COVID-19: Vaccine and testing procedures Megathread Part 2 [Mod Warning - Post #1]

The HorsesMouth

namloc1980 wrote: »

I think your being extremely optimistic saying this will be all over by March or April. It takes 28 days for the vaccines to be fully effective after the first dose and we're only getting very small numbers of doses initially. It'll be a good while yet before we see widespread vaccination to even come close to this being over.

If they are vaccinating millions of people a week by January and I'm going with the lowest amount of millions with 2 million. So 4.5 weeks in each month 4.5 x 4 months x 2 million is equal to 18 million which is 25% of their entire population and is equal to almost 34% of their population over 18. So I would imagine that is every single vulnerable and elderly person in the UK.
They are hardly going to wait for every last person to be vaccinated to lift all restrictions?

VG31

namloc1980 wrote: »

I think your being extremely optimistic saying this will be all over by March or April. It takes 28 days for the vaccines to be fully effective after the first dose and we're only getting very small numbers of doses initially. It'll be a good while yet before we see widespread vaccination to even come close to this being over.

They're talking about the UK, not here. Considering how fast the UK is moving with vaccinations that's probably not that optimistic.

It's going to seriously harm the Irish government's support if the UK are practically open again and we're still vaccinating the over 70s (if even). Especially considering they're led by Boris and their fairly disastrous management of the pandemic so far.

marno21

On Brexit, general coronavirus response, the border closures, Boris Johnson looks like a complete imbecile at the minute. But the UK are leading the way in vaccinations, and we all know that's the only way out of this pandemic.

If we get to April and the UK are back to normal while we are stumbling around listening to Tony Holohan on about the importance of keeping our distance for 2 more weeks, there will be growing unrest in this country.

AutoTuning

The key things the HSE needs to ensure is the infrastructure to do the vaccination is in place now. If they're messing around trying to source syringes or something in a few weeks time there'll be a lot of annoyance.

JacksonHeightsOwn

marno21 wrote: »

On Brexit, general coronavirus response, the border closures, Boris Johnson looks like a complete imbecile at the minute. But the UK are leading the way in vaccinations, and we all know that's the only way out of this pandemic.

If we get to April and the UK are back to normal while we are stumbling around listening to Tony Holohan on about the importance of keeping our distance for 2 more weeks, there will be growing unrest in this country.

Being honest, the British have made a balls of their reaction to covid since the very beginning, ill be pleasantly suprised if they vaccinate as many as they claim.

I'll give Johnson one thing, he talks a great game, unfortunately for him he's yet to implement anything that he promises...... Ever!

Flippyfloppy

The EU are only looking for vaccinate 70% of their population. So maybe it won't take that long.

stephenjmcd

Had a quick flick through the front pages of the papers this morning, only 2 I think it was had any mention of EMA approval and one said first doses arrive Saturday.

Find it hard to believe that this isn't getting more coverage, christ we covered the UK administering the first vaccines more than this is being covered.

Seems to either have been completely ignored by the many or just forgotten about with NPHET & Government running around like headless chickens.

Disappointing really.

namloc1980

Professor Moriarty wrote: »

Thanks, but it seems as if Germany hasn't actually gone out on its own on this.

Did you not read the article? Germany is negotiating it's own allocation outside the EU process:

Germany is conducting direct negotiations with domestic Covid-19 vaccine developers to obtain more doses than would be allocated through the shared European Union plan, Health Minister Jens Spahn said.

JacksonHeightsOwn

stephenjmcd wrote: »

Had a quick flick through the front pages of the papers this morning, only 2 I think it was had any mention of EMA approval and one said first doses arrive Saturday.

Find it hard to believe that this isn't getting more coverage, christ we covered the UK administering the first vaccines more than this is being covered.

Seems to either have been completely ignored by the many or just forgotten about with NPHET & Government running around like headless chickens.

Disappointing really.

Newstalk did similar yesterday.

Luke O'Neill was on with pat Kenny at around 9.30am, he was straight forward saying that yeah, more then likely that be variant is here. But then confirmed that the vaccines will work against it and that from what they know, it's no more deadly, just appears to be more transmissible. He then goes on saying he expects good news soon from Johnson & Johnson trials, curevac and also the Oxford vaccines, so all good news.

On the 10 o'clock news just 30 minutes later on the same bloody channel their headline was.

"Luke O'Neill claims new variant is already here"

No mention of the fact its no more deadly, no mention of the fact the vaccines, which are here in a matter of days stop it in its tracks. No, just that one snippet.

Could you imagine being a nervous person just switching on the radio and that's all you hear.

It has to be said, the media coverage has been shambolic and bordered on criminal at times during this whole thing.

Thank god the world didn't have 24 hour media during the Spanish flu pandemic. Could you imagine the hysteria then.......

chrisbonnie

chrisbonnie wrote: »

Newstalk did similar yesterday.

Luke O'Neill was on with pat Kenny at around 9.30am, he was straight forward saying that yeah, more then likely that be variant is here. But then confirmed that the vaccines will work against it and that from what they know, it's no more deadly, just appears to be more transmissible. He then goes on saying he expects good news soon from Johnson & Johnson trials, curevac and also the Oxford vaccines, so all good news.

On the 10 o'clock news just 30 minutes later on the same bloody channel their headline was.

"Luke O'Neill claims new variant is already here"

No mention of the fact its no more deadly, no mention of the fact the vaccines, which are here in a matter of days stop it in its tracks. No, just that one snippet.

Could you imagine being a nervous person just switching on the radio and that's all you hear.

It has to be said, the media coverage has been shambolic and bordered on criminal at times during this whole thing.

Thank god the world didn't have 24 hour media during the Spanish flu pandemic. Could you imagine the hysteria then.......

The coverage has been incredibly strange in the last 24 hours. Conscious avoidance of the fact that from the weekend the vaccine will be available

namloc1980

Media coverage has been almost exclusively on the doom side of things since the start. It's just relentless and very tiresome. If you look at rte.ie right now news of the vaccine is completely buried under more doom.

is_that_so

namloc1980 wrote: »

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-12-02/germany-seeks-covid-vaccine-doses-beyond-eu-deal-allocation

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.spiegel.de/international/europe/the-planning-disaster-germany-and-europe-could-fall-short-on-vaccine-supplies-a-3db4702d-ae23-4e85-85b7-20145a898abd-amp

The EU procurement process has been a bit a shambles so far. Too slow and too bureaucratic.

You can't really procure a lot of what isn't there and when it is will initially be in short supply. Even with a "perfect" process many of us would be waiting anyway.

schmoo2k

Kermit.de.frog wrote: »

No-one has mentioned lockdowns until 2022.

Unless vaccines are ineffective of course...

Or if they do work and no one takes them? (or if unicorns steal them?)

schmoo2k

Deleted User wrote: »

Active Pharmaceutical Ingredient Manufacturing is not as simple as sharing the recipe. The manufacturing process itself can have an influence on the output and each manufacturer probably has processes which are propriety, even if the recipes are public knowledge. If Pfizer were to make the recipe publicly available, any manufacturer who attempted to replicate would need to satisfy the regulatory bodies the the vaccine produced met the same outcomes. Even if Pfizer were to extend manufacturing to another facility in their network, the same would need to be done. The more likely outcome is the Pfizer licence the manufacturing IP to a third party contractor, but the qualification takes time.

However with the mRNA vaccines - the process is known and public, its a generic delivery mechanism.

schmoo2k

antiskeptic wrote: »

It appears clear that informed consent is erroneous in what its being informed about in the matter of efficacy vs effectiveness. No so much a right to be skeptical as wise to be.

My motive is irrelevant. I ask a straightforward, fairly logical question that there ought to be a clear answer for.

The alternative is a faith-based decision.

Problematic that, given previous performance of pharma and statutory bodies. Purdue? Vioxx? And the government agencies that presided ober those disasters.





That's boiler plate stuff. Efficacy is high. I'm not saying it isn't. What I'm asking is whether we can tell a darn thing from an efficacy figure thus arrived at.



You seem reluctant to state whether you think tossing a coin 20000 times would result in 9 more heads than harps (or vice versa), if that exercise was carried out more than once.

9 was the result achieved one time.

Everytime though?

Call me a.lay statistician but I think that highly unlikely. There is going to be a range. A variance. And all the huff and puff about infection rates and large sample size sidesteps that issue not on jot. No matter how large the sample, it is just one sample. What I'm asking is, what happens when you compare samples.

The test group used was large and based around "normal" folks (within certain criteria). Realistically the only way you would be able to get drastically different results from different test groups would be identifying something in common with the failed 5% (genetics or behavioural or clinical) and by forcing a test group to be disproportionally populated by just those folks (or conversely excluding them).

FWIW A lot of science has gone into the "how" to test and measure new medicines, with one of the more important criteria being the size of the test groups. These vaccines tests have had the luxury of having very large test pools, which has helped enormously.

carq

Didnt watch nphet yesterday.
All coverage again this morning on closing of pubs.

Did nphet give any details on the rollout and if it can begin this week?
Seems very little coverage on how we are set up and if we have resources in place for a proper roll out

is_that_so

carq wrote: »

Didnt watch nphet yesterday.
All coverage again this morning on closing of pubs.

Did nphet give any details on the rollout and if it can begin this week?
Seems very little coverage on how we are set up and if we have resources in place for a proper roll out

It's not NPHET, it's the HSE. As we'll only have at most just under 10,000 doses next week, they should be able to handle that. Nursing homes are first.

iamwhoiam

is_that_so wrote: »

It's not NPHET, it's the HSE. As we'll only have at most just under 10,000 doses next week, they should be able to handle that. Nursing homes are first.

Do we know are they doses or vials ? Then each vial has 4 doses I believe ?

is_that_so

iamwhoiam wrote: »

Do we know are they doses or vials ? Then each vial has 4 doses I believe ?

Doses

https://www.irishtimes.com/business/health-pharma/europe-gives-green-light-to-pfizer-biontech-covid-vaccine-1.4442901?_ga=2.169230626.2022390635.1608627390-1989470379.1608627390

opinionated3

Apologies if this has been posted before. My understanding was that as long as the vulnerable, elderly and front line staff were vaccinated that society in general could reopen. In simple terms, is this now not the case?

stephenjmcd

opinionated3 wrote: »

Apologies if this has been posted before. My understanding was that as long as the vulnerable, elderly and front line staff were vaccinated that society in general could reopen. In simple terms, is this now not the case?

Its not that society in general could reopen, never was going to be a big bang reopening. You'd more than likely see restrictions gradually eased as the vacination programme progresses and has a visible impact.

Can't see how that's changed

stephenjmcd

Dr Sahin, "Its highly likely the vaccine works against the new mutation, we have scientific confidence, tests to be completed in 2 weeks".

"In the unlikely event that mutation is resistant we could be able to provide a new vaccine within 6 weeks"


He doesn't sound too worried anyway

funnydoggy

https://www.rte.ie/news/2020/1222/1185905-rte-live-news-blog/

The Health Minister, Stephen Donnelly, has said that Cabinet will this morning consider a request from the Chief Medical Officer Dr Tony Holohan to move the country to Level 5 restrictions.

On his way into the Cabinet meeting earlier today, Minister Donnelly said infectious disease doctors were "deeply concerned" at how quickly the virus has been spreading in recent weeks.

They were are also very worried about the new variant of the disease.

The minister said the "job right now" is to "keep people alive, keep people safe" and that the best way to do this was to slow the virus down and get the vaccination programme going "very quickly".

He told reporters: "On Christmas Day an awful lot of people in every county in this country are going to be sitting down with their families and having a Christmas Day who otherwise wouldn't have been if this virus had been let out of control."

Minister Donnelly said the good news is that the Pfizer vaccine was authorised by the European Commission yesterday, ahead of time.

He said they would be putting in place plans "from today" to get the vaccine here and confirmed that "we will begin vaccinating this side of the New Year".

He said he was hopeful that the Moderna vaccine would be authorised in the first week of January.

funnydoggy

stephenjmcd wrote: »

Dr Sahin, "Its highly likely the vaccine works against the new mutation, we have scientific confidence, tests to be completed in 2 weeks".

"In the unlikely event that mutation is resistant we could be able to provide a new vaccine within 6 weeks"


He doesn't sound too worried anyway

mRNA == plug and play yeah? It's such exciting tech :D

stephenjmcd

funnydoggy wrote: »

https://www.rte.ie/news/2020/1222/1185905-rte-live-news-blog/

Yeah Moderna looks good for first week of Jan.

If Oxford/AstraZeneca is licenced in the UK as expected by end of December / start of January then I'd expect the EMA to follow in mid Jan.

MM referenced the other day he expected EMA approval in Jan so they've obviously been told something.

After that then your waiting to see how close behind J&J are

namloc1980

opinionated3 wrote: »

Apologies if this has been posted before. My understanding was that as long as the vulnerable, elderly and front line staff were vaccinated that society in general could reopen. In simple terms, is this now not the case?

This was never the case.

antiskeptic

schmoo2k wrote: »

The test group used was large and based around "normal" folks (within certain criteria). Realistically the only way you would be able to get drastically different results from different test groups would be identifying something in common with the failed 5% (genetics or behavioural or clinical) and by forcing a test group to be disproportionally populated by just those folks (or conversely excluding them).

I understand the group is large and within the realms possible, identical. But it alters not the problem.

The problem is that the numbers involved in calculating efficacy are tiny. 9 out of 24,000 in the vaccinated group and 132 (iirc) from the placebo group.

Now you can decide there is statistical significance between 9 and 132 and decide no statistical significance between 9 and 12.

But that's not the issue. The issue is whether you would get a significant spread of numbers were you to monitor a number of 24,000 sized groups. Take the vaccinated group with 9 cases. Would you get 9/24000 if you examined 100 x 24000 vaccinated groups? Obviously not. So what would the spread be? 4 to 20? 3 to 144? 7 to 231? And would that spread follow a normally distributed curve whereby the significant mean is in the middle?

That you cannot practically obtain an answer is neither here nor there. The issue is that 9 and 132 can be complete darts at a board numbers.

FWIW A lot of science has gone into the "how" to test and measure new medicines, with one of the more important criteria being the size of the test groups. These vaccines tests have had the luxury of having very large test pools, which has helped enormously.

As ought be clear, the size of the test group is irrelevant when the numbers you base your decision on are tiny. The question is what spread can be expected when you compare multiple groups of 24,000

If you knew high blood pressure caused heart attacks and were developing a drug to lower blood pressure you would take a large sample of people with high blood pressure. You would give half the drug and half a placebo. And then see how many went on to have heart attacks.

All the participants would be exposed to the risk and you have a significant result.

But you can't expose all of the participants of a Covid vaccine trial to Covid - that would be unethical. And so you don't know how many of the trial subjects are exposed to Covid. It will be a small fraction of your trial sample in any case.

In the case of the blood pressure drug you wouldn't expect to get significant variation in 100 x 24000 sized groups: all participants would have high blood pressure. Not so with this vaccine trial. Circumstances on the ground will mean there will be a range in the numbers contracting Covid if you could monitor100 groups x 24000.

Like I say, given the comparatively tiny numbers involved (9 and 132 from 20000), that range/spread could swallow up whole, all your statistical significance obtained from your mere two data points (9 and 132)

is_that_so

namloc1980 wrote: »

This was never the case.

No, but if the hospitalisations all but disappear, even with 2,000 cases a day the main argument for them is severely weakened.

Micky 32

stephenjmcd wrote: »

"In the unlikely event that mutation is resistant we could be able to provide a new vaccine within 6 weeks"

My main worry was that if the vaccine had to be tweaked we’d have to go through all the same process again with trials etc etc. 6 weeks is good news if the virus resisted the current vaccine.

funnydoggy

Micky 32 wrote: »

My main worry was that if the vaccine had to be tweaked we’d have to go through all the same process again with trials etc etc. 6 weeks is good news if the virus resisted the current vaccine.

Hopefully it's like balancing an equation - have the same thing on both sides and you're sorted.