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

marno21 · 09-10-2020 03:38PM

Gael23 wrote: »

I don’t like how quiet Oxford/AZ have been

With Phase III vaccine trials, it would seem that "no news is good news" is a fairly reasonable approach to take.

JimmyVik · 09-10-2020 04:00PM

Dionaibh wrote: »

Thanks for the statistics. I'm not ignoring them. But I think one has to take into account population size, population health, and living conditions.

All I wrote was that my friend said people were having fun, going to the beach, and enjoying themselves. Really what I was trying to do was compare attitudes in the West with attitudes outside of the West. In Ireland there was uproar over young people enjoying themselves in Galway (I think) recently. I'm just comparing the difference in attitude.

I work with a few people from Brazil.
I was on the phone with one of them about something work related just now and after reading the posts the last few pages, I decided on that subject for the small talk.

I said to him of them that I hear people are having fun over there and not worried about the virus at all.

Yes, he said. The young people are out partying and the old people are dying in their homes, or if they are lucky they get into hospitals.

That killed the smalltalk.

charlie14 · 09-10-2020 04:14PM

Dionaibh wrote: »

Thanks for the statistics. I'm not ignoring them. But I think one has to take into account population size, population health, and living conditions.

All I wrote was that my friend said people were having fun, going to the beach, and enjoying themselves. Really what I was trying to do was compare attitudes in the West with attitudes outside of the West. In Ireland there was uproar over young people enjoying themselves in Galway (I think) recently. I'm just comparing the difference in attitude.

Do you not think perhaps what you really should be taking into account is how this virus is spread.
Give it a bit of thought and you may actually see why there is uproar when the vast majority see a bunch of selfish idiots blatantly showing they have no regard for anybody other than themselves.

tobefrank321 · 09-10-2020 05:28PM

is_that_so wrote: »

New test research - detects the virus in 5 minutes, based on CRISPR. Work continuing on accuracy and validation of the set-up.

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/10/new-test-detects-coronavirus-just-5-minutes

Amazing if it works. But it feels like all these breakthroughs take years to reach mass rollout.

is_that_so · 09-10-2020 05:32PM

tobefrank321 wrote: »

Amazing if it works. But it feels like all these breakthroughs take years to reach mass rollout.

Ordinarily probably but there is such a huge focus on COVID, there is a good chance it will be a lot quicker. There are lots of these rapid tests, even if they haven't quite hit the right accuracy levels.

CiarraiManc · 09-10-2020 06:52PM

Gael23 wrote: »

I don’t like how quiet Oxford/AZ have been

They're quiet because they're full of ****. Have been from the beginning

Thierry12 · 09-10-2020 06:59PM

tobefrank321 wrote: »

Amazing if it works. But it feels like all these breakthroughs take years to reach mass rollout.

Not really useful, we have rapid tests already

Like PCR this cannot diagnose contagious people, merely presence of RNA.

Still the same of crap of detecting a dead virus

We need a test that detects live virus only

Until we are testing a load of people who are not sick and can't infect other people

Hmmzis · 09-10-2020 09:07PM

Randomized double blind CT results out of Bangladesh for ivermectin in combination with doxycycline:

https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/results/NCT04523831

The numbers overall look very good. The improvement in the treatment arm was quite solid even though it had more males in it and it had a slightly higher median age than the placebo arm.
It's a bit of a shame they couldn't get everyone from both arms followed up, but even with that there appears to be a decent signal there. Next would be trying higher doses to see if there is a dose response as well.

ElTel · 09-10-2020 09:14PM

Thierry12 wrote: »

Not really useful, we have rapid tests already

Like PCR this cannot diagnose contagious people, merely presence of RNA.

Still the same of crap of detecting a dead virus

We need a test that detects live virus only

Until we are testing a load of people who are not sick and can't infect other people

Last few paragraphs in article suggests that it will be quantitative though?

Gael23 · 09-10-2020 09:39PM

marno21 wrote: »

With Phase III vaccine trials, it would seem that "no news is good news" is a fairly reasonable approach to take.

Maybe but should we not be starting to hear the outcome of phase 3 now? I know there was the pause which scuppered the September plan so well expected some delay.

Hmmzis · 09-10-2020 09:45PM

Gael23 wrote: »

Maybe but should we not be starting to hear the outcome of phase 3 now? I know there was the pause which scuppered the September plan so well expected some delay.

Not really, at best the largest trials would be getting 1-2 infection events per day. I think pfizer had the first checkpoint at 35, the others are higher. End of October is what Pfizer have said as their earliest preliminary readout, the others have been saying November for a good while now.

Ce he sin · 09-10-2020 09:45PM

CiarraiManc wrote: »

They're quiet because they're full of ****. Have been from the beginning

Link?

Gael23 · 09-10-2020 09:51PM

Hmmzis wrote: »

Not really, at best the largest trials would be getting 1-2 infection events per day. I think pfizer had the first checkpoint at 35, the others are higher. End of October is what Pfizer have said as their earliest preliminary readout, the others have been saying November for a good while now.

I thought I remember Sarah Gilbert saying September but maybe I got it wrong

Hego Damask · 09-10-2020 10:13PM

Dionaibh wrote: »

Would you call the Lancet a trustworthy source? They were forced to withdraw a bogus study on hydroxychloroquine: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/sep/22/the-lancet-reforms-editorial-policy-after-hydroxychloroquine-covid-study-retraction

Yes, when a reputable journal has Trump derangement syndrome so bad .... worrying, the science should be unbiased.

Hmmzis · 09-10-2020 10:20PM

Gael23 wrote: »

I thought I remember Sarah Gilbert saying September but maybe I got it wrong

That was before the summer lull of cases in the UK. They're back to higher transmission rates now, but the trial would have lost a couple months already.

Hmmzis · 09-10-2020 11:09PM

AstraZeneca kicking off their monoclonal antibody phase 3 trials as well:

https://www.astrazeneca.com/media-centre/press-releases/2020/covid-19-long-acting-antibody-laab-combination-azd7442-rapidly-advances-into-phase-iii-clinical-trials.html

Similar to Regeneron they're using two mABs in their cocktail and in addition they're engineered for stability (6 to 12 months per dose) and are lacking the Fc receptor (can't serve as tags, but they're neutralizing anyway, so nothing lost there). Price for the US government looks to be around 5k per dose, 100k doses in 2020.

MerlinSouthDub · 10-10-2020 08:51AM

Hmmzis wrote: »

That was before the summer lull of cases in the UK. They're back to higher transmission rates now, but the trial would have lost a couple months already.

The increase in infection rates may speed things up a little.

I guess that that the more effective the vaccine is, the longer it takes for the required number of events to take place?

Ce he sin · 10-10-2020 11:11AM

MerlinSouthDub wrote: »

The increase in infection rates may speed things up a little.

I guess that that the more effective the vaccine is, the longer it takes for the required number of events to take place?

I would have thought the opposite. The idea is to compare the infection rates of two groups, one with and one without the vaccine. The better the vaccine is the greater the difference between the two.

Morries Wigs · 10-10-2020 11:49AM

so after all this the vaccine wont even give you immunisation

charlie14 · 10-10-2020 11:58AM

Diarmuid wrote: »

I don't know if I would be going to Brazil, but I have been to both France and Italy since Covid has kicked off. There's a massive difference between the attitudes in Ireland vs France and Italy. We have an unhealthy obsession with Covid, and with the daily numbers and press conference. I don't see any let up in Ireland for the next 6 to 12 months. To pretend that this isn't going to have a negative impact on people is somewhere between disingenuous and willfully ignorant.

More a case from some posts on these threads of some pretending that Covid-19 does not exist rather than anyone pretending that it does not cause deaths and long term health problems.

What is disingenuous and willfully ignorant are posts on face masks that will leave people psychologically scared for life by having to wear one in the limited situations they are asked too.
Yet at the same time having no problem doing so to travel to other destinations where on arrival the regulations on mask wearing are much stricter than here.

Next time your are in Italy, try walking into a bar or restaurant, or even be in a public place between 6 p.m. and 6.a.m without wearing a face mask and let us know how you get on.

Russman · 10-10-2020 12:07PM

Apologies if this has been asked before but, in layman’s terms is this how Phase 3 trials work:

A large number of people are selected or volunteer, let’s say 30,000.
Half are given the vaccine and half are given a placebo.
When a certain number of infections are recorded, they look to see the split of those infections between the vaccinated and placebo groups.
If the ratio is a certain level, the vaccine is deemed to work or not.

If my understanding is correct, how do they decide the number of infections required before they look at the split ?
And what ratio between vaccinated and placebo would be deemed proof of efficacy ?

charlie14 · 10-10-2020 12:09PM

Morries Wigs wrote: »

so after all this the vaccine wont even give you immunisation

Unless you have already been infected, (even if you have what level of immunity bestows or how long it may last, nobody knows), then you really have no immunity to begin with.
Nobody is expecting the first round of vaccines to provide 100% immunity. But any level of immunity that will counter the spread of infections is 100% better than what we have now, which is none.

MerlinSouthDub · 10-10-2020 12:15PM

Ce he sin wrote: »

I would have thought the opposite. The idea is to compare the infection rates of two groups, one with and one without the vaccine. The better the vaccine is the greater the difference between the two.

Yes, correct, but doesn't change my point. They only look at the data when they reach a certain number of infections (in total across the placebo group and vaccine group in the trial). If the vaccine is completely ineffective, then they will get to that number more quickly. Likewise, if the vaccine is 100% effective, it will take them twice as long to get to the total number of infections required (assuming placebo and vaccine group have equal numbers).

Dionaibh · 10-10-2020 12:21PM

charlie14 wrote: »

More a case from some posts on these threads of some pretending that Covid-19 does not exist rather than anyone pretending that it does not cause deaths and long term health problems.

What is disingenuous and willfully ignorant are posts on face masks that will leave people psychologically scared for life by having to wear one in the limited situations they are asked too.
Yet at the same time having no problem doing so to travel to other destinations where on arrival the regulations on mask wearing are much stricter than here.

Next time your are in Italy, try walking into a bar or restaurant, or even be in a public place between 6 p.m. and 6.a.m without wearing a face mask and let us know how you get on.

Just to clarify, I was referring to countries such as France, Spain, and now Italy, where people are forced to wear that thing everywhere and anywhere. I believe that will cause irreversible damage.

And I don't think people are saying it doesn't exist, but rather that it's been blown out if proportion and that for most people, with the exception of a few outlier cases, it is a mild virus.

And I know you weren't commenting on any of my posts, but I just wanted to clarify that I was referring to those countries where it's mandatory everywhere.

jackboy · 10-10-2020 12:33PM

charlie14 wrote: »

What is disingenuous and willfully ignorant are posts on face masks that will leave people psychologically scared for life by having to wear one in the limited situations they are asked too.

I don’t know about psychological scarring but masks are definitely changing people mentally. I see so many people driving alone in their cars wearing masks. If we get a successful vaccine and COVID is wiped out in the next few months I would still be confident that mask wearing will be common next winter regardless. I suppose you could say that long term behaviours are being changed by mask wearing.

Morries Wigs · 10-10-2020 12:42PM

no way will i ware a mask again once this is done -no need for it

seefin · 10-10-2020 12:45PM

What are thoughts about reported cases of reinfection and whether they scupper the hopes of vaccines being successful?

Dionaibh · 10-10-2020 12:48PM

jackboy wrote: »

I don’t know about psychological scarring but masks are definitely changing people mentally. I see so many people driving alone in their cars wearing masks. If we get a successful vaccine and COVID is wiped out in the next few months I would still be confident that mask wearing will be common next winter regardless. I suppose you could say that long term behaviours are being changed by mask wearing.

The problem is that they've become a fashion statement. One of the problems of a pandemic in the age of social media. Even with a vaccine people will still wear them. The interesting thing will be whether the requirement is ever lifted.

Dionaibh · 10-10-2020 12:49PM

Morries Wigs wrote: »

no way will i ware a mask again once this is done -no need for it

But a lot of people will continue to wear one.

Marhay70 · 10-10-2020 12:51PM

jackboy wrote: »

I don’t know about psychological scarring but masks are definitely changing people mentally. I see so many people driving alone in their cars wearing masks. If we get a successful vaccine and COVID is wiped out in the next few months I would still be confident that mask wearing will be common next winter regardless. I suppose you could say that long term behaviours are being changed by mask wearing.

People in countries like China, Korea, Singapore etc have been wearing face masks for years now because of poor air quality, I've yet to hear of any reports of mass paranoia because of this.
Reports from Australia say cases of flu are way down this year, probably due to wearing of face masks and increased hand hygiene so it could well be that vulnerable people will continue to wear them, I know I wouldn't have a problem as I'm in one of the high risk groups.

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

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