Montreal City Weblog

Kate 11:27 on 2021-01-05 Permalink Reply  

• Chris 11:51 on 2021-01-05 Permalink

  Not me. They’re making the right decision changing course here.

  A single dose gives something like 50% protection. Many people in long term care, and many health staff haven’t had even a *single* shot yet. A friend of mine works in the covid hot clinic with covid positive patients and hasn’t had a first shot. It is less just/equitable that some people would go from 50% to 90% protection when so many others are at 0%. It would be a different story if the first shot was useless without the second, but that’s not the case.

• jeather 11:53 on 2021-01-05 Permalink

  Ontario is doing the reverse, so we will see a natural experiment soon. (I have said already that I am inclined to think that just hoping a second shot eventually will confer immunity is a bad idea; I am now fairly relieved I am lower on the priority list and there will probably be sufficient supply by then.)

• Meezly 11:57 on 2021-01-05 Permalink

  The priority of the government is to lower the number of cases for the province and break the 2nd wave, not ensure that the individuals who received the first dose will be fully protected.

  In an ideal situation, people would be getting their 2nd booster within the recommended period, but this is our sad reality.

  It would have been helpful for the article to find a study that proves the efficacy rate of the first dose is 90%, not a flawed one that shows ~50%. One that used a controlled group who properly isolated for 14 days in order to not mess with the efficacy of the first and most important dose?

  I’m in the last group to get the vaccine, so about a year from now I can only hope that by then there are enough for the general population to get their booster within the right time!

• Kate 12:18 on 2021-01-05 Permalink

  OK, true enough. But are we spread that thin?

• jeather 12:37 on 2021-01-05 Permalink

  I had to go to the ER at the MUHC Saturday night, and it was absolutely dead. Never seen a hospital so empty. I’m told that few people came in on Jan 1, so they had a brief chance to catch up, but it was incredibly weird. (I am not sick.)

• Chris 12:37 on 2021-01-05 Permalink

  Yes, we we are currently spread that thin. Like I said, many staff that work with infectious, known-positive patients (doing things like intubations) haven’t even had a first dose.

• jeather 12:43 on 2021-01-05 Permalink

  I am not suggesting hospital workers are lying, btw, just because the ER was fairly empty for an hour one Saturday evening.

• Kevin 12:57 on 2021-01-05 Permalink

  Nobody knows if waiting to deliver a second shot will actually provide immunity to people: it hasn’t been tested, and it’s not recommended by the people who developed the Pfizer-BioNTech or the Moderna vaccines.

  This is a political decision because the government couldn’t figure out how to schedule people to get vaccinations.

• Michael Black 13:03 on 2021-01-05 Permalink

  We’ve received so few doses so far that they might as well do the second dose. Taper it off later if supply is slow, they’ve deemed the early recipients as “most vulnerable” (even thiugh that’s in oawrt based on dependency on others). There seems to be snags beyond available doses, which had better be worked out fast.

  Hospitals have changed a lot in a year. Twice a doctor’s appointment was cancelled. I needed a blood test in late May, just walk in to the regular clinic that does its own blood tests. But by August, it was done in a blood test clinic, and by November that switched to appointments only.So the five times I’ve been to the hospital in 2020, it’s been quite empty. But none of that was emergency. But it’s impacting on “regular” matters.

  I would point out that a 35 year old Nunavut woman died this week from the Virus, after going to Winnipeg to give birth.

• Tim S. 13:04 on 2021-01-05 Permalink

  I nothing about the science involved, but just as an observer of events I’m a little worried that governments are playing around with the one thing that seems to have gone well in the past year. I would rather go through restrictions for X amount of time, knowing that at some point there’s sort of an end, than messing this up and everybody ending up with some but not really enough immunity.

• jeather 13:13 on 2021-01-05 Permalink

  When I was in the ICU in May, it seemed like a normal level of busy, albeit without visitors. Can’t really believe two family members died in a pandemic, neither of the pandemic.

• DeWolf 13:57 on 2021-01-05 Permalink

  Unless I’m mistaken, the government isn’t saying the second dose will be eliminated, or that people will have to wait many months, right? They are just using the doses they have on hand on the expectation that there will be a steady stream of vaccines coming in this month.

  And there is no news about vaccine shipments being delayed… right?

• Chris 14:03 on 2021-01-05 Permalink

  DeWolf: exactly. I have a feeling some people think that the entire population will get a first dose before anyone gets a second dose. That’s not it. Right now, there are vaccines sitting in freezers doing fuck all. We should put them to use immediately.

• Faiz imam 14:19 on 2021-01-05 Permalink

  Ontario just announced they will get 80,000 doses à week for the next 3 weeks.

  They are setting a goal of 12,000 a day to give those shots effectively.

  We have not gotten Québec numbers , but cut the above by a third and it shouldbe about right

• Joey 14:57 on 2021-01-05 Permalink

  I think DeWolf is right. This is a good explainer with some pondering of the implications (and makes clear there’s no easy answer): https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2021/01/04/variants-and-vaccines Highly recommend previous posts if you’re curious about the COVID-19 vaccines.

• DeWolf 16:27 on 2021-01-05 Permalink

  Apparently Quebec has only administered 1/3 of the doses it has on hand. That means it still has too many extra doses sitting around even if it were to give everyone their second shot according to the recommended 3-4 week timeline.

  The federal government is distributing the vaccines according to each province’s population, so if Ontario is receiving 80,000 doses a week this month, Quebec should be getting 46,000 doses a week. Doesn’t seem like there’s any reason to panic.

• Kevin 22:57 on 2021-01-05 Permalink

  There are vaccines sitting in freezers *while people are having their second appointments cancelled*.

  This is just government winging it because it is, once again, demonstrating incompetence at logistics.

• Carol 05:54 on 2021-01-06 Permalink

  We need to stick with 2 doses. Not happy about this. I do not want half a treatment. I would rather not get it then. Give me 2 or none at all.

• j2 09:44 on 2021-01-06 Permalink

  Re: hospitals ER being empty, if you have no capacity to handle past the ER, the state of the ER is irrelevant but you want it empty.

  I’ve read a tweet from a “virologist” (nobody knows you’re a dog etc) raising the concern that single doses will lead to vaccine resistant strains.

  Also that if B117 and/or the SA virus is R>1 even with these lockdowns then these illness and death rates are the new norm.

  (I literally can’t do anything more than I’ve been doing so I’ve stopped reading.)