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

ACitizenErased · 21-10-2020 07:00PM

That's a placebo patient then.

In an awful way that's good for efficacy measurements.

martingriff · 21-10-2020 07:06PM

Gael23 wrote: »

Would any of consider booking a holiday for summer 2021 yet?

Yes I am looking forward and optimistically

Azatadine · 21-10-2020 07:08PM

CIARAN_BOYLE wrote: »

Might be a bad sign to the efficacy of the vaccine.

No. Placebo I'd say.

martingriff · 21-10-2020 07:10PM

CIARAN_BOYLE wrote: »

It depends on the efficacy rate. Does it provide immunity, suppress transmission or merely reduce symptoms. A lot of the leading vaccines seem to mainly reduce symptoms so I would suspect we would need a high amou t of the population vaccine.

I'll make a guess and say 1.2 million to cover those with comorbidities and over 65 as well as front line health care workers if we have no restrictions.

If the vaccine provides a high genuine immunity vaccinating health care workers alone would do a massive amount to break the chain of transmission (reducing the R number by somewhere between 0.2 and 0.4 which is massive).

That would do damn all if they get it from visitors or out and about in the community. Your been optimistic there

martingriff · 21-10-2020 07:11PM

CIARAN_BOYLE wrote: »

Might be a bad sign to the efficacy of the vaccine.

1 death (and very tragic) does not make a link. Any number of reason could be behind there death

martingriff · 21-10-2020 07:13PM

JDD wrote: »

We have 720k over 65s in Ireland

I would wager that there will be a large uptake of the vaccine from that age group. However there will be some that won't want to take it straight away, or at all. Therefore I think we will need approx 600k vaccine doses for that age group.

We have about 25,000 health care workers.

I have no idea how many people under 65 have conditions that would lead them to be more likely to be hospitalised, but from a quick google it seems that in the US two in ten adults under 65 would have what may be described as "underlying conditions". I would expect it would be less here, so lets say 15% fall into that category. We have 2.5m adults between 25 and 65. So that's about 375,000 doses needed to cover vulnerable adults that would likely be hospitalised if infected.

If we get a million doses from the EU in the first round of distribution (which we should, as that is only 20% of our population) we can vaccinate a great swathe of the population who would likely be hospitalised.

Now, that doesn't meant that covid won't continue to circulate. And it won't mean that healthy people won't be hospitalised. But our hospitals will not become overwhelmed, even in a Level 1 scenario. I expect that if we get delivery of a vaccine by May, we can have that 1m vaccinated by July. Late summer 2021 will revert to Level 1 and I expect restrictions will be removed completely by September/October of next year.

Has been mentioned in other threads but 30% of the population could fall into those categories.

plodder · 21-10-2020 07:20PM

martingriff wrote: »

1 death (and very tragic) does not make a link. Any number of reason could be behind there death

The fact he died of Coronavirus complications would have been very bad news for the trial if he got the vaccine, but thankfully (for the trial) it seems he didn't.

Azatadine · 21-10-2020 07:29PM

martingriff wrote: »

1 death (and very tragic) does not make a link. Any number of reason could be behind there death

https://twitter.com/BNODesk/status/1318975105653944321?s=09

Placebo alright, looks like.

ACitizenErased · 21-10-2020 07:32PM

Has to be a placebo

big syke · 21-10-2020 07:37PM

ACitizenErased wrote: »

Has to be a placebo

And tragically as you mentioned good for the overall study

Gael23 · 21-10-2020 08:07PM

big syke wrote: »

And tragically as you mentioned good for the overall study

How so? Not having a go at you just curious to the science behind thos?

XsApollo · 21-10-2020 08:12PM

Gael23 wrote: »

How so? Not having a go at you just curious to the science behind thos?

Basically if everybody in the placebo group died and nobody in the vaccine group caught COVID then it proves the vaccines Effectivness.

Hmmzis · 21-10-2020 08:16PM

Gael23 wrote: »

How so? Not having a go at you just curious to the science behind thos?

Numbers. Plain and cold.
The trials need to accumulate a certain number of infections among the two groups so that it's possible to rule out random chance.

Such sad news about the volunteer, did the right thing and so young as well.

Irish Stones · 21-10-2020 08:19PM

The most respected expert we have here (he was praised from all over the world back in March for his job on tracing and diagnosing) said that talking about a vaccine available within the next two months might be what people want to hear, but it is honestly unrealistic.

https://video.lastampa.it/cronaca/coronavirus-andrea-crisanti-dire-avremo-il-vaccino-fra-uno-o-due-mesi-e-irrealistico/122969/123093

Even if a vaccine is ready at the end of the year, he says several months will be necessary before rolling it out.

So far, this is the only specialist in this country who has never failed since the beginning of the pandemic, and I believe him.

Hmmzis · 21-10-2020 08:30PM

JimToken wrote: »

Did the right thing?

He died

He volunteered for a vaccine trial. That's doing the right thing in my book.

Gael23 · 21-10-2020 08:31PM

Hmmzis wrote: »

He volunteered for a vaccine trial. That's doing the right thing in my book.

Do you know if it is a placebo patient or not?

Azatadine · 21-10-2020 08:47PM

Gael23 wrote: »

Do you know if it is a placebo patient or not?

https://twitter.com/BNODesk/status/1318987170959511556?s=09

marno21 · 21-10-2020 08:50PM

Disappointing that Reuters published such an unverified story. Only provides massive fodder for the anti vaxxers

Hmmzis · 21-10-2020 08:53PM

Gael23 wrote: »

Do you know if it is a placebo patient or not?

News chanels are quoting anonymous sources saying he got the placebo.
Personally, I think that should be only revealed when assessing the results (interim or final). Dragging every single event, related or not, through the spotlights helps absolutelly nobody. I'd be surprised if AZ or Oxford would make any further comments on it.

By the speed at what they were able to determine that it's not related to the vaccine would also make me think that he was in the placebo group. If I'm not mistaken the Brazil trial was only single blind, so Oxford would have had that information readily available.

Thierry12 · 21-10-2020 09:03PM

Hmmzis wrote: »

News chanels are quoting anonymous sources saying he got the placebo.
Personally, I think that should be only revealed when assessing the results (interim or final). Dragging every single event, related or not, through the spotlights helps absolutelly nobody. I'd be surprised if AZ or Oxford would make any further comments on it.

By the speed at what they were able to determine that it's not related to the vaccine would also make me think that he was in the placebo group. If I'm not mistaken the Brazil trial was only single blind, so Oxford would have had that information readily available.

Not even worth thinking about if he got the vaccine, 99% he didn't.

Thing is people can still die if they get the vaccine, its not a cure

mandrake04 · 21-10-2020 09:26PM

sekond wrote: »

Some of the vaccines that are usually given in schools around this time (i.e. HPV vaccine for 1st years) are being given in the public health centres.

My daughter had hers yesterday. Drove up, made ourselves known to staff waiting outside, waited in car until we were phoned. She went inside for vaccination, while I waited outside. She got the vaccine, waited for 15 minutes inside and then came back out. Fairly efficient, and there seemed to be a relatively steady stream of people in and out.

Not quite as fast as drive through, but seemed pretty well organised and might well be a model that works as a next-best-thing.

Even when it comes to vaccines social distance and all precautions will still be in place, you don’t want the situation where you go to get the vaccine and catch covid at the same time. I’m assuming the vaccine takes a certain period to work.

FrogmanBegins · 21-10-2020 09:30PM

Irish Stones wrote: »

The most respected expert we have here (he was praised from all over the world back in March for his job on tracing and diagnosing) said that talking about a vaccine available within the next two months might be what people want to hear, but it is honestly unrealistic.

https://video.lastampa.it/cronaca/coronavirus-andrea-crisanti-dire-avremo-il-vaccino-fra-uno-o-due-mesi-e-irrealistico/122969/123093

Even if a vaccine is ready at the end of the year, he says several months will be necessary before rolling it out.

So far, this is the only specialist in this country who has never failed since the beginning of the pandemic, and I believe him.

I do notice that there's a bit of a schism forming between the people on the ground working on creating/manufacturing/distributing the vaccine and other experts on the outside looking in. Would anyone read anything into this ?

Gael23 · 21-10-2020 09:33PM

Thierry12 wrote: »

Not even worth thinking about if he got the vaccine, 99% he didn't.

Thing is people can still die if they get the vaccine, its not a cure

No it’s not but it’s meant to stop severe illness and death

ddarcy · 21-10-2020 10:05PM

Hmmzis wrote: »

News chanels are quoting anonymous sources saying he got the placebo.
Personally, I think that should be only revealed when assessing the results (interim or final). Dragging every single event, related or not, through the spotlights helps absolutelly nobody. I'd be surprised if AZ or Oxford would make any further comments on it.

By the speed at what they were able to determine that it's not related to the vaccine would also make me think that he was in the placebo group. If I'm not mistaken the Brazil trial was only single blind, so Oxford would have had that information readily available.

If the study hasn’t stopped, he got the placebo. A death in the test group automatically stops the trial. There would have to be an investigation to determine if the test drug had any reason for it. If he was in the test group it would be at least 3-6 months investigation minimum.

It’s a bit of a pain to unseal the randomisation, but does happen. All studies are double blind, so the only people who know are the statisticians who created the randomisation, but even then you’re only numbers (eg patient 1 gets test drug, patient 3 gets placebo, etc)

tobefrank321 · 21-10-2020 10:21PM

CIARAN_BOYLE wrote: »

We sent need herd immunity for a vaccine. Life will start to go back to normal when a vaccine that lessens the risk of severe symptoms and death is released.

If you vaccinate everyone with a comorbidities and everyone over 65 and its 50% effective ( and reducing covid below the level needing hospitalisation) you can sustain much more cases a day without needing restrictions.

The first generation of vaccines don't look like providing a functional level of immunity.

Good post. The effectiveness of the annual flu vaccine is about half in the elderly what it is in the young. There is no reason to believe a cv vaccine will do much better, certainly not a first generation one. As you say in a best case scenario, hospitalisations and deaths will be reduced, maybe by half, but won't be eliminated. At that stage we will be left with a choice of regular lockdowns or not.

marno21 · 21-10-2020 10:25PM

The flu vaccine is not relevant here. The flu vaccine is a guess at which strains will be prevalent in the forthcoming winter, and it's only efficacious against these strains, hence why the efficacy varies from year to year. Influenza has a completely different mutation profile to SARS-CoV-2

tobefrank321 · 21-10-2020 10:29PM

marno21 wrote: »

The flu vaccine is not relevant here. The flu vaccine is a guess at which strains will be prevalent in the forthcoming winter, and it's only efficacious against these strains, hence why the efficacy varies from year to year. Influenza has a completely different mutation profile to SARS-CoV-2

Its got nothing to do with strains. Its to do with an immune response which vaccines depend on. The weaker the immune system, the weaker the response and protection. A 100% effective vaccine in the healthy may only have half that in the elderly. That is the worry.

Hego Damask · 21-10-2020 10:36PM

The problem is , once the elderly are vaccinated and hospitals not as busy - will NPHET /Govt's stop using case numbers as the metric to decide on restrictions??

stockshares · 21-10-2020 10:55PM

stephenjmcd wrote: »

If your going to post 1 tweet post both at least.
Would suggest this person may have been in the placebo group as there's no stop.

https://twitter.com/BNODesk/status/1318972813554995201?s=19

The second tweet had not been posted when I posted the first tweet.

Thierry12 · 21-10-2020 11:05PM

stockshares wrote: »

The second tweet had not been posted when I posted the first tweet.

Second tweet weird anyway

Since when is a meningitis vaccine a placebo

Why did they give them that?

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

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