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First person receives Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine in UK

bbc.com

231–240 of 404 posts

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

#231
post #165

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?

I wouldn't be surprised if there was a small political motivation here too - the gov were heavily criticized for their terrible handling of covid in care homes, with an older voter base they might want to be seen to be doing right by the care homes this time around

I think there is an understandable political element to this, in that people want to see a reduction in the death rate from Covid-19 and politicians are judged on the number of deaths. So vaccinating those most likely to die makes perfect sense as it'll have most impact on death rates and therefore politicians' reputations.

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

#232
This is not the first person receiving it. There had been clinical studies before. It's "just" the first person after the government put some stamps on it and made it a marketing event. (And yes, marketing the fact that it is safe and vaccination helps is good!)

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

#233
post #180

I work here and was in clinic this morning. We had three eligible patients. One consented to it and is having the vaccine now. The other two declined. Not making a point, just a data point.

The news report that both the first (Margaret Keenan, 90) and the second person (William Shakespeare, 81) were vaccinated at the same "University Hospital, Coventry." So it's not that only one person was vaccinated there? Are you reporting only about the people you're directly in charge of, three of which where eligible, and one accepted, but still there were more vaccinated today there?

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

#234

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.

> This is not HN I used to know.

Then you haven't been paying much attention. Using downvote as 'disagree' is and has been very much the norm around here.

Also, if one was here to push their antivaxxer propaganda (not saying they are), that's the kind of innocent question they'd start with, and yours with a fresh account (not saying you're a sockpuppet) would be the similarly innocent continuation.

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

#235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The RNA isn't in that list. The first four are likely all components of the lipid vesicles that are used to deliver the mRNA. The rest of the list is mostly some salts and then sugar and water.

Thanks! Any idea if thoseipid vesicles are "standard"? In case you care, I have no objections to the vaccine. I'm too young (36 and not working in care) to get it any time soon. But I'd take it tomorrow if it were available for me.

No, the major difference in the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are in the makeup of the lipid nanoparticle. Here's an article from Moderna last year on biodegradability of the LNPs they've developed. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6383180/

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

#236
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Australia doesn’t have it. Wasn’t impossible, just had to stop air travel and lockdown for a period. Now the only people with COVID are returned Australian travellers from overseas who have to go on hotel quarantine

And are you going to keep your borders closed forever? And i guarantee some people still have it. There's no way it's been eradicated completely. All it takes is for one infected person to visit 2 people, and those 2 people to visit 2 others.

And presumably that's been happening for months, yet there are limited outbreaks and they are swiftly contained through contact tracing and quarantine.

Victoria was swamped yet has not had a case for 30 days now. Cross-border travel varies depending on the status of each state, but is tracked and quarantine enforced at various levels if it's available.

Testing is freely available and fairly fast.

Nationwide, there is currently one locally acquired case over the last 7 days, and 74 from overseas in the same period.

Presumably we'll bubble with NZ at some point and carefully go from there, plus see how the availability of vaccines starts to change the equation beyond that. In my circles, people are keen to travel again, but everyone is pretty matter of fact about the situation and curious about timings rather than desperate to open up.

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

#237
post #180

I work here and was in clinic this morning. We had three eligible patients. One consented to it and is having the vaccine now. The other two declined. Not making a point, just a data point.

Interesting. Thanks for sharing the anecdote. Seems odd to me you are asking people. Isn't there a line or something? My biggest concern with virus rollout is millions of doses sitting on shelves waiting for "high priority" people to get them (who refuse) while "low priority" people are still banned from getting.

isn't there a priority list? If people refuse it should go to the next one

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

#238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Literally first line of the article: > A UK grandmother has become the first person in the world to be given the Pfizer Covid-19 jab as part of a mass vaccination programme.

Yes, I read it. Literally the second line of my comment: > This marks the official rollout with general public availability (pending supply issues), so that's cool. It's just weird that the article refers to this dose in particular as a "historic event". Here's the line from the article I'm referring to: > Prof Stephen Powis, national medical director of NHS England, who witnessed the "historic moment", said: "We cou…

It's between quotes presumably because it is, you know, a quote. And the start of the first public vaccination campaign against COVID-19 legitimately seems like a historic moment. But we're just nitpicking language now.

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

#239
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?

Pfizer's production is ordered for months out.

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

#240
post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They could theoretically try to order it I suppose, but they're going to be at the end of a very long backlog.

Do we actually know all the details of who they’ve contracted with? I wouldn’t be surprised if private healthcare providers in the UK already got their place in line.

I'd be somewhat surprised. In Ireland this year the _flu_ vaccine wasn't generally available privately, as the HSE took all available supply. Health authorities should be expected to be even more aggressive with covid vaccines.
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