Well, you’d think so…
Matt Hancock today confirmed the NHS and the military are on standby to start rolling out Pfizer’s coronavirus vaccine from the start of next month, with care home staff and residents at the front of the queue.
The Health Secretary said the first Brits will ‘most likely’ get their hands on the jab ‘within weeks’ as long as it clears the final hurdle of getting the green light from the UK’s medical watchdog.
Preliminary data from studies of the vaccine suggest it can protect nine out of 10 people from catching Covid-19, with the full results to be published later this month.
The UK’s Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) will then spend days rigorously poring over the study’s findings to make sure the vaccine is safe before allowing it to be dished out en masse.
Whether it is safe or not is moot. This has been somewhat rushed, so I have qualms. However, we are dealing with a flu-like virus. RNA viruses mutate at an alarming rate. Whatever strain they have developed a vaccine for makes no difference, because it will have mutated already. That’s why the seasonal flu vaccine is relatively ineffective and if there is a different strain, it is completely ineffective and we get a bad flu year, much like… Oh, I dunno, pulling one out of the hat, 2020.
As an over sixty, it looks as if I’m two thirds down the list. But I will decline for precisely the same reason I don’t have the seasonal flu jab. That combined with my concerns that this has been rushed.
One final point here. If as they believe, this is a golden bullet, then once the vulnerable have been vaccinated, we can all go back to normal, yes?
Back to normal – i hope so LR. I will be having the vaccine as soon as it is offered like i do the flu and pneumonia ones. I am 68. In fact right back to my birth in 1952 i’ve always had the vaccines offered. My mum and dad having been born in close memory of Spanish Flu were very keen on us being vaccinated when it was offered.
That’s fine. You must choose according to your own assessment. That said, Leggy has written an awful lot about the effectiveness of flu jabs and how it is overstated.
The month before my wife died, I caught the flu and wondered if I should have had the jab that year, given that I was her carer. A friend who is a nurse told me subsequently that it would have made no difference as they got the strain wrong that year. It’s always a bit of a lottery.
As long as it doesn’t kill you, I’d be happy to take it if it gets me on an international flight out of Southern North Korea (aka Australia). If it is effective, that’s a bonus, but the most important think is that our irrational politicians see it as a justification for lifting their senseless restrictions and giving us our freedom back.
Did Mr Hancock (who struts around like a bossy little newly-appointed minor school prefect) mention an itty-bitty logistical challenge, namely the very low temperature at which this silver-bullet Pfizer vaccine needs to be stored? No, thought not. It’s -70 degrees Celsius. Even world-class hospitals like the Mayo Clinic don’t have such facilities. Though I’m sure “Our envy-of-the-world NHS” must have, yes? No? Crickets?
Reuters article: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-vaccines-distribut-idUSKBN27P2VI
Excerpts:
“But the vaccine’s complex and super-cold storage requirements are an obstacle for even the most sophisticated hospitals in the United States and may impact when and where it is available in rural areas or poor countries where resources are tight.
The main issue is that the vaccine, which is based on a novel technology that uses synthetic mRNA to activate the immune system against the virus, needs to be kept at minus 70 degrees Celsius (-94 F) or below.
“The cold chain is going to be one of the most challenging aspects of delivery of this vaccination,” said Amesh Adalja, senior scholar at Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security.
“This will be a challenge in all settings because hospitals even in big cities do not have storage facilities for a vaccine at that ultra-low temperature.”
I’ve been having the regular flu jab since being diagnosed as type 2 diabetic in 2013. I’ve never suffered any kind of side effects but I have had two or three relatively mild flu type infections since then. My wife and daughter had a similar bug early this year and I didn’t get it. Whether the jab had anything to do with it we can never really know.
This is pretty much what Leggy has been saying.
Despite your blog showing 6 comments, can’t see any of them so, if I am repeating what anyone else has said, I apologise.
I feel that the numpties in charge have their priorities slightly wrong. The very first people to be vaccinated with the miraculous Pfizer vaccine strangley, discovered immediately after Dementia Joe Biden was declared President elect, should be the idiots who are making the decisions regarding the CCP virus. Then, and only then, when it is confirmed they survive, and do not start masturbating at the name of Bill Gates or George Soros should it be given out to the civil service, being more acceptable casualties than the residents of care homes. After all, the latter group have actually contributed to this country.and the former will not be missed so much.
Looks like a problem with the theme. I’ve switched back to an earlier one for the moment.
Very big LIKE! And thanks for the laugh!
“As an over sixty, it looks as if I’m two thirds down the list. But I will decline for precisely the same reason I don’t have the seasonal flu jab.”
As an over seventy with chronic kidney disease, I’ll probably be pretty high on the list. On balance, I think I’ll decline until it’s a bit more widely tested. Penseivat’s suggestion of using the government and the civil service as guinea pigs sounds like a good idea.
It’s the potential lack of testing that bothers me. I know they say it’s been thoroughly tested, but given that we’ve been fed one pack of lies after another, I simply do not trust them.
On a related note, mask wearing was made mandatory at my works. The government guidelines at gov.uk have always stated that face coverings in the workplace are optional, I went to the lengths of printing these out and taking them into work when I was arguing with the H&S there. Of course, I stood alone so was not able to make a difference. They are effectively overwriting government policy. Therefore, anyone who suffers ill effects from face coverings at work, such as mask induced dermatitis or impetigo. or any sudden breathing problems should hold the employer to account, and that’s starting to happen.
https://twitter.com/joannemac19/status/1323377675554140162?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
Government, Civil Servants, Police, anyone else worth “saving” will likely just be given a placebo. The rest of us should avoid this thing entirely. Bottom line is that it has been so rushed, you have to wonder why. My view is: Virus is fading and..oh shit! The vaccine isn’t ready yet! How are we going to milk this cow?! And here we are.
How long before, “Those who have been vaccinated can do this this and this, those who have not been vaccinated cannot.” ? Travel. Eat out. Shop. Work. Claim…
Not a problem. People have been forging documents for hundreds of years. I’m sure a certificate will be easy to do. It’ll just be a printed document.
I think we should instead tattoo those who refuse the virus. A yellow star perhaps.
And how long before they admit that ID2020 has been implemented in this new vaccine? Courtesy of Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and GAVI. The reasons for 5G also become clearer.
https://id2020.org/
A bit OT I know, but just seen this and my piss is boiling. Absolutely disgusting behaviour from the usual suspects.
https://order-order.com/2020/11/11/watch-extinction-rebellion-hijack-cenotaph/
I saw that. If there is an upside, it will put a lot of people off their message.
If you weren’t already put off their message I doubt this will do it!
I dunno. As with all causes there will be those who are ambivalent. Their stunt last year on the underground had a negative effect.
Wanna see something scary?
https://twitter.com/LUFC72/status/1326432153308196864
What bellend Boris has to say to Jesus-complex gates is quite simple.
“When you show me a virus free windows I’ll take it”
I’m just 60 but I suspect I’m fairly well down the list. Like LR, it’s the fact that its been done so quickly that makes me suspicious. I think I’ll just hang some garlic in the windows. Probably just as effective.
“He’s not the messiah. He’s a very naughty boy!”
Sorry. Couldn’t resist. Especially with such a self-righteous prick like Hand Cock.
Dear Mr Longrider
The military are on standby to help with the roll out of the vaccination programme. Apparently the military are also on school premises in Liverpool to ‘assist’ with testing: https://www.broadgreeninternationalschool.com/our-school/whilst-school-is-closed
Scroll down to ‘Update 8/11/20’ and ‘click here’ for a Liverpool City Council letter and consent form, which replaced an earlier school letter to parents from Friday 6 November for which parental consent was not required ‘in these unprecedented circumstances’ – express consent not required, objections to be lodged by Monday 9 November (from memory – cannot find the original links).
To my knowledge, both military interventions for testing on school premises and for mass vaccinations are stunningly new precedents in the history of England, though probably not in the history of foreign parts (anyone know if this is not true?).
I have been tracking ONS all cause mortality (https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/datasets/weeklyprovisionalfiguresondeathsregisteredinenglandandwales) and UK Worldometer (https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/uk/) since the beginning of this year. As of yesterday (Wednesday 11 November) the Worldometer case curve was flattening from 31 October, though the death curve was still going up at more than 45 degrees (compare and contrast with the first wave deaths and cases peaking in the second week in April).
Today public health UK found about 11,000 new ‘cases’ stuffed down the back of the sofa, boosting ‘cases’ by 50% – Wednesday 11 November – 22,950; Thursday 12 November – 33,470, thereby shoving the graph upwards from its rather inconveniently horizontal curve.
Not like American election mail-in votes at all.
DP
@David Bishop
Spot on, but now reported as -80c. I called this out on Monday here:
Now appears Pfizer are gaming system by banking 100s of millions more non-refundable pre-paid orders on back of Legal Immunity on C-19 rushed vaccines
– https://lockdownsceptics.org/2020/11/12/latest-news-191/#pfizer-vaccine-is-completely-unworkable-ex-director-of-pharmaceutical-company
– https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6imhbU2dQo