Live data from Hacker News

Pfizer Covid vaccine approved for use next week in UK

bbc.com

121–130 of 766 posts

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

#121
post #101

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.

> Developed country with great logistics. Please don't under-estimate our ability to fuck this up, probably by giving the distribution contracts to a crony.

Scotland seems to be using the Army to help plan the logistics side of things - don't know if this applies to the rest of the UK (I hope it does!):

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/coronavirus-in-scotland-a...

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

#122
post #20

Not sure why the posts asking for vaccine risks are getting downvoted. Pandemrix, the vaccine for swine flu, caused a notable amount of narcolepsy cases in recipients here in FIN (notable here meaning the amount of yearly cases spiked by 3-4x) and as with anything that's taken quick to market there has to be some risk of overlooking some tail events somewhere. It's not an anti-vaccine attitude, just healthy skepticis…

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.

That exact sentiment is the reason for this problem even existing. Peer review and medical journals are by no means exempt from usual human corruptions, and there is absolutely no rational way to say that certain concerns should only be allowed there, and that we should not be able to even discuss them outside of those closed circles.

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

#123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> once its gone, it can no longer have any effect on you. If this is true, then how does it provide protection against COVID19 for more than a few days?

The mRNA itself isn't doing the protection - it's training your immune system to do that for you (in a safe way).

So its effect on the immune system lasts even after it's gone. So if it were to cause any problems (in the immune system, for example), those could also persist after the mRNA is gone. So how exactly is this line of reasoning reassuring?

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

#124
post #70

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?

If a team from the UK had already done it, I would just go ahead and accept their analysis. The US should give emergency approval now, based on the UK approval.

And if it turns out the UK approval process, like so much else of its bureaucracy because of years of austerity cuts, has been under-staffed, under-funded and simply bowed to political pressure?

I wouldn't be so quick to trust anything British right now. We're in a bit of a state.

The only reason we're not the laughing stock of the world right now is because the Americans managed to fuck up even more than us.

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

#125
post #90

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.

I suspect the bulk of the population will receive the 'Oxford' vaccine. It's still going through the approval process but the UK has ordered more of it. I believe the Pfizer vaccine is targeted to front line workers and the clinical vulnerable.

Why? The 'Oxford' vaccine has been pretty shaky. Edit: source: https://www.wired.com/story/the-astrazeneca-covid-vaccine-da...

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

#126
post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That is just not how anti-vaxers work, if you ever talked to one. There is a multitude of problems they can say they found even with an RCT with 100k participants. You are assuming you are talking to a person with years of experience with science and critical thinking. That's not a typical antivaxer.

And if you do talk to a person like that, no press release is a problem for them, they see right through it.

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

#127
post #102
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because the entire subject is so politicised and polarised that even daring to ask a question that might go against the current might get you labeled as a right wing science denier racist (based on the country, different labels might apply). Edit: it's funny that the comment above gets downvoted just for asking a question. Great world we live in. We didn't learn anything from the past. Blaming and shaming gay people…

So, have you stopped beating your wife? See, I "just asked a question".

What a despicable and disgusting message.

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

#128
post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Developed country with great logistics. Please don't under-estimate our ability to fuck this up, probably by giving the distribution contracts to a crony.

Scotland seems to be using the Army to help plan the logistics side of things - don't know if this applies to the rest of the UK (I hope it does!): https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/coronavirus-in-scotland-a...

The Ministry of Defence was heavily involved in the logistics planning and execution for the mobile testing units across England and Wales.

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

#129
post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect the bulk of the population will receive the 'Oxford' vaccine. It's still going through the approval process but the UK has ordered more of it. I believe the Pfizer vaccine is targeted to front line workers and the clinical vulnerable.

Why? The 'Oxford' vaccine has been pretty shaky. Edit: source: https://www.wired.com/story/the-astrazeneca-covid-vaccine-da...

Source? Latest news[1] seem to indicate it's effective.

[1] https://www.bbc.com/news/health-55040635

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

#130
post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Developed country with great logistics. Please don't under-estimate our ability to fuck this up, probably by giving the distribution contracts to a crony.

I'm sure the UK is in the top twenty countries in the world for logistics infrastructure. It's easy to read news stories about your country messing things up, and quietly not read foreign-language media about poorer countries messing things up a lot more by comparison, and get a biased perspective.

The infrastructure, absolutely. A serious road, rail and air network, lots of companies with lots of experience and all the right gear and so on.

Where we fuck up is in the competency of the people in charge of awarding contracts.

Be it Grayling giving millions of pounds to a ferry company with no ferries owned or leased, or indeed any experience at all with ferries (and, wonderfully, with a T&Cs on their website copy-pasted from a pizza delivery site). As a wonderful finale, the government was sued by EuroTunnel because they awarded the contract without going through the proper process (which, of course, would have meant that the drawbacks of a pizza delivery business offering ferries might have been identified); we gave millions to a Ferry company incapable of delivering anything, and then millions to an actual transport company in compensation for breaking the rules on tendering.

Or be it KFC awarding their chicken distribution (despite warnings from people who knew) to a company with no experience in or facilities for cold food distribution, leading to KFC going literally out of business for a couple of weeks because they had no chicken in the stores.

We Brits have a competent infrastructure and the ability for the people in charge to award contracts to entirely the wrong parts of it.

Post reply on HN