2019 Novel Coronavirus Covid-19 Discussion

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Mad Scientist
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#2755925 6-Aug-2021 06:54

intelligence agents (= spies right?) trying to figure out virus origins apparently

not to start a political discussion please just an FYI

will delete if too many heated discussions on this ... ?

https://edition.cnn.com/2021/08/05/politics/covid-origins-genetic-data-wuhan-lab/index.html

"But it might not prove anything definitively, sources familiar with the intelligence say. Even if scientists in the intelligence community are able to use the data from the lab to stitch together a complete genetic history that shows how the virus mutated, they might not have enough information"

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#2755926 6-Aug-2021 06:59

https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2021/aug/05/coronavirus-live-news-japan-experts-urge-nationwide-state-of-emergency-as-sydney-suffers-worst-pandemic-day

Indonesia’s health ministry has recorded 1,747 new deaths of Covid-19 in the last 24 hours, pushing the nation’s total deaths to 100,636. The south-east Asian country has been struggling to cope with the highly contagious Delta variant since it was first discovered in Indonesia in late June. According to Our World in Data, Indonesia’s total number of infections has now reached 3.53 million.
China reported a decline in locally transmitted Covid-19 cases for the first time this week. A health official said he expected China’s latest outbreak, caused mainly by the Delta variant, to be largely under control within weeks.
Tokyo reported another large jump in virus cases on Thursday, again shattering records, as the government expanded restrictions to eight more regions just days before the Olympics ends. Tokyo is already under a virus state of emergency but is experiencing an exponential growth in cases, driven by the more contagious Delta variant, AFP reports.
Greece imposed a night-time curfew and banned music on two popular tourist islands on Thursday to contain the spread of Covid-19, its civil protection deputy minister said. The Mediterranean country, which is trying to rebuild a tourist sector hard hit by the coronavirus pandemic, is also battling a wave of wildfires during a protracted heatwave, Reuters reports.
France’s constitutional court has just ruled that a new law requiring the public to hold a health pass to access bars and restaurants and health workers to be vaccinated against Covid-19 by mid-September largely complied with the republic’s founding charter. It also ruled that while employers could suspend health and frontline workers who refuse to get a Covid-19 shot or show proof of a negative test, they could not dismiss those on short term contracts.

sbiddle

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#2755929 6-Aug-2021 07:34

Scott3:

Regarding on shore vaccine manufacture, Aussie had a facility as at CSL's Broadmeadows that I assume they had been funding as part of their pandemic planning, but it didn't work out well.

Their initial plan was to developer a vaccine locally, but that vaccine candidate was discontinued in early stages due to throwing false positive test results for an unrelated condition.

They then moved on to producing AstraZeneca under licence, but for some reason, they first doses weren't able to be produced until late march 2021.

Australia stuck to locally produced AstraZeneca doses being the bulk of their vaccination plan (presumably because they were cheaper, or more supply security, or because using local manufactured doses was a good look politically), even in the face of evidence showing it was less effective than other vaccines (Pfizer, Moderna, Sputnik VI).

Then the very rare blood clot news broke, and completly messed up their vaccination campaign. They were going to end up way later than NZ, but somehow (I assume via a big payment) their big pfizer orders started turning up at around the same time as ours despite being orders many weeks later.

Mean while NZ picked four different vaccine makers each with distinct different approaches. And when it became apparent that pfizer was more effective (and likely to deliver on time) than AZ we ordered enough for the whole country. Allowed us to dodge all of the drama of the aussie roll out.

NZ is just incredibly lucky we're not Australia. We could have been in exactly the same boat.

They ordered 10m Pfizer in Nov 2020 and 10m in Feb 2021 and subsequently ordered another 20m in April after the blood clotting issue blew up. They're still receiving their order of 20m now.

NZ on the other hand ordered 1.5m last year and another 8.5m in Mar 2021. All our deliveries up till July were of the 1.5m order, and we're now receiving stock from the 8.5m order.

It's wrong to say Australia put all it's eggs in the AZ basket - they had actually split their orders much like we did and last year ordered 40m Novavax as well which they expected to potentially be their primary vaccines. We also signed up for 10m doses of Novavax in Dec last year as well which we expected to be our primary vaccine.

If we hadn't waited until March this year to order additional Pfizer we would have had far more vaccines in the country than we have now.

The real issue is that both countries took a huge gamble on Novavax and were let down. The sad part of this is that the Novavax vaccine is finally going to hit the market (deals signed with the EU overnight) and the stats for it still look really good. One key thing I've seen no mention of recently is viral loadings and levels of the virus in airways, because in trials last year it was the only vaccine that showed signs of totally eliminating transmission (no virus present in the airways of chimps).

NZ and Australia have been aligned on many things this whole pandemic right from the very early days when Australia convinced us to follow them into lockdown. Our vaccine strategies were also very much aligned also and both had a huge belief in the UQ vaccine being able to deliver. Like us gambling and winning at Russian roulette every time we had a case of CT, we've also managed to be very late to the vaccine game but presumably due to our small order quantities have been able to get stock.

Oblivian

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#2755930 6-Aug-2021 07:36

55+ booking tier opened up a week early

Guess the high numbers completed helped

From Friday, New Zealanders aged 55-59 will be able to book their COVID-19 vaccine, five days earlier than planned.

There are about 300,000 people in this group.

People in the 55-plus age band who haven’t already been vaccinated will receive an invitation by letter, text and email, or they can go to Book My Vaccine to make an appointment, Ministry of Health Primary Care Lead Vaccination and Immunisation Programme Dr Joe Bourne said on Thursday afternoon

sbiddle

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#2755933 6-Aug-2021 07:57

Oblivian: 55+ booking tier opened up a week early

Guess the high numbers completed helped

From Friday, New Zealanders aged 55-59 will be able to book their COVID-19 vaccine, five days earlier than planned.

There are about 300,000 people in this group.

People in the 55-plus age band who haven’t already been vaccinated will receive an invitation by letter, text and email, or they can go to Book My Vaccine to make an appointment, Ministry of Health Primary Care Lead Vaccination and Immunisation Programme Dr Joe Bourne said on Thursday afternoon

I wonder if this is also related to the fact there seem to be way too many bookings still available as they've ramped up the number of clinics?

In Wellington now we've seen a huge influx of locations open up over the past week, and while it's great that you can literally book in today and even be vaccinated today or over the weekend if you wanted. I'm not sure this is ideal and literally 1 1/2 - 2 weeks ago people in Wellington were booking in for slots weeks literally a month out.

It appears right now that there is massive excess capacity in the system in coming weeks, and I'm not sure that's ideal. We need to be getting jabs in arms ASAP. With no real vaccine supply issues every booking slot that is unused is a wasted opportunity to get 1 more person vaccinated and protect them from the inevitable CT that none of us want but all have to accept is a very real possibility. Maybe we should be somehow encouraging people who are still booked a month+ in advance to reschedule to a closer date?

Australia's logic for pretty much abandoning age group brackets makes a lot of sense once you've protected the elderly. IMHO right now letting those who are super keen to be vaccinated get their spot makes has some logic to it.

tdgeek

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#2755934 6-Aug-2021 08:03

100% agree. Supply seems no issue now, so anybody and everybody.

Oblivian

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#2755940 6-Aug-2021 08:34

The thought had crossed my mind. Cdhb is ahead of their own goals (ignoring national). And now have more GPs standing up. And no plan for a mass-vax like Wellington

So I did second guess and go, either we've done a good portion of elderly, or the demands dropped

For 830pm. when I got mine, there was say 20-25 in monitoring. But someone had said during lunchish times it was almost standing room only

Presumably one of those factors we won't know unless someone presses them for the reasoning

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wellygary

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#2755959 6-Aug-2021 09:10

tdgeek:

100% agree. Supply seems no issue now, so anybody and everybody.

It appears that the ministry have concluded that 50K per day is pretty much as many as the system can handle (with a few slightly higher peaks)

Every week we vaccinate fewer than 350K means we will be accumulating vaccine in the freezers,(currently about 200K doses and climbing)

Buster

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#2755964 6-Aug-2021 09:18

In the medium term we will end up with 2 - 3 million doses left over. Do we have freezer capacity for that much?

wellygary

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#2755979 6-Aug-2021 09:39

Buster:

In the medium term we will end up with 2 - 3 million doses left over. Do we have freezer capacity for that much?

Yip.

“This will be enough storage for four million doses at any one time.”

https://www.beehive.govt.nz/release/more-freezers-and-south-island-hub-support-vaccine-roll-out

Oblivian

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#2755983 6-Aug-2021 09:44

Since the 2nd storages here in chc are up, no worries

We can get it direct via commercial or straight off the nightly freighters from akl. Makes for faster distribution

I did notice tues night each both seemed to have up to 5 syringes ready at any time. So must be farms of people diluting. But not sure how they easily monitor the length of time at room temperature. Or does the diluted makeup fall into the 6hr timeframe and not really matter.

wellygary

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#2755989 6-Aug-2021 09:57

Oblivian: Since the 2nd storages here in chc are up, no worries

We can get it direct via commercial or straight off the nightly freighters from akl. Makes for faster distribution

I did notice tues night each both seemed to have up to 5 syringes ready at any time. So must be farms of people diluting. But not sure how they easily monitor the length of time at room temperature. Or does the diluted makeup fall into the 6hr timeframe and not really matter.

I guess they believe it is as sterile being drawn in a syringe as being left in the vial.. so sits in the 6 hour window

Diluted medicinal product

Chemical and physical in-use stability, including during transportation, has been demonstrated for 6 hours at 2ºC to 30 C after dilution in sodium chloride 9 mg/mL (0.9%) solution for injection. From a microbiological point of view, unless the method of dilution precludes the
risk of microbial contamination, the product should be used immediately. If not used immediately, in-use storage times and conditions are the responsibility of the user.

https://www.medsafe.govt.nz/profs/Datasheet/c/comirnatyinj.pdf

Fred99

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#2755990 6-Aug-2021 09:58

Oblivian: But not sure how they easily monitor the length of time at room temperature. Or does the diluted makeup fall into the 6hr timeframe and not really matter.

Won't matter - falls into the up to 6 hours @ 2-30 deg C dilute storage spec.

Fred99

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#2755998 6-Aug-2021 10:20

I note that Medsafe (revised - to include >12YO) provisional approval now states "a course of 2 doses at least 21 days apart".

I could be wrong and am thinking of pfizer's original spec not Medsafe, but think that Medsafe's data used to be stated as definite interval of 3 - 6 weeks between shots.

If the booking system was originally set up to allow first dose booking with a requirement to keep second dose within that window, then if "walk in" shots were available to use up "excess" capacity, it would have thrown a spanner in the works WRT needing to reschedule second doses. How big a spanner - I have no idea, but changes to things like that do also impact supply logistics.

The evidence is strongly suggesting no significant harm and a possible benefit for longer interval between doses.

They should start focusing on getting as many first shots into arms ASAP. if they've got vaccine available - open it up at full speed, and don't worry about date for second dose so long as it's >3 weeks.

My SO booked (CDHB) this morning. First available appt that popped up was mid September. That's not very good IMO. I'm going to have to go for a bit of a drive across town next week for my first shot, she chose a vacc centre within a couple of hundred metres of her office. I do know that one of the vacc centres has left-over diluted doses at closing time, apparently if you turn up, you've got a good chance.

Oblivian

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#2756055 6-Aug-2021 10:38

Everyone can calm the farm now. The googe/page story has been cleared up. Goes to show how much trigger happyness can stir things up.

Looking at the book of faces update for the 55+ today, a few people have re-scheduled or changed their timing now it has opened up. Some cat3s with late bookings re-doing them at a different location earlier now they are in the age brackets. And others are using it as an opportunity to widen out the gap. That'd mix things up a bit.

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