What exactly is happening with AstraZeneca?

Necro · 08-02-2021 06:05PM

monkeybutter wrote: »

you certainly aren't a virologist that is for certain and no one is saying what you are

McGiver wrote: »

And your point is?

monkeybutter wrote: »

stop repeating the same thing over and over with no basis for it

McGiver wrote: »

You're on a discussion forum, so discuss points instead of telling people to stop discussing. That's for the mods.

McGiver wrote: »

You meant superior? I've edited my post, obviously I thought that nobody takes "medical advice" based on a discussion forum on boards.
Are you a virologist?

tesla1989 wrote: »

I'm not

I'm an engineer

Mod:

Quit the back and forth bickering folks, stick each other on ignore if you can't be civil to each other

Level 42 · 08-02-2021 06:23PM

waiting on some report to come out with data suggesting the vaccine is not so sh1t on the african variant are we clutching at straws with it

ek motor · 08-02-2021 06:33PM

Level 42 wrote: »

waiting on some report to come out with data suggesting the vaccine is not so sh1t on the african variant are we clutching at straws with it

Is the African strain more transmissable than the UK variant? If it is that could pose problems down the road because it looks as if the AZ vaccine is a bit useless against it from the limited data available so far.

robinph · 08-02-2021 06:50PM

Today's UK press conference they said there is nothing to suggest the SA variant is more dominant that the UK / Kent one. They do genetic sequencing on between 5-10% of positive tests and since the SA one was first detected in the UK they have only found 147 of them, so that is out of the 20k + per day and significantly more for months.

Don't think he said what ‰'age was the Kent variant in the bit I heard, but he was suggesting that it was most positive tests from the other comments he made.

Gradius · 08-02-2021 06:52PM

These variants are coming out of heterogenous zones of people which makes some sense considering the virus is able to sample and adapt from many different types of people in a single sitting. Delicious.

It's likely to ruin these current vaccines, was always the likely outcome when countries refused to protect borders.

robinph · 08-02-2021 07:19PM

mikelike wrote: »

It’s a tiny fraction unless you live in South Africa

It's not what it is now, it's what it will become.

If it's the only variant that can still infect people, it's going to become the dominant variant.It feels quite unfair for this variant render such an important vaccine useless

Given that we know that the SA variant exists in the UK, doesn't this imply that the UK should probably prioritize using Moderna/Pfizer/J&J/Novavax going forward if they do work against it, at least for vulnerable populations?

My concern is that, at some point when they lift lockdowns, you'd expect to see uncontrolled spread of that variant.

If the SA variant in the UK peters out due to the general lockdown restrictions, whilst the big numbers being seen of the UK variant which wide spread and so needs the vaccines to help with dealing with then that is all that really matters at the moment in the UK. Most over 70s will have been given the Pfizer vaccine already, so if they need a booster of that in November and a few of the lower risk groups get a shot of that as well when in for their annual flu jab not sure what else the UK currently needs to do.

By the time next winter comes around if another variant is then dominant there is no telling yet which vaccine will work best against it. A wide selection of vaccines is good, and all of them can be modified slightly and fairly quickly if needed to work against new variations.

Use the Pfizer and Moderna ones in SA now where they are needed, but for now the problem in the UK is not the SA variant.

McGiver · 08-02-2021 08:09PM

mikelike wrote:

Given that we know that the SA variant exists in the UK, doesn't this imply that the UK should probably prioritize using Moderna/Pfizer/J&J/Novavax going forward if they do work against it, at least for vulnerable populations?

Not the UK, but SA should and they may move in that direction. I was criticised for saying so here earlier today

UK - who knows. They've their own "national" vaccine, which is cheap and moderately efficacious on local strains, and they're happy with it. Until the SA variant spreads more there it's sort of irrelevant or a hypothetical question I'd say.

ek motor · 08-02-2021 09:40PM

mikelike wrote: »

China knew this and warned the world with actions a year ago, it went with zero covid strategy and countinues to lockdown hard and test vigorously when new cases pop up, they could have easily went with pharmacology only strategy like we did in the West and rushed through an emergency use vaccine months ago and produced in volume to vaccinate whole country by now, they didn't do that because they knew it wasn't enough.

Only early days but we look in big trouble again in the West, our vaccine only strategy is going up in flames, Oxford is gone, E484K mutation rendered it DOA and virus could do another deletion to get the rest if they show some resistance. Having all your strategy based on pharmacology was always crazy, pacific countries like NZ, AUS etc must be all laughing at us again

Mother nature ehh

Good post. What do you see as a potential 'end game 'strategy western governments should adopt to gain a decisive upper hand over Covid?

Dr. Em · 08-02-2021 09:44PM

The UK is in damage-control mode because they understandably don't want to derail their vaccination programme, but the data they were quoting in the press conference today on genetic sequencing is old data. In a Sky news article in January on the sequencing of the Kent variant, it said that whole genome sequencing takes two to three weeks. The South African variant has already been detected from London to York to Bristol, and at least 11 of those were unrelated to travel. They wouldn't be conducting such widespread door-to-door testing if they weren't worried that it was in the community, but they will wait until they get those results to be more frank. They have been banking on Oxford-Astrazeneca to get their numbers down and are hoping for it to somehow still come through. I suppose we all have to hope it still works.

WhiteMemento9 · 08-02-2021 10:14PM

Dr. Em wrote: »

The UK is in damage-control mode because they understandably don't want to derail their vaccination programme, but the data they were quoting in the press conference today on genetic sequencing is old data. In a Sky news article in January on the sequencing of the Kent variant, it said that whole genome sequencing takes two to three weeks. The South African variant has already been detected from London to York to Bristol, and at least 11 of those were unrelated to travel. They wouldn't be conducting such widespread door-to-door testing if they weren't worried that it was in the community, but they will wait until they get those results to be more frank. They have been banking on Oxford-Astrazeneca to get their numbers down and are hoping for it to somehow still come through. I suppose we all have to hope it still works.

They don't really have other options. It doesn't make sense to scare the general public. They have a vaccine that works against some of the variants and want to keep that rollout going and make sure the public keep taking it. It at least means you are controlling a portion of the virus from the variants that it is effective against. It can help to at least dampen the numbers in the short term.

The only issue is that it might damage the public buy-in when they are asked to take another vaccine down the road but the groundwork is already being laid to prepare people for that with all the news around the new variants and talk of the need for top-up vaccines.

Roger_007 · 08-02-2021 10:21PM

WhiteMemento9 wrote: »

They don't really have other options. It doesn't make sense to scare the general public. They have a vaccine that works against some of the variants and want to keep that rollout going and make sure the public keep taking it. It at least means you are controlling a portion of the virus from the variants that it is effective against. It can help to at least dampen the numbers in the short term.

The only issue is that it might damage the public buy-in when they are asked to take another vaccine down the road but the groundwork is already being laid to prepare people for that with all the news around the new variants and talk of the need for top-up vaccines.

It will certainly damage public buy-in if they get to 70% or 80% of the population vaccinated but are still having to live with restrictions. If life doesn’t return to ‘normal’ at that point there could be trouble. This also applies to some extent to all countries.

Icantthinkof1 · 08-02-2021 10:53PM

From the HSE website re: AstraZeneca

“second dose will be at least:

84 days (12 full weeks) after your first dose if you get the AstraZeneca vaccine”

brickster69 · 09-02-2021 11:36AM

Good article with Kate Bingham

https://www.repubblica.it/cronaca/2021/02/07/news/kate_bingham_interview_vaccines_covid_astrazeneca_uk_coronavirus_johnson-286384093/?utm_campaign=Matt%27s+Thoughts+In+Between&utm_medium=email&utm_source=Revue+newsletter&__vfz=medium%3Dsharebar

09-02-2021 01:31PM

brickster69 wrote: »

Good article with Kate Bingham

https://www.repubblica.it/cronaca/2021/02/07/news/kate_bingham_interview_vaccines_covid_astrazeneca_uk_coronavirus_johnson-286384093/?utm_campaign=Matt%27s+Thoughts+In+Between&utm_medium=email&utm_source=Revue+newsletter&__vfz=medium%3Dsharebar

she did a good job, the thanks for which was having her name dragged through the mud by the media and the cesspool that is twitter.

robinph · 09-02-2021 01:45PM

This thread seems to think the halting of AZ vaccination in SA was a mistake and for the wrong reasons. Think they are saying mild sniffles is due to one immune response to the virus and preventing more serious illness is due to another part of the immune response, and the trial that meant they stopped the roll out in SA was only looking at the sniffles response.

https://twitter.com/sailorrooscout/status/1358869462414467085?s=20

And that vaccines have been restarted again with the AZ vaccine apparently.

brickster69 · 10-02-2021 11:52AM

South Korea approved AZ for all ages

https://twitter.com/arirangtvnews/status/1359467771885617153

latency89 · 10-02-2021 01:33PM

South Africa are selling/ swapping their doses now, not gonna be used anymore, they going with johnson and johnson

What ye think should we buy them or swap?

1 Pfizer for 10 AZ, seems fair to me

Should Leo give them a call and do a deal?

They have a few million doses in stock.

South African variant will be no concern here, won't be the dominant strain according to experts on the vaccine thread here, will.disappear like that mink strain.

brickster69 · 10-02-2021 02:05PM

latency89 wrote: »

South Africa are selling/ swapping their doses now, not gonna be used anymore, they going with johnson and johnson

What ye think should we buy them or swap?

1 Pfizer for 10 AZ, seems fair to me

Should Leo give them a call and do a deal?

They have a few million doses in stock.

South African variant will be no concern here, won't be the dominant strain according to experts on the vaccine thread here, will.disappear like that mink strain.

Yeah, they have decided to ere on the side of caution.:eek:

https://www.fox26houston.com/news/south-africa-pivots-to-unapproved-johnson-johnson-vaccine-after-scrapping-astrazeneca?taid=6023e6fc496f1e00010ad2b8&utm_campaign=trueanthem&utm_medium=trueanthem&utm_source=twitter

NeuralNetwork · 10-02-2021 02:13PM

The volumes of Pfizer are going up and up with Pfizer capacity, BioNTech's purchase of that Novartis facility and Sanofi on board as a contract manufactuer.

I wouldn't be going crazy chasing AstraZeneca if we can comfortably afford mRNA products.

Also you can't just import any random batches of vaccine even if it's the same stuff if it's not produced in signed off facilities. There's a huge amount of validation goes on behind the scenes. So just buying up stocks of AZ from South Africa, which was produced by the Serum Institute in India, may not necessarily be possible.

latency89 · 10-02-2021 02:31PM

NeuralNetwork wrote: »

The volumes of Pfizer are going up and up with Pfizer capacity, BioNTech's purchase of that Novartis facility and Sanofi on board as a contract manufactuer.

I wouldn't be going crazy chasing AstraZeneca if we can comfortably afford mRNA products.

Also you can't just import any random batches of vaccine even if it's the same stuff if it's not produced in signed off facilities. There's a huge amount of validation goes on behind the scenes. So just buying up stocks of AZ from South Africa, which was produced by the Serum Institute in India, may not necessarily be possible.

India is a vaccine powerhouse, it makes 60% of the worlds vaccines and home to 6 or 7 of the biggest manufacturers, no issue there imo.

We are in a Pandemic

South Africa are selling millions of doses, if Paddy was cute, this is a great opportunity to get out of this mess

brickster69 · 10-02-2021 03:34PM

WHO approves AZ for all ages.

Macron spotted jumping from a bridge on the River Seine

Coybig_ · 10-02-2021 03:43PM

brickster69 wrote: »

WHO approves AZ for all ages.

Macron spotted jumping from a bridge on the River Seine

Macron?

Tony Holohan went on yet another solo run and decided that Astra Zenica was not to be used for over 70's in this country, after NIAC decided that it was fine.

latency89 · 10-02-2021 03:47PM

brickster69 wrote: »

WHO approves AZ for all ages.

Exactly why we should be on the phone to south africa, they don't want it, we do.

RugbyLad11 · 10-02-2021 03:53PM

latency89 wrote: »

Exactly why we should be on the phone to south africa, they don't want it, we do.

A few million doses from SA would help us so much. Unfortunately our GOV would never do that.

latency89 · 10-02-2021 04:01PM

RugbyLad11 wrote: »

A few million doses from SA would help us so much. Unfortunately our GOV would never do that.

Wouldn't it be so funny if some rich millionaire bought them and sold them/gave it away on black market to it's citizens.

Michael O'Leary you listening!

Get Ireland flying again

hynesie08 · 10-02-2021 04:31PM

latency89 wrote: »

Wouldn't it be so funny if some rich millionaire bought them and sold them/gave it away on black market to it's citizens.

Michael O'Leary you listening!

Get Ireland flying again

No, it wouldn't

Pete_Cavan · 10-02-2021 04:34PM

latency89 wrote: »

India is a vaccine powerhouse, it makes 60% of the worlds vaccines and home to 6 or 7 of the biggest manufacturers, no issue there imo.

We are in a Pandemic

South Africa are selling millions of doses, if Paddy was cute, this is a great opportunity to get out of this mess

If we can get them it is because nobody else wants them or we are paying over the odds, neither sounds good. Between cost and time to get them here, they probably would have minimal impact on the vaccination programme here anyway. Doesn't seem like an opportunity to get out of anything.

deeperlearning · 10-02-2021 04:36PM

brickster69 wrote: »

Good article with Kate Bingham

https://www.repubblica.it/cronaca/2021/02/07/news/kate_bingham_interview_vaccines_covid_astrazeneca_uk_coronavirus_johnson-286384093/?utm_campaign=Matt%27s+Thoughts+In+Between&utm_medium=email&utm_source=Revue+newsletter&__vfz=medium%3Dsharebar

Venture capitalist Kate Bingham who led UK Government's Vaccine Taskforce considers it a great success...

Well, there's a shocker.

In the words of the eponymous Mandy Rice-Davies, "Well she would, wouldn't she!".

brickster69 · 10-02-2021 04:40PM

latency89 wrote: »

Wouldn't it be so funny if some rich millionaire bought them and sold them/gave it away on black market to it's citizens.

Michael O'Leary you listening!

Get Ireland flying again

Probably gone by now. Boris sent a plane over as soon as he heard.

is_that_so · 10-02-2021 04:40PM

Greta Sweet Ballerina wrote: »

So AZ approved for all ages by WHO. Likelihood of diverging from EMA and following WHO so we can give over 70s this vaccine?

No, they've already decided that the efficacy of the mRNA vaccines is better for that age group.

What exactly is happening with AstraZeneca?

Comments