Hoping it gets the green-light from EMA later this week or so, and also the FDA due to consider it for emergency authorisation soon which might help restore confidence
The vaccines | vaxxed boosted unvaxxed? New poll
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik (@Rood) is joined by CEO Duncan Drasdo and Financial Director Andy Green from the Manchester United Supporters Trust for a special episode on all things behind the scenes at Old Trafford including a brief history of MUST and their aims today, views on INEOS and Sir Jim Ratcliffe so far, and the Old Trafford regeneration.
How are they taking it seriously? The UK are continuing to put AZ into people’s arms, with another big shipment due from India.
Meeting tomorrow morning. Announcement on Thursday. Fingers crossed.
If they do give the all clear it will be an interesting test for our health service. They’ve been maintaining that supply was the only rate limiting step, so should be able to rattle through this week’s backlog straight away. If not, they’ll face some tough questions.
So my Grandad, bored off his tits, has signed up for every medical trial going and the most recent one is a antibody test for people who have had a vaccine.
He reckons it's telling him he's not got any antibodies. He had the AZ first dose back in January, and I would guess he somehow fecked up the test, but is it possible that he did it properly and doesn't have any protection at all?
He reckons it's telling him he's not got any antibodies. He had the AZ first dose back in January, and I would guess he somehow fecked up the test, but is it possible that he did it properly and doesn't have any protection at all?
Cause or coincidence?
The data supplied by AstraZeneca shows there have been 37 reports of blood clots among the 17m people across Europe who have been given the vaccine.
But the key question that has to be asked is whether this is cause or coincidence? Would these clots have happened anyway?
Adverse events like this are monitored carefully, so regulators can assess if they are happening more than they should.
The 37 reports of clots are below the level you would expect. What is more, there is no strong biological explanation why the vaccine would cause a blood clot.
It is why the World Health Organization and UK drugs regulators have all said there is no evidence of a link.
Even the European Medicines Agency, which is looking into the reports, has suggested the vaccine should continue to be used given the risk Covid presents to health.
Unsurprisingly, therefore, the decisions by individual nations to pause their rollouts have baffled experts.
Prof Adam Finn, a member of the WHO's working group on Covid vaccines, says stopping rollout in this way is "highly undesirable" and could undermine confidence in the vaccine, costing lives in the long-term.
"Making the right call in situations like this is not easy, but having a steady hand on the tiller is probably what is needed most."
From the BBC site.
What kind of antibody test he undergone? Rapid ones won’t show it for the vaccine you need to do an antibody test called SARS-CoV-2-anti-S.
Ah, that sounds plausible. He did it himself at home.
I'm surprised the trial didn't debrief him properly on that though. He's panicking that he hasn't got any protection, so hopefully I can find out what he did and reassure him.
Edit: Nope just checked he got an email with a readout breaking it down into N and S and saying he had neither antibodies.
@jojojo had given me an explanation earlier that testing for whether vaccines will provide immunity is commercially not straightforward. Tagging her hoping she can explain
I reassure you that the one he used at home (it’s antigen test actually) definitely won’t show it. My Mum had a Pfizer vaccine (2 doses) a month ago, she with her vaccinated colleagues did these sort of tests at work as they have access to them (healthcare workers) and all of them came back negative. It’s the igG anti-S test from your vein what is needed to determine antibody level from vaccine.
Ah yeah, should have added that in the edit. He did it at home but sent it off and they emailed him results which specifically break it down into N and S.
N = nucleocapsid. S = spike proten
If either of them are going to change after vaccination it will be S. But even with the expensive hospital based tests (from a vein) it’s possible that they might not test for the same bit of the spike that the vaccine stimulates.
Plus it’s possible that the antibodies in his blood have been and gone. Being immune is as much about being able to rapidly create the right antibodies next time they’re needed as it is about churning them as soon as you’re vaccinated.
Finally, T cell mediated immunity is important too. And that won’t show up on any antibody test.
That’s it basically. Please read this @NinjaFletch https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.im...covid-19-vaccine-qa-latest-news-antibody/amp/. Your grandad is protected mate (at least partially).
Ah thank you, I had assumed it was probably more an issue with the test than the vaccine itself (although with the bold I do wonder if the decision to space out over 12 weeks heightened that effect, he must be very near his second dose).
I assume he probably have should been told all this by whatever trial he's signed up too. He's a man who thinks that he's being written to personally whenever he gets an email from a retailer, so I'm very surprised he hasn't read the debrief.
The UK are the one's not playing silly political games over a vaccine its been clear for a while now Europe has been doing this.
If you read into the stats the sample is smaller than you would expect of a random sample of people without any vaccination.
Ever since the doses were smaller then expected they have been pushing a negative image without applying any common sense, its only going to take them even longer then the already poor vaccination rate in Europe with this attitude as people are going to be wary of certain vaccines with no real cause to.
You won't be allowed to have it until that has occurred and countries decide to continue (or not). Many countries have carried on without a pause after examining the available data anyway.
In reality there has only been one country where anything at all might possibly be an issue. I very much doubt all these other countries would have reacted so cautiously with any vaccine under normal circumstances.
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I’m not sure what you mean by the bit in bold. There’s 30,000 people in Ireland due to get the AZ vaccine this week that have had their appointment postponed.
No one country has examined all the data. It will have been collected by the regulators in the countries reporting the serious ADRs and submitted to the EMA. Along with the latest update of the safety database maintained by the manufacturer. That’s what the EMA (specifically a committee called PRAC) will be going through with a fine toothcomb over the next 24 - 36 hours. Then and only then will we have the whole picture
What I mean is that each country will look at the data and either carry on or suspend while they look at the data further. If you are allowed to have it the risk will have been assessed as acceptable so you personally don't need to agonise over it.
If further data emerges then of course be driven by that data but don't be driven speculation about data we don't have. Over caution can damage public confidence unnecessarily.
0.00022% incidents of blood clots close to the vaccination is lower than what you would expect by random chance so where is the justification for a pause? And that isn't even comparing the individual and collective increased risk (currently zero except possibly in Norway) of clots vs covid.
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I just got a note from my doctor in California saying I'm going to be able to get a vaccine in the next few weeks. I'm surprised it happened sooner than England but I'll take it. Presumably it'll either be Pfizer or J&J.
The justification for the pause is because there’s been a cluster of serious adverse events, with an unusual combination of symptoms, replicated in multiple cases in short period of time. Absolutely textbook reason for an emergency safety review of a recently licensed medicine.
Sometimes it takes a localised cluster to reveal important issues that aren’t showing up in the overall numbers. Obviously hope that isn’t the case here. In fact, my money’s on this turning out to be a false alarm. I understand the concern though. I wasn’t worried at all by what I read about the incidents in Austria/Italy but the Norwegian cluster is concerning.
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the latest publicly available data showed there were 35 reported cases of thrombocytopenia (a low blood platelet disorder) out of 54,000 “yellow card” reports after nearly 10 million AstraZeneca vaccinations.
For the Pfizer vaccine there were 22 cases out of 33,000 reports and almost 11 million doses administered.
Why is one ignored and one made a huge deal out of? apart from politics.
How many of those cases of thrombocytopenia hospitalised someone? How many ended up dead? These are young people too. Not frail or elderly. It’s the severity of these incidents and the fact they happened in the same cohort, in quick succession, that raised the alarm.
This pause wasn’t decided by politicians either. It was expert drug safety physicians working for regulators. The same people we rely on to tell us these vaccines are safe when they are first licensed.
So flying back to the us?
Well I might as well. It's a fecking ball-ache trying to get into the UK at the moment and I haven't even been offered the vaccine there yet.
I don't know i haven't got the data to hand, but ill hazard a guess there is minimal difference its clear to me there is an agenda against a vaccine which is hilarious in itself and doesn't help anyone.
Ever since the ridiculous comments from Macron about the effectiveness in over 65 its been obvious, i'm not saying the regulators aren't correct in throwing up the issue i'm talking about the way its being spoken about in the public arena by the not qualified.
Haven’t noticed much (any?) of that since this recent pause was initiated. Seems to be all very sensible statements from the various regulators involved. Even the Norwegian regulator that raised the issue were extremely careful to make it clear that causality had not been established.
Norwegian and Danish health experts aren't playing any politics, can you stop with your bs.
I try to be objective about these kind of things, but even if the numbers are small I agree with you on this. Something seems wrong.
I had to take a course of Heparin last summer, and I certainly wouldn't want the AZ vaccine right now.
Please read what i actually just put i agreed with being cautious.
I'm talking about the clear political games being played around vaccines.
I'd do cartwheels if I was offered the AZ vaccine tomorrow, I've had thrombosis years ago, unfortunately I don't see an offer of any vaccine coming any time soon in eu countries, total shitshow.
The Guardian report said without a vaccine they would expect to see 100 blood clot cases per week in the age group being vaccinated now. Old people get blood clots and old people die. This reporting is harming the rollout in eu in a disastrous way and needs to stop.
I agree and in the case of Norway a quick pause (hopefully) to start again soon is most likely appropriate but under normal circumstances such a small a localised potential issue wouldn't cause other countries to pause as their data doesn't show this. We have had this occasionally in the past (with a flu vaccine I think) where a localised effect was potentially detected. That country paused, found the issue was real but so rare that although it increased risk compared to not being vaccinated there was a decreased risk compared to the same side effect being triggered by getting flu. So they carried on but excluded those who had had the disease that the vaccine could potentially cause in the previous 6 months (or something like that). I believe all other countries carried on without pause.
I guess what I'm saying is that there is lots of non-normal behaviour going on and not just with this aspect of covid vaccines.
Exactly. We were told this vaccine was 100% safe and wasn't rushed... now the narrative is it's better to have it than to not have it. I think we should not lose sight on what we're taking this vaccine for. To save lives and not further complicate our health... given the number of countries that have acted so quickly, it's safe to say there's real merit on this.
I stand by my opinion that there's no long term data on these vaccines and majority of the studies suggesting a big reduction in covid transmission has not been peer reviewed. Everything we are learning about this virus and vaccine is done in real time.. to have people take a position and not be able to be open to other people's opinion is pretty scary.
Watch people come here defending this and say it's very rare but it happens.. just a big old coincidence.. nothing to see here.
You going to risk being called an anti vaxxer and a selfish prick! careful with your words.
I got my first dose today. So far I'm still alive. I'm not feeling sick or anything yet. I just have some soreness around the vaccination spot. I have an underlying medical condition but they didn't even ask for proof. They just asked what or was. Easy breezy. My only challenge was finding my way back home since the vaccination site was in the middle of nowhere.
And if a very small % of blood clots is their issue, why haven't the EU raised the same concerns on the Pfizer vaccine... it has a small % too.
Odd that?
Never realised how old most of this forum is. Bunch of old fogies getting your vaccines already !
Hmm.. that's worrying. That makes it sound like AZ was rushing their vaccine. Not good news.
Is the AZ vaccine being taken in Europe made in UK or EU or India?
It sounds like they have experienced not very surprising issues upscaling production under extraordinary circumstances. Quell suprise.
You were told the vaccines hadn't been rushed in terms of safety because ...... drum roll ..... they haven't been rushed in terms of safety.
Countries have acted out of caution and now you say that caution is a sign that there is a real issue? That makes no sense. If the facts were exactly the same and fewer countries made a temporary halt that wouldn't alter the data one iota.
How do you think every vaccine is studied post initial approval? Why do you want to ignore the very consistent data that shows the vaccines have a major effect reducing transmission? Based on your past posting history I simply don't believe that you form your opinions based on peer reviewed literature, so suddenly deciding that you will ignore very recent data that hasn't been published yet, emphasis on yet, seems to me to be disingenuous at best.
You seem to be forming opinions based on evidenceless feeling so is it any wonder that people think you are talk out of your backside.
It is rarer than you would expect if you hadn't been immunised. There is no causation mechanism even suggested. You would have a better (but still incorrect) argument if you were saying that vaccination reduced the incidence of blood clots.
I get the impression you’ve been almost willing this vaccine to fail for a while now. Have you shorted AstraZeneca?!?
Ronaldo's Mum Eh is another one in the same boat.