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Pfizer Covid vaccine approved for use next week in UK

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Re: Pfizer Covid vaccine approved for use next week in UK

#91
post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aside from hospital workers they're likely to be pretty high on the list, if my understanding is correct.

Heard it was something like this: 1. Long-term care residents/staff 2. Hospital workers 3. Anyone 85+ years old.

So in the UK we have a really good set of expert bodies that put forward reccomendations on these things, the JCVI being the vaccines body. They are every bit as good as the current government are terrible.

Priority ranking is here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/priority-groups-f...

Though this is generic and should change depending on the results on vaccine trials (should there be evidence of differential effectiveness).

Re: Pfizer Covid vaccine approved for use next week in UK

#92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What makes you so confident? If someone gave you the source code to a major software project, even with a large team of highly qualified engineers working as fast as they could, how long would it take to read over the entire thing and be absolutely sure that there were no serious mistakes?

Well for starters, it would be stupid to pipeline the process so that nobody could start reviewing the code until after it was done. Secondly, I don't believe it's a valid analogy because the process of reviewing clinical trial evidence is not similar to the process of reviewing executable code. Thirdly, there is no amount of review that guarantees a lack of mistakes, so it's simply a question of risk tolerance which…

They started rolling review back in October:

https://www.pharmamanufacturing.com/industrynews/2020/uk-reg...

Re: Pfizer Covid vaccine approved for use next week in UK

#93

Serious question: if you're a young person with no health issues, should you even get the vaccine?

Yes we basically need everyone to get it who is willing to get it because we want to eradicate as much of the virus in the population as possible. Also as a society we need to encourage everyone to get the vaccine and do whatever possible to suppress anti-vaccine hysteria, you know the conspiracy theories are already going to go crazy over this I'm sure.

Is there any evidence that the vaccine reduces your risk of getting and spreading the disease? I’ve only heard that it decreases the severity.

Re: Pfizer Covid vaccine approved for use next week in UK

#95
post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aside from hospital workers they're likely to be pretty high on the list, if my understanding is correct.

Heard it was something like this: 1. Long-term care residents/staff 2. Hospital workers 3. Anyone 85+ years old.

UK Gov originally published this as the priority interim list [1] -

* older adults’ resident in a care home and care home workers

* all those 80 years of age and over and health and social care workers

* all those 75 years of age and over

* all those 70 years of age and over

* all those 65 years of age and over

* high-risk adults under 65 years of age

* moderate-risk adults under 65 years of age

* all those 60 years of age and over

* all those 55 years of age and over

* all those 50 years of age and over

* rest of the population (priority to be determined)

[1] https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/priority-groups-f...

Re: Pfizer Covid vaccine approved for use next week in UK

#96

I had COVID-19 early in the year, and so did my Wife (not sure about my Daughter, harder to tell with kids). I would really like to know whether I should get the vaccine or not? All the info that's out there says that immunity to C19 is temporary, so a vaccine after having gone through it doesn't seem redundant. Does anyone know if there's been any research on effects of the vaccine on the people who got C19 and reco…

Disclaimer: Not a doctor.

I find it hard to believe they haven't covered this with their phrase 3 trials, where the intent is to ensure that there is no risk at broad scale (in addition to effectiveness), and they pause the trial if anyone dies for unknown reason (etc) -- I definitely remember the trials pausing briefly while they investigated[1], and then continuing once resolved.

I also saw a study a few weeks ago where they found people with antibodies 6-8 months later[2][3]. Suggesting longer term immunity.

[1]: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/14/health/covid-clinical-tri... [2}: https://www.sciencealert.com/evidence-grows-favouring-corona... [3]: https://www.businessinsider.com/long-term-coronavirus-immuni...

Re: Pfizer Covid vaccine approved for use next week in UK

#97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well for starters, it would be stupid to pipeline the process so that nobody could start reviewing the code until after it was done. Secondly, I don't believe it's a valid analogy because the process of reviewing clinical trial evidence is not similar to the process of reviewing executable code. Thirdly, there is no amount of review that guarantees a lack of mistakes, so it's simply a question of risk tolerance which…

They started rolling review back in October: https://www.pharmamanufacturing.com/industrynews/2020/uk-reg...

That's good (though it should have been earlier) but makes the approval delay even less acceptable.

Edit: Actually FDA Fast Track was approved in July. There should be no surprises for the FDA in this submission. https://www.pfizer.com/news/press-release/press-release-deta...

Re: Pfizer Covid vaccine approved for use next week in UK

#98

In terms of rollout. UK is the ideal country to be the first: 1. Heavily impacted by Covid-19. 2. Centralised health care system makes it easier to compare results and efficiency. E.g. it's UK which figured out that dexamethasone is efficient against Covid https://www.who.int/news/item/16-06-2020-who-welcomes-prelim... 3. Developed country with great logistics.

To your point 3, Belgium may well have great logistics but the UK government has knowingly undermined and compromised UK logistics (the whole industry is crying out) as part of their Brexit process.

Maybe there are extraordinary arrangements being made for the vaccine, but it won't be because of a good prevailing open-market logistics situation.

Edit: here's the Road Haulage Association warning of severe supply chain disruption https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-54021421

Edit 2, since responses are unexpected:

> HMRC's assumption is that there'll be 11 million new customs declarations a year on goods going from GB to NI as of January 1

https://twitter.com/adampayne26/status/1334073058815074304

Re: Pfizer Covid vaccine approved for use next week in UK

#99
post #32
post #5

How did they approve it that fast? Is the approval process so different and so much more efficient than the one in the EU or USA? Was it extremely rushed to make sure to get doses before they have to compete with other countries for limited supply? I'm pretty curious now. Let's hope for the best, i.e. a good vaccine, a good process and no trust problems, the latter because at least it feels rushed.

I mean once you have the data it shouldn't be exactly rocket science to check if the trial was done well. Given how clear the data is as far as one has heard until now the decision should be a no-brainer. You already had the trial protocol since several months, so that could've been checked in advance. I'm actually rather wondering what's taking the EU so long.

It is not a trivial process, and these are ferrociously complex. Safety, Quality and Efficacy - each are hard to check. From how people are categorised in trials, how missing data rules are implemented, to how it is manufactured and the stability data. It doesn't take a year for no good reason. Yes this has been sped up massively, but steps have been abbreviated - let's not kid ourselves.

If interested, the FDA release all documentation - search for Drugs@FDA and find a recent medicine, and see just how much review it gets. You'll be surprised!

Re: Pfizer Covid vaccine approved for use next week in UK

#100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Healthy skepticism belong in peer-reviews, in revisions of medical journals. Skepticism in the public space fosters anti-vaccine sentiments, adds to the already growing anti-vax movements and puts in risk the vulnerable in our society as they require shielding and for the rest of us to do our part.

I find your perspective extremely disturbing, and believe it empowers anti-vaxxers more than anything else.

sorry, but anti-vaxxers are empowered by doubtful and propagandistic press releases...when you have solid, scientific and independently peer-reviewed data the only thing that anti-vaxxers can do is be silent and accept them.
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