arlowood

9 minutes ago, pete14 said:

Although the organisation and delivery of my jab yesterday was faultless, I hope none of you have the sort of reaction I had last night. For a couple of hours I felt really unwell and couldn’t stop shivering which was quite unpleasant. At least I knew what was causing it and that it would pass. Still feeling a bit under the weather but nothing like how was feeling at 01:00 a.m.

Did you have the AZ or Pfizer jab? Anecdotal evidence seems to indicate that people tend to react more to the AZ vaccine than the Pfizer, but I have seen no official figures. I'm sure someone somewhere is monitoring both to assess the general response

Got a bit excited when a P&O email dropped into my inbox headed "Mr .............. we've a very exciting announcement"

Thought it might be more cancellations, although I don't know what's exciting about that.

Turns out to be the name of the new ship being announced tomorrow

Maybe "No-Goa" would seem appropriate in both senses!!!!

10 minutes ago, Windsurfboy said:

Given what seems to happen just after scramble to reach a target , Glad my second vaccination on May  2nd is already booked.

My 2nd jab is also booked but earlier than yours - mid April. Despite assurances that there will be adequate stocks to complete the 2nd dose schedule, I'm still not totally confident. My 1st jab was the Pfizer one and from what has been reported, the supply chain for that jab is particularly fragile.

I'm hopeful that all will go as planned but will not be surprised if my 2nd jab date slips by a week or so,

47 minutes ago, Selbourne said:

Pleased to hear that more and more people in group 7 are successfully making bookings and getting jabbed. My wife and I are in group 6. I’ve tried online again this morning and it still says that we are not yet eligible. I appreciate that Simon Stevens said yesterday that group 6 will be dealt with by GP surgeries but it seems wrong that we don’t at least have the option to make online bookings if we are willing and able to travel to a vaccination hub in order to get the jab sooner. 

Yes I was puzzled and concerned by the statement that Group 6 would be handled locally by the GP surgeries. It's great news for those whose surgery has been proactive and at the forefront of getting jabs done in the previous at risk groups, either as individuals surgeries or as part of a group.

I am not affected directly but I feel for those who are registered with practices who have been somewhat lax in their duties to their patients. As has already been noted, it must make sense to allow those in Group 6 who are able and willing to travel to have access to the general hub system. Hopefully it will be sorted soon.

5 hours ago, Stevie j said:

Hi everyone. I'm new to this forum so be gentle !. I'm supposed to be cruising on Aurora in April 2021. Two of the ports of call are in Portugal. With Portugal being one of the 33 red risk countries do you think I will have to use one of these 'quarantine hotel's when arriving back in the UK. The last port of call is Guernsey...

Hi Stevie

Welcome to the forum. What is that date of your Aurora cruise in April? If I remember correctly, I thought all P&O cruises were paused until 24th April but I'm sure others on here will be able to confirm if that is correct. If it is correct then you should have been contacted by P&O or your TA to spell out your options

45 minutes ago, zap99 said:

Kalos. Not been reading the FT this morning?.I have my jab booked for Saturday morning. We had the surge testing last week, looking for the South African deviant. Didn't find the little blighter. Like all the way through this pandemic I will follow the guidelines, listen to what real experts say, ignore the armchair experts and not take advice from the FT.

Have you seen the results of the surge tests in your area? Only asking because I read a report in this morning's paper that the labs doing the genomic sequencing have not yet reported results from the surge tests but are expected to issue some data later this week.

3 minutes ago, joeecco said:

We basically already know that May is cancelled as Moley said the issue is whether to cancel June too or hold out. 

Can you qualify that statement? Is it just a pretty realistic hunch that cruising will not be starting in May or have you heard anything concrete from P&O about May cruises. AFAIK the suspension of cruising from P&O is only until 24th April at present.

I have a 1st May cruise on Aurora booked but have heard nothing to date. Hence the reason I'm following this thread with interest. The only thing I know is that our final payment date has been altered to 30 days before departure rather than the standard 90 days

11 hours ago, Selbourne said:

No option to do this on the system that my GP surgery uses (EMIS). 

It would seem, from several posts, that access to medical records varies quite a bit from surgery to surgery with the online systems. I know that with our GP practice we had to register for the online system and the practice then sent you a login name and password which you could keep or change to something more memorable. I don't think there was any differentiation in what you could access - the records, prescription ordering and appointment booking were there from the start.

I think the records we can access are in an abridged form but it is still useful to check occasionally for blood test results and other data.

Just for information to others, I was wondering if my vaccination would be included in my patient records at the local GP practice and had a quick check this evening.

Our surgery subscribes to an online system called "Systmonline Patient Online Service" whereby once registered we can order repeat prescriptions, book appointments and view our medical records.

I checked my record and sure enough the vaccination was recorded in my record as having been done on the 29th January. However, against that record there was a small attachment icon and when I clicked on that it came up headed "COVID-19 Vaccination Record" and gave me a full and detailed record of my vaccination including Patient Demographics, Eligibility Criteria, Vaccinations (including procedure, vaccine type, batch number, site of vaccination and who administered it etc), Attendance Details (date and location).

I don't know how many other GP practices subscribe to an online system like this but it strikes me as an ideal way to access and produce a "proof of vaccination" if challenged to so so in the future.

The only drawback I can see is that me printing it off from my records doesn't really carry any official weight, so it would probably have to be issued and approved by a GP at the practice to be fully accepted.

Just a thought for the future in all this agonising over Vaccine Passports

1 hour ago, Beckett said:

Hello Arlowood. You're spot on about availability but there has also been the issue of holding back until all cohort targets have been reached. In my vaccine hub we were instructed not to commence on our aged 65-69 age group until all possible efforts to contact un-vaccinated over 70s had been reached. Thankfully this has now been achieved and we can commence the 65+ from tomorrow.

 

I didn't see the particular news item from last night but I know the guy to whom you are referring. His name is Martin and yes he's a Trauma Consultant at King's College Hospital in London and is also working in a vaccine centre. I'm not sure if it's a centre within Kings or not. He did a news article earlier during the week and came down very heavily on the anti-vaxxers. Let's hope his attempts to reach the concerned members of the BAME community are successful.

 

Best wishes

Jane.x

Hi Jane.

Many thanks for the clarification. I'm sure in the current situation, where there are several factors that impinge on the vaccine roll-out, there are bound to be hiccups along the way. Supply issues, coupled with some local variations in administration strategies, are inevitably going to give rise to differences in the national picture. Nevertheless I think we are doing a great job in our target to vaccinate the most vulnerable groups as quickly as possible.

Keep up the good work

I was slightly puzzled by a news item last night that featured a vaccine hub in the London area somewhere. It featured a black trauma consultant who was working as a vaccinator and trying to be an ambassador for the BAME community to persuade more to come forward and increase the take-up.

At the start of the piece they stated that this hub was working "flat-out" to get the vaccines administered. However, later in the same piece, with images of the same hub in the background, it stated that they were only open 2 days a week - which rather jarred with their definition of flat out.

I'm guessing it will be related to supply issues and the number of days they can vaccinate being constrained by vaccine availability

23 minutes ago, Selbourne said:

Doubt it. More likely to be another Island ending with ‘a’ I would guess. However, I have thought of a very topical name that is short and fits with the P&O style - “Corona”. Am I too late to suggest it? 😂 

How about "Caronia" . Ship of that name was launched on the Clyde in 1947 and served as a Cunarder on US and Caribbean cruises.

3 hours ago, Purdey16 said:

I apologise if this as been said before but I have not had the time to read all through, but I got a email today from P & O about our Canada cruise on Arcadia 24 th September, even though Canada have closed their boarders up until feb 22 next year, P & O are NOT cancelling our cruise yet , they are keeping ther options open in the hope that things will be turned around and go ahead , at least on this cruise they only have our deposit, but full fare to be paid in April which I’m sure we will not be paying if Canada doesn’t open up , I really can’t see this going what’s so ever and a bit puzzled why p & o have taken this route apart from holding on to my money longer 😠

I would check with P&O or your TA if you used one. As I understand it, in the current situation, P&O have modified their policy on balance payments and reduced the payment interval from 90days to 30 days  before the departure date. If that applies to your Canada cruise, and I don't see why not, your final payment will not be due until the last week in August rather than April.

Hopefully that will mean a bit of breathing space to allow for some clarification on whether the cruise is likely to go ahead.

Another factor might be that P&O are possibly negotiating a change in the itinerary to a US "discovery" cruise - but that would really be a major change that you could challenge.

8 hours ago, AnnieC said:

That's what I've read and, very sadly, they are lagging behind. Australia also has a problem with vaccines, though they have far fewer cases (like about nil) due to their very strict lockdowns and isolated location. Let's hope we remember them (and many others) when we work out how many spare vaccines we have to dole out.

They may be lagging behind in terms of local manufacturing plants but there was an article about a week ago that was accusing the Canadian Government of "vaccine nationalism". It would appear that they have pre-orders in the pipeline for vaccine doses that would treat the population of Canada four times over. They have ordered 362 million doses for a population of 9.6 million. See Guardian article below:-

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/29/canada-and-uk-among-countries-with-most-vaccine-doses-ordered-per-person

As an aside, the UK also is among the top countries who are over-subscribed in terms of vaccine pre-orders

6 minutes ago, Adawn47 said:

Correct me if I'm wrong, but when the vaccinations were  first discussed in a briefing, didn't  Chris Whitty? say that it was important the 2nd dose had to be the the same vaccine as the 1st?

Avril

I think you are correct but equally at that point in time we only had the trial data provided by the separate research groups. I think it would have been jumped upon if he had suggested a mix and match approach even before the programme had got off the ground.

Now with the majority of the most vulnerable having received their first dose it would seem sensible to investigate the mixing option. That trial will now start in the lower over-50's group as they come forward for vaccination

From what I hear it will only be later this year or even next year before they will have the data to support or reject the mixing approach. All the vulnerable groups dosed this year will get the same vaccine for both doses

1 hour ago, ace2542 said:

 It sounds like the work of the Umbrella corporation from Resident Evil to me. Surely you can't match up two vaccine one mRNA based one none mRNA based and hope for better results. I don't think it will work like that. I am quite happy to have the same vaccine twice if need be because sadly the single shot doesn't look that effective. But I am not having a cocktail not a chance in hell.

This discussion featured in the BBC news bulletin at 1pm. It would appear that mixing vaccines is practiced routinely in other therapies. Also during the Ebola epidemic they found that employing an approach of giving mixed vaccines was shown to be more beneficial and provided better outcomes.

It would appear that the Pfizer and Oxford/AZ vaccines both target the spike protein on the virus but in completely different ways. On that basis there is hope that a combination approach could boost the efficacy. Time will tell but it is certainly worth trying. Also with other new vaccines in the pipeline it would make eminent sense to investigate his mix and match philosophy to help the global effort to control Covid-19

13 minutes ago, pete14 said:

Josy - I have just been in touch with the trial who have confirmed that this is being considered but some way from regulatory approval which they will need. It sounds quite sensible though.

I read that earlier post about the crossover experiment being done in the Novavax trial. I think that is a brilliant idea and I'm just disappointed that the study group running the Oxford/AZ trial did not think to introduce that option for their over-70's volunteers, of which I am one. I had to ask to be unblinded and was told that I was in the placebo group so went ahead and booked a jab at one of the local hubs last Friday. Ended up with the Pfizer jab.

I have a review appointment in March so I will query the point with the people I see then. Too late now to consider a switch to do the crossover.

However, serendipitously, I believe the Government are looking at mixing and matching jabs to give them more flexibility so maybe I might get the AZ one as my follow up.

13 minutes ago, Bloodaxe said:

 

I had a call from our surgery yesterday offering me a jab on Saturday, I asked about my Wife, told she is not on the list yet.

I am 74 and she is 71 so we are both in group 4, I said no thanks I will wait until we can both have it at the same time.

This morning I received the letter asking me to book on line, it did say I could wait to be contacted by our surgery.

It does seem a little disorganised to me but I will wait for my Wife anyway.

 

 

That seems a rather arbitrary and annoying response from your surgery. You are both in Group 4 so there should be no reason to refuse your wife a jab. Maybe they were short of vaccine supplies - but still very frustrating for you I imagine

3 hours ago, jeanlyon said:

No neither me nor my husband have a second date.

In the Nottingham area, the hubs vaccine appointments are organised through the "Swiftqueue" website and we have 7 hubs currently with others due to come onstream. With the Swiftqueue system you are automatically assigned a date for your 2nd jab when you book the first. Wife and I were jabbed last Friday and we have 17th April as the date for our 2nd jab.

All worked well to a degree although I had a problem with the jab booking system. After registering on the Swiftqueue platform I selected a hub and and appointment time for my jab. The system then allowed you to add a family member and I added my wife and selected a time for her jab 10 mins after mine. However when I got to the end of the process my appointment had disappeared from the summary page at the end. However I did receive a text and an email confirmation.

When we turned up last Friday it turned out that I was indeed AWOL from their system. However the young lady in reception quickly added me back in and all went through smoothly. I now have another text and email confirming my 2nd jab date in April.

Everything was very well organised and we were in and out within 30mins including the 15min waiting time as we had the Pfizer jab.

59 minutes ago, Aulanis said:

BIL  has emailed he has just had his 1st jab  (or maybe 3rd)  He ,as did some of you took part in the Novavax trials but was never told if he had the real thing or the placebo.   He doesnt know why he was called up  for a vaccine

as he is in the 60-69 group  but went and they didnt know either but gave it.

Arm was sore for 2 days  so he contacted  whoever at Novavax and they said it was OK but in no circumstances should he take a  second (Fourth) jab  until it was confirmed what he had had on the trial as 3 was more than enough for anyone!!! 

Just wondering if any of you have been told what you had in the trials and what you have to do when called up under the normal channels.

I was a volunteer in the over-70 cohort for the Oxford/AZ vaccine. When the Pfizer vaccine received approval back in December we were sent information about how to respond if we got an invitation to have the NHS vaccine.

Essentially we should contact the study directors for the group we were involved with and ask to be "unblinded". If we had received 2 doses of the Oxford vaccine then we were told that we need not take the Pfizer (or any other) jab. If we only had one dose of the Oxford vaccine or the placebo then we should accept the offer from the NHS to be jabbed. Unfortunately the unblinding means that any data cannot be included in the final assessment but we were asked to continue with the follow up visits as the data generated would still be valuable for safety and immune response purposes.

As it happens I had the placebo and was inoculated yesterday with the Pfizer vaccine

47 minutes ago, Splice the mainbrace said:

So from what I understand from todays news, the EU want AZ to export vaccine from UK to EU countries but individual EU countries may stop export of vaccines to the UK (or other non EU countries) if it is not in the EU countries interest!!

Could this put Pfizer 2nd doses at risk?

There is potentially a risk if the EU carries out it threat to scrutinise any "export" of vaccine manufactured in the EU to a non-EU country.

I get the impression that this sabre rattling by the EU is a bit of a smokescreen to divert attention away from their poor performance in acquiring sufficient vaccine orders for their own citizens. Firstly they stopped individual member states from striking deals on vaccine supply and insisted on a centralised system that introduced delays - hence the fact that they are behind the curve by about 3 months. Secondly they backed at least one horse that failed to finish - the French Sanofi vaccine.

In contrast we in the UK immediately convened a vaccine acquisition team of industry specialists who struck deals quickly with a number of the fledgling research groups. To date it seems that we were lucky in some respects and have backed at least 5 potential winners with maybe another 2 coming up on the rails.

OK we have been lucky - but there's an phrase that says you make your own luck if you go about things in the right way. At least our vaccine strategy is one of the shining lights in an otherwise gloomy set of performances in this pandemic

As far as I understand it. In the Oxford/AZ trials, there were insufficient numbers in the over-65 cohort who actually caught the disease to make a solid prediction on efficacy. However immune responses were measured in all groups. Those in the over-65 group showed equivalent immune responses to those in other groups. So it is probably a fair assumption to say that the vaccine should be effective. No doubt with the millions being vaccinated there is now a massive pool of trial subjects to confirm or refute those assumptions.

I saw one journalist claim that the German reaction may be some form of "vaccine nationalism" since the Pfizer jab was developed by a German company BioNTech

1 hour ago, Britboys said:

Had an interesting e-mailshot from P&O today. Whilst acknowledging that I have a cruise booked with them, they wonder if I can be tempted to book another 'Adventure'. The interesting bit is that in part of the email, they ask "Which of our ships will you choose?" - and then go on to provide links to cruises on Azura, Britannia, Iona and Ventura. No links to Arcadia or Aurora.

Not suggesting that they are about to sell them off or anything but it may be linked in to Molecrochip's post some time back suggesting that the two smaller ships will return to duty later than their large counterparts...

That's odd - I had a similar email this afternoon as we're booked on Aurora for a 1st May cruise (unlikely I'm guessing) and August (more hopeful). They were suggesting I consider going for a booking in 2022 and when I clicked on the link it was only showing cruises on Aurora and Arcadia for the Mediterranean.

The preamble in the email did refer to us preferring adult only ships (as we do) so maybe each email is tailored to the cruise profile of each guest.

Suppose it still does not rule out the possibility that Aurora and Arcadia may not sail during this year but they are still being promoted for 2022

2 minutes ago, yorkshirephil said:

I think something like this was always going to happen, everybody wants their share (or what they think is their share) and they want it now, I think this type of situation will escalate globally as other countries will compare themselves with the likes of Israel, the UK and US who are leading the world at the moment. These situations don't always bring the best out in people,  look at the furore in the early days of our vaccine deployment when the vaccine companies were being blamed for not supplying enough vaccine. If the EU think they are being short changed they will hit back just like we would have in the same situation.

Yes I believe there was a report last week that Canada have ordered enough vaccine to treat their population four times over. 

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-12-07/canada-has-reserved-more-vaccine-doses-per-person-than-anywhere

I think the Archbishop of Canterbury had a go at them - suggesting that we are not protected until all countries are protected and maybe they should rethink their "stockpiling"

15 minutes ago, Dermotsgirl said:

Unfortunately, without Covid restrictions,  these people would still have not got their treatment, as even more people would have caught Covid, and the resultant strain on the health service would have meant that there would have been even less capacity for other treatment.

 

Even after the pandemic ends, the effects of it will be felt down the years in so many ways. As I’ve said before, nothing is quite the same again after an event of this magnitude 

I would also pay tribute to the healthcare professionals who. at the very early stages of the pandemic, started trials to asses what treatments might be effective in alleviating the symptoms of Covid.

My brother (78) had a fall in early March and was operated on to repair a broken femur. After a few days he was discharged to a rehab centre that happened to be in a residential care home. 10 days later he was diagnosed with Covid. In the A&E admissions area my niece was effectively told that if his condition deteriorated than he would not be offered an ICU bed. I think at that time there may have been some arbitrary scoring system being used to triage patients and select those who would benefit from Intensive care.

In any event he was transferred to a ward and put on a CPAP machine. A day or so later he was asked if he wanted to be part of a trial for an intervention treatment. He agreed and after about a week he was taken off the CPAP and has now fully recovered. It wasn't until he was back home and talking to his GP that he found out that he had received dexamethazone as part of that trial.

When talking to him I suggested that he should start buying lottery tickets - he could so easily have been one of the untreated placebo patients on that trial and who knows how that would have turned out.