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

Ten of Swords · 05-11-2020 03:39PM

Can we get back to the topic of vaccines and testing procedures please

Miike · 05-11-2020 05:52PM

Irish Stones wrote: »

I think it was August or early September when WHO said that coughing/sneezing in your elbow was to be avoided.

Have you got a link for this? IPC Guidelines for as long as I'm working healthcare have been to cough/sneeze into elbow crease.

Ten of Swords wrote: »

Can we get back to the topic of vaccines and testing procedures please

Saw this after I posted, sorry!

hmmm · 05-11-2020 07:50PM

Apologies if this has been posted already. This statement is kind of weird, I don't think anyone seriously believed there would be tens of millions of doses available in the UK before year end?

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-britain-astrazenec/delivery-timetable-of-oxford-astrazeneca-vaccine-has-slipped-uk-official-says-idUSKBN27K2GQ

"The timetable for delivery of the Oxford University/AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine candidate has slipped, the UK’s vaccine chief said, adding Britain will receive just 4 million doses of the shot this year."

stephenjmcd · 05-11-2020 07:52PM

hmmm wrote: »

Apologies if this has been posted already. This statement is kind of weird, I don't think anyone seriously believed there would be tens of millions of doses available in the UK before year end?

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-britain-astrazenec/delivery-timetable-of-oxford-astrazeneca-vaccine-has-slipped-uk-official-says-idUSKBN27K2GQ

"The timetable for delivery of the Oxford University/AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine candidate has slipped, the UK’s vaccine chief said, adding Britain will receive just 4 million doses of the shot this year."

What exactly did they expect? It was flagged multiple times that it would be small deliveries this year if any. 4 million is still a pretty decent delivery for something with EUA for just one country

hmmm · 05-11-2020 07:54PM

stephenjmcd wrote: »

What exactly did they expect? It was flagged multiple times that it would be small deliveries this year if any. 4 million is still a pretty decent delivery for something with EUA for just one country

Agreed.

I'm surprised there isn't a headline on RTE yet, maybe they've just missed it. "Vaccine hopes slipping away!!!"

hmmm · 05-11-2020 07:57PM

You can get a good overview of which vaccines use full-length spike proteins here - https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2798-3

https://twitter.com/_b_meyer/status/1324419881530523649

05-11-2020 08:02PM

hmmm wrote: »

You can get a good overview of which vaccines use full-length spike proteins here - https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2798-3

https://twitter.com/_b_meyer/status/1324419881530523649

Would you be worried about vaccine prospects should the mutated version end up in widespread circulation?

hmmm · 05-11-2020 08:16PM

Deleted User wrote: »

Would you be worried about vaccine prospects should the mutated version end up in widespread circulation?

I wouldn't know, but there was a very good Twitter thread earlier with some speculation (Ireland gets a mention):
https://twitter.com/firefoxx66/status/1324095189242302471

tobefrank321 · 05-11-2020 10:33PM

hmmm wrote: »

Apologies if this has been posted already. This statement is kind of weird, I don't think anyone seriously believed there would be tens of millions of doses available in the UK before year end?

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-britain-astrazenec/delivery-timetable-of-oxford-astrazeneca-vaccine-has-slipped-uk-official-says-idUSKBN27K2GQ

"The timetable for delivery of the Oxford University/AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine candidate has slipped, the UK’s vaccine chief said, adding Britain will receive just 4 million doses of the shot this year."

Holohan said about 30% of population here is vulnerable. You'd have to assume its similar in the UK, meaning 20 million roughly. So while 4 million is a lot its a fraction of what is needed. They'll vaccinate the very highest risk first. Might make sense to vaccinate care home staff. Tough choices will be made on who gets it first due to limited supply. You'd wonder does it make sense to give it to someome near to death from something else over a younger person with years to live.

is_that_so · 06-11-2020 08:17AM

Interesting very small study on a nasal spray which blocks the virus but just in animals for now. It will need to go to clinical trials.

A nasal spray that blocks the absorption of the SARS-CoV-2 virus has completely protected ferrets it was tested on, according to a small study released on Thursday by an international team of scientists. The study, which was limited to animals and has not yet been peer-reviewed, was assessed by several health experts at the request of The New York Times.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/05/health/coronavirus-ferrets-vaccine-spray.html

polesheep · 06-11-2020 01:15PM

tobefrank321 wrote: »

Holohan said about 30% of population here is vulnerable. You'd have to assume its similar in the UK, meaning 20 million roughly. So while 4 million is a lot its a fraction of what is needed. They'll vaccinate the very highest risk first. Might make sense to vaccinate care home staff. Tough choices will be made on who gets it first due to limited supply. You'd wonder does it make sense to give it to someome near to death from something else over a younger person with years to live.

That's a fascinating question as it mirrors the situation in general.

Irish Stones · 06-11-2020 01:56PM

hmmm wrote: »

You can get a good overview of which vaccines use full-length spike proteins here - https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2798-3

https://twitter.com/_b_meyer/status/1324419881530523649

Danskjävlar (quote)

is_that_so · 06-11-2020 06:26PM

Barely qualifies as a study - just one patient! A test of the use of human recombinant soluble ACE2 (hrsACE2)

A recent study by Zoufaly et al. published in The Lancet Respiratory Medicine describes encouraging data from the first severe COVID-19 patient successfully treated with human recombinant soluble angiotensin-converting enzyme-2 (hrsACE2).

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41392-020-00374-6

Hmmzis · 06-11-2020 07:04PM

is_that_so wrote: »

Barely qualifies as a study - just one patient! A test of the use of human recombinant soluble ACE2 (hrsACE2)

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41392-020-00374-6

It's a case report, so counts as that. In my non-expert view I'm not sure the actual antiviral activity was all that improtant (otherwise plasma and other antivirals would be showing better results). There could be some anti-inflammatory and/or immunomodulation effects happening. There is little data in the article so it's not clear when the patient seroconverted in relation to start of treatment and viral load reduction. Also, the patient was a relatively young female, again reducing the signal of the treatment.
It would certainly warrant a bigger clinical trial to see if the effect still persists.

Chris_5339762 · 06-11-2020 07:37PM

polesheep wrote: »

That's a fascinating question as it mirrors the situation in general.

It does, and thats why I think everywhere it'll be difficult to be too specific as to who will/won't get it and in what order.

is_that_so · 06-11-2020 08:59PM

The state of play on rapid tests!

Rapid tests are easy to use: they can be deployed in high-risk environments, such as care homes or educational institutions, and by personnel with little or no specialist training. Some will be suitable for home use as well, once given the go-ahead by regulators. Collectively, they promise to be a useful adjunct to lab-based PCR diagnostic testing and, if deployed effectively and at scale, could strengthen flagging containment efforts by quickly identifying new outbreaks before they spread.

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41587-020-00021-z

Thats me · 06-11-2020 10:05PM

is_that_so wrote: »

The state of play on rapid tests!

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41587-020-00021-z

~20% false negatives

NH2013 · 06-11-2020 11:26PM

Thats me wrote: »

~20% false negatives

Probably more useful was a screening tool for places such as at airports or large events, festivals, concerts etc.

Testing perhaps a bit of a generous term for something with a ~20% negative rate but no reason it couldn’t be used as a screening tool to try catch cases in the community at events and for travel.

mandrake04 · 07-11-2020 12:22AM

NH2013 wrote: »

Probably more useful was a screening tool for places such as at airports or large events, festivals, concerts etc.

Testing perhaps a bit of a generous term for something with a ~20% negative rate but no reason it couldn’t be used as a screening tool to try catch cases in the community at events and for travel.

A lot of those rapid tests mentioned in that nature article still require either lab equipment or a POC device that will be tied up doing a single test for 10 or 15 mins. (POC are more like a self Blood glucose meter that diabetics use or a coagulation meter)

they have a quick turnaround time but still require a lot of staff and equipment to process large volumes.

Antigen card tests are the disposable ones that you add a bit of sample and the card changes colour a bit like a litmus or even a pregnancy test.

As you say they really for screening, DeGascun and Holohan were asked about antigen tests in the oireachtas the other day and they basically poo poo'ed them. I suppose if the Euro-overlords start using them then Ireland will follow, they problem is supply as these are being mainly pushed in developing world where there is very little advanced testing.

Dickie10 · 07-11-2020 12:28AM

so any word when these vaccines get the last green light? i thiught it was in november ?

hmmm · 07-11-2020 01:48AM

Hoping to get the result of vaccine trials this month. They may be approved for a small number of high-risk groups before the end of the year. The general public are unlikely to get vaccines until much later.

In other news, this was interesting:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/nov/05/covid-immune-response-much-faster-and-stronger-post-infection-coronavirus-scientists-say

"Researchers at Rockefeller University in New York found that the immune system not only remembered the virus but improved the quality of protective antibodies after an infection had passed, equipping the body to unleash a swift and potent attack if the virus invaded a second time."

"“We don’t know how long any protection will last, but it might be a really long time. It could be years.”"

speckle · 07-11-2020 02:05AM

If truly 30% of our population is high risk from covid for ICU and death... how does that (even taking into account that most of them are being careful)... explain our low Icu and death rate?

And the German government saying 89% of the over 80s survive... taking into consideration this will be lower for 80 year olds in nursing homes and higher for 80 year olds who are less fragile and living at home.

And surely more people under 70 then should be dying. Does anybody have stats on how many under 70 fall into high risk catagorys? Something not adding up in my brain, but I am sure somebody here can try and explain it to me.

Maybe 25% of our population is over 70? But then 89%+ are meant ro survive.. How I hate maths.

Or our we just the unhealthist nation in europe?

BeefeaterHat · 07-11-2020 02:56AM

Has the fiasco with the mink farms in Denmark potentially ****ed over the vaccines or are the press doing what they do best and whipping up a frenzy?

speckle · 07-11-2020 03:04AM

BeefeaterHat wrote: »

Has the fiasco with the mink farms in Denmark potentially ****ed over the vaccines or are the press doing what they do best and whipping up a frenzy?

Somebody posted early possibky hmmm re vaccines.. but I will add the scientists etc are saying albeit from a small number of people it does not seem to be any worse then oresent strains. They seem to be allowing some of the mink farms continue in some parts of the country. Have not read the news today. Did anyone post more info or in the papers about Irelands 3 mink farms?

Hmmzis · 07-11-2020 08:57AM

BeefeaterHat wrote: »

Has the fiasco with the mink farms in Denmark potentially ****ed over the vaccines or are the press doing what they do best and whipping up a frenzy?

It's more the case of "if we let this go on it has the potential to end badly". At the moment the two deletions in the stem, one RBD point mutation and the S1 trimer point mutation don't seem to be too troublesome. The stacking of the N439K mutation from humans on top of those mink changes is raising alarm bells as the back and forth passing between mink and humans is not deleterios, but might be a form of "gain of function" mechanism.

Thierry12 · 07-11-2020 11:30AM

BeefeaterHat wrote: »

Has the fiasco with the mink farms in Denmark potentially ****ed over the vaccines or are the press doing what they do best and whipping up a frenzy?

Studies coming out now that all animals might be susceptible to catch the virus at high viral loads, Minks are just the start it seems.

Not a conspiracy theory but China went for erradifcation for a reason

07-11-2020 01:14PM

https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.11.06.371617v1

A new study on immunity. The participants were people from Lombardy and Sweden. Their initial symptoms ranged from mild to critical. A vast majority of them showed T-cell and B-cell responses 6-8 months after infection regardless of the initial severity.

Hmmzis · 07-11-2020 02:08PM

Hardyn wrote: »

https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.11.06.371617v1

A new study on immunity. The participants were people from Lombardy and Sweden. Their initial symptoms ranged from mild to critical. A vast majority of them showed T-cell and B-cell responses 6-8 months after infection regardless of the initial severity.

Just to add, this lines up with the recent pre-print from Rockefeller University showing B cell maturation well after the convalescent phase. Also, in 80% of their cohort antibodies were still at detectable levels at the 8 month mark.

Hmmzis · 07-11-2020 02:42PM

Intersting study on T cells and a stab at trying toget to a correlate of disease protection based on T cells.

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.11.02.20222778v1

They observed no symptomatic disease in the high T cell count group while there were 20 symptomatic infections in the low T cell cohort. The numbers in both groups would indicate statistical significance.

Thierry12 · 07-11-2020 03:04PM

Hmmzis wrote: »

Intersting study on T cells and a stab at trying toget to a correlate of disease protection based on T cells.

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.11.02.20222778v1

They observed no symptomatic disease in the high T cell count group while there were 20 symptomatic infections in the low T cell cohort. The numbers in both groups would indicate statistical significance.

Question

Why can't they release an antibody test that targets T Cell?

We've being listening to this T Cell thing for months now

Are we getting anywhere?

We have one for TB

https://www.ouh.nhs.uk/immunology/diagnostic-tests/tests-catalogue/t-spot-tb.aspx

We sent a man to the moon 50 years ago and supposedly have cars that can drive themselves up the Conor Pass but can't test people for Covid immunity

This whole Covid thing has proven what I always thought

We are full of **** about our technological capabilities

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

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