So, coronavirus...

[Happyhooker]

They may not be sitting on stockpiles, but they are making them unaffordable.

The UK explicitly isn't and has produced a vaccine at cost.

Good on them.

However, 'at cost' in the UK is probably significantly more expensive than it is in India or South Africa.

That's not "making it unaffordable "

[Biffer]

https://sacoronavirus.co.za/2021/01/03/ ... -strategy/


https://www.sanews.gov.za/south-africa/ ... e-vaccines


https://theconversation.com/vaccine-pro ... ped-153204


As far as I can see, it's the issue of Intellectual Property which is preventing Countries from having a free hand in producing vaccines.

India's production is under licence, which obviously carries a financial burden.

It's not that vaccines cannot be produced there, it's that the cost of licenses makes it uneconomic.

Which is my whole point.

If you want to eradicate this disease, poor people need to be inoculated as well.

Otherwise the virus can incubate ever more resistant strains. Which may be beneficial to the industry.

Aspen Pharma have partnered with J&J to produce their vaccine in SA. Bio vac are partnering with a US company to produce vaccine as well. But you can’t just snap your fingers and suddenly produce these vaccines - most of them are a different technology to what’s currently done in SA. Look at how long it took the EU to get their manufacturing plants up and running. SII took a long time to get up to current levels as well, and they’re a longer established facility used to producing at scale. There’s a limited number of people who understand the scale up process.

If the poorer nations are not capable of producing vaccines (something which may be in dispute), then why is a moratorium on the IP out of the question? At the very least any licence to produce the vaccine should be at no cost.

Look, I understand the premise that the companies that spent decades developing these vaccines should be able to profit from them, but I just think that allowing the virus to incubate and develop resistant strains outside of the wealthy nations who have funded the research is short sighted. Or maybe long-sighted depending on whether your only objective is profit.

Then what’s the point of the moratorium? If you do that and then give absolutely no assistance in understanding what’s required in scaling up, then it’s just empty gesture politics. And you’d inevitably end up with another group saying, ‘you’ve got the info, sort yourself out’ and supplying nothing to developing countries. As can be seen in a few countries, build up of vaccine production facilities is starting, it’ll continue over the next year or so. We are going to need billions of these every year for a good few years. More production plants are needed but you can’t set them up in a few weeks. It’s astonishing we’ve got so much being produced already.

[Biffer]

Janssen vaccine approved for use in the UK.

[Sandstorm]

Average age of those infected is 29. Which on one level is great, shows the impact on vaccines. On the other hand it calls into question the lifting of restrictions next month. There's a big Palestine march in Bradford planned for this weekend....

But it also shows that Bimbot is a dickhead when he claimed that the virus only kills old people. Lots of new admissions in the 30-39 age group in serious condition.

I suspect they were careful for a year to keep Mum and Grandad safe. Soon as the elderly got jabbed, their grown up kids forgot all about restrictions and started socialising all over. Plus back to school for their own children....

[dpedin]

Average age of those infected is 29. Which on one level is great, shows the impact on vaccines. On the other hand it calls into question the lifting of restrictions next month. There's a big Palestine march in Bradford planned for this weekend....

But it also shows that Bimbot is a dickhead when he claimed that the virus only kills old people. Lots of new admissions in the 30-39 age group in serious condition.

I suspect they were careful for a year to keep Mum and Grandad safe. Soon as the elderly got jabbed, their grown up kids forgot all about restrictions and started socialising all over. Plus back to school for their own children....

Now that we have a more virulent version of the virus dominant and spreading fast it would be sensible to not lift lockdown in June and try and get ahead with the vaccination programme. Whilst younger folk are a lot less likely to die of covid19, if we lift lockdown now we will just see lots and lots of cases and after that it's a numbers game - a % will need hospitalisation and a % of them will die. There is also the no small matter of long covid and possibly consigning young folk to many weeks or months of potentially serious ongoing health problems. With schools/colleges back and no plans to vaccinated u16s then we have an ideal environment in schools and colleges for the virus to spread asymptomatically across the wider community. It would make more sense to retain current lock down arrangements until schools finish up?

I see, as predicted, that EU countries and others are now thinking twice about allowing UK citizens to travel because of the Indian variant now being dominant. I just hope the Blonde Bumblecunt is satisfied with yet another major covid blunder! How much better position would we be in if he had closed the border to Indian travel and put in the proper isolation requirements at the right time, at the very least we would have bought a few extra weeks/months to get further ahead with the vaccination programme. He really is a useless Cnut of the first order!

[Raggs]

Are the eu sequencing enough now to see what they've got and the prominence? Indian variant is already in Germany and France as well as other eu countries. I can appreciate not wanting to make it worse but the uk has done of the lowest covid rates out there at the moment.

[laurent]

Are the eu sequencing enough now to see what they've got and the prominence? Indian variant is already in Germany and France as well as other eu countries. I can appreciate not wanting to make it worse but the uk has done of the lowest covid rates out there at the moment.

They are sequencing not sure if enough
3.7 % is original 77.3% is English variant 5.6 is brasilian / South african and rest is non identified variants.
Indian variant is not appearing in official stats to be honest the SA/BR % is small enough that with the current number of cases it fluctuates quite wildly from day to day. (cases are under 10000 7 day average and dropping still)

A new variant in Bordeaux made the Government react by vaccinating the complete adult population in the area where the cluster appeared.
not sure how efficient that is though.

at the moment the vaccination is slowed down by bank holidays (May is a killer for that) but week days are at about 600 000 this is putting us above the government target (38M primo vaccinated in june) by 2 M
and just under 18M fully vaccinated in that number. Vaccination is opened to all adults on Monday 31st.

https://www.lemonde.fr/les-decodeurs/ar ... 55770.html

https://covidtracker.fr/vaccintracker/

https://covidtracker.fr/

[Raggs]

Are the eu sequencing enough now to see what they've got and the prominence? Indian variant is already in Germany and France as well as other eu countries. I can appreciate not wanting to make it worse but the uk has done of the lowest covid rates out there at the moment.

They are sequencing not sure if enough
3.7 % is original 77.3% is English variant 5.6 is brasilian / South african and rest is non identified variants.
Indian variant is not appearing in official stats to be honest the SA/BR % is small enough that with the current number of cases it fluctuates quite wildly from day to day. (cases are under 10000 7 day average and dropping still)

A new variant in Bordeaux made the Government react by vaccinating the complete adult population in the area where the cluster appeared.
not sure how efficient that is though.

at the moment the vaccination is slowed down by bank holidays (May is a killer for that) but week days are at about 600 000 this is putting us above the government target (38M primo vaccinated in june) by 2 M
and just under 18M fully vaccinated in that number. Vaccination is opened to all adults on Monday 31st.

https://www.lemonde.fr/les-decodeurs/ar ... 55770.html

https://covidtracker.fr/vaccintracker/

https://covidtracker.fr/

EDIT - Do you have a breakdown of % takeup through the age ranges? Seen a few stats that suggest there's a lot of reluctance to take it in France?

[laurent]

Are the eu sequencing enough now to see what they've got and the prominence? Indian variant is already in Germany and France as well as other eu countries. I can appreciate not wanting to make it worse but the uk has done of the lowest covid rates out there at the moment.

They are sequencing not sure if enough
3.7 % is original 77.3% is English variant 5.6 is brasilian / South african and rest is non identified variants.
Indian variant is not appearing in official stats to be honest the SA/BR % is small enough that with the current number of cases it fluctuates quite wildly from day to day. (cases are under 10000 7 day average and dropping still)

A new variant in Bordeaux made the Government react by vaccinating the complete adult population in the area where the cluster appeared.
not sure how efficient that is though.

at the moment the vaccination is slowed down by bank holidays (May is a killer for that) but week days are at about 600 000 this is putting us above the government target (38M primo vaccinated in june) by 2 M
and just under 18M fully vaccinated in that number. Vaccination is opened to all adults on Monday 31st.

https://www.lemonde.fr/les-decodeurs/ar ... 55770.html

https://covidtracker.fr/vaccintracker/

https://covidtracker.fr/

EDIT - Do you have a breakdown of % takeup through the age ranges? Seen a few stats that suggest there's a lot of reluctance to take it in France?

In the link from le monde there is a breakdown by age and even by age by departement (County)
The oldest were first on the list 50+ were latest added and from Monday every adult is eligible.

[Niegs]

Someone's had a word?

[Biffer]

Probably an agent. If he can’t play overseas he’s useles for England and not worth the full money for his club.

[tabascoboy]

Russia's vaccination rate 'insufficient' - Academy of Sciences

Russia's current rate of vaccination is "insufficient", with only 8% of the population fully vaccinated, the country's Academy of Sciences says.

In a statement on its website, the Presidium of the Russian Academy of Sciences says despite jabs being available to the public for months "the rate of vaccination remains low".

"So far, only 11% of residents have received the first dose of the vaccine, 8% have completed vaccination," it says.

The academy is calling on people "not to postpone their vaccination" - an appeal that has also been made recently by most senior officials, including President Vladimir Putin.

Polls have shown muted enthusiasm for jabs among Russians. Only 30% said in February they were willing to receive the country's Sputnik V vaccine, according to independent pollster Levada Centre, while a survey this month by the SuperJob website found 42% of those still unvaccinated did not want a Covid-19 jab "under any circumstance".

Vaccination is voluntary in Russia and the Kremlin denies it would seek to make it compulsory.

However, some officials have spoken publicly about the idea, and earlier this week Russia's far-eastern Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) was forced to walk back suggestions it would make jabs obligatory after announcing 200,000 rouble fines for employers who fail to provide a jab for their staff.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-57278939

[SaintK]

Probably an agent. If he can’t play overseas he’s useles for England and not worth the full money for his club.

.....and of course won't be on the LIons reserve list unless he's had one!

[Biffer]

Probably an agent. If he can’t play overseas he’s useles for England and not worth the full money for his club.

.....and of course won't be on the LIons reserve list unless he's had one!

Exactly. No England money, no Lions tour, unavailable for away European games.

[Tichtheid]

Well this is annoying, I got a text saying I can rearrange my second vaccination, so I logged and and cancelled the original date, this is the order of the process, and when it came to booking the new one the earliest was a week later.

I got on the phone and after a long wait I spoke to someone who tried to rearrange the appointment for me, but she had to follow the same process and it can back with another one an hour later than the one she had just cancelled.

Grrrr.

[Slick]

Average age of those infected is 29. Which on one level is great, shows the impact on vaccines. On the other hand it calls into question the lifting of restrictions next month. There's a big Palestine march in Bradford planned for this weekend....

But it also shows that Bimbot is a dickhead when he claimed that the virus only kills old people. Lots of new admissions in the 30-39 age group in serious condition.

I suspect they were careful for a year to keep Mum and Grandad safe. Soon as the elderly got jabbed, their grown up kids forgot all about restrictions and started socialising all over. Plus back to school for their own children....

Now that we have a more virulent version of the virus dominant and spreading fast it would be sensible to not lift lockdown in June and try and get ahead with the vaccination programme. Whilst younger folk are a lot less likely to die of covid19, if we lift lockdown now we will just see lots and lots of cases and after that it's a numbers game - a % will need hospitalisation and a % of them will die. There is also the no small matter of long covid and possibly consigning young folk to many weeks or months of potentially serious ongoing health problems. With schools/colleges back and no plans to vaccinated u16s then we have an ideal environment in schools and colleges for the virus to spread asymptomatically across the wider community. It would make more sense to retain current lock down arrangements until schools finish up?

I see, as predicted, that EU countries and others are now thinking twice about allowing UK citizens to travel because of the Indian variant now being dominant. I just hope the Blonde Bumblecunt is satisfied with yet another major covid blunder! How much better position would we be in if he had closed the border to Indian travel and put in the proper isolation requirements at the right time, at the very least we would have bought a few extra weeks/months to get further ahead with the vaccination programme. He really is a useless Cnut of the first order!

Have to say I’ve been pretty easy on the government due to this being unprecedented, but it’s pretty close to unforgivable the way they have dealt with this Indian variant. How can they have learnt nothing from the last 18 months

[Rinkals]

The UK explicitly isn't and has produced a vaccine at cost.

Good on them.

However, 'at cost' in the UK is probably significantly more expensive than it is in India or South Africa.

That's not "making it unaffordable "

It really depends on your definition of 'affordable'.

The minimum wage in South Africa is R21 an hour, which is about a quid.

I'd like to see the average Brit live on that.

[fishfoodie]

But it also shows that Bimbot is a dickhead when he claimed that the virus only kills old people. Lots of new admissions in the 30-39 age group in serious condition.

I suspect they were careful for a year to keep Mum and Grandad safe. Soon as the elderly got jabbed, their grown up kids forgot all about restrictions and started socialising all over. Plus back to school for their own children....

Now that we have a more virulent version of the virus dominant and spreading fast it would be sensible to not lift lockdown in June and try and get ahead with the vaccination programme. Whilst younger folk are a lot less likely to die of covid19, if we lift lockdown now we will just see lots and lots of cases and after that it's a numbers game - a % will need hospitalisation and a % of them will die. There is also the no small matter of long covid and possibly consigning young folk to many weeks or months of potentially serious ongoing health problems. With schools/colleges back and no plans to vaccinated u16s then we have an ideal environment in schools and colleges for the virus to spread asymptomatically across the wider community. It would make more sense to retain current lock down arrangements until schools finish up?

I see, as predicted, that EU countries and others are now thinking twice about allowing UK citizens to travel because of the Indian variant now being dominant. I just hope the Blonde Bumblecunt is satisfied with yet another major covid blunder! How much better position would we be in if he had closed the border to Indian travel and put in the proper isolation requirements at the right time, at the very least we would have bought a few extra weeks/months to get further ahead with the vaccination programme. He really is a useless Cnut of the first order!

Have to say I’ve been pretty easy on the government due to this being unprecedented, but it’s pretty close to unforgivable the way they have dealt with this Indian variant. How can they have learnt nothing from the last 18 months

I'm going to go out on a limb, & suggest that they've learn nothing, because they haven't been held to account for any of the dozens of fuckups, & looting of the exchequer they've been doing so far; so why would they expect to be punished for this latest one ?

[Saint]

Good on them.

However, 'at cost' in the UK is probably significantly more expensive than it is in India or South Africa.

That's not "making it unaffordable "

It really depends on your definition of 'affordable'.

The minimum wage in South Africa is R21 an hour, which is about a quid.

I'd like to see the average Brit live on that.

The cost of producing AZ is more or less the same the world over - because it's not particularly dependent on labour. The single biggest cost element to AZ production is the raw materials, most of which are globally competitive. So the cost as produced in India, even at the super scale they can manage, is only 10% or so lower than in the UK at our micro scale (100 million+ doses per month in India vs 4 million-ish in the UK)

[Saint]

Are the eu sequencing enough now to see what they've got and the prominence? Indian variant is already in Germany and France as well as other eu countries. I can appreciate not wanting to make it worse but the uk has done of the lowest covid rates out there at the moment.

They are sequencing not sure if enough
3.7 % is original 77.3% is English variant 5.6 is brasilian / South african and rest is non identified variants.
Indian variant is not appearing in official stats to be honest the SA/BR % is small enough that with the current number of cases it fluctuates quite wildly from day to day. (cases are under 10000 7 day average and dropping still)

A new variant in Bordeaux made the Government react by vaccinating the complete adult population in the area where the cluster appeared.
not sure how efficient that is though.

at the moment the vaccination is slowed down by bank holidays (May is a killer for that) but week days are at about 600 000 this is putting us above the government target (38M primo vaccinated in june) by 2 M
and just under 18M fully vaccinated in that number. Vaccination is opened to all adults on Monday 31st.

https://www.lemonde.fr/les-decodeurs/ar ... 55770.html

https://covidtracker.fr/vaccintracker/

https://covidtracker.fr/

Even though the scale of sequencing globally has increased a lot, so that the UK is no longer conducting over 50% of all tests globally, it's still sequencing more tests than the whole of the EU combined

[Slick]

Any tips on persuading a 3 year old to do a home test... it’s a bit of a battle

[tabascoboy]

[Raggs]

World in Data release these monthly (and for whatever countries they can find data for). You can check their site ( near the bottom of this page: https://ourworldindata.org/covid-vaccinations ).

In most countries that I've seen, as time progresses, the number unwilling to get vaccinated drops, which is a good sign. Guess it's also a bit of peer pressure/acceptance as people you know have got it.

[Lobby]

Well this is annoying, I got a text saying I can rearrange my second vaccination, so I logged and and cancelled the original date, this is the order of the process, and when it came to booking the new one the earliest was a week later.

I got on the phone and after a long wait I spoke to someone who tried to rearrange the appointment for me, but she had to follow the same process and it can back with another one an hour later than the one she had just cancelled.

Grrrr.

I have had several texts from my GP telling me I can book my second vaccination, but when I saw that I would have to cancel my pre-booked 2nd jab (which is scheduled for next week) first, I decided to stick with the booking I already have, as I was worried I might then end up having to wait longer. Glad I did so now.

[SaintK]

Any tips on persuading a 3 year old to do a home test... it’s a bit of a battle

The usual method. Tied to a chair and blindfolded

[Tichtheid]

Well this is annoying, I got a text saying I can rearrange my second vaccination, so I logged and and cancelled the original date, this is the order of the process, and when it came to booking the new one the earliest was a week later.

I got on the phone and after a long wait I spoke to someone who tried to rearrange the appointment for me, but she had to follow the same process and it can back with another one an hour later than the one she had just cancelled.

Grrrr.

I have had several texts from my GP telling me I can book my second vaccination, but when I saw that I would have to cancel my pre-booked 2nd jab (which is scheduled for next week) first, I decided to stick with the booking I already have, as I was worried I might then end up having to wait longer. Glad I did so now.

My wife walked past a mobile vaccination clinic this morning and texted me about it - I've just had my second jab

[TheNatalShark]

Just got the text and booked my first appointment for the 15th Jun.

28 in SW London so things ticking along

[Sandstorm]

Just got the text and booked my first appointment for the 15th Jun.

28 in SW London so things ticking along

[Dinsdale Piranha]

Just had my 2nd jab, 10 weeks after the first - Age 53.

Sofa to cafe via surgery in under 10 mins

[tabascoboy]

It's an 11 week gap for me. Friend had an email inviting him to bring forward his 2nd jab but given the experience of others here he did well to keep the original. I never had any invite to bring it forward...so this Friday it stays

[fishfoodie]

Just had my 2nd jab, 10 weeks after the first - Age 53.

Sofa to cafe via surgery in under 10 mins

Don't they make you sit around for 15mins in case you have an adverse reaction ?

[tabascoboy]

Just had my 2nd jab, 10 weeks after the first - Age 53.

Sofa to cafe via surgery in under 10 mins

Don't they make you sit around for 15mins in case you have an adverse reaction ?

Didn't for me, maybe as I wasn't driving? But I hung around outside for 1/4 hour anyway before going home

[Dinsdale Piranha]

Just had my 2nd jab, 10 weeks after the first - Age 53.

Sofa to cafe via surgery in under 10 mins

Don't they make you sit around for 15mins in case you have an adverse reaction ?

Didn't for me, maybe as I wasn't driving? But I hung around outside for 1/4 hour anyway before going home

They haven't at my surgery. I think the adverse reaction is more likely for Pfizer, I was AZ.

[fishfoodie]

Just had my 2nd jab, 10 weeks after the first - Age 53.

Sofa to cafe via surgery in under 10 mins

Don't they make you sit around for 15mins in case you have an adverse reaction ?

Didn't for me, maybe as I wasn't driving? But I hung around outside for 1/4 hour anyway before going home

Odd; I had my 1st jab last weekend; & the longest part was when they hand you your card with the jab details, & a sticker with the time you can leave the center, after waiting around for 15 minutes.

You'd make a fortune if you had a franchise to sell tea, coffee to the people sitting around for 15 minutes before heading back to their cars

[Sandstorm]

15 minute wait was optional after my 2nd jab. I gave ‘em ten, then legged it.

[tabascoboy]

Don't they make you sit around for 15mins in case you have an adverse reaction ?

Didn't for me, maybe as I wasn't driving? But I hung around outside for 1/4 hour anyway before going home

They haven't at my surgery. I think the adverse reaction is more likely for Pfizer, I was AZ.

Mine was also AZ

[Slick]

Didn't for me, maybe as I wasn't driving? But I hung around outside for 1/4 hour anyway before going home

They haven't at my surgery. I think the adverse reaction is more likely for Pfizer, I was AZ.

Mine was also AZ

I had Moderna and it was a mandatory 15 minutes

[Biffer]

You're only asked to wait 15 minutes if you're driving

[Biffer]

Just got the text and booked my first appointment for the 15th Jun.

28 in SW London so things ticking along

How your age group takes it up. Vaccination rates are very significantly lower in London.

[Sandstorm]

Just got the text and booked my first appointment for the 15th Jun.

28 in SW London so things ticking along

How your age group takes it up. Vaccination rates are very significantly lower in London.

London is full of cunts and idiots.