2019 Novel Coronavirus Covid-19 Discussion

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#2768545 29-Aug-2021 23:20

chatterbox:

tdgeek:

Not really. Vaccines wont help an outbreak, it still spreads. If we all got vaccinated, the reality is that's its hard getting past 60%, and places that have such as Iran, are still having major issues. We are 1/4 fully vaccinated and 1/2 one jab, thats pretty good so far. The 50% fully vaccinated is one jab away

Vaccines were designed to prevent severe disease, death, ICU, hospital & nice if prevents symptoms too, long covid etc.

Nobody cared about spread of a "cold" and that's caused by a virus. Do I care if I get a cold in the long run? Nope.

What I do care about is after everyone's been offered a vaccine by end of year, and if we still have some % unvaccinated that were they to get sick they'd place a strain on healthcare, do the rest of us that got vaccinated have to go back into lockdown or whatever restrictions because those people decided not to get vaccinated? Would seem unfair.

It will be interesting to see what happens then and how far the social license will extend.

In other countries patience has run out. NZ has had relatively minor impacts from covid so may have more tolerance for ongoing lockdowns.

TeaLeaf

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#2768547 29-Aug-2021 23:42

antonknee:

You're totally wrong patients need to be registered/enrolled to get the vaccine. Vaccines are available at medical centres, pharmacies, community vaccination centres, and via mobile teams who visit rural areas. This includes the area between Albany and Whangarei.

They absolutely are focusing on getting Auckland vaccinated. What do you think the drive through clinics that have been stood up this week are for? The push to bring on pharmacies? The community centres? It's prudent to up the pace in Auckland, due to higher risk and reward there, but we need the whole country vaccinated - not just Auckland.

Thank you. Sorry I missed your post.

I am happy to be wrong and admit it :-). I was confused, over whelmed, frustrated, worried (for me and others), just totally out of the loop. So I apologise for that.

So much BS out there, online, even TV news seems to have contradictions, so is extremely over whelming, especially when one already has major health issues (visits to the hospital worry me a bit with this outbreak, but i know that is an irrational fear)

My main issue is both the speed of the vaccine roll out (7 weeks for my original appointment) and how to find out where to get vaccinated (which does potentially involve phoning many places ie pharmacies). I was told it was only available via the main booking site or phoning them. but have already found one 19 days sooner by ringing around, which can be time consuming but worth it imo, So hopefully I can find somewhere even sooner so I can feel less concerned.

I wasnt wanting to put it all on the Govt (looking at all the misinformation out there, there are so many sources that add to the confusion which is not the Govts fault), I just meant somebody has to take accountability at the end of the day and I don't know who other than the Govt that is with Covid. So well done to the Govt, it sounds like they have most issues under control.

Definitely want everybody to have a vaccine if they want it, but as pointed out by somebody else, they are looking at diverting vial allotments, to try and get on top of this R number and get Auck up and running. One would hope they have other effective vaccines readily available if they do that, in case other towns break out around NZ which nobody wants.

Im still feeling confident we will get on top of this outbreak, we will eventually have to change tack but one thing at a time. Given 70 of yesterdays 80 odd were from one group, I can see why they are saying to not take daily numbers as the measure, but hopefully we do see the curve come back a bit faster in the next couple of weeks.

Anyway, thank you again for such an informative and helpful post.

Scott3

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#2768549 29-Aug-2021 23:53

Handle9:

It will be interesting to see what happens then and how far the social license will extend.

In other countries patience has run out. NZ has had relatively minor impacts from covid so may have more tolerance for ongoing lockdowns.

Absolutely this.

There have been a lot of posts, likely with a good basis, suggesting we cannot accept endemic covid-19 due to health system capacity. Likely a valid point.

But it almost doesn't matter if there is no longer social licence for heavy mobility restrictions.

Imagine NZ eliminated this outbreak after a long lock-down, then on the first day of December NZ detected a new outbreak. 75% of the population has had their first dose, and 68% their second, heaps of doses on hand. Medsafe has a few weeks ago approved the vaccine for 6month+ kids based on good trial results. I don't think the voting public would be happy with anything above level 2.

mattwnz

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#2768550 30-Aug-2021 00:20

chatterbox:

tdgeek:

Not really. Vaccines wont help an outbreak, it still spreads. If we all got vaccinated, the reality is that's its hard getting past 60%, and places that have such as Iran, are still having major issues. We are 1/4 fully vaccinated and 1/2 one jab, thats pretty good so far. The 50% fully vaccinated is one jab away

Vaccines were designed to prevent severe disease, death, ICU, hospital & nice if prevents symptoms too, long covid etc.

Nobody cared about spread of a "cold" and that's caused by a virus. Do I care if I get a cold in the long run? Nope.

What I do care about is after everyone's been offered a vaccine by end of year, and if we still have some % unvaccinated that were they to get sick they'd place a strain on healthcare, do the rest of us that got vaccinated have to go back into lockdown or whatever restrictions because those people decided not to get vaccinated? Would seem unfair.

I would have thought the best vaccines would also be designed to prevent it spreading. It only seems to reduce the risk a tiny bit. eg RO of 6, down to 5 If everyone got the vaccine, and it also prevented the virus spreading, then it potentially could be possible to eradicate it.

My understanding is that even if 100% of the population got the vaccine, then there would still be some hospitalizations form Covid,and some deaths.SO our health system would still ned improving a lot to cope with this extra strain on it no matter what. Especially as it loses its effectiveness over time, and we don't know how well boosters will working the future. I remember writing a long time ago that people may need future boosters, but some people disagreed as there was no evidence at that time that the vaccine would wear off. But it looks like we will need them on a fairly regular basis, 4-6 months from the look of it currently.

I think we are going to need better vaccines in the future, or the virus just becomes less severe over time, which is what some experts seem to think may happen. Nasal spray immunizations could be a game change for it.

mattwnz

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#2768551 30-Aug-2021 00:27

Scott3:

Imagine NZ eliminated this outbreak after a long lock-down, then on the first day of December NZ detected a new outbreak. 75% of the population has had their first dose, and 68% their second, heaps of doses on hand. Medsafe has a few weeks ago approved the vaccine for 6month+ kids based on good trial results. I don't think the voting public would be happy with anything above level 2.

That is pretty much the situation that Oz will be in, as well as most other countries in the world. They may only go into lockdowns if the health system is under pressure, which would happen sooner in NZ than many other countries. IMO we succeeded at eliminating almost by mistake, because I recall that we didn't go into level 4 lockdown to eliminate it, only suppress it and slow it down. So did Australia, and they have never had an elimination policy. I recall it was only after Prof Skeggs said that it was possible to eliminate at one of the committee meetings on zoom, and campaigned by some in the media did the elimination policy occur. It was helped by us going into lockdown early, as we were seeing the problems it was causing overseas, and also helped because we are an island that is a large distance from most other countries.

cshwone

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#2768576 30-Aug-2021 06:50

Booster Requirements

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/08/27/biden-says-us-health-officials-are-considering-covid-booster-shots-within-5-months.html

So there are developing cases for boosters sooner rather than later. If that's the case I suspect all our Group 1/2 people are at, or very close to the stage where they need a booster. Certainly for me I hit the 5 month point yesterday.

Unfortunately, with the rollout happening the way it has we can either,

a. Ignore the booster for high risk Group 1 and 2 and continue to vaccinate the rest of the country, or

b. Start boosting Group 1 and 2 again at the expense of the rest of the population getting their first doses.

It's a dilemma I don't know the answer to but someone must be thinking about it................ surely,.........maybe?

tdgeek

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#2768578 30-Aug-2021 07:12

mattwnz:

There hasn't been much discussion of how NZ is going to live with virus once we have reach peak vaccination. We are going to need more ICU beds with staff, and more hospital capacity in general, and there are going to be more deaths from it. That is going to be the key thing IMO. But we aren't hearing much about this. Many other countries that are going to be living with it, including Oz, have far better health capacity then poor old NZ. We may get to a high vaccination number by Christmas, and then no doubt there will be calls from certain business sectors to open up the country to the rest of the world. But that doesn't look like it can happen until we sort out how to deal with people getting the virus and needing treatment.

How can you plan something when you don't have much data? All we know is the vaccines heavily reduce illness and death, and that they diminish over time, and that there is no vaccine built for Delta, and 3rd doses or boosters are still being worked on. When the global experts fine tune these problems, then you can plan.

Or we can whine about it.

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tdgeek

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#2768580 30-Aug-2021 07:15

mattwnz:

We are living with it though, hence why we are in lockdown to restrict cases, and hopefully eliminate it. Elimination is always temporary until the next leak, as long as people with the virus keep coming into the country with the virus. It is about living with it once people are vaccinated, because vaccination is not a silver bullet..

How can you say that when earlier you said this "IMO we should be importing qualified people to work in hospitals now, and importing equipment. "

tdgeek

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#2768582 30-Aug-2021 07:25

mattwnz:

I would have thought the best vaccines would also be designed to prevent it spreading. It only seems to reduce the risk a tiny bit. eg RO of 6, down to 5 If everyone got the vaccine, and it also prevented the virus spreading, then it potentially could be possible to eradicate it.

My understanding is that even if 100% of the population got the vaccine, then there would still be some hospitalizations form Covid,and some deaths.SO our health system would still ned improving a lot to cope with this extra strain on it no matter what. Especially as it loses its effectiveness over time, and we don't know how well boosters will working the future. I remember writing a long time ago that people may need future boosters, but some people disagreed as there was no evidence at that time that the vaccine would wear off. But it looks like we will need them on a fairly regular basis, 4-6 months from the look of it currently.

I think we are going to need better vaccines in the future, or the virus just becomes less severe over time, which is what some experts seem to think may happen. Nasal spray immunizations could be a game change for it.

Hence my earlier reply about how can you plan now to open up in the future. Those points that I and you above made need to be ironed out

The benefit of the vaccine for illness and death is massive. We have had 500+ cases so far, most are not fully vaccinated, its not an issue here so far. Should that happen in December, there would be much less effect on hospitals than there has been so far

tdgeek

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#2768584 30-Aug-2021 07:32

cshwone:

Booster Requirements

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/08/27/biden-says-us-health-officials-are-considering-covid-booster-shots-within-5-months.html

So there are developing cases for boosters sooner rather than later. If that's the case I suspect all our Group 1/2 people are at, or very close to the stage where they need a booster. Certainly for me I hit the 5 month point yesterday.

Unfortunately, with the rollout happening the way it has we can either,

a. Ignore the booster for high risk Group 1 and 2 and continue to vaccinate the rest of the country, or

b. Start boosting Group 1 and 2 again at the expense of the rest of the population getting their first doses.

It's a dilemma I don't know the answer to but someone must be thinking about it................ surely,.........maybe?

No doubt. NZ has focussed on elimination, that's bought time. Some countries are either struggling or they have given up or will give up, and decided to allow long term negative health conditions illness and death. Buying time means that when we have to suck it up, endemic wise, we have reduced health impacts on our population and are better armed with the latest and greatest vaccine strategy

Its probably time to find out todays best options for the earlier vaccinated, I havent read any data, but I imagine a 3rd Pfizer would be the easiest temporary option for now, if so, order more

cshwone

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#2768586 30-Aug-2021 07:49

tdgeek:

cshwone:

Booster Requirements

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/08/27/biden-says-us-health-officials-are-considering-covid-booster-shots-within-5-months.html

So there are developing cases for boosters sooner rather than later. If that's the case I suspect all our Group 1/2 people are at, or very close to the stage where they need a booster. Certainly for me I hit the 5 month point yesterday.

Unfortunately, with the rollout happening the way it has we can either,

a. Ignore the booster for high risk Group 1 and 2 and continue to vaccinate the rest of the country, or

b. Start boosting Group 1 and 2 again at the expense of the rest of the population getting their first doses.

It's a dilemma I don't know the answer to but someone must be thinking about it................ surely,.........maybe?

No doubt. NZ has focussed on elimination, that's bought time. Some countries are either struggling or they have given up or will give up, and decided to allow long term negative health conditions illness and death. Buying time means that when we have to suck it up, endemic wise, we have reduced health impacts on our population and are better armed with the latest and greatest vaccine strategy

Its probably time to find out todays best options for the earlier vaccinated, I havent read any data, but I imagine a 3rd Pfizer would be the easiest temporary option for now, if so, order more

I agree we are going to have to order more vaccines, my question really is about how we are going to manage that rollout. Given the pace of deliveries (which will be the limiting factor) we could rapidly get into the situation where we are re-vaccinating on a rolling basis as people come up to the "efficacy" point where boosters are necessary and large sections of the population are unvaccinated or we accept lower protection at the border. Either way, if this becomes an endemic problem which it will, then the problem isn't going to go away and we will have to have the capability to revax the entire eligible population every 5 months (ish) or whatever time period science comes up with.

tdgeek

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#2768587 30-Aug-2021 07:57

cshwone:

I agree we are going to have to order more vaccines, my question really is about how we are going to manage that rollout. Given the pace of deliveries (which will be the limiting factor) we could rapidly get into the situation where we are re-vaccinating on a rolling basis as people come up to the "efficacy" point where boosters are necessary and large sections of the population are unvaccinated or we accept lower protection at the border. Either way, if this becomes an endemic problem which it will, then the problem isn't going to go away and we will have to have the capability to revax the entire eligible population every 5 months (ish) or whatever time period science comes up with.

In the short term, I guess we continue as we are as while the earlier vaccinated need a booster, they still have some protection. Same premise as give more first jabs than second jabs. Medium term we need to try to order more vaccines, and try to get a handle on is a 3rd Pfizer a safe and a sound option right now. When we clear the AKL outbreak we can continue to do our best to hold on and buy time so we can follow this through

GV27

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#2768619 30-Aug-2021 09:00

tdgeek:

Or we can whine about it.

Not every criticism of the response is 'whinging' or politically motivated as some here like to make it out.

sbiddle

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#2768622 30-Aug-2021 09:04

tdgeek:

cshwone:

I agree we are going to have to order more vaccines, my question really is about how we are going to manage that rollout. Given the pace of deliveries (which will be the limiting factor) we could rapidly get into the situation where we are re-vaccinating on a rolling basis as people come up to the "efficacy" point where boosters are necessary and large sections of the population are unvaccinated or we accept lower protection at the border. Either way, if this becomes an endemic problem which it will, then the problem isn't going to go away and we will have to have the capability to revax the entire eligible population every 5 months (ish) or whatever time period science comes up with.

In the short term, I guess we continue as we are as while the earlier vaccinated need a booster, they still have some protection. Same premise as give more first jabs than second jabs. Medium term we need to try to order more vaccines, and try to get a handle on is a 3rd Pfizer a safe and a sound option right now. When we clear the AKL outbreak we can continue to do our best to hold on and buy time so we can follow this through

One of the problems right now is the fact there is still debate between people who know a lot more than us about boosters.

We know that T cell and B cell responses are one of the key aspects of vaccines. With pretty much every vaccine every created these are what give long term protection to people after short term antibodies generated by the body in response to vaccines wear off.

It's no surprise that these short term antibodies are declining after 5-6 months - this is perfectly normal for a vaccine. We should however then have T cell and B cell responses generate antibodies when exposed to the virus to fight it. This is why there are still highly credible scientists saying that boosters aren't necessary.

It's become pretty clear over the past 6-8 weeks that things aren't quite working as well as we expected with Delta, and solid data over the past couple of weeks has just further demonstrated that despite the fact current vaccines are doing an amazing job preventing serious illness and death, that they're not working the way that they were against earlier Covid strains. We are also seeing a lot more data showing the types of people and health conditions who are not generating immune responses after being vaccinated.

Based on the vast number of papers I read I think it's pretty clear now that at least a single booster is going to be required, and that these probably are going to be required ASAP for some people. Pfizer have their new 2nd gen vaccine in testing now and while there are no definitive timeframes for this, there has been some speculation this could be in the market within 6 months replacing the current Pfizer vaccine.

The concern now is surely that NZ will be late to the party once again if we're just standing by watching rather than actually ordering. Australia have their 85m boosters ordered and arriving from Feb 2022 - and with a number of other countries having placed orders this could just be our current rollout all over again where we are back of the line to order, and the back of the line when it comes to receiving our orders.

tdgeek

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#2768624 30-Aug-2021 09:08

GV27:

tdgeek:

Or we can whine about it.

Not every criticism of the response is 'whinging' or politically motivated as some here like to make it out.

Not everyone, no, but the context I posted in does appear to be. Or perhaps it is the desire that NZ achieves perfection in every regard. Poor NZ, ambulance at the bottom of a cliff, can't plan anything, all repeated on a regular basis here

Lets get some context. List every country and its cases, deaths, lockdown frequency. Ignoring countries and politics, that gives you a feel for the capability of the human species to manage this crisis. Whoever is at the top of that list is not perfect. If NZ was at the median, we could say thats a fair result. Mid pack. Average, not great but also not bad, fine. I think you would find we are well above median, well above, despite the daily barrage of bagging this country.

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