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

hmmm

latency89 wrote: »

Your thinking of the university fied trial in South Africa with that 1500 30-year olds, it was 2000 btw

Yes, although my understanding is that it was following the presentation of the 1500 person trial results that South Africa decided it was going to pause/stop administering AZ.

I don't know - the data on cases doesn't square with the decision, I wonder if there's some local politics at work.

Hmmzis

latency89 wrote: »

Selling it apparently

https://businesstech.co.za/news/government/467045/south-africa-considers-selling-unused-astrazeneca-vaccines-to-other-countries/amp/

Starting to vaccinate with J&J next week, not even approved yet for use

They don't need all the data on that one, weird.

They're considering it and, as in the article states, will follow the advice of their experts. If they decide not to use it, then they'll sell it.

latency89

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Started risen in November in South Africa, surged December, peaked early January. Would that not be summer?

Your correct, im suprised by that, it really took off with those variants?

Lockdown quenched it I see

Why are we saying we can come out of lockdown in June if its not seasonal and we will only have a small percentage vaccinated, yes vulnerable but a small percentage

latency89

Hmmzis wrote: »

They're considering it and, as in the article states, will follow the advice of their experts. If they decide not to use it, then they'll sell it.

Its pretty damning all the same, to have such doubts about it

ixoy

latency89 wrote: »

Why are we saying we can come out of lockdown in June if its not seasonal and we will only have a small percentage vaccinated, yes vulnerable but a small percentage

I don't think anyone is saying we come out in June? We just reduce back from the current restrictions, much as we successfully did last summer.

Hospitalisations are what matters ultimately, not so much cases. Vaccinate the vulnerable and you'll greatly reduce the serious cases that lead to hospitalisation.

stephenjmcd

latency89 wrote: »

AZ vaccine trial we are talking about here hmmm

It took place in South Africa, UK,Brazil, India, Japan with 30,000+ people

One EMA approved based on its data, which wasn't good enough for South Afica according to one poster

Your thinking of the university fied trial in South Africa with that 1500 30-year olds, it was 2000 btw

South Africa reconsidered rollout based on the 2,000 person study not on the inital trial which would have been provided to the EMA.

As multiple posters have pointed out there's many issues with that latest study.

Hmmzis

caveat emptor wrote: »

No doomsday intended. This is science. Leave your positive / negative biases at the door science. It's about understanding and it's hard.


This is a fact. In the novovax trial 26 / 674 who were seropositive for a previous infection also ended up getting reinfected.

versus

58 who tested positive out of 1494 who were seronegative.

That's gives a point estimate attack rate of 3.9% in both groups but more importantly a confidence interval of [3.0-5.0] vs [2.5-5.6]

i.e nothing separating them. They are not insignificant sample sizes.

Please discus. It's kinda important.

edit: Saw reply above thanks Hmmzis.

Head well and truly wrecked on this one. Going to bed soon. Not doom mongering just want to understand.

Not sure about the trial based attack rates. If reinfection were that common, we'd see that in population based studies and HCWs and also in vaccine trials (they simply would not meet their primary endpoints). For trial participants tere are AB tests done on the day of the first jab, if that is not blinded to the participant then the most likely confounder is human behaviour. The other factor here is that history of PCR+ was an exclusion factor in all trials, so you could have ended up with mostly asymtpomatic and mild cases with low baseline nAB titers, below IC50 of 1:20 (very dependent on assay) protection against infection is low to none but even there the symptoms tend to be milder or none and viral shedding is of shorter duration (NHP studies and that military recruits study showed very similar results).

Infection =/= disease.

astrofool

stephenjmcd wrote: »

South Africa reconsidered rollout based on the 2,000 person study not on the inital trial which would have been provided to the EMA.

As multiple posters have pointed out there's many issues with that latest study.

This poster does not engage in facts, hear'say are the main talking points.

latency89

stephenjmcd wrote: »

As multiple posters have pointed out there's many issues with that study.

So they were wrong to stop using AZ then?

Is that your opinion?

Did those posters let South African scientific advisors know those issues?

It was done by a top university as well, no fools

Trying not to laugh here, but come on guys, what qualifications do ye have to find thoe issues?

I did Biolgy for 3 years, dont use it much now as did supply chain after and work at that, but i'm in no way qualified to pick out issues in trials and im probably more qualified than most here, rge dead end defensive posting here is mad

latency89

astrofool wrote: »

This poster does not engage in facts, hear'say are the main talking points.

Go read a book on true or false answers

You might figure it out eventually

astrofool

latency89 wrote: »

Your correct, im suprised by that, it really took off with those variants?

Lockdown quenched it I see

Why are we saying we can come out of lockdown in June if its not seasonal and we will only have a small percentage vaccinated, yes vulnerable but a small percentage

April/May/June will see a large % in Ireland vaccinated, by September, anyone who wants to be vaccinated can be vaccinated.

This is partly dependent on approvals for J&J and possibly Novavax, however, both Pfizer and astrazeneca will have significantly ramped up by then. Early summer is at risk, depending on case numbers in hospital (and waiting for the 12 week Az interval for a lot of people), but late summer should be looking a lot better.

caveat emptor

Hmmzis wrote: »

Not sure about the trial based attack rates. If reinfection were that common, we'd see that in population based studies and HCWs and also in vaccine trials (they simply would not meet their primary endpoints). For trial participants tere are AB tests done on the day of the first jab, if that is not blinded to the participant then the most likely confounder is human behaviour. The other factor here is that history of PCR+ was an exclusion factor in all trials, so you could have ended up with mostly asymtpomatic and mild cases with low baseline nAB titers, below IC50 of 1:20 (very dependent on assay) protection against infection is low to none but even there the symptoms tend to be milder or none and viral shedding is of shorter duration (NHP studies and that military recruits study showed very similar results).

Infection =/= disease.

Thank you very much for the explanation very informative. Lots of variables and sources of error. The main outcome of that small South African study shows that post October 31st that it didn't meet it's end point. If reinfection were a thing as you state the major vaccine trials wouldn't meet their endpoint.

While acknowledging the limited data in the S.A AZ study is it possible that they didn't meet the endpoint due to the inefficacy of the vaccine against the variant?

What probability would you assign to that being the case given all of the circumstantial evidence of immune escape.

I suppose I'm asking because the pre Oct 31st A B test curve looks very different
to the post OCT curve. Could of course be random but what would the likelihood given everything we know.

Interested in any thoughts obviously more data will be forth coming in weeks and months but would be great to get a steer on it now. Thanks

Hmmzis

latency89 wrote: »

Its pretty damning all the same, to have such doubts about it

They'll wait on their experts to advise one way or another. If they advise to sell it, they have a queue for those doses already.

Hmmzis

caveat emptor wrote: »

Thank you very much for the explanation very informative. Lots of variables and sources of error. The main outcome of that small South African study shows that post October 31st that it didn't meet it's end point. If reinfection were a thing as you state the major vaccine trials wouldn't meet their endpoint.

While acknowledging the limited data in the S.A AZ study is it possible that they didn't meet the endpoint due to the inefficacy of the vaccine against the variant?

What probability would you assign to that being the case given all of the circumstantial evidence of immune escape.

I suppose I'm asking because the pre Oct 31st A B test curve looks very different
to the post OCT curve. Could of course be random but what would the likelihood given everything we know.

Interested in any thoughts obviously more data will be forth coming in weeks and months but would be great to get a steer on it now. Thanks

The primary efficacy (any symptomatic infection) is very likely reduced, the upper CI bound (60%) is just above the point estimate (54%) of that dosing regimen in the other trials, again with rather large CIs. It could be down to chance, but not likely to be that way. Since that study did not look at anything else, it's not possible to make any other conclusions with any sort of confidence at all. I would have liked to see a more detailed anslysis of the cases and severities of those infections, but in a bunch of young adults there might not even be much of that to look at.

caveat emptor

Hmmzis wrote: »

The primary efficacy (any symptomatic infection) is very likely reduced, the upper CI bound (60%) is just above the point estimate (54%) of that dosing regimen in the other trials, again with rather large CIs. It could be down to chance, but not likely to be that way. Since that study did not look at anything else, it's not possible to make any other conclusions with any sort of confidence at all. I would have liked to see a more detailed anslysis of the cases and severities of those infections, but in a bunch of young adults there might not even be much of that to look at.

Thanks again. I understand it's a preprint but I've only found the youtube video where the main author discusses the preliminary findings.

Same for novovax. The results were in a press release with lots of primary data missing. Hopefully more detailed info coming out will make it clearer. Thanks.

Beasty

latency89 wrote: »

I don't know how the mods let them get away with it tbh

I had the pleasure of isthatso in the frozen covid origin thread, good grief lad, he wouldn't know a science book if it hit him in the head and he's going around to each thread citing studies, writing off treatments as no medical basis and backing up his educated friends here, it's a funny forum this.

I like the covid thread on merdic, you need an actual field qualification before you can post and I can tell you alot of them are fearful of these variant's, they respect mother nature and know what it can do.

In here, its ridiculous how confident they are, "it is not so much that I have confidence in scientists being right, but that I have so much in nonscientists being wrong"

latency89 wrote: »

Go read a book on true or false answers

You might figure it out eventually

Threadbanned

https://twitter.com/sailorrooscout/status/1359946547887243265?s=19

For anybody interested an excellent thread on T-Cell immunity and it's effect on variants. Btw this guy is a Molecular Biologist who works for Moderna so if you want to know more about vaccines (all of them not just Moderna) then do follow him.

Apogee

stephenjmcd wrote: »

Big week next week.

Long term care settings
- 42,500 vaccinations.
Dose 1- 1,900
Dose 2 -40,600

FHCW
25,000 vaccinations
Dose 1 (AstraZenca) - 22,000,
Dose 2- 3,000 (Pfizer)

Over 70s
12,000 vaccinations

79,500 vaccinations next week planned

To add to this, Donnelly mentioned 20,000* doses going to GPs next week - 8,000 Moderna and 12,000 Pfizer.

Increasing to 50,000 the following week.

*Not sure why the discrepancy between 12,000 and 20,000 - perhaps a difference in delivery vs. administration of doses?

https://twitter.com/gavreilly/status/1359889475141271552

Cork2021

What does this looper want as an end game?
Soup kitchens??

https://twitter.com/astaines/status/1359990830543552515?s=21

Cork2021

This constant flow of doom about variants by so called experts is pathetic!
They want total eradication! It’s endemic. They’ll be shouting from the rooftops if there’s an outbreak of the shîts next winter! ZERO SHÎTS!!!

McGiver

caveat emptor wrote:

Ok sure but that's not as much as our neighbour.

Why Ireland needs to compare itself with the UK?

Is not a fair comparison even if we do it per capita. UK is a huge country with massive resource, financial, administrative, infrastructure possibilities etc. Also, UK ruled a Global Empire just 100 years.

Good comparator for Ireland is Finland, Denmark, and maybe Belgium or Austria.

Note: your graph doesn't show fully vaccinated. With 2 doses. Ireland is double the UK figure per capita in fully vaccinated. And with a more efficacious vaccine (more to come Moderna, AZ, J&J, Novavax, Curevac in that order).

Azatadine

Some positive news.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/feb/11/pfizer-vaccine-strong-response-new-covid-variants

stephenjmcd

Cork2021 wrote: »

What does this looper want as an end game?
Soup kitchens??

https://twitter.com/astaines/status/1359990830543552515?s=21

Him and others want zero covid and nothing else.

Loving the limelight, shout loud enough and see who listens to you.

The new strains not covered line is odd

landofthetree

Vaccine working well in Israel.

An Israeli healthcare provider that has vaccinated half a million people with both doses of the Pfizer vaccine says that only 544 people — or 0.104% — have been diagnosed with the coronavirus.

That means the effectiveness rate stands at 93 percent, Maccabi Healthcare Services announced on Thursday, after comparing its immunized members to a “diverse” control group of unvaccinated members.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/hmo-sees-only-544-covid-infections-among-523000-fully-vaccinated-israelis/

Happydays2020

stephenjmcd wrote: »

Him and others want zero covid and nothing else.

Loving the limelight, shout loud enough and see who listens to you.

The new strains not covered line is odd

Dangerous words by him and probably best consigned to the conspiracy threads.

Hmmzis

landofthetree wrote: »

Vaccine working well in Israel.


https://www.timesofisrael.com/hmo-sees-only-544-covid-infections-among-523000-fully-vaccinated-israelis/

93% is very impressive in a real world deployment, just 2pc points off the trial point estimate (and the UK variant running rampant there).

zuutroy

I'm embarrassed to work in the same institution as Anthony Staines.

Micky 32

Cork2021 wrote: »

What does this looper want as an end game?
Soup kitchens??

https://twitter.com/astaines/status/1359990830543552515?s=21

I feel like replying on his twitter with something but i don’t want to end up like Trump did on twitter, banned!

Always_Running

stephenjmcd wrote: »

Him and others want zero covid and nothing else.

Loving the limelight, shout loud enough and see who listens to you.

The new strains not covered line is odd

The people that likes his tweets I find more odd.

Apogee

From tomorrow's Times (UK).