA because pharma didn't want any cheap, generic, safe drugs developed 40-45 years ago competing with its $25-50 vaccines.
What are these cheap safe generic drugs that are as safe and effective as the vaccines ?
Please, please don't ask him. We know what he'll say. I did a search yesterday on his favourite cheap drug - evidence is very inconclusive. If it was as good as he thinks, the studies I've seen would have provided the evidence. They didn't.
Well we've started a proper clinical trial, which will give an answer in due course. I'm more concerned with the safety of large scale use of what in particular circumstances is quite a nasty chemical.
Pippa Crerar @PippaCrerar · 8m Keir Starmer silences Commons with moving story of Olly who was unable to have his family by his side when he died of leukaemia because of Covid rules.
Boris Johnson accuses Labour leader of "focusing on stuff that's going on in the Westminster bubble".
Tone deaf.
#PMQs
But Sir Keir has supported tougher covid restrictions than Boris. ......Keir wants to have his cake and eat it.
Hopefully he'll be eating humble pie on Friday morning.
Hugo Gye @HugoGye · 2h Replying to @HugoGye Starmer spokesman confirms Labour backs the current hospital isolation rules: "I think everybody across the country including Ollie's family understand the need for people to make sacrifices in the national effort."
Quite incredible.
Well he gets is 2 mins on the news looking good....despite not actually standing for anything different from the government. Its the usual sniping from the sidelines without actually offering any proposals. Compare with Jeremy Hunt, when he pops up with a direct criticism, he usually has a suggestion of how it could be possibly be improved, and he isn't even the opposition.
Could the worm turn just at the right time for Javid?
Continuing to grow slower than cases. Fortunate, really. Cases would look really scary in the pre-vaccine era. The 20,000-odd cases in England the other day would result in c. 2,000 hospitalisations a week later and c. 600 deaths ten days after that. We'll likely see well under 400 hospitalisations for that and under 40 deaths. Odds are that a decent chunk of those will be vax refusers, as well.
Pippa Crerar @PippaCrerar · 8m Keir Starmer silences Commons with moving story of Olly who was unable to have his family by his side when he died of leukaemia because of Covid rules.
Boris Johnson accuses Labour leader of "focusing on stuff that's going on in the Westminster bubble".
Tone deaf.
#PMQs
But Sir Keir has supported tougher covid restrictions than Boris. ......Keir wants to have his cake and eat it.
Hopefully he'll be eating humble pie on Friday morning.
Hugo Gye @HugoGye · 2h Replying to @HugoGye Starmer spokesman confirms Labour backs the current hospital isolation rules: "I think everybody across the country including Ollie's family understand the need for people to make sacrifices in the national effort."
Quite incredible.
Not incredible at all.
The family support the rules and think they should apply to the SoS for health as well as the little people
SKS question was all about one rule for us and one rule for the little people
Whats even more incredible is PB Tories trying to spin the PMs Westminster bubble comment as compassionate
Anyway, I've been adding to that visualisation I've been using. (@Topping - look away now; this won't fit with your worldview of me).
I think throughout this pandemic you have been a leading light on PB in trying to get to the figures and make assessments and draw some conclusions and of course I think you have done this out of a genuine concern for peoples' well-being.
The point we are discussing now is the reasons for vaccinating children which, for the risks they face in getting Covid and also once they have the disease, is in my opinion not a slam dunk.
Professor Dingwall and I completely agree with you on vaccinating children
Its not a clear cut decision whether to vaccinate 12-18 year olds, hence why no decision has been reached yet. I would support either approach, based on what the scientists on the panel decide.
According to Andy Cooke, Malmsbury and others, it is a clear cut decision.
The short term effects of vaccination on teenagers and children have been proven to be negligible relative to covid, and the long term effects can be discounted because no example of long term vaccination effects exists in history.
The logical corollary of that is that there are anti-vaxxers on the government's own.....er......vaxx committee.
Try not to make it so divisive. There are risks to under 18's from covid. Small but not zero. There are risks from vaccination - small but not zero. Finding the balance is the key. If delta wasn't rampaging through the age group, and we were like Israel a couple of months ago with cases crashing towards zero, I would strongly support not vaccinating them. Now, with a much higher prevalence, and thus a greater risk of harm from covid, the balance has shifted more to offering them the vaccine.
Its not simple, and trying to make it black or white is just stupid.
I think that's fair. Making vaccines compulsory for the very young is not supported by the evidence, I think. But there's a reasonable case for offering the vaccine.
It's not compulsory for anyone except perhaps health and social care workers. And a good thing too.
Indeed. But all the discussion seems to have been as though that was what's being suggested.
Anyway, I've been adding to that visualisation I've been using. (@Topping - look away now; this won't fit with your worldview of me).
I think throughout this pandemic you have been a leading light on PB in trying to get to the figures and make assessments and draw some conclusions and of course I think you have done this out of a genuine concern for peoples' well-being.
The point we are discussing now is the reasons for vaccinating children which, for the risks they face in getting Covid and also once they have the disease, is in my opinion not a slam dunk.
Professor Dingwall and I completely agree with you on vaccinating children
Its not a clear cut decision whether to vaccinate 12-18 year olds, hence why no decision has been reached yet. I would support either approach, based on what the scientists on the panel decide.
My 17 year old has decided not to. He has thought it through quite logically and clearly, with strong supporting arguments. So, it isn't just a case of "the scientists deciding". Mind you, he just got an A in A level philosophy mock, so is not typical.
Interesting. Do you know what were the points that made him decide not too?
That he will be only mildly ill if he catches it. He may possibly be worse as a reaction to the vaccine. He has evidence of friends who've had the virus. None has been really very sick at all. He also has seen his sibling, 21, bedridden for 2 days with the vaccine. And several similar examples of young people from his cricket club being unwell from the jab. Add in a very marginal risk of an adverse clotting reaction. As he will be after all adults and vulnerable children being offered the jab, he feels under no obligation to be sick to protect others who won't take the vaccine. Therefore, the vaccines being used on the under 18's, given the above, is immoral and indefensible when they could be going to vulnerable people in poor countries.
I see the zero covidians new goal post moving is because school kids are getting covid we have to stop everything, until we get them jabbed.
Surely we just have to jab everyone they might infect.
@Andy_Cooke yesterday was saying there were "Several thousand children have been hospitalised. Well over a hundred thousand children have ended up with chronic illness."
I can't find the stats but I'm sure he'll provide them for me when he's next on.
But his was a response to why are we closing down the country on account of a group of people (children) who are at very low risk.
NB - I did not state that we had to close the country to protect them. I've stated that we are highly unlikely to want to do that - but that we should not blithely assume that it will not be an issue for them. Could you provide a link to anywhere that I've said we should lockdown again to protect the kids?
As it happens, I think that schools breaking up will do a lot to help.
Yeah it was really a non-point you were making. You asked me, when I queried if Freedom Day would really be Freedom day when children might be kept from school, why I persisted "in ignoring the thousands of hospitalisations of under-18s, and chronic illnesses there".
Whereas you don't think it will cause delay to July 19th. So it was just hand wringing on your part for no obvious reason.
No, it wasn't. As @Malmesbury says, it was in the context of "why vaccinate children."
That's why. The risk-benefit calculation is very much in favour of it.
I don't understand why you persist in trying to be so superciliously unpleasant.
What was the risk of the blood clot from the AZ vaccine? Was it much greater or lower than 0.045%?
A lot lower. To put onto the same scale (chances per million), it was somewhere between 10 per million and 20 per million (as the numbers are so low, it's very very hard to pick them out of the "noise" of naturally occurring blood clots)
0.045% is 450 per million. (cf 10-20 per million)
Its quite impossible to make that utterly spurious claim, because the covid vaccines have been in existence for a much shorter time than many other vaccines. The time taken to develop them is also much shorter.
We simply don't know what the full effects might be.
Hasn’t this claim been dismissed because of the way vaccines work? It’s just scaremongering to suggest it.
Yep.
The antivaxxers and Putin-bots don't care, though. When asked which vaccines have ever been found to have long-term side-effects that were not apparent within the first few weeks, they tend not to answer.
smear, smear, insult smear.
Here's a question for your tiny little mind Andy. How could a long term side-effect become apparent after a few weeks ?
Hint: a few weeks is not a long time
His point, for your tiny mind, is that if you are going to wave around "long term side effects" of vaccines, you need to provide an example of a side effect, in a vaccine, that wasn't apparent in a few weeks.
I really don't because vaccines in the past have taken far, far longer to develop than covid vaccines. We are comparing apples with pears here.
As I say, what was taking thoselaggards of the past so long? So far we have the laughable argument from RobD that there was 'no rush'
The sort of thick-as-pig-shit shite you are peddling is dangerous and might result in someone being influenced by your uninformed nonsense rather than people who know what they are talking about, resulting in them being hesitant about having the vaccine and subsequently dying.
Please stop talking bollox. It is very dangerous bollox. Careless talk really can cost lives.
Steady on Nigel. It is absolutely vital that people ask awkward questions at every step of the way in today's circumstances. We are in unprecedented times and the thought that unprecedentedly quick processes to develop new medical procedures in this case vaccines should be waved through is not the sign of a thinking society.
I appreciate people are scared and want everything to be fine but we need to keep critical debate. That way people are forced to think and rethink their positions. It's also how science works.
Pippa Crerar @PippaCrerar · 8m Keir Starmer silences Commons with moving story of Olly who was unable to have his family by his side when he died of leukaemia because of Covid rules.
Boris Johnson accuses Labour leader of "focusing on stuff that's going on in the Westminster bubble".
Tone deaf.
#PMQs
But Sir Keir has supported tougher covid restrictions than Boris. ......Keir wants to have his cake and eat it.
Hopefully he'll be eating humble pie on Friday morning.
Hugo Gye @HugoGye · 2h Replying to @HugoGye Starmer spokesman confirms Labour backs the current hospital isolation rules: "I think everybody across the country including Ollie's family understand the need for people to make sacrifices in the national effort."
Quite incredible.
Not incredible at all.
The family support the rules and think they should apply to the SoS for health as well as the little people
SKS question was all about one rule for us and one rule for the little people
Whats even more incredible is PB Tories trying to spin the PMs Westminster bubble comment as compassionate
I didn't
I was clear Starmer had a good PMQ's, and Boris's mumbling was embarrassing
I see the zero covidians new goal post moving is because school kids are getting covid we have to stop everything, until we get them jabbed.
Surely we just have to jab everyone they might infect.
@Andy_Cooke yesterday was saying there were "Several thousand children have been hospitalised. Well over a hundred thousand children have ended up with chronic illness."
I can't find the stats but I'm sure he'll provide them for me when he's next on.
But his was a response to why are we closing down the country on account of a group of people (children) who are at very low risk.
NB - I did not state that we had to close the country to protect them. I've stated that we are highly unlikely to want to do that - but that we should not blithely assume that it will not be an issue for them. Could you provide a link to anywhere that I've said we should lockdown again to protect the kids?
As it happens, I think that schools breaking up will do a lot to help.
Yeah it was really a non-point you were making. You asked me, when I queried if Freedom Day would really be Freedom day when children might be kept from school, why I persisted "in ignoring the thousands of hospitalisations of under-18s, and chronic illnesses there".
Whereas you don't think it will cause delay to July 19th. So it was just hand wringing on your part for no obvious reason.
No, it wasn't. As @Malmesbury says, it was in the context of "why vaccinate children."
That's why. The risk-benefit calculation is very much in favour of it.
I don't understand why you persist in trying to be so superciliously unpleasant.
What was the risk of the blood clot from the AZ vaccine? Was it much greater or lower than 0.045%?
A lot lower. To put onto the same scale (chances per million), it was somewhere between 10 per million and 20 per million (as the numbers are so low, it's very very hard to pick them out of the "noise" of naturally occurring blood clots)
0.045% is 450 per million. (cf 10-20 per million)
Its quite impossible to make that utterly spurious claim, because the covid vaccines have been in existence for a much shorter time than many other vaccines. The time taken to develop them is also much shorter.
We simply don't know what the full effects might be.
Hasn’t this claim been dismissed because of the way vaccines work? It’s just scaremongering to suggest it.
Is Professor Dingwall of the the JCVI scaremongering when he implies the argument for vaccinating teenagers and children is still a live one and not full decided on any basis?
Or are you just trying to shut down opposition to your bullsh*t argument?
Aren’t you conflating two different issues? I’m referring to your claim that there could be long term effects of the vaccine that we don’t know about.
"Given the low risk of Covid for most teenagers, it is not immoral to think that they may be better protected by natural immunity generated through infection than by asking them to take the *possible* risk of a vaccine."
It's certainly not immoral to think that (it is, in any case, due to 'may' a bit of a non-statement - I had AZN and I may have been better off taking my chances with infection, but probably not). It may be incorrect.
The ethical thing to do is compare the evidence as well as possible and then make a judgement, based on that, as to whether to make the vaccine available for younger people. If the evidence is stongly in benefit > risk then make it available* and let people make a choice. If not, then don't.
*By which I mean free to anyone who wants it. It's already approved, which means those who really want it will presumably be able to pay for it privately in the end, whatever the government conclusion
Is the evidence strongly benefit > risk?
Risk of hospitalisation (we don't know more than that) from Covid in 0-17yr olds = 0.045%
It seems to be from the numbers quoted on here and apparently not disputed so far. I'd like to see more evidence from other countries (and from here on the risks of infection and severe effects from Delta) in these age groups before deciding whether it should be offered (I'd also like to know what I'm talking about on this subject before making that decision, but I don't...). I do expect the evidence to settle in favour of offering on risk-benefit.
It might be much more borderline on costs - I don't have expertise in safety, but I've worked on some NICE economic evaluations. If Pfizer £15/dose so £30/course then it's crudely £67k per your 0.045% hospitalisation avoided (assumes ~100% vaccine protection from hospitalisation, so actually a bit worse than that, particularly if hospitalisaton due to vaccination). Not cost effective from a healthcare perspective in this group (unless there's a significant long term Covid effect on quality of life, which is possible or around 1/20 admitted die, which is unlikely - assuming that 1/20 eash lose 70 full health equivalent life years and assuming my mental maths is right!). But if it prevents future waves and gets to herd immunity, then with the wider societal costs, then maybe (but it may not be necesary to prevent future waves).
The second bit will play a part in whether it gets offered. If it's necessary to effectively end the pandemic (in UK), restricitons and get businesses back to normal then it's a no-brainer, economically. On purely health grounds, it would probably be better spent working through some of the care backlogs. Or it might be better spent on enanced schooling for these kids.
None of the jabs are approved or licensed. They're authorised for emergency use (EUA).
What is a vast worldwide clinical trial may end in 2023.
Even after that, the vaccine manufacturers are unlikely to carry insurance. Governments have indemnified them. (Good luck suing the government if you become ill 10 days after being jabbed because some of the side effects won't be rare enough to prove that it was the vaccine.)
They only got EUA because pharma didn't want any cheap, generic, safe drugs developed 40-45 years ago competing with its $25-50 vaccines.
What are these cheap safe generic drugs that are as safe and effective as the vaccines ?
Please, please don't ask him. We know what he'll say. I did a search yesterday on his favourite cheap drug - evidence is very inconclusive. If it was as good as he thinks, the studies I've seen would have provided the evidence. They didn't.
Well we've started a proper clinical trial, which will give an answer in due course. I'm more concerned with the safety of large scale use of what in particular circumstances is quite a nasty chemical.
Pippa Crerar @PippaCrerar · 8m Keir Starmer silences Commons with moving story of Olly who was unable to have his family by his side when he died of leukaemia because of Covid rules.
Boris Johnson accuses Labour leader of "focusing on stuff that's going on in the Westminster bubble".
Tone deaf.
#PMQs
But Sir Keir has supported tougher covid restrictions than Boris. ......Keir wants to have his cake and eat it.
Hopefully he'll be eating humble pie on Friday morning.
Hugo Gye @HugoGye · 2h Replying to @HugoGye Starmer spokesman confirms Labour backs the current hospital isolation rules: "I think everybody across the country including Ollie's family understand the need for people to make sacrifices in the national effort."
Quite incredible.
Not incredible at all.
The family support the rules and think they should apply to the SoS for health as well as the little people
SKS question was all about one rule for us and one rule for the little people
Whats even more incredible is PB Tories trying to spin the PMs Westminster bubble comment as compassionate
So he was using a very sad case to just make a cynical political point, rather than perhaps suggest if there a way we can improve the rules to accommodate these cases? And that's a good thing?
There is this strange idea that asking the young to make sacrifices for the old in time of crisis is somehow unusual.
Ladies and gentlemen, can I bring to your attention conscription? That is, forcing the young to take time out from education and life, to get trained as a soldier and to go into battle for theit country, so an external menace can be defeated.
It seems to me that CV19 is not a million miles different to a war. A pathogen has come to disrupt our lived and potentially to kill and to injure, and to affect our way of life.
A small number of people (might) bear a slightly higher risk from vaccination than they would do from the disease. But in return everyone benefits from stamping out the disease completely.
We all agree conscription is necessary under certain circumstances, why should it not be the same with vaccination?
There is this strange idea that asking the young to make sacrifices for the old in time of crisis is somehow unusual.
Ladies and gentlemen, can I bring to your attention conscription? That is, forcing the young to take time out from education and life, to get trained as a soldier and to go into battle for theit country, so an external menace can be defeated.
It seems to me that CV19 is not a million miles different to a war. A pathogen has come to disrupt our lived and potentially to kill and to injure, and to affect our way of life.
A small number of people (might) bear a slightly higher risk from vaccination than they would do from the disease. But in return everyone benefits from stamping out the disease completely.
We all agree conscription is necessary under certain circumstances, why should it not be the same with vaccination?
Anyway, I've been adding to that visualisation I've been using. (@Topping - look away now; this won't fit with your worldview of me).
I think throughout this pandemic you have been a leading light on PB in trying to get to the figures and make assessments and draw some conclusions and of course I think you have done this out of a genuine concern for peoples' well-being.
The point we are discussing now is the reasons for vaccinating children which, for the risks they face in getting Covid and also once they have the disease, is in my opinion not a slam dunk.
Professor Dingwall and I completely agree with you on vaccinating children
Its not a clear cut decision whether to vaccinate 12-18 year olds, hence why no decision has been reached yet. I would support either approach, based on what the scientists on the panel decide.
According to Andy Cooke, Malmsbury and others, it is a clear cut decision.
The short term effects of vaccination on teenagers and children have been proven to be negligible relative to covid, and the long term effects can be discounted because no example of long term vaccination effects exists in history.
The logical corollary of that is that there are anti-vaxxers on the government's own.....er......vaxx committee.
When you say "long term", how long are we talking? The vaccine is going to be completely out of peoples' systems by now. The first cohorts of Pfizer and Moderna are coming up on a year since they were jabbed, what do you think is likely to happen?
Their immune systems were primed against something.
That's it - nothing more, nothing less.
If it was going to cause the immune system to regularly misfire, then that would likely be seen by now. How much evidence of "no harm" do you require? We didn't say "oh, this polio vaccine's great, but just in case it causes problems in 20 years, we better stay away from it."
What is the *mechanism* by which you think these vaccines will cause long term issues?
I see the zero covidians new goal post moving is because school kids are getting covid we have to stop everything, until we get them jabbed.
Surely we just have to jab everyone they might infect.
@Andy_Cooke yesterday was saying there were "Several thousand children have been hospitalised. Well over a hundred thousand children have ended up with chronic illness."
I can't find the stats but I'm sure he'll provide them for me when he's next on.
But his was a response to why are we closing down the country on account of a group of people (children) who are at very low risk.
NB - I did not state that we had to close the country to protect them. I've stated that we are highly unlikely to want to do that - but that we should not blithely assume that it will not be an issue for them. Could you provide a link to anywhere that I've said we should lockdown again to protect the kids?
As it happens, I think that schools breaking up will do a lot to help.
Yeah it was really a non-point you were making. You asked me, when I queried if Freedom Day would really be Freedom day when children might be kept from school, why I persisted "in ignoring the thousands of hospitalisations of under-18s, and chronic illnesses there".
Whereas you don't think it will cause delay to July 19th. So it was just hand wringing on your part for no obvious reason.
No, it wasn't. As @Malmesbury says, it was in the context of "why vaccinate children."
That's why. The risk-benefit calculation is very much in favour of it.
I don't understand why you persist in trying to be so superciliously unpleasant.
What was the risk of the blood clot from the AZ vaccine? Was it much greater or lower than 0.045%?
A lot lower. To put onto the same scale (chances per million), it was somewhere between 10 per million and 20 per million (as the numbers are so low, it's very very hard to pick them out of the "noise" of naturally occurring blood clots)
0.045% is 450 per million. (cf 10-20 per million)
Its quite impossible to make that utterly spurious claim, because the covid vaccines have been in existence for a much shorter time than many other vaccines. The time taken to develop them is also much shorter.
We simply don't know what the full effects might be.
Hasn’t this claim been dismissed because of the way vaccines work? It’s just scaremongering to suggest it.
Yep.
The antivaxxers and Putin-bots don't care, though. When asked which vaccines have ever been found to have long-term side-effects that were not apparent within the first few weeks, they tend not to answer.
smear, smear, insult smear.
Here's a question for your tiny little mind Andy. How could a long term side-effect become apparent after a few weeks ?
Hint: a few weeks is not a long time
His point, for your tiny mind, is that if you are going to wave around "long term side effects" of vaccines, you need to provide an example of a side effect, in a vaccine, that wasn't apparent in a few weeks.
I really don't because vaccines in the past have taken far, far longer to develop than covid vaccines. We are not comparing apples with pears here.
As I say, what was taking thoselaggards of the past so long? So far we have the laughable argument from RobD that there was 'no rush'
It has been explained previously, at some length.
Essentially, all the steps that are normally carried out in vaccine creation were carried out. Instead of performing them in a waterfall style manner (one following on from the previous), they were done (partially) in parallel.
This massively increased the costs of testing the vaccine and creating the production infrastructure.
"Waste everything except time"
Ok let us say assume the risk of long-term side effects is, as you claim, zero, and the short term risk of vaccination to young people is, already, proven to be negligible, also as you claim.
It then follows that the label anti vaxxer must be applicable to anybody who opines the balance of risks for teenagers and children is at least debatable.
And that means you are calling members of the government's own vaxx committee anti-vaxxers.
Wrong. The judgement is a movable feast. It depends on what level of COVID becomes prevalent in the community.
The risk of catching COVID is rising. At some point the lines will cross.
Isn't this all rather moot at the moment due to vaccine availability? My understanding is that we are using our vaccines on the over 18s because we have a finite supply at present and the reward:risk ratio is greater for over 18s - meaning we can put a decision about under 18s off?
In my far from complete understanding, there is still merit in jabbing the under 18s but we may as well concentrate finite resources on where the balance of risks and rewards is most favourable.
The sole argument for not using Pfizer on the 12 - 17 cohort to my mind currently is that the 18+ double AZ vaxxed are boosted up with the available supply. Az hasn't passed trials in that age range so is a non starter. I don't know where the non vaxxed teenager's hospitalisation risk is vs double AZ jabbed mind (Both are very low), perhaps 50 years old ? Could be 50+ booster, 18 - 50 2 doses and single mRNA for teenagers.
I hadn't thought of that but yes I see where you are coming from, and perhaps that should, if the numbers justify it be the priority.
For me, the question is more should we be giving any jabs we have available to older people in nations that don't have supply first, e.g. Ukraine, or most of Africa. which would do far more for reducing total global deaths, but I get UK taxpayers have paid for the doses so understand why Uk has priority.
But ether way,
1) we need to open up fully, including abending or massifly scaling back the restrictions in schools.
2) 16 and 17 Year olds can decide for themselves.
3) parents of younger kids should decide.
The age at which children get a say over their bodies and health is an interesting question. Is 16 the current legal limit?
16+ clearly they should decide, 12 and under clearly the parents should. 13-15 I am not sure about, as a kid I would have thought it my body, my decision. Perhaps in between there could be a recommended status, which would be the default if parents and child cannot agree.
There is this strange idea that asking the young to make sacrifices for the old in time of crisis is somehow unusual.
Ladies and gentlemen, can I bring to your attention conscription? That is, forcing the young to take time out from education and life, to get trained as a soldier and to go into battle for theit country, so an external menace can be defeated.
It seems to me that CV19 is not a million miles different to a war. A pathogen has come to disrupt our lived and potentially to kill and to injure, and to affect our way of life.
A small number of people (might) bear a slightly higher risk from vaccination than they would do from the disease. But in return everyone benefits from stamping out the disease completely.
We all agree conscription is necessary under certain circumstances, why should it not be the same with vaccination?
The comparison is even closer. Being a guinea pig was a recognised role for conscientious objectors to conscription, of course. And I don't mean the Mengele kind of guinea pig.
There is this strange idea that asking the young to make sacrifices for the old in time of crisis is somehow unusual.
Ladies and gentlemen, can I bring to your attention conscription? That is, forcing the young to take time out from education and life, to get trained as a soldier and to go into battle for theit country, so an external menace can be defeated.
It seems to me that CV19 is not a million miles different to a war. A pathogen has come to disrupt our lived and potentially to kill and to injure, and to affect our way of life.
A small number of people (might) bear a slightly higher risk from vaccination than they would do from the disease. But in return everyone benefits from stamping out the disease completely.
We all agree conscription is necessary under certain circumstances, why should it not be the same with vaccination?
Really? War analogies now?
I can't think of a more appropriate one.
External threat. People dying. That kind of thing.
I see the zero covidians new goal post moving is because school kids are getting covid we have to stop everything, until we get them jabbed.
Surely we just have to jab everyone they might infect.
@Andy_Cooke yesterday was saying there were "Several thousand children have been hospitalised. Well over a hundred thousand children have ended up with chronic illness."
I can't find the stats but I'm sure he'll provide them for me when he's next on.
But his was a response to why are we closing down the country on account of a group of people (children) who are at very low risk.
NB - I did not state that we had to close the country to protect them. I've stated that we are highly unlikely to want to do that - but that we should not blithely assume that it will not be an issue for them. Could you provide a link to anywhere that I've said we should lockdown again to protect the kids?
As it happens, I think that schools breaking up will do a lot to help.
Yeah it was really a non-point you were making. You asked me, when I queried if Freedom Day would really be Freedom day when children might be kept from school, why I persisted "in ignoring the thousands of hospitalisations of under-18s, and chronic illnesses there".
Whereas you don't think it will cause delay to July 19th. So it was just hand wringing on your part for no obvious reason.
No, it wasn't. As @Malmesbury says, it was in the context of "why vaccinate children."
That's why. The risk-benefit calculation is very much in favour of it.
I don't understand why you persist in trying to be so superciliously unpleasant.
What was the risk of the blood clot from the AZ vaccine? Was it much greater or lower than 0.045%?
A lot lower. To put onto the same scale (chances per million), it was somewhere between 10 per million and 20 per million (as the numbers are so low, it's very very hard to pick them out of the "noise" of naturally occurring blood clots)
0.045% is 450 per million. (cf 10-20 per million)
Its quite impossible to make that utterly spurious claim, because the covid vaccines have been in existence for a much shorter time than many other vaccines. The time taken to develop them is also much shorter.
We simply don't know what the full effects might be.
Hasn’t this claim been dismissed because of the way vaccines work? It’s just scaremongering to suggest it.
Yep.
The antivaxxers and Putin-bots don't care, though. When asked which vaccines have ever been found to have long-term side-effects that were not apparent within the first few weeks, they tend not to answer.
smear, smear, insult smear.
Here's a question for your tiny little mind Andy. How could a long term side-effect become apparent after a few weeks ?
Hint: a few weeks is not a long time
His point, for your tiny mind, is that if you are going to wave around "long term side effects" of vaccines, you need to provide an example of a side effect, in a vaccine, that wasn't apparent in a few weeks.
I really don't because vaccines in the past have taken far, far longer to develop than covid vaccines. We are comparing apples with pears here.
As I say, what was taking thoselaggards of the past so long? So far we have the laughable argument from RobD that there was 'no rush'
The sort of thick-as-pig-shit shite you are peddling is dangerous and might result in someone being influenced by your uninformed nonsense rather than people who know what they are talking about, resulting in them being hesitant about having the vaccine and subsequently dying.
Please stop talking bollox. It is very dangerous bollox. Careless talk really can cost lives.
Steady on Nigel. It is absolutely vital that people ask awkward questions at every step of the way in today's circumstances. We are in unprecedented times and the thought that unprecedentedly quick processes to develop new medical procedures in this case vaccines should be waved through is not the sign of a thinking society.
I appreciate people are scared and want everything to be fine but we need to keep critical debate. That way people are forced to think and rethink their positions. It's also how science works.
Agreed, but anti-vaxxer comments are very dangerous. One of their favourites is this idea that the vaccines have been "rushed". It is simply not true. It needs to be rebutted in the most forthright terms, so that more gullible folk don't start to think that it might be better to take their chances than have the jab. The question around the necessity of giving the jab to minors is much more nuanced, but that question has nothing to do with the vaccine development being "rushed"
I see the zero covidians new goal post moving is because school kids are getting covid we have to stop everything, until we get them jabbed.
Surely we just have to jab everyone they might infect.
@Andy_Cooke yesterday was saying there were "Several thousand children have been hospitalised. Well over a hundred thousand children have ended up with chronic illness."
I can't find the stats but I'm sure he'll provide them for me when he's next on.
But his was a response to why are we closing down the country on account of a group of people (children) who are at very low risk.
NB - I did not state that we had to close the country to protect them. I've stated that we are highly unlikely to want to do that - but that we should not blithely assume that it will not be an issue for them. Could you provide a link to anywhere that I've said we should lockdown again to protect the kids?
As it happens, I think that schools breaking up will do a lot to help.
Yeah it was really a non-point you were making. You asked me, when I queried if Freedom Day would really be Freedom day when children might be kept from school, why I persisted "in ignoring the thousands of hospitalisations of under-18s, and chronic illnesses there".
Whereas you don't think it will cause delay to July 19th. So it was just hand wringing on your part for no obvious reason.
No, it wasn't. As @Malmesbury says, it was in the context of "why vaccinate children."
That's why. The risk-benefit calculation is very much in favour of it.
I don't understand why you persist in trying to be so superciliously unpleasant.
What was the risk of the blood clot from the AZ vaccine? Was it much greater or lower than 0.045%?
A lot lower. To put onto the same scale (chances per million), it was somewhere between 10 per million and 20 per million (as the numbers are so low, it's very very hard to pick them out of the "noise" of naturally occurring blood clots)
0.045% is 450 per million. (cf 10-20 per million)
Its quite impossible to make that utterly spurious claim, because the covid vaccines have been in existence for a much shorter time than many other vaccines. The time taken to develop them is also much shorter.
We simply don't know what the full effects might be.
Hasn’t this claim been dismissed because of the way vaccines work? It’s just scaremongering to suggest it.
Is Professor Dingwall of the the JCVI scaremongering when he implies the argument for vaccinating teenagers and children is still a live one and not full decided on any basis?
Or are you just trying to shut down opposition to your bullsh*t argument?
Aren’t you conflating two different issues? I’m referring to your claim that there could be long term effects of the vaccine that we don’t know about.
"Given the low risk of Covid for most teenagers, it is not immoral to think that they may be better protected by natural immunity generated through infection than by asking them to take the *possible* risk of a vaccine."
It's certainly not immoral to think that (it is, in any case, due to 'may' a bit of a non-statement - I had AZN and I may have been better off taking my chances with infection, but probably not). It may be incorrect.
The ethical thing to do is compare the evidence as well as possible and then make a judgement, based on that, as to whether to make the vaccine available for younger people. If the evidence is stongly in benefit > risk then make it available* and let people make a choice. If not, then don't.
*By which I mean free to anyone who wants it. It's already approved, which means those who really want it will presumably be able to pay for it privately in the end, whatever the government conclusion
Is the evidence strongly benefit > risk?
Risk of hospitalisation (we don't know more than that) from Covid in 0-17yr olds = 0.045%
It seems to be from the numbers quoted on here and apparently not disputed so far. I'd like to see more evidence from other countries (and from here on the risks of infection and severe effects from Delta) in these age groups before deciding whether it should be offered (I'd also like to know what I'm talking about on this subject before making that decision, but I don't...). I do expect the evidence to settle in favour of offering on risk-benefit.
It might be much more borderline on costs - I don't have expertise in safety, but I've worked on some NICE economic evaluations. If Pfizer £15/dose so £30/course then it's crudely £67k per your 0.045% hospitalisation avoided (assumes ~100% vaccine protection from hospitalisation, so actually a bit worse than that, particularly if hospitalisaton due to vaccination). Not cost effective from a healthcare perspective in this group (unless there's a significant long term Covid effect on quality of life, which is possible or around 1/20 admitted die, which is unlikely - assuming that 1/20 eash lose 70 full health equivalent life years and assuming my mental maths is right!). But if it prevents future waves and gets to herd immunity, then with the wider societal costs, then maybe (but it may not be necesary to prevent future waves).
The second bit will play a part in whether it gets offered. If it's necessary to effectively end the pandemic (in UK), restricitons and get businesses back to normal then it's a no-brainer, economically. On purely health grounds, it would probably be better spent working through some of the care backlogs. Or it might be better spent on enanced schooling for these kids.
None of the jabs are approved or licensed. They're authorised for emergency use (EUA).
What is a vast worldwide clinical trial may end in 2023.
Even after that, the vaccine manufacturers are unlikely to carry insurance. Governments have indemnified them. (Good luck suing the government if you become ill 10 days after being jabbed because some of the side effects won't be rare enough to prove that it was the vaccine.)
They only got EUA because pharma didn't want any cheap, generic, safe drugs developed 40-45 years ago competing with its $25-50 vaccines.
What are these cheap safe generic drugs that are as safe and effective as the vaccines ?
Please, please don't ask him. We know what he'll say. I did a search yesterday on his favourite cheap drug - evidence is very inconclusive. If it was as good as he thinks, the studies I've seen would have provided the evidence. They didn't.
Well we've started a proper clinical trial, which will give an answer in due course. I'm more concerned with the safety of large scale use of what in particular circumstances is quite a nasty chemical.
Given the current Covid situation I have been trying to compare now against previous waves and have put together the below chart.
It plots 7-day rolling Cases, Admissions and Deaths on a Base-2 log scale. It is intended to make all 3 measures comparable more easily.
What is clear is that the rate of increase of admissions is significantly less than it was in the last wave (angle of grey lines). Also when we reached 16K daily cases in the last wave, there were twice as many hospitalisations and deaths were over 4 times bigger (vertical black lines are comparisons).
Hospitalisations are also looking like they may be slowing their rate of increase and deaths remain very low. Another week's worth of data should hopefully show conclusively where we are. At the moment though I think it looks very positive that the link between cases->admissions->deaths has been substantially reduced. Cases in my view is no longer the key metric.
Should we stop reporting cases? If we just showed the number of hospitalisations and deaths each day then I think people would be much more relaxed. However, it is still very useful data and I support open access to this sort of data.
I see the zero covidians new goal post moving is because school kids are getting covid we have to stop everything, until we get them jabbed.
Surely we just have to jab everyone they might infect.
@Andy_Cooke yesterday was saying there were "Several thousand children have been hospitalised. Well over a hundred thousand children have ended up with chronic illness."
I can't find the stats but I'm sure he'll provide them for me when he's next on.
But his was a response to why are we closing down the country on account of a group of people (children) who are at very low risk.
NB - I did not state that we had to close the country to protect them. I've stated that we are highly unlikely to want to do that - but that we should not blithely assume that it will not be an issue for them. Could you provide a link to anywhere that I've said we should lockdown again to protect the kids?
As it happens, I think that schools breaking up will do a lot to help.
Yeah it was really a non-point you were making. You asked me, when I queried if Freedom Day would really be Freedom day when children might be kept from school, why I persisted "in ignoring the thousands of hospitalisations of under-18s, and chronic illnesses there".
Whereas you don't think it will cause delay to July 19th. So it was just hand wringing on your part for no obvious reason.
No, it wasn't. As @Malmesbury says, it was in the context of "why vaccinate children."
That's why. The risk-benefit calculation is very much in favour of it.
I don't understand why you persist in trying to be so superciliously unpleasant.
What was the risk of the blood clot from the AZ vaccine? Was it much greater or lower than 0.045%?
A lot lower. To put onto the same scale (chances per million), it was somewhere between 10 per million and 20 per million (as the numbers are so low, it's very very hard to pick them out of the "noise" of naturally occurring blood clots)
0.045% is 450 per million. (cf 10-20 per million)
Its quite impossible to make that utterly spurious claim, because the covid vaccines have been in existence for a much shorter time than many other vaccines. The time taken to develop them is also much shorter.
We simply don't know what the full effects might be.
Hasn’t this claim been dismissed because of the way vaccines work? It’s just scaremongering to suggest it.
Yep.
The antivaxxers and Putin-bots don't care, though. When asked which vaccines have ever been found to have long-term side-effects that were not apparent within the first few weeks, they tend not to answer.
smear, smear, insult smear.
Here's a question for your tiny little mind Andy. How could a long term side-effect become apparent after a few weeks ?
Hint: a few weeks is not a long time
His point, for your tiny mind, is that if you are going to wave around "long term side effects" of vaccines, you need to provide an example of a side effect, in a vaccine, that wasn't apparent in a few weeks.
I really don't because vaccines in the past have taken far, far longer to develop than covid vaccines. We are comparing apples with pears here.
As I say, what was taking thoselaggards of the past so long? So far we have the laughable argument from RobD that there was 'no rush'
The sort of thick-as-pig-shit shite you are peddling is dangerous and might result in someone being influenced by your uninformed nonsense rather than people who know what they are talking about, resulting in them being hesitant about having the vaccine and subsequently dying.
Please stop talking bollox. It is very dangerous bollox. Careless talk really can cost lives.
Steady on Nigel. It is absolutely vital that people ask awkward questions at every step of the way in today's circumstances. We are in unprecedented times and the thought that unprecedentedly quick processes to develop new medical procedures in this case vaccines should be waved through is not the sign of a thinking society.
I appreciate people are scared and want everything to be fine but we need to keep critical debate. That way people are forced to think and rethink their positions. It's also how science works.
Agreed. The answer to contrarian's question is that the volume of clinical data generated for the Covid vaccines far outstrips that for the majority of other vaccines, and that is what demonstrates their safety and efficacy.
I'm still interested to hear what he thinks any 'long term side effects' might be, and how they might come about. The only long term effects vaccines are likely to have are on the immune system (which is, of course what they are intended to do). And unlike the virus itself, they don't persist in the body for any length of time.
I see the zero covidians new goal post moving is because school kids are getting covid we have to stop everything, until we get them jabbed.
Surely we just have to jab everyone they might infect.
@Andy_Cooke yesterday was saying there were "Several thousand children have been hospitalised. Well over a hundred thousand children have ended up with chronic illness."
I can't find the stats but I'm sure he'll provide them for me when he's next on.
But his was a response to why are we closing down the country on account of a group of people (children) who are at very low risk.
NB - I did not state that we had to close the country to protect them. I've stated that we are highly unlikely to want to do that - but that we should not blithely assume that it will not be an issue for them. Could you provide a link to anywhere that I've said we should lockdown again to protect the kids?
As it happens, I think that schools breaking up will do a lot to help.
Yeah it was really a non-point you were making. You asked me, when I queried if Freedom Day would really be Freedom day when children might be kept from school, why I persisted "in ignoring the thousands of hospitalisations of under-18s, and chronic illnesses there".
Whereas you don't think it will cause delay to July 19th. So it was just hand wringing on your part for no obvious reason.
No, it wasn't. As @Malmesbury says, it was in the context of "why vaccinate children."
That's why. The risk-benefit calculation is very much in favour of it.
I don't understand why you persist in trying to be so superciliously unpleasant.
What was the risk of the blood clot from the AZ vaccine? Was it much greater or lower than 0.045%?
A lot lower. To put onto the same scale (chances per million), it was somewhere between 10 per million and 20 per million (as the numbers are so low, it's very very hard to pick them out of the "noise" of naturally occurring blood clots)
0.045% is 450 per million. (cf 10-20 per million)
Its quite impossible to make that utterly spurious claim, because the covid vaccines have been in existence for a much shorter time than many other vaccines. The time taken to develop them is also much shorter.
We simply don't know what the full effects might be.
Hasn’t this claim been dismissed because of the way vaccines work? It’s just scaremongering to suggest it.
Yep.
The antivaxxers and Putin-bots don't care, though. When asked which vaccines have ever been found to have long-term side-effects that were not apparent within the first few weeks, they tend not to answer.
smear, smear, insult smear.
Here's a question for your tiny little mind Andy. How could a long term side-effect become apparent after a few weeks ?
Hint: a few weeks is not a long time
His point, for your tiny mind, is that if you are going to wave around "long term side effects" of vaccines, you need to provide an example of a side effect, in a vaccine, that wasn't apparent in a few weeks.
I really don't because vaccines in the past have taken far, far longer to develop than covid vaccines. We are comparing apples with pears here.
As I say, what was taking thoselaggards of the past so long? So far we have the laughable argument from RobD that there was 'no rush'
The sort of thick-as-pig-shit shite you are peddling is dangerous and might result in someone being influenced by your uninformed nonsense rather than people who know what they are talking about, resulting in them being hesitant about having the vaccine and subsequently dying.
Please stop talking bollox. It is very dangerous bollox. Careless talk really can cost lives.
Steady on Nigel. It is absolutely vital that people ask awkward questions at every step of the way in today's circumstances. We are in unprecedented times and the thought that unprecedentedly quick processes to develop new medical procedures in this case vaccines should be waved through is not the sign of a thinking society.
I appreciate people are scared and want everything to be fine but we need to keep critical debate. That way people are forced to think and rethink their positions. It's also how science works.
...PS. Incidentally, just for clarity: Nothing (except in China and Russia) with respect to vaccine development has been "waved through" as you put it. they have had to undergo highly rigorous randomised trials, which have been highly scrutinised to the normal regulatory procedures. Adverse events have been reported and publicised to a level that would not normally be given for any other drug. There will always be some risk, but the efficacy and safety standards have been to the same standards as always applied to all clinical trials.
I see the zero covidians new goal post moving is because school kids are getting covid we have to stop everything, until we get them jabbed.
Surely we just have to jab everyone they might infect.
@Andy_Cooke yesterday was saying there were "Several thousand children have been hospitalised. Well over a hundred thousand children have ended up with chronic illness."
I can't find the stats but I'm sure he'll provide them for me when he's next on.
But his was a response to why are we closing down the country on account of a group of people (children) who are at very low risk.
NB - I did not state that we had to close the country to protect them. I've stated that we are highly unlikely to want to do that - but that we should not blithely assume that it will not be an issue for them. Could you provide a link to anywhere that I've said we should lockdown again to protect the kids?
As it happens, I think that schools breaking up will do a lot to help.
Yeah it was really a non-point you were making. You asked me, when I queried if Freedom Day would really be Freedom day when children might be kept from school, why I persisted "in ignoring the thousands of hospitalisations of under-18s, and chronic illnesses there".
Whereas you don't think it will cause delay to July 19th. So it was just hand wringing on your part for no obvious reason.
No, it wasn't. As @Malmesbury says, it was in the context of "why vaccinate children."
That's why. The risk-benefit calculation is very much in favour of it.
I don't understand why you persist in trying to be so superciliously unpleasant.
What was the risk of the blood clot from the AZ vaccine? Was it much greater or lower than 0.045%?
A lot lower. To put onto the same scale (chances per million), it was somewhere between 10 per million and 20 per million (as the numbers are so low, it's very very hard to pick them out of the "noise" of naturally occurring blood clots)
0.045% is 450 per million. (cf 10-20 per million)
Its quite impossible to make that utterly spurious claim, because the covid vaccines have been in existence for a much shorter time than many other vaccines. The time taken to develop them is also much shorter.
We simply don't know what the full effects might be.
Hasn’t this claim been dismissed because of the way vaccines work? It’s just scaremongering to suggest it.
Is Professor Dingwall of the the JCVI scaremongering when he implies the argument for vaccinating teenagers and children is still a live one and not full decided on any basis?
Or are you just trying to shut down opposition to your bullsh*t argument?
Aren’t you conflating two different issues? I’m referring to your claim that there could be long term effects of the vaccine that we don’t know about.
"Given the low risk of Covid for most teenagers, it is not immoral to think that they may be better protected by natural immunity generated through infection than by asking them to take the *possible* risk of a vaccine."
It's certainly not immoral to think that (it is, in any case, due to 'may' a bit of a non-statement - I had AZN and I may have been better off taking my chances with infection, but probably not). It may be incorrect.
The ethical thing to do is compare the evidence as well as possible and then make a judgement, based on that, as to whether to make the vaccine available for younger people. If the evidence is stongly in benefit > risk then make it available* and let people make a choice. If not, then don't.
*By which I mean free to anyone who wants it. It's already approved, which means those who really want it will presumably be able to pay for it privately in the end, whatever the government conclusion
Is the evidence strongly benefit > risk?
Risk of hospitalisation (we don't know more than that) from Covid in 0-17yr olds = 0.045%
It seems to be from the numbers quoted on here and apparently not disputed so far. I'd like to see more evidence from other countries (and from here on the risks of infection and severe effects from Delta) in these age groups before deciding whether it should be offered (I'd also like to know what I'm talking about on this subject before making that decision, but I don't...). I do expect the evidence to settle in favour of offering on risk-benefit.
It might be much more borderline on costs - I don't have expertise in safety, but I've worked on some NICE economic evaluations. If Pfizer £15/dose so £30/course then it's crudely £67k per your 0.045% hospitalisation avoided (assumes ~100% vaccine protection from hospitalisation, so actually a bit worse than that, particularly if hospitalisaton due to vaccination). Not cost effective from a healthcare perspective in this group (unless there's a significant long term Covid effect on quality of life, which is possible or around 1/20 admitted die, which is unlikely - assuming that 1/20 eash lose 70 full health equivalent life years and assuming my mental maths is right!). But if it prevents future waves and gets to herd immunity, then with the wider societal costs, then maybe (but it may not be necesary to prevent future waves).
The second bit will play a part in whether it gets offered. If it's necessary to effectively end the pandemic (in UK), restricitons and get businesses back to normal then it's a no-brainer, economically. On purely health grounds, it would probably be better spent working through some of the care backlogs. Or it might be better spent on enanced schooling for these kids.
None of the jabs are approved or licensed. They're authorised for emergency use (EUA).
What is a vast worldwide clinical trial may end in 2023.
Even after that, the vaccine manufacturers are unlikely to carry insurance. Governments have indemnified them. (Good luck suing the government if you become ill 10 days after being jabbed because some of the side effects won't be rare enough to prove that it was the vaccine.)
They only got EUA because pharma didn't want any cheap, generic, safe drugs developed 40-45 years ago competing with its $25-50 vaccines.
What are these cheap safe generic drugs that are as safe and effective as the vaccines ?
Please, please don't ask him. We know what he'll say. I did a search yesterday on his favourite cheap drug - evidence is very inconclusive. If it was as good as he thinks, the studies I've seen would have provided the evidence. They didn't.
Well we've started a proper clinical trial, which will give an answer in due course. I'm more concerned with the safety of large scale use of what in particular circumstances is quite a nasty chemical.
I hope we don't rush it.
It will take as long as it takes. Some factors - the availability of volunteers, and the prevalence of the virus, are beyond the control of the investigators.
NEW: Of 1,991 #coronavirus cases registered by Public Health Scotland (PHS) recently, TWO THIRDS said they had travelled to London to watch England v Scotland on 18 June
Anyway, I've been adding to that visualisation I've been using. (@Topping - look away now; this won't fit with your worldview of me).
I think throughout this pandemic you have been a leading light on PB in trying to get to the figures and make assessments and draw some conclusions and of course I think you have done this out of a genuine concern for peoples' well-being.
The point we are discussing now is the reasons for vaccinating children which, for the risks they face in getting Covid and also once they have the disease, is in my opinion not a slam dunk.
Professor Dingwall and I completely agree with you on vaccinating children
Its not a clear cut decision whether to vaccinate 12-18 year olds, hence why no decision has been reached yet. I would support either approach, based on what the scientists on the panel decide.
My 17 year old has decided not to. He has thought it through quite logically and clearly, with strong supporting arguments. So, it isn't just a case of "the scientists deciding". Mind you, he just got an A in A level philosophy mock, so is not typical.
Interesting. Do you know what were the points that made him decide not too?
That he will be only mildly ill if he catches it. He may possibly be worse as a reaction to the vaccine. He has evidence of friends who've had the virus. None has been really very sick at all. He also has seen his sibling, 21, bedridden for 2 days with the vaccine. And several similar examples of young people from his cricket club being unwell from the jab. Add in a very marginal risk of an adverse clotting reaction. As he will be after all adults and vulnerable children being offered the jab, he feels under no obligation to be sick to protect others who won't take the vaccine. Therefore, the vaccines being used on the under 18's, given the above, is immoral and indefensible when they could be going to vulnerable people in poor countries.
An entirely justifiable position (except that there's no perceptible clotting risk from the Pfizer vaccine).
I see the zero covidians new goal post moving is because school kids are getting covid we have to stop everything, until we get them jabbed.
Surely we just have to jab everyone they might infect.
@Andy_Cooke yesterday was saying there were "Several thousand children have been hospitalised. Well over a hundred thousand children have ended up with chronic illness."
I can't find the stats but I'm sure he'll provide them for me when he's next on.
But his was a response to why are we closing down the country on account of a group of people (children) who are at very low risk.
NB - I did not state that we had to close the country to protect them. I've stated that we are highly unlikely to want to do that - but that we should not blithely assume that it will not be an issue for them. Could you provide a link to anywhere that I've said we should lockdown again to protect the kids?
As it happens, I think that schools breaking up will do a lot to help.
Yeah it was really a non-point you were making. You asked me, when I queried if Freedom Day would really be Freedom day when children might be kept from school, why I persisted "in ignoring the thousands of hospitalisations of under-18s, and chronic illnesses there".
Whereas you don't think it will cause delay to July 19th. So it was just hand wringing on your part for no obvious reason.
No, it wasn't. As @Malmesbury says, it was in the context of "why vaccinate children."
That's why. The risk-benefit calculation is very much in favour of it.
I don't understand why you persist in trying to be so superciliously unpleasant.
What was the risk of the blood clot from the AZ vaccine? Was it much greater or lower than 0.045%?
I'm reckoning nowhere near 1-in-2,000, which is 0.045%
Think they said it was 7-9 in a million with 2-3 deaths, something of that order certainly only a few either way
Andrew Lilico @andrew_lilico · 1h What are you all *doing* in Scotland at the moment? Is everyone kissing random strangers in the streets? Sharing soda cans? Holding "Who can shout loudest indoors?" competitions?
No, its an ongoing orgy. Been running for weeks now. Everyone invited.
NEW with @GeorgeWParker: Johnson govt is investigating what legal action can be taken to stop Dominic Cummings from publishing further private information and messages.
But insiders are fearful that acting against Cummings could turn him into a “martyr"
Now there's a case that would have @DavidL off his death bed and back into court. Your Honour, the prosecution contends it is an official secret that Boris is "unfit" to be Prime Minister and that Matt Hancock is "fucking hopeless".
Unfortunately I have not been offered the gig. It does seem to me that Cummings has taken pictures of lots of things that should at least be confidential and quite possibly a good deal more secret than that. It really is inconceivable that someone in such a position will not have a confidential information provision in his contract. This really shouldn't be that difficult in law. The court of public opinion is, of course, another matter.
New York is the pits when it comes to running elections. Because it's so heavily Democrat noone cares come Presidential time.
Most of the NYC Board of Elections are Democratic placeholders. I doubt that helps much. NYS has historically been rather conservative with its election law and procedures. Pre-COVID we didn't even have no-excuse absentee ballots or early voting. We have both now, but maybe those innovations should have been allowed to bed in for a few cycles before trying RCV.
NEW with @GeorgeWParker: Johnson govt is investigating what legal action can be taken to stop Dominic Cummings from publishing further private information and messages.
But insiders are fearful that acting against Cummings could turn him into a “martyr"
Now there's a case that would have @DavidL off his death bed and back into court. Your Honour, the prosecution contends it is an official secret that Boris is "unfit" to be Prime Minister and that Matt Hancock is "fucking hopeless".
Unfortunately I have not been offered the gig. It does seem to me that Cummings has taken pictures of lots of things that should at least be confidential and quite possibly a good deal more secret than that. It really is inconceivable that someone in such a position will not have a confidential information provision in his contract. This really shouldn't be that difficult in law. The court of public opinion is, of course, another matter.
While...... and IANAL ....... I agree that it ought to be inconceivable etc, I wonder who drew up his contract. If, TBH, there ever was a written one.
Watching a Telegraph piece on YouTube about Bately and Spen
A Muslim says to camera "Starmer lost Muslim votes when he said Israel had a right to defend itself"
"to defend itself" .......
How can Labour keep its disparate wings together ....
Labour have taken its BAME voters for granted, and part of that issue is not engaging with (as an example) the British Pakistani communities that such attitudes are not acceptable. The other observations that get hurled as abuse of Labour like voter fraud often come out of practices such as a family patriarch voting for the whole family.
Anti-semitism is the acceptable form of racism apparently. We need to stamp it out wherever it comes from, and that means Labour expelling the anti-semites still riddling their ranks and telling certain BAME voters that their views are reprehensible.
Better for Labour to have told it straight to this group of voters and lose with dignity than crawl in Galloway's gutter and still lose.
The problem is a very high percentage of Labour seats today have large Muslim populations, so it would be difficult for the party to use that sort of blunt language without risking maybe 20% of their constituencies.
That's what having principles and values mean. Sometimes using blunt language to those who don't share them or are opposed to them.
Who will these Muslims vote for when Labour make it clear they don’t want them? I think I’d rather see Labour keep them on board, win power, Sir Keir become PM and rejoin the EU than risk the consequences of what might happen
If Labour becomes homophobic, anti-Semitic and misogynistic to keep such voters on board, why would that be better? What would be the point of voting Labour then? And wouldn't it risk losing loads of other voters who think that one of the points of Labour is not to display or appease such ghastly views?
If they leave Labour it opens up the can of worms that is an Islamic political party, and that doesn’t bear thinking about
Comments
As I say, what was taking thoselaggards of the past so long? So far we have the laughable argument from RobD that there was 'no rush'
It might be much more borderline on costs - I don't have expertise in safety, but I've worked on some NICE economic evaluations. If Pfizer £15/dose so £30/course then it's crudely £67k per your 0.045% hospitalisation avoided (assumes ~100% vaccine protection from hospitalisation, so actually a bit worse than that, particularly if hospitalisaton due to vaccination). Not cost effective from a healthcare perspective in this group (unless there's a significant long term Covid effect on quality of life, which is possible or around 1/20 admitted die, which is unlikely - assuming that 1/20 eash lose 70 full health equivalent life years and assuming my mental maths is right!). But if it prevents future waves and gets to herd immunity, then with the wider societal costs, then maybe (but it may not be necesary to prevent future waves).
The second bit will play a part in whether it gets offered. If it's necessary to effectively end the pandemic (in UK), restricitons and get businesses back to normal then it's a no-brainer, economically. On purely health grounds, it would probably be better spent working through some of the care backlogs. Or it might be better spent on enanced schooling for these kids.
I am pleased we have a decent manager.
Others aren't.
My Everton groups are in open warfare reminiscent of the Eastern Front.
With slightly less compassion and appreciation of the alternative POV.
Essentially, all the steps that are normally carried out in vaccine creation were carried out. Instead of performing them in a waterfall style manner (one following on from the previous), they were done (partially) in parallel.
This massively increased the costs of testing the vaccine and creating the production infrastructure.
"Waste everything except time"
Andrew Lilico
@andrew_lilico
·
1h
What are you all *doing* in Scotland at the moment? Is everyone kissing random strangers in the streets? Sharing soda cans? Holding "Who can shout loudest indoors?" competitions?
Had to be taken out a a State School as they could not prevent bullying when young. Then went to an independent day school.
The weekly boarding made her in terms of taking responsibility for herself. Just graduated.
1 Money
2 Urgency
3 Prevalence
1 - Throw mor money at it and you can do it quicker - more people working on it, more people doing the assessments, more on production, more jabs in arms quicker
2 - Prioritised by companies as potentially a big money-spinner, also with government funding. Also prioritised by regulators for approvals
3 - Most important - in a trial you need enough events (cases, infections) to be able to make a valid statistical comparison between vaccine and control arms. In most trials of vaccines at least you're not going to have something that is sufficiently prevalent and enough pathogen-naive people to get to the required cases quickly. You either need many more enrolled or more time. With the early Covid trials, the population was largely unexposed and there were plenty of infections
(3 is easier for treatments where you take an affected group, but for vaccines you have to wait for people to get infected, unless you go for challenge trials)
It then follows that the label anti vaxxer must be applicable to anybody who opines the balance of risks for teenagers and children is at least debatable.
And that means you are calling members of the government's own vaxx committee anti-vaxxers.
An argument is that with vaccination, you can guarantee ending disruption to schools, for example.
In the region of £130 million on Pfizer to do the 12-18 age groups
https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-organization-and-cfo-allen-weisselberg-expected-to-be-charged-thursday-11625060765
So, it isn't just a case of "the scientists deciding".
Mind you, he just got an A in A level philosophy mock, so is not typical.
The risk of catching COVID is rising. At some point the lines will cross.
https://www.standard.co.uk/comment/sajid-javid-end-covid-restrictions-matt-hancock-affair-b943388.html
The short term effects of vaccination on teenagers and children have been proven to be negligible relative to covid, and the long term effects can be discounted because no example of long term vaccination effects exists in history.
The logical corollary of that is that there are anti-vaxxers on the government's own.....er......vaxx committee.
And yet as we are now accepting on here, it is by no means an obviously good idea to vaccinate such young people.
What is a vast worldwide clinical trial may end in 2023.
Even after that, the vaccine manufacturers are unlikely to carry insurance. Governments have indemnified them. (Good luck suing the government if you become ill 10 days after being jabbed because some of the side effects won't be rare enough to prove that it was the vaccine.)
They only got EUA because pharma didn't want any cheap, generic, safe drugs developed 40-45 years ago competing with its $25-50 vaccines.
There's also the one that we develop a new flu vaccine every year.
That is not the argument here.
And Gillick competence will kick in for many younger than him.
if 100% of 12-18 get COVID, then on the available evidence, vaccination would reduce the amount of harm by orders of magnitude
if 0% of 12-18 get COVID, then on the available evidence, vaccination would be more harmful - since there would be zero risk from COVID.
Somewhere between 0% and 100% is the number of 12-18s likely to get COVID in the next 6 months, say. The size of that number effects the judgement.
The virus that's going around is a variant (or collection of variants) of SARS. (It really should have been called "a new SARS variant" in government messaging from the start.) Work was done on developing a vaccine against the first big variant of SARS (now known as "SARSCoV1") which came to nothing. Or at least it didn't result in a vaccine. Yes, recently there was a rush. A great freaking big rush. That shouldn't be a controversial statement.
Hopefully he'll be eating humble pie on Friday morning.
My only question would be, is the decision a little premature - i.e. has it been offered yet? If not then the evidence available at the point of offering may lead to a different decision (changes in prevalence, more evidence on risks of Covid versus vaccine in this age group). Of course, it's also fine to come to a philosphical/theoretical position now and re-evaluate later when the question actually arises.
My children are much younger - my wife and I would have to make the decision for them, as with other childhood vaccinations (and at this point I'd need more evidence for that age group). But if I had an older child competent to make their own decisions I'd not push them either way.
In my far from complete understanding, there is still merit in jabbing the under 18s but we may as well concentrate finite resources on where the balance of risks and rewards is most favourable.
Its not simple, and trying to make it black or white is just stupid.
I don't know where the non vaxxed teenager's hospitalisation risk is vs double AZ jabbed mind (Both are very low), perhaps 50 years old ?
Could be 50+ booster, 18 - 50 2 doses and single mRNA for teenagers.
https://twitter.com/Redistrict/status/1410242552985497600
Making vaccines compulsory for the very young is not supported by the evidence, I think. But there's a reasonable case for offering the vaccine.
Coronavirus latest news: Stop daily case updates as virus no longer 'important cause of mortality', says JCVI scientist
“It is well past time to panic about infection rates and to publish them obsessively. Even hospitalisation rates are increasingly misleading as better therapy reduces length of stay. Covid is now a long way from being an important cause of mortality,” the Nervtag scientist tweeted.
(Telegraph)
Down to 6%.
Could the worm turn just at the right time for Javid?
Hugo Gye
@HugoGye
·
2h
Replying to
@HugoGye
Starmer spokesman confirms Labour backs the current hospital isolation rules: "I think everybody across the country including Ollie's family understand the need for people to make sacrifices in the national effort."
Quite incredible.
Look upthread if you want to see who is making it black and white.
https://www.drugs.com/sfx/ivermectin-side-effects.html#
I'm willing to bet that the current approved dosage would prove every bit as 'dangerous' as the AZN vaccine.And of course the dosage required for antiviral activity is likely higher than the currently approved amount.
As for efficacy, whether it exists at all is a coin toss.
For me, the question is more should we be giving any jabs we have available to older people in nations that don't have supply first, e.g. Ukraine, or most of Africa. which would do far more for reducing total global deaths, but I get UK taxpayers have paid for the doses so understand why Uk has priority.
But ether way,
1) we need to open up fully, including abending or massifly scaling back the restrictions in schools.
2) 16 and 17 Year olds can decide for themselves.
3) parents of younger kids should decide.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/06/30/new-era-transport-convertible-flying-car-completes-first-airport/
See here for proper balanced view on how and why the Covid vaccine is safe, and as safe as other medicines that have taken longer to develop: https://www.immunology.org/coronavirus/connect-coronavirus-public-engagement-resources/how-covid19-vaccine-developed-fast.
Please stop talking bollox. It is very dangerous bollox. Careless talk really can cost lives.
I'm more concerned with the safety of large scale use of what in particular circumstances is quite a nasty chemical.
Fortunate, really. Cases would look really scary in the pre-vaccine era. The 20,000-odd cases in England the other day would result in c. 2,000 hospitalisations a week later and c. 600 deaths ten days after that.
We'll likely see well under 400 hospitalisations for that and under 40 deaths.
Odds are that a decent chunk of those will be vax refusers, as well.
The family support the rules and think they should apply to the SoS for health as well as the little people
SKS question was all about one rule for us and one rule for the little people
Whats even more incredible is PB Tories trying to spin the PMs Westminster bubble comment as compassionate
But all the discussion seems to have been as though that was what's being suggested.
He has evidence of friends who've had the virus. None has been really very sick at all. He also has seen his sibling, 21, bedridden for 2 days with the vaccine. And several similar examples of young people from his cricket club being unwell from the jab.
Add in a very marginal risk of an adverse clotting reaction.
As he will be after all adults and vulnerable children being offered the jab, he feels under no obligation to be sick to protect others who won't take the vaccine.
Therefore, the vaccines being used on the under 18's, given the above, is immoral and indefensible when they could be going to vulnerable people in poor countries.
I appreciate people are scared and want everything to be fine but we need to keep critical debate. That way people are forced to think and rethink their positions. It's also how science works.
I was clear Starmer had a good PMQ's, and Boris's mumbling was embarrassing
Ladies and gentlemen, can I bring to your attention conscription? That is, forcing the young to take time out from education and life, to get trained as a soldier and to go into battle for theit country, so an external menace can be defeated.
It seems to me that CV19 is not a million miles different to a war. A pathogen has come to disrupt our lived and potentially to kill and to injure, and to affect our way of life.
A small number of people (might) bear a slightly higher risk from vaccination than they would do from the disease. But in return everyone benefits from stamping out the disease completely.
We all agree conscription is necessary under certain circumstances, why should it not be the same with vaccination?
https://airandspace.si.edu/collection-objects/fulton-airphibian-fa-3-101/nasm_A19600127000
https://www.eaa.org/eaa-museum/museum-collection/aircraft-collection-folder/1949-taylor-aerocar---n4994p
Their immune systems were primed against something.
That's it - nothing more, nothing less.
If it was going to cause the immune system to regularly misfire, then that would likely be seen by now. How much evidence of "no harm" do you require? We didn't say "oh, this polio vaccine's great, but just in case it causes problems in 20 years, we better stay away from it."
What is the *mechanism* by which you think these vaccines will cause long term issues?
16+ clearly they should decide, 12 and under clearly the parents should. 13-15 I am not sure about, as a kid I would have thought it my body, my decision. Perhaps in between there could be a recommended status, which would be the default if parents and child cannot agree.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16510534/
External threat. People dying. That kind of thing.
NEW THREAD
It plots 7-day rolling Cases, Admissions and Deaths on a Base-2 log scale. It is intended to make all 3 measures comparable more easily.
What is clear is that the rate of increase of admissions is significantly less than it was in the last wave (angle of grey lines). Also when we reached 16K daily cases in the last wave, there were twice as many hospitalisations and deaths were over 4 times bigger (vertical black lines are comparisons).
Hospitalisations are also looking like they may be slowing their rate of increase and deaths remain very low. Another week's worth of data should hopefully show conclusively where we are. At the moment though I think it looks very positive that the link between cases->admissions->deaths has been substantially reduced. Cases in my view is no longer the key metric.
Should we stop reporting cases? If we just showed the number of hospitalisations and deaths each day then I think people would be much more relaxed. However, it is still very useful data and I support open access to this sort of data.
The answer to contrarian's question is that the volume of clinical data generated for the Covid vaccines far outstrips that for the majority of other vaccines, and that is what demonstrates their safety and efficacy.
I'm still interested to hear what he thinks any 'long term side effects' might be, and how they might come about.
The only long term effects vaccines are likely to have are on the immune system (which is, of course what they are intended to do). And unlike the virus itself, they don't persist in the body for any length of time.
Some factors - the availability of volunteers, and the prevalence of the virus, are beyond the control of the investigators.