Re: What is happening around you, around the world? Thread #3

[justcallmegranny]

GuardianAngel, I'm with you! I want it like the maker set it up. There is a reason they are giving 2 when most vaccines only require one shot. My husband was told the first shot is just a half dose and the second is a full dose of the exact same thing. He was told this by the nurse who gave him the shot. If that is true, that would explain why people have so few symptoms from the first but the 2nd one seems to make a lot of people feel bad. That would mean that getting the first dose alone isn't half a dose at all.

[justcallmegranny]

One more thing in my wandering mind...Johnson & Johnson is pushing the fact that their vaccine only requires one dose. I've seen their own numbers on the efficacy of their vaccine shown in trials and have to wonder if they gave a 2nd dose, would it then be closer to the efficacy of the Moderna & Phizer vaccines? I would, if given a choice, take either of those over Johnson & Johnson any day of the week. Having to take a 2nd shot would be preferable to taking the J&J and getting sick anyway. Yes, I understand their point of avoiding a hospital stay or death...but NO immunosuppressed persons were used in any of the testing. My youngest child is one of those people and although it might not kill a healthy person if they take the J&J, what would it do to my son if I got it and passed it to him?

[GuardianAngel]

Well, it was all over the Canadian news today about extending the shots in order to get more vaccinated. AstraZeneca has been approved and will be arriving within days. Still waiting for approval for J&J which is also expected within 7 days.

I received an email from my doctor giving me updates on vaccine arrivals and assured me they will contact me as soon as it's my turn.

Today they announced many different sites for getting vaccinated so they are prepared. Plus doctor's offices will look after their patient base.

So, I wait.

[justcallmegranny]

So a localish radio station (from about 20 miles away) was advertising a "vaccine event". There have been others before this one, however, this is the first to announce WHICH vaccine they would be given. It said "At this event, we will only be giving the Johnson & Johnson vaccine." My guess is they didn't want a bunch of people making appointments then not getting the shot when they found out it was J & J.

[Norcalgal]

@justcallmegranny In my opinion, it's far better to have someone receive a vaccine than not at all. For us lay people to try to discern what efficacy truly means is a disservice to the science. I wouldn't hesitate to get a J&J vaccine.

[GuardianAngel]

Funny you mention that. There is a lot of info about a situation with AstraZeneca and blood clots. Health Canada has approved it, and assures us there is no data to confirm it causes blood clots, so I trust their science. This is for 60-64 yr olds. I have done a lot of research and have been keeping up to date on the information while they were in clinical trials.

In my area they are vaccinating in order. LTC homes were first, then health professionals fire fighters teachers etc and today just started 80 yr old's and up with Pfizer and Moderna, JJ and AstraZenca coming soon. They will decrease in increments of 5 yrs, 75 yr old, 70 yr olds etc, which means I could be looking at Jun/Jul/Aug/Sept depending on availability. My area has not received any AstraZeneca but another area has.

I just booked an appointment 1 1/2 hours away to get my first shot and I couldn't be more excited! I always said I'll take whatever I can. The second shot is administered 12 weeks or more after the first shot.

I never thought I'd get one so soon thinking I'd have to wait for the order, which I had no problem doing. When Canada was working on approving AstraZenca I realized I might have a shot, no pun intended!

I'm so thankful to be able to get an appointment. 80% effective is better than 0%!

Saturday

April 03, 2021

Your appointment has been booked. Please have every person arrive on-time, but not earlier.

[sdmom]

One advantage of JJ is it only requires one shot. I know plenty of people, including my dad, got their second shot cancelled because of delayed shipment.

[Norcalgal]

I recently read the following article on NPR that explains what vaccine efficacy means: Please read the last 2 paragraphs!
https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2021/03/12/976538684/coronavirus-faqs-can-i-drink-between-vaccine-doses-what-is-vaccine-efficacy

I find the subject of vaccine efficacy very confusing!

Don't worry: If you find it confusing, you're probably on the right track! Efficacy rates (and effectiveness rates and point estimates and confidence intervals) should appear at least a little confusing to most non-biostatisticians. The concepts rely on statistical thinking that many aren't familiar with, says Brianne Barker, a virologist at Drew University.

The tendency to oversimplify has led many people to the same — mistaken — conclusion that an efficacy rate of 92 percent would mean that of 100 vaccinated people, 8 of them would get sick during a pandemic.

But that's not the case. Fortunately, a vaccine with a 92 percent efficacy rate actually means your chances of getting the disease is much, much less than 8 percent. It means that if you were exposed to the disease, your chances of getting infected would be 92 percent less if you were vaccinated than if you weren't.

If you want to geek out on the exact math on how much your chances of getting COVID drops after a vaccine, you'd have to know what the probability of getting sick is, Barker says. "And that varies based on the population that you look at."

Say you originally had a 10% chance of getting sick without being vaccinated. If you got that vaccine with an efficacy rate of 92%, your chance of getting sick would drop from 10% to less than 1% — 0.8%, to be exact.

In reality, the trials found that the probability of getting sick in the placebo groups was much less than 10%. In the Pfizer trial, for example, it was 0.79% — or less than one per 100 people. Participants who got the real vaccine had just a .04 percent chance of getting COVID ... that's 4 in 10,000 people.

While efficacy rates should, theoretically, make comparisons among different vaccines possible, a number of variables have made it more like "comparing an efficacy rate of 70 percent to purple," says Richard Kennedy, co-director of the Vaccine Research Group.

You're laughing because that's a ludicrous comparison," he says. But to truly make an apples-to-apples comparison, he says, you'd have to run the vaccines head-to-head in the same clinical trial. As it was, the characteristics of the participants in the various trials were different (Johnson & Johnson enrolled more people at higher risk, for example), variants were circulating during some trials and not others, and each trial defined the disease differently. (For example, Moderna defined a COVID-19 infection as a positive PCR test plus two symptoms from one group or one symptom from another group. Pfizer defined it as a positive PCR test plus one symptom.)

"The devil really is in the details," he says.

[Norcalgal]

These graphs are from my NYT daily email that came this morning. The discussion was on using only 1 dose of a 2-shot vaccine to build immunity in more people, which is the strategy Britain has adopted.



The effect in Britain is impressive - the daily number of new Covid cases has fallen by more than 90 percent since peaking in early January. The decline is larger than in virtually any other country. (In the U.S., new cases have fallen 79 percent since January.) Given that the contagious B.1.1.7 variant was first discovered in Britain and is now the country’s dominant virus form, “Britain’s free-fall in cases is all the more impressive,” Wachter told me. “Clearly their vaccination strategy has been highly effective.”

Note: I am not advocating for one strategy over another - I just want to share factual information that I've come across. If for whatever reason you only get one shot, it will hold you for several months. Dr Brewer (https://www.uclahealth.org/timothy-brewer) said yesterday that 1 shot will provide 80% of the immunity of 2 shots. California is initially going to use the J&J vaccine for homebound, homeless and people who are not very close to a vaccination site. Also, because the J&J vaccine is based upon an adenovirus, while the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are based on Messenger RNA, the J&J will probably not cause as severe allergic reaction. The later two vaccines have to use a preservative (EDG, I believe it is) which can trigger an allergic reaction. Since messenger RNA is very unstable, vaccines made with this technology require both a low temperature as well as a strong preservative.

[GuardianAngel]

@Norcalgal thanks for all the info! There is a ton of info out there as I've read so many articles the last year.

The news changes as scientists discover new info on new data, so it's ever changing.

I was hesitant of everyone getting the first shot first, because of the delays Canada has experienced. I'd be afraid I couldn't get the second shot.

In reality, I don't care now, as many people get jabbed, I'm happy. The Britain info is amazing.

I'm getting the AstraZeneca. The second shot is recommended not earlier than 12 weeks as it build's up the efficacy % with the delay of weeks.

In any case, masks are my best friend and I'll be wearing them for a very long time. It's the constant hand washing hand sanitizer and Lysol wipes that have been brutal on my hands through the winter.

[Norcalgal]

@GuardianAngel Your second sentence is spot on! Glad you have a vaccine appointment. We all should aim for that!

[GuardianAngel]

I could have gotten in sooner, but I can't go during the week, it had to be a Saturday and that's the first available Saturday. I'm so grateful!

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