The burning question asked about vaccine safety at todays covid briefing

[pm133]

pm133,

By the looks of it, I think the governement will be using AI to keep track of all the reported Adverse Drug Reactions from the covid19 vaccines, hopefully, they will keep us all up to date over the coming months after roll out.

UK to use AI for COVID-19 vaccine side effects

Software company Genpact UK has been paid £1.5m for an AI tool that will be used to process the adverse reactions of the COVID-19 vaccines.

www.healthcareitnews.com

It certainly should be taken out of the hands of Pfizer who have a history of being fined for suppressing news of adverse reactions to its drugs.

 

[mikeydt1]

it is one of those scenarios. we have the vaccine and are fine or we suffer with side effects so bad it keels you over and on the other hand we take our chances out there, we are okay or we get the virus and survive or again keel over. not a good scenario for any of us to be in.

 

[mikeyB]

You could, I suppose, send an FOI to Pfizer asking how many of their staff or managers have been vaccinated. That would answer our worries. If they have declined, that would indicate their level of concern.

 

[pm133]

Morning pm133,

From what I can tell, their fines run into the trillions. About $7,000,0000,000 of fines for breaches of healthcare, contracting, safety, competition and environment related offences.

Pfizer are not alone. You could pick any of them from GSK to Ely Lily and you'll find a similar history of fines for all sorts of things.

 

[pm133]

MikeyB,

But is it actually worthwhile gettting a vaccine (with its risks) for something which affects so few of us?

Please have a look at this short video about how deaths have been counted in US and likely elsewhere.

It states that out of 220k "covid19" attributed deaths, 88k died of pneumonia and influenza, 18k of chronic respiratory diseases, 26k respiratory distress syndrome, 44k from hypertensive diseases, 23k from heart disease, 28k cardiac arrest. That 130k of those being marked as covid deaths were people who already had terminal diseases. The cares act gives doctors a 20% bonus if they show covid as cause of death.

You can't look at the USA and extrapolate that to the UK. Our health systems are completely different.

You are right about the numbers affected though. Very few who catch covid experience long term problems, hospitalisation or death and that's worth bearing in mind.

 

[Robin]

But is it actually worthwhile gettting a vaccine (with its risks) for something which affects so few of us?

A family member has a compromised immune system. He's in his mid seventies, but leads an active life, has the annual flu jab, and is probably good for another ten years. Since the emergence of Covid, he’s had two choices.
1. Stop his active life and spend a boring existence at home or
2. Go about as usual and risk catching it, knowing that he's got a high chance of serious illness or death in the next year.
Don’t you think it would be nice if there was an option 3?
3. Have the vaccine and be able to carry on some sort of normal life again.

 

[mikeyB]

Hi pm133,

I agree, I wouldn't try to extrapolate their data to the UK. I mean it more in the sense that covid is been classed as a lethal worldwide pandemic, but looking at the article I attached, it doesn't seem that way.

Spanish Flu was a lethal worldwide pandemic, with a 50% death rate in the second wave. Covid is a pandemic, but in no way can it be described as lethal, as it is at least 95% benign.

 

[Docb]

Spanish Flu was a lethal worldwide pandemic, with a 50% death rate in the second wave. Covid is a pandemic, but in no way can it be described as lethal, as it is at least 95% benign.

I understand where you are coming from @mikeyB - getting a proper perspective on things is right.

In this regard, do you think that if the "Spanish" flu virus turned up out of the blue today, it would have a 50% death rate or if COVID had turned up in the early 20th century it would have been more lethal?

The world of 100 years ago was very different in terms of general health and robustness - and your ex-profession has come on a bit as well.

 

[mikeyB]

The Spanish flu did take regard of general health and robustness - it killed, by and large, the 20-50 age group and those in the prime of health. The poor and ill fed tended to survive, because they didn't have immune systems that were capable of producing the cytokine storm that was the primary cause of death in Spanish Flu. It was the same generation who were killed in the War.

We do know that the Spanish Flu was H1N1, and samples of the virus still exist, so a vaccine could rapidly prepared.

 

[Eddy Edson]

Spanish Flu was a lethal worldwide pandemic, with a 50% death rate in the second wave. Covid is a pandemic, but in no way can it be described as lethal, as it is at least 95% benign.

Where do you get that 50% death rate from?

The numbers seem to be very uncertain, but the best info I can find suggests an attack rate of ~25%-30% and an IFR of ~1.5% - 2.5% in countries with good (for the time) health infrastructure.

That's consistent with eg NHS saying it killed about 230K in the UK and the CDC saying about 800K in the US.

If you scale up those Spanish flu numbers for 2020 pop levels, they're equivalent to about 350K in the UK and 2.5M in the US. That's versus 50K+ and 250K+ so far for COVID-19, so an order of magnitude better, but obviously it will end up being worse than that. Throw improvements in public health & health-care into the mix, and there seems to be zero basis for thinking that COVID-19 carries negligible fundamental fatality risk versus Spanish flu.

The attack rate in a really badly managed US state like North Dakota is probably getting up closer to Spanish flu levels: nothing much until quite recently, but recently growingqwuickly to around 8% at the moment in terms of reported cases - but with high positivity there true infection rates must be quite a lot higher - and now growing exponentially & out of control. The CFR is "only" about 1.1% there so far, so IFR will be less than 1% - but that's before it's really gotten to work in aged care homes.

In places like Victoria and Canada where it did get into the homes in a big way, IFR has been more like 2%+, so very much in line with with Spanish flu. Think you can expect per capita death rates to end up looking not so different by the time this thing is tamed, in some parts of the world.

 

[rebrascora]

You also have to take into consideration that modern day living and media etc makes it easier for people to lockdown and isolate than during the Spanish flu where many people would have been working in manual jobs in close proximity with others and living in overcrowded multigenerational accommodation, so I think it is difficult to compare the two situations.

 

[Eddy Edson]

You also have to take into consideration that modern day living and media etc makes it easier for people to lockdown and isolate than during the Spanish flu where many people would have been working in manual jobs in close proximity with others and living in overcrowded multigenerational accommodation, so I think it is difficult to compare the two situations.

Probably right, but on the other hand we've got a greater porportion of older people, and more of them living in high-risk aged care facilities. And I'm not sure about the relative proportions of the total population (including immigrants) living in crowded multigenerational dwellings & tower blocks? Also, the relative amount of time spent in no-social-distance bars/clubs/restaurants by young people?And relative mobility? Anyway, I don't think things are completely clear-cut.