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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

#311

Post by fakedang »

amanaplanacanal wrote: post #283
barry-cotter wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Blame the World Health Organization. > Countries may gain time in the short-term as they limit travel to fight the new coronavirus pandemic, but the World Health Organization thinks overall that “it doesn't help to restrict movement," a top adviser to the U.N. health agency's chief said Thursday. https://www.euronews.com/2020/03/13/world-health-organizatio...

It probably depends on when you do it too. If it’s already widespread in your population, closing borders isn’t going to help much.

That was in March. The messaging from Jan was pretty much the same, if not even more lax. The WHO is to be blamed significantly for not communicating properly.

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

#312

Post by acqq »

acqq wrote: post #147
Mirioron wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How modern is "modern" here? Because the whole Pandermix saga happened only a decade ago and some are pointing towards the combination of the adjuvant and antigen: https://www.bmj.com/content/362/bmj.k3948/rr-22 Considering that this doesn't seem to be a settled question, I'm not so sure that it makes sense to blindly trust that everything will be alright in the current, rushed, case.

The whole Pandermix risk is much smaller than the risks in the current pandemics. Narcolepsy is very rare disease and even increased risk due to that vaccine remains very low as absolute value and it only appears high if it's expressed as a relative number. In establishing the shorter-term safety nothing was "rushed" now compared to the processes performed before (it was tested on tens of thousands of people). Regard…

To elaborate the absolute numbers: around 1 in 55000 vaccinated were affected by the side effects in two years, so even if everybody in the UK was vaccinated with something causing such side effects, that translates to 1200 with the side effects.

To compare, there were more than 70,000 excess deaths in the UK since start of pandemics. Around 60 times more deaths than, in the case of vaccine, those still living with side effects.

But these side effects were apparently the strongest in just a part of the population: 4-18, which is 11 million, resulting is estimated 200 people with side effects.

Covid-19 luckily affects exactly that part of population less, but even then I'd guess that Covid-19 already made more damage to more than 200 people in it.

And that small number of cases just can't be detected unless the trial covers enough of those affected. If the total effect is 200 cases in the whole population, a trial would have to be performed on at least one 20th of it: as much as 600,000 children would have to be a part of the trial to even detect that issue. Not to mention that it took two years to recognize the issue.

Now, for the trial to recognize the problem, half would have to be placebo group. That gives once all outside of the trial are counted 97.5% of people unprotected for two years.

In the case of whole population, and even waiting for only 10 months, there would still be 68,000 deaths more if that kind of trial would be a condition for the acceptance of vaccine.

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

#313

Post by iso1631 »

makomk wrote: post #154
Munksgaard wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this really true? I know that, at least here in Denmark, the relevant authority has sent out a note saying, explicitly, that dying of eg. a heart attack, while infected with COVID-19, does not count as a COVID-19 death. It also explicitly says the same thing about motor-cycle accidents, which I know has been a rumor that has made the rounds. Source: https://sundhedsdatastyrelsen.dk/-/media/sds/filer/rammer-og...

It's true in the UK. Anyone who dies with 28 days of testing positive for Covid-19 is counted as a Covid death, don't think there are exceptions for obvious things like motor-cycle accidents and definitely not for heart attacks (some of those probably are caused by Covid). Also, the NHS is testing almost everyone admitted to hospital. Used to be anyone who died at any point after testing positive but that messed with…

In the UK there are 4 figures

1) Died within 28 days of a +ve test

2) Died within 60 days of a +ve test (in England, but not elsewhere)

3) Death certificate mentions covid

4) Excess deaths above that expected

Then there's the "date reported" and "date of death". The date reported is the day the notice reaches the death registrar. That can be within an hour or so of actual death, or can take months. Most are done within about 5 days.

For November, in the UK, there were an average

418 deaths occurred per day in the 28 day after a +ve test and 396 deaths reported

410 deaths per day on the death certificate

In England alone

28 days: 354 (occurred), 335 (reported)

60 days: 380 (occurred), 358 (reported)

Excess deaths: +251 (5 year average), +310 (vs minimum), +191 (vs maximum)

If the majority of those deaths were people being hit by a bus, you'd expect the 60 day number to be about double the 28 day number

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

#314

Post by officialjunk »

ulfw wrote: post #253
dm319 wrote: 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.

If they don't want it, I'm more than happy to fly to the UK to get it. Hong Kong doesn't seem to want to vaccinate most people before 2022 https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/health-environment/artic...

the pfizer vaccine doesn't prevent infection, but does save lives by preventing severe symptoms, which is why at-risk groups are prioritized. the vaccines that actually prevent infection are still being developed. 2022 sounds realistic for that, if not a tad early.

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

#315

Post by SlateBlate »

jusssi wrote: post #234
SlateBlate wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I actually mentioned that I'm getting the vaccine further down the thread and I've been lurking here for years.

You are suspecting people and just adding "not saying". Which makes everything people say suspect.

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

#316

Post by learc83 »

krona wrote: post #281
learc83 wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was less than a year before people started reporting it, and it took less than 2 years before a study was released by the Swedish health agency warning of increased narcolepsy risk in Children--not 4. Also the increased rate of narcolepsy was 0.005%. That's why it took several months before anyone noticed it. Additionally the flu itself can cause the same kind of narcolepsy, which means that this vaccine was worse…

> but still potentially better than no vaccine at all. There's no 'potentially' to consider, the Swedish Medical Products Agency reported the relative risk in 2011: ... The relative risk of narcolepsy was four times higher in vaccinated children and adolescents (born from 1990) compared to unvaccinated individuals. So, incorrect, when considering the relative risk , which is all people should be interested in. Catchi…

The study didn't control for the differences in the vaccinated and unvaccinated groups. Children with chronic medical conditions are more likely to be vaccinated, and some preliminary reports show a correlation between medical conditions that indicate flu vaccination and narcolepsy [1]. And from what I can tell, the control group didn't exclude kids vaccinated with other H1N1 vaccines.

Because of that, that study can't say that the 4x higher number is the relative risk of taking Pandermrix.

There are also issues with potential over diagnosis and recall bias because of public awareness of the issue through the media [1].

The real problem is that this effect is so small, not that the effect takes years to develop. We're talking 4 cases of narcolepsy per 100k kids. Even a 10 year long study of 30k Phase 3 vaccine participants is unlikely to discover something like that.

Nearly all new drugs that are released could have similar side effects. It's just not feasible to conduct studies large enough to discover them until you start rolling it out to millions of people.

1.https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4962758/

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

#317

Post by learc83 »

dmurray wrote: post #270
learc83 wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The FDA set a meeting date for December 10th, that was at least somewhat arbitrary. They reportedly had no one working for 4 days during Thanksgiving break, so It's likely they could have just worked through Thanksgiving and had that meeting last week if they'd wanted to.

Yeah, the real reason the agencies haven't approved it is closer to "the wheels of bureaucracies that big turn very slowly", but the official reason is still that the data they've seen so far is inconclusive.

"the data they've seen so far is inconclusive" has connotations that I don't think the FDA has implied officially or unofficially.

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

#318

Post by ceejayoz »

figaroniguzo wrote: post #305
pwinnski wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe you should spend more than 10 seconds Googling? You could, for example, read the story you linked, which states: "Despite health officials knowing the man died in a motorcycle crash, it is unclear whether or not his death was removed from the overall count in the state." So it's a nothing story, with no statement of fact included at all. Just "unclear whether or not" against repeated statements by state officia…

So it was included and then removed once people noticed?

There will always be small numbers of cases of stupid coroners, clerical mistakes, etc. Finding one is not proof that there are hundreds of thousands.

We can rule out the "they're reporting everything as COVID and that's making the numbers high" hypothesis by looking at overall excess deaths - how many more deaths is the nation experiencing than is typical. A misdiagnosis won't affect excess deaths, as it counts all deaths, regardless of cause. The CDC provides a page for this:

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/excess_deaths.htm

As is readily visible in the chart, we've been substantially over the norm since late March.

(Switch the chart to New York City for an even more obvious example of how a spike in excess deaths shows up. Screenshots: https://imgur.com/a/zSkNbxT)

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

#319

Post by cassianoleal »

Wintamute wrote: post #158
cassianoleal wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it that out of character though? I have been having the same, but the main reason why I notice it now is that every time I have any symptom, even the mildest of them, I take notice and consider the possibility of Covid, whereas in past years I would forget about them if even notice at all. For context, I'm a fairly healthy individual who hasn't seen a GP or other medical doctor in at least a couple years, probably…

> every time I have any symptom, even the mildest of them, I take notice and consider the possibility of Covid This is hypochondria isn't it? A pathology in its own right, no doubt caused by current events.

Of course it isn't. I don't even bother about mild symptoms, much less go see a doctor or look for a cure. I just take note.

It's not hypochondria, it's simple awareness.

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

#320

Post by 1123581321 »

spuz wrote: post #161
SlateBlate wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. Where was this ramblings on OP's comment? He genuinly asked a question without mentioning any side effects. Why is it being downvoted?

It's being downvoted because the commenter made no effort to show what kind of research they had done in order to relieve their worry. If they genuinely were "really really concerned" about the potential side effects then they would have done some research on what those effects could be, what scientists had done to account for them etc. If they have done no research, that is lazy, hence worthy of a downvote. If they…

It shouldn’t be like that. Simple questions are completely acceptable on HN.
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