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[martinuzz]

Confusion.

Our (demissionary) minister of Health has decided that the interval between the first and second dose of the Pfizer vaccin can be safely extended to 6 weeks (from 3 weeks), based on the research done by Pfizer. That way, more people can get their first dose sooner.

In response, Pfizer has stated that there is no guarantee that the vaccin will be effective if the interval is 6 weeks.

Our national Health Council, our Outbreak Management Team, and our College for Drug Evaluation (the institute that determines whether medicine are allowed on the dutch market) support our minister's view, instead of Pfizer's.


This is bad, both ways.  If Pfizer's right, that means we're wasting precious vaccin.
If our minister is right, this will feed the opinion that Pfizer is just in it for quick sales and money, decreasing willingness to be vaccinated further.

[ChairmanPoo]

I learned the hard way back in March that all Western goverments are full of shit. I certainly do not ttust them when they say it's a-ok to delay the second dose.

Note that pfizer says there's no guarantee: this is exactly what it says om the tin. They're not saying it will or wont work. They are saying they wont be liable if western goverments start homebrrewing their own vaccination calendars out of convenience or hysteria, and it turns out it doesnt work as expected.

[martinuzz]

I cannot blame you for thinking that.

I still view it not as much as incompetence, but more, like our prime minister (who I am not a fan of, but think he did word this right) said, helplessness.

"We must make 100% of decisions with 50% information".
At least our government had the balls to admit they don't know what they are doing 50% of the time.

Can you blame a headless chicken running around for having it's head chopped off?

Note that Germany, France and Denmark have already increased the interval from 3 to 6 weeks, before we did.

So yeah... Trust... I trust our government do sincerely try their best within their capabilities and limitations, but I do not trust them to make the right choices all the time.

[ChairmanPoo]

Note that Germany, France and Denmark have already increased the interval from 3 to 6 weeks, before we did.

Note that I've been saying for a while now that Euro pandemic management has been shitty and dishonest all across the continent. 🤷‍♂️

[Starver]

I've been trying to run the numbers on first/second doses...

Say, first doses give P₁% protection at D₁ days after administration (assume zero to P₁ linearly to plateau, for simplicity) then second dose at W days shove to P₂% protection after a further D₂ days (ditto, and assuming nevligable fall-off between or after). Then for a rate of doses available, what actually is the optimal W (prior to actual first-dose saturation) such that losing the P2-P1 advantage is countered by additional P1 coverages.

For two doses, you'd obviously be best to first-dose two different people immediately (rather than wait... assuming you could do with the second... to maximise just one), yet first-dosing-only until saturation may cover everyone with some degree of (idealised) protection but under-perform on the big picture while you continue to lose one-dosers through the more fragile safety net you stretched out.

It gets even more complicated as you plug in the conplexities of the SIR model (or SEIR, or S(E)I(R|D)S, etc) and need to work beyond a dimensionless "sum total protective factor" and instead get into the (unrelated) R-factor and small-world-networking effect which may dictate alternate priorities and then waits for differing groups (try to amp up the known vulnerable and the known transmitting population protection, at the expense of hedged-bets collatoral protection to dampen unknown spreading beyond your known firewall dosings).

But I got some interesting graphs from simulation (fuzzing together a number of passes through a given model) even if I couldn't reduce it to an overarching statistical formula.

[ChairmanPoo]

Eh, the core of the problem is that people dont know what protection a single dose provides, if any... hard to model when the base is kind of missing...

[Starver]

That too. Though there is data enough to give ballpark figures.  Discussed on last week's More Or Less (BBC Radio 4/World Servics, BBC Sounds, the podcast version, whatever you can get to), or maybe the week before's. In context of efficacy measured based on detected infections/lack-thereof analysing between dosing and "D"-time / D-time and second dosing / second-dosing and second-dose-D (as protection purely from the first dose may be considered dominant from between the first and second Ds, by some measures).


But that's number-crunching I've not done myself, just what I've heard as having been done.

[martinuzz]

Disappointment amongst parents today, when our government announced there will be no paid corona leave.

It's not that there's no funds for it, or that employers didn't want to cooperate...

Nope, it's cancelled because UWV, our government branch that is responsible for paying sick leaves, unemployment benefits, disability pay and since a year, corona support packages, doesn't have the time or manpower to deal with more support packages.

[bloop_bleep]

-.-

Then maybe use some of those apparently sufficient funds to hire more workers?

[feelotraveller]

Nope, it's cancelled because UWV, our government branch that is responsible for paying sick leaves, unemployment benefits, disability pay and since a year, corona support packages, doesn't have the time or manpower to deal with more support packages.

In the good ole days the UWV (USA Web Version) was the 'Doom help Service'. Still sort of appropriate though. lol.

-------------------------

Still dragging my feet with the prediction that I will get Covid-19 multiple times in my lifetime. But let's be honest, so many people in this thread are in just as bad faith denial as governments (generally) worldwide as to the likelihoods and actualities of the pandemic.  No we are not there yet... maybe getting towards halfway if we happen to live in the very best of worlds, which we almost certainly don't... and hardly begun if we live in the very worst of worlds, which again we almost certainly don't... Clinging to a warm and fuzzy chimera leads directly to panic when it almost inevitably turns into hot air.

[Duuvian]

Should extra effort and focus be on slowing if not containing the new mutations until more is known about them, such as the efficacy of existing vaccines?

[ChairmanPoo]

Should extra effort and focus be on slowing if not containing the new mutations until more is known about them, such as the efficacy of existing vaccines?

🤷‍♂️
Sure but you can't selectively slow down one strain. You need to suppress the whole thing.

For that matter even if the worst predictions about the strains come true, vanilla covid is still horrible and the vast majority of people havent had it. No big difference if its regular or new covid19 driving you into ICU...


Btw: I'm going to make a prediction: if it comes to worst and indeed current vaccines provide no protection against the strains (which I think its unlikely, but who knows) what will happen is that the west will take up pfizer's offer to cook up another mrna vaccine in 6 weeks and it will be under extreme rules: minimal or no trials (possibly a short phase 1), immediate deployment as fast as it can be produced...  I reslly hope we dont get there.

[wierd]

Me too...

(But on the flipside, this kind of thing is long in the tooth, and has been ready to happen for nearly a century now. Humans in general have this nasty habit of thinking they are the dominant lifeforms on this planet, and not the micro-organisms.)

[martinuzz]

The (more contagious) South African variant has so far been found in 23 countries. No more containing the beast.

[ChairmanPoo]

Also relevant in line with what I was saying: this guy
https://mobile.twitter.com/dylanhmorris/status/1345485553668661255

antigenic evolution will not necessarily make you completely "naive" to a pathogen you've seen before. You'll be less protected against *any* symptomatic disease, but you could still be very well protected against severe disease

Which is my POV on this thing. Covid19 was devastating because we are all naive. Non-naivety either by prior infection or by vaccines should improve outcomes, even in the scenarios we like least.