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Possible vaccines/treatment(s) for Coronavirus

Fantastic news. Really interesting they seem to be going with a one dose strategy to start with. Second shot within 12 weeks should get a lot more people protected in Q1 next year.
 
Also important to note the following as people are mentioning that it's not a very effective vaccine compared to Pfizer's and Moderna's:

"...the primary efficacy endpoint based on a pooled analysis showed that the vaccine was 70.4% (confidence interval: 54.8% to 80.6%) effective at preventing symptomatic COVID-19 occurring more than 14 days after receiving two doses of the vaccine. A secondary efficacy endpoint of prevention of severe disease demonstrated no cases of severe infections or hospitalisations in the vaccine group."

 
Giving it the glass half empty vibe, I wonder what the more scientifically minded of yous think about it being the 2 x full dose version getting approval? I understand the .5 + 1 dose is in further tests, so can't be given yet, which is all good and proper. Same time there seems to be a significant difference in efficacy (90+% Vs 70% in rough figures).

Needless to say I'll be having the vaccine when I offered - I'll be 60 soon - which will likely be the Oxford version. Suppose I'm thinking about it purely at the level of what it does to your day to day life/behaviour/psychology. If you got to a point where the majority of the population had 90% protection, that starts to feel like 'normal life', even with some ongoing social distancing. 70% less so.
 
Giving it the glass half empty vibe, I wonder what the more scientifically minded of yous think about it being the 2 x full dose version getting approval? I understand the .5 + 1 dose is in further tests, so can't be given yet, which is all good and proper. Same time there seems to be a significant difference in efficacy (90+% Vs 70% in rough figures).

Needless to say I'll be having the vaccine when I offered - I'll be 60 soon - which will likely be the Oxford version. Suppose I'm thinking about it purely at the level of what it does to your day to day life/behaviour/psychology. If you got to a point where the majority of the population had 90% protection, that starts to feel like 'normal life', even with some ongoing social distancing. 70% less so.

I'd probably take a similar stance to the MHRA to start with, data isnt good enough and other possible explanations for the better results exist.

As for feelings and equations relating to what percentage of the population has what level of protection via vaccination, such things are not on my radar at all at this stage. Its getting too far ahead of things for my liking, especially when we dont currently have a vaccination plan that involves healthy people under 50. I have to wait till we get to see for ourselves what various levels of vaccination do to things like hospital admissions.

 
Giving it the glass half empty vibe, I wonder what the more scientifically minded of yous think about it being the 2 x full dose version getting approval? I understand the .5 + 1 dose is in further tests, so can't be given yet, which is all good and proper. Same time there seems to be a significant difference in efficacy (90+% Vs 70% in rough figures).

The .5 dose wasnt planned so no suprise it isn't the approved dosage.

IMO the problem you have when talking about percentages is that they vary a great deal with small data. Random variation could easily change 70% effective to 80 or 90%. I wouldn't worry about which dosage regime or which manufacturers vaccine gives the best results. Time will tell but for now it seems they all work rather well.
 
The .5 dose wasnt planned so no suprise it isn't the approved dosage.

IMO the problem you have when talking about percentages is that they vary a great deal with small data. Random variation could easily change 70% effective to 80 or 90%. I wouldn't worry about which dosage regime or which manufacturers vaccine gives the best results. Time will tell but for now it seems they all work rather well.
Yeah, absolutely in terms of it being the right decision. Supposed I'm just saying that if the difference is really 70% Vs 90% there will be significant differences in terms of how it plays out long term. Both in terms of population level protection and also the subjective reality of day to day life once vaccinated.
 
Latest Moderna (mRNA-1273) trial results (randomised, observer-blinded, placebo-controlled) with over 30k participants. After a 2 dose regimen (28 days apart) a vaccine efficacy of 94.1% (95%CI: 89.3-96.8) was observed. No episodes of severe illness were seen in the non-placebo group.
DOI: 10.1056/NEJMoa2035389
 
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China has approved it's self made vaccine saying it had 79.34% efficacy in a phase III study and was safe, although under emergency use rules it's already given out 4.5 million doses. The vaccine uses a chemically inactivated version of the entire virus and is made by Beijing Biological Products Institute, a division of China National Biotec Group (CNBG), part of state-owned Sinopharm.
 
Yeah, absolutely in terms of it being the right decision. Supposed I'm just saying that if the difference is really 70% Vs 90% there will be significant differences in terms of how it plays out long term. Both in terms of population level protection and also the subjective reality of day to day life once vaccinated.

Not really, both are just as effective at preventing severe disease and hospitalisations. The criteria for judging mild cases is different across different vaccine studies, so you can’t make direct comparisons.
 
Has this been posted?

Comment on twitter says " [the mix and match policy has] been in place since November and not a single journalist here has asked questions about it and the government hasn't bothered to explain why they think this will be effective "
It does sound like the next government unnecessary and avoidable fuck up
 
Has this been posted?

Comment on twitter says " [the mix and match policy has] been in place since November and not a single journalist here has asked questions about it and the government hasn't bothered to explain why they think this will be effective "
It does sound like the next government unnecessary and avoidable fuck up
Was just about to post about that:
England health officials defend contingency plan to mix Covid vaccines | World news | The Guardian
Needless to say, I don't know whether this is risky, but that's the point, they are announcing a strategy before they know whether it is safe/efficacious. Added to the shift in 2nd dose times it just doesn't build confidence in the vaccine programme. A, ahem, shot in the arm for ant-vax loons.
 
Was just about to post about that:
England health officials defend contingency plan to mix Covid vaccines | World news | The Guardian
Needless to say, I don't know whether this is risky, but that's the point, they are announcing a strategy before they know whether it is safe/efficacious. Added to the shift in 2nd dose times it just doesn't build confidence in the vaccine programme. A, ahem, shot in the arm for ant-vax loons.
i can see the logic (spread it out more thinly and hope it does more good more quickly overall) but its the kind of bodge it idea i'd come up with and rely on more responsible people to say NO DO IT PROPERLY
 
i can see the logic (spread it out more thinly and hope it does more good more quickly overall) but its the kind of bodge it idea i'd come up with and rely on more responsible people to say NO DO IT PROPERLY

There's no indication that e.g. Pfizer's 3-week gap is "properly", it's just the period that happened to be used in the trials.

You could argue that to do it "properly" is to use the data and tools we currently have to reduce death and serious illness as much as possible, in which case the JCVI method is the correct one, despite protestations form the manufacturer and overworked GPs.
 
There's no indication that e.g. Pfizer's 3-week gap is "properly", it's just the period that happened to be used in the trials.

You could argue that to do it "properly" is to use the data and tools we currently have to reduce death and serious illness as much as possible, in which case the JCVI method is the correct one, despite protestations form the manufacturer and overworked GPs.
But yes, it is the period used in the trials. None of this may make any difference or produce ill effects, but it just feels like it's been procedure, procedure, procedure, all along, then suddenly we've shifted to best guesses.
 
There's no indication that e.g. Pfizer's 3-week gap is "properly", it's just the period that happened to be used in the trials.

You could argue that to do it "properly" is to use the data and tools we currently have to reduce death and serious illness as much as possible, in which case the JCVI method is the correct one, despite protestations form the manufacturer and overworked GPs.
Its not just the period, it's mixing up the different vaccines
 
Its not just the period, it's mixing up the different vaccines

I covered that here:

 
Yeah, testing it live on us and seeing what happens.

No, the 'mix and match' thing is not for any standard use at all. It's for very limited exceptional circumstances (supply chain disruption for example) where someone needs a second dose but the same one they had as a first dose isn't available and they're clinically vulnerable for example, or maybe a healthcare worker or someone where no record of what vaccine they had first, then it's been approved that they could have a dose from another approved vaccine. It effectively is really two single doses of different vaccines rather than seeing it as mixing the doses up.

The news had someone on today nearly crying that their second vaccine dose had been cancelled and the reason they gave was they felt like their lives being back to normal was so close and had been suddenly taken away from them. FFS, nobody is going to be 'back to normal' life after their second dose now, why was the news was entertaining this kind of nonsense unchallenged? Some of the narratives around the vaccine are really unhelpful, and that's partly what's fueling the annoyance over the second doses being delayed. One dose is fine, we're all still going to be social distancing and mask wearing the rest of this year either way, and more people with one dose sooner will be better for all.

I think people are being a bit daft over some of this vaccine stuff and it's starting to smack of knee-jerk fear and fear mongering from a few headlines rather than anything more.
 
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No, the 'mix and match' thing is not for any standard use at all. It's for very limited exceptional circumstances (supply chain disruption for example) where someone needs a second dose but the same one they had as a first dose isn't available and they're clinically vulnerable for example, or maybe a healthcare worker or someone where no record of what vaccine they had first, then it's been approved that they could have a dose from another approved vaccine. It effectively is really two single doses of different vaccines rather than seeing it as mixing the doses up.
Does this mean that they could get a third dose of one or other of the vaccines then?
 
I think that's so far off where we are fuck knows tbh. Although it again would be something different. Like next year someone might get a new vaccine to cover them again after the immunity from this years one has faded. Like my flu vaccine is different every year, it's not like my 27th different vaccine dose if that makes sense?
 


I dont mind admitting that I am very nervous about the giddy, clumsy rush towards mass vaccination as a silver bullet that ends the nightmare, that governments and people in general have been embracing in various different ways for a month or so.

Maybe it will all be fine. But I certainly worry that a crude stance that does not involve a joined up approach, lacking genuine attempts to minimise levels of infection at all times, is really inviting a cruel pandemic lesson of epic proportions about how silver bullets may be sidestepped by the virus.

I do not have a means of estimating the chanes of any of these scenarios coming to pass. But I'm certainly not happy that the whole theme of vaccination seems to be used inappropriately to try to cope with the grim realities of an explosion in cases on top of the existing autumn/winter wave. I dont like mad dashes. I fear a variety of counterproductive outcomes. They might get away without these fears coming to pass, in which case I shall breath a rather large sigh of relief.

As for the rant by that virologist, I enjoyed it, although I probably dont need to tell anyone that I dont agree with the bit about 'hospitals, where onward transmission would presumably be rare'. If forced to presume, I would presume the opposite!
 
The virologist seems to be saying that delaying second doses is increasing the likelihood that vaccine-evading variants will arise. Or have I misunderstood?
 
honeslty think that most people, whether they know it or not, are traumatised by this - we have all been in prisons with invisible bars for so long. It's certainly affected my thinking, even in just subtle ways. I thank God or whatever for the scientists we have been working on this - people who know their stuff inside out. Just awe and humility toward them. Can you imagine if they weren't there??? but with this trauma that we have all felt, no matter how severe, i just worry that even the people who shoudl have their hands on the wheels are not affected and it's affecting them too. It feels like things are just getting worse and worse.
 
The virologist seems to be saying that delaying second doses is increasing the likelihood that vaccine-evading variants will arise. Or have I misunderstood?
He's presenting it as a potential risk, yes.

It's probably an exaggeration to say that it's like when the doctor insists that you finish the course of antibiotics, but you can see how limited, rather than overwhelming, immunity might actually assist mutations of the virus that can leap the comparatively low bar of partial immunity, with all that implies.
 
honeslty think that most people, whether they know it or not, are traumatised by this - we have all been in prisons with invisible bars for so long. It's certainly affected my thinking, even in just subtle ways. I thank God or whatever for the scientists we have been working on this - people who know their stuff inside out. Just awe and humility toward them. Can you imagine if they weren't there??? but with this trauma that we have all felt, no matter how severe, i just worry that even the people who shoudl have their hands on the wheels are not affected and it's affecting them too. It feels like things are just getting worse and worse.
I hear you. I don't thank god for anything, I thank the scientists for their expertise and work.
 
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