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@TiRed If I've read the above correctly, they can claim 90% effectiveness of the vaccine without exposing all vaccine participants to a controlled known number of current Covid positive individuals?
Yes, nobody has been "challenged" intentionally yet. They just use enough people to allow nature to infect them.
Also interesting will be to see whether the 10% who still get it have mild/no symptoms.
Thanks from all of us FFJA.
Edit: and thanks yet again for the education TiRed… keep it coming.
My youngest's school has shuffled it's inset days about so the last day of teaching is now 15th, allowing a period of isolation before Christmas.
I wish my eldest's school has done like wise.
That’s very sensible.
Just to rain on the vaccine parade a little light drizzle.
The circulating SARS-CoV-2 spike variant N439K maintains fitness while evading antibody-mediated immunity
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.11.04.355842v1
SARS-CoV-2 has low error rate when making copies, but occasionally one will pop up. Here is one that escapes binding to the Regeneron antibody cocktail. Rather pleasingly it does not escape all antibodies, and a proper antiviral agent should still eventually knock it down. Depressingly it's hunting ground has been Scotland.
But this is viral evolution in action. 1.5M mink are about to meet their maker for the same reason. Escape mutants are the norm when you apply selection pressures. Any vaccine will apply that pressure.
Escape mutants are the norm when you apply selection pressures.
You mean evolution is real?
If this vaccine is considered safe, would it not make sense to just give it to everyone anyway, because even if it only lasts 6 months we can still massively suppress the virus during that time. Then if numbers go up again we either re-immunise everyone or just apply strict T&T and quarantine case by case, can't we? If we were capable of acting that competently, of course.
It does make sense to give it to everyone, trouble is we won't have enough doses for that for a while. Although we could potentially dose everyone in the uk it would mean big populations in the rest of the world without and due to mutations this has to be a world wide effort if travel etc is to open up
You mean evolution is real?
Don’t tell the outgoing White House staff.
If this vaccine is considered safe, would it not make sense to just give it to everyone anyway
Genius! Thank you! Glad you’re here. When can you have all those vaccine doses ready? I’m in.
Apologies Molgrips. Mass once yearly vaccinations might well be the “long game”. Ignore my arsey response. Too many people have misread today’s good news as if it was an announcement that the world would be vaccinated in the coming months… I apologise for reacting to you as if you were saying that… reading again, I don’t think you were at all. Sorry.
There's going to be a significant proportion of the population who rightly or wrongly decide they'll rather take the risk of catching Covid rather than have a vaccine that has been rushed to market and may have unknown long term side effects.
Idiots, you mean? It’ll be a long time before we have mass vaccination and have to worry about them… take up will be higher than supply for the next year at least.
Dear lord he's using even more cringy war analogies, bugles and all. 🤮
I'll pass on any vaccine for a while yet. One because I have antibodies that will neutralize it, and two because others need it more. It is VERY positive news for combating SASR-CoV-2 infection. The following vaccines, using more conventional technologies, may have just as much success. But nature has a way of coming back to bite you one the derriere (finger in the case of mink).
You mean evolution is real?
Who knew? On https://lockdownsceptics.org/, there was debate as to whether the virus even exists. But yesterday it turned into https://uselectionsceptics.org for some odd reason.
You still have the patience to go on there? Wowzers.
Re: vaccine, who wants to be an "early adopter"?
Think I'd wait 6 months after any vaccine.
Re: vaccine, who wants to be an “early adopter”?
Sign me up. My individual risk/benefit analysis probably comes out slightly differently than a younger, healthier person.
You still have the patience to go on there? Wowzers.
There are a couple of intelligent people with whom one can have serious debate. Just a couple. Most seem to be brexitrumpards. But a jobbing scientist must be a sceptic. I am most definitely so, but my weighing of the science lends to a more mainstream view.
“Not THAT cold I hope! (-80C is jolly chilly, special freezer chilly).“
Just meant that when the ambient temperature is lower it can make it easier to maintain very cold temperatures.
Re: vaccine, who wants to be an “early adopter”?
All the people we need to thank for signing up for trials.
Once the vaccine is publicly available, no one who gets it will be an ‘early adopter’.
Which conspiracy theory will be strongest next year? One of the “anti-vaccine” ones, or one of the “they’re deliberately denying us mass vaccination” ones? Place your bets now…
I was being flippant. I think lots of us would like it but there will be a prioritisation to who actually gets it. My fear is that frontline workers, police, army etc will be strong-armed into it for operational reasons.
I really hope it's as safe as claimed
Which conspiracy theory will be strongest next year? One of the “anti-vaccine” ones, or one of the “they’re deliberately denying us mass vaccination” ones? Place your bets now…
The Russian one will be the ethical alternative, the Pfiezer one will give you aids, Biden will be an NWO elitist who hates Brexit, self-driving cars will be a tool for race replacement because they'll be programmed to avoid black pedestrians at the expense of the white occupants, the public will continue to blame "Chynahh" for everything whilst conveniently ignoring Mink fetishizing degenerates in Denmark, mumsnet will become a political party and Piers Morgan will be prime minister.
Don’t joke about mumsnet… they’ll come for you.
You assume that I'm only joking!
Long way to go but ive dared to be a little optimistic tonight.
A "friend" on fb is already saying how he definitely won't be getting the jab and being applauded for saying it. Linking it (negatively) with Biden's election. I dont care at all, dont get the jab. Helps on the logistics of supply for others etc. Only negative is that the more people that have the jab the better of course. Obviously he will no doubt end up getting the jab and just never admit it.... Or start moaning about NOT being offered the jab, he seemingly has only partial self awareness. Before Brexit/ Trump/ Covid I honestly thought he was a decent guy. However, he is totally toxic and utterly filled with hatred and I'm glad that I'll never actually have real life interaction with him again. Ive concluded he's a ******* selfish, utterly bigoted, idiot tbh.
Rant over.
Huge thanks to the people on here involved in the trials. Genuinely. Reinforces my believe that fundamentally most people are decent human beings.
Ok, so re. the positive news about the vaccine. Help me out here. I’ve mentioned this over the last day or so to a few people and I’ve had quite a bit of push back...yeah, from people who’ve happily benefitted from the MMR vaccine etc. I’m sure I’m not alone in hearing the “it’s been developed too quickly...who knows what the long term effects are...you can’t trust these drugs companies...” I could go on - you all know the shtick.
Unfortunately, the shtick isn’t just coming from the run of the mill anti-vaxxer types - it’s now coming from some people I just wouldn’t expect it from at all. And I’m hearing a lot of “I’m not taking it.” Is anybody else surprisedly hearing this from friends/acquaintances?
Anybody help me out with a list of bullet points so I can politely tell them to cop themselves on? 😀
I got tangled up in a "the test is the vaccine" conversation a while back, some apparently intelligent people absolutely swallowing it hole. I was like "I had the test, I wish it was a bloody vaccine".
Luckily we don't need everyone to get it for it to work... And by the time it gets out to a large amount of the population, it'll have been out and demonstrated to work for so long that resistance will fall. So I don't see it being a general public health issue longterm but man is it depressing.
“it’s been developed too quickly…who knows what the long term effects are…you can’t trust these drugs companies…” I could go on – you all know the shtick.
I answer that specifically by pointing out that we dont know the long term effects of long Covid but from what we know so far they could be bloody dreadful for many. Long term organ damage, Neuro issues, strokes plus other issues we have no idea about as yet. Nature mixed up Covid, I'll go with the man made solution to it as the least risky of the two on this one.
From a country that snorts half it’s weight in badly cut cocaine and then drowns itself in ethanol, the vaccine safety stupidity is astounding.
Ok DD how about:
Antibodies have been proven to protect from severe infection
Vaccines of all flavours produce those antibodies
Those antibodies look the same as past infection antibodies
One of those vaccines has shown protection against infection
The mRNA used to vaccinate is a tiny part of the virus machinery you would receive anyway
Your body is making the viral protein and then the antibodies against it. All natural
Pharma won’t be making much money, vaccines are a high volume low margin product. We’ve said 5 or 10% above cost to reinvest into research
The economic reality of getting the world back on track DWARFS any profit a company will make. The FTSE rose by billions in one day!
Watch out for the GAVI/Gates/Deep Mind/Great Reset [insert theory here] microchips in every injection and the mind control neurotoxins#
#maybe. Go big or go home on your conspiracy theories.
TiRed, could you explain the method they used? Specifically, were they vaccinated (or not) then sent out into the general population to go about their day to day & catch the virus, or were they then exposed to the virus post vaccination and the infection rates monitored from this research based exposure?
From memory I read that the Oxford study was “happy” that the rate of infection had dropped over summer but “unhappy” because it undermined their study & trials. I seem to recall that this was because they needed the R value over a certain level in order for them to be satisfied that subjects were likely to be exposed to the virus (and therefore satisfied that the vaccine had actually offered some form of protection). I think it was based on ethics; without an actual existing cure/treatment it was seen as unethical to infect subjects.
What I’m getting at is that unless subjects were intentionally infected how can we ascribe the efficacy to the vaccine, and not some other influence such as the natural seasonal drop in infections and the widespread lock down over the spring and summer (or indeed a combination of vaccine, summer & lockdown)?
What I’m getting at is that unless subjects were intentionally infected how can we ascribe the efficacy to the vaccine, and not some other influence such as the natural seasonal drop in infections and the widespread lock down over the spring and summer (or indeed a combination of vaccine, summer & lockdown)?
You have your statistically representative sample of the population given the vaccine yes? Well then, their rates of covid-19 infection shouldn't differ from the population at large. The lower rates over the summer probably made it harder simply because it made it more difficult to ascertain a statistically relevant sample size and I guess more infections could make differences in the data clearer.
@TiRed. Thanks. That’s helpful. I hope I can change some minds.
What’s the best response to the “vaccines take years to develop...this has been rushed!”?
(My thinking is that if resources are concentrated, timescales can be slashed...is that fair enough?)
The trial members are exposed to the same sars-cov-2 viral infection risk as everyone else in the community. What matters is the number of infections you see. So it’s a comparison of n out of N thousand people-months versus m out of N thousand people-months. When you have enough events you can test whether n/M is differ to m/M. If that difference is so big you’d not expect it by chance, positive trial!
If there is a low infection rate you have to wait a long time to get (n+m) infections. If it’s raging you will not. Oxford complained that rates in the U.K. were too low so accruing those n+m events would take too long. So they went elsewhere. Brazil is a good place as the epidemic has been burning along at a rate of knots. South Africa another.
Recruitment of events of COVID19 infection not people happy to have the jab is the rate determining step here. Of course the unlocking and growth of infections in the U.K. has helped for vaccine trials.
Hope that makes sense
because they split the trial into two, half got the vaccine and half got a placebo. Then they were sent out into the world to live normal lives like the rest of us, shopping, meeting friends, who knows - just being 'normal' in a covid world. If your trials big enough you get a decent cross section of behaviours so any outliers are smoothed out.
And they wait to see how many catch covid in the weeks and months after the vaccines were given.
And when they have enough infections to make counting worthwhile, they open the secret sealed envelopes and find whether those with infections had the vaccine or the placebo.
Out of every 10 infections - 9 went to placebo injections, 1 to someone who had the vaccine, and that's why they reckon it's 90% effective, 9x better than no vaccine, or whatever else.
What’s the best response to the “vaccines take years to develop…this has been rushed!”
The technology used (mRNA) is very quick to scale up. But harder to deliver as a product. Traditional vaccine technologies are coming next year. When Big Pharma has a good target and rapidly understood biology, it’s got a pretty good track record of delivery. That’s been the biotech revolution, and I would say it has massively delivered in the past year.
But I’ll be honest and say that there is no substitute for long-term monitoring, and experience shows that immunity to other coronaviruses wanes. This is not likely to differ. We have wide data on short-term. We will turn this into wide data on long-term as we extend follow up and learn.
Rare events WILL appear perhaps just by chance, but there is a known cost of not proceeding now (global economic downturn) compared with a known unknown but likely very tiny risk of future peril at a later date. That’s what regulations strives to balance and it will monitor carefully as any new treatment or vaccine is rolled out.
I wonder what the correlation between people who believe that natural herd immunity is the way forward, and people who believe that the vaccine is untested/evil/contains mercury/Bill Gates's semen?
Not sure on that one but....
There is a definite correlation between Brexit (sorry but it's what ive seen), anti mask, pro Trump, anti lock down and anti vaccine.
Hardly a conclusive study but I think others will say they might have observed some of the same?
There's also the more understandable explanation of just being a bit worried as it's "new and a bit rushed". I can at least relate to that. The above however, no. Just no.
Not meaning to make this political, it's a genuine observation. Sorry to derail.
Some economic perspective. The FTSE rose 4.7% in ONE DAY on news of a positive vaccine. That is worth about £70bn. A rise simply on the news that there is a means to a likely eventual end to the pandemic. If a vaccine was priced at £10 a dose, then that one day gain in just the FTSE (forget all other stock markets and economies) would pay for the entire global population to be dosed once.
That’s how economically significant the result is. Far far too big for any single pharma company. I think pharma reputation will come out of this much improved as people will have a clearer understanding and appreciation of biotechnology. The pace of work has been and still is nothing short of breathtaking. For everyone working in the field. That includes the regulators too btw.
I see all the newspapers are running with "back to normal by spring" which seems very optimistic? Mainly on the logistical side of getting the vaccine to though people by then.
That said, I think everyone needs some good news at the moment. That includes me and though I dont see that "normal" will ever return on some ways (some of them for the better) the ones that are important to me just might. If not by spring then sometime next next year at least. Full time carer for 90 year old mother so she'll hopefully be nearish the top of the list. I'd like to think I'd be vaccinated too as I'm with her most of the day, everyday as an extra level of protection but I'll take what I can get and be grateful. Mum being vaccinated has a massive knock on effect on my life. I won't lie, part of this is purely selfish. I've distanced from my partner (don't live with her, she is amazingly supportive but it's been stressful for her particularly), my son, my 7mnth old grandson. Basically we never ended shielding. I'm feeling pretty spent. That said, one has the massive comfort of knowing she wasn't in a care home as the first wave hit the didn't of steel. That was a huge blessing.
Great news but some much needed public perspective from JVT in johnson's presser.
As for stock markets - monday was partially 'irrational exuberance'; dow jones futures show some easing on tuesday; likely profit taking; far eastern indices just opening - Nikkei up 1.3%.
It's a great start but we're still a very long way from a proven, safe vaccine with rapid scaleability.
I'm still of the opinion that we're two years away.
How I hope I'm wrong.
^^ So do I mate but I get where you are coming from. Fingers well and truly crossed.
Hope that makes sense
Yes thanks 👍🏻