So, coronavirus...

[Hong Kong]

[fishfoodie]

I was in there once; I liked the amber ale; wasn't mad about the IPA; but I might have been a little jaded on IPAs at that stage

[tc27]

What is going on here? Political cover for delivery delays?

Those dirty Europeans in the central European country of Thailand are also using "suspending to investigate" as a smoke screen for their failure in the European procurement programme.


Fu.ck sakes the blinkers are incredible.

Yeah, I agree it isn't really a European thing - but it can look/feel that way as the EU have been making noises like unsafe, unproven etc before now.

But the decision making on this issue is absolutely nuts, and while it may be being justified in terms of instilling public confidence in the process, the reality is that it's harming confidence each and every time they do this type of thing.

The crazy thing is 11 million-ish people in the UK have had AZ and the number who have subsequently died of blood clots is 12 (compared to 15 for Pzfier) - neither number is above the 'normal' rate of such events occurring in those population categories.

The US refusal to authorize is cynically based on protectionism for US pharma firms who make its rivals - but I simply cannot understand the spate of other health authorities acting in the way they have - its some kind of slavish dedication to the precautionary principle that doesn't hold because it actually endangers more people.

Anyway in good news we should see about 10 million doses given in the next two weeks.

[laurent]

Worst part on AZ is they can't provide the doses promised yet millions of them are held in the US.

I don't get the Clot stuff it's irrelevent numbers.

France is now at a better vaccination rate (1 Million/ week) in march. if the other EU countries suspend AZ I hope we are getting their doses...

We have over 5 million done on 1st injection and 2.2 got 2

so we have 1 million in january 3 in Feb and at current rate 7 at least into april. with the goal of getting all over 50 elligible mid april.

Hospital numbers are shit with the paris region at capacity however goverment is clearly avoiding 3rd confinment on economic reason (2 areas have confinment during week ends).

we are now evacuating people from paris region hospitals.

[Saint]

Worst part on AZ is they can't provide the doses promised yet millions of them are held in the US.

I don't get the Clot stuff it's irrelevent numbers.

France is now at a better vaccination rate (1 Million/ week) in march. if the other EU countries suspend AZ I hope we are getting their doses...

We have over 5 million done on 1st injection and 2.2 got 2

so we have 1 million in january 3 in Feb and at current rate 7 at least into april. with the goal of getting all over 50 elligible mid april.

Hospital numbers are shit with the paris region at capacity however goverment is clearly avoiding 3rd confinment on economic reason (2 areas have confinment during week ends).

we are now evacuating people from paris region hospitals.

Not sure what France would do with more AZ doses other than store them in the Fridge. Reports are that there's an unused stockpile of over a million as it is.

Agree thopugh that the 70 million doses being in held in the US right now is a disgrace.

[laurent]

Worst part on AZ is they can't provide the doses promised yet millions of them are held in the US.

I don't get the Clot stuff it's irrelevent numbers.

France is now at a better vaccination rate (1 Million/ week) in march. if the other EU countries suspend AZ I hope we are getting their doses...

We have over 5 million done on 1st injection and 2.2 got 2

so we have 1 million in january 3 in Feb and at current rate 7 at least into april. with the goal of getting all over 50 elligible mid april.

Hospital numbers are shit with the paris region at capacity however goverment is clearly avoiding 3rd confinment on economic reason (2 areas have confinment during week ends).

we are now evacuating people from paris region hospitals.

Not sure what France would do with more AZ doses other than store them in the Fridge. Reports are that there's an unused stockpile of over a million as it is.

Agree thopugh that the 70 million doses being in held in the US right now is a disgrace.

It's hardly a stockpile (1 week worth of doses at current usage rate)

[Saint]

Worst part on AZ is they can't provide the doses promised yet millions of them are held in the US.

I don't get the Clot stuff it's irrelevent numbers.

France is now at a better vaccination rate (1 Million/ week) in march. if the other EU countries suspend AZ I hope we are getting their doses...

We have over 5 million done on 1st injection and 2.2 got 2

so we have 1 million in january 3 in Feb and at current rate 7 at least into april. with the goal of getting all over 50 elligible mid april.

Hospital numbers are shit with the paris region at capacity however goverment is clearly avoiding 3rd confinment on economic reason (2 areas have confinment during week ends).

we are now evacuating people from paris region hospitals.

Not sure what France would do with more AZ doses other than store them in the Fridge. Reports are that there's an unused stockpile of over a million as it is.

Agree thopugh that the 70 million doses being in held in the US right now is a disgrace.

It's hardly a stockpile (1 week worth of doses at current usage rate)

But France isn;t dosing AZ at 1 million a week. The majority of the million a week is Pfizer

[laurent]

Not sure what France would do with more AZ doses other than store them in the Fridge. Reports are that there's an unused stockpile of over a million as it is.

Agree thopugh that the 70 million doses being in held in the US right now is a disgrace.

It's hardly a stockpile (1 week worth of doses at current usage rate)

But France isn;t dosing AZ at 1 million a week. The majority of the million a week is Pfizer

AZ is distributed through GP and pharmacist AFAIK so not sure about the logistics here the 1 Million is still not much of a stockpile. the docs + pharmacist it's been available for just over 2 weeks through that channel.

[Saint]

It's hardly a stockpile (1 week worth of doses at current usage rate)

But France isn;t dosing AZ at 1 million a week. The majority of the million a week is Pfizer

AZ is distributed through GP and pharmacist AFAIK so not sure about the logistics here the 1 Million is still not much of a stockpile. the docs + pharmacist it's been available for just over 2 weeks through that channel.

So, the report as of the start of the month was that out of the 1.7 million doses delivered to France by then, 600K had been issued to pharmacies and GPs, only 150K had been used. So it's sitting the the fridges centrally, and sitting in the fridges locally Pfizer in the meantime is flying off the shelves

[laurent]

But France isn;t dosing AZ at 1 million a week. The majority of the million a week is Pfizer

AZ is distributed through GP and pharmacist AFAIK so not sure about the logistics here the 1 Million is still not much of a stockpile. the docs + pharmacist it's been available for just over 2 weeks through that channel.

So, the report as of the start of the month was that out of the 1.7 million doses delivered to France by then, 600K had been issued to pharmacies and GPs, only 150K had been used. So it's sitting the the fridges centrally, and sitting in the fridges locally Pfizer in the meantime is flying off the shelves

The numbers of jabs have doubled I doubt the stock have increased. (when they allowed pharmacist to do the jab the GP had to take a week off... (This lead to a good bit of screaming with appointments having to be cancelled).

I think logistics are way to complicated

[Saint]

AZ is distributed through GP and pharmacist AFAIK so not sure about the logistics here the 1 Million is still not much of a stockpile. the docs + pharmacist it's been available for just over 2 weeks through that channel.

So, the report as of the start of the month was that out of the 1.7 million doses delivered to France by then, 600K had been issued to pharmacies and GPs, only 150K had been used. So it's sitting the the fridges centrally, and sitting in the fridges locally Pfizer in the meantime is flying off the shelves

The numbers of jabs have doubled I doubt the stock have increased. (when they allowed pharmacist to do the jab the GP had to take a week off... (This lead to a good bit of screaming with appointments having to be cancelled).

I think logistics are way to complicated

According to an article published in Politico. ......


As of 6 days ago, France reporting that it had used only 43.5% of all AZ doses provided so far, and 84.2% of all Pfizer doses provided so far. Of all vaccine delivered in France, 72.4% is Pfizer, 6.9% Moderna, and 20.7% is AZ. Some quick maths, form there, tells you that out of the 6.2 million doses France reported on that date, approx 1.3 million doses were AZ. With 43.5% of all AZ doses supplied to France actually being delivered, that would mean around 1.7 ,million doses were now sitting unused. So, yes, the unused stock would appear to have increased - AZ is being delivered to France faster than France is using it

Obviously the number could be out a bit depending on the exact day each datapoint was sourced, but broadly speaking that's there or thereabouts.

[TheNatalShark]

AZ is distributed through GP and pharmacist AFAIK so not sure about the logistics here the 1 Million is still not much of a stockpile. the docs + pharmacist it's been available for just over 2 weeks through that channel.

So, the report as of the start of the month was that out of the 1.7 million doses delivered to France by then, 600K had been issued to pharmacies and GPs, only 150K had been used. So it's sitting the the fridges centrally, and sitting in the fridges locally Pfizer in the meantime is flying off the shelves

The numbers of jabs have doubled I doubt the stock have increased. (when they allowed pharmacist to do the jab the GP had to take a week off... (This lead to a good bit of screaming with appointments having to be cancelled).

I think logistics are way to complicated

Whilst I have other points to respond to, the trendline of increased AZ usage in France is clear, and with AZ now forecasting even fewer deliveries in April (20mm) than March (30mm) I imagine there will be bigger emphasis on retaining second doses for stockpile to meet 3-4 week second dose. So only utilising 50% could actually be a "realistic" ceiling for the current jab gap (whether the jab gap should be delayed is a another argument) given supply uncertainty.



And here, whilst clunky to read (although can't think of better presentation), we can see that this usage Vs supply rate is unsustainable even with the latest delivery.



The "doses are just going to sit in fridges and not get used" argument does not hold water.

[Saint]

All redundant really - Thailand is lifting it's hold, and I would imagine other countries will follow soon

[tc27]

Lay of the French its the Italians who are going nuts:

[Lobby]

Lay of the French its the Italians who are going nuts:

From Reuters:

ROME, March 15 (Reuters) - Prosecutors in the northern Italian region of Piedmont said on Monday they had seized a batch of 393,600 shots of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine following the death of a man hours after he had received a jab.

The move represents another blow to the image of the AstraZeneca vaccine in Italy and will further hinder the government's anti-coronavirus inoculation campaign.

On Sunday Piedmont's regional government suspended use of the batch, ABV5811, after Sandro Tognatti, a 57-year-old music teacher, fell ill and died in circumstances that have not yet been clarified.

Magistrates in Sicily ordered the seizure of a separate batch of AstraZeneca vaccine last week following the sudden deaths of two men who had recently been inoculated.

The Italian government has said there was no evidence of a connection between the deaths and the jabs and has allowed the AstraZeneca vaccine to continue to be administered.

[laurent]

This is turning into stupid paranoia ...

Not good as at any rate the AZ vaccine was very much part of the Scaling strategy for the EU.

[Saint]

And now Germany halting AZ.

Absolutely nuts. There's absolutely no evidence for this, nor is there even any theoretical explanation how the vaccine might cause it anyway

[tc27]

Copied from elsewhere:

If you vaccinate 100,000 people over the age of 50 today rather than tomorrow, you save 15 lives, according to a French analysis.

Germany has 1.7m AstraZeneca doses that are now not being administered.

Delay all of those by a week, you're up 1785 deaths.

[laurent]

Copied from elsewhere:

If you vaccinate 100,000 people over the age of 50 today rather than tomorrow, you save 15 lives, according to a French analysis.

Germany has 1.7m AstraZeneca doses that are now not being administered.

Delay all of those by a week, you're up 1785 deaths.

Not sure they have same infection level as France. but You could approximate this anyway

and the French Government follows the others by suspending AZ :( FFS

[Sandstorm]

And now Germany halting AZ.

Absolutely nuts. There's absolutely no evidence for this, nor is there even any theoretical explanation how the vaccine might cause it anyway

If the UK govt had any sense (pffft), they'd put Europe on the no-travel list for Summer 2021.

[Plato’sCave]

Fascinating

[Glaston]

Dont want to go all Bimbo .


https://www.politico.eu/article/coronav ... 100-years/

First graph there is nary a blip for the 1968 flu Pandemic that supposedly killed 30 k Brits (Lancet article)

Neither is there a blip for the 1957 Flu Pandemic that again supposedly killed 20k Brits (Lancet article)


Not disputing the scale of UK Covid deaths, just that the graph they have seems oddly to miss out 2 other Major Flu pandemics.
Also yearly flu deaths are supposedly just shy of 20k/year.
Is it just some graphing methodolgy they are using that I am completely missing?

[Fangle]

How does quarantine work for fully vaccinated people? I’m in self-isolation for ten days because I was in contact with someone with covid. Can a vaccinated person visit me?

[Sandstorm]

How does quarantine work for fully vaccinated people? I’m in self-isolation for ten days because I was in contact with someone with covid. Can a vaccinated person visit me?

No-one should visit you. You are possibly infectious and the vaccine is not 100% effective.

[Saint]

Dont want to go all Bimbo .


https://www.politico.eu/article/coronav ... 100-years/

First graph there is nary a blip for the 1968 flu Pandemic that supposedly killed 30 k Brits (Lancet article)

Neither is there a blip for the 1957 Flu Pandemic that again supposedly killed 20k Brits (Lancet article)


Not disputing the scale of UK Covid deaths, just that the graph they have seems oddly to miss out 2 other Major Flu pandemics.
Also yearly flu deaths are supposedly just shy of 20k/year.
Is it just some graphing methodolgy they are using that I am completely missing?

I think they've excluded the background noise of flu (which can vary quite a bit year to year) and some other causes to highlight effectively the "non-standard" or unexpected deaths in any given year. Over the last 10 years flu deaths have varied from less than 18,000 to more than 44,000 so it would look very noisy for what is largely speaking something that "just happens"

[Sandstorm]

Flu kills the very weak and has no long-term effects on healthy sufferers.

Covid kills weak and not weak people, plus the long-term effects of Covid19 are looking increasingly shite.

They are NOT the same.

[Saint]

And now Spain jumps onboard the stupidity bandwagon

[Raggs]

Do you think we could ask the EU to send their supplies to us?

[Biffer]

Dont want to go all Bimbo .


https://www.politico.eu/article/coronav ... 100-years/

First graph there is nary a blip for the 1968 flu Pandemic that supposedly killed 30 k Brits (Lancet article)

Neither is there a blip for the 1957 Flu Pandemic that again supposedly killed 20k Brits (Lancet article)


Not disputing the scale of UK Covid deaths, just that the graph they have seems oddly to miss out 2 other Major Flu pandemics.
Also yearly flu deaths are supposedly just shy of 20k/year.
Is it just some graphing methodolgy they are using that I am completely missing?

I think they've excluded the background noise of flu (which can vary quite a bit year to year) and some other causes to highlight effectively the "non-standard" or unexpected deaths in any given year. Over the last 10 years flu deaths have varied from less than 18,000 to more than 44,000 so it would look very noisy for what is largely speaking something that "just happens"

Yeah, I think that’s right, they’re using a classification system that puts the number of deaths from certain diseases in different categories. Flu is one category, ‘other infectious diseases’ is another category and that’s what’s shown in the graph.

[Ovals]

And now Spain jumps onboard the stupidity bandwagon

I wonder how many lives will be lost through this pandemic of stupidity.

[Lobby]

And now Spain jumps onboard the stupidity bandwagon

I wonder how many lives will be lost through this pandemic of stupidity.

From the horse's mouth, the Italian Regulator has confirmed the decision to suspend AZ vaccines is political, rather than safety related:

ROME (Reuters) - The decision by Germany, France and Italy to suspend AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 shots after several countries reported possible serious side-effects is a “political one”, the director general of Italy’s medicines authority AIFA said on Tuesday.

“We got to the point of a suspension because several European countries, including Germany and France, preferred to interrupt vaccinations... to put them on hold in order to carry out checks. The choice is a political one,” Nicola Magrini told daily la Repubblica in an interview.

Magrini said that the AstraZeneca vaccine was safe and that the benefit to risk ratio of the jab is “widely positive”. There have been eight deaths and four cases of serious side-effects following vaccinations in Italy, he added.

Aifa will take two to three days to collect all required data and once “doubts are cleared we can carry on at a faster speed than before,” Magrini said.

[Calculon]

Classic cases of CYA, from both scientists and politicians. Started in SA with their decision on the AZ vaccine.

[dpedin]

Impact of school returns being seen in case numbers in Scotland - decline slowed down and levelling off or even a small increase. Now running higher than England for first time in yonks.

[Lobby]

And now Spain jumps onboard the stupidity bandwagon

I wonder how many lives will be lost through this pandemic of stupidity.

From the horse's mouth, the Italian Regulator has confirmed the decision to suspend AZ vaccines is political, rather than safety related:

ROME (Reuters) - The decision by Germany, France and Italy to suspend AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 shots after several countries reported possible serious side-effects is a “political one”, the director general of Italy’s medicines authority AIFA said on Tuesday.

“We got to the point of a suspension because several European countries, including Germany and France, preferred to interrupt vaccinations... to put them on hold in order to carry out checks. The choice is a political one,” Nicola Magrini told daily la Repubblica in an interview.

Magrini said that the AstraZeneca vaccine was safe and that the benefit to risk ratio of the jab is “widely positive”. There have been eight deaths and four cases of serious side-effects following vaccinations in Italy, he added.

Aifa will take two to three days to collect all required data and once “doubts are cleared we can carry on at a faster speed than before,” Magrini said.

And France now admits the same.

France decided to suspend the AstraZeneca jab in part because Germany did, “because we would have three days of stress after the German decision,” a French minister told POLITICO Monday evening.

[laurent]

Impact of school returns being seen in case numbers in Scotland - decline slowed down and levelling off or even a small increase. Now running higher than England for first time in yonks.

Schools have not closed here in France this has kept the economy going but also most likely kept infection rates high and now they are too high ...

Likely going to be lockdown soon.

[Ovals]

Impact of school returns being seen in case numbers in Scotland - decline slowed down and levelling off or even a small increase. Now running higher than England for first time in yonks.

UK cases levelled off over the last week. Could be just the effect of the extra testing of 4m senior school kids (UK wide) that probably wouldn't, otherwise, have been identified as having Covid.

[Hal Jordan]

And now Germany halting AZ.

Absolutely nuts. There's absolutely no evidence for this, nor is there even any theoretical explanation how the vaccine might cause it anyway

If the UK govt had any sense (pffft), they'd put Europe on the no-travel list for Summer 2021.

Political suicide, though, can you imagine the screaming from all quarters from the all in two weeks boozing and baking your brains on a beach crowd to the discrete little place we know that's away from the tourist traps and the common oiks brigade.

[GogLais]

Impact of school returns being seen in case numbers in Scotland - decline slowed down and levelling off or even a small increase. Now running higher than England for first time in yonks.

I hope we’ve got to a situation where hospitalisations and deaths will be a far lower proportion of cases now.

[tc27]

Every unlock step is going to see a rise in positive tests - also specifically with schools there is a lot of additional testing being done.

Positive test numbers is probably the least useful metric compared to deaths and hospitalizations.

[Paddington Bear]

And now Germany halting AZ.

Absolutely nuts. There's absolutely no evidence for this, nor is there even any theoretical explanation how the vaccine might cause it anyway

If the UK govt had any sense (pffft), they'd put Europe on the no-travel list for Summer 2021.

Political suicide, though, can you imagine the screaming from all quarters from the all in two weeks boozing and baking your brains on a beach crowd to the discrete little place we know that's away from the tourist traps and the common oiks brigade.

I think this is what the government are afraid of, and I think they've misjudged the public mood on this. People seem supportive of significant restrictions atm.