What exactly is happening with AstraZeneca?

Stark

NeuralNetwork wrote: »

All it means is the Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna vaccines will be targeted towards those age groups and the AstraZeneca vaccine will go to younger people. It doesn't really change anything much beyond that.

Agreed, there's been a huge amount of hyperbole about the vaccine program being "thrown into disarray" which simply isn't true.

There was always a possibility that AZ would not have been approved at all and there would have been contingency plans for that. As it stands, vaccination of over 70s is delayed by a week, some of them won't have as convenient a trip to the GP as they would like and we get to vaccinate some essential workers sooner that we otherwise would have.

Stark

Stark wrote: »

Agreed, there's been a huge amount of hyperbole about the vaccine program being "thrown into disarray" which simply isn't true.

There was always a possibility that AZ would not have been approved at all and there would have been contingency plans for that. As it stands, vaccination of over 70s is delayed by a week, some of them won't have as convenient a trip to the GP as they would like and we get to vaccinate some essential workers sooner that we otherwise would have.

Luke O’Neil talked about this yesterday. He seems pretty confident the data will confirm the efficacy.

https://extra.ie/2021/02/04/news/irish-news/luke-oneill-confident-data-astrazeneca-jab

Danzy

Given the amount of the Astra vaccine being given to older people in Britain, it's only a matter of time that new data gets it approved here and elsewhere.

irelandrover

And it might show that it's also good for over 65s. It still doesn't make it a good decision for Britain to use their population as Guinea pigs.

Probes

Sounds like the AstraZenica vaccine is seriously struggling to beat the SA variant. Vaccinated trialists have had moderate disease from the variant, although no hospitalisations or deaths yet. Sounds like we are a baw hair away from vaccine escape.

embraer170

Yes, not very promising news at all.

mista11

Probes wrote: »

Sounds like the AstraZenica vaccine is seriously struggling to beat the SA variant. Vaccinated trialists have had moderate disease from the variant, although no hospitalisations or deaths yet. Sounds like we are a baw hair away from vaccine escape.

Isnt that positive news? no hospitilizations or deaths - i would take that in a flash

astrofool

I think that's just going to be a characteristic of the AZ vaccine, efficacy in the 50-70% range, and mild to moderate symptoms for the rest, J&J maybe 5-10% better and mRNA 20% better (with similar percentile reduction in symptoms).

if transmission is also reduced by 66%+, then everything looks good and it's still just a manufacture and supply issue till the end of the pandemic.

jackboy

astrofool wrote: »

I think that's just going to be a characteristic of the AZ vaccine, efficacy in the 50-70% range, and mild to moderate symptoms for the rest, J&J maybe 5-10% better and mRNA 20% better (with similar percentile reduction in symptoms).

if transmission is also reduced by 66%+, then everything looks good and it's still just a manufacture and supply issue till the end of the pandemic.

That probably wouldn’t be good enough to end the pandemic. It would be very useful though to buy us time to get to the second generation vaccines which now look necessary.

Probes

mista11 wrote: »

Isnt that positive news? no hospitilizations or deaths - i would take that in a flash

No, I don't think the study is large enough to determine whether it guards against hospitalisations or deaths. Previously the vaccine was determined to prevent moderate disease.

astrofool

jackboy wrote: »

That probably wouldn’t be good enough to end the pandemic. It would be very useful though to buy us time to get to the second generation vaccines which now look necessary.

That's more than enough to end the pandemic, it may become an endemic disease, but no severe symptoms and massively reduced transmission ends things.

It's a pandemic because of the deaths.

brickster69

mista11 wrote: »

Isnt that positive news? no hospitilizations or deaths - i would take that in a flash

No, he wants next weeks lottery numbers wrote on the box as well.

jackboy

astrofool wrote: »

That's more than enough to end the pandemic, it may become an endemic disease, but no severe symptoms and massively reduced transmission ends things.

It's a pandemic because of the deaths.

I don’t know. It looks highly likely that variants will get around this first generation of vaccines. More likely annual vaccines will be needed going forward. Some years the vaccine produced will not be effective against new variants, just like happens with the flu vaccines. Not sure how we can avoid restrictions for such years.

plodder

irelandrover wrote: »

And it might show that it's also good for over 65s. It still doesn't make it a good decision for Britain to use their population as Guinea pigs.

The UK politics of all this is quite appalling really. Just heard today the talk of Boris Johnson wanting the union flag printed on the AZ labels. And even that kind of speculation was enough for some older people to refuse an mRNA vaccine and "wait for the British one". The other thing is whatever political advantage they have from being a few weeks ahead of Europe will gradually disappear over time, but the facts of not knowing whether the vaccine works on their elderly, and the death toll itself will endure a lot longer in my opinion.

mista11

plodder wrote: »

The UK politics of all this is quite appalling really. Just heard today the talk of Boris Johnson wanting the union flag printed on the AZ labels. And even that kind of speculation was enough for some older people to refuse an mRNA vaccine and "wait for the British one". The other thing is whatever political advantage they have from being a few weeks ahead of Europe will gradually disappear over time, but the facts of not knowing whether the vaccine works on their elderly, and the death toll itself will endure a lot longer in my opinion.

Not really a gamble is it though, if they dont give it then they get no vaccine, if it works they dont go to hospital or die? so win win, fair dues to them

They are way ahead of europe as well, all over 50's and high risk under 50 vaccinated by the end of may - If they do that they will have done a great job and rightly be proud ......the people will still remeber that they made a complete mess of the inital phases leading to countless excess deaths

HBC08

mista11 wrote: »

Not really a gamble is it though, if they dont give it then they get no vaccine, if it works they dont go to hospital or die? so win win, fair dues to them

They are way ahead of europe as well, all over 50's and high risk under 50 vaccinated by the end of may - If they do that they will have done a great job and rightly be proud ......the people will still remeber that they made a complete mess of the inital phases leading to countless excess deaths

No they won't,most of them dont even acknowledge that happened.

brickster69

mista11 wrote: »

Not really a gamble is it though, if they dont give it then they get no vaccine, if it works they dont go to hospital or die? so win win, fair dues to them

They are way ahead of europe as well, all over 50's and high risk under 50 vaccinated by the end of may - If they do that they will have done a great job and rightly be proud ......the people will still remeber that they made a complete mess of the inital phases leading to countless excess deaths

Yeah, and don't forget now that Pfizer has been rejected for approval in India, that means that AZ will be the only vaccine available in the world to help all those poor buggers who would not of stood a chance of getting a vaccine, or can't afford them, hundreds of millions of them.

plodder

mista11 wrote: »

Not really a gamble is it though, if they dont give it then they get no vaccine, if it works they dont go to hospital or die? so win win, fair dues to them

I guess it's not a gamble if you have this huge supply of AZ which would go to waste otherwise (or Europe god forbid) because if it doesn't work then it was wasted.

Probes

brickster69 wrote: »

No, he wants next weeks lottery numbers wrote on the box as well.

Nothing to do with that, the trial wasn't large enough and didn't have enough people in vulnerable groups to determine the effectiveness for hospitalisations and deaths.

brickster69

https://twitter.com/BBCPolitics/status/1358352216072069121

alentejo

brickster69 wrote: »

https://twitter.com/BBCPolitics/status/1358352216072069121

That's very positive!

is_that_so

mista11 wrote: »

Not really a gamble is it though, if they dont give it then they get no vaccine, if it works they dont go to hospital or die? so win win, fair dues to them

They are way ahead of europe as well, all over 50's and high risk under 50 vaccinated by the end of may - If they do that they will have done a great job and rightly be proud ......the people will still remeber that they made a complete mess of the inital phases leading to countless excess deaths

It's technically a live experiment on the older groups. Worth the risk? It seems like it is going their way.

mista11

is_that_so wrote: »

It's technically a live experiment on the older groups. Worth the risk? It seems like it is going their way.

Not really a risk at all, they dont harm you, they are effective in older people, they just dont know how effective - even if its 50% then that gives grandmother and grandfathers a much better chance of no seriuos illness or death.

is_that_so

mista11 wrote: »

Not really a risk at all, they dont harm you, they are effective in older people, they just dont know how effective - even if its 50% then that gives grandmother and grandfathers a much better chance of no seriuos illness or death.

It's down to the numbers in the trial and authorities are fully entitled to point to that. The other vaccines have that data and are very effective. It needn't have been this way, AZ & Oxford have messed up on quite a few things during this.

MrMusician18

Have we gotten to the bottom of why AZ have not been fulfilling EU orders but UK orders appear unaffected?

mista11

MrMusician18 wrote: »

Have we gotten to the bottom of why AZ have not been fulfilling EU orders but UK orders appear unaffected?

Yep, Eu messesed up and ordered too late

Sam Russell

MrMusician18 wrote: »

Have we gotten to the bottom of why AZ have not been fulfilling EU orders but UK orders appear unaffected?

Political pressure from someone. Not sure who.

is_that_so

mista11 wrote: »

Yep, Eu messed up and ordered too late

More that AZ ran into technical problems, which they only fessed up to a week before approval.

MrMusician18

mista11 wrote: »

Yep, Eu messesed up and ordered too late

There was no prioritisation in the contract and AZ didn't notify the EU of an external impediment to deliver, so that rain you suggest is incorrect

is_that_so

Sam Russell wrote: »

Political pressure from someone. Not sure who.

At a guess the early UK approval meant they were more strongly focused on that. They had issues there but had time to fix them. Being newbies in vaccine production probably went against them a bit too.