Delighted to hear, this morning, that the Pfizer Covid vaccine has been approved for 'roll out'.
I know we're not out of the woods yet.....But this news hopefully means that folk will be able to get back to some sort of normality, sooner rather than later.
Cheers - Phil :)
That is good news Phil. Lets hope the rest are as quickly. :-bd
BTW - WHAT is Normallity ?
Quote from: ianrs54 on 02 December 2020, 09:15:49 AM
BTW - WHAT is Normallity ?
No Idea, none of us on the forum would be classed as "normal"
But it is excellent news.
From https://xkcd.com
Life Before the Pandemic
(https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/life_before_the_pandemic.png)
The beginning of the end!
Yep, good news indeed, but we'll still need to wear masks, maintain social distancing etc for quite sometime from what I've read. At least by Spring 2021 we might be able to have some sort of normal social interaction back, which will be nice. Our son is fourth on the list for the jab, whilst I'm down in eighth, with my wife and daughter having to wait quite sometime to find out when they will get theirs.
Quote from: Norm on 02 December 2020, 12:29:42 PM
The beginning of the end!
No the end of the beginning (Well I dont quote WSC to often)
I would be willing to pay for a jab privately. I half expct thats what my emploer may do as they have been paying for private tests
Hope he does for you. I intend taking the first offer. I suspect that I'm fairly high priority due to the type 2 diabetes and being ancient (not that I feel at all ill, or old !)
Quote from: ianrs54 on 02 December 2020, 02:04:54 PM
Hope he does for you. I intend taking the first offer. I suspect that I'm fairly high priority due to the type 2 diabetes and being ancient (not that I feel at all ill, or old !)
I have type 2 as well, but would want both of us to be vaccinated
Ta La
Quote from: Orcs on 02 December 2020, 01:11:55 PM
I would be willing to pay for a jab privately. I half expct thats what my emploer may do as they have been paying for private tests
Pretty sure that's not going to happen. Govt. doesn't want all the rich people hogging the vaccine. Looks bad apparently.
Quote from: Orcs on 02 December 2020, 09:38:52 AM
No Idea, none of us on the forum would be classed as "normal"
Well...I am....and so's my Mongolian attack squirrel, Oswald.
Cheers - Phil
IIRC the vaccine is only available via the NHS, according to a BBC news report from the past day or so.
Well it is being supplied via Govt funding at cost. Looking at the news yesterday I fit into the 5th wave but not certain if I have a dangerous condition which would move me up to 3rd I think. I'll just wait and see.
Stay safe peeps.
Stay safe, yourself, Ian. :)
(I wonder how many receptionists in doctors' surgeries were bombarded with calls yesterday, from folk trying to book themselves in already !) ;)
Cheers - Phil
Quote from: Techno II on 03 December 2020, 07:37:38 AM
Stay safe, yourself, Ian. :)
(I wonder how many receptionists in doctors' surgeries were bombarded with calls yesterday, from folk trying to book themselves in already !) ;)
Cheers - Phil
Ta La, its unlikley - I never have after all the right place for my car is third lane wit 'ammer down ;)
Not going neat the doc's for a few days - reckon it will be heaving. Just waiting for the letter from WBC or Arrowe Park.
Quote from: Steve J on 02 December 2020, 09:05:40 PM
IIRC the vaccine is only available via the NHS, according to a BBC news report from the past day or so.
Correct. The government has ordered enough vaccine to offer a jab to every person in the UK. Any orders from private UK buyers will go to the back of the queue. There will be no queue jumping by those who can afford to buy a vaccination.
Those of us who have health conditions will be getting a govt circular soon outlining what ypu can and can't do under the re;lavent tier. Mine arrived this morning along with another from Arrowe Park about my eyes. They are trying, very trying :D
Quote from: ianrs54 on 03 December 2020, 07:06:26 AM
Well it is being supplied via Govt funding at cost. Looking at the news yesterday I fit into the 5th wave but not certain if I have a dangerous condition which would move me up to 3rd I think. I'll just wait and see.
Stay safe peeps.
You lucky bastard I am in the 6th wave
good news maybe :o
but I read somewhere that you have no course of redress if you suffer side effects :-
Also read Quantas has said that when a vaccine becomes readily available, you will have to prove you have been inoculated before being
allowed to board one of their flights ???
how long before this becomes the norm, have to prove you had the jab to get into places (Cinema, Pubs, Clubs, Concerts)
Regards
Sean
I suspect that will become standard everywhere.
Quote from: sean66 on 03 December 2020, 01:01:39 PM
good news maybe :o
but I read somewhere that you have no course of redress if you suffer side effects :-
I am glad the vaccines are proving successful and keen to get vaccinated when my turn comes but also glad not to be first in line. After all, the early bird may get the worm but the second mouse gets the cheese :)
Quote from: sean66 on 03 December 2020, 01:01:39 PM
good news maybe :o
but I read somewhere that you have no course of redress if you suffer side effects :-
Also read Quantas has said that when a vaccine becomes readily available, you will have to prove you have been inoculated before being
allowed to board one of their flights ???
how long before this becomes the norm, have to prove you had the jab to get into places (Cinema, Pubs, Clubs, Concerts)
Regards
Sean
At this point those under 50 don't even make the list unless high risk, so not sure how feasible that would be. And we don't know yet if it's a one time thing or seasonal like flu.
The under 50's will be done from late Spring onwards, subject to the first tranche of people being vaccinated. So in our family our son will be done first, followed by myself, then maybe my wife in the first round if they include teachers, TA's etc, then our daughter bringing up the rear. Watch this space.
Quote from: flamingpig0 on 03 December 2020, 12:03:57 PM
You lucky bastard I am in the 6th wave
Said nobody on D-day.
A word of caution:
The current ballpark estimate is 1 million injections per week.
I'm sure they will do their best to increase this number, but it is fairly big.
People need 2 injections (I don't know whether this is factored in, but I remember that 1 glove was counted as an item of PPE, so suspect we're still spinning for headlines).
If 2 injections in factored in it's about 15 months to get everybody in the UK.
If not then closer to 2 and a half years.
OK not bad, but we don't nkow how long this immunity lasts, so there's a scenario where thins becomes an annual thing like the Flu jab.
And that relegates us to "Painting the Forth Bridge*" territory.
* Better paints are available now, but the old story was that once they finished at one end, it was time to start again at the other.
A neverending job, or a task of Syisyphus.
Personally I don't understand why everyone needs to be vaccinated. Seems a bit over wrought to me.
I totally discount the number of "infections" as this number is totally unreliable. Many, many millions have almost certainly already had the illness and the majority of them did not get a test. The numbers I rely on is hospitalizations and deaths.
The priority should be (and I understand it is) to protect the vulnerable. Once this objective is achieved and hospitalizations and deaths drop like a rock, then nature should take care of the rest.
Quote from: John Cook on 03 December 2020, 11:27:22 AM
Correct. The government has ordered enough vaccine to offer a jab to every person in the UK. Any orders from private UK buyers will go to the back of the queue. There will be no queue jumping by those who can afford to buy a vaccination.
I would love to believe this John. But what is stopping UK buyers buying it from abroad (eg BUPA, Private Clinics, Big Business), where there is no free medical system? The pharmaceutical companies are not particularly known for their ethical behavior. Do we really think they will turn down a fast buck?
The cost of a single vaccine dose in India is possibly going to be as low as £4.50 to a more likely £27. Given as the suggestion that it is likely to take in excess of a year to vaccinate the whole of the UK and the fact that corruption in India and similar countries is rife. I would be very surprised if you cannot get an injection at a private clinic in the UK in the next few months well in advance of when you would be called unless you are on the 1st list to be vaccinated..
Quote from: Ray Rivers on 03 December 2020, 09:45:03 PM
Personally I don't understand why everyone needs to be vaccinated. Seems a bit over wrought to me.
I totally discount the number of "infections" as this number is totally unreliable. Many, many millions have almost certainly already had the illness and the majority of them did not get a test. The numbers I rely on is hospitalizations and deaths.
The priority should be (and I understand it is) to protect the vulnerable. Once this objective is achieved and hospitalizations and deaths drop like a rock, then nature should take care of the rest.
Estimated world population 7.7 billion. Estimated Covid-19 infections worldwide 65 million. That's less than 1% of the global population who might have immunity.
"Everyone" won't wind up vaccinated for a myriad of reasons, good, bad and, frankly, verging on the insane.
We simply need the bulk of the human population of the planet to develop immunity. Vaccination is somewhat more humane than letting everybody get it and seeing who survives.
The number of infections is an early indicator of the infection rate within a certain area, say a county and allows a faster response to locally escalate or de-escalate measures (Tiers). Hospitalisation and deaths are a more precise measurement for making comparisons, but both come further down the line to infection counting and have the disadvantage of having 'lag' time.
I am guessing that the infrastructure will develop to better administer the vaccine at faster rates over time ..... there is an economic imperative that will focus attention on getting there. Throwing money at this part of the problem will probably be more cost effective than throwing it elsewhere.
Quote from: Ray Rivers on 03 December 2020, 09:45:03 PM
Personally I don't understand why everyone needs to be vaccinated. Seems a bit over wrought to me.
This disease in a large number of cases is a particularly nasty disease to get, with potential long term life changing effects. I It has caused some 50,000+ people in this country to die in a very unpleasant way.
Those not vaccinated will have the potential to infect those where the vaccine did not take, those who are at the end of the effective period the vaccination works for. (which we have no idea how long this is ) . Or others who were not given the vaccine.
Being young fit and healthy is no guarantee you won't die, or pass it on to someone who almost certainly will.
Getting everybody vaccinated is the only way to try and get rid of the disease or at least ensure that most people survive it .
The cost of vaccinating everybody (around £3.5 Billion) is about 10% of what the furlough scheme cost. Plus the impact on jobs, industry etc.
I saw one of the medical experts saying he'd get his elderly mother vaccinated in flash, which gave me flashbacks to seeing a chinless wonder force-feeding his daughter a beef burger at the height of the mad cow disease scare.
Must admit, I have completely lost any faith that any of our political masters even know what the truth is, let alone whether they are telling it or not.
We must remember that there is a human rights convention which states (more or less) that to perform any medical procedure on a person, you must have that person's consent.
Here in Spain, in a recent poll, 55% of the folks responding said they want to wait until they know what the secondary effects of the vaccine are. Most of the folks I talk to believe that the number of infections is at least 10 times higher than reported.
Meanwhile, there are indications that areas which suffered heavily at the beginning of the pandemia (London for example) have seen marked deceases in the number of deaths; which some are seeing as an indication of herd immunity.
As an ex-Naval Aviator, I have learned that when everyone is panicking around you, that is the time to maintain calm. I believe that somewhere around March the worst will have past... just in time to save our economies.
Will I get the vaccine? Yep. Does everyone need it? Nope.
Strange that we don't hear very much about China? Putting the 'possible' 'conspiracy theories' and 'blame' to one side... THEY have had much more time to assess and develop responses... yet the media concentrate on 'our' troubles and treatments..'warned off', maybe? :o
We need at least 70% of the worlds population to have immunity through infection or vaccination. Even if infection rates were 10 times higher (unlikely) it still only takes us to 8% of the planet''s population. Only four or five billion or so to go.
I don't see life returning to something like normal until 2022 or beyond. I'd be delighted to be proved wrong.
The Chinese experience is illuminating but not something we could emulate. A Chinese citizen I know was rash enough to try to sneak out to the shops in contravention of local restrictions. They were intercepted by the police, dragged back home and denounced to their neighbours as a threat to them all. Effective as an anti-virus measure but it requires a level of surveillance and conformity the UK population would not want to emulate, I think.
I lived in China for two months. It was the longest twenty years of my life. And I grew up in a police state!
Your masjor problem there Alexander was not being Chinese, they are even more arrogent than the Boers, or English
Well, I'm married to one (by origins, not passport; three generations away); the stock can be friendly. It was the utter grey mediocrity of life in modern China I hated.
Quote from: sean66 on 03 December 2020, 01:01:39 PM
but I read somewhere that you have no course of redress if you suffer side effects :-
Well, that's not terribly reassuring.
Quote from: Ithoriel on 03 December 2020, 02:00:12 PM
I am glad the vaccines are proving successful and keen to get vaccinated when my turn comes but also glad not to be first in line. After all, the early bird may get the worm but the second mouse gets the cheese :)
Same here, not keen to be at the front of the queue for this.
I'm also finding it a bit . . . disconcerting . . . how anyone who asks a simple question, or expresses even a little doubt or apprehension is immediately being branded as some sort of raving lunatic anti-vaxxer, lumped in with flat-earthers and holocaust-deniers.
Quote from: Raider4 on 07 December 2020, 05:30:41 PM
I'm also finding it a bit . . . disconcerting . . . how anyone who asks a simple question, or expresses even a little doubt or apprehension is immediately being branded as some sort of raving lunatic anti-vaxxer, lumped in with flat-earthers and holocaust-deniers.
Are you telling me the Earths not Flat?
Quote from: Orcs on 07 December 2020, 06:09:03 PM
Are you telling me the Earths not Flat?
Well one of them might not be . . .
Quote from: Raider4 on 07 December 2020, 05:30:41 PM
Well, that's not terribly reassuring.
Same here, not keen to be at the front of the queue for this.
I'm also finding it a bit . . . disconcerting . . . how anyone who asks a simple question, or expresses even a little doubt or apprehension is immediately being branded as some sort of raving lunatic anti-vaxxer, lumped in with flat-earthers and holocaust-deniers.
Humanity has lost the art of nuance
Quote from: flamingpig0 on 07 December 2020, 08:04:03 PM
Humanity has lost the art of nuance
Indeed.
It's too easy to be against things, and too easy to take (or assume) polarising view points.
I'm massively pro vaccines. But I'm also very aware that version 1.0 of anything isn't often the best.
Quote from: fred. on 07 December 2020, 10:09:29 PM
Indeed.
It's too easy to be against things, and too easy to take (or assume) polarising view points.
I'm massively pro vaccines. But I'm also very aware that version 1.0 of anything isn't often the best.
There's an interesting engineers' viewpoint (somewhat outdated as manufacturing technology has now improved so much) that version 2 is usually the best.
After #2 the tendency is to crank up the production rate, and seek economies "You didn't really need that radio...".
Of course there are exceptions:
Music - the "difficult" second album - through I would argue that many bands second albums are among their greatest.
Tanks - at some point they'll figure out how to fit a bigger gun.
Quote from: fred. on 07 December 2020, 10:09:29 PM
Indeed.
It's too easy to be against things, and too easy to take (or assume) polarising view points.
I'm massively pro vaccines. But I'm also very aware that version 1.0 of anything isn't often the best.
Very much how I feel about it. The safety data that has been released on the trials is encouraging so far, but until we get the feedback from the initial rollout we don't have the sheer numbers that will confirm that the covid vaccines are safe across all groups.
Quote from: Orcs on 03 December 2020, 09:57:36 PM
I would love to believe this John. But what is stopping UK buyers buying it from abroad (eg BUPA, Private Clinics, Big Business), where there is no free medical system? The pharmaceutical companies are not particularly known for their ethical behavior. Do we really think they will turn down a fast buck?
The cost of a single vaccine dose in India is possibly going to be as low as £4.50 to a more likely £27. Given as the suggestion that it is likely to take in excess of a year to vaccinate the whole of the UK and the fact that corruption in India and similar countries is rife. I would be very surprised if you cannot get an injection at a private clinic in the UK in the next few months well in advance of when you would be called unless you are on the 1st list to be vaccinated..
Well, I'm not quite as cynical as you perhaps, and take the statement by the producers and the government at face value until they turn out to be false. Pfizer said it has no plans to supply the jab to the private sector for the foreseeable future and AstraZeneca said it is committed to broad and equitable access at no profit during the pandemic, and that agreements prioritise the supply to all governments and multilateral organisations. The UK Government has insisted there will be no queue-jumping for a Covid-19 vaccine and "every single person in the UK" will be offered one for free on the NHS before any private providers will even have a product to sell. Ultimately it will be like the flu jab I'm sure and become a routine part of preparing for winter. Those who want it will either get it via the NHS (which is not free, contrary to popular belief - we pay for it through general taxation) or they will pay for it.
Quote from: Orcs on 03 December 2020, 10:13:07 PM
This disease in a large number of cases is a particularly nasty disease to get, with potential long term life changing effects. I It has caused some 50,000+ people in this country to die in a very unpleasant way.
Those not vaccinated will have the potential to infect those where the vaccine did not take, those who are at the end of the effective period the vaccination works for. (which we have no idea how long this is ) . Or others who were not given the vaccine.
Being young fit and healthy is no guarantee you won't die, or pass it on to someone who almost certainly will.
Getting everybody vaccinated is the only way to try and get rid of the disease or at least ensure that most people survive it .
The cost of vaccinating everybody (around £3.5 Billion) is about 10% of what the furlough scheme cost. Plus the impact on jobs, industry etc.
That is a pretty succinct summary, I'd say.
Hats off to the first two recipients: Margaret Keenan and William Shakespaeare (Fact!)
Not so much to the flood of antivaxers who are flooding twitter with their dubious speculation.
Stealing the most awful puns, that I've already seen..
If Margaret was the very first person to have the vaccine....She could be classed as 1-A, as far as the rollout was concerned.
Will Shakespeare could be 2-B.....or not 2-B?
Don't have a go at me.....or you'll be bard....I didn't make those up.
Cheers - Phil😁
WE just got mass testing set up, you willk b e upset to hear that I'm negative ! :D
Quote from: Techno II on 08 December 2020, 02:50:58 PM
Stealing the most awful puns, that I've already seen..
All's Well That Ends Well.
Quote from: DaveH on 08 December 2020, 11:51:18 AM
Very much how I feel about it. The safety data that has been released on the trials is encouraging so far, but until we get the feedback from the initial rollout we don't have the sheer numbers that will confirm that the covid vaccines are safe across all groups.
You see, this is where I have some misgivings.
The Pfizer and Moderna "vaccines" are not normal vaccines. They are in fact
the first vaccines which use mRNA (messenger RNA) to be approved.
Problems which may occur, such as autoimmune reactions, will not be known for at least a couple years, as there has been no long term testing. In the short term women who are pregnant will not receive the vaccine (no testing) and children 12 and under either. So there has been a lot of short cuts made here to get this vaccine on the street.
The use of mRNA against other diseases such as cancer are still in the testing stages.
So one could actually say... this is one big experiment.
For more information: University of Cambridge https://www.phgfoundation.org/briefing/rna-vaccines
Quote from: Techno II on 08 December 2020, 02:50:58 PM
Stealing the most awful puns, that I've already seen..
"Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars.
And say 'These wounds I had on Corona's day.' "
Just feeling glad that I'm not Russian (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-55221785).
Quote from: GrumpyOldMan on 08 December 2020, 10:21:33 PM
"Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars.
And say 'These wounds I had on Corona's day.' "
What from a beer bottle ?