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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

#61

Post by dTal »

robjan wrote: post #44
peteretep wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That seems bizarre — you’re much more likely to be able to get it privately in India or Thailand or any other country that has good healthcare for the rich and few qualms about allowing people to buy in private stock. Much easier to pay $500 to a private clinic in Mumbai than fly to the West and hope that you can convince the state to provide it

The state will not provide it to non-residents. As soon as you arrive in the UK, immigration stamps "no recourse to public funds" in black all-caps into your passport as a friendly reminder.

In this specific instance, you're probably right that there will be paperwork.

However, in general, acute healthcare in free in the UK and does not even require ID. I don't know if that's how it's "meant" to be, but that's how it is; if you're on vacation in the UK and something bad happens, you can just turn up at the nearest hospital and it will get sorted out, no bill no fuss.

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

#62

Post by tialaramex »

raverbashing wrote: post #43
Wintamute wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just as a side note, asymptomatic spread is a contested topic. If asymptomatic spread were a major driver of infection, this would be the first respiratory virus to work that way. Sources: - Nature study, 20th Nov https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-19802-w - Maria Van Kerkhove, head of the WHO Emerging Diseases and Zoonosis unit https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQTBlbx1Xjs - Fauci in 2018 https://www.youtube.c…

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…

I followed the New Zealand press conferences very closely and so often the initial story was this person had no symptoms, total surprise to them that they had the virus, and then a day later oh, well, actually they did have some symptoms but they didn't realise it was COVID-19...

People will say to themselves well, it's just a cough right? Just a cough. I can't have COVID-19 that's something other people get, those people are sick but I'm healthy, this is just a cough. And that allows the virus to spread.

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

#63

Post by iso1631 »

PurpleFoxy wrote: post #46
_lbaq wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Helps to have no land borders, not saying Australia didn’t do a great job curbing it ..

Does it really? Has it been found that a significant source of infections was illegal immigration? Or that without it there would not have already been internal spreading?

Doesn't matter. If you don't have covid, and nobody comes in, you won't get covid.

But that's not feasible in most countries.

Austrailia and NZ don't rely on a just-in-time cross border economy like the US and Europe. Goods arrive after being on boats which have been off shore for days or weeks.

Compare with the US-Canada "border closure", where thousands of trucks, and their drivers, have crossed each way every day all year.

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

#64

Post by dTal »

wrinkl3 wrote: post #45
idnefju wrote: 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

Yeah but for how long? Unless Australia is willing to keep screening all arrivals and containing outbreaks indefinitely, Covid is gonna start circulating there at some point.

>Unless Australia is willing to keep screening all arrivals and containing outbreaks indefinitely

It's possible. There is no rabies in the UK, for exactly this reason.

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

#65

Post by doliveira »

raverbashing wrote: post #43
Wintamute wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just as a side note, asymptomatic spread is a contested topic. If asymptomatic spread were a major driver of infection, this would be the first respiratory virus to work that way. Sources: - Nature study, 20th Nov https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-19802-w - Maria Van Kerkhove, head of the WHO Emerging Diseases and Zoonosis unit https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQTBlbx1Xjs - Fauci in 2018 https://www.youtube.c…

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…

12 months in, I'd say we can already claim it more than "reeks": it is full-blown intellectual dishonesty. Viral load peeks before symptoms onset, we have quite a few case studies of transmission, but these people apparently want some dozens of RCTs before admitting it.

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

#66

Post by Wintamute »

raverbashing wrote: post #43
Wintamute wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just as a side note, asymptomatic spread is a contested topic. If asymptomatic spread were a major driver of infection, this would be the first respiratory virus to work that way. Sources: - Nature study, 20th Nov https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-19802-w - Maria Van Kerkhove, head of the WHO Emerging Diseases and Zoonosis unit https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQTBlbx1Xjs - Fauci in 2018 https://www.youtube.c…

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…

I made a new point, so am I missing my own point? Confused.

> Obviously if people were only contagious if showing symptoms, the pandemic wouldn't be.

I don't think that is obviously the case at all. It would have to be proved. The dominant vectors of contagion are not yet well understood - we could be dealing with very highly infectious airborne virus, that is capable of spreading widely from a relatively small number of symptomatic and pre-symptomatic super spreaders.

The fact remains that current public health interventions orientate around isolating individuals whether they are symptomatic, asymptomatic or paucisymptomatic. Moreover, to greater and lesser degrees we also isolate the healthy, assuming them to be asymptomatic in an abundance of caution. Considering the negative non-covid related knock on effects of these policies its at least worth investigating isn't it?

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

#67

Post by barry-cotter »

csjr wrote: post #58
idnefju wrote: 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

This! I was thinking about this recently. How the politicians have failed to implement such simple policies?

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...

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

#68

Post by chimprich »

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 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 really, really concerned about the health risks of 5g towers". I'd expect that to get voted down too unless you had some remarkable evidence.

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

#69

Post by refurb »

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 the “issue” is actually related to the vaccine.

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

#70

Post by Beggers1960 »

mhandley wrote: post #17
thisistheend123 wrote: post #2

I live in India. I am already hearing companies offering planned month long vacation tours to UK/US where you could get yourself vaccinated with vaccines that aren't available in India.

The vaccine is not available privately in the UK. If you're not registered with the NHS, you're probably not going to be able to get vaccinated in the UK anytime soon. Even if you are registered, you will probably have to wait til late spring if you're under 50 with no underlying health issues.

This.

The idea that people are planning 'vaccine holidays' is bizarre.

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