the no-nonsense, nothing-but-the-facts-m'am C19 thread

[Conor Dary]

Financial Times

Europe’s vaccine hesitancy endangers wider rollout



The pause in the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine rollout in Europe this week threatens to undermine immunisation campaigns in developing countries that rely almost exclusively on the jab, say health experts and policymakers.

Calling the decision by a number of European governments to halt its use “irresponsible”, Dr Ayoade Alakija, co-chair of the Africa Vaccine Delivery Alliance, said many poorer countries did not have the luxury of choice but were relying on the relatively cheap and easy-to-store AstraZeneca jab.

“They hit on the one thing that could derail the entire global vaccination campaign for low and middle-income countries,” said Alakija, adding that the resulting vaccine hesitancy in Africa and other developing regions could compound what was already a highly unequal distribution.

“It is not as though we can shop around. The linchpin of our campaign is AstraZeneca. But vaccine confidence is destroyed and conspiracy theories are running amok,” she added.

Cameroon and the Democratic Republic of Congo have suspended the AstraZeneca vaccine rollout after the decision by Germany, Italy, Spain and others to halt use of the jab over concerns of links to blood clots. Indonesia and Thailand also paused its use.

[SoCal45]

California still cranking out the vaxx: with 25 of 61 agencies reporting, over 387,000 vaccines have been administered today. Still on pace for nearly full vaxx by late May/early June.

[Conor Dary]

First time I've heard of this...

Strong reaction to first COVID-19 vaccine may signal previous infection, experts say

https://sports.yahoo.com/strong-reaction-first-covid-19-vaccine-may-signal-previous-infection-experts-214925129.html

[Halfmiler2]

CDC cuts social distancing in schools from 6 feet to 3 feet. I am surprised they did not make it a meter to be internationally politically correct.

[Conor Dary]

Virus variants mean our covid winter isn’t over. Don’t ease restrictions now.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/03/19/virus-variants-mean-our-covid-winter-isnt-over-dont-ease-restrictions-now/#click=https://t.co/trbhsI4I95

[gh]

CDC cuts social distancing in schools from 6 feet to 3 feet. I am surprised they did not make it a meter to be internationally politically correct.

a meter is 9.36% safer than 3ft too!

[Conor Dary]

Meanwhile....in the land of the metric system...


Where Europe Went Wrong in Its Vaccine Rollout, and Why

While Washington went into business with the drug companies, Europe was more fiscally conservative and trusted the free market.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/20/world/europe/europe-vaccine-rollout-astrazeneca.html

[Conor Dary]

Financial Times...

Europe’s vaccine disarray

On Monday morning, a crowd turned up at the football stadium in Marseille, which has been largely shut to the public for a year. They were not hoping to see a match but to receive a long-awaited vaccine against Covid-19. The Velodrome had been inaugurated that morning as a mass vaccination centre.

By late afternoon, officials were turning people away after the French government, following safety fears over blood clots in Germany, halted use of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine.

The EU’s faltering vaccination campaign has been hamstrung by a botched central procurement process, supply shortfalls, logistical hurdles and excessive risk aversion from some national medical regulators. The suspension of the jab, albeit only for three days in most EU nations, was another hammer blow, with experts warning it would undermine public confidence and feed conspiracy theories about vaccine risks.

“If you had allowed the AstraZeneca vaccinations to continue, those 5-10 per cent of the population who are antivaxxers would have gone up the wall,” says Professor Beate Kampmann, director of the Vaccine Centre at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. “But the position would have been clearer for the wider population.” She adds: “By having a message of doubt rather than a message of reassurance, that now plays into the hands of the antivaxxers. They are very well organised.”

[Adam$]

Israel up to 50%:

https://time.com/5947967/israel-covid-vaccine-rollout/

[NotDutra5]

Gibraltar----DONE!!!!

Tiny Gibraltar has vaccinated its adult population

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/03/18/gibraltar-vaccine-coronavirus/

[TN1965]

Gibraltar----DONE!!!!

Tiny Gibraltar has vaccinated its adult population


https://www.washingtonpost.com/world...e-coronavirus/

They are also worst in the world in deaths / cap. But now that they are fully vaccinated, someone else might pass them.

In the meantime...

Two More COVID-19 Deaths in Cambodia Bring Total to Three Amid Latest Virus Outbreak

https://www.rfa.org/english/news/cambodia/deaths-03192021162056.html

And Wallis & Futuna confirmed their first death.

https://www.facebook.com/prefetWallisFutuna/photos/a.1729661447063016/4432480003447800/

[Conor Dary]

Meanwhile...


NEW YORK WARNING: Former FDA Commissioner @ScottGottliebMD
tells @margbrennan
as cases and hospitalizations go down, the COVID variant B-1526 is concerning Says it’s unclear whether New Yorkers with B-1526 are getting reinfected, or if they’re getting infected after vaccination.

https://mobile.twitter.com/FaceTheNation/status/1373661328712335362

[jeremyp]

Kind of a stunning fact about Britain...

By the end of this week, more than half of the adult population of the United Kingdom will have received their first dose of a coronavirus vaccine. …Across the country, the population has been summoned by text message and phone call, in strict order of age and vulnerability, to hospitals, clinics, and sports grounds. And they have come, for the most part, eagerly. Last weekend, a little over five hundred and twelve thousand people—one in a hundred adult Britons—were injected in a single day.
In the past six weeks, the number of people hospitalised with COVID-19 in the U.K. has fallen by seventy-three per cent. Positive tests are down to less than six thousand a day, a tenth of the level in January.
“I think the E.U. vaccine procurement, but also the E.U. rollout strategy, is one of the most, if not the most dangerous, moments for the E.U. for quite some time,” Guntram Wolff, the director of Bruegel, a European economic think tank.
https://www.newyorker.com/news/letter-from-the-uk/boris-johnsons-vaccine-miracle

[Conor Dary]

Meanwhile....in the Financial Times....


Boris Johnson, prime minister, will this week call on EU national capitals to veto a suggestion from Brussels that would block AstraZeneca vaccine exports to the UK and push post-Brexit relations to a new low.

London has laid claim to millions of doses of the Oxford/AstraZeneca Covid-19 jab produced at a Dutch factory, sparking a fierce battle with the European Commission, which says that they should be used inside the bloc.

The EU will discuss at a summit beginning on Thursday whether to press ahead with a threat to stop exports of the AstraZeneca vaccine to the UK.

[Conor Dary]

AstraZeneca, once touted as a pandemic slayer, faces challenges


AstraZeneca’s coronavirus vaccine was supposed to be the shot that dug the world out of the pandemic: a cheap, easy-to-administer dose that would protect not just citizens of wealthy nations but also those in the most vulnerable countries.

Instead, the inoculation, a collaboration between University of Oxford researchers and one of the world’s biggest drug companies, has been plagued with missteps as other vaccine rollouts gain speed. First, there was confusing basic science. Then missed delivery targets. Now, a confidence-sapping pause in Europe that followed reports of rare blood clots among a handful of the vaccinated.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/astrazeneca-vaccine-challenges-europe-pandemic/2021/03/21/d8568076-88f0-11eb-8a67-f314e5fcf88d_story.html