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Anyone not got your jab yet? Got concerns? Not got round to it? (Read 11726 times)

slab_happy

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Realistically, I know the explanation will be logistics - but in the current context (surging rates) rigidity makes no sense to.

Oh, totally agreed! Especially given that Delta takes such a bite out of the protection from the first dose, and that people in their twenties are such a high-risk group for transmission right now.

I think it'd be very sensible to go "okay, we'll let anyone who's keen get their second dose after 28 days". If we're hitting a demand ceiling on first doses -- fuck it, use them for second doses. Store jabs in arms not warehouses, as Mainwood likes to say.

And if you end up with a week or two when it's harder for people to book first-dose appointments before the next big Pfizer shipment comes in, a little scarcity might help stimulate demand.

slab_happy

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If we're going full multi-media, this is outstanding:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000x2tf/horizon-2021-1-horizon-special-the-vaccine

I'd rec to anyone as an amazing bit of documentary-making telling an amazing story, but it could be especially valuable for people who have some concerns about Big Pharma or worried about how fast the vaccines were produced, or just feel they don't know enough about the process -- it does a very good job showing the scientists as individual humans who did heroic work to make it happen, rather than nameless and faceless minions of Capitalism or Bill Gates or whoever.

Oldmanmatt

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Drove passed a packed Paignton Green, earlier; where a pop up vaccine tent/ambulance combo had a very healthy queue. My chief instructor had his second dose at a similar pop up on Torquay harbour, on Friday; again, quite a queue and multiple stabbers. I wonder if these pop ups might be slower adding their figues to the daily totals?

We had a staff meeting at the Bunker last night, looking at how we would handle Monday’s easing of restrictions. Bearing in mind the staff are all 25 or under, I had been expecting a push for complete relaxation. Quite the opposite, they were anxious. Less, I think, a fear of serious illness (though some expressions of that) but a fear of ten days isolation or weeks off work and of bringing home the infection to family etc.
Unanimous vote to keep the restrictions as they are in the wall and we’ll deal with the backlash.
To be fair, so far the response to the announcement on social media has been marked and universally positive. Not so much as an angry emoji.

Fultonius

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Why the hell, at this point, are they not simply vaccinating every eligible* person who presents themselves.

mRNA supply logistics, it's suspected.

https://twitter.com/PaulMainwood/status/1412831584034738178

And choosing to respond to that by rigidly enforcing the 8-week limit (even though we know perfectly well that the mRNA vaccines work fine with a 21/28 day interval).

Realistically, I know the explanation will be logistics - but in the current context (surging rates) rigidity makes no sense to. Obviously, I know I'm also pleading a highly personal case here (I'm really pissed off, in other words).

We just had the same thing happen. Went to the SECC in Glasgow at  5pm, 1 hour before that centre (it was an emergency hospital that never got used, then a mass vaccination centre) closes for the last time and there was basically no-one there. Despite being 6 weeks since our first jab, they wouldn't do us. Plenty vaccine, no-one else there but some arbitrary number that seems to have no real backup. Surely getting as many people double vaccinated as quickly as possible is just the best course of action just now?

andy popp

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there was basically no-one there.

I don't think I mentioned this, but the centre my daughter was turned away from was also all but empty.

Sorry it happened to you as well.

Fultonius

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there was basically no-one there.

I don't think I mentioned this, but the centre my daughter was turned away from was also all but empty.

Sorry it happened to you as well.

Ach, I was fully expecting it - just hoping we'd get lucky. Aunty Nic is running a tight ship up here, no defectors.

Johnny Brown

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Talking to a couple of people I know who haven't been jabbed, the reason seems to be basically they feel the risks of the jab outweigh the risks of getting Covid. Both under 40, so tiny risks either way, but one you have to actively opt in to, so why bother. Mixed up with some stuff about not liking the feeling of coercion.

Also for example, various reports stating 50-60% of patients currently on Covid wards have not been vaccinated. So then half of them have been vaccinated then? What's the fucking point in that then?

I suggested that a) they were probably at risk anyway (but didn't have any stats) and b) that maybe look at it that 85% have been jabbed so therefore actually underrepresented and also overall rates are way down and the risk of death or long term complications is improved but tbh you've lost them with the initial gut reaction.

Fultonius

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I heard someone at work the other day saying "I heard most deaths are those who are double vaccinated" well, no shit - old people's still gonna die of something! Of we get 100% double vaccinated then *all* the deaths will be from the double vaccinated group....

joel182

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I thought this picture (fingers crossed twitter embed works) was a great bit of data viz to show the effectiveness of the vaccinations:



(source)

slab_happy

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Talking to a couple of people I know who haven't been jabbed, the reason seems to be basically they feel the risks of the jab outweigh the risks of getting Covid. Both under 40, so tiny risks either way, but one you have to actively opt in to, so why bother. Mixed up with some stuff about not liking the feeling of coercion.

Also for example, various reports stating 50-60% of patients currently on Covid wards have not been vaccinated. So then half of them have been vaccinated then? What's the fucking point in that then?

I suggested that a) they were probably at risk anyway (but didn't have any stats) and b) that maybe look at it that 85% have been jabbed so therefore actually underrepresented and also overall rates are way down and the risk of death or long term complications is improved but tbh you've lost them with the initial gut reaction.

Really good, simple thread (with stats) explaining what I will now always think of as the "squish down" effect:

https://twitter.com/PaulMainwood/status/1417365020497883148

galpinos

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To counter the "people can't get the vaccine" stories, I had tried, and failed, to bring my second jab forward because of the 8 week gap and a holiday so was "stuck" at 9 weeks. I'd tried to change it online but no dice.

Then, out of the blue, I got a call from the "NHS Vaccine Team" last Friday and I was booked in Monday lunchtime. 

slab_happy

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I thought this picture (fingers crossed twitter embed works) was a great bit of data viz to show the effectiveness of the vaccinations:



(source)

Oh, that's a FANTASTIC bit of data viz, great work.

And of course even that that under-estimates the effectiveness of the vaccines, because our rollout was so age-stratified -- the fully-vaccinated people at this point are skewed heavily towards people who are older and/or clinically vulnerable, so have much higher risk of hospitalization to start with.

If you looked at hospitalizations during previous waves, the people who are now "green" would have made up a much higher percentage of hospitalizations than their percentage of the population. So the effect of the vaccines in lowering that so drastically is even greater than it looks.

slab_happy

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If a little fear might motivate anyone you know, this thread from an ICU doc is brutal:

https://twitter.com/seahorse4000/status/1416152376449372160

I can't count the number of times today I wrote "40 years old" (or 30, or 35) "fit and well, no medical history, not vaccinated"

Some people dig in harder in response to fear, so pick your weapons to suit.

Sidehaas

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To counter the "people can't get the vaccine" stories, I had tried, and failed, to bring my second jab forward because of the 8 week gap and a holiday so was "stuck" at 9 weeks. I'd tried to change it online but no dice.

Then, out of the blue, I got a call from the "NHS Vaccine Team" last Friday and I was booked in Monday lunchtime.

There is a lot of difficulty for some people in rebooking second doses to come forward. I tried for weeks but there were just no appointments available. In the end I got it easily at a walk-in centre that had lots of capacity, but you need to keep an eye on the local council's social media and be able to travel when the centres are running. It seems there are relatively few actual appointments available any more round here and almost everywhere is focusing on walk-ins. I'm not sure what happens if you try to book a first dose appointment, I suspect you have to travel significantly further than when I got mine but there is no way of checking.
Bit off topic, vaccine hesitancy is obviously a thing to be addressed, but there are still problems with the delivery/logistics for some people too, it's worth remembering that.

Sidehaas

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Talking to a couple of people I know who haven't been jabbed, the reason seems to be basically they feel the risks of the jab outweigh the risks of getting Covid. Both under 40, so tiny risks either way, but one you have to actively opt in to, so why bother. Mixed up with some stuff about not liking the feeling of coercion.

Also for example, various reports stating 50-60% of patients currently on Covid wards have not been vaccinated. So then half of them have been vaccinated then? What's the fucking point in that then?

I suggested that a) they were probably at risk anyway (but didn't have any stats) and b) that maybe look at it that 85% have been jabbed so therefore actually underrepresented and also overall rates are way down and the risk of death or long term complications is improved but tbh you've lost them with the initial gut reaction.

Really good, simple thread (with stats) explaining what I will now always think of as the "squish down" effect:

https://twitter.com/PaulMainwood/status/1417365020497883148

That reminds me, in respect of some of the posts above about getting second jabs 'early' - Mainwood was also on More or Less last week presenting a picture that vaccine supply is sufficient to do second doses after 8 weeks but, if everyone took up the option to bring second doses forward, there is insufficient supply to bring them forward any more than that. Hence the need to keep to 8 weeks and no sooner as the general principle.

slab_happy

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Bit off topic, vaccine hesitancy is obviously a thing to be addressed, but there are still problems with the delivery/logistics for some people too, it's worth remembering that.

I don't think it's off-topic -- for people who are feeling iffy or unsure about getting the vaccine, any difficulty and inconvenience getting it is going to deter them.

If you have to have a certain level of determination (and spare time/energy) in order to arrange it, some people who might be willing to get it in principle but aren't super-keen will be filtered out. They might give up, or they might just decide it's something they'll get around to at some future point and keep putting it off.

Nutty

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Talking to a couple of people I know who haven't been jabbed, the reason seems to be basically they feel the risks of the jab outweigh the risks of getting Covid. Both under 40, so tiny risks either way, but one you have to actively opt in to, so why bother. Mixed up with some stuff about not liking the feeling of coercion.
Sometimes it's worth trying to put numbers on tiny risks, so let's do this for your under 40 couple. Their annual risk of dying for their age group is ~0.001 (0.1%) - based on the 35-44 dat in R2P2 Appendix 4 Table 1. The infection fatality rate for their age group (I'm assuming late 30s from 'under 40') is estimated to be 0.09%, so if you assume that getting infected over the course of a year with no restrictions in place is almost certain (especially if you think the risk to you is tiny and base your behaviour on that), then your risk of dying has pretty much doubled due to Covid (0.19%). If you got vaccinated, then that fatality risk due to covid is reduced by ~95%, so the annual risk of dying is back down to 0.1045%.

The Pfizer vaccine as been administered 31.3 million times in the UK. There have been 456 UK reports of suspected adverse reactions to the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine in which the patient died shortly after vaccination (this doesn't mean the vaccine caused the death, just that there was suspicion that it could have contributed). If we take the worst case view that the vaccine caused all these deaths (this is unrealistically pessimistic), then the risk of dying from two shots of Pfizer would be 0.0029%.

In summary, the risk from covid in your late thirties is comparable to the cumulative risk of everything else that could kill you in the next year. Being vaccinated means that increase in risk is reduced by 95%. The covid risk is still greater after vaccination than the risk of the vaccination. This is ignoring the benfits of not being hospitlised or having long covid.

slab_happy

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There have been 456 UK reports of suspected adverse reactions to the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine in which the patient died shortly after vaccination (this doesn't mean the vaccine caused the death, just that there was suspicion that it could have contributed).

If that's the Yellow Card data, it doesn't even necessarily mean there's suspicion per se, just that the death occurred shortly after the vaccine. Like VAERS in the US, the system's designed to be super-sensitive and pick up anything possible (including a tonne of stuff with no causal relationship at all), so that any real effects can be spotted a.s.a.p..

Which is how things like the blood clotting risk with AZ and the myocarditis risk with the mRNA vaccines have been identified.

Based on everything I know: the mRNA vaccines are ridiculously safe by ordinary medical standards. They're certainly safer than, say, ibuprofen (NSAIDs are believed to contribute to circa 2000 deaths per year in the UK: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-16178055 ).

Also, of course, aside from protection from personal risk, they also slash the risk that you'll pass the virus on to someone else much more vulnerable than you (including people who are vaccinated but are less protected, e.g. because they're immunocompromised).

ben

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Sometimes it's worth trying to put numbers on tiny risks, so let's do this for your under 40 couple.
Thank you for this, I've been wondering how I source the "numbers" to try and answer a relatives concerns (although not sure they're applying logic at this point..)
Is there a chance you could do similar for the 20-30 yr old age range?

Nutty

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There have been 456 UK reports of suspected adverse reactions to the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine in which the patient died shortly after vaccination (this doesn't mean the vaccine caused the death, just that there was suspicion that it could have contributed).

If that's the Yellow Card data, it doesn't even necessarily mean there's suspicion per se, just that the death occurred shortly after the vaccine. Like VAERS in the US, the system's designed to be super-sensitive and pick up anything possible (including a tonne of stuff with no causal relationship at all), so that any real effects can be spotted a.s.a.p..

Which is how things like the blood clotting risk with AZ and the myocarditis risk with the mRNA vaccines have been identified.

Yes, from the Yellow Card data - sorry if I've implied a stronger link between the vaccine and deaths than that records. That's why I say the worst case figure is unrealistically pessimistic, but it does at least provide a useful upper bound.

Also, of course, aside from protection from personal risk, they also slash the risk that you'll pass the virus on to someone else much more vulnerable than you (including people who are vaccinated but are less protected, e.g. because they're immunocompromised).

Yes, I ignored all this. My assumption being that when people say the risks to them outweigh the benefits, they only care about their own self-interest and arguments about protecting other people won't be convincing.

Sometimes it's worth trying to put numbers on tiny risks, so let's do this for your under 40 couple.
Thank you for this, I've been wondering how I source the "numbers" to try and answer a relatives concerns (although not sure they're applying logic at this point..)
Is there a chance you could do similar for the 20-30 yr old age range?

I'll give it a bash.



Duma

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Not the same stats, but I pulled this from the ONS data that you can download here: https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/conditionsanddiseases

COVID deaths by age (sorry if formatting is screwy):

Age      Deaths   %       Pop.             Risk
0-4        3           0.00     3,857,263   0.000%
5-9        3           0.00     4,149,852   0.000%
10-14   10          0.01     3,953,866   0.000%
15-19   22          0.02     3,656,968   0.001%
20-24   60          0.04     4,153,080   0.001%
25-29   128        0.09     4,514,249   0.003%
30-34   245        0.18     4,497,132   0.005%
35-39   426        0.31     4,395,667   0.010%
40-44   706        0.51     4,019,539   0.018%
45-49   1,384     1.00     4,402,122   0.031%
50-54   2,524     1.82     4,661,015   0.054%
55-59   4,182     3.01     4,405,908   0.095%
60-64   6,251     4.51     3,755,185   0.166%
65-69   8,426     6.07     3,368,199   0.250%
70-74   13,273   9.57     3,318,867   0.400%
75-79   18,457   13.30   2,325,296   0.794%
80-84   25,052   18.06   1,715,328   1.460%
85-89   27,535   19.85   1,042,090   2.642%
90+      30,063   21.67   605,181      4.968%

Nigel

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Also, of course, aside from protection from personal risk, they also slash the risk that you'll pass the virus on to someone else much more vulnerable than you (including people who are vaccinated but are less protected, e.g. because they're immunocompromised).

Important point and much overlooked. Including by me when it didn't affect me directly. There's 3.7 million out of 56 million people in England who are clinically extremely vulnerable. 6.6%. Add in their households / carers / dependents etc who will need to be similarly careful in terms of transmission and you're probably looking at 10+% of the population. I suspect literally everyone will know someone in this group, although they may not realise. Anything that gives them a hand is welcome, especially as the current "freedom rules" are anything but for them...

Duma

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In summary, the risk from covid in your late thirties is comparable to the cumulative risk of everything else that could kill you in the next year.

This doesn't seem to add up:
(from ONS figures)
35-39 age group had 426 deaths from covid since start of pandemic (over a year, but very few in the last 3 months)
2019 (pre pandemic) figures for deaths aren't broken down by the same age granularity, but 15-44 age group had 14,714 deaths.
If we assume deaths are equally spread across this age group thats 2,452 deaths in the 35-39 interval. (this is likely a significant underestimate, mortality is positively correlated with age and late thirties are towards the end of 15-44)

So at least 6 times more likely to die of "something else" than covid in your late 30's

Do you mean the risk from COVID if you catch it?


PS I'm double jabbed and pro vaccine etc, not trying to dissuade anyone

Nutty

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In summary, the risk from covid in your late thirties is comparable to the cumulative risk of everything else that could kill you in the next year.

This doesn't seem to add up:
(from ONS figures)
35-39 age group had 426 deaths from covid since start of pandemic (over a year, but very few in the last 3 months)
2019 (pre pandemic) figures for deaths aren't broken down by the same age granularity, but 15-44 age group had 14,714 deaths.
If we assume deaths are equally spread across this age group thats 2,452 deaths in the 35-39 interval. (this is likely a significant underestimate, mortality is positively correlated with age and late thirties are towards the end of 15-44)

So at least 6 times more likely to die of "something else" than covid in your late 30's

The problem here is these are the covid deaths with multiple lockdowns and restrictions, which we've just lifted and are apparently irreversible.

Do you mean the risk from COVID if you catch it?


PS I'm double jabbed and pro vaccine etc, not trying to dissuade anyone

Infection Fatality Rate is the risk of death if you have an infection, so yes this is the risk if you catch it. That's why I said:

if you assume that getting infected over the course of a year with no restrictions in place is almost certain (especially if you think the risk to you is tiny and base your behaviour on that)...

You can argue that the risk of infection isn't certain, but it's got to be pretty high with no restrictions. Possible infection rates of 80% were being discussed before the first lockdown and we've now got more transmissible variants. Now, vaccination is supposed to reduce transmission so that will reduce the chance of infection, and you could take the view that you'll not get vaccinated and let enough people get vaccinated so that the risk is reduced to you, but if everyone took that view then we're stuffed. You need to be having a very low risk of infection (<3%) for the covid risk to be similar to the unrealistically high upper bound on the vaccine risk (which is probably order(s) of magnitude higher than the true vaccine risk).

Nutty

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Sometimes it's worth trying to put numbers on tiny risks, so let's do this for your under 40 couple.
Thank you for this, I've been wondering how I source the "numbers" to try and answer a relatives concerns (although not sure they're applying logic at this point..)
Is there a chance you could do similar for the 20-30 yr old age range?

So your normal risk of death in a year if you're 25-34 is 0.054% (I've averaged this across men and women, though the risk to men (~0.08%) is about double that to women in this age range (~0.04%)). Infection Fatality Rate is estimated to be 0.04% for 25-29, so again if you assume infection will occur within a year, covid risk is pretty similar to the overall risk in a normal year. Vaccination would reduce the covid risk by 95% to 0.002%.

So for this age group the covid risk is still more than an order of magnitude greater than the (unrealistically pessimistic) upper bound of the vaccine risk. You'd have to be arguing that your chance of infection in a year is a single-digit percentage for the covid risk to be similar to the (unrealistically pessimistic) upper bound of the vaccine risk, which to be honest is probably order(s) of magnitude greater than the true risk of the vaccine.

 

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