What exactly is happening with AstraZeneca?

astrofool · 21-02-2021 05:25PM

brickster69 wrote: »

Well the EMA did. Efficiacy is nothing at the moment compared to not being harmful, not causing severe disease, hospitalisation or death.

Not giving older people that safety which will cost lives, is the biggest failure of states. But that will all come out in due course.

On a political level, if each of those states received the same data and Germany & France approved it for all ages are you telling me those other countries would reject it ?

Problems with the efficacy of AZ in older people were well known long before the manufacturing issues came to light and were talked about extensively on the vaccine thread on this forum, for a lot of people, it was no surprise that most countries didn't approve for elderly and decided to give it to the younger population. I'd also doubt that all the countries not giving it to elderly are playing politics (e.g. what would SA be getting out of it?).

21-02-2021 05:34PM

astrofool wrote: »

If you don't know the answers to the questions, I doubt you'd understand the differences in the approval methods (which, as I noted before, are publicly available and very easy to look up).

The difference in approval?

The U.K. went alone, which meant it gave emergency approval and the government had to indemnify AZ against any claims. This apparently was bad and why the U.K. should have stuck with the Eu.

The EU took their time, reviewed the same data, came to the same conclusions, gave emergency approval and gave the same indemnity, but this is somehow less risky?

Have I missed anything?

brickster69 · 21-02-2021 05:35PM

astrofool wrote: »

Problems with the efficacy of AZ in older people were well known long before the manufacturing issues came to light and were talked about extensively on the vaccine thread on this forum, for a lot of people, it was no surprise that most countries didn't approve for elderly and decided to give it to the younger population. I'd also doubt that all the countries not giving it to elderly are playing politics (e.g. what would SA be getting out of it?).

A lot of people seem to misunderstand the word efficiacy in these vaccines.

70% effectiveness does not mean that 30% of those vaccinated will get sick. The 100% basis relates to the number of people who fall ill in the group that has not been vaccinated.

EG. In a group of 10,000 unvaccinated people, 200 people become ill. Then these 200 people are the basis for calculating the effectiveness.

Now comes the comparison with the group of vaccinated people. For example, 60 people fall ill there. Then one talks of an effectiveness of 70%. So only 60 people out of the 10,000 vaccinated people are sick. Compared to the 200 people in the 10,000 unvaccinated group.

If you take the above example, the different efficacy values based on 200 patients in an unvaccinated group of 10,000 people mean:

60% = 80 infected people vaccinated (out of 10,000 people)
70% = 60 sick people (out of 10,000 people)
90% = 20 sick people (out of 10,000 people)

MrMusician18 · 21-02-2021 06:17PM

Sconsey wrote: »

So are you saying it was ok to make up a story about a problem in factory, that never actually happened, to cover up their supply issues?

That's not what the factory stated iirc. They said they met the terms of their contact.

AZ may have been expecting higher yields than the minimum specified in the contract.

brickster69 · 21-02-2021 06:28PM

Germany has used just 87,000 of the 736,800 AstraZeneca doses received so far
Spain had used 35,000 doses out of 418,000

That is over 1 million people who could be well protected from Death.

Stark · 21-02-2021 06:29PM

brickster69 wrote: »

Germany has used just 87,000 of the 736,800 AstraZeneca doses received so far
Spain had used 35,000 doses out of 418,000

That is over 1 million people who could be well protected from Death.

Wonder could Ireland offer to buy their surplus

Strazdas · 21-02-2021 06:47PM

astrofool wrote: »

Problems with the efficacy of AZ in older people were well known long before the manufacturing issues came to light and were talked about extensively on the vaccine thread on this forum, for a lot of people, it was no surprise that most countries didn't approve for elderly and decided to give it to the younger population. I'd also doubt that all the countries not giving it to elderly are playing politics (e.g. what would SA be getting out of it?).

Dr. Colm Henry spoke about this at the press briefing the other evening. He said the only logical thing to do is give your strongest vaccines to the elderly and the vulnerable.

Anything else would be a bit bonkers i.e. giving AZ to old people but the clinically proven much stronger and more effective Pfizer to younger and healthier people.

astrofool · 21-02-2021 06:54PM

Aegir wrote: »

The difference in approval?

The U.K. went alone, which meant it gave emergency approval and the government had to indemnify AZ against any claims. This apparently was bad and why the U.K. should have stuck with the Eu.

The EU took their time, reviewed the same data, came to the same conclusions, gave emergency approval and gave the same indemnity, but this is somehow less risky?

Have I missed anything?

There is a page on europa.eu that explains it, I'll leave it up to yourself to find it and read it to understand the difference.

These are the main differences between emergency and conditional approval, not all may apply, however if it wasn't the third, then it's likely that AZ would have gone for conditional approval in the UK as well, but they didn't, as they didn't have the data ready yet.

the manufacturing process of the vaccine;
the good manufacturing practice (GMP) status certification of the facilities in which the vaccine is to be manufactured;
The extent of the clinical data, including size of the safety database and efficacy clinical data analyses available.

astrofool · 21-02-2021 07:01PM

brickster69 wrote: »

A lot of people seem to misunderstand the word efficiacy in these vaccines.

70% effectiveness does not mean that 30% of those vaccinated will get sick. The 100% basis relates to the number of people who fall ill in the group that has not been vaccinated.

EG. In a group of 10,000 unvaccinated people, 200 people become ill. Then these 200 people are the basis for calculating the effectiveness.

Now comes the comparison with the group of vaccinated people. For example, 60 people fall ill there. Then one talks of an effectiveness of 70%. So only 60 people out of the 10,000 vaccinated people are sick. Compared to the 200 people in the 10,000 unvaccinated group.

If you take the above example, the different efficacy values based on 200 patients in an unvaccinated group of 10,000 people mean:

60% = 80 infected people vaccinated (out of 10,000 people)
70% = 60 sick people (out of 10,000 people)
90% = 20 sick people (out of 10,000 people)

A lot of people do get confused. What the worry is that:

65% of people don't get it at all.
X% of people get symptoms but not severe.
Y% of people get severe symptoms.

With AZ, the X and Y results for elderly people isn't complete yet because the size of the trial wasn't large enough to give good confidence values. The problem is then compounded by some of the variants, which lower the effective efficacy and the corresponding X and Y values of vaccines even further. The mRNA vaccines produce such a good immune response that even for the variants, efficacy and symptoms aren't affected much. As the efficacy goes down towards the AZ vaccine (62-90% average depending on age and dosing schedule), the risk of X and Y being a higher % comes into play.

The hope is that Y is always 0, and for people up to the age of ~70, this is borne out by the data so far for all the vaccines.

astrofool · 21-02-2021 07:06PM

Stark wrote: »

Wonder could Ireland offer to buy their surplus

This is something we should absolutely be pursuing if we aren't, but I'd imagine those countries are stockpiling for now (storage is cheap) and will start injecting it when data starts flowing from the UK (or if J&J and Novavax become the primary, they'll start supplying to non-EU (if within expiry, which seems to be about 3-6 months).

titan18 · 21-02-2021 07:17PM

astrofool wrote: »

This is something we should absolutely be pursuing if we aren't, but I'd imagine those countries are stockpiling for now (storage is cheap) and will start injecting it when data starts flowing from the UK (or if J&J and Novavax become the primary, they'll start supplying to non-EU (if within expiry, which seems to be about 3-6 months).

Tbf we could buy them and go if things changes, well send our upcoming AZ supplies back to them.

embraer170 · 21-02-2021 07:20PM

Bulgaria from yesterday made the AZ vaccine available to anyone.

No need to even pre-register. Just show up at one of the many vaccination centres and get your jab.

Two reasons: the most anti-vaccine country in Europe and an incompetent administration that meant any attempt at an organised allocation process failed miserably.

astrofool · 21-02-2021 07:26PM

titan18 wrote: »

Tbf we could buy them and go if things changes, well send our upcoming AZ supplies back to them.

I'd imagine there's 3 things blocking this:

If they were being offered out to buy, lots of countries would quickly outbid us
The EU will have controls in place to prevent that from happening anyway, and any excess would be redistributed pro-rata throughout the EU
The politics within any country seen to be giving away vaccines, even if they're not actively using them, remembering what happened when a few countries didn't take their full allocations at the beginning of the Pfizer rollout

brickster69 · 21-02-2021 08:00PM

astrofool wrote: »

A lot of people do get confused. What the worry is that:

65% of people don't get it at all.
X% of people get symptoms but not severe.
Y% of people get severe symptoms.

The idea of a vaccine is not to determine what the %'s are when you have got the virus. It is to protect you from getting the virus in the first place.

If you let 4 million people wait, 2 months for example who are at most risk from suffering serious illness or death ( 70's + ) from getting the vaccine, surely in that time they are waiting for another jab, they will of caught it, got seriously ill and many will of died.

And how many would of died from taking it ?

astrofool · 21-02-2021 08:28PM

brickster69 wrote: »

The idea of a vaccine is not to determine what the %'s are when you have got the virus. It is to protect you from getting the virus in the first place.

If you let 4 million people wait, 2 months for example who are at most risk from suffering serious illness or death ( 70's + ) from getting the vaccine, surely in that time they are waiting for another jab, they will of caught it, got seriously ill and many will of died.

And how many would of died from taking it ?

It's to protect you from getting the disease, and (hopefully) reduce the spread of the virus, no vaccine can stop you getting the virus in the first place.

The optimum strategy for preventing a disease is actually to give it to those who spread the virus, not those most vulnerable (though this is politically hard to do), giving AZ to the younger health care workers and other of the younger generation will probably reduce the number of deaths overall (though undoubtedly those who die will be different), it also gives us the opportunity to vaccinate the younger vulnerable population ahead of time, ultimately, as long as we're consistently getting vaccines into arms, we're doing OK. What Spain and Italy are doing in stockpiling AZ vaccine is stupid, and will cause a higher death count.

brickster69 · 21-02-2021 08:58PM

astrofool wrote: »

It's to protect you from getting the disease, and (hopefully) reduce the spread of the virus, no vaccine can stop you getting the virus in the first place.

The optimum strategy for preventing a disease is actually to give it to those who spread the virus, not those most vulnerable (though this is politically hard to do), giving AZ to the younger health care workers and other of the younger generation will probably reduce the number of deaths overall (though undoubtedly those who die will be different), it also gives us the opportunity to vaccinate the younger vulnerable population ahead of time, ultimately, as long as we're consistently getting vaccines into arms, we're doing OK. What Spain and Italy are doing in stockpiling AZ vaccine is stupid, and will cause a higher death count.

Ireland seems to be doing well with the supply it has got. I do think that regardless of where a vaccine is made that some of these other Euro nations with a larger older people population have made a huge monumental balls up. Hopefully i am wrong.

Sconsey · 21-02-2021 09:45PM

MrMusician18 wrote: »

That's not what the factory stated iirc. They said they met the terms of their contact.

AZ may have been expecting higher yields than the minimum specified in the contract.

So AZ are right to blame the factory for delivering what they were contracted to deliver? It's not AZ's fault, it's the fault of the people who delivered on their promises!

Second part of your post appears to be pure speculation on your part.

ShineOn7 · 21-02-2021 11:10PM

https://twitter.com/sjanemurf/status/1363549795311366147

But - including the AZ orders - won't we be getting a million vaccines a month soon anyway?

This puts us on par with Denmark's roll-out surely?

Stark · 21-02-2021 11:20PM

ShineOn7 wrote: »

https://twitter.com/sjanemurf/status/1363549795311366147

But - including the AZ orders - won't we be getting a million vaccines a month soon anyway?

This puts us on par with Denmark's roll-out surely?

Yeah being a fellow EU country, we should be on the same schedule. I reckon Donnelly is afraid to give a more aggressive estimate than the original September estimate in case there are more hiccups like the Astrazenaca supply issue or the brief slowdown in Pfizer deliveries and the media/opposition jump all over him again.

Wolf359f · 21-02-2021 11:26PM

Stark wrote: »

Yeah being a fellow EU country, we should be on the same schedule. I reckon Donnelly is afraid to give a more aggressive estimate than the original September estimate in case there are more hiccups like the Astrazenaca supply issue or the brief slowdown in Pfizer deliveries and the media/opposition jump all over him again.

Some EU countries where very optimistic with when they would have a certain % vaccinated. They had to adjust the timeframe between the Pfizer delay & AZ delay. In Ireland, they don't seem to be over promising and they certainly aren't under delivering the vaccine into the arms.

Stark · 21-02-2021 11:28PM

That woman's subtweets are textbook Dunning–Kruger effect. "It's because they have a superior healthcare system and more freezers". Yeah right :rolleyes:

NeuralNetwork · 21-02-2021 11:37PM

There’s a tendency to believe anything here that confirms “we’re failures” “only in Ireland”

It’s actually one of the main reasons I sometimes think I should emigrate. We are a nation that has very little self belief and a penchent for just being depressing.

The situation is bad enough without a comparison between the most ludicrously optimistic (to the point of being unrealistic) forecast from someone in Denmark with the most miserable, pessimistic forecast from Ireland, when the reality is both will probably deliver more or less the same, from the same pool of vaccines.

Reality of situation seems to be we are dosing at very similar speed to Denmark and what is arriving is being injected very rapidly:

https://qap.ecdc.europa.eu/public/extensions/COVID-19/vaccine-tracker.html#uptake-tab

Wolf359f · 21-02-2021 11:42PM

Stark wrote: »

That woman's subtweets are textbook Dunning–Kruger effect. "It's because they have a superior healthcare system and more freezers". Yeah right :rolleyes:

I know we're getting a little off topic now, but both Denmark and Ireland are on the same course. There's like a week in it, and it's not a competition!

NeuralNetwork · 22-02-2021 12:00AM

It does sometimes feel tough that there is a narrative that being pushed that’s trying to snuff out any sense of optimism.

We should be getting behind a national drive to get this vaccine plan rolled out. There’s great stuff going on, but because the U.K. has a head start and even though we are performing very well and the volumes will rise very rapidly as EU supplies ramp up and get beyond the startup phase, we are just engaging in “misery me” mode all the time.

It’s absolutely depressing and it must be disheartening if you’re actually involved in trying to roll this out.

If you’re in England right now it’s like “NHS heros! Go vaccines!! Yay!!”

Here are are ramping up rapidly and the same kind of stuff is going on, just with a different supply chain, and it’s just “we are morons! What’s wrong with us? Only in Ireland! Sure we’re total failures. Might as well give up.”

The reality of it is it’s going extremely fast. However, unlike Boris the communication is all over the place and the assumption being absorbed is that it’s an unmitigated disaster and a fiasco because that’s what’s being absorbed.

The AstraZeneca - European Commission public fight has also massively fed into that. I think the Commission badly mishandled it and have shaken public confidence badly, here at least, because of the way it was communicated and appeared.

Wolf359f · 22-02-2021 12:07AM

NeuralNetwork wrote: »

It does sometimes feel tough that there is a narrative that being pushed that’s trying to snuff out any sense of optimism.

We should be getting behind a national drive to get this vaccine plan rolled out. There’s great stuff going on, but because the U.K. has a head start and even though we are performing very well and the volumes will rise very rapidly as EU supplies ramp up and get beyond the startup phase, we are just engaging in “misery me” mode all the time.

It’s absolutely depressing and it must be disheartening if you’re actually involved in trying to roll this out.

If you’re in England right now it’s like “NHS heros! Go vaccines!! Yay!!”

Here are are ramping up rapidly and the same kind of stuff is going on, just with a different supply chain, and it’s just “we are morons! What’s wrong with us? Only in Ireland! Sure we’re total failures. Might as well give up.”

The reality of it is it’s going extremely fast. However, unlike Boris the communication is all over the place and the assumption being absorbed is that it’s an unmitigated disaster and a fiasco because that’s what’s being absorbed.

Ah you could see that at the very start, so many were expecting the HSE to fook up the rollout. Expecting it to be a total disaster etc...

Before Christmas, the trend on Boards was nobody really knew anyone with Covid, then after Christmas, many users posted about knowing people testing positive, even posters themselves. Now we're hearing of posters and their relatives getting vaccinated, so it's all a step into positivity.

Dyr · 22-02-2021 12:13AM

NeuralNetwork wrote: »

It does sometimes feel tough that there is a narrative that being pushed that’s trying to snuff out any sense of optimism.

We should be getting behind a national drive to get this vaccine plan rolled out. There’s great stuff going on, but because the U.K. has a head start and even though we are performing very well and the volumes will rise very rapidly as EU supplies ramp up and get beyond the startup phase, we are just engaging in “misery me” mode all the time.

It’s absolutely depressing and it must be disheartening if you’re actually involved in trying to roll this out.

If you’re in England right now it’s like “NHS heros! Go vaccines!! Yay!!”
.

It's almost like we think the HSE is a ball of ****e populated by incompetents

Strazdas · 22-02-2021 12:46AM

NeuralNetwork wrote: »

It does sometimes feel tough that there is a narrative that being pushed that’s trying to snuff out any sense of optimism.

We should be getting behind a national drive to get this vaccine plan rolled out. There’s great stuff going on, but because the U.K. has a head start and even though we are performing very well and the volumes will rise very rapidly as EU supplies ramp up and get beyond the startup phase, we are just engaging in “misery me” mode all the time.

It’s absolutely depressing and it must be disheartening if you’re actually involved in trying to roll this out.

If you’re in England right now it’s like “NHS heros! Go vaccines!! Yay!!”

Here are are ramping up rapidly and the same kind of stuff is going on, just with a different supply chain, and it’s just “we are morons! What’s wrong with us? Only in Ireland! Sure we’re total failures. Might as well give up.”

The reality of it is it’s going extremely fast. However, unlike Boris the communication is all over the place and the assumption being absorbed is that it’s an unmitigated disaster and a fiasco because that’s what’s being absorbed.

The AstraZeneca - European Commission public fight has also massively fed into that. I think the Commission badly mishandled it and have shaken public confidence badly, here at least, because of the way it was communicated and appeared.

But it's pointless anyone comparing themselves to the UK on this. They got a head start on everyone, not just on the EU - they were the first country on the planet to authorise both Pfizer and AstraZeneca.

Much of the jingoistic chest thumping going on from the English tabloids is total nonsense and downright misleading. The Brits are merely a few weeks ahead of the EU in rollout but are spinning this to their gullible readers as if their programme is a success and the EU's one is a disaster. There's nothing wrong with the EU rollout at all - the member states have already vaccinated 26m people and the programme is rapidly accelerating with each passing day.

Dyr · 22-02-2021 12:51AM

Strazdas wrote: »

But it's pointless anyone comparing themselves to the UK on this. They got a head start on everyone, not just on the EU - they were the first country on the planet to authorise both Pfizer and AstraZeneca.

Pointless eh?

https://ig.ft.com/coronavirus-vaccine-tracker/?areas=gbr&areas=isr&areas=usa&areas=eue&cumulative=1&populationAdjusted=1

Strazdas · 22-02-2021 01:04AM

Bambi wrote: »

Pointless eh?

https://ig.ft.com/coronavirus-vaccine-tracker/?areas=gbr&areas=isr&areas=usa&areas=eue&cumulative=1&populationAdjusted=1

But so what if they are a few weeks ahead of the EU? It doesn't really mean anything. It would be a different story if the EU was six months or a year behind, but a month or so is of no real consequence.

Most people in the UK, Ireland and the rest of EU don't actually have the virus. A slight delay of four to six weeks in getting their first dose of the vaccine is hardly even worth writing about.

Charles Babbage · 22-02-2021 01:05AM

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Stark wrote: »

Yeah being a fellow EU country, we should be on the same schedule. I reckon Donnelly is afraid to give a more aggressive estimate than the original September estimate in case there are more hiccups like the Astrazenaca supply issue or the brief slowdown in Pfizer deliveries and the media/opposition jump all over him again.

Other countries have produced schedules based on probables and should be figures. Given that the producers have not exactly been to the forefront in delivering on their orders some expectation management is appropriate.

If Donnelly doesn't give optimistic dates, but makes sure that the vaccines are put into people shortly after they arrive in the country then at some stage the dates can be reconsidered.

What exactly is happening with AstraZeneca?

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