Jsmth321

I have always been surprised how many medical workers seem to smoke, maybe is a stress thing but if you go to almost any hospital and find the staff smoking area there is never a shortage of staff coming and going for smoke breaks.

Addiction is a strong thing, people who are smart, know the risks and still do it.

For years the BC Gov't and nurses union fought over flu vaccines and masks, government mandated nurses get flu vaccines or wear a mask, union fought it for years, just prior to the pandemic the government caved more or less.

Nursing programs are difficult to get into, require a high GPA so these are not unintelligent people, but yet they fought tooth and nail over the flu vaccine mandate or wear a mask.

Giantaxe

We've been over this before. Pfizer and Moderna managed to get many more over 65's registered in their trials than did AZ. According to this BBC article:

"The issue for some European countries, acting upon the recommendation from their vaccine advisory bodies, is that they think not enough of the AZ trial participants aged over 65 caught the virus to make conclusions on the vaccine's effectiveness. This is because only two of the 660 people in that age group were infected.

Other companies, like Pfizer, included more older people earlier on in their trials, so have more data available."

https://www.bbc.com/news/55919245

That 660 includes those that took the actual vaccine and those that took the placebo. So not only did they have too few older enrollees, they - presumably - had too few who were actually exposed to the virus at all. With only two - placebo and vaccine - enrollees infected combined, statistically how can you tell anything about efficacy in that over-65 age cohort?

If they have high efficacy across all age cohorts then that is undoubtedly true.

Jsmth321

A bit more trickled out about Astra Zeneca and Health Canada.

Health Canada has received the scientific data from the company that it needs, but questions still revolve around labelling and the product monograph about how and when a vaccine should be administered and in what groups and Health Canada has submitted the questions they have to the company and are awaiting the answers.

"We're going back and forth with the company," she said, adding discussions on the "terms and conditions" of the product are still ongoing.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/ast...ages-1.5923177

Jsmth321

A bit more details about AZ and Health Canada in this article, seems to be a few things holding up approval.

"Health Canada has completed “the review of the science” behind AstraZeneca’s shot, but both sides still need to agree on: the product monograph, labelling, a risk-management plan, and terms and conditions of the vaccine."

https://ipolitics.ca/2021/02/22/comp...dical-adviser/

jimenato

Interesting reading the comments about side effects.

I had Astra Zeneca first jab on Sunday morning and didn't even bother reading the blurb - side effects don't happen to me.

Had a worse than usual night's sleep and felt OK the next morning but crashed at about lunchtime - all the listed effects - and had to go to bed.

Really took me by surprise.

Apparently the effects are worse after the second jab but it won't put me off of course. I'd rather feel a bit off for a day than get Covid.

Jsmth321

Article from California today.

the dominant strain in California not only spreads more readily than its predecessors, but also evades antibodies generated by COVID-19 vaccines or prior infection and it’s associated with severe illness and death, researchers said.

scientists at UC San Francisco said the cluster of mutations that characterizes the homegrown strain should mark it as a “variant of concern” on par with those from the United Kingdom, South Africa and Brazil.


Will this virus outsmart our vaccine efforts?

moneypenny20

Most of them do.

pommybird

Was listening to Prof Van Tam on the telly this morning. He was saying that the latest data shows that the vaccines used in the UK (AZ and Pfizer) are still very effective against the UK variant that now is producing 95% of our disease in the UK. He seemed to suggest that vaccines will pretty much cope with new variants in the way the flu jab does every year. He's quite a clever chap all round so fingers crossed. Can't comment on the SA or Brazil variant as there has only been a handful of cases here.

Jsmth321

FDA Vaccines and related Biological Products Advisory Committee will meet Friday to discuss the J&J vaccine, US Food and Drug Administration analysis released indicates it meets their EUA requirements.

"efficacy of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine against moderate to severe/critical Covid-19 across all geographic areas was 66.9% at least 14 days after the single dose vaccination and 66.1% at least 28 days after vaccination"

Probably be approved fairly quickly as I expect the committee to vote to recommend approval.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/02/24/healt...sis/index.html

zzrmark

The globe doesn't have anywhere near the take-up of the flu jab that you'd need with an annual Covid jab to maintain herd immunity does it? Talk about leaving a country's population at the mercy of big pharma!

Sugarmooma

Has the cost of having Coronavirus in the US been mentioned yet?

The Kindergarten teacher at our local school spent nine weeks in hospital and unfortunately passed away. She was in her 50's and had been a healthy lady. She was covered by her Teachers insurance but her medical bills are still horrendous. There is a Go Fund Me to help her husband out. Reading about this made me wonder how people are going to be able to pay all the medical bills after treatment. It is sad to have to worry about this especially after the loss of a loved one.

Scamp

I just had the first jab about 30mins ago.
The mrs was the same as you when she had hers, no real issues then fell off a cliff. All the side effects and 24 hours in bed.

Steerpike

Just had dinner with another older guy (outdoor, on his patio) who has had both jabs. He is now the fourth of four people I know well who have all had two jabs, and had a strong reaction to the second jab. I think it's 2 Pfizer, 2 moderna, so far in my circle of friends. So it would seem the likelihood is quite high that people get a bad reaction to the second jab. This is NOT a major reaction; NOT a reason to even consider not having it; just an interesting thing to be aware of. Pretty much all 4 people said they felt like crap / couldn't do anything the day after the second jab (they were all fine after first).

Scamp

Is what it is mate. I feel a strong social responsibility to take the vaccine, I feel a personal responsibility to take the vaccine and really protect myself, I fear the world will go to travel vaccine passports so felt a strong desire to get a recognised one here (Pfizer, AZ and Sinopharm on the shelf to pick from basically).

If there are two-three days total where I feel a bit shit and can claim some sympathy from the mrs and work and mummy, I'll take it. 3 days in my life is a greater proportion than most of the oldies on here but it's still only 0.025% of my life (not accounting for leap years)

Steerpike

Me too!