GroveHillWanderer

Strange, that's exactly what people said when it was stuck at around 2,000 cases for a while, then when it was 3,000, then 4,000. It wasn't true then because in each case, it subsequently went higher, so I'm not sure why it should be true now.

They shouldn't be included if you want to keep the data of consistent quality. Rapid antigen test kits are notoriously unreliable and need a follow-up PCR test to confirm. Or at least if you're going to include them, they should be listed separately. But then I suppose you'd have to remove them if the PCR test comes back negative - so again you'd be having problems with data consistency, numbers going up and down etc. Best sticking to one standard of measurement, if you ask me.

I haven't seen anything saying a single dose of AZ is highly protective against the Delta variant - in fact everything I've seen says pretty much the opposite. As the BMJ paper linked to below says, it takes two doses of either AZ or Pfizer to get good protection against Delta, whereas: Covid-19: Two vaccine doses are crucial for protection against delta, study finds

No, they weren't, not if by "vaccinated" you mean fully vaccinated, i.e. people who had had their 2nd dose of vaccine more than two weeks before getting sick. Those who died and were fully vaccinated (with their 2nd dose of AZ at least a couple of weeks beforehand) represented only 0.6% of the fatalities.

Sorry, but it's just not true that all people over 60 got the AZ vaccine. At least here in Hua Hin they started implementing the government policy of SinoVac for the 1st dose and AstraZeneca for the second (and for all nationalities and age groups) starting around the 3rd week in July. On the day I got my first dose (see vaccination record card below) they vaccinated around 1,500 people with SinoVac who were mostly over 60 as far as I could tell - and should have been anyway, based on the eligibility criteria when they were giving the appointments. Certainly, all the people I knew personally were over 60.

It'd be kind of hypocritical if they didn't, given that Canada has been using a mixture of AZ and either Pfizer or Moderna for some time now. Canada recommends mixing and matching AstraZeneca, Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines

Clearly a typo. The article itself uses the word "reopening," which is obviously what it should have been in the heading.

Then you haven't been going through the daily figures. As others have mentioned, they frequently include foreigners of various nationalities.

Although as I mentioned earlier, antibiotics are a completely different class of medicine and so are not directly comparable to vaccines, I should perhaps point out that it is also possible (or even sometimes recommended) to mix them. For instance, in order to treat the common stomach bacteria helicobacter pylori, the standard treatment involves a combination therapy of two or three different antibiotics - plus a proton pump inhibitor and an antacid. The idea of mixing vaccines is based on sound scientific principles and has been used with vaccines for a number of different diseases in the past. The human immune system is an incredibly complex biological mechanism and consists of multiple different parts. No one vaccine can hope to stimulate all parts of it equally. For instance, as mentioned in the article linked to below, in reference to the AZ vaccine with its adenovirus vector technology: Mix-and-match COVID vaccines As the article goes on to point out, by mixing and matching these two types of vaccine, you are getting the best of both worlds. So, while it's true that the specific combination of vaccines other than AZ and Pfizer does not have enough clinical trial data yet, it doesn't make sense to just dismiss the whole idea out of hand, since it makes a lot of logical, scientific sense and has a proven track record. Also, the CoViD-19 vaccines currently being used are not experimental. Experimental would mean they are still undergoing testing (test and experiment being synonyms). All the CoVid-19 vaccines in use have completed the full range of required clinical test phases. The only ones that can be described as experimental are the ones such as Novavax and CureVac, that are still in the trial phase and have not been authorized for use yet.

Well, antibiotics are a therapeutic medicine and vaccines are not so they're not even remotely comparable. When it comes to flu vaccines though, in a couple of ways you are actually mixing different vaccines. Firstly, when you get a flu shot it's not a single vaccine, it's a combination of either 3 (trivalent) or 4 (quadrivalent) different vaccines. Secondly, each year the flu vaccines change depending on the different strains of flu expected to be in circulation, so from one year to the next you are also "mixing and matching" the different combinations of vaccines.

Oxford University already started a study into mixing the AZ vaccine with Sputnik V back in February. It's mentioned in the same Nature Magazine article I referenced earlier. Actually, the Sputnik V vaccine is a bit "mix-and-match" in and of itself. It uses a different adenovirus vector for the first and second doses, so in a sense you're getting two different vaccines in the two shots.

Not yet as far as I know, but then they're probably not well placed to do so, as they generally wouldn't have unfettered access to use their rival's products in trials. There have been a number of studies done by independent scientists into using a heterologous prime-boost regimen (mixing and matching vaccines) which were published recently. As the Nature magazine article below states: Mix-and-match COVID vaccines In the UK they're also doing a study which involves looking at the results from 8 different combinations of vaccines but I don't believe they've published the results yet. However, as that Nature Magazine article says: Obviously, having the full clinical trial results that could confirm (or rebut) that confidence, would be preferable.

I have absolutely no objection to being asked and to be honest, I can't see why anyone would object. Whether you've been vaccinated or not, just tell them, "Yes I have," or, "No, I haven't."

It's only partly wrong - it can't absolutely, unequivocally determine the direction of the sound but it does appear to show a weapon being fired from within the police station by someone in what appears to be a police uniform and then there is a sound consistent with the weapon being fired from that location. I don't know enough about weapons to say if it's possible to tell what kind of firearm it was - whether it was one using live ammunition or a baton round.

This is such a ridiculously stupid (and ultimately self-defeating) approach to take. The virus doesn't care if you have the required visa or not - it will infect you anyway. And once infected, a person who does not have the required visa can spread the virus to others around them in Thailand just as easily as someone who does.

You seem to have missed the completely tongue-in-cheek nature of @placeholder's post. The clue is in the fact that nobody has ever actually knitted a vaccine.

No it doesn't, it says that it is "as effective as the Pfizer vaccine when it comes to antibody stimulation." That means it performs as well as it (and in one specific way only) - not better.

You don't have to go to immigration for 90 day reports. There are a number of alternatives. I happen to do the reports in person because it's convenient for me (less than 5 minutes drive) but you don't have to.

It's very difficult to say anything categorically and in fact neither Goepfert nor any other person with expertise in this field has stated categorically that there could never ever, possibly be any long term effects but they have pointed out that it's extremely unlikely given that the components of vaccines are eliminated from the body within a short period of time. So after that period, there's no biological mechanism whereby the vaccine could cause side effects later down the road - because there's simply nothing there any more to cause such effects. Let's try a different approach - if you think there could be long term adverse effects that will only show themselves after a lengthy period has elapsed, what would you propose as the mechanism for that?

The SARS-CoV-2 virus is constantly mutating - all viruses do. This virus has already had thousands of different variants and will undoubtedly have thousands more. One thing to bear in mind is that the vast majority of them have been either no worse, or actually less dangerous than the original "wild" strain. There's a limit to the amount of change a virus can undergo while still remaining viable. Hopefully Delta represents the pinnacle of its virulence. There are no guarantees of that of course - but we can always hope.

I wear an N95 mask every time I go out of the house - I don't find it particularly uncomfortable or burdensome.

Not sure what you're on about. SinoVac is not used in Israel. But if it were, a study done there would get different efficacy figures than one done elsewhere.

I've said this before and I'll say it again - efficacy figures vary based on time and location (and clinical endpoint). So one study in one location can give you one rate of efficacy against one endpoint, while a study done with different parameters can give different values. So, as @Bkk Brian already pointed out, a study done later in Israel gave a completely different efficacy figure for the Pfizer vaccine against symptomatic infection with the Delta variant, of only 39%. The important thing to bear in mind is that almost all the vaccines provide high levels of protection against serious illness, hospitalisation or death. Directly comparing efficacy rates of different vaccines based on studies done in different locations at different times, with necessarily different conditions, is not a particularly useful exercise.

Plant based doesn't mean that they're using plants to provide the active ingredients for the vaccine. The Chulalongkorn University vaccine is a protein sub-unit vaccine, which means it uses a non-harmful protein from the virus as the antigen (the thing that induces an immune response). They then have to manufacture large amounts of this protein by culturing it in some kind of growth medium. This can be insect-based (as in the Novavax vaccine) or plant-based, as in this case. So the plants are simply being used as a growth medium. The active ingredient in the vaccine is as mentioned, a protein derived from the SARS-COV-2 virus. The actual plant medium being used to grow the proteins in, is made out of heirloom tobacco leaves from Australia. Baiya Vaccine from Chula

That's untrue. With the increase in cases in Oz recently, there have been a number of deaths. There were 6 on August 7 alone as the graph below shows. https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/australia/