2019 Novel Coronavirus Covid-19 Discussion

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#2768626 30-Aug-2021 09:15

sbiddle:

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.

Appreciate the details, as always

Hopefully a booster arrangement will be managed ok, given that the ongoing future of Covid is much more clearer now.

Is a 3rd Pfizer seen as an earlier and easier option (now) for safety and effect?

freitasm

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#2768634 30-Aug-2021 09:35

Have my first jab booked for today - it was originally booked for last previous Wednesday but cancelled as first day of COVID Alert Level 4.

Just called the pharmacy and asked if I can bring my daughter with me for her first jab. She asked my name, asked my daughter's name, confirmed her date of birth and address matched the records and said it was good to go, just have to walk through the door later today.

Easy and simple.

GV27

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#2768638 30-Aug-2021 09:46

tdgeek:

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.

Cool. Do this with our vaccine rollout. What does it tell you then?

nzkiwiman

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#2768649 30-Aug-2021 10:12

Agree with those who have been posting that the lack of information around the numbers does lead to some extra concern; high numbers but contained within bubbles aren't a concern, but high numbers that include spread within essential businesses are concerning.

As are the loose rules around what is actually essential and the changing of those rules.

I hope sometime over the next few days we get some clarity regarding the rules under Level 3; with more people potentially in contact with each other, there is a greater risk of spread if there are undetected cases are out there.

tdgeek

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#2768650 30-Aug-2021 10:13

GV27:

tdgeek:

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.

Cool. Do this with our vaccine rollout. What does it tell you then?

Brush aside the facts and look for another way to dig? We are running the current best vaccine, and how many cases and deaths have we had to bear while vaccinating? Maybe a ratio of cases and deaths per % of rollout might explain that better.

tdgeek

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#2768654 30-Aug-2021 10:17

nzkiwiman:

Agree with those who have been posting that the lack of information around the numbers does lead to some extra concern; high numbers but contained within bubbles aren't a concern, but high numbers that include spread within essential businesses are concerning.

As are the loose rules around what is actually essential and the changing of those rules.

I hope sometime over the next few days we get some clarity regarding the rules under Level 3; with more people potentially in contact with each other, there is a greater risk of spread if there are undetected cases are out there.

Agree. Essential services is a clear leak option, can't really stop that but they need to tighten it somewhat.

GV27

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#2768656 30-Aug-2021 10:24

tdgeek:

Brush aside the facts and look for another way to dig? We are running the current best vaccine, and how many cases and deaths have we had to bear while vaccinating? Maybe a ratio of cases and deaths per % of rollout might explain that better.

No, because here's the thing - it doesn't matter what other countries do. The outbreak we are dealing with is here, in the place where we live.

This is the weird type of nationalism Covid has bought out - we have a world-beating response (as long as you only focus on the world beating bits of it) but using that same 'How did everyone else do, huh?' approach with the bits we haven't done well with is 'hating' or whatever.

Well, no matter how world-beating our response is, we're still in L4, and this one is much, much harder than the last one despite lots of people being paid good money to be a lot more prepared for it. I'm navigating this with a newborn and now with no parental support and we are incredibly isolated. Forgive me for not jumping on the 'when it suits' cheer team.

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Fred99

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#2768658 30-Aug-2021 10:26

tdgeek:

Is a 3rd Pfizer seen as an earlier and easier option (now) for safety and effect?

"Safer" = "probably" in terms of that's what the first complete clinical 3 dose trials will be reporting on.

Most effective compared to mixed vaccine types? - nobody knows. I'd rather wait for Pfizer's modified third dose trials to be completed. US CDC is recommending prioritising third dose to the same groups who were prioritised in the initial rollout, which makes sense not just because they were the first to be vaccinated and now approaching 8 months ago, but they're also the most at risk from breakthrough infection.

Meanwhile in the UK, the NHS is collating a lot of data from blood serology either from donor blood or "opt in" to a survey when getting PCR tests. That'll give a far better picture of immunity from various vaccine regimens - as well as those vaccine regimens combined with "natural immunity" from infection, be that symptomatic or asymptomatic.

There are risks with vaccines. They need to be quantified and measured against benefit. Same reason you don't (or shouldn't) get a head CT scan every time you get a headache - and the reason there's caution about rolling out covid vaccines to <12 children.

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#2768659 30-Aug-2021 10:28

Meanwhiles... Unfortunately one of the 'how come' and 'they're like supermarket' Is it a dairy, is it a supermarket, is it a greengrocer, is it a butcher fringe stores..

Meanwhile, a West Auckland vegetable shop has been linked to a positive Covid case that visited it during lockdown.

A Covid positive case was at Tasi Market on Massey's Triangle Road three times last week - on Thursday, Friday and the latest visit on Saturday.

The affected times are:

• Thursday, August 26, between 7.30am and 6pm
• Friday, August 27, between 7.30am and 6pm
• Saturday, August 28, between 7.30am and 3pm

trig42

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#2768661 30-Aug-2021 10:32

That's a long visit.

Looks like an employee at the store.

GV27

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#2768664 30-Aug-2021 10:35

trig42:

That's a long visit.

Looks like an employee at the store.

There's not a huge amount of mask compliance there either from customers in the queue from what my partner has seen on her walks. This is what I've been freaking out about - almost no one out walking masks up, and there's people walking around Countdowns out here without masks at all. Almost certainly the type of person who won't get tested if pinged.

tdgeek

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#2768665 30-Aug-2021 10:36

GV27:

No, because here's the thing - it doesn't matter what other countries do. The outbreak we are dealing with is here, in the place where we live.

This is the weird type of nationalism Covid has bought out - we have a world-beating response (as long as you only focus on the world beating bits of it) but using that same 'How did everyone else do, huh?' approach with the bits we haven't done well with is 'hating' or whatever.

Well, no matter how world-beating our response is, we're still in L4, and this one is much, much harder than the last one despite lots of people being paid good money to be a lot more prepared for it. I'm navigating this with a newborn and now with no parental support and we are incredibly isolated. Forgive me for not jumping on the 'when it suits' cheer team.

I feel for your situ with a newborn

If you feel that NZ should be a utopia of perfect responses to everything it wont happen. How other nations manage it is an insight, I dont see how one country out of all of them would be the 100% country. Thats pretty unrealistic

Fred99

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#2768667 30-Aug-2021 10:40

trig42:

That's a long visit.

Looks like an employee at the store.

Yep.

You could also argue that if they'd been a supermarket worker then there'd be a "close contact" list of probably tens of thousands, so perhaps (as long as everything else is working - , distancing and PPE, scanning in, getting tested if symptomatic etc) the risk from allowing smaller food stores to operate could be a bit overstated.

GV27

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#2768675 30-Aug-2021 10:56

tdgeek:

If you feel that NZ should be a utopia of perfect responses to everything it wont happen. How other nations manage it is an insight, I dont see how one country out of all of them would be the 100% country. Thats pretty unrealistic

We don't get better by going 'yea but nobody's perfect'. Even if you just focus on the issues flagged by the independent reports, we're still making some pretty basic errors (Port worker testing/vaccination, MOH comms, saliva testing, etc). Given we've ended up at L4, it begs the question "what were we actually doing about these in the first place?" and "If we go through another independent report from this outbreak, are we going to learn any lessons?".

I'd love for my lockdown experience to be ball gowns and tiaras like the 7 Sharp hosts, but the reality is that it's not and it is going to even harder for many others. We owe it to ourselves to be honest about the mistakes we've made that led to us being in this situation, even if a L4 outbreak was probably inevitable - did it have to be in this set of circumstances?

I would contend that slapping ourselves on the back for the period of March 23rd to mid-July last year is probably going to be of limited use if that's our best comeback against a Delta outbreak.

tdgeek

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#2768691 30-Aug-2021 11:08

GV27:

We don't get better by going 'yea but nobody's perfect'. Even if you just focus on the issues flagged by the independent reports, we're still making some pretty basic errors (Port worker testing/vaccination, MOH comms, saliva testing, etc). Given we've ended up at L4, it begs the question "what were we actually doing about these in the first place?" and "If we go through another independent report from this outbreak, are we going to learn any lessons?".

I'd love for my lockdown experience to be ball gowns and tiaras like the 7 Sharp hosts, but the reality is that it's not and it is going to even harder for many others. We owe it to ourselves to be honest about the mistakes we've made that led to us being in this situation, even if a L4 outbreak was probably inevitable - did it have to be in this set of circumstances?

I would contend that slapping ourselves on the back for the period of March 23rd to mid-July last year is probably going to be of limited use if that's our best comeback against a Delta outbreak.

Ok, I get it, we are rubbish. We learnt nothing and we opened the door to get Delta in. Thats the general theme in this thread, so you win. If NZ is not good enough, then sobeit.

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