Interesting that most of the people that have had the vaccine are from the UK - I know we are ahead of the EU as a proportion of the population inoculated but I thought that the US was not far behind the UK. Hopefully this is just due to the time differences.

There does appear to be some sections of society that are not taking up the vaccine and these seem to be concentrated amongst some ethnic groups that have been targeted in social media with loads of disinformation (also know as lies / bull shit) suggesting all sorts of bad things will happen to the recipients - I really wonder about some people that go out of their way to make stuff up that aims to lead to other people dying.

There are a few unhappy people that are kicking off in the UK at the idea of having to prove that you have been vaccinated before being allowed to go to events / the pub / the cinema etc and the incorporation of the vaccination into a “passport” type document.

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You will have to do without pocket handkerchiefs, and a great many other things, before we reach our journey's end, Bilbo Baggins. You were born to the rolling hills and little rivers of the Shire, but home is now behind you. The world is ahead.

There's talk about disliking a "vaccine card" here in the States, of course. But I have to point out that the Yellow Card that one needs in order to prove vaccination for diseases like Yellow Fever and other similar diseases has been around forever. I think a lot of folks who don't travel do not know about the Yellow Card. I do have a Yellow Card, and now a card of record for the Moderna vaccine.

We need this vaccine in the States, because of the resistance and false information that flows. Some people think in terms of only me, vs we as a society. We have been warned here about the likelihood of a spike, because of vaccine resistance, and despite vaccinations completed. My attitude is if you have the opportunity to get a vaccine and decide not, then you made the choice and have to accept the consequences if you do eventually get covid. I remember pilio and smallpox vaccination along with TB testing programs from the 1950's, as a good thing. This is the first severe and global public health issue in 70 years, so memory is missing for most.

AZ one, two weeks ago, got it in the first phase of the roll-out (ambulance EMT).
No paracetamol, slight headache the next day.
Bring it on, let's see an end to this damned thing.

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Hear the challenge, learn the lesson, pay the cost.

Pfizer for me here in Colorado- 2 doses and 2 weeks of settling- I'm happy.

My 96 year old mother- Pfizer, 2 doses. Her senior living apartment building is about 95% vaccinated and they have finally opened their doors to guests again. In fact, my wife and I were there, in her apartment tonight, eating dinner. First time in 12 months.

All my riding buddies have been vaccinated now too, but we're all greybeards, moving toward whitebeards.

My daughter, 32, and her boyfriend got their first jabs of Moderna yesterday.

US acceptance of vaccines has been pretty good in older populations, not as accepted in minority populations - but that is improving.

The ones who just won't get the vaccine are the dyed in the wool followers of our past president, who turned it into a political issue. I don't hold out a lot of hope for that group. Maybe they'll come around as they see we not dying, nor are we being controlled by Bill Gates (who in one version of the story was using the vaccine to implant chips in all of us. ?????)

...................shu

Apparently my parents (80 and 74) finally got their first shot today. I believe it was Pfizer.

No shot in sight yet for anyone under 70 here in BC. The gov't is saying maybe I'll get a first shot by July. The Canadian government really seems to have fumbled the ball on this one...

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Bruce Clarke - 2020 Yamaha XV250

I don't suppose too many of us have enough knowledge of what virus's are, how vacines work, what precautions are essential / which are worthless etc to be able to cut through the bullsh*t on our own. So we have to choose who to believe, and often there's just enough 'pseudotruth' in some of the stories to cause you to doubt the official line, especially if you're suspicious of government and you're being told it by someone you trust.

Bill Gates microchips for example. No, there's no microchips being implanted, and no, the vaccine isn't going to change your DNA and turn you into a zombie (or whatever it's supposed to do) but two of the vaccines do inject RNA (DNA, RNA, potato, potaato) which goes into some of your cells and highjacks them to produce foreign proteins. If your political senses are more finely tuned than your virology ones that doesn't need much of a twist to become the message 'the government wants you to inject stuff into your body that'll take it over'. As nobody knows what proteins or RNA are microchips become a stand-in.

If you think that's patronisingly simplistic I know a health professional - a multi decade nurse - working in a large hospital who has refused to be vaccinated because 'it'll make me infertile'. She's in her 60's! Despite working with the stuff all day long her personal beliefs, sourced from her community, have overridden her professional knowledge. If she's taken in by it all what hope do many of the rest of us have.

Part of the problem with 'social passports' is that those most likely to need them will be the last to get them. If there's an unfulfilled need then 'alternative' sources will fill the void. Introducing them on a Monday to have the market flooded with fake ones by Friday isn't going to do much for disease control measures. My guess is a combination of the elections in May (don't upset the electorate just before they have to vote you back in) and how to produce something that won't be counterfeited (for a while anyway) is what's being kicked around in smoke filled rooms at present.

I had the Pfizer in February, no ill effects beyond any other vaccination. Waiting to get date for second shot and hoping "supply issues" won't delay it.

A lot of people said the UK, after delaying the second shot to 3 months against the manufacturers recommendation of 3 weeks, would experience a shortage after 3 months as they needed to catch up on the delayed second doses after the initial sprint, and that's what is happening it seems. How much of an advantage the strategy will be is yet to be seen, but the fear is that giving partial immunity could let vaccine resistant strains emerge.

UK infection numbers are fairly stable as of today, but not declining despite the continuing lockdown. Probably due to schools having been sent back. They appear to be gambling that while young people may get infected, the number of serious cases is quite small. Though this logic didn't help back at the end of 2020 when infection numbers went rocketing as schoolkids brought the virus home to parents, who took it into workplaces.

That's how my sister in law caught it - she works in a school. She was fine while the schools were on hold but within a couple of weeks of them going back she got it - and still has long covid issues.

It's early days yet for the viral mutation problem but there is some evidence to show that the virus may be constrained in what viable mutations are possible. The same relatively small number of convergent evolution changes seem to be showing up again and again. If that pans out it may make the vaccine manufacturers future life a little easier. Popular science article on the subject via the link below if you're interested -

https://www.scientificamerican.com/a...riable-so-far/

The statistics over the last few months have been that about 1 in ten of all new cases end up in hospital, and about one in three of those die. A sobering fact.

I wanted to see whether it was possible to measure the effect of the vaccine, so I took the 7-day rolling averages (smoothed) data for new cases, hospital admissions and deaths and plotted them. This didn't help much as the figures were so disparate, so I divided all the case figures by 21 and all the admissions by 2.5. In this way the start position of cases and admissions at the beginning of February was roughly level with the 1,150 deaths per day.

What you can see from the chart is that the blue cases line has reduced nicely due to a mix of lockdown and vaccinations, but the orange admissions line has reduced even more, and the grey deaths line more again. By measuring the difference between the blue (258) and grey (74) lines at the 25 March one might propose that the vaccine is currently saving 184 lives per day, or to put it another way, over 70% of deaths are being prevented.

It takes 2-3 weeks for the vaccine to become really effective and the effect of the vaccine on death rates will increase dramatically over the next couple of months as increasing numbers of the population are vaccinated.

I will admit this chart is REALLY crude as what I should have done is to factor in the typically ten day gap between reported new cases and admissions, and then the typically twenty days to death. But it was enough to satisfy my curiosity about the effectiveness of the vaccine.

Attached Thumbnails

 

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"For sheer delight there is nothing like altitude; it gives one the thrill of adventure
and enlarges the world in which you live," Irving Mather (1892-1966)

I was told info below by Astra Zeneca this morning when I telephoned them with regards to the efficiency of the vaccine AFTER you have had your FIRST injection

If you have your SECOND shot of the AZ vaccine:

• at < 6 weeks from the first injection then it offers 55.1% efficiency
• at between 6 and 8 weeks from the first shot then 59.7%
• from 9 to 11 weeks from the first shot then 72.3%
• At > 12 weeks from the first shot then 80%

If anyone would like to call them as well their number is: 0800 783 0033 option 8
Disclaimer:
I am not a medical professional- just a glad recipient of this vaccine and passing the info on- make of it what you will

Interesting statistics and there seems little doubt that a longer interval is positive, which is what many medical professionals said would be the case.

I did read the study in the Lancet and didn't quite understand why the efficacy of a second dose is only 55.1% when the efficacy of a single dose is 76%.

Also there's a load of variables discussed, "Important study limitations include the fact that these studies were not prospectively designed to establish whether vaccine efficacy would differ by dose interval; therefore, these post-hoc exploratory findings could be biased. Other limitations are that participants were not randomised to dosing interval, only one of the four trials was double-blind, and the single-dose recipients were self-selected. Furthermore, baseline characteristics between the single-dose and two-dose cohorts were substantially different, with an older median age, higher proportion of men and non-white participants, and a smaller proportion of health or social care workers in the two-dose cohort than in the single-dose cohort."

One of the criticisms of the Astrazeneca approval submissions is their somewhat random way of carrying out clinical trials, and it's difficult to ascertain reliable data.

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"For sheer delight there is nothing like altitude; it gives one the thrill of adventure
and enlarges the world in which you live," Irving Mather (1892-1966)

I`m looking for a good comparison of the vaccination. How often are they got used, how often problems happens. Can someone help me out?

Currently my favorite would be the spike protein way like Sputnik / Sinopharm (chinese) / Astrazeneca delivers. Too because the chinese did use it a lot - and - before their or other vaccinatons was certified. And the people in china did was able to go back to normal life very very early.

But if we read the news, there are many "we dont knows" about that way in the last two weeks, about all three vaccinations based on that technology.

Interresting read:

https://www.mdr.de/wissen/corona-imp...nik-v-100.html

Another article about:
https://www.dw.com/de/coronavirus-wi...ina/a-56361390

Would be nice to get data about - how often a vaccination was used, which was used more often, has the better data out of that.

Seems, like this spike protein way will not be used a lot in europe anymore - Astrazeneca's - just for people over 60 years. Does people over 60 has less impact on tromboses?

Back to mrna based vaccinatons like biontech:

https://www.infranken.de/ueberregion...ng-art-5199513

Seems that it is dangerous for people till 30 years - but a no risk for a higher age.

Does somebody has a good article about the different style of vaccinations and how many people did got them? I`m too interested in ivestigations about which kind of vaccination has the best protection for england/south africa/india versions of covid.

My Mam probably can choose the kind of vaccination in some weeks.

Surfy

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About Overlanding, Travelogues, Equipment
Trans-Africa over the west coast

Because you postet german links, here is a link in german language to security protocolls for approved vaccines in germany

https://www.pei.de/DE/newsroom/dossi...html?cms_pos=5

Comparison of vaccines in english

https://www.biospace.com/article/com...accines/<br />

Data to this you find here:
https://ourworldindata.org/covid-vaccinations

No older people have equal risks as younger ones for thromboses.
But effectness of astra vaccine works better on older people than on younger which is the main reason for the prio group change in germany.

Remind: thromboses at astra are only sinus venous thrombosis.
Riskfactor is 2-15 cases per million.
Females are much higher affected than male because female sex hormons increase blood clotting much more than male sex hormons do.
There is allready therapy existing called HIT. it`s based on immunoglobulin or often called antibody therapy.

As longer your mum can securly wait as more evdience will be available for her decission.
Afaik all vaccine approved in germany will work for virus variants from england and south afrika.
Virus variant of india differs to the others through an addional protein spike (simply explained: a double spike protein on the cover of the virus which can connect easier to human body cells) Due to still too less evidental data from india, scientists are just working on this question.

For data of different style of vaccinations and how many people did got them, check 3rd link.

hth

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When i had my AZ jab & i was the youngest person there (54) but i`m in the high risk group (heart disease) so vaccination was highly advised, i could have waited a few months for the Pfizer jab if i wanted (my choice) but decided to go with AZ.

Its less of a risk of thrombosis for me as i take anticoagulant medication anyhow (clopidogrel) but my mate Paul on the other hand has had previous strokes & he has to wait for the Pfizer jab to be safe, but his missus is having the AZ jab next week to protect Paul from infection.

I`m so glad to be residing in a country where the leaders listen to the health advice from the professionals & where the population listens & adheres to the governments advice & closing the borders to international tourists was the key factor, and the doors are staying shut until mid 2022.

Mezo.

Djeeez, what a fuss...
I've carried this Health Passport' on all my travels for more years that I can recall. I really cannot fathom what the problem is- if having it opens borders for me otherwise closed to those who don't carry theirs (or maybe a more modern equivalent such as an app?)- I'm good to go.

And as far as having vaccinations are concerned- it's just a little prik- and many should, by now, be used to having one