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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

#381

Post by oblio »

jackson1442 wrote: post #349
bserge wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm just going to write it: There's always going to be a minority that's shafted by the medical community, we don't matter as long as the majority benefits (fair enough imo, except I can't do shit even if I sign up to absolve everyone of responsibility and take it all on myself). There will be side effects, they will be dismissed by doctors, people will be marginalized, called uneducated morons and pushed towards mor…

I'm hearing people asking "what if there are some horrible side-effects 10 years down the road?" which appears to be a reasonable concern. However, we don't know the side-effects 10 years down the road for COVID-19. I, for one, am far less concerned about potential vaccine side-effects than I am about known lung scarring and whatever potential side-effects could emerge from COVID-19.

And the long term effects for 10+ year periods can't really be evaluated.

Otherwise all modern life would screech to a halt. For example, please stop using all new tech products developed in the last 10 years. And all the things developed with new materials science in the last 10 years.

We'd be back to the stone age. For these cases we measure short term effects and we extrapolate based on similar materials, structures, etc.

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

#382

Post by iso1631 »

lazyjones wrote: post #363
iso1631 wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 with…

> 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 Only if the testing was unrelated to the death or hospitalisation. If people who get hit by a bus are routinely tested in the ambulance or in hospital, the outcome will be more likely as reported.

Only if a significant number of the population test positive.

In November in England, 354 a day died with a positive test within 28 days. 1635 a day died anyway, meaning 1281 died without a positive test.

If 1% of the population were positive, that would mean 16 people would a day "die with covid".

To get 354 "with covid" deaths would require 20% of the country to test positive.

Mass lateral flow testing in Liverpool last month (Liverpool being hit far worse than most of the country) showed 0.6% of the population with covid. Reports were they were pretty bad flows, missing about half the actual cases, so lets say 1% actually had it.

That would mean that of 1635 people a day dying, 16 would "die with covid".

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

#383

Post by amanaplanacanal »

refurb wrote: post #123
chimprich wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There isn't any evidence for serious side-effects from mRNA vaccines. The vaccines have undergone significant testing, and they're not doing anything magical. If you're going to insinuate that the vaccines have significant risks, you should provide some evidence. (This bar should also be a bit higher in my opinion in the middle of a public health emergency.) Compare a statement like "5g has great potential, but I'm r…

The vaccines have undergone significant testing, and they're not doing anything magical. "Significant testing" is 20,000 people. We're preparing to roll it out to billions. That's not "significant testing". If there was a 1 in 500,000 side effect, you'd never see it in the trials. And yes, these vaccines are doing something "magical". We've never had an mRNA vaccine rolled out to the general public before. That said,…

Risk of getting the vaccine has to be measured against risk of not getting the vaccine, which obviously seems much higher to me. You can’t just talk about risk in a vacuum.

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

#384

Post by mikepechadotcom »

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.

I don't understand the downvotes either...

Today UK regulators have even warned people with history of allergies, so apparently my concerns were not unjustified: https://www.businessinsider.com/pfizer-vaccine-allergy-covid...

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

#385

Post by krona »

blackrock wrote: post #376
bagacrap wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It prevented symptomatic covid , but we still don't know if it prevents transmission of the virus itself. It might just turn you into an asymptomatic spreader.

What? This is the first I heard of this. The Pfizer vaccine is the mRNA vaccine. And it doesn’t prevent you from getting sick. But it might turn you into an asymptomatic spreader? Oh great. Do you have sources? This thing is going to turn us all into walking zombies. LOL.

> Oh great. Do you have sources?

The trial simply didn't test for the effect the vaccine has on transmission, so the theory hasn't been disproven.

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

#386

Post by lbeltrame »

learc83 wrote: post #200
dmurray wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It seems almost impossible that the vaccines pose a greater risk than the risk of not using them. While this is a reasonable conclusion from what we've read in the media, it's worth noting that this is at odds with the official opinions of the EMA and the FDA. They both believe more data is needed, or that the agencies need more time to analyze the data, before they can decree that the benefits most likely outweigh…

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.

AFAICR, they're required to put a minimum two week period between the emergency use authorization request and the meeting.

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

#387

Post by lbeltrame »

nkohari wrote: post #289
refurb wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines have no "adjuvants". What are you getting at?

They don't have adjuvants, but they do have lipid nanoparticles which allow the mRNA to breach cells. It's feasible that they could cause unexpected side effects. NB: I'm personally going to get the first SARS-CoV-2 vaccine I can get, and I'm incredibly excited about mRNA vaccines in general. But, it's true that any time you inject a chemical into your bloodstream you're taking a calculated risk.

FTR, FDA has approved a product (not a mRNA vaccine) using lipid nanoparticles in 2018.

mRNA vaccines had also (limited) human testing before these trials in the past years (mostly Phase 1).

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

#388

Post by konamicode »

irthomasthomas wrote: post #294

Some quick points about this. The British Medical Journal and Royal Society of medicine have published a number of concerns about this vaccine. "Will covid-19 vaccines save lives? Current trials aren’t designed to tell us" https://www.bmj.com/content/371/bmj.m4037 "All these data for the different vaccines are potentially very promising, but none of the phase III trials have been published in peer reviewed journals o…

N.B. Oxford have since published[0] a peer-reviewed study of phase 3 trial in The Lancet.

[0] https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6...

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

#389

Post by learc83 »

h_anna_h wrote: post #361
natex wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they asked family members to sign that their relative died from covid when dying from something unrelated otherwise they are not allowed to retrieve the body for weeks. At least in the UK and US this is misinformation and false. Cause of death is certified by doctors or coroners and added to a database that reported COVID deaths are pulled from. Family members do not have to sign anything before cause of death is d…

I would certainly expect that to be the case in a sane system. Sadly I have seen too many bureaucratic insanities around so it does not seem far-fetched to me. "and added to a database that reported COVID deaths are pulled from." database or excel spreadsheet? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24689247 I don't use facebook, my sources are my aunt (my uncle died 5 days ago due to falling and hitting his head, combi…

I have no idea what goes on in Greece or what incentive people would have to do that. But excess death numbers are higher than COVID deaths everywhere, so the numbers aren't likely that far off.

Also my fiancee, an ER doctor, assures me that this isn't the case in the US.

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

#390

Post by nkohari »

lbeltrame wrote: post #387
nkohari wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They don't have adjuvants, but they do have lipid nanoparticles which allow the mRNA to breach cells. It's feasible that they could cause unexpected side effects. NB: I'm personally going to get the first SARS-CoV-2 vaccine I can get, and I'm incredibly excited about mRNA vaccines in general. But, it's true that any time you inject a chemical into your bloodstream you're taking a calculated risk.

FTR, FDA has approved a product (not a mRNA vaccine) using lipid nanoparticles in 2018. mRNA vaccines had also (limited) human testing before these trials in the past years (mostly Phase 1).

I know. I don't see how it refutes what I said. I'm not anti-vaccine, I was just replying to the parent comment suggesting that because these mRNA vaccines don't use adjuvants they wouldn't have side effects.

All medicines represent calculated risks -- risks that are often worth taking, but still risks.

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