General COVID-19 Vaccine Discussion

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Another Australian based vaccine candidate using a new technology based on an old technology.Aiming for a one dose vaccine.Basis is the BCG vaccine fot TB and implanting parts of the covid virus.BCG by itself is being trialled against covid.This should increase efficacy.Has now got funding.

This was initially researched in March 2020 but only using BCG vaccine:
 

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An interesting article from the NYT's about whether 'Booster' shots will be needed and when. The research is in its early stages but it seems that RNA based vaccines like the Pfizer and Moderna ones are more effective than the inactivated virus types. Their effectiveness also seems to fade at a slower rate. They are also examining the "switching" of the vaccines for the booster shots. The current thinking is that "we think it is likely that a third dose, a boost of our vaccine, within 12 months after vaccine administration, will likely be needed".

Overall the article is pretty optimistic about the effectiveness of the current vaccines and moderately hopeful that new vaccines like Novavax and Sanofi will be even more effective as a booster vaccine.

 
The Sputnik Light vaccine performs well in Argentina.

The mRNA vaccines are safe in pregnancy.

Peak antibody production by the Pfizer vaccine significantly reduced to the B.1.617.2 (Delta variant) and B.1.351 (Beta variant).
 
I thought I'd offer some perspectives from British Columbia, Canada. I emigrated from Melbourne to Vancouver in May 2019, shortly after I retired. Canada is an interesting comparator for Australia. It is foundationally similar to Australia, is a federal Westminster representative democratic common law constitutional monarchy sharing the same Monarch with Australia, socio-economically on par with Australia and has a fairly robust public health system, quite similar to Australia's.

Covid-19 is endemic in Canada, but the experiences of each province are not universal. Starting from the east, the Atlantic provinces (Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador, and Prince Edward Island) established a "bubble" in mid-2020, which required 14 day quarantine for those Canadians outside the bubble. This achieved de facto community elimination, but like any bubble, it was to burst eventually (as I think will inevitably be the case in Australia), and did so when the so-called "third wave" took off in Canada from October 2020 onwards. The bubble has not been re-established as the provinces nationally have established re-start plans following the astounding success of the Canadian vaccination programme (more on this below).

Ontario and Quebec, the two most populous provinces, have been hard hit by Covid-19 for most of the pandemic. The third wave was particularly brutal for these provinces, and the lockdowns in those provinces have been long and hard (for example, from time to time Ontario closed all but essential businesses, and Quebec had curfews in place).

The prairie provinces of Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta had the next unhappiest pandemic, particularly in the third wave.

British Columbia's pandemic was not too bad, so far as these things go. While the third wave resulted in the highest case numbers, the timing of the third wave coincided with the vaccine rollout, so hospitalisations and deaths started to fall rapidly. The province tried hard to minimise business disruptions, although restaurants and bars were closed to in-person dining and drinking from the beginning of March to 25 May. With the exception of being able to do anything "fun" (eg, travel and the performing arts), things carried on fairly normally in BC.

Things really started to change from February, when Canada's vaccination programme got started in earnest (vaccination for aged care was available from December, but basically confined to that cohort until vaccine deliveries ramped up from February). Although plagued by spotty deliveries (from Pfizer, Moderna and Astra Zeneca) in February and March, once supply stabilised, the vaccination programme has been a resounding success. This is from Friday's NYT, showing where Canada sits on the global league table:

12.06.21.jpg

And this is the lay of the land in Canada right now:13.06.2021.jpg
13.06.2021b.jpg
The majority of those almost 29M doses have been since February. The seven day rolling dose average is sitting at 400,000 doses nationally per day. Vaccination (delivered through mass clinics and pharmacies) operates every day of the week, and clinics (staffed by anyone qualified to give an intramuscular injection - doctors, nurses, pharmacists, paramedics, medical students) operate long hours to ensure convenient access for people. Second doses are ramping up right now. In British Columbia, the province has implemented various granular strategies to reach people who may have limited access (for whatever reasons) to vaccination. The BC provincial government and health authority seems confident the vaccination rate will reach 80% of the eligible 12+ population. Quebec is almost there!

Pfizer has been the workhorse of the Canadian vaccination programme. Moderna has been very unreliable in its delivery volumes, although the next four weeks may see Moderna catch up (it is millions of doses behind). AZ got off to a promising start, but was undermined by the approach taken to the TTS situation (quite poorly handled, IMO), and basically stopped being made available to under 40-45s (the age varied from province to province). As it is safe, efficacious and effective, and was the first vaccine available to me and offered to me, I gladly and gratefully received AZ, and will have my second dose of it in the week of 20 June. Although I could have chosen to have a mRNA vaccine for my second dose, I elected against this as I think the science scales tip in favour of completing a first homologous vaccination regime, and then going down the heterologous path when it comes time for my booster (next year, I am guessing).

The success of the vaccination rollout in Canada is attributable to several matters:

1. Government (at all levels) and public health authority messaging about vaccines and vaccination has been clear and consistent at all times (in very distinct contrast to the Australian approach) - each vaccine approved for use in Canada is safe, efficacious and effective, the best vaccine is the first vaccine you are offered, and the pandemic won't end unless you are vaccinated.

2. Against the background of consistent messaging and the steady success of vaccination in the UK, USA and Israel, vaccination hesitancy rates declined very significantly from December 2020 until March 2021 (when the last surveys appeared to have been conducted), when they reached 25-30%, and the real world experience since then suggests that hesitancy rates have fallen even further.

3. An almost complete absence of any politics playing by all levels of government. There's been a little bit of politicking about the US-Canada border re-opening, with the Premier of Ontario trying to do some "look over there" attention diversion from his province's own pandemic misfortunes, but I think that virtually everyone has seen through that, and looks forward to the border re-opening once a sufficient number of Canadians are fully vaccinated (the Federal government has not said what that number is, but I suspect it will likely be around 70-75%).

4. More recently, the publication by most of the provinces of their re-start plans, most of which expressly tie vaccination rates to re-opening activities. People want to be able to get back to travel, the performing arts, seeing friends and families, not wearing masks and watching hockey as a spectator. In British Columbia, we're going to step 2 of our plan tomorrow, but a big date in our plan is 1 July, which is when the indoor mask mandate will end (and shift to "recommended"), things like no restrictions on indoor personal gatherings, some return of the performing arts, no group limits on indoor dining and drinking, nightclubs etc re-opening, indoor fitness classes resuming and some indoor sports spectating. An even bigger date is 7 September - the "back to normal" date, which is dependent on more than 70% of the 18+ population have had their first dose, and case counts, hospitalisations and deaths remaining "low". The province has been a bit fuzzy about what "low" means, but I suspect it means below where we currently are - 71 in hospital, and a rolling seven day average of 160 new cases (the majority of BC's cases come from one health region, which has some particular demographic characteristics (comparatively dense multigenerational housing and the majority of non-remote close quarters workplaces).
 
Novax vaccine may be given at the same time as the flu vaccine.

And a little more of their Phase 3 trial.
 
Signed up to QLD vacation booking interest.

Just received an email from QLD Health about booking an appointment. Seems far more organised that VIC Health.
 
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I thought I'd offer some perspectives from British Columbia, Canada. I emigrated from Melbourne to Vancouver in May 2019, shortly after I retired. Canada is an interesting comparator for Australia. It is foundationally similar to Australia, is a federal Westminster representative democratic common law constitutional monarchy sharing the same Monarch with Australia, socio-economically on par with Australia and has a fairly robust public health system, quite similar to Australia's.

Covid-19 is endemic in Canada, but the experiences of each province are not universal. Starting from the east, the Atlantic provinces (Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador, and Prince Edward Island) established a "bubble" in mid-2020, which required 14 day quarantine for those Canadians outside the bubble. This achieved de facto community elimination, but like any bubble, it was to burst eventually (as I think will inevitably be the case in Australia), and did so when the so-called "third wave" took off in Canada from October 2020 onwards. The bubble has not been re-established as the provinces nationally have established re-start plans following the astounding success of the Canadian vaccination programme (more on this below).

Ontario and Quebec, the two most populous provinces, have been hard hit by Covid-19 for most of the pandemic. The third wave was particularly brutal for these provinces, and the lockdowns in those provinces have been long and hard (for example, from time to time Ontario closed all but essential businesses, and Quebec had curfews in place).

The prairie provinces of Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta had the next unhappiest pandemic, particularly in the third wave.

British Columbia's pandemic was not too bad, so far as these things go. While the third wave resulted in the highest case numbers, the timing of the third wave coincided with the vaccine rollout, so hospitalisations and deaths started to fall rapidly. The province tried hard to minimise business disruptions, although restaurants and bars were closed to in-person dining and drinking from the beginning of March to 25 May. With the exception of being able to do anything "fun" (eg, travel and the performing arts), things carried on fairly normally in BC.

Things really started to change from February, when Canada's vaccination programme got started in earnest (vaccination for aged care was available from December, but basically confined to that cohort until vaccine deliveries ramped up from February). Although plagued by spotty deliveries (from Pfizer, Moderna and Astra Zeneca) in February and March, once supply stabilised, the vaccination programme has been a resounding success. This is from Friday's NYT, showing where Canada sits on the global league table:

View attachment 250356

And this is the lay of the land in Canada right now:View attachment 250357
View attachment 250358
The majority of those almost 29M doses have been since February. The seven day rolling dose average is sitting at 400,000 doses nationally per day. Vaccination (delivered through mass clinics and pharmacies) operates every day of the week, and clinics (staffed by anyone qualified to give an intramuscular injection - doctors, nurses, pharmacists, paramedics, medical students) operate long hours to ensure convenient access for people. Second doses are ramping up right now. In British Columbia, the province has implemented various granular strategies to reach people who may have limited access (for whatever reasons) to vaccination. The BC provincial government and health authority seems confident the vaccination rate will reach 80% of the eligible 12+ population. Quebec is almost there!

Pfizer has been the workhorse of the Canadian vaccination programme. Moderna has been very unreliable in its delivery volumes, although the next four weeks may see Moderna catch up (it is millions of doses behind). AZ got off to a promising start, but was undermined by the approach taken to the TTS situation (quite poorly handled, IMO), and basically stopped being made available to under 40-45s (the age varied from province to province). As it is safe, efficacious and effective, and was the first vaccine available to me and offered to me, I gladly and gratefully received AZ, and will have my second dose of it in the week of 20 June. Although I could have chosen to have a mRNA vaccine for my second dose, I elected against this as I think the science scales tip in favour of completing a first homologous vaccination regime, and then going down the heterologous path when it comes time for my booster (next year, I am guessing).

The success of the vaccination rollout in Canada is attributable to several matters:

1. Government (at all levels) and public health authority messaging about vaccines and vaccination has been clear and consistent at all times (in very distinct contrast to the Australian approach) - each vaccine approved for use in Canada is safe, efficacious and effective, the best vaccine is the first vaccine you are offered, and the pandemic won't end unless you are vaccinated.

2. Against the background of consistent messaging and the steady success of vaccination in the UK, USA and Israel, vaccination hesitancy rates declined very significantly from December 2020 until March 2021 (when the last surveys appeared to have been conducted), when they reached 25-30%, and the real world experience since then suggests that hesitancy rates have fallen even further.

3. An almost complete absence of any politics playing by all levels of government. There's been a little bit of politicking about the US-Canada border re-opening, with the Premier of Ontario trying to do some "look over there" attention diversion from his province's own pandemic misfortunes, but I think that virtually everyone has seen through that, and looks forward to the border re-opening once a sufficient number of Canadians are fully vaccinated (the Federal government has not said what that number is, but I suspect it will likely be around 70-75%).

4. More recently, the publication by most of the provinces of their re-start plans, most of which expressly tie vaccination rates to re-opening activities. People want to be able to get back to travel, the performing arts, seeing friends and families, not wearing masks and watching hockey as a spectator. In British Columbia, we're going to step 2 of our plan tomorrow, but a big date in our plan is 1 July, which is when the indoor mask mandate will end (and shift to "recommended"), things like no restrictions on indoor personal gatherings, some return of the performing arts, no group limits on indoor dining and drinking, nightclubs etc re-opening, indoor fitness classes resuming and some indoor sports spectating. An even bigger date is 7 September - the "back to normal" date, which is dependent on more than 70% of the 18+ population have had their first dose, and case counts, hospitalisations and deaths remaining "low". The province has been a bit fuzzy about what "low" means, but I suspect it means below where we currently are - 71 in hospital, and a rolling seven day average of 160 new cases (the majority of BC's cases come from one health region, which has some particular demographic characteristics (comparatively dense multigenerational housing and the majority of non-remote close quarters workplaces).
Canada is doing a lot of things right. And their jab curve is among the best. Australia is still non transparent. I believe Canada is doubling the Pifzer booster shot interval, allowing mixed does if you got AZ first, and honest on the AZ age cutoff point. The rollout plan was defective, and they will not release the consultancy report(s). And for the AZ age changes, they have not released the profiles (age, blood type, pre-existing) etc. I hear O and B groups have lower risk, pure A higher, with diabetes and weight also a consideration..

So in Australia, vaccine hesitancy will SOAR. At 59, I do believe the 2nd AZ has 1/10 of the already teeny risk, so will take it. However I expect a green card and travel freedoms going forward. Everyone in NT will have had ample opportunity to be vaccinated by say December.
I will be happy to fly out, fully vaccinated with AZ, and on return, promise to spend 3 weeks in NT sightseeing. Arrival bubbles should begin where opportunity was given.

BTW I am furious at NSW covid pos driver, and more furious at comments like ' Full time' and sub contractors of contractors. Weasel words - this is the tip of the spear, and the prime contractor should loose that contract or pay dearly or contract breach.
 
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Some not so good news about SinoVac from Indonesia (anecdotal):

Yet, due to concerns about mRNA vaccines (Pfizer and Moderna) being rife in some sections of the community in Singapore, even the medical community (wonder who seeded those concerns :rolleyes:) demand for it is strong in Singapore. (nb: Some doctors here are of the belief the mRNA vaccines will cause leukaemia in 9 years time - WT#? why 9 years specifically? )

 
Some not so good news about SinoVac from Indonesia (anecdotal):

Yet, due to concerns about mRNA vaccines (Pfizer and Moderna) being rife in some sections of the community in Singapore, even the medical community (wonder who seeded those concerns :rolleyes:) demand for it is strong in Singapore. (nb: Some doctors here are of the belief the mRNA vaccines will cause leukaemia in 9 years time - WT#? why 9 years specifically? )

Yes there are scientific looking articles that push the idea that mRNA causes cancer such as this one.

Even the most cursory glance shows that the authors have absolutely no knowledge of the subject.The headline of one paragraph.
After your Covid vaccination, RNA is transported out of your cell’s nucleus, and will no longer function properly as a cancer tumor suppressor

There is no such thing as a universal mRNA.It is simply the messenger from DNA to the cells to produce a particular protein.There are millions of different mRNAs.
Take the BRCA genes which enable protein production that repairs DNA.They are known as tumour suppressor genes.
However if the gene has mutated then it can produce mRNA that will not end up getting the cells to produce the proper proteins.This can lead particularly to breast cancer.The cause though is the mutated DNA and not the mere messenger.

The truth is that using mRNA technology you can possibly help treat cancer.Here is one such article.
 
AstraZeneca recipients banned from seeing Springsteen on Broadway! (only US FDA approved vaccines accepted).

I predicted things like this would happen.

Many scoffed when I said because I'm a frequent traveler to USA I wanted to make sure i had a US approved vaccine, I wont be at all surprised if we see entry to not only events but also certain counties be contingent on an approved vaccine.

WHO emergency use approved wont cut it everywhere, some places will insist on a higher standard at least until Covid circulation drops to immaterial levels everywhere.
 
Victorian lockdown escapees who brought COVID to the Sunshine Coast fined over border breach. :D :D :D

Couple who left Melbourne lockdown to travel to Queensland cop hefty fine​

The Melbourne duo who sparked a Covid-19 scare in the Sunshine State have copped a hefty punishment for escaping the city’s lockdown.

"A couple who escaped Victorian lockdown and brought COVID to the Sunshine Coast has been fined for allegedly giving false information to cross the Queensland border.
Detectives from Task Force Sierra Linnet issued a Penalty Infringement Notice (PIN) to the 48-year-old man and 44-year-old woman for allegedly lying on their Queensland border declarations.
They have each been fined for failing to comply with COVID-19 Border Direction – CHO Untrue Info ($4,003)."
 
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Does the USA even have a centralised Vaccination registry like Australia does?

Not that Im aware of. But the state does issued you with a card once fully vaccinated, and if you have health insurance your insurer also records this.
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They have each been fined for failing to comply with COVID-19 Border Direction – CHO Untrue Info ($4,003)

Nice to see some action taken. I hope to read they have been similarly fined by NSW.
 
Not that Im aware of. But the state does issued you with a card once fully vaccinated, and if you have health insurance your insurer also records this.
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Nice to see some action taken. I hope to read they have been similarly fined by NSW.
So in reality there isn't a way to check who has had what then? Cards go missing or can be forged.
 
So in reality there isn't a way to check who has had what then? Cards go missing or can be forged.

Well there is an electronic record in the State's systems, health is state run. But not a centralised national database as they don't have a common Medicare system at a Federal level.

If you lose you card, you'd have to apply to your state government for a new one.

My friend who had the anaphylactic reaction to her second Moderna dose, says her insurance shows she is vaccinated, so the state hub sent the data to her insurer too because she listed her insurer on the vaccination form (and had to lodge a claim when rushed to emergency for a epi shot).
 
Victorian lockdown escapees who brought COVID to the Sunshine Coast fined over border breach. :D :D :D

Couple who left Melbourne lockdown to travel to Queensland cop hefty fine​

The Melbourne duo who sparked a Covid-19 scare in the Sunshine State have copped a hefty punishment for escaping the city’s lockdown.

"A couple who escaped Victorian lockdown and brought COVID to the Sunshine Coast has been fined for allegedly giving false information to cross the Queensland border.
Detectives from Task Force Sierra Linnet issued a Penalty Infringement Notice (PIN) to the 48-year-old man and 44-year-old woman for allegedly lying on their Queensland border declarations.
They have each been fined for failing to comply with COVID-19 Border Direction – CHO Untrue Info ($4,003)."

Add it to the list of covid fines that are never paid I’m sure!
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So in reality there isn't a way to check who has had what then? Cards go missing or can be forged.

It’s a massive issue in the US yup
 
And in the US (population 331 million), it’s reported that:

- 317 million doses have now been administered
- 148 million people are now fully vaccinated.
 
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