General COVID-19 Vaccine Discussion

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Not sure he would have needed to have been reminded of an opportunity. In the US we are already seeing a decline in vaccinations and looking across the major OECD/G20 countries it clear they are close to the point where it will decline too. I'm sure all the Pfizer salespeople are aware of this and ensuring they are in the market to get increased/accelerated sales where they can, e.g. Australia.

Personally I would be far from surprised to see more Pfizer becoming available as other countries demands lessen which is why I've been saying for a while now I think supply will soon become yesterdays problem to be replaced by hesitancy.
 
  • Agree
Reactions: tgh
Two differing points of view re booster shots.Israel says soon,US says maybe likely


Note in the USA only 48% are fully vaccinated.
 
There was some discussion in media yesterday that if people choose to move their AZ second dose forward from 12 weeks, they will definitely need an MRNA booster before the end of this year putting more pressure on supply, Whereas those that wait 12 weeks wont need a booster until next year when supplies will be more readily available.

And of course today WHO are complaining saying no one should get a booster until everyone has had 2 doses BUT is that realistic? If the countries with decent percentage of population don't do boosters, then all their good work is for nothing as the virus will creep back in as it mutates and immunity drops.
 
I think if they had their time over they'd definitely do things differently. However, mRNA is a new technology and they probably had advice that it was less likely to produce a viable vaccine and that even if it did it would be much more expensive to order and much more challenging to store and distribute. Needing to store in very cold fridges does make it much more difficult to roll-out.

Pfizer have changed things to make it easier to distribute now than the original recommendations, making it possible to distribute through the crucially important GP channel, not just limited mass vaccination hubs.

Had the UoQ candidate been successful and the AZ not been slammed over very rare side effects, you can be sure the Opposition would have been very critical now of the government "wasting money" purchasing 40 million Pfizer doses had they done so when they ordered the original 10 million.
The ability to distribute widely within the US was first investigated by 'Operation Warp Speed' in May 2020. By July, the US had signed up all the major national chemist (drugstore) chains. I received my first email from one of them in late July 2020 announcing that they had already sourced the necessary equipment to store any successful vaccine regardless of the temperature required.

NZ also planned for the future and before they'd signed their first agreement with Pfizer had ordered special freezers sufficient for their country-wide rollout. The last units arrived Dec 24th and were installed before NYE.

Other countries looked at what could be done in advance, unfortunately the Federal Govt figured that only amounted to media briefings with outlandish claims.
 
I still don't understand why the work on the UQ vaccine was abandoned. I don't see transitory positive HIV results as an issue. An HIV viral load test would quickly have sorted out which people really had HIV.
Well that would end all blood donations (major source of cost-free revenue for CSL) which would mean no operations in Australia, as well as condemning thousands of others to death due to no blood plasma etc.

It would also mean people who had contracted HIV may be discounted as false +ves. Etc, etc.

Binning the UQ vaccine candidate is the right decision IMHO.
 
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Yes just the Guardian putting up a misleading headline.In the article it says this from Pfizer-


What that doesn't say that the delivery has been brought forward and that's what Morrison was saying.
And at the moment it is at least a little change in the game allowing us to quicken the pace of the roll out.
JakeSeven - I wonder how much we all paid to have them brought forward… and what country was knocked back in return…

Answer: Paid zero, no deliveries have been brought forward. No other country is missing out.

The reality is that no Pfizer dose deliveries for July are to be brought forward as Morrison claimed. This put Pfizer between a rock & a hardplace:
  • they could tell the 100% truth and say no deliveries are being brought forward - exposing Morrison as a fraud for a second time in days; or
  • they could just say that they would be delivering 40 million doses by the end of the year etc etc, and let Morrison escape demands for his resignation
Pfizer have already warned Morrison about making untrue comments and threatened to cancel all contracts when Morrison kept implying that there were delivery delays with Pfizer as well as AZ. Remember that Group 1A was to solely receive Pfizer. Pfizer US contacted the Federal Govt and demanded an immediate public apology which Morrison did at the end of his media conference in WA about the aftermath of the storms.

This time instead of Morrison making negative false comments about Pfizer, he made false positive comments.
________________________________________________________________​

Greg Hunt the previous weekend outlined the weekly deliveries for July 2021 & August. Figures that he had already spoken about a month earlier:
  • 300,000 doses 1st July delivery
  • 500,000 2nd July delivery
  • 1,000,000 3rd July delivery
  • 1,000,000 4th July delivery
All Morrison did was pure spin. Just like finishing the National Cabinet meeting & announcing that under 40s could get AZ shots via GPs - which made it seem as if it had been both discussed and agreed to by 'National Cabinet' when in fact nothing of the sort had happened.

Two days later he was called out and then said he never implied it was a National Cabinet decision. So what do you do to take the spotlight off his misleading comments? Announce something that sounds good. Claim to have got Pfizer to speed up delivery given the Sydney outbreak.

Mr Morrison said on Friday the Pfizer delivery “ramps up further to 1 million and even more, or thereabouts, when we get into August” and would reach 4.5 million in that month.

Nothing changed though, still the same one page (updated) schedule as supplied by Pfizer in early February 2021 after contracting the 2nd 10 million doses.

Guess where 'tripling of shots' came from? 1st week in July @ 300,000 shots vs 3rd week deliveries @ 1,000,000 shots.

Never let the truth get in the way of spin regardless of the circumstances.

Media conference - Greg Hunt June 6, 2021
"Then in terms of doses, what we’re expecting, as we’ve said, is that from July, we will move from a 300,000 to approximately 600,000 a week on average over July.
We’ll actually build up during the course of July, start lower and build up higher over the course of July.
That will be maintained"
"But in addition, we will be receiving in the coming week 500,000 doses from the COVAX facility of Pfizer."

Greg Hunt was not making a mistake in his maths, the figures he had were adjusted to reflect that there were 4 deliveries in July to deal with 4.43 weeks, soneone in Fed Health may have been overly pedantic but correct.

2,800,000 / 4.43 = 632,000 doses/week

For August, maintained at 1 million/week = 4.43 million doses in the month. Last shipment in August to be around 1,300,000 actually as start of September ramp as there are 5 deliveries in August but the figure (yet again by a Health Dept pedant) is adjusted to August weeks, not total deliveries received.

Frankly I am surprised that Morrison did not announce that he'd also brought forward deliveries in August to 5.3 million doses - after all that is the total of Pfizer deliveries on the schedule since February.

Mind you, all this is out by one week which is the nearly one week delay from landing in Australia, testing & approval for distribution.

Then on June 14th, this gem was dropped:

"In terms of supply, last week the Therapeutic Goods Administration cleared 811,980 doses of Pfizer vaccine, and 232,800 doses of AstraZeneca vaccine."

Being the 500,000 Covax facility doses and 312,000 regular Pfizer weekly delivery - less random test samples.

Is this why numerous States were worried about running out of Pfizer? Did the extra 500,000 doses not get split over time but instead half delivered en-masse, so requiring more appointments to be added to the booking systems that then needed to be deleted from future weeks without the Fed Govt making it clear it was a temporary surge?
 
Some dozens of pages back there was much said about wanting to know what vaccine 'brand' & 'type' is being injected for CV and the flu - by some.

This article is a good update (mostly accurate) on impending flu vaccine supply changes. Only mistake is in the number of eggs that will no longer be required - either the sub-editor thought it was a mistake and replaced billions with millions or the author got it wrong.

Roughly 1/3rd of all eggs produced in Australia each year are used for the flu vaccine. Annual production of eggs (caged, barn & free range) > 6.2 billion.

BTW - not barn nor free-range eggs but antibiotic treated caged hen eggs used for the Flu vaccine.
 
Some dozens of pages back there was much said about wanting to know what vaccine 'brand' & 'type' is being injected for CV and the flu - by some.

This article is a good update (mostly accurate) on impending flu vaccine supply changes. Only mistake is in the number of eggs that will no longer be required - either the sub-editor thought it was a mistake and replaced billions with millions or the author got it wrong.

Roughly 1/3rd of all eggs produced in Australia each year are used for the flu vaccine. Annual production of eggs (caged, barn & free range) > 6.2 billion.

BTW - not barn nor free-range eggs but antibiotic treated caged hen eggs used for the Flu vaccine.
Do vegans refuse immunisation because eggs are used? What will they think of this method with a basis from dogs? I am genuinely interested in the answer. I guess the number of unvaccinated vegans is relatively small in terms of percentage of the population, but every extra person vaccinated helps. I know we had to retest some kids with an egg allergy before they could have their MMR.
 
Good News, clinical trials for Pfizer and Moderna for under 12s with results towards the end of the year.

Well the winter solstice ( midwinter ) is late December in the USA.But Pfizer says it's trial will release results in September .The FDA then says they must present 4 - 6 months post vaccination safety information before giving their authority.So that makes it January to March 2022.
 
Fresh News:
Dr Mobeen
Peer reviewed AZ Blood Clotting cause on PF4. It seems credible, and means Heparin might be used, meaning a re-write of procedures.

There are some fringe sites suggesting alternate treatments.

On the matter of Covid boosters - Given qualified Israel reports of Delta being a problem...
However Australia will have to 'grow up' as I suspect elimination policy is not sustainable anymore.
 
It appears that an 8 week 'gap' for Pfizer is the best option to counteract the Delta variant. To quote "An eight-week gap seems to be the sweet spot for tackling the Delta variant". Still awaiting Peer Review but it appears to be based on strong evidence.


 
It appears that an 8 week 'gap' for Pfizer is the best option to counteract the Delta variant. To quote "An eight-week gap seems to be the sweet spot for tackling the Delta variant". Still awaiting Peer Review but it appears to be based on strong evidence.


So if they change the gap between Pfizer doses to 8 weeks the advantage in terms of time from first to second dose to get fully vaccinated of Pfizer over Astrazeneca would be nowhere near as significant.
 
It appears that an 8 week 'gap' for Pfizer is the best option to counteract the Delta variant. To quote "An eight-week gap seems to be the sweet spot for tackling the Delta variant". Still awaiting Peer Review but it appears to be based on strong evidence.


And to provide the important context that you omitted:

"For the UK's current situation..."
 
And to provide the important context that you omitted:

"For the UK's current situation..."

Fai enough. To be honest for some reason I missed that part of the sentence when I read the article about three times.
 
More info out of the U.S on the probable need for a 'booster shot' for at least some.

Though a study at the NIH thinks that a booster may not be needed for some time.
 
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A study of cancer patients receiving the Pfizer vaccine.Basically OK but some did not get a response.A possible need for follow up antibody tests.

The J&J vaccine has good persistence of antibody levels.

A range of different vaccines being used around the world.



The UK vaccine committee only reccommending vaccination for children with co morbidities.
 
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