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Pfizer Covid vaccine approved for use next week in UK

bbc.com

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

#161

Post by waihtis »

Arkhaine_kupo wrote: post #149
waihtis wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think anti-vaxx and other fringe groups are more driven by distrust in society, and by denying discussion to be had in the first place will further build anti-societal silos. It's a difficult problem, because inevitably there will be harm initially if you allow free discussion. But over time the harm will be less in comparison to complete shutdown of any public conversation about the vaccines. If the anti-vaxxers d…

There are several problems with that, and they can be seen online already. 1) It is much easier to spread misinformation than to collect facts and spread real data 2) Mistrust is insidious and spreads, allowing anti-vaxers then goes into other forms of anti institutional ideologies. 3) Herd immunity. If some kid has leukimia and cannot get vaccinated, he survives thanks to everyone else being vaccinated. Some 30 year…

> 3) Herd immunity. If some kid has leukimia and cannot get vaccinated, he survives thanks to everyone else being vaccinated. Some 30 year old reactionary being an anti-vaxxer and getting covid and surviving it would be ok if he was not a vector of infection to the most vulnerable in society.

100% true, I was not thinking far enough on this.

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

#162

Post by Arkhaine_kupo »

Erlich_Bachman wrote: post #122
Arkhaine_kupo wrote: post #25

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.

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.

> Peer review and medical journals are by no means exempt from usual human corruptions

Individual instances can be found, and errors do happen. However the idea that the biggest pharma companies, integrated by incredibly talented and hardworking people, and every safety institution (The american FDA, the EU security council etc) are all so compromised as to miss real problems and purposefully endanger the population is in my humble opinion absurd.

What is the societal advantage on letting a baker share his uninformed opinion on epidemiology? Why let software engineers discuss the safety standards of the medical field? A ton of the situations and problems are heavily skewed to high technical knowledge of narrow field.

I have no idea about how many volunteers are a good number to run a vaccine experiment, I have no idea what a good control group vaccine looks like or why use HepB and not measles. Me sharing my opinions on this topic only pollutes the conversation when I do not have the background knowledge to form an opinion on it.

If you look for information on this topics it would be much better for society if my blog is not there and there is information from actual doctors and epidemiologists talking about it.

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

#163

Post by quietbritishjim »

mystcb wrote: post #95
newguy1234 wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

At first I missed NHS staff on the list; it's tucked in the second bullet point as part of "health and social care workers". A footnote attached to it says:

> The final decision on the prioritisation for health and social care workers will be dependent on vaccine characteristics and the epidemiology at the start of any programme.

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

#164

Post by throwaway_pdp09 »

string wrote: post #150
EliRivers wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 cop…

I know it's guaranteed internet points to deride the current government, and the ferry thing is/was despicable, but I think it's highly unlikely they're going to put KFC in charge of logistical operations for the vaccine rollout.

That's a deliberate misinterpretation of what was said.

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

#165

Post by stunt »

spaceman_2020 wrote: post #46

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

Even a doctor can't answer that without having access to your medical documents.

So get advise from your doctor. Perhaps it depends on your "health issues". And, don't look for an answer from the internet anytime soon.

I assume it depends on your condition. If you are lucky, they have tested it on people with similar conditions and there is data for it. Otherwise, they may still be able to measure the risk. If your doctor suggests that there is a risk because of your condition, then you have to calculate the risk of not taking it as well. How much risk is there for you with the vaccine? How long can you keep yourself safe from COVID19. That depends on your interactions with other people, your job, and people around you etc.

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

#166

Post by FractalParadigm »

string wrote: post #150
EliRivers wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 cop…

I know it's guaranteed internet points to deride the current government, and the ferry thing is/was despicable, but I think it's highly unlikely they're going to put KFC in charge of logistical operations for the vaccine rollout.

The point being made is that you have to give out the contracts to vetted companies who can actually deliver on it. Just because there's a cheapest option that, on paper, seems to tick all the boxes, doesn't mean said option is actually any good.

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

#167

Post by prodent »

string wrote: post #150
EliRivers wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 cop…

I know it's guaranteed internet points to deride the current government, and the ferry thing is/was despicable, but I think it's highly unlikely they're going to put KFC in charge of logistical operations for the vaccine rollout.

If they learned their lesson, shouldn't they be pretty much predestined for the job?

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

#168

Post by fsh »

School-Cotton wrote: post #93
newguy1234 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The BioNTech/Pfizer press release mentions a reduction in confirmed cases (8 vs. 162), not in severity. There is no good reason why such an effective vaccine should not reduce the risk of spreading the disease. However, even a large phase 3 trial doesn't have enough statistics to answer this question.

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

#169

Post by pfranz »

modeless wrote: post #85
apsec112 wrote: post #63

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…

> Well for starters, it would be stupid to pipeline the process so that nobody could start reviewing the code until after it was done.

I imagine the expedited process also means summaries and overviews that would normally be presented were skipped--detailed documentation if we're continuing the source code metaphor.

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

#170

Post by sussexby »

jakozaur wrote: post #19

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.

And we have a really good spreadsheet for tracking who's been infected /s
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