Vaccines - Covid 19

[Dannie Boy]

Within the EU countries have made their own decision whether to continue or stop using the AZ vaccine - right or wrong, but the EU has issued threats about stopping export of vaccines produced within the EU to outside countries (including the UK), so they act as a conglomerate when it suits them - i.e. it is not a country decision to ban exports but a central decision!!

[caller]

Within the EU countries have made their own decision whether to continue or stop using the AZ vaccine - right or wrong, but the EU has issued threats about stopping export of vaccines produced within the EU to outside countries (including the UK), so they act as a conglomerate when it suits them - i.e. it is not a country decision to ban exports but a central decision!!

Yes, you can't have it both ways by being lofty and stating aha, it's not the EU, but then have the EU presidency still using it's colonial mindset to punish 'dissenters'. It's just a rabid dog eat dog mentality. And even Germany has finally entered the fray by buying the vaccine directly and by-passing EU processes.

[Bamboo Grove]

AZ jabs are discontinued in Finland for a period of time at the moment. Again, IMO, it is not politics, it's better being safe than letting unresearched things happen. And again, I've had the first of the AZ jabs already. Not an EU thing, of course the haters will hate, nothing new there.

[2/cb]

There’s been no mention of any blood clots for the Pfizer vaccine - is that because there haven’t been any reported, or is it just being ignored to discredit the Astra Zeneca vaccine?

The incidents of serious blood clots within 30 days of first vaccination is 20-30 per million for both the AZ and Phizer. This rate of illness is about what should be expected in the general population not receiving the vaccine.

[pharvey]

AZ jabs are discontinued in Finland for a period of time at the moment. Again, IMO, it is not politics, it's better being safe than letting unresearched things happen. And again, I've had the first of the AZ jabs already. Not an EU thing, of course the haters will hate, nothing new there.

Perhaps not politics in Finland - as always, they are to their own and fair play. Certainly political when it comes to Macron and Merkel, and have to say Ursula Von Der Leyen has gone... well, shall we say I'm no longer a fan.

I'm certainly not a "hater" of the EU (and unlike others will not use the Brexit argument), but the political BS that is being played at the moment is putting thousands of lives at risk.... As is not providing the AstraZeneca jab - the pro's FAR outweigh the cons.

[STEVE G]

I'm certainly not a "hater" of the EU (and unlike others will not use the Brexit argument), but the political BS that is being played at the moment is putting thousands of lives at risk.... As is not providing the AstraZeneca jab - the pro's FAR outweigh the cons.

Yes, that´s exactly what the EU, through the EMA has been saying for several days now:

EMA ‘convinced’ Astrazeneca vaccine benefits outweigh risks
https://www.euractiv.com/section/corona ... igh-risks/
16 March

COVID-19 Vaccine AstraZeneca: benefits still outweigh the risks despite possible link to rare blood clots with low blood platelets
https://www.ema.europa.eu/en/news/covid ... lood-clots
18 March

[caller]

Of course the action being proposed by the EU threatening to halt vaccines coming to the UK is about politics. Specifically, Merkel and Macron having to look tough for their electorates, due to upcoming elections, where they or their parties are struggling in the polls. Not to mention the post Brexit bitterness of some, where Britain was meant to fail on everything and hasn't.

Why else has Von Der Leyen gone against the personal commitment she gave to Johnson that there will be no more threats of supplies to the UK being affected? Simple, the result of the elections in Germany with Macron facing the same fate.

So once again, the EU is split on this proposal, understandably so. Who will buy from their vaccine plants in future if at a political whim, orders can't be fulfilled. Not to mention if the UK stops sending what's needed to put the vaccine in, although it has said it won't do that.

The EU is in a mess of it's own making once again because of multi-layered over politicised and bureaucratised levels of administration, where one hand is tied behind its back, whilst the other is trying to find out what it is meant to be doing and once it finds out, then scrambles around trying to discover whose authority they need. What a farcial mess. Not haters, but exasperation of the stupidity of the people at the heart of the EU.

Just the other week Germany was expressing concern about Italy and the EU blocking a shipment of vaccine to Australia. Here's what they had to say: Bernd Lange, the German MEP who chairs the European parliament’s trade committee, wrote on Twitter: “Pandora’s box opened. Mistake. Carte blanche for imitators. Could have fatal consequences, eg on supply chains. Prelude to global battle over Covid-19 vaccines? Escalation inevitable.”

The EU leaders should hang their head in shame.

[pharvey]

Who will buy from their vaccine plants in future if at a political whim, orders can't be fulfilled. Not to mention if the UK stops sending what's needed to put the vaccine in, although it has said it won't do that.

Another major point IMHO that get's ignored in most quarters - the UK not only ordered (and paid for) vaccines far earlier than the EU and others, but also invested huge amounts into the development and manufacturing of the Covid-19 vaccine(s). I believe we are honouring any requirements from our side, so why not visa-versa with "others"?

[handdrummer]

AZ jabs are discontinued in Finland for a period of time at the moment. Again, IMO, it is not politics, it's better being safe than letting unresearched things happen. And again, I've had the first of the AZ jabs already. Not an EU thing, of course the haters will hate, nothing new there.

Perhaps not politics in Finland - as always, they are to their own and fair play. Certainly political when it comes to Macron and Merkel, and have to say Ursula Von Der Leyen has gone... well, shall we say I'm no longer a fan.

I'm certainly not a "hater" of the EU (and unlike others will not use the Brexit argument), but the political BS that is being played at the moment is putting thousands of lives at risk.... As is not providing the AstraZeneca jab - the pro's FAR outweigh the cons.

If Macron lose the election it will be to Marie LePen, the Donald Trump of France.

[PeteC]

If they (airlines) do make it (vaccination) mandatory, then we’ll be stuck here this year as I doubt we’ll be able to get vaccinated?

We're going to see private organizations here offering vaccinations in the not too distance future. I think many expat/retirees will use those sources, and perhaps have a selection of vaccine manufacturers.

[PeteC]

Covid vaccines: Why some Americans are choosy about their jab

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-56410179

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America has three vaccines approved for distribution, and now people are getting choosy about which they want.

All three have been shown to be effective at preventing Covid-19 disease and, crucially, hospital admissions and death - and health officials have said the best vaccine is the one you're offered.

Still, there appears to be a preference growing for the Pfizer and Moderna jabs over the Johnson & Johnson option.

In early March, Detroit mayor Mike Duggan rejected the Johnson & Johnson vaccine for city residents, suggesting that the other two jabs available in the US were superior.

"I am going to do everything I can to make sure the residents of the City of Detroit get the best," he said in a press conference.

After widespread outcry from the public health community, the mayor did an about-face, saying he had "full confidence" that the jab was safe and effective.

But like Mr Duggan, some Americans have also shown concerns about the Johnson & Johnson vaccine and its overall efficacy rates - even though health officials have cautioned those numbers don't tell the whole story.

Some say they'd rather delay their vaccination than take Johnson & Johnson at all, potentially throwing a wrench into the distribution plans of community health officials.

"I had an appointment for a vaccine this week, and I cancelled it because I heard they were giving out Johnson & Johnson. I'm not taking [that vaccine] at all," one Washington DC resident told the BBC.

Now, health officials like Dr Michele Andrasik are trying to reassure Americans that any authorised vaccine offered to them is a good one to take.

"On one hand, people are excited that there's just one shot [for Johnson & Johnson], and on the other, there's a lot of confusion with regard to what the efficacy results actually say and does this mean it's not as good," Dr Andrasik, senior staff scientist for the Vaccine and Infectious Disease Division at Fred Hutch, told the BBC.

In February, US regulators formally approved the single-shot Johnson & Johnson coronavirus vaccine - the latest to get the green light.

Unlike Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, which use new mRNA vaccine technology and require two shots, the Johnson & Johnson vaccine uses a common cold virus that has been engineered to make it harmless.

It then safely carries part of the coronavirus's genetic code into the body. This is enough for the body to recognise the threat and then learn to fight coronavirus.

President Joe Biden has shown confidence in the vaccine. This month, he announced that the US will order 100 million more doses of Johnson & Johnson, doubling the amount available to Americans.

Dr Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, has said that all the vaccines available in the US were good vaccines, and stressed that the Johnson & Johnson jab is "not the weaker vaccine".

The concern comes down varying to efficacy data released from clinical trials - but those figures aren't all they appear to be, say experts.

Health officials have stressed that the most important statistic in fighting the pandemic is that all three vaccines have 100% prevention of hospital admissions and death from the virus.

The Pfizer and Moderna drugs were also tested before newer, more contagious variants were widespread, making a difference in trials.

"They were not compared head-to-head. They were compared under different circumstances," Dr Fauci has said.

Additionally, the CDC explains that all the vaccines are more effective than the annual flu shot.

"The bottom line is that Johnson, Moderna and Pfizer are all incredibly effective at preventing severe disease progression, hospitalisation, winding up in the ICU or on ventilation, or death," says Dr Andrasik.

Another positive of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, community health advocates say, is that it is the only single-shot vaccine available in the US.

It may also be more convenient when it comes to distribution - especially in harder-to-reach places like some poor or rural regions. But there is concern that sending just that vaccine to those areas might increase stigma.

"Equity involves choice," says Dr Andrasik.

"So, if you only have one choice and you are a disenfranchised population, I think that fuels the idea of inequity, uncertainty and questioning of why we only have this one choice."

She adds: "I think that all the vaccines should be available for everyone. I think the rationale of sending Johnson & Johnson to rural [and poorer] communities is because of access to care."

Community leaders and health professionals like Dr Andrasik are making efforts to spread awareness about the vaccine and combat misinformation.

When over half a million people have died from Covid in the US, "as soon as it's my turn, I will take whatever vaccine is available to me at that time", she says.

What are other concerns?

The Johnson & Johnson vaccine was also recently in the news after the US Conference of Catholic Bishops - which represents the church in the US - and others expressed "moral concerns" with the jab.

The concern is over how it is produced with abortion-derived cell lines - cells taken in the 1980s "originally isolated from fetal tissue, some of which were originally derived from an aborted fetus" - like a number of other vaccines available today.

Johnson & Johnson used a similar method in developing its Ebola vaccine - and no Covid-19 vaccine contains human tissue of any kind.

The conference advised that, given a choice, Catholics should take an alternate vaccine.

The advice given by the US conference seemed to contradict the Vatican's own stance, which is that such vaccines are "morally acceptable".

Other Catholic leaders have come out to reject the idea that church members should avoid this vaccine.

In Connecticut, the Archbishop of Hartford and other local clergy declared in a statement that all residents "should feel free in good conscience to receive any of the vaccines currently available ...for the sake of their own health and the common good".

While many other vaccines, such as those used for chicken pox and rubella, were developed similarly, the latest concerns from Catholic leaders for the Johnson & Johnson vaccine has added to scepticism among some Americans.

Johnson & Johnson isn't the only vaccine facing concerns. Oxford-AstraZeneca - which the US is considering authorising - has been suspended in more than a dozen European countries over concerns with blood clots.

The EU's medicine regulator has since come out saying that the vaccine is "safe and effective" and Germany, France, Italy and Spain have said they would resume using the jab.

[HHTel]

Opinion: Thailand’s vaccine acquisition programme may be unpopular but it is ‘correct’

The first reason that our vaccine strategy is correct is that our national public health program has done a remarkable job containing the coronavirus pandemic. If one can choose one place to be during the Covid-10 pandemic, many people would choose to be in Thailand. That is because of the lower number of infections, the low mortality rate, and a population that has embraced the advise of public health officials.

This is not a coincidence but it is the culmination of decades of hard work not only in planning by the fine men and women of the public health ministry but hard lessons learned during the SARs, Malaria, and other epidemics that have struck our country.

What that means is that unlike the EU, the UK, and the United States, the acquisition of vaccines is not make or break for the country. It means that we have a lot more leeway and lag time between vaccine manufacturing and administration. Not being able to gain access to vaccines immediately will not hamper any national effort and will not result in a significantly higher number of casualties.

While I have no opinions on the politics of choosing the two vaccines in question, what is clear right now is that vaccine acquisition is currently expensive and it is a seller’s market. Because of the shortages seen around the globe, prices are at a premium and demand currently exceeds supplies.

That will not be the case by the end of the year. The United States looks set to inoculate their population by October, the UK by August and the EU somewhere in between. That means that by the end of the year, supplies will exceed demands and drop down the prices.

Because of our successful public health campaigns, that means that we will be able to pick and choose other vaccines to compliment the roll out of doses from Siam Bioscience.

So in that opinion, because Thailand is so clever at controlling the virus, vaccinations are not important so we'll wait for the prices to drop!!!

https://www.thaienquirer.com/25555/opin ... s-correct/

[hhinner]

And it's been said in another thread that vaccines are not the be all and end all in Thailand because the authorities have controlled the spread so well. Which allows them to wait until the rest of the world have been vaccinated and they can enjoy the drop in vaccine prices.

Meanwhile, it's starting to get out of control. Vaccination has already, in a short time, proven to have reduced infections, hospitalisations and deaths.

Not looking good.

Will there be a drop in prices? The OxAZ vaccine is supposedly being sold at cost already. Then there'll possibly be new updates to vaccines as virus mutations occur. Pharma will probably be profiting from this for quite some time.

[sateeb]

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics

'Greed' and 'capitalism' helped UK's vaccines success, says PM

Boris Johnson has told a private meeting of Tory MPs that the success of the UK's Covid vaccine programme was because of "capitalism" and "greed".

But sources said the prime minister had "very insistently" withdrawn his comments straight after making them during a Zoom call with backbenchers.

The remarks were not connected to the EU row over vaccine supply, they added.

A government source said the PM was referring to the profit motive driving companies to develop new products.

The PM also reportedly praised work by large drug companies during the pandemic.

The prime minister's full remarks, which first appeared in the Sun newspaper, were reported to be: "The reason we have the vaccine success is because of capitalism, because of greed, my friends."


Looks like Boris is taking a leaf out of Gordon Gekko's credo.

[handdrummer]

The real PM is the person who styles Boris's hair.