Chat about Novel Coronavirus - 2019-nCoV - COVID-19

Still not worth it as it doesn’t mean she won’t 100% catch it.

Also there’s still a risk of you moving the virus to their destination and potentially infecting others.

You could come round if you’re vaccinated as well.

If someone dies of covid after getting the vaccine from a centre that has been given a ‘watered down’ dose....

The vaccine isn’t 100% effective, but if there is any question that the dose wasn’t provided as approved...

I doubt it's "watered down" I can only imagine it comes with instructions saying "mix 1 part vaccine with X parts saline" or whatever and they're left with at least another 1 part vaccine per vial.

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Late to the party, as usual

The amount I dont know about mass vaccination would fill many books, but it does strike me as odd that we've stumbled upon this fact....surely Pfizer can divide required dose volume by volume of vial to calculate the dose per vial.

I'm currently teaching my 8 year old her Maths curriculum, and this question would not be out of place.

Not sure there's really much scope for misunderstanding there.

Thanks for the very clear overview! I think the bit that was missing here for having a full understanding was that these were the extra doses, not 200 doses which had been purchased and were meant to be provided to specific patients. Having said that, I agree that it's a bit shit if any of the vaccine is going to waste! I do agree with @Brun, though, that it's a slightly different issue. I also think that @daccordi is probably right that there's a lot more to the regulatory side of things which may make the issue more complex than we (or, at least, I) think.

Hopefully now that it's clear that this is an issue they will have started planning to have the correct syringes on hand.

Maybe they put a bit extra "stuff" in the vials to ensure they never have too little?
Regarding getting extra doses, surely a medical-qualitynsyringe is a medical-quality syringe?
I know of at least one practice on the sunny south coast that has been using the extra doses, so I guess they didn't ask
Should have thought it obvious, if you ask Pfizer they're going to say no. Significant loss of income for them if you can vaccinate 20% more people with each batch

Of the 10,000 doses delivered at UCLH the wastage rate was 1 dose out of that 10,000.

Lots of misinfo even amongst staff about 3 week vs 10 week gaps between doses; if you were given dose one before guidance changed you get second dose at 3 weeks as you were scheduled to.

To get the full six doses out of the Pfizer vial (0.3ml each) you need special no waste syringes. Ordinary ones leave too much in the syringes so patients don't get the full dose.

Exactly. It's not 'watered down'. It's being mixed at the correct ratios, but there's enough in each vial for 6 rather than 5 doses.

Not trying to be snarky, but when the rules say you can. Vaccine doesn’t stop transmission, just significantly reduces chances of getting severe disease requiring hospitalisation, and as others have said travelling to/from etc increases risk of transmission. Until enough of the population has had the vaccination to get proper herd immunity and we don’t run the risk of shafting the NHS again, we need to adhere by prevailing precautions. In terms of personal risk to your grandma, she should get decent partial protection (50-60%) AFAIK after about 7-10 days after first dose, and then maximum (but not complete) protection from severe disease roughly the same time again after second dose.

if you were given dose one before guidance changed you get second dose at 3 weeks as you were scheduled to

is this just UCLH? definitely not happening everywhere.

Thanks @Jimm and @rj and @Greenbank

Situation probably not helped by not receiving letters for a few days (weirdly parcels are fine)

Ironically given your friend’s experience, the FDA paperwork explains that the special syringes are only required if you want to get 6 doses out of the vial. Normal ones would get you 5 with a small amount of wastage per dose losing the 6th one.

They could happily have tried using normal 1ml syringes & 25G needles to draw up as many of the 200 leftover doses as possible - some may well have been up to the 0.3ml mark.

The syringes can be pre-drawn and administered within 2h so plenty of time to work out how many doses you’ve got left.

The NHS is amazing in most regards but the management can be quite “computer says no”.

Currently at ucl but had the jab from my prev trust - they also honoured 3 week appointments for people who were due dose 2 in the week of 4th Jan. Super variable between trusts though.

Our Trust are running at 12 weeks, had mine last Thursday night and was told to wait for the next appointment whenever that might be.

Our CEO is active Professor of Medicine so everything by the book

My GF had her 1st jab on Tuesday as she is an NHS worker. Next appointment is in 9 weeks. This was in kings college hospital - Denmark Hill.

Situation probably not helped by not receiving letters for a few days (weirdly parcels are fine)

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-55591063

Somewhere else I read they were prioritising parcels over letters at the moment too. (It'll be related to different staffing requirements to drive vans to deliver parcels than walk the streets to deliver letters...)

I would assume there's a slight overcapacity in the ingredients. Watering down would be a stupid thing to be doing.

Seen an Enterprise rental van with Royal Mail logos taped to the side in Lewisham just now

Seen an Enterprise rental van with Royal Mail logos taped to the side in Lewisham just now

Same. Hello neighbour.

I think the bit that was missing here for having a full understanding was that these were the extra doses, not 200 doses which had been purchased and were meant to be provided to specific patients

An anecdote positioned as a story about underperformance actually turns out to be about a missed opportunity to overperform.

It is a shame that nothing better can be done with surplus.

In other news after signing up to ONS about six months ago they call me today - “are you free today we want your blood” only to discover they have our old address and aren’t keen to schlep five miles down the A40 to the new one.

Sadface

when can I go round for a cup of tea?

It's complicated. My Dad got the Pfzier vaccine yesterday (mid 70s but extremely clinically vulnerable). Different to the Oxford vaccine, but it will take 12 days to even start doing anything, a few weeks after that it should typically be 52% effective.

He's due to have his second dose on the 2nd April, a week after that it would typically be 95% effective.

(Source: https://www.bmj.com/content/371/bmj.m4826#:~:text=The%20study%2C%20published%20in%20the,cases%20in%20the%20placebo%20group)

All this aside, the vaccinated will have to follow the same rules as everyone else because the advice after you've had the first jab is to act like you've not had it, then even when you've had the second you may still spread it.

So although my Dad will be as safe as he's going to be from 9th April we've got to hope that infection rates will have dropped by then and social distancing rules relaxed.