Malibuflyer wrote:
Flu and Covid are very different – they do not have more in common than similar mode of transmission and partly overlapping symptoms of the actual disease. And yes: Both are transmitted by viruses…
That’s like saying the British mutation is very different from the south African mutation, which is correct if you study every little detail. It’s also very irrelevant however. You get infected, corona, influenza and every mutation, and if you are old and/or unlucky you get very sick. They all will stick around in all foreseeable future. We have to live with it. To be able to do that, things have to normalize. Some will get sick, some will die, and we have to accept it, and live with it.
In which countries is the AZ vaccine being rubbished by the politicians?
It’s certainly not being rubbished by the politicians here in Ireland.
There is a perception here that the Pfizer one is the ‘gold standard’ but they seem to talking up the AZ one rather than taking it down, for fear that people might refuse it.
At present the refusal rate in general is about 1% here last I heard.
They are now saying that 80% of the Irish population (18 years and up) will have the first dose by 30 June, and 60% will have two doses by that date. Those figures suddenly got better, after the Danish announced a more ambitious vaccine rollout than us 
Last week they were talking about 30 September.
dublinpilot wrote:
In which countries is the AZ vaccine being rubbished by the politicians?
Notably a high level French politician (Macron came out saying “it is quasi-ineffective in older people”, based on zero evidence). A significant minority of Germans are reported to be rejecting the AZ vaccine in the wake of the FUD being spread about. This is despite the EMA approving it for all adults. Real world evidence from Scotland about the first dose already shows it is highly effective (including in the elderly) but the damage has been done in Germany it seems. Even forum members here have been calling the AZ vaccine “vapourware”.
https://www.bmj.com/content/372/bmj.n523
“The results, available as a preprint, showed that four weeks after the first doses of the Pfizer BioNTech and Oxford AstraZeneca vaccines were administered the risk of hospitalisation from covid-19 fell by up to 85% (95% confidence interval 76 to 91) and 94% (95% CI 73 to 99), respectively.” (in Scotland, the AZ vaccine was more likely to have been given to the very elderly).
“Macron: AstraZeneca vaccine seems ‘quasi-ineffective’ on older people”
“Vaccine poor Germans shunning AstraZenica”
https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20210218-vaccine-poor-germans-shunning-astrazeneca-jab
These political smears will cost lives, unfortunately.
One interesting snippet I heard today was that a random sample of 10k+ CV19 swabs for the normal “flu” found zero.
Not surprising, since most people are not passing anything on right now. But it also shows how much more infectious CV19 is than flu and the other colds. Throw in the 10x higher mortality and no wonder we have a big problem…
In which countries is the AZ vaccine being rubbished by the politicians?
France, Germany, Switzerland, Norway according to reports here, and much of central Europe. Ireland has been relatively clever in their management of it, AFAICT.
Whilst I would agree the vaccine roll out is far too slow here, which is down to President Macron and his government, I fear the UK press are once more painting France and more particularly him as the bogeyman. It is something he jokes about but is not something that concerns him.
But regarding the AZ vaccine I think people need to read what he actually said and in what context he made the “quasi ineffective for under 65’s” remark. It is the same as what was being said in other countries.
The Pfizer vaccines we have are slowly, too slowly being given to the over 75’s.
The AZ would rapidly be given to the under 65’s through Pharmacists, if we had it.
Other vaccines, although approved, have yet to arrive.
So yes we have problems in getting the vaccines but I hope we will not reach the death rates seen in the UK or USA.
It looks like the Dunkirk area will be locked down soon due to a large cluster of the UK variant.
Perhaps several other areas, such as Nice may also need to be locked down. There appears to be 10 high risk areas in all.
One has to congratulate the UK government on its decision to take risks and allowing them to be well ahead in vaccine roll out.
I think it is disappointing for this to become political. I suppose it is inevitable that questions have to be asked when the rate of vaccinations in developed countries varies, and of course we must hold our politicians to account, but it is the direct comparisons that can be damaging.
‘we did not start it’ – ‘yes you did, you invaded Poland!’
Sorry can’t make the link work…
[ fixed – just drop in the normal URL, for vimeo or youtube … please note Cobalt is not from the UK :) ]
https://twitter.com/i/status/837233401031614464
This one. One of my favourites.
They were talking about banning some of these.
Sorry can’t make the link work…
[ fixed – just drop in the normal URL, for vimeo or youtube … please note Cobalt is not from the UK :) ]
I added the link to the spot in the video where that line is… maybe that broke it?
Yeah; the text parser here which processes the YT and Vimeo code doesn’t support starting time.
I am beginning to feel a little strange
I’ve also started writing some really crap software.
