>This isn't like the childhood vaccines, where we need herd immunity to protect the children who are too young to be vaccinated. It's not only too young children who might not be legitimately unvaccinated...some people who are immunocompromised or otherwise medically unable to take certain vaccines must also rely on herd immunity for protection.
Where I live, two-month-olds are scheduled for a comprehensive vaccination. https://immunizebc.ca/sites/default/files/graphics/vaccine-s...
That isn't comprehensive. Some vaccines don't work until the kids are older.
The UK government had also ruled the second national lockdown, but here we are. Is there a counter since the last U-turn of the UK government?
This isn't a fair comparison, or reasoned in good faith. The UK government changed their mind about a second lockdown given new evidence . The virus got much worse and they responded. What new evidence is there that the UK government is going to start vaccination passports? Has something changed?
>>Has something changed?
That's the wrong question. The right one is "may something change in the future?" And an answer on this: "maybe, we don't know, nobody knows the future".
That being said, extrapolation of the exponential curve a month forward is one of relatively simple ways to predict the future. And yet, it was _completely_ unexpected for the UK government. Think about that.
I'm concerned about that, but I'm far more concerned about covid-19, so I would be pretty happy to take a vaccine. Covid is known to have risk of death, side-effects, and unknown future medical conditions, so it seems unlikely that a vaccine would be much worse than that.
Nearly all of the things you mentioned is among old or obese people. Lucky children can't vote, lets start vaccinations! I somewhat kid, but COVID is a real life example where a tiny minority has ruled over the overwhelming majority.
I can't be bothered to grab numbers, but in the US, and perhaps elsewhere, I'd wager that the number of people a) over 55, or b) obese, or c) otherwise high risk make up more than half the population, or very much near it.
This isn't "fast" we just have low expectations of our government. The FDA in the US is taking 3 weeks to reviews, about 5-10% of the entire time to develop this is just to schedule this (3rd to last) meeting. All while over a thousand people die per day (so during this waiting period something like 10x the lives of 9/11). We just spent 9 months trying to lift the ban on this vaccine. We have the technology to beat p…
While vaccines that have made it through the regulatory process have for the most part been extremely safe, without that process we have no idea if the vaccine is going to cause more problems than it solves.
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.
Indeed logistics will matter as the vaccine needs to be transported at around -80°C. So let’s hope nothing happens which might cause delays in shipping from Belgium to the U.K. after 31st December.
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.
It's a fairly stereotypical British trait to be self deprecating. If we were singlehandedly saving the world from a rogue asteroid the general sentiment would probably be "let's hope we don't mess this up".
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…
In Denmark where I live, a large proportion of infected people are age 20-29, and I wonder if it would make sense to vaccinate them first when you get to "rest of the population". Even though they have a smaller risk of getting seriously ill, that could be an effective way to lower transmission. That is: 1. Immunize the age group that is dominating in the hospitalization statistics, then 2. Immunize the age group is…
This only would makes sense if there would be evidence that the vaccines are so-called _sterile_ vaccines. Which means vaccinated people cannot transmit the virus to others. But, absolutely no covid-19 vaccine can be considered as sterile, because there is just no data for it. So, it is, for now, just a self-protection vaccine.
Some elderly friends have asked why Britain is opting to use a brand new RNA/nanotechnololgy style vaccine (which has never been approved before) and is only ~94% effective, when there is a traditional inactivated vaccine that is 100% effective? I presume Pfizer simply have better lobying, but given the choice, I would rather go with old-fashioned sinovac https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3..…
It appears that phase 3 trials haven’t started yet in that vaccine. I would expect it to be several months before it is ready to submit.
In Denmark where I live, a large proportion of infected people are age 20-29, and I wonder if it would make sense to vaccinate them first when you get to "rest of the population". Even though they have a smaller risk of getting seriously ill, that could be an effective way to lower transmission. That is: 1. Immunize the age group that is dominating in the hospitalization statistics, then 2. Immunize the age group is…
From a sheer infection control standpoint it makes a sense to vaccinate hypermobile social superspreader nodes first. Anyone who comes into contact with lots of people is going to be responsible for more onward infection chains than a reclusive grandma. The butterflies among the young are probably key drivers of spread. Take them out of the susceptibility picture and everyone benefits.
You just have to identify them. I also wonder if a social butterfly has a bigger contact network than the average church goer or retail employee.
I'm concerned about that, but I'm far more concerned about covid-19, so I would be pretty happy to take a vaccine. Covid is known to have risk of death, side-effects, and unknown future medical conditions, so it seems unlikely that a vaccine would be much worse than that.
Nearly all of the things you mentioned is among old or obese people. Lucky children can't vote, lets start vaccinations! I somewhat kid, but COVID is a real life example where a tiny minority has ruled over the overwhelming majority.