Delays in rolling out vaccine

Think he might as been claiming that at the same time as Q2 vaccine supplies from our good friends in AZ seem to be in doubt......

We should another state of the union address after the 9pm news. Indeed after every news bulliton from now on.....
 
Sunny said:
Think he might as been claiming that at the same time as Q2 vaccine supplies from our good friends in AZ seem to be in doubt......

We should another state of the union address after the 9pm news. Indeed after every news bulliton from now on.....
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Think we might be ok.... saw this on Twitter:
Taoiseach confirms AZ announcement today is factored into figures
 
Except now the EU are disputing the story and the figures used. So what has been factored in? Is there is a big surprise in store if AZ manage to deliver more?? They are also factoring in vaccines that have not been approved yet. Know its hard but the messaging is still poor.
 
Sunny said:
Except now the EU are disputing the story and the figures used. So what has been factored in? Is there is a big surprise in store if AZ manage to deliver more?? They are also factoring in vaccines that have not been approved yet. Know its hard but the messaging is still poor.
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Pfizer are going to be producing more and that'll certainly help. J&J will be approved but reading US media they too are having difficulties with production.

The government can only go on what's planned and if those 3rd parties don't fulfil those plans there's very little that can be done.

Edit, just read in FiercePharma that J&J now have sorted initial issues and are producing to capacity
 
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Paul O Mahoney said:
Pfizer are going to be producing more and that'll certainly help. J&J will be approved but reading US media they too are having difficulties with production.

The government can only go on what's planned and if those 3rd parties don't fulfil those plans there's very little that can be done.
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Of course they are dependent on supply but when you have a press conference basically saying vaccines are the main or only way out of this, then you need to very clear about supplies you do have before you start using specific % targets. If they had factored in less Q2 supply from AZ this evening, then would they have told us if there hadnt been a leak at EU level through Reuters. And now that the EU are disputing the story, what is the potential upside to us if they do deliver. Why wasn't that part of the message?
 
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Sunny said:
Of course they are dependent on supply but when you have a press conference basically saying vaccines are the main or only way out of this, then you need to very clear about supplies you do have before you start using specific % targets. If they had factored in less Q2 supply from AZ this evening, then would they have told us if there hadnt been a leak at EU level through Reuters. And now that the EU are disputing the story, what is the potential upside to us if they do deliver. Why wasn't that part of the message?
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Was it a leak though? I did read that they knew about the reduction and factored it in.
I believe its a 50% reduction so we would be down 1m doses, however Pfizer are going to supply 70m more to the EU which we get 3% extra which is 2.1m I think

Of course these figures might change again but remember from now on supply will increase not decrease
 
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When asked about the huge reduction which had never been flagged before, he said the Government factored it in. What exactly did they factor in? Now both the company and the EU are denying the story saying supply lines from outside the EU will be used. If this is true, then the ambitious figures used last night are actually Conservative and out of date already. I simply want to know what they are basing their statements on. He basically admitted they adjusted the targets on the back of a reuturs story that both sides are now denying.
 
Sunny said:
When asked about the huge reduction which had never been flagged before, he said the Government factored it in. What exactly did they factor in? Now both the company and the EU are denying the story saying supply lines from outside the EU will be used. If this is true, then the ambitious figures used last night are actually Conservative and out of date already. I simply want to know what they are basing their statements on. He basically admitted they adjusted the targets on the back of a reuturs story that both sides are now denying.
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My reading is that AZ are trying to fulfil the contracted amount of 180m doses. The EU merely said the figures quoted in the Reuters story were not correct ie 40m using 50% reduction is 90m of which we get 1m .
Neither have said the story is false just dispute the figures.
AZ have also said its working on making production more efficient so, it might reach its target might not.

It's prudent to add in some level of contingency if there is a risk of supplies not reaching the 2m promised. If they simply ignored the risk and used 2m in their projections and the story was true they'd be called another set of names.

As to the point that the projection is out of date , projections can't be out of date as if the variables change the projection changes, the original projection can be inaccurate but thats the fun with projections they are based on available data.
 
They said they adjusted their figures to take account of the 60% drop in supplies from AZ that was reported. The company have come out and stated that they will deliver all 180m doses they are contractually obliged to using supply lines outside the EU.

I have no issue with contingencies. I have no issue with people saying they don't know. I do have an issue with the leader of the country standing there giving very specific vaccination targets telling us that they had adjusted their schedule to take account of the drop in supply that was reported in the media but apparently is being denied. We are not talking tens of thousands of doses here. We are talking hundreds of thousands. So if they have a schedule which they based on not receiving hundreds of thousands of doses, I want to know what they based that on other than a media story and if it is not true, those vaccination plans announced last night have changed significantly within a hour of him being on air. Why don't they say that?

We still can't get proper real time data on vaccines supplied and vaccines administered. Its not exactly rocket science. They have said vaccines are the only plan they have out of this. They don't exactly inspire confidence.
 
Sunny said:
Why don't they say that?
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Quite simply because a simple message is more effective than a confusing one. Sunny you ask them to improve their messaging but if they followed your advice it would result in more criticism as people simply do not want to hear messaging that has a whole load of conditions built into it.
One interesting note this morning conveyed by Leo on Morning Ireland was that in a discussion with Ronan Glynn, he (Ronan Glynn) had a concern that the UK approach to delaying the second dose could risk an increase in variants. Logically that sounds plausible to me and I wonder how much consideration the UK have given to this, especially in their eagerness to set firm dates for reopening everything.
 
Sunny said:
They said they adjusted their figures to take account of the 60% drop in supplies from AZ that was reported. The company have come out and stated that they will deliver all 180m doses they are contractually obliged to using supply lines outside the EU.

I have no issue with contingencies. I have no issue with people saying they don't know. I do have an issue with the leader of the country standing there giving very specific vaccination targets telling us that they had adjusted their schedule to take account of the drop in supply that was reported in the media but apparently is being denied. We are not talking tens of thousands of doses here. We are talking hundreds of thousands. So if they have a schedule which they based on not receiving hundreds of thousands of doses, I want to know what they based that on other than a media story and if it is not true, those vaccination plans announced last night have changed significantly within a hour of him being on air. Why don't they say that?

We still can't get proper real time data on vaccines supplied and vaccines administered. Its not exactly rocket science. They have said vaccines are the only plan they have out of this. They don't exactly inspire confidence.
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If AZ do complete 180m doses then it's upside and more people get vaccinated and the projections changed accordingly.

I'm always amazed that people expect the government to tell people what's exactly going to happen, it's an unrealistic expectation.
We have the vaccine only for 2 months in Ireland and the EU, producers are honing their production capabilities, nothing can be written in stone as we have never had to develop and produce a brand new product in its billions and then roll it out.
 
I understand why the government isn't lifting restrictions and why it doesn't know when this might change, but I don't understand why it claims that it now has a new "plan." The "plan" announced yesterday is essentially to wait and see how the virus situation develops and then based on that decide what to do next and to vaccinate people as vaccines arrive. It seems that some PR advisor or "behavioural scientist" has told the government that public morale will be higher if the public is made to believe that there is a plan. It also seems that the government deems the general public a bit thick.
 
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More information on the re-prioritisation of the vaccine rollout to focus on people with conditions at very high risk of covid complications.

  • people who are severely immunocompromised, obese above a certain BMI, have uncontrolled diabetes, undergoing certain treatments for cancer, and/or are living with certain chronic illnesses.
  • people aged between 16 and 69 with certain chronic neurological conditions, certain inherited metabolic diseases, Down Syndrome, and sickle cell disease.

https://www.rte.ie/news/coronavirus/2021/0223/1198926-vaccine-rollout-strategy/
 
I don't expect anyone to tell me what exactly is going to happen. That's just ridiculous. They are directly asked about the news reports that we were only going to get 40% of promised deliveries from AZ. They gave a direct answer saying they had adjusted the schedule to account for this. Within 2 hours, we had both the EU and the Company saying these figures were incorrect and indeed the company said they would still deliver all promised doses by using supply lines outside the EU.

I am hardly asking for the moon and the stars to ask on what basis did they adjust their figures considering the story doesn't look like it was accurate. . Was it on the back of a news story? Was it simply being prudent? Why didn't they announce the figures telling us they had adjusted for an expected shortfall rather than wait to be asked? Why didn't they say that obviously if the reports aren't true, then there will be significant improvement in the schedule.

They were caught on the hop last night and instead of just being honest, they tried to spin it that we had already adjusted for the shortfall. Even if I am being harsh, I don't see them coming out saying well obviously if we get hundreds of thousands of doses that we weren't expecting, then the schedule will be....

I didn't ask them to give precise vaccination targets. I didn't ask them to provide dates when a certain % of the population will be vaccinated. They did that. I just want them to stand over it. If they knew there was an issue with supplies that caused them to adjust their numbers, then they should have told us directly. Rather than tweets afterwards and then find out the story wasn't accurate in the first place...
 
Sunny said:
And now that the EU are disputing the story, what is the potential upside to us if they do deliver. Why wasn't that part of the message?
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Most people don't want the complicated message with all the variables laid out. In fairness, if they were to include all potential impacts on supply, they'd have to give multiple potential timelines based on all the moving parts. We'd have a timeline based on AZ meeting their commitments, another with them only delivering 50%, another with them maybe making 75%, then another number of variations with and without the J&J vaccine getting approval and then delivering various volumes, and then more variants for the other suppliers too. It'd be a confusing mess.

If you want absolute certainty, then you have to wait until you have the vaccine at the point of administration. If you want to give people advance notice, you take the data you have available, factor in your confidence level of the suppliers delivering on commitments, your confidence that more suppliers will have their vaccines approved and then come up with a schedule that is hopefully a little on the conservative side so that they have a good chance of exceeding expectations by a small margin.
 
Leo said:
Most people don't want the complicated message with all the variables laid out. In fairness, if they were to include all potential impacts on supply, they'd have to give multiple potential timelines based on all the moving parts. We'd have a timeline based on AZ meeting their commitments, another with them only delivering 50%, another with them maybe making 75%, then another number of variations with and without the J&J vaccine getting approval and then delivering various volumes, and then more variants for the other suppliers too. It'd be a confusing mess.

If you want absolute certainty, then you have to wait until you have the vaccine at the point of administration. If you want to give people advance notice, you take the data you have available, factor in your confidence level of the suppliers delivering on commitments, your confidence that more suppliers will have their vaccines approved and then come up with a schedule that is hopefully a little on the conservative side so that they have a good chance of exceeding expectations by a small margin.
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Once again, where I have once asked for certainty???

The Government gave a timetable based on adjusted figures. They said they adjusted them. I want to know on what basis they adjusted the figures based on the fact that the company have said there will not be a drop in Q2 deliveries. Did they do it on the back of a unsubstantiated news report? Is that really what we are basing our communication policy on?

If the Government said they were being prudent by having a schedule based on AZ not living up to their contractual delivery schedule, they why weren't they equally prudent with an unapproved vaccine that is having production issues in other jurisdictions? They have factored in full delivery from J&J.

I am not looking for certainty. I am looking for a clear concise message. I don't want dates. I don't want % of the population to be vaccinated by what date. I didn't need that last night. But if the Government stand up and give those numbers, I want to know that they are not just engaging in back of the envelope planning and communications spin. At no stage did the Government admit there was a potential supply problem with AZ until asked by journalists. And yet we are to believe that they adjusted their figures to take account of that disruption that looks like isn't even a disruption. I simply believe they were trying to spin it so that their great 'plan' announced on the 6pm news wasn't out of date by the 9pm news
 
Ceist Beag said:
...the UK approach to delaying the second dose could risk an increase in variants. Logically that sounds plausible to me and I wonder how much consideration the UK have given to this, especially in their eagerness to set firm dates for reopening everything.
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Pfizer have indicated that the optimum time for the second jab is three to four weeks after the first. And that the efficacy drops off considerably after four weeks. I assume this view applies to both the original Covid-19 strain for which the Pfizer vaccine was tested, and for the London/South Africa/Brazilian/Nigerian/Bristol/Californian strain ma for which it was not trialled.
 
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