I wasn’t really speaking to the Delta issue and I didn’t mention it in my post.
I do understand the reasons for confining the AZ vaccine (largely but not exclusively) to the 60s cohort earlier this year. In March and April, it was clear that a lot of hard work and money was going into the difficult work of securing any of the 3 approved vaccines, and that how they would be used was based on the risk/benefit profiles known at the time in order to optimise vaccination rates and minimise hospitalisations.
Hence: NIAC said that the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines were “associated with higher overall protection which supports the preference to use them in those at highest risk of severe illness and death from Covid-19″ (unable to insert link to journal.ie 3 Feb 2021).
I don’t think there were complaints last Spring from people in their 60s being offered the AZ vaccine (despite such official statements implying they were not getting the higher level of protection offered by the approved mRNA vaccines, as well as some other European countries officially advising that sections of this population should not receive it – see, for example, the article above) because most intelligent people understood the complexities of supply and the need to priortiise the even-higher-risk groups with any available mRNA vaccines.
The age-risk profile was well publicised, understood and supported. Everyone celebrated those in their 70sand older getting their mRNA vaccines first, as well as groups of frontline workers and other vulnerable people getting vaccinated as early as possible.
The part that was infantilising and patronising at that time was Leo stating ‘you will go to the back of the queue, and have to wait for an alternative to be offered by the State’. He didn’t say ‘might’, he said ‘will’. (unable to insert link to rte.ie 15 April 2021)
The ‘feeling like a fool’, and loss of trust, comes from quickly realising this was a lie; from knowing that my fellow 60s cohort who were ‘cute’, or ‘in the know’, and did not comply with the rollout to their group, were not deprived of a vaccine as threatened, but rather rewarded almost immediately with a vaccine that NIAC had acknowledged offed 'higher overall protection' (and had no known rare serious side effects as had emerged with AZ).
Those fully-vaccinated-for-several-weeks-non-compliers have now been joined by the fully-vaccinated in the 50s cohort, many in the 40s cohort and, if you are still waiting for your second AZ vaccine, you are in a similar posiiton to those in their 30s who have now had their first vaccine.
All of this pales when one looks at the injustice of vaccine supply in most African countries: less than 1% of the population across the African continent have been fully vaccinated.
I do understand the reasons for confining the AZ vaccine (largely but not exclusively) to the 60s cohort earlier this year. In March and April, it was clear that a lot of hard work and money was going into the difficult work of securing any of the 3 approved vaccines, and that how they would be used was based on the risk/benefit profiles known at the time in order to optimise vaccination rates and minimise hospitalisations.
Hence: NIAC said that the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines were “associated with higher overall protection which supports the preference to use them in those at highest risk of severe illness and death from Covid-19″ (unable to insert link to journal.ie 3 Feb 2021).
I don’t think there were complaints last Spring from people in their 60s being offered the AZ vaccine (despite such official statements implying they were not getting the higher level of protection offered by the approved mRNA vaccines, as well as some other European countries officially advising that sections of this population should not receive it – see, for example, the article above) because most intelligent people understood the complexities of supply and the need to priortiise the even-higher-risk groups with any available mRNA vaccines.
The age-risk profile was well publicised, understood and supported. Everyone celebrated those in their 70sand older getting their mRNA vaccines first, as well as groups of frontline workers and other vulnerable people getting vaccinated as early as possible.
The part that was infantilising and patronising at that time was Leo stating ‘you will go to the back of the queue, and have to wait for an alternative to be offered by the State’. He didn’t say ‘might’, he said ‘will’. (unable to insert link to rte.ie 15 April 2021)
The ‘feeling like a fool’, and loss of trust, comes from quickly realising this was a lie; from knowing that my fellow 60s cohort who were ‘cute’, or ‘in the know’, and did not comply with the rollout to their group, were not deprived of a vaccine as threatened, but rather rewarded almost immediately with a vaccine that NIAC had acknowledged offed 'higher overall protection' (and had no known rare serious side effects as had emerged with AZ).
Those fully-vaccinated-for-several-weeks-non-compliers have now been joined by the fully-vaccinated in the 50s cohort, many in the 40s cohort and, if you are still waiting for your second AZ vaccine, you are in a similar posiiton to those in their 30s who have now had their first vaccine.
All of this pales when one looks at the injustice of vaccine supply in most African countries: less than 1% of the population across the African continent have been fully vaccinated.
