Coronavirus

[french frank]

PTo that extent I sympathise with Marr et al. as operating within this framework, they are emasculated when confronted by the bare-faced. The regulatory framework of broadcasting hasn’t kept up with the new post-truth world. It’s like observing the rules of cricket when one side is bowling grenades with the pins out.

Sign up Jonathan Swan of Axios. Though Donald Trump was admittedly a gift.

[oddoneout]

Ditto - it's eminently plausible that this could yield the least-worst outcome overall.

Providing someone (i.e. vaguely competent scientists) has run the numbers and found this approach to have a reasonable probability of damping down the epidemic faster than any other, then the authorities have a duty to act in the interests of the greatest number and pursue it.

Given that "starting from somewhere else" is not possible, the best could all too easily end up being the enemy of the good otherwise.

So long as the changes are run past the firms making the vaccines who know the most about them at this stage then altering intervals etc is sensible in view of the scale of the issue. What concerns me is a manufacturer saying that efficacy is either unproven or doubtful beyond the recommended 3 week interval between 1st and 2nd jab, but that being set aside for expediency reasons and hoping things will work out. Ditto mix and match especially if accompanied by no record-keeping. Apart from anything else what a waste of valuable(essential IMO) data.
At this stage I'm not high up the list of priorities so with luck and a following wind some of this will have been sorted out by the time it's my turn. I don't have a good history with vaccines and although these ones should remove the risk of the sort of problems I've had in the past, I could do without added disquiet!

[Dave2002]

I also think the policy of delaying the second dose is immanently sensible in the current circumstances.

Without more investigation or knowledge this does, on reflection, seem very dubious. This appears on the face of it to be trial and error, by people who are lacking in expertise, and using the UK population as guinea pigs.Of course there may be a scientific basis for this, but this has not been declared. Without reasonable justification, is this not as unwarranted as someone else’s suggestion to drink or inject bleach?

It is a plausible conjecture that it’ll work, which may bear fruit, but it is untested.

[french frank]

Without more investigation or knowledge this does, on reflection, seem very dubious.

They say it will only happen on "extremely rare occasions", including - astonishingly - when there is no record of which a patient received the first time. I shall make a point of asking when/if I get a first jab.

[johnb]

Without more investigation or knowledge this does, on reflection, seem very dubious. This appears on the face of it to be trial and error, by people who are lacking in expertise, and using the UK population as guinea pigs.Of course there may be a scientific basis for this, but this has not been declared. Without reasonable justification, is this not as unwarranted as someone else’s suggestion to drink or inject bleach?

It is a plausible conjecture that it’ll work, which may bear fruit, but it is untested.

It is worth reading these three reactions to Tony Blair's original suggestion that were published on the Science Media Centre: https://www.sciencemediacentre.org/e...-second-doses/

(The third reaction, from a commercial company, seems mainly concerned with the idea of a single dose, rather than a delayed second dose.)

What concerns me is a manufacture saying that efficacy is either unproven or doubtful beyond the recommended 3 week interval between 1st and 2nd jab

I haven't seen any reports that Pfizer have said that the efficacy is doubtful (i.e. might not work) if the second dose is delayed. As far as I know they have merely stated the fact that there is no data for the efficacy of a single does beyond three weeks. My understanding is that there is indirect evidence from the behaviour of other vaccines.

Again, it is worth reading the reactions of the scientists on the Science Media Centre

[Old Grumpy]

Those of us awaiting imminently our first (Pfizer) vaccination may well be dischuffed that the government are delaying our second (already booked) vaccination (and I am), but perhaps primary vaccination of twice the number of people is preferable at the present time given the infectivity rates of the new variants.

OG

[johnb]

Incidentally ....

As most people know, on the government coronavirus website one can enter a post code to find the infection levels for the relevant MSOA area and underneath that are shown case figures for the local authority.

One can also zoom in on the map to find the infection details for the local authority including the case figures.

However, the two don't agree.

The reason is that map information is based on cases by specimen date, and is for the 7 days ending 5 days prior to the publication date.

The local authority cases shown in the Post Code search are cases by date reported, for the 7 days up to the current date. (However the rate shown is based on cases by specimen date for the 7 days ending 5 days prior.)

(The number of local authority cases shown in the post code search might well provide a rough steer for what the more accurate cases by specimen date will show in a few days time.)

[Simon B]

...but perhaps primary vaccination of twice the number of people is preferable at the present time given the infectivity rates of the new variants.OG

This is the absolute essence of it.

It may be that "you" will actually be at lower risk of getting a bad case of the illness by 2x as many people having a 60% effective vaccine as you being among the x/2 people getting a 90% effective 2-shot. The effect of widespread vaccination is exponential on infection rates. Hopefully. If being vaccinated tends to significantly reduce the risk of infecting others that is. That's the gamble. Lockdowns may be selecting mutations that are more infectious. Lockdowns which tend to be ignored by young people may be selecting for mutations that are better able to infect young people. Who knows? At some point calculated gambles as well as the laws of unintended consequences inevitably influence the course.

[johnb]

This is the absolute essence of it.

It may be that "you" will actually be at lower risk of getting a bad case of the illness by 2x as many people having a 60% effective vaccine as you being among the x/2 people getting a 90% effective 2-shot. The effect of widespread vaccination is exponential on infection rates. Hopefully. If being vaccinated tends to significantly reduce the risk of infecting others that is. That's the gamble. Lockdowns may be selecting mutations that are more infectious. Lockdowns which tend to be ignored by young people may be selecting for mutations that are better able to infect young people. Who knows? At some point calculated gambles as well as the laws of unintended consequences inevitably influence the course.

Is there a source for the 60% figure? I ask because that is much lower than the figures I have seen for the efficacy of the Pfizer vaccine, 15 days after the 1st dose (90% is often quoted in the media but Stephen Evans gives a figure of around 80% in the SMC link I posted) and it is also lower than the 70% quoted for the Oxford vaccine.

(I find the various efficacy figures quoted for the Oxford vaccine very confusing.)

[teamsaint]

Doesn’t matter how effective it is if you are a primary teacher or TA, with full classes returning tomorrow morning, no testing in place, etc etc , because you won’t be getting a jab for bloody ages.
Nice.

[Dave2002]

... but perhaps primary vaccination of twice the number of people is preferable at the present time given the infectivity rates of the new variants.

There are quite a few hopeful assumptions in that as yet unproven strategy.

The strategy of delaying the second vaccination may turn out to be quite a good one, particularly from a public health perspective.

There are still too many unknowns though to have more than a vague certainty of outcomes. Many of us will have (or may decide to anyway) to go on behaving cautiously even if we do have one of the vaccines, so getting measures of effectiveness may turn out to be quite hard.

I’m not against the new strategy per se, but it would be comforting to know if there’s a sound basis for supposing it might work. Otherwise we are being set up for another large scale experiment.

[Simon B]

Is there a source for the 60% figure? I ask because that is much lower than the figures I have seen for the efficacy of the Pfizer vaccine, 15 days after the 1st dose (90% is often quoted in the media but Stephen Evans gives a figure of around 80% in the SMC link I posted) and it is also lower than the 70% quoted for the Oxford vaccine.

(I find the various efficacy figures quoted for the Oxford vaccine very confusing.)

Sorry, that was a hypothetical plucked out of... nowhere... I should be in government or something.

I too am thoroughly confused by the numbers swirling re the Oxford vaccine. Rather naively I've reached the point of hoping someone who knows what they're doing is "across" the data. I suspect the details aren't yet in the public domain as I've not seen any journalists (there are some left, surely) giving a proper, sourced analysis recently. Someone usually has a go even if the actual analysis decays into "Daily Mail Physics" as I like to think of it.

Dave is making a very good point. My settled view is that if you judge yourself/someone close to you to be at significant risk (which in the scale of things still appears to be mediated for most people almost entirely by age) then the only thing you can do is to isolate as much as possible and hope it all blows over.*

*If this sounds glib it's from the perspective of someone responsible for and in a household with a person whose age and health puts them in either #1 or #2 position in the priority list for a vaccine, now presumably to be one dose for the forseeable. The information vacuum here is such that I don't even know whether it is #1 or #2 or have any idea when something will happen, or how we will be informed or expected to manage the practicalities with someone essentially housebound or indeed anything else. The only thing I do know is that our local GP surgery will do the polite equivalent of telling me to #>*^ off if I even so much as try to ask them about it and have a notice to this effect on their website. Our devolved government appears to have gone missing in action recently...

[Nick Armstrong]

the transparently blustering, bumbling, waffling Johnson...

This seems to me to nail Johnson completely:

[BBMmk2]

I think he’s right Nick!

This new South African variant, looks rather worrying.

[oddoneout]

This seems to me to nail Johnson completely:

This is the full article

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/dec/15/boris-johnson-pandemic-britain-christmas-covid

and this is not entirely unconnected

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/jan/01/boris-johnson-victim-emotions