The Vaccine Discussion Thread

[jane01jp]

The below quote is from an article in "The Guardian." So, will DCL require proof of vaccine or proof of vaccines?

Prof Andrew Pollard, director of the Oxford Vaccine Group, said there would be lots of new coronavirus variants this year but the current vaccines should protect against those circulating in the UK.

He told Today: “As we look forward through 2021, we’re going to see lots of new variants and we’re going to have to get used to that.

“But the critical question is whether some of these new variants are adapting because of immunity amongst human populations – whether that is because of infection … or indeed as a result of vaccination.”

But he said that new variants were being detected early. “If indeed we do need to make new vaccines we will be able to stand those up really quickly,” he said.

 

[o&smom]

The below quote is from an article in "The Guardian." So, will DCL require proof of vaccine or proof of vaccines?

Prof Andrew Pollard, director of the Oxford Vaccine Group, said there would be lots of new coronavirus variants this year but the current vaccines should protect against those circulating in the UK.

He told Today: “As we look forward through 2021, we’re going to see lots of new variants and we’re going to have to get used to that.

“But the critical question is whether some of these new variants are adapting because of immunity amongst human populations – whether that is because of infection … or indeed as a result of vaccination.”

But he said that new variants were being detected early. “If indeed we do need to make new vaccines we will be able to stand those up really quickly,” he said.

Can you link the article here? When I google him and the guardian, I get articles from Nov.

 

[jane01jp]

Can you link the article here? When I google him and the guardian, I get articles from Nov.

I looked again and can't find it. The best I could do is this MSN article that includes most of the referenced quote:

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/worl...eady-e2-80-99-top-scientist-warns/ar-BB1cOfd4

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

Yep !

This website from CBC tracks all the 100+ vaccine candidates - where they are in clinical trials, etc. Beside each name it includes info on what type of vaccine it is. It looks like 6 use inactivated virus; 1 uses a live, attenuated virus; the rest are vaccines that target a part of the virus.

https://newsinteractives.cbc.ca/coronavirusvaccinetracker/

Thanks for sharing the link but my statement is still correct. The covid vaccines available now don't even use the killed virus in it.
Just in case we are reading this on some distant future date, as of now we only have 2 vaccines available to the public and they are both mRNA vaccines. No killed or attenuated virus at all.
Understanding mRNA COVID-19 Vaccines | CDC

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

We attempted to get our vaccine yesterday and it was a disaster. Thousands of people showed up for 600 doses, first come, first serve. They were scheduled to open 10am, but by 9:00am all 600 numbers were gone. Traffic was a nightmare and this was for the 70+ and 80+ groups. dont believe the BS about WV doing a good job, because this was horrible. Read later that people showed up 5 hours earlier and was let in to get assigned a number. Folks in this age group should not have to do this, esp with no bathroom facilities. Now here in WV they are talking about opening the age to 65 next week and there are so many elderly folks in the 80+ group still trying to get vaccines. They need to do a better job getting the vaccines to primary care doctors and pharmacist. Right now only health departments are issuing them and the service is inadequate. Ok, rant over, feeling frustrated and disgusted with WV

This is awful. I agree this is no way to treat the elderly. Sheesh, I'm no where close to that age and couldn't go 5 hours with no bathroom.
What I read about WV is not that they were doing a great job, simply that they were able to get more people vaccinated than NY.

Here in NJ it is by appointment only. People are so excited when new appts get announced and they're all gone in 30 mins.
My dad is late 70s with 3 other risk factors. I was happy to get an April 17 appt but now my sister was able to get him March 20 and closer to home so I'm cancelling the April one.

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

I have a little (kind of long) story I want to share, and as its sort of vaccine related ill pop it here.

Back in March when my country went into lockdown I was unemployed, but wanted to do something. So I signed up with a local charity and ended up being a part of the team who called around then vulnerable and elderly, mainly to see if they needed anything but also for a chat. Not many of mine wanted to chat, but I had one little old lady, Ivy, who is in her 90's and sounded exactly like Mrs Doubtfire. We had calls every Monday and Thursday and I think I ended up getting more out of them than her.

Unfortunately by the end of April I was working 2 jobs and had to give up the calls. By now Ivy was getting down and on our last call she told me it would be a miracle if she made it to Christmas. I thought of her every day.

Anyway. A couple of weeks ago my hours at one of my jobs got drastically cut (which I'm actually happy about), but now having more time I'm volunteering at a major vaccine roll out hub doing the non-clinical side.

Ive only done 2 days and today I was checking people in, when Ivy came to my station, we've never met so completel luck that she was sent to me. When we realised who we were to eadh other we had a little cry and I got to escort her to her jab and held her hand as as she had it. I asked her if it hurt and she said yes, but it was the best pain. Since we last spoke she's lost 2 friends to covid and as she had no family she officially gave me her number. So I'm going to call her at least twice a week, and I've promised her that once this is all over and it is safe, I'll take her out for a cup of tea, because its been almost a year since she's last been able to.

Anyway, helping with the vaccine has been an actual privilege. I've never worked somewhere, where there is so much hope in one room.

This is such a beautiful story! Thank you for sharing with us. Sometimes fate brings 2 people together that help each other in unexpected ways and it's just meant to be.

 

[Starwind]

Thanks for sharing the link but my statement is still correct. The covid vaccines available now don't even use the killed virus in it.
Just in case we are reading this on some distant future date, as of now we only have 2 vaccines available to the public and they are both mRNA vaccines. No killed or attenuated virus at all.
Understanding mRNA COVID-19 Vaccines | CDC

I was agreeing with you.

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

I was agreeing with you.

Oh I'm sorry! Sometimes I get a little wound up.

 

[jane01jp]

More bad news out of Norway:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...talities-among-people-75-and-older-rise-to-29

 

[jlwhitney]

More bad news out of Norway:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...talities-among-people-75-and-older-rise-to-29

While it does need to be researched more, in the end it may not be that huge of an issue. Giving anything that is a bit harsher to the body to frail elderly can cause death or serious effects. They just don't have the health, immune system and such to fight or handle much at that point.

 

[jane01jp]

While it does need to be researched more, in the end it may not be that huge of an issue. Giving anything that is a bit harsher to the body to frail elderly can cause death or serious effects. They just don't have the health, immune system and such to fight or handle much at that point.

Agree. Kind of like COVID itself - way more serious and deadly for older people.

 

[jlwhitney]

Agree. Kind of like COVID itself - way more serious and deadly for older people.

pretty much.

 

[AquaDame]

More bad news out of Norway:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...talities-among-people-75-and-older-rise-to-29

"Pfizer and BioNTech are working with the Norwegian regulator to investigate the deaths in Norway, Pfizer said in an e-mailed statement. The agency found that “the number of incidents so far is not alarming, and in line with expectations,” Pfizer said."

A little morbidly put IMO... if they DO decide there is issue here I wish they'd get on it quickly and designate those with severe complications who are elderly one of the groups that we take the vaccine for if we are otherwise younger and healthy.

 

[jane01jp]

"Pfizer and BioNTech are working with the Norwegian regulator to investigate the deaths in Norway, Pfizer said in an e-mailed statement. The agency found that “the number of incidents so far is not alarming, and in line with expectations,” Pfizer said."

A little morbidly put IMO... if they DO decide there is issue here I wish they'd get on it quickly and designate those with severe complications who are elderly one of the groups that we take the vaccine for if we are otherwise younger and healthy.

Could be that its in line with expectations. Some say that even one death is too many.

Meanwhile, Dr. Fauci is starting to at least lean into concerns about having to modify the vaccine for new strains:

“The thing we really want to look at carefully is that does that mutation lessen the impact of the vaccine?” he said. “And if it does, then we’re going to have to make some modifications… We’re looking at that really very carefully.”

https://nypost.com/2021/01/17/fauci-warns-more-ominous-strains-of-covid-19-have-emerged/

 

[jane01jp]

Dr, Fauci is now saying that he thinks giving 100 million vaccines in 100 days is an achievable goal.

 

[n2mm]

Dr, Fauci is now saying that he thinks giving 100 million vaccines in 100 days is an achievable goal.

he also said there are 2 new vaccines to be possibly approved in a few weeks. In my town I don’t know anyone who has gotten the vaccine here in the eastern panhandle of WV. My husband was born here (70 years ago) and I’ve been here 30 years. Isn’t it strange that people ask us often if we know where to get the vaccine, but no one we know has been able to get it. yet,the governor of WV continues to brag about WV success. my husband is on 1 waitlist that is over 1000 people long. I’m still too young (65) to even get on the waitlist.

 

[DCLDVC1]

he also said there are 2 new vaccines to be possibly approved in a few weeks. In my town I don’t know anyone who has gotten the vaccine here in the eastern panhandle of WV. My husband was born here (70 years ago) and I’ve been here 30 years. Isn’t it strange that people ask us often if we know where to get the vaccine, but no one we know has been able to get it. yet,the governor of WV continues to brag about WV success. my husband is on 1 waitlist that is over 1000 people long. I’m still too young (65) to even get on the waitlist.

I'm not surprised considering the current political climate.

 

[brentm77]

To the mods - I hope this is on point enough. I am posting in the thread devoted to the vaccine and I think it relates directly to when we can return to cruising.

I know I, and others, have been accused of being overly optimistic (or having our heads in the sand or similar sentiments). I don't even necessarily disagree and I am completely open to the idea that I am being unrealistic as to when things will return to normal. But if it helps me to think there is a light at the end of the tunnel, and this isn't the "new normal" as some people think (and even seem to want sometimes), I'm cool with that. The New York Times Morning Brief made the same point I have been making - the vaccine is being way undersold, which will be harmful to its acceptance. Here is what it said (red emphasis is mine):

‘Ridiculously encouraging’​

Right now, public discussion of the vaccines is full of warnings about their limitations: They’re not 100 percent effective. Even vaccinated people may be able to spread the virus. And people shouldn’t change their behavior once they get their shots.​

These warnings have a basis in truth, just as it’s true that masks are imperfect. But the sum total of the warnings is misleading, as I heard from multiple doctors and epidemiologists last week.​

“It’s driving me a little bit crazy,” Dr. Ashish Jha, dean of the Brown School of Public Health, told me.​

“We’re underselling the vaccine,” Dr. Aaron Richterman, an infectious-disease specialist at the University of Pennsylvania, said.​

“It’s going to save your life — that’s where the emphasis has to be right now,” Dr. Peter Hotez of the Baylor College of Medicine said.​

The Moderna and Pfizer vaccines are “essentially 100 percent effective against serious disease,” Dr. Paul Offit, the director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, said. “It’s ridiculously encouraging.”​

The details​

Here’s my best attempt at summarizing what we know:​

The Moderna and Pfizer vaccines — the only two approved in the U.S. — are among the best vaccines ever created, with effectiveness rates of about 95 percent after two doses. That’s on par with the vaccines for chickenpox and measles. And a vaccine doesn’t even need to be so effective to reduce cases sharply and crush a pandemic. If anything, the 95 percent number understates the effectiveness, because it counts anyone who came down with a mild case of Covid-19 as a failure. But turning Covid into a typical flu — as the vaccines evidently did for most of the remaining 5 percent — is actually a success. Of the 32,000 people who received the Moderna or Pfizer vaccine in a research trial, do you want to guess how many contracted a severe Covid case? One. Although no rigorous study has yet analyzed whether vaccinated people can spread the virus, it would be surprising if they did. “If there is an example of a vaccine in widespread clinical use that has this selective effect — prevents disease but not infection — I can’t think of one!” Dr. Paul Sax of Harvard has written in The New England Journal of Medicine. (And, no, exclamation points are not common in medical journals.) On Twitter, Dr. Monica Gandhi of the University of California, San Francisco, argued: “Please be assured that YOU ARE SAFE after vaccine from what matters — disease and spreading.” The risks for vaccinated people are still not zero, because almost nothing in the real world is zero risk. A tiny percentage of people may have allergic reactions. And I’ll be eager to see what the studies on post-vaccination spread eventually show. But the evidence so far suggests that the vaccines are akin to a cure.

Offit told me we should be greeting them with the same enthusiasm that greeted the polio vaccine: “It should be this rallying cry.”​

The costs of negativity​

Why are many experts conveying a more negative message?​

Again, their motivations are mostly good. As academic researchers, they are instinctively cautious, prone to emphasizing any uncertainty. Many may also be nervous that vaccinated people will stop wearing masks and social distancing, which in turn could cause unvaccinated people to stop as well. If that happens, deaths would soar even higher.​

But the best way to persuade people to behave safely usually involves telling them the truth. “Not being completely open because you want to achieve some sort of behavioral public health goal — people will see through that eventually,” Richterman said. The current approach also feeds anti-vaccine skepticism and conspiracy theories.​

After asking Richterman and others what a better public message might sound like, I was left thinking about something like this:​

We should immediately be more aggressive about mask-wearing and social distancing because of the new virus variants. We should vaccinate people as rapidly as possible — which will require approving other Covid vaccines when the data justifies it.​

People who have received both of their vaccine shots, and have waited until they take effect, will be able to do things that unvaccinated people cannot — like having meals together and hugging their grandchildren. But until the pandemic is defeated, all Americans should wear masks in public, help unvaccinated people stay safe and contribute to a shared national project of saving every possible life.​

 

[jane01jp]

he also said there are 2 new vaccines to be possibly approved in a few weeks. In my town I don’t know anyone who has gotten the vaccine here in the eastern panhandle of WV. My husband was born here (70 years ago) and I’ve been here 30 years. Isn’t it strange that people ask us often if we know where to get the vaccine, but no one we know has been able to get it. yet,the governor of WV continues to brag about WV success. my husband is on 1 waitlist that is over 1000 people long. I’m still too young (65) to even get on the waitlist.

I know. I think he is thinking it could be done, but whether its highly-probable is another story.

 

[AquaDame]

To the mods - I hope this is on point enough. I am posting in the thread devoted to the vaccine and I think it relates directly to when we can return to cruising.

For sure, this has kind of become the catch all vaccine thread... as others have said more elegantly than I, news around the vaccine is very much de facto a cruising topic.