couldn’t have put it better myself
too true …only fair to acknowledge a success just as to criticise screw ups…eg .lockdown indecision and of course Brexit
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I’m no fan of the government but Nine million have had at least one dose of vaccine and all care home residents have been offered a vaccine, that’s not to be scoffed at
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very true…the vaccination process here is a shambles…even if the volume was available they wouldn’t have yet reached anything like the UK 9 million,
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How do you know that since they haven’t got the vaccine? An awful lot of vaccine centres and support bodies are just sitting on their hands at the moment.
my comment was more of a general one about the whole process…in fact i should have said EU rather than here!
Who? Best back that one up.
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HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
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Then there is this article… Do we need to resign ourselves to a decades long pi**Ing contest? Pardon my language. I couldn’t think of a better expression. 
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Depends what you mean by ‘sitting on their hands’. Every centre in Dordogne, Charente and Haute-Vienne are refusing rdvs and each one says how many it has to do in the next 28 days. These range from around 400 to 1600.
A couple of vaccinators can get through 100 a day (ie easily 1600 in 4 weeks) so they may well have extra vaccinators waiting unoccupied without vaccine. Some of the centres had up to 8 vaccinators.
Next vaccine war: looks like the Russian Sputnik vaccine is the best yet: nearly 92% efficacy (actually higher for older people), a lot cheaper than the other 90%+ offerings, and stores in a normal fridge! - already approved in 16 countries, including Hungary in the EU.
UPDATE: Both Merkel and Macron have welcomed the strong Sputnik results, and said that both the Russian and Chinese vaccines would be used if approved by the EMA.
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France advises against AstraZeneca for over-65s…
Sadly I’ve just read an article that says Merkle and Macron are taking delivery of vaccines but not distributing them as they are keeping to the EU rule of releasing them at the agreed time with the EU. I hope this isn’t true and we start to see a wider vaccination program begin in France.
Where did you read this? Our local paper is suggesting a delivery soon…
I’ve not been dissuaded by the bad press on AZ. The data on extending the interval in particular looks encouraging and I’m confident that in time we will see that protection is effective for older cohorts. Over to the good doctor https://youtu.be/H1CLButseKM
Have you seen evidence to suggest this?
Belgium are not using the AZ vaccine for over-55s!
There was an immunologist on BBC r4 talking about tests conducted on older people
that had been given the AZ. Antibody generation was on a par with younger cohorts.
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Clearly there is a range of expert opinion. The EMA has approved the AZ vaccine for all ages ’ on balance’, but acknowledging the poor data for older recipients. Most European country authorities are approving/recommending it for only younger recipients. I don’t see any reason to question either of these ‘on balance’ judgements - they will no doubt change when there is good evidence either way. That’s the nature of ‘science’.
But it’s not the only consideration. Nobody is claiming that the AZ vaccine is more than 60-odd percent effective. It is this, coupled of course with the doubts about how well it works for older people anyway, that makes me hesitant. The real-life question here is: take a clearly less effective vaccine now (if offered), or wait for the 90%+ vaccines that might well be offered instead.