11/12/2020
COVID19 Vaccine Roll Out 11/12/20
People are asking me if they should get vaccinated. It shows how trust in our institutions has been eroded. A few years ago no one would have questioned it.
The side effects are far less than the death rates from COVID, particularly in older age groups or those with other health conditions. COVID also seems to have a considerable amount of long-term after-effects in a significant percentage of people; note the difference between the infection rate and the recovered rate in the statistics. (Of course some may have just been lost to follow-up).
Children seem to have few symptoms, but if they are not infected and grow older without immunity, it would be ironic if they are then badly affected later. Mumps is like that- relatively trivial in youth, but can cause pancreatitis, encephalitis and sterility later. Years ago in the pre-vaccination days, if a child had chicken pox or measles, the mothers would all bring their children to be deliberately infected at a ‘Pox Party’, though these are now discouraged. This sort of immunity may well be spreading and giving herd immunity in countries that have COVID now endemic, but it would be unwise to do it here as it would spread it to more vulnerable demographics.
Chicken pox can cause herpes zoster (shingles) in older folk, which is very painful, and now has a vaccine (Zostavax) that is very expensive but free after age 70.
This article is about the Oxford-Astrazeneca vaccine, which is not the Pfizer one that is currently being rolled out in the UK. It seems that the Oxford one is the first to publish the results of a Phase 3 trial, and though a lot of people have been vaccinated, not many people have been infected, which means that the numbers on which the conclusions are drawn are still not large. There is an embedded link in the article that gives a good summary of the trial procedures. It seems that the Oxford vaccine will have the advantages that it is easier to store, and transport and is cheaper. Presumably as this article is now published, its roll out is imminent also.
From an Australian perspective, there is now a huge rollout of the Pfizer vaccine in the UK, so we will know exactly how well it works by the time it gets here.
It is sad that the Qld Uni vaccine has been abandoned as it gives a false positive for the HIV/Aids Antibody test. Presumably it would have worked, and perhaps an alternative HIV/Aids test might have distinguished the two apart.
