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Possible vaccines/treatment(s) for Coronavirus

Wilf said:
… though I'm not convinced that list does capture that fully, for example the 30 year old who is highly vulnerable doesn't come near the top. But that's just going off the list, there may be scope for GPs to prioritise. Just got a sense this is going to be so big logistically they are keen to stick with broad brush risk for most people.
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Yeah, my view on the broad brush list was a broad brush view, but I'd hope GPs would use a detail for cutting in, *

*Brush reference and decorating analogy ends here
 
Picking up on Teaboy 's point, I may have mentioned here before an interesting thing I heard about Swine flu vaccine - that when it was given to a broad population, they found about 1800 people out of millions developed narcolepsy, which sucked for them, but at the end of the day was worth it to stop swine flu in the most affected areas. It's possible a small % (which could add up to a lot of people) could have side effects from this, but it may just have to be seen as acceptable collateral for getting it under control and stopping the physical, psychological and economic onslaught :(
 
frogwoman said:
How do they know it is 90% effective? How many people have had the vaccine so far, and do they have any idea how long it lasts?
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To your second question: no, they have no idea.

To your first question: they give 1000 people the vaccine, and 1000 people a placebo, then let the people go about their normal business

After some time, 100 people in the placebo group have caught the virus. One would therefore expect 100 people in the vaccine group to have caught it also (on average). However only 10 people have caught it - the inference is then that 90 people have been protected because they had the vaccine - it’s 90% protective.
 
My Dad 93, vaccinate and fi for his age caught flu, (type A) in February and recovered after 3 weeks in hospital (was on oxygen etc). This ties in with flu vaccine not working that well on the very elderly.
He went into a care home recently and tested positive for COVID-1. He was a bit off colour for a couple of days but is now fine and quite chirpy. I’ve heard from contacts that there a lot of positive tests from care homes that fortunately don’t result in the drastic consequences. Maybe because staff are using PPE now. Anyway is there any data on that?
We can’t see him ofcourse. But fortunately can phone him.
I presume there will be no problem re giving people like my Dad who have already tested positive the vaccine?
 
Most papers for tomorrow leading with LIFE BACK TO NORMAL BY SPRING! type headlines - a lot of people are going to be disappointed.

I think 2021 will be better and more 'normal' than 2020, but I can't imagine we can just drop all distancing, using masks and just go back to having big gatherings until the vaccine and the virus have been around longer.
 
cyril_smear said:
I’m not one of those mental anti vax people, but, like yourself, I won’t be in a rush to get it.
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I didn't quite say that, I'll actually be quite keen to get the vaccine and hope enough other people do to get something like herd immunity. My MH means I get anxious about both taking meds and not taking meds. That's without ever coming over remotely Ickeist, it's just my overly reflective thing. But there's a bigger picture in terms of the risk of catching Covid as well as the need to move towards herd immunity. So yeah, in the absence of any real concerns about the specific vaccine offered, I'll be taking it.
 
Cloo said:
Most papers for tomorrow leading with LIFE BACK TO NORMAL BY SPRING! type headlines - a lot of people are going to be disappointed.

I think 2021 will be better and more 'normal' than 2020, but I can't imagine we can just drop all distancing, using masks and just go back to having big gatherings until the vaccine and the virus have been around longer.
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Clearly the tories are desperate to get rid of lockdown and all the other restrictions and costs. My guess is that as soon as the vaccine(s) start getting rolled out into anything like a significant % of the population, they will start peeling the restrictions away. We'll be left 6 feet apart, masked and hand washing, not much else. It's not so much that they know the vaccine will be cutting cases right back, it's more that it will be providing cover for their strategy.
 
Wilf said:
I didn't quite say that, I'll actually be quite keen to get the vaccine and hope enough other people do to get something like herd immunity. My MH means I get anxious about both taking meds and not taking meds. That's without ever coming over remotely Ickeist, it's just my overly reflective thing. But there's a bigger picture in terms of the risk of catching Covid as well as the need to move towards herd immunity. So yeah, in the absence of any real concerns about the specific vaccine offered, I'll be taking it.
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That is a very fair comment and probably sums up how a lot of us feel - I don't feel immediately confident in a vaccine but I don't feel confident in my ability to survive covid either (I am somewhat in the middle in terms of risk)- and tbh the decision is not in my hands - my husband and parents will be offered any vaccine long before I will and it will be up to them.

I saw quite a good documentary not long ago about polio and Salk's work to develop a vaccine. The main thing I took away from it though is that it is more normal than not in the history of humans to live with the fear of disease that cannot be cured or vaccinated against.
 
Wilf said:
Clearly the tories are desperate to get rid of lockdown and all the other restrictions and costs. My guess is that as soon as the vaccine(s) start getting rolled out into anything like a significant % of the population, they will start peeling the restrictions away. We'll be left 6 feet apart, masked and hand washing, not much else. It's not so much that they know the vaccine will be cutting cases right back, it's more that it will be providing cover for their strategy.
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Totally that will happen. I also have concerns that people will hear these headlines now, misunderstand, and it will then fuel people ignoring the restrictions we have.

Van-Tam yesterday tried to make it clear it wouldn't make any difference to this wave but maybe the next. It also needs 2 doses (21-28 days apart) and then full effectiveness starts about 14 days after the second dose, so 5-6 weeks from first dose.
 
Assuming all continues to go well, I don’t expect things to totally return to normal until 2022. I think it’s a long game; a mixture of time it takes to get everyone vaccinated, time taken to get additional stock to what we have already ordered, the fact that even with a vaccine there will be a sizeable group of people too frightened to return to ‘normal’ life ‘just in case’, the anti-vaxxers...

I am cautiously quite excited to hear it’s progressing well so far though.
 
LynnDoyleCooper said:
Totally that will happen. I also have concerns that people will hear these headlines now, misunderstand, and it will then fuel people ignoring the restrictions we have.
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I think that's inevitable really. It's a bit of a double-bind, it does a appear to be good news, which I think some people really needed, but the effects on behaviour are likely to be pretty damaging
 
Wilf said:
Clearly the tories are desperate to get rid of lockdown and all the other restrictions and costs. My guess is that as soon as the vaccine(s) start getting rolled out into anything like a significant % of the population, they will start peeling the restrictions away. We'll be left 6 feet apart, masked and hand washing, not much else. It's not so much that they know the vaccine will be cutting cases right back, it's more that it will be providing cover for their strategy.
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Yes, this has been a concern of mine for a while now. The pressure to give up on restrictions has been quite high even when over 300 people are dying a day. When that's down to an arbitrary number which the government deems acceptable you'll barely hear about it. With the vast majority of deaths happening in care homes and ICU it'll be very easy to hide the bodies.
 
Governments response to this pandemic are largely driven by hospitalisation rates, death rates are far lower down their list unless the level of death is so high that it causes logistical or political problems. As well as hospitalisation rates, of more concern to governments is what the virus does to staffing levels in key areas, and what it does to public confidence in resuming 'normal' economic activities of all sorts. If we end up in a situation where those issues dont set off major alarms, and where there arent any major differences internationally that would make us look like we'd gone out on an unsustainable limb compared to others, then government equations will be very different.

I do not subscribe to the idea that the vaccines will be asked to carry all the weight, I dont think mass testing plans are going away for a long time. Especially if vaccines are used at large scale, since in theory this increases the selection pressure on the virus, making it more likely that any strains that can avoid first generation vaccine acquired immunity may become the dominant strain, vastly complicating the vaccine picture and requiring much ongoing effort to deal with. This is not a complete certainty, it is on my list of things where it is too early to judge and where I will restrict myself to not looking too far ahead as a result.
 
If you can't vaccinate everyone in a fairly short space of time do you then, therefore, have to work out who is going to be the best 'value' to vaccinate initially, and what limitations you still need to maintain to allow it be any help?
 
Cloo said:
If you can't vaccinate everyone in a fairly short space of time do you then, therefore, have to work out who is going to be the best 'value' to vaccinate initially, and what limitations you still need to maintain to allow it be any help?
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Yes. The government wont treat it like a silver bullet either, even though sections of the media will.

Someone already linked to the priorities list (which is subject to change) but here it is again JCVI: updated interim advice on priority groups for COVID-19 vaccination
 
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