Covid-19 #27: A Handful of Stars, A Fistful of Dollars

[Luzifer's right hand]

34 minutes ago, Fragile Bird said:

I am seeing stories pop up about the EU potentially banning the export of vaccine doses. Is this just a ban to the UK, or is it an outright ban? The EU is supplying the rest of the world with vaccine, since the US has abandoned that role. Canada and many other countries would be up shit creek without a paddle (that’s with one t, not two). 
 

I also saw an article that stated this would only move up the EU’s vaccination schedule by a week, but that was a UK article complaining banning vaccine going to the UK delays the UK’s plan by months while it would only shorten the EU’s plan by a week, as the amount of vaccine needed by the UK is “so small” compared to the amount the EU needs. It’s kind of the opposite of the US argument, where they are saying keeping 300 M doses for the US gets the US done but is just a drop in the bucket to the rest of the world so why bother exporting any when they can vaccinate the whole US instead.

Now that the US AZ results are out, I wonder if the 1.5 M doses for Canada and the 2.5 M for Mexico are the only doses we’ll see for now, even though the approval process will take 3 weeks or more. But I also wonder if Americans will take the AZ vaccine, since it’s “only” 79% effective, even lower than the J&J vaccine that has received such push-back for being merely 82% effective. However, as I argued with J&J, AZ was tested in the US under the worst virus conditions of all the vaccines so far.

The EU already had the ability to block exports if a company did not fulfil its contracts and if vaccines were heading for a country that has things under control. That was why Italy was able to block exports to Australia. 

That ability ends at the end of march and they need new legislation. That might lead to a blanket ban but that seems unlikely as plants in the EU need raw materials from the UK(plants in the US need raw materials from the EU too). If the EU and the UK start banning exports of vaccines and raw materials(take the US approach I guess) it will most likely set everyone back. I doubt it will help the EU a lot. If they banned exports a few months ago maybe but now it seems too late to me. 

[JoannaL]

36 minutes ago, Fragile Bird said:

I am seeing stories pop up about the EU potentially banning the export of vaccine doses. Is this just a ban to the UK, or is it an outright ban? The EU is supplying the rest of the world with vaccine, since the US has abandoned that role. Canada and many other countries would be up shit creek without a paddle (that’s with one t, not two). 
 

 

As Padraig pointed out this is (naturally) about AZ, which now wants to export to the UK. They have underdelivered around 50 to 95 mio doses until now (depending on how you count), plan to also deliver less than contractual said in the second quarter (100 mio instead of 250 mio) and now they want to export.  They are mad, and I really hope they are stopped.

But it is true that the noise level is rising, more and more politicians here are saying that being cooperative  doesnt work as a one way street. There is big disappointment with the US and the UK on the left and this leads to never seen levels of critisism. On the other hand the more US-supportive conservative voices also discuss this (if the US has an export stopp it must be the right way to do things). I think nothing will come of it yet (exception AZ) but even if there were a temporary pause it would not be in regard to countries which have vaccinated less than the EU and have no production facilities so Canada should be fine.

 

[Fragile Bird]

1 hour ago, Luzifer's right hand said:

The average age of covid-19 patients in Viennas ICUs is now 52 and still sinking every day and there are more people in ICUs in Vienna than during the 2nd wave at the end of last year. Vienna hit 90% UK mutation not long ago and they say that is the cause with things seem worse now and cases among working age people deteriorate faster than with the variant that was around before.

The same thing is happening here in Canada, and it’s attributed to the UK variant. More and more people in their 30s and 40s are showing up in the emergency room and ending up in the ICU. The bulk are aged 40 to 75, now that the majority of people over 80 have been vaccinated. That top age will keep dropping, of course, as more people are vaccinated.

[Fragile Bird]

“No events of venous thrombosis” in the US AZ trial, from a slide shown by Dr. Fauci in the WH Covid-19 Response Team press conference on right now.

[rotting sea cow]

23 minutes ago, Fragile Bird said:

“No events of venous thrombosis” in the US AZ trial, from a slide shown by Dr. Fauci in the WH Covid-19 Response Team press conference on right now.

I don't think the fase 3 trials have the power to find these events. AZ trial in US has about 20k individuals in the vaccine arm with different ages and gender.

This is what the researchers at Greiswald found

Quote

Within a short period of time, from receiving the first patient sample Tuesday, March 16, 2021 at noon until Friday, March 19 the team:

- Identified the mechanism of SARS CoV2 vaccination induced severe thrombotic complications,
- identified a widely available screening test, which is widely available (already confirmed by researchers in the UK),
- develop a confirmatory test which seems to be highly sensitive and specific (cautionary note: the number of samples investigated is still limited),
- and to identify a treatment which has the potential to rapidly deescalate the catastrophic prothrombotic mechanism. As the researcher team has shown before that IVIG is very effective in treatment of catastrophic HIT, and as HIT has a very close clinical and laboratory resemblance characteristics to these vaccine associated complications, it is highly likely that IVIG will also be an important therapeutic options (in addition to anticoagulant treatment) for these patients. IVIG is approved and available in most hospitals.

We propose to call this syndrome VIPIT Virus/Vaccine Induced Prothrombotic Immune Thrombocytopenia.

https://idw-online.de/en/news765335

and it's probably occurring between 1 in 100 thousands and 1 in a million.

The lesson here is that scientists should never close the eyes before examining all possibilities. This has been sorely lacking and if some voices had been heard early on the pandemic, we wouldn't be in this mess.

[RhaenysBee]

@Leap I’m really sorry you’re struggling with long covid. Is there any chance it’ll go away at some point? At the same time, great to hear that your tests came back all clear! 
 

So it turns out that the vaccine registration system has some serious IT issues. As a result some registrations get stuck between systems and data isn’t forwarded to the national health bureau, who in turn can’t allocate your registration to the local health services and assign a vaccine to you. How do you know this is happening to your registration? Well, the joke is, you don’t. You might accidentally stumble onto an article online that discusses this problem and you might also entirely accidentally stumble upon the solution. Which is requesting the data handling department of the national health bureau to check if your data is in the vaccine registry system. And yes, this may take up to 30 days. If it turns out your data isn’t in the registry, I’m not sure what happens. You might be able to register again (with a different email address) and hope or check again that you succeeded? 

Either way, these IT issues explain a lot of the anomalies we are experiencing with the vaccination process. I don’t know who built these systems but I kinda hope they get a demotion, because this just doesn’t cut basic system architecture requirements. I also don’t know if they are trying to fix these issues, or closing down the system for maintenance would only result in more problems. But yeah, it’s a struggle. 

And then there’s the quarantine app. I have no information about this other than hearsay, but process and IT background don’t seem to support one another in that case either. Who constructs these things? It’s just baffling. 

[Fragile Bird]

For a few weeks I was talking about the fact that there was no conversation in the US about exporting vaccine, and that conversation had to start or else nothing would happen.

Well, the conversation has started and today the overwhelming conversation I’ve heard, as predicted, is “AZ, a great vaccine to send to other countries!”

[Padraig]

57 minutes ago, rotting sea cow said:

I don't think the fase 3 trials have the power to find these events. AZ trial in US has about 20k individuals in the vaccine arm with different ages and gender.

This is what the researchers at Greiswald found

https://idw-online.de/en/news765335

and it's probably occurring between 1 in 100 thousands and 1 in a million.

I am fascinated by this.  It is an impressive piece of work (acknowledging by lack of expertise).  Do you think they'll ever figure out why certain (rare) individuals are hit by this thing?  Or what factors make them more susceptible?  Gender and being relatively young seem to be 2 high level factors.

I also wondered when the test could be applied?  When symptoms are visible?  If you knew who was at risk, i'd be really impressed if they could test those people a day after being vaccinated to know whether they have the antibodies (since it seems to hit people after 4 days).  That would really reduce the likelihood of any fatalities.  But that is assuming that the list of those susceptible isn't in the tens of millions.

The AZ situation is almost as fascinating.  We heard a couple of weeks ago that the EU needed to approve this Halix factory for the EU to get 10m (IIRC) more vaccines before the end of the month (to reach 30m overall in Q1).  That approval process seems to be on track.  But now it has emerged that the UK is claiming vaccines from Halix (not sure is it claiming part or all of the 10m, or is its complement separate).  I did wonder whether this request was related to the Indian order.  Is the UK looking at these Halix vaccines as a replacement for the delayed Indian order?

Admittedly, pure speculation but the sequence of events fits.  Legally, they may have a legitimate claim.  But getting any AZ vaccine from the EU given how badly AZ is doing EU contract wise would be an impressive act of diplomacy.

Edited to add:  We should learn this week how close the EU will get to 100m vaccines in April.  Supposed to get around 300-350m in Q2 but J&J for one is very skewed (IIRC 5% in Apr, 20% in May and 75% in June).  The others shouldn't be as bad though, as they have been active for a number of months now.  The EU has only administered 57m vaccines up to now, so there will be a big change either way.  But there will be a lot less tension if its close to 100m.

[ljkeane]

26 minutes ago, Padraig said:

 Is the UK looking at these Halix vaccines as a replacement for the delayed Indian order?

I think it's probably the other way round. There have been a few articles over the last few months saying Halix was part of the UK supply chain and Kate Bingham gave an interview in February were she mentions sending a team to help Halix set up their production back in November, although she doesn't explicitly say it was for the UK's order.

Getting vaccine doses from SII came a bit out of nowhere. I suspect it might be down to concern about the prospects, or lack thereof, of anything coming from the Halix site.

[DireWolfSpirit]

4 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

Got the good news that a step-brother and his GF are getting their first shots soon (through some entertainment industry loophole). Hopefully I can fly out to Cali and visit them soon.

How old are they, your insinuating they are lucky to be getting them a little early in the order?

I have one relative( and his wife) like this, that got the shot while still very young. I'm thinking they benefited from his federal employment, I guess.

Anywho I'm happy for anyone that gets it as long as they are following the rules I guess.

Also at one point I was hearing several weeks ago any veterans(armed services) in Michigan were eligible for the shot at the V.A. facilities (regardless of age), so I know there are opportunities for younger people to get innoculated in certain places.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

15 minutes ago, DireWolfSpirit said:

How old are they, your insinuating they are lucky to be getting them a little early in the order?

I have one relative( and his wife) like this, that got the shot while still very young. I'm thinking they benefited from his federal employment, I guess.

Anywho I'm happy for anyone that gets it as long as they are following the rules I guess.

Also at one point I was hearing several weeks ago any veterans(armed services) in Michigan were eligible for the shot at the V.A. facilities (regardless of age), so I know there are opportunities for younger people to get innoculated in certain places.

I'm 32 and have had both shots. He's 36, she's a few years older than him. My original approach was let those most in need get the shots first, but when most didn't applied this same sense of morality at the hospital I fuck it, got mine and am glad they're getting theirs, especially because they may be trying to have a kiddo soon.

[Padraig]

1 hour ago, ljkeane said:

I think it's probably the other way round. There have been a few articles over the last few months saying Halix was part of the UK supply chain and Kate Bingham gave an interview in February were she mentions sending a team to help Halix set up their production back in November, although she doesn't explicitly say it was for the UK's order.

Getting vaccine doses from SII came a bit out of nowhere. I suspect it might be down to concern about the prospects, or lack thereof, of anything coming from the Halix site.

Thanks interesting.  Losing 2 orders at a similar time would suck from a UK perspective.

I also saw mention today that the 2nd UK factory (mentioned in the EU contract) has never come on stream.  Cobra?  I wonder why the UK didn't focus on that one?  It wouldn't make sense that the EU had first dibs on that one and the UK had first dibs on Halix (or maybe it does, given how crazy this whole thing is).

I wonder then about how the supply is supposed to be split, assuming the EU will sign-off on the Halix factory this week.  Is the UK claiming the bulk of the supply?  50/50?  Is the EU getting the bulk?  Does it effect the EU hitting 30m in Q1?   We'll learn soon enough I suppose.

[DireWolfSpirit]

38 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

I'm 32 and have had both shots. He's 36, she's a few years older than him. My original approach was let those most in need get the shots first, but when most didn't applied this same sense of morality at the hospital I fuck it, got mine and am glad they're getting theirs, especially because they may be trying to have a kiddo soon.

Totally get this, were I a vet you can surely bet I would've already took advantage of the V.A. shots in Michigan. Strangely enough I know some vets did this but others, just shrugged it off as if it was no biggie and haven't bothered getting their shots. One even telling me his sister, who is a nurse, hasn't bothered to get the shot she is eligible for. In a way her attitude strikes me as irresponsible.

[lady narcissa]

Sincere best wishes to those with Covid!  My younger cousin (age 30) just came down with it after getting it at work and it is not fun.  And sincere best wishes to those suffering with long term effects from Covid.  That CEO of that Texas restaurant chain who killed himself because of tinnitus after Covid is like my worst nightmare.  I have tinnitus and the thought of it being worse than it is right now is pretty daunting and something I want to avoid.

Vaccine envy!  That is where I am at right now.  I am of course excited and happy for anyone who has gotten the vaccine.  But I am soooo envious of all those who live in areas where they are able to get it.  Chicago is very limited with eligibility right now and I in no way qualify.  I know I will get it eventually but the waiting is hard!

Does anyone else love masks?  I really love mine.  They are very comfortable and easy to breath in.  I have an issue with my inner ears/sinuses right now and need added moisture and the masks really help with that.  And I love pretty much never wearing makeup anymore since half my face is covered.  And during winter I loved my mask and how it kept my face warm.  I do not want to give them up when this is behind us.  I am actually stocking up on my favorite masks because someday I won't be able to get them anymore.

A friend's almost 2 year old child wants nothing more in the world than to wear a mask.  But guidelines are such that under 2 should not wear masks.  Temper tantrums are thrown by her over wanting to wear a mask.  Her parents let her try on theirs for a few minutes and then it is the end of the world when the mask is taken away.  She wants nothing more in the world than a mask of her own.  So imagine if we had just forbidden people from wearing masks last year - instead of hearing cries of infringement on ones freedom for being forced to wear a mask, people would be crying you can't keep masks away from me!

I see a lot of unvaccinated younger people out and about at restaurants here now which just seems so foolish.  And a fair amount of vaccinated older people running about.  I'm thankful my parents still are careful about where they go and always have masks on.  I had to go to a meeting today and it was with six men over the age of 70 and none of them had masks (because they had all been vaccinated and thus invincible in their minds) and I just sat there in the corner a good 20 feet away from them and was happy to have my mask and gloves on.

[S John]

9 hours ago, DireWolfSpirit said:

How old are they, your insinuating they are lucky to be getting them a little early in the order?

I have one relative( and his wife) like this, that got the shot while still very young. I'm thinking they benefited from his federal employment, I guess.

Anywho I'm happy for anyone that gets it as long as they are following the rules I guess.

Also at one point I was hearing several weeks ago any veterans(armed services) in Michigan were eligible for the shot at the V.A. facilities (regardless of age), so I know there are opportunities for younger people to get innoculated in certain places.

From what I have heard from people I know there, Texas is a bit of a free-for-all. A lot of people seem to be taking the strategy of signing up in small towns that they don’t even live in and then driving hours to get the shot. Or signing up at every grocery store they go to and getting called up. I don’t necessarily know that less vulnerable people are skipping more vulnerable people, it just seems like a crap-shoot in terms of what each location is doing with the vaccines they have. I’ve heard several stories from Texas and elsewhere of people who aren’t necessarily in the highest vulnerability categories getting a phone call saying, hey we have a couple extra doses here and if you don’t come take it it’s getting tossed. This is how my mom got it, in fact.

My wife and I are on the list in our state and I’m beginning to hear of some in our age group getting it. My sister, for one. Hoping it won’t be too much longer. I’m sure we will continue to follow the regulations on masks and such even once vaccinated, but it would be nice to have the assurance of having has the shot. And, of course it’ll be extra nice when we get to the point of enough vaccinations that something resembling normal life returns.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

41 minutes ago, Chataya de Fleury said:

@lady narcissa - I love my masks, too!! I have a decent collection, from silk to Brooks Brothers, to St John. Fortunately, I don’t think they will go out of style.

I thought the sucks I bought a few years back of good art were cool, but nobody outside of a date would ever see them. Now you can get the same thing in a quality reusable mask. And buying a three pack of fancy masks basically costs the same as a nice three pack of dress socks, so F it, you only live once, right?

[S John]

Checking into this thread a bit ago inspired me to check the local numbers which I haven’t done in a while. I live in a smallish town, less than 50k, and our current 7 day average of new daily cases is down to 3. Granted at the peak it was only 31 cases, but it does seem like the combination of warmer weather, vaccinations, and being on the other side of the holiday surge are starting to tell in the numbers.

Hopefully we are vaccinating at a fast enough pace to stunt any additional surges. Said we have about 3k fully vaccinated and 5k with at least one dose as of one week ago. Roughly that would put us at about 20% of the population has been at least partially vaccinated. That probably takes care of a good chunk of the olds, the otherwise at risk, and the medical folks. But it probably also means that the wife and I are not going to be called up for a little while yet. Was hoping we’d get a call in the next couple weeks but that is probably too optimistic.

[Filippa Eilhart]

I'm reading in a Polish article that the lipids produced in the UK which are a part of the Pfizer vaccine are a rather small quantity, and not the main source of lipid supply for Pfizer (so probably not really that much of a problem if it's blocked in retaliation). Also that the EU is hoping AZ won't ask for the export approval so that the ban won't be necessary. And that the EU is starting a formal procedure against AZ - the first step being conciliatory talks, but that it might lead to a court case.

[rotting sea cow]

This is getting surreal.

Astrazeneca released the results of the US trial. Probably the one of last options they had to restore confidence.

https://www.astrazeneca.com/media-centre/press-releases/2021/astrazeneca-us-vaccine-trial-met-primary-endpoint.html

Excellent numbers: 80% protection against symptomatic infection, plus some added bonuses.

Now I read in the news that AZ might have provided outdated information from the trial.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-03-23/astra-may-have-given-outdated-details-on-vaccine-says-u-s-body?srnd=premium-asia

https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/niaid-statement-astrazeneca-vaccine

I don't know what that means. Are, are they cooking the numbers?

 

[ljkeane]

11 minutes ago, rotting sea cow said:

I don't know what that means. Are, are they cooking the numbers?

It's weird.

My understanding is that all these trials are ongoing, they just release interim results once they hit the requisite number of cases. So the numbers probably are changing a bit as the proportion of variant cases increases. How outdated could the numbers be though? They've only recently reached enough cases to submit. It's hard to imagine there could have been any drastic changes that it'd be worth trying to fudge, especially when they're going to be publicly submitting the data very soon anyway. I think we'll just have to wait and see what it's about.