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First person receives Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine in UK

bbc.com

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Re: First person receives Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine in UK

#81

Post by Wintamute »

tzs wrote: post #78
raverbashing wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is missing the point and reeks of intellectual dishonesty. Asymptomatic has a strict definition. You get the virus and nothing happens to you. This is what the WHO and Fauci are referring to. But most "asymptomatic" cases aren't. They are either paucisymptomatic (you have mild symptoms - maybe too mild to notice) or pre-symptomatic. Obviously if people were only contagious if showing symptoms, the pandemic would…

> They are either paucisymptomatic (you have mild symptoms - maybe too mild to notice) Or you notice them but because they also match symptoms of colds and allergies, and you’ve been getting them on and off for months, you assume they aren’t COVID. I don’t think there has been an interval longer than a week since February during which I didn’t have at least a couple symptoms that could have been COVID. I’ve not had t…

> I don’t think there has been an interval longer than a week since February during which I didn’t have at least a couple symptoms that could have been COVID.

It's remarkable the number of people anecdotally reporting similar symptoms - often out of character for otherwise robustly healthy individuals. I'm guessing some sort of psychosomatic response to the year's stresses.

Re: First person receives Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine in UK

#82

Post by stevehawk »

aphextron wrote: post #3

A 90 year old woman in a nursing home is not spreading COVID. Wouldn't it make more sense to give this to people who are most at risk of spreading it, not dying from it? Why wouldn't we go at the root cause of the pandemic; young healthy asymptomatic spreaders?

isn't this where most of the fatalities are happening? isnt the handling of elderly covid patients the reason a lot of people are unhappy with Cuomo and others because they turned retirement homes into morgues?

Re: First person receives Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine in UK

#83

Post by KaiserPro »

djhn wrote: post #51
Narretz wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course they do, as long as there's a bed available. Especially with Covid. No hospital wants to be the one that denied a patient an available ICU bed.

Well at the NHS they'd consider your approach American Overtreatment.

[citation needed]

Do you work in a hospital? do you know any ICU people? I think you are confusing palliative care with ICU

American overtreatment is busting out MRIs for a standard sprain, routine CAT scans, dishing out opiates for anything more than 2weeks

Re: First person receives Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine in UK

#84

Post by hannob »

SlateBlate wrote: post #59
mikepechadotcom wrote: post #32

I feel like mRNA vaccines have huge potential, but I am really, really concerned about potential side effects. Does anyone know which other helper-substances are inside the vaccine, besides the RNA?

Why is this comment getting downvoted? seems like a fair question. I've seen this now in several threads where even questioning side effects of the vaccine gets downvoted and looked down upon like they did something illegal. This is not HN I used to know.

There's a tendency to highlight risks and sideeffects of this vaccine that is without any basis.

It's reasonable to ask what the risks are, but unspecific ramblings about risks aren't helpful and it's unreasonable to highlight very hypothetical risks compared to the very real risks of getting Covid-19.

Right now the risk issue seems pretty clearcut: There were no serious sideeffects in the trials. What gave me additional confidence is hearing in an interview with Paul Offit (one of the world's leading vaccine expers) that almost all serious vaccine sideeffects that appeared in the past with other vaccines would appear relatively quickly (within weeks). Thus if there would be common sideeffects we would know by now.

Thus we can with reasonable confidence say that if there are any serious sideeffects from the promising Covid-19 vaccines then in all likelyhood they will be rare. It seems almost impossible that the vaccines pose a greater risk than the risk of not using them.

Re: First person receives Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine in UK

#85

Post by peteretep »

checker659 wrote: post #75
dbbk wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's not even any plans to offer vaccines privately in the UK yet. The NHS isn't going to offer it to travellers.

Not NHS, but what’s stopping private companies from purchasing from pfizer at 10x markup and selling to willing customers?

Doubt Pfizer has much spare stock just sitting around at this point, and also I’m guessing you’d need an import license for it. But I’d imagine once there’s plenty to go around you’ll absolutely start to see private offerings.

Re: First person receives Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine in UK

#86

Post by kmm »

sleepyshift wrote: post #15
andyjohnson0 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not yet known whether the Pfizer vaccine prevents an infected person from transmitting the infection to other people [1]. But there is robust evidence that is does prevent an immunised person from becoming ill. [1] https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-03441-8

Could someone please explain how this can be the case? I understand the vaccine works by stimulating antibody production, which prevent you from becoming ill by binding to the virus and disabling it should it enter your system. How then could the virus be spread further if it's already been disabled?

Different tissues are protected by different types of antibodies. A vaccine injected subcutaneously will mostly induce an IgG response, a type of antibody present in blood and extracellular fluid. This could still possibly allow a virus to infect mucous membranes, which rely on a different type of antibody, sIgA[0], to protect them. If this is the case, you could be protected from having a serious systemic infection, but could still suffer a mild upper respiratory infection, and be infectious until the immune system mounted defense in the mucous membranes.

Some flu vaccines come in the form of a nasal spray, which does induce an IgA response. I don't know why COVID vaccines are administered parenterally instead, I'm sure there are good technical reasons. Given the virus's possible neurological involvement, maybe it's a bad idea to deposit it so close to the olfactory bulb.

0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immunoglobulin_A#Secretory_IgA

Re: First person receives Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine in UK

#87

Post by raverbashing »

tzs wrote: post #78
raverbashing wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is missing the point and reeks of intellectual dishonesty. Asymptomatic has a strict definition. You get the virus and nothing happens to you. This is what the WHO and Fauci are referring to. But most "asymptomatic" cases aren't. They are either paucisymptomatic (you have mild symptoms - maybe too mild to notice) or pre-symptomatic. Obviously if people were only contagious if showing symptoms, the pandemic would…

> They are either paucisymptomatic (you have mild symptoms - maybe too mild to notice) Or you notice them but because they also match symptoms of colds and allergies, and you’ve been getting them on and off for months, you assume they aren’t COVID. I don’t think there has been an interval longer than a week since February during which I didn’t have at least a couple symptoms that could have been COVID. I’ve not had t…

Oh I totally understand you

That being said it seems the most specific symptom is loss of smell/taste so unless you have that it's probably something else (disclaimer: not a doctor and this is not medical advice)

Re: First person receives Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine in UK

#88

Post by nl »

thinkingemote wrote: post #56
taejo wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They could make proof of vaccination an entry requirement. Combine that with widespread domestic vaccination and you've got a very good chance of containing any infections that make it into the country.

vaccination doesn't mean you cannot get the virus and spread it around. it protects you from the effects of Covid-19, the disease, caused by your body's reaction to the virus. Those vaccinated, because they have less symptoms, less coughing basically, might not spread it around as much, but we don't know that yet. Remember asymptomatic spreading is a big concern for this virus.

This is getting downvotes, but it is at least somewhat correct.

> it protects you from the effects of Covid-19, the disease, caused by your body's reaction to the virus.

There isn't really evidence either way for this. To quote Nature[1]:

"Tests on more than 43,000 people have shown that the Pfizer vaccine is 95% effective at preventing disease"

> vaccination doesn't mean you cannot get the virus and spread it around.

This might be true:

"But none has demonstrated that it prevents infection altogether, or reduces the spread of the virus in a population. This leaves open the chance that those who are vaccinated could remain susceptible to asymptomatic infection — and could transmit that infection to others who remain vulnerable. “In the worst-case scenario, you have people walking around feeling fine, but shedding virus everywhere"

[1] https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-03441-8

Re: First person receives Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine in UK

#89

Post by foota »

stevehawk wrote: post #82
aphextron wrote: post #3

A 90 year old woman in a nursing home is not spreading COVID. Wouldn't it make more sense to give this to people who are most at risk of spreading it, not dying from it? Why wouldn't we go at the root cause of the pandemic; young healthy asymptomatic spreaders?

isn't this where most of the fatalities are happening? isnt the handling of elderly covid patients the reason a lot of people are unhappy with Cuomo and others because they turned retirement homes into morgues?

I believe this was the case at the start, I'm not sure if this is the case now however. Deaths have only recently arrived at where they were at the first peak in the US, my impression was this was because it was a less vulnerable population being infected.

Re: First person receives Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine in UK

#90

Post by vixen99 »

refurb wrote: post #69

As this rolls out I thought Derek Lowe had a good point to make https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2020/12/04/ge... When you vaccinate this many people, you will have those people die, get heart attacks, strokes, cancer, etc. Why? Because that would have happened to them anyways, vaccine or not. So don’t freak out when “issues” start to crop up. Wait until someone has a done a proper analysis to see if th…

https://science.sciencemag.org/content/sci/370/6520/1022.ful...

'Public needs to prep for vaccine side effects, “Take Tylenol and suck it up,” says one researcher. Fever, aches show vaccine works'.

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