First person receives Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine in UK • Hacker News Board

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

#211

Post by jnet » Tue, Dec 08, 2020, 2:45 PM UTC

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?

"Wouldn't it make more sense to give this to people who are most at risk of spreading it, not dying from it?"

It wouldn't make any sense at all. The reason is that not only do older people have a greater risk of dying from Covid, they also have a much higher risk of being hospitalized[1], and remember the justification for the extreme measures we've taken and continue to take is the fear we will overwhelm our health care systems.

[1] https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/covid-data/investi...

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

#212

Post by mchusma » Tue, Dec 08, 2020, 2:45 PM UTC

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.

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.

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

#213

Post by hn_throwaway_99 » Tue, Dec 08, 2020, 2:46 PM UTC

throwaway2245 wrote: post #202

KaiserPro wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are not looking at the whole picture here. The uk is vaccinating according to risk of death, and risk of occupying a hospital bed first . Not the risk of catching or passing it. THe big concern in this pandemic has been hospital usage. once your hospital is full everyone starts dying not just covid patients. We were about two/four weeks away from collapse in london in april.

As a standard, the UK makes medical decisions based on QALYs saved (quality-adjusted life years). Although you can argue that keeping hospital beds free saves a lot of QALYs, it's harder to argue that care homes have a lot of QALYs to save. And, it's not obvious that care home patients are the first to occupy hospital beds (I'm unsure about it); care home patients with COVID have tended to die in their care home.

> it's harder to argue that care homes have a lot of QALYs to save.

Not true at all. They may have fewer life years left, but they're orders of magnitude more likely to die from Covid, so preventing a Covid case in this population actually saves more QALYs than preventing a case in a younger healthy person, statistically speaking.

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

#214

Post by ghaff » Tue, Dec 08, 2020, 2:47 PM UTC

learc83 wrote: post #191

ghaff wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It varies by state but I expect most will at least roughly follow CDC guidelines. There will probably be variance in who is considered essential and who gets it after essential works, at risk, and 65+. At least some places are looking to start vaccinate younger people who are more likely to spread and only then do other older age groups.

Pretty much every state has a publicly available vaccine plan that you can read. The variance is pretty big even though it mostly follows the same progression. My stepdad can get the vaccine in phase 1b in his state, but not my mom. The state over from her my mom could get it in phase 1b, but not my stepdad. My fiancée's parent's can't get it until phase 3 in their state, but they could both get it in phase 1b in my…

Relatively small differences in the rules can certainly affect one's position in line quite a bit. For example, an otherwise not at particular risk 60 year old is actually going to be pretty close to the end of the line in a lot of places (even though they may count as "elderly" elsewhere).

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

#215

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Dec 08, 2020, 2:47 PM UTC

daveed wrote: post #52

> Second in line for the jab at University Hospital in Coventry was 81-year-old William Shakespeare from Warwickshire His high priority must've been on purpose, right?

[deleted]

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

#216

Post by jariel » Tue, Dec 08, 2020, 2:48 PM UTC

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?

People in homes are possibly primary vectors of spread, especially during the early days because they catch it so easily and are around others who catch it easily.

Also, the workers in the homes are put at significant risk due to this as well.

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

#217

Post by fabian2k » Tue, Dec 08, 2020, 2:50 PM UTC

LatteLazy wrote: post #193

fabian2k wrote: post #183

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.

As far as I understand, the delivery systems were a large part of the research necessary to make RNA-based drugs possible. What the RNA does inside the cell we know reasonably well (I'm simplifying a lot here ), but getting the RNA into the cells efficiently was the original problem to be solved.

So I don't think those are really standard components, there are a lot of ways to create different systems here with different properties.

As a more general comment on this concern about additives, this is typically targeted at vaccines with adjuvants. Adjuvants are designed to create a stronger immune response, the lipids here are not adjuvants and as far as I understand the mRNA vaccines don't contain any adjuvants. I don't agree with the general concerns about adjuvants (though of course each vaccine has to prove safety in the studies on their own), but they are an additive with an inherently higher risk than something more inert. The immune system is extremely complex and highly dangerous.

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

#218

Post by learc83 » Tue, Dec 08, 2020, 2:54 PM UTC

ghaff wrote: post #214

learc83 wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty much every state has a publicly available vaccine plan that you can read. The variance is pretty big even though it mostly follows the same progression. My stepdad can get the vaccine in phase 1b in his state, but not my mom. The state over from her my mom could get it in phase 1b, but not my stepdad. My fiancée's parent's can't get it until phase 3 in their state, but they could both get it in phase 1b in my…

Relatively small differences in the rules can certainly affect one's position in line quite a bit. For example, an otherwise not at particular risk 60 year old is actually going to be pretty close to the end of the line in a lot of places (even though they may count as "elderly" elsewhere).

That's true. States seems to be split on 60 vs 65 as the age cutoff for healthy adults.

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

#219

Post by shellac » Tue, Dec 08, 2020, 2:56 PM UTC

CivBase wrote: post #197

> First person receives Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine in UK *after getting approval from regulators Tens of thousands already received the vaccine during trials. 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".

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.

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

#220

Post by ChrisRR » Tue, Dec 08, 2020, 2:57 PM UTC

raxxorrax wrote: post #24

nojito wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because stopping the elderly from overwhelming the health infrastructure needs to be step 1. ICU beds are extremely expensive.

The price is one thing, but after ICU you need to train to breath again, it takes a very long rehabilitation time. It is a very invasive method of keeping someone alive and is only used in emergencies. Rehabilitation also binds resources.

Ventilator weaning is a long process