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One of the big concerns for some vaccine-worriers is that by injecting them you are bypassing the initial layers of the body’s immune defence.
1. Is that concern just complete bollocks end of, or is there a disadvantage in going straight into the bloodstream?
2. Why is the Covid vaccine injected rather than inhaled like the virus itself?
3. Why does the vaccine have to be administered by a finite number of medical staff? Why not speed up the process with an injection or spray we could all self-administer?
…
Is that concern just complete bollocks end of
Yes.
2. Why is the Covid vaccine injected rather than inhaled like the virus itself?
For the same reason most other vaccines are injected?
…
Don’t tell me, Kelvin, I missed this on page 162?
For the same reason most other vaccines are injected?
Which is?
@chrispo to follow up your 3 questions, are you:
1. A troll.
2. Suffering from a recent head injury.
3. A regular crack smoker.
play nice. those aren't unreasonable questions. i for one just accept but i don't pretend to have any knowledge of the whys and wherefores. i dropped biology in the third year.
Do we know anything about how robust the vaccine supply chain is? What is the risk that the gap between vaccines is pushed beyond 12 weeks for some, due to supply chain issues?
Guy on BBC news this morning, calling for the 12 week gap to be cut back to 6 suggested that it's likely there will be too many people vaccinated needing the second jab at 12 weeks. Demand will outstrip supply. If we go back to 6 weeks, this shouldn't be an issue.
@Tom-B: No, are you?
Pretty reasonable questions in the light of this trial, which is just one among many:
“We found that administering this vaccine through a nasal spray completely protected the animals from shedding the virus which causes transmission of the virus. This means the immunization of the upper respiratory tract through a nasal spray can prevent individuals from spreading the virus”
A pretty crucial benefit over the current vaccines I would think?
Basically injecting vaccines is completely tried and tested and understood. Aerosol delivery is promising but not yet tried and tested. Which system do you want to use, for this absolutely critical project?
But yes, it's something to watch for future deployments. Not useful just now.
Aerosol delivery is promising but not yet tried and tested.
Yes it is. The flu vaccine is administered as a nasal spray to children every year
Guy on BBC news this morning, calling for the 12 week gap to be cut back to 6 suggested that it’s likely there will be too many people vaccinated needing the second jab at 12 weeks. Demand will outstrip supply. If we go back to 6 weeks, this shouldn’t be an issue.
Untrue
The supply issues become apparent once you move onto second dosing people. At that point you need twice the supply to keep throughput the same. The longer the gap, the more time there is to upscale the levels of production to twice the initial amount.
So if supply is currently 300,000 vaccines a day, AZ need to get to 600,000 a day at the end of the 12 week period. If thats reduced to a 6 week period that issue becomes harder to resolve, as they only have half the time to do it.
If we cant get to the 600,000 supply figure then we may have to start to scale back on the people receiving first doses, but its less of an issue as we'll be moving onto the lower risk groups of society.
If you watch the Press Conferences you can see the conflict from Chris Whitty.
From a clinical perspective he'd like the gap to be shorter to provide better protection for the individual, but knows that with the supply constraints we currently have we can offer more people some kind of protection by making that gap longer.
Not sure how to word this as it is not my subject but vaguely remember something about particles(?) at a quantum level and that if you change one then you change them all.
Then I heard the interview with Callum Semple where he said something along the lines of that the Brazil and South African variants could spontaneously appear in the UK in answer to a border control question. (Sky lunchtime news)
Does a virus constantly change and if so over what time scale?
What are the chances of the same variant occurring in isolation or could there be a quantum effect there?
I think I heard that the Kent variation has three changes to the sequence. In the whole of the sequence is there an identifiable area/string where these changes can only take place or can it be anywhere and how much would have to change before it became something else or would it always be just a variant?
Do I need to get out more?
How much harder would modification of the AZ be than Pfizer for a mutated virus? Somebody mentioned 5 weeks for the mRNA versions. Does that make it posible to give a second dose at 3 months based on new strains?
Not sure how to word this as it is not my subject but vaguely remember something about particles(?) at a quantum level and that if you change one then you change them all.
Quantum entanglement? The thing that Einstein called "spooky action at a distance".
Perfectly good questions:
1. Nonsense
2. The vaccines are not intact virus, but parts of the virus. Technically the mRNA are instructions not even parts. They are injected into sites that your immune system will see. The up-the-nose kids flu vaccine is an intact and very week virus that can be delivered the same way as the pathogen.
3. People might react badly and so need to be followed for 30 minutes to check they don’t have adverse reactions.
@mariner viruses have slightly noisy correction for replication. So noise comes in just by chance after each generation. Some viruses are VERY noisy like HIV. SARS-COV2 is not that variable. But the virus is attacked by the immune system at a few key sites (called epitopes). Hence any virus change in a person can try and escape. This is a fitness advantage.
We have seen some elected mutations at sites under immune selection. The generation time for humans is 20 years. But for viruses it’s seconds. So opportunities for change are a natural part of the process. Fortunately, any immune response is sufficiently broad that there is still currently some control of these mutants.
Some larger pathogens like malaria have sex in the host. Two strains can combine to produce a very different strain. That’s unlikely but not out of the question for this virus. Particularly in patients who are immune compromised and may have persistent infection. That may have happened for the Kent strain to have acquired so many changes (21).
A great Twitter thread from a Conservative MP…
https://twitter.com/neildotobrien/status/1352980826112348160?s=21
Not sure I can disagree with FACT4, I'll be honest, but that's not just a Covid related opinion!
Don’t tell me, Kelvin, I missed this on page 162?
No, I just deleted my post, because I’d rather people more patient than me engaged with you. I was going to talk about the fact that you want the immune system to be triggered by a vaccine, rather than to bypass it. As for nasal, that’s how my son gets his flu vaccine… maybe further down the line we might have vaccines for this virus that we take in the same way… which for worldwide distribution would be great… but for now let’s get these early successful vaccines in people… they should have nothing to fear from them just because they are injected.
Indeed. FACT 4 is spot on, just not in the way they are claiming, I'd imagine.
We seem to only be getting FACT 3 popping up here still occasionally.
Some larger pathogens like malaria have sex in the host. Two strains can combine to produce a very different strain. That’s unlikely but not out of the question for this virus.
So humans might be kind of like a hot tub for randy viruses?
1. Is that concern just complete bollocks end of, or is there a disadvantage in going straight into the bloodstream?
2. Why is the Covid vaccine injected rather than inhaled like the virus itself?Perfectly good questions:
1. Nonsense
2. The vaccines are not intact virus, but parts of the virus. Technically the mRNA are instructions not even parts. They are injected into sites that your immune system will see...
Also, re. Q1, am I right in saying the injections are intramuscular not intravenous?
From a clinical perspective he’d like the gap to be shorter to provide better protection for the individual, but knows that with the supply constraints we currently have we can offer more people some kind of protection by making that gap longer.
Indeed, 480,000 vaccinations yesterday
They are intramuscular, if they were iv then I doubt the vaccination rate would be anywhere near what it is now
Indeed, 480,000 vaccinations yesterday
If they keep going at the same rate as they have over the past 7 days then they won’t be far off the 15m number on the 14th Feb.
That date is 10 weeks after the programme started (8th Dec), so I’d be expecting then to start to bring people back for there second dose at that point.
Also at the rate case numbers are dropping, the 14th should be the point at which they back at low levels.
Not sure if it's already been posted on here, but here's a pretty shocking covid story written by a chap called Tim Hayward who ended up in ICU in November and has suffered some serious long term physical and psychological effects since
Feels very close to home as he's sometime I have a vague connection to
https://www.ft.com/content/2b0dbba3-6fe8-4c2d-8cca-90e87261d436
Reads like an Iain Banks novel at times, doesn’t it.
A bit of a summary for those not clicking through…
…people in the profession have warned that we’re unprepared for the mental health implications of the pandemic and I can’t disagree. I wasn’t expecting to spend 2 weeks palpably & certifiably insane.
Well, my Aunt is home from hospital, so I feel free to share her tale. She is head of nursing for a care home… should probably be retired really, ex forces, you’ll never stop her keeping useful and helping people… anyway, they managed to keep the virus out all through 2020… no loses, no cases… her ferociousness as regards staffing & training is probably part of that. Being in North Yorkshire likely the bigger reason. But it’s now 2021… and we, the UK, completely messed up the final months of last year. Fact not opinion. So, the virus was finally brought in by someone… followed by a few sudden weeks of many deaths amongst those looked after, and many staff positive and ill. She and others ended up hospitalised… trust me, she wouldn’t have been in there if she could have avoided it. Apparently she was a right pain in the arse while in there… they are currently very short staffed and drug administration and the most basic forms of care were being missed… never mind the niceties of “caring” for patients… and she wasn’t shy of complaining when the treatment she had been told she needed wasn’t happening. So… she’s at home alone now, with a blood oxygen meter monitored remotely from the hospital… no doubt watching the planes take off and land from her window while she waits (she bought the tiny house because of traffic from the RAF base, not despite it).
Kelvin your aunt sounds fantastic. I hope she is on the mend. These people are disciplined, they know what’s what and can smell disorganisation a mile away.
if they were iv then
They probably wouldn’t work. The vaccine is taken up with dendritic cells also known as antigen presenting cells in tissue. These are scanned by T helper cells that then B tell clones that match the epitope to get expanding and start producing antibodies against that target. The tissue part is important.
The nasal flu virus is a mild infection that protects against the real thing. Cowpox worked the same for smallpox. Polio is also alive virus. There are attenuated viruses for covid too, and killed virus, but these have looked less impressive
I thought they were trying as hard as they could to phase out the use of the sabin polio vaccine due to the frequency of vaccine related infections due to it regaining a level of virulence
Well, back from another day at the vaccine centre. I think I did 30 or so people. and then was the floor walker for a bit. The IT is the thing that slows it all down if I'm honest, It just doesn't seem to be stable, thanks to all the volunteers we got it done. I've also got to say the Pts are remarkably cheerful and happy with it all though, our waiting area is in the middle of all the booths, so folk can chatter amongst themselves (all socially distanced) and it genuinely lovely to see all the oldies nattering with each other regardless of creed or colour (some of them haven't been out of their houses for 10 months). We had a couple of breaks for prayers (we're in a religious building) and everyone was v respectful, and the the local RC priest came over to help make tea, and have a natter. It's very community feels
Knackered now though...
Back tomorrow, and then back to proper work for a bit to see what damage has been going on haha...
good on you fella.
quick chat with my neighbour earlier. she's an old lady, lost her husband a few years ago and living on in the house they bought new when it was built (mid 80s). good old girl. had both jabs and she's well pleased. so am i.
EDIT: Not paywalled, apols
Well done nickc - and thanks for what you do.
...and deliberation may have made matters worse
I feel you are being overly generous there TiRed. I can't see deliberation in any of this only dogma and the deluded view of a PM who seems to believe Borosian Prose is a valid approach to running a country.
Thanks Nick. Keep at it!
My mum is looking forward excitedly to her turn… should be soon. They don’t have areas for the 15 minute post injection observation though… it’s straight in and out… they don’t have the space. Is it only one of the vaccines that they are advising the patients are observed for any issues, or both of them? Is it wise to arrange someone to be with her? She’s miles from any of the rest of us (thank Jobs for FaceTime).
My mum had the Oxford AZ vaccine today. There was no observation area, but she was advised to sit in her car for 15 minutes before driving off.
I had mine done in the staff service at the local hospital - slick as anything. I had to sit in a room for 15 mins which I thought was mandatory
Good news TJ. Did you faint?
Nearly Kelvin. but kept it together very bravely. I didn't get a lollipop tho the rats!
Glad it’s done.
good for you tj.
my > 80 year old neighbour (presumably - one does not ask) compared trump to boris during our discussion. my response was that i thought trump had grown up very privileged but had basically never been told 'no' or properly educated. boris on the other hand has benefited from the finest education available in this country. he chooses to act the way he does. he doesn't do it through outright ignorance. he knows better. he just chooses not to act better.
(the last part i did not express to my neighbour!)
I didn’t get a lollipop tho the rats!
the inhumanity! 😀
I still feel a bit guilty as I am not working in a red zone right now but I did delay a few weeks from when I could have got it
At least my parents have a date now to get theirs - tuesday
I know Del - I thought it was part of the deal! I was so brave!