Mooney_Driver wrote:
One of the things that stuck out to me is that apparently there may be benefit in delaying the 2nd shot by a month or so,
Hard to tell from the currently available data – and therefore difficult decision to take.
Fact is: One shot efficacy is significantly lower than 2 shots.
Fact also seems to be: Two shot efficacy is higher with longer duration between the two shots.
Therefore the the optimization problem is if we maximize efficacy after two shots at the cost of a longer time period before people get their second shot and therefore a significantly higher risk of infection in between.
For Germany I guess the answer is quite easy these days:
We only vaccinate people that either have a significantly increased risk of getting infected (i.e. medical staff) or people where an actual infection has an extremely high probability of a severe progression (very old and patients with significant preconditions). Ok, and teachers but that is just for political reasons because we have an election later this year…
These populations need good protection asap. That is exactly the reason why they are vaccinated now. Therefore for the populations that currently get the shots in Germany stretching the duration for the second shot is not an option.
We could consider this when the vaccine hits broader parts of the general population. That would imply, however, that basically nobody in this part of the population would be finally vaccinated before fall – leaving out the entire summer vacation season …
Hard to tell from the currently available data
Not really; with AZ a 3 month wait is fine and the immunity continues to grow across the 3 months. With Pfizer, the 2nd shot is probably worth doing a bit sooner.
a significantly higher risk of infection in between.
A significantly higher risk of infection is not a public health issue; hospital occupancy is. And the reduction is hospital input is dramatic. The number of 80+ going to hospital has dropped to practically zero.
But with the failed EU vaccine purchase policy, and the politically expedient bad-mouthing of the AZ one, doing “demand management” by saying it doesn’t work in old people “because there is no data saying it does” (which is immunologically dumb) was the logical option… now it will backfire badly because the mainland media definitely reads UK media even if most of the population doesn’t, and the politicians will get a roasting.
It is bad for the UK because travelling abroad will be under tight restrictions, with vaccine passports as the only practical option.
It is also bad for everybody else because the more disease there is going around, the more mutations will appear.
For Germany I guess the answer is quite easy these days:
We only vaccinate people that either have a significantly increased risk of getting infected (i.e. medical staff) or people where an actual infection has an extremely high probability of a severe progression
Indeed, but it is a tragedy.
Peter wrote:
A significantly higher risk of infection is not a public health issue;
It is if the people infected have a very high probability of not surviving the infection…
Peter wrote:
with AZ a 3 month wait is fine and the immunity continues to grow across the 3 months.
At least from the data I have seen this is not exactly accurate: The immunity does not grow across the 3 months but the immunity that can be achieved after the 2nd shot increases if you wait longer.
f there is data that the immunity does really grow during the 3 months after the first shot I would be really interested to see it
This one is from S Africa where they ran a similar “slag off AZ” campaign 
The immunity does not grow across the 3 months
Apparently it does with AZ, but the data came out only yesterday, so time will tell what is in there.
It is if the people infected have a very high probability of not surviving the infection
How can one tell? There is a strong genetic factor but testing for it is not practical. It is mostly down to age.
Fact is: One shot efficacy is significantly lower than 2 shots.
Like so many “facts” alleged here, this one is unsupported by experience. The latest clinical evidence from tens of millions of people vaccinated in the UK is that one shot of AZ reduces the chance of old folks becoming seriously ill by almost 100%, with Pfizer not significantly worse. That leaves little scope for “significant” improvement.
Oh well that’s a done deal then. No further discussion
There was a story on the radio about a bus driver who whatsapped a copy of his CV19 test report to everybody on the bus, to show the border people A border official has no chance against that sort of thing if it happens in quantity.
I’ve already read stories of Brits forging CV19 test passes. There was quite a long article from one of the forgers, who was just a normal person who was going on an expensive trip and they didn’t get their results back on time, and was going to lose flights and hotel bookings worth ££££££ – so using her husband’s test result as a template, simply created one in MS Word and printed it out. This was early on this winter, before the general “thou shalt not go abroad” rule was imposed.
alioth wrote:
This was early on this winter, before the general “thou shalt not go abroad” rule was imposed.
And probably a good reason why it did. I hope they got the wrath of the whole system on these guys.
According to the Daily Trash, the one ferry worker on the Isle of Man managed to do 60 so far.
I find it hard to believe that any normal cold or flu would be as infectious as CV19. You probably can’t infect someone by walking past them in the street but it can’t take much more than that, in an indoor space.
