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

JTMan wrote: »

WSJ reports on Germany's plans to start vaccinations this year here. (paywall)

- Vaccine will be shipped to more than 60 regional vaccination centers within hours of the substance being approved.
- Initial recipients would include health-care workers, the elderly, clinically vulnerable people, law-enforcement officials and people living in crowded conditions.
- BioNTech has begun storing doses of the vaccine at a secret transport hub.
- Nearly 2,000 Bavarian doctors have already signed up to help.
- A nationwide information campaign will explain the procedure and the rationale behind the prioritization of certain groups.

I thought the EU were going to share out the vaccine. How are the Germans getting this first?

JTMan wrote: »

WSJ reports on Germany's plans to start vaccinations this year here. (paywall)

- Vaccine will be shipped to more than 60 regional vaccination centers within hours of the substance being approved.
- Initial recipients would include health-care workers, the elderly, clinically vulnerable people, law-enforcement officials and people living in crowded conditions.
- BioNTech has begun storing doses of the vaccine at a secret transport hub.
- Nearly 2,000 Bavarian doctors have already signed up to help.
- A nationwide information campaign will explain the procedure and the rationale behind the prioritization of certain groups.

The Germans as ever efficient

stephenjmcd wrote: »

The Germans as ever efficient

I remember being in Munich in 2018 and one thing that struck me was that the underground train timetables were scarily accurate. I never understood German efficiency until that trip.

stephenjmcd wrote: »

They are, every country told to get its plans in place.

But that says the Germans will start shipping from the transport hub within hours of approval. Sounds already organised. Do we know if we will also have instant access to that hub when the vaccine is approved.

As you can probably tell, I’m very sceptical that the EU will actually share out this vaccine. I expect that it will be every country for itself.

jackboy wrote: »

But that says the Germans will start shipping from the transport hub within hours of approval. Sounds already organised. Do we know if we will also have instant access to that hub when the vaccine is approved.

As you can probably tell, I’m very sceptical that the EU will actually share out this vaccine. I expect that it will be every country for itself.

Seeing as its being partially produced in German it wouldn't take much for them to ship it within Germany quickly. Supply chain has a bit more to it to ship outside the country.

Whenever its approved the EU has quotas for each country out of its orders with producers.

Well its not every country for itself, countries have the option to sign into the EU vaccination purchases, Ireland is signed up and cabinet has approved the current purchase agreements. The UK declined so they go and do their own deals.

jackboy wrote: »

I thought the EU were going to share out the vaccine. How are the Germans getting this first?

German efficiency just means they have the most effective plan for rollout

While I’ve no doubt the HSE will make an absolute balls of it, you’d really hope that someone, somewhere in that organisation would be on the ball and get it somewhat right. Shudders at the thought of the first 100k people being told “sorry guys, it’s like this..........”

jackboy wrote: »

I thought the EU were going to share out the vaccine. How are the Germans getting this first?

The EU is sharing the ordering but different countries are at different stages with planning distribution. Germany seem leaders of the pack. UK are fairly advanced too.

BioNTech are going well beyond manufacturing and getting heavily involved in distribution with the Germany health authorities.

From the WSJ article:

BioNTech are working directly with German regional health authorities to set up vaccination centers across the country and deploy mobile vaccination teams to nursing homes or remote rural areas.

BioNTech has begun storing doses of the vaccine at a secret transport hub managed by an unidentified logistics company from where the shots will be ferried to the centers located in Germany’s 16 states immediately after approval.

Derek's take on the recent mAB data:

https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2020/10/29/the-latest-antibody-data-from-lilly-and-from-regeneron

I think the problem with Lilly is their trial setup, it's just not designed to show efficacy at early/post exposure stages. Regeneron in turn seems to have a slightly better setup with finer grained endpoint definitions and more interim checks on viral loads. Their stratification of patients would also seem a bit better thought out (assessing serological status at baseline for example).

P.S. But what is going on with the high doses? Both seem to have issues with a response there (the NHP trial showed some oddities as well in the high doses).

This is US only, but what a cool planner:
http://covid19vaccineallocation.org/

Voltex wrote: »

The EU Commission has drafted and circulated a vaccine strategy statement.
Interesting read...gives ideas of who priority groups should be.

https://ec.europa.eu/health/sites/health/files/vaccination/docs/2020_strategies_deployment_en.pdf

Excellent document, very readable.

"The Advance Purchase Agreements contain a provision on the equal distribution of vaccine doses to Member States, which will ensure that each country receives doses based on a pro rata population "

"Once available and authorised at EU level, all Member States will have access to COVID19 vaccines at the same time."

"For COVID-19, the European Medicines Agency has put rapid review procedures in place to quickly deliver assessments of applications while ensuring robust scientific opinions and the same high standards for quality, safety and efficacy as for all medicinal products. A dedicated group - the COVID-19 European Medicines Agency pandemic Task Force - has been created and provides scientific advice on clinical trials and product development and a “rolling review” of incoming evidence to speed up the assessment of a
promising vaccine. "

" It is important that Member States already start providing citizens with objective, accurate, factual and targeted information about the importance of COVID-19 vaccines. It must be explained that such vaccines are likely to be our only real exit from the ongoing pandemic and that, due to the strict EU market authorisation procedure, no corners will be cut in terms of safety or effectiveness. "

"The parallel market launch of several vaccines, once proven safe and effective, and their distribution will be a considerable challenge requiring a strong collaboration and concerted action across all Member States. "

[Deleted User] wrote: »

For some reason it doesn’t translate to building airports. 9 years late and 4 billion over budget. German efficiency is great, but when it goes wrong, history tells us it goes very wrong

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/oct/07/berlin-new-airport-covid-germany-budget-late

Isn't the saying now if you want German efficiency go to Switzerland.
In fairness berlin airport was a perfect storm of a ****show.

Wonder have the Germans ever put a big hospital out to tender with just an outline design and expect an accurate price.

Voltex wrote: »

The EU Commission has drafted and circulated a vaccine strategy statement.
Interesting read...gives ideas of who priority groups should be.

https://ec.europa.eu/health/sites/health/files/vaccination/docs/2020_strategies_deployment_en.pdf

These unknowns on expected performance profiles of different vaccines and across different target groups make it even more important to work with vaccine portfolios. For example, a vaccine effective against the severity of the disease should be administered to vulnerable groups while a vaccine effective in cutting the transmission of the virus should be administered to groups more susceptible of spreading the disease.

There's a layer of complexity I hadn't really considered but seems kind of obvious now I read it. It may be a case that we have a few vaccines coming available at around the same time. One vaccine may be more effective at reducing transmission, another may be more effective at preventing Covid symptoms. Planning needs to happen to distribute the 'strategicaly optimum' vaccine to people.
Health care workers should be first in line for whatever vaccine is most effective at reducing the transmission rate. High-risk people should probably be first in line for a vaccine which is most effective at treating symptoms.
It's all another possible layer of complexity in the distribution. Maybe I'm being too optimistic, there may not be any choice/decision to be made, it might be a case of 'take whatever is available at the time' (which would still be a good outcome really).

Sconsey wrote: »

It's all another possible layer of complexity in the distribution. Maybe I'm being too optimistic, there may not be any choice/decision to be made, it might be a case of 'take whatever is available at the time' (which would still be a good outcome really).

You have to be optimistic but also realistic, these things tend to be on time sensitive scale and sometimes can go wrong... products can be spoilt due to poor transportation etc and then others will simply lack performance from the start

Its all luck of the draw.