And not to forget, from L'Express:
Doses which would then have been sent for the "fill & finish" (bottling), to the Italian site of Anagni, owned by the American group Catalent.
If there is a stockpile of whatever size in Italy, I'm sure they don't want to be dragging the US government into the row by stopping one of their firms moving product.
Export bans of vaccines, or vaccine ingredients, is a can of worms for the EU, which would no doubt not only be immediately be challenged through the European courts, but could have unintended consequences for the supply of any US-manufactured doses towards the end of the year.
From the ridiculous to the sublime - i got jabbed last Friday.
This thread has been the centre of where i've seen all of this going on. I'd like to thank all of you for the grounding it's given me.
I don't think i've ever been more than cautiously optimistic about anything particularly, but i'm feeling pretty damn good right now.
^^Great to hear on both fronts mate, the jab and positivity.👍
I don’t think i’ve ever been more than cautiously optimistic about anything particularly, but i’m feeling pretty damn good right now.
Good to hear, I feel similar.
This thread has helped on the "cautiously optimistic" front all year.
Anyone care to offer an opinion on:
1) AstraZeneca effectiveness, the latest fight on that vaccine is in the US, apparently they've cherry picked data to get to their effectiveness figure, but the US is still happy it's a very good vaccine. My understanding of the 74% effectiveness 'rating' is that 74% of people with it, won't contract Covid 19, the remaining 26% will, but will have a head start so far less will get seriously ill needing hospital care or die, meaning it's over 99% effective at keeping people out of hospital?
2) Double Mutant Strains, as just found in India, sounds scary AF, all very X-Men but what the hell does it mean, apart from another scary headline to grab our attention?
Good video on comparing vaccines.
Summary - you can't directly compare efficacy rates as the trials happened at different times, with different rates of infection in the wider community and different strains BUT all provided very good protection against hospitalisation and death.
At this stage last year if you had predicted that we would now have 3 or more vaccines with mass-delivery and uptake you'd have been called a fantasist! Let's not lose sight of the fact that the scientific community worldwide has pulled an absolute blinder on this, the fact that were are able to now be in the position to compare options and even possibly choose which one we prefer is astounding.
We may not be near the end of all of this just yet but we are a lot further along the journey than anyone predicted.
We may not be near the end of all of this just yet but we are a lot further along the journey than anyone predicted.
Definitely this. The reason to think of the glass as being half full, which I need to remember sometimes
v8ninety
Multiple groups have estimated the number of cases is doubling every five to seven days.
This is surely good news though, in a way. It suggests that whilst it seems to spread like wildfire, only a small proportion of people get ill enough to come to the attention of the authorities, and still fewer actually die. So very spready, not very killy. Like colds and flu, really. And next year there’ll be a vaccine.
Posted 1 year ago
That's not aged well...
I think everyone was making wild guessing a year ago weren't they?
Including the govt, as it turns out..
That’s not aged well…
Why are we singling out that particular poster? It was hard for the layman to separate the signal from the noise at that point - a lot of credible-sounding disinformation out there. People still coming up with those lines later in the summer perhaps deserve a harder time, but not back at the start.
I remember being one of the original doom-mongers on the 'Look, the Chinese have built a hospital in a week' thread...and things have been far more 'interesting' than even I predicted. And I'm currently cautiously optimistic, although I don't underestimate the capacity of the UK governments and populations to **** it up again next winter.
Where is RaybanWomble when you need him? 🙂
In the grand scheme of things,
"very spready, not very killy and we'll have a vaccine next year,"
whilst linguistically a little bit unsavoury is actually pretty accurate.
How accurate the 2019nCOV rate is will be conjecture because we (relatively) quickly have reacted to protect the most vulnerable that would have increased that rate - but even then it's still not Ebola or Birdflu level (40% and 52% each approx)
Oh, I was quoting them as they predicted a year ago that we'd have a vaccine this year. I didn't intend a pile on. Many people predicted/hoped very early on that we'd have vaccines in use around about now.... very few (no one here?) predicted that we'd start using them late in 2020. The BioNTech was approved and put into use in December, with the Oxford one following on soon after that, well ahead of predictions... but I was challenging the idea that a year ago no one would have predicted us vaccinating now... many did. I just quoted the very first such prediction right at the start of this thread as an example.
Im not sure AZ would actually do that, they know it would cause a huge furore, I suspect the french paper article is wrong about the numbers, especially as theyve been scaling up
Theres no way it would be 30 million doses
Plenty of news sources claiming 29 million now.
very few (no one here?) predicted that we’d start using them late in 2020.
I think most people involved in vaccine development would not have predicted the sequence of good fortune which has produced three or more effective vaccines at this point. There were plenty who weren't sure if a vaccine into a coronavirus was actually possible.
There were plenty who weren’t sure if a vaccine into a coronavirus was actually possible.
True.
Some were way more positive…
The 29 million doses number comes from an article in La Stampa. Where I've seen it used elsewhere, newspapers have quoted La Stampa as the source.
The number has not been confirmed ( or denied) by the Italian govt or anyone official yet as of yet.
... there is reporting now the 29 million doses are earmarked for Canada and Mexico and push back from UK govt on the numbers...
There were plenty who weren’t sure if a vaccine into a coronavirus was actually possible.
Actually it wasn't the case that a vaccine would be possible - been done for animals for decades. What was unknown is whether there might be implications for antibody enhanced disease on challenge. That was based on preclinical data for SARS-CoV-1 and Dengue. As it turns out, the preclinical models are not predictive and that's why we are here now.
There is still considerable concern over variants, notably the SA variant B1.351, which certainly escapes sterile protection based on recent clinical data.
https://www.nejm.org/doi/10.1056/NEJMoa2102214
I however, am still optimistic for cross protection against serious morbidity rather than symptoms, although the numbers in that trial are low.
In the primary end-point analysis, mild-to-moderate Covid-19 developed in 23 of 717 placebo recipients (3.2%) and in 19 of 750 vaccine recipients (2.5%), for an efficacy of 21.9% (95% confidence interval [CI], −49.9 to 59.8). Among the 42 participants with Covid-19, 39 cases (92.9%) were caused by the B.1.351 variant; vaccine efficacy against this variant, analyzed as a secondary end point, was 10.4% (95% CI, −76.8 to 54.8).
..."E.U. officials said there was no evidence that the stockpile in Italy, first reported by the Italian daily La Stampa, was bound for Britain. They said the company, when confronted about the doses, said that 16 million doses were bound for the E.U. market and 13 million to countries under the Covax initiative that aims to get doses to poorer nations. Those latter exports would be exempt from E.U. controls, as they are deemed to be of humanitarian nature."
So it’s just a political teddy throwing episode for home consumption then?
6 million doses were bound for the E.U. market
Doses from a plant that hasn't yet applied to supply the EU? What an interesting mess.
and 13 million to countries under the Covax initiative that aims to get doses to poorer nations
Are we thinking Canada? They're trying to draw down on AZ stock from Covax, yes?
So it’s just a political teddy throwing episode for home consumption then?
The interesting question is are AZ trying to pull a fast one on the EU, or, more likely, are they just not communicating what they're doing in Europe to their host nations and the EU very effectively? I'd go with the later. They need to start being more transparent, or the politics of this is going to get in the way of them doing what is very good work for all.
Kelvin - The whole truth may be out there but it is unlikely to see the light of day!
I think the key points are the doses are not hidden, just being processed as part of the supply chain and they are not for the UK. Apparently they travel to Belgium from Italy for distribution anyway.
When first heard the story I could smell BS, 30 million doses for the UK hidden was clearly nonsense and other papers quoting La Stampa would have known that too. This sort of thing really winds me up
I think the key points are the doses are not hidden
As I said… more transparency needed. If the national and EU bodies had no knowledge of them, because they weren’t told about them, are they “hidden”? I’d say not, but it feeds suspicion unnecessarily.
Oh, I was quoting them as they predicted a year ago that we’d have a vaccine this year. I didn’t intend a pile on. Many people predicted/hoped very early on that we’d have vaccines in use around about now…. very few (no one here?) predicted that we’d start using them late in 2020. The BioNTech was approved and put into use in December, with the Oxford one following on soon after that, well ahead of predictions… but I was challenging the idea that a year ago no one would have predicted us vaccinating now… many did. I just quoted the very first such prediction right at the start of this thread as an example.
When people were saying there should be a vaccine this year most people (including me) presumed they were meaning late 2021 at the earliest, not January 1st! I get your point though but the general consensus was 18-24 months to get through trials etc from this time last year. To condense what normally takes 5 years or more into 8 months is still an incredible achievement. While the government may have made themselves look completely incompetent throughout the scientists and the NHS have done completely the opposite, rising to the challenge and doing their absolute best.
It’s not just down to the NHS and scientists here. The earliest vaccines were the result of funding, research, trial volunteers, production, packaging in and from…
USA, Brazil, Germany, Belgium, Holland, India, Switzerland, China, Italy … as well as both public and private bodies and companies in the UK. The very nature of these very annoying and concerning potential EU “export controls” reminds us that the UK hasn’t “stood alone” to get an early and successful vaccine rollout, it is an international effort we are benefitting from.
The over simplification that it is all down to the EU being “late” (ignoring that the first vaccine we put into use here was developed in Germany and produced in Belgium) is the meme our press want us to bite down hard on. But, as ever, there is always far more to it.
What meme? By all accounts (and taking into consideration how rich the EU is) the EU has been late and irresponsibly conservative with its vaccine approach.
I https://www.politico.eu/article/europe-coronavirus-vaccine-struggle-pfizer-biontech-astrazeneca/
Late to commit to purchase, and unwilling to join the USA and UK in a bidding war to gain a bigger share of production? Yes. Unwilling to take on the liability to ensure sooner delivery? Yes. All true. Being overcautious (governments taking on the liability to speed up approval would have been received differently in many countries with high vaccine scepticism) and unwilling to pay more (hubris about the buying power achieved by grouping together played a big part) were mistakes for sure. Slowed down by so many countries having to agree to and sign off on purchasing? For sure. Outplayed and outmanoeuvred by the UK there. Hugely. Late to fund vaccine development and production? No. European vaccine production and development is still what helped us with our early start here in the UK.
.....Trying to catch up for their mistakes by blaming vaccine producers? Yes. Playing politics to obscure their own responsibility for their problems? definitely. Mixed messages on vaccines hindering uptake? fo' sure.
So by & large the EU is still largely to blame for the situation it finds itself in.
Yes, but I think we have got ahead of ourselves in our push for speedy vaccination. Importing vaccine from countries way behind us in protecting their vulnerable is morally dubious.
Yes, but I think we have got ahead of ourselves in our push for speedy vaccination. Importing vaccine from countries way behind us in protecting their vulnerable is morally dubious.
I guess you mean the Indians. Well we didn't send gunboats up the Ganges did we? They were quite happy to sell it to us and also do their own bit of vaccine diplomacy before giving any to their own citizens. Also the COVID death rate per million was much higher in the UK than India so we needed it more than they did
Deaths appear to be levelling off slightly. However, they are at the level we were at mid june last year.
Importing vaccine from countries way behind us in protecting their vulnerable is morally dubious.
I guess you mean the Indians.
Well, India and Belgium.
Or are we still ignoring the millions of vaccine doses from the EU being put in our arms?
We should be worried about "don't call it an export ban" measures the EU are looking to put in place now. Yes they are politically motivated (well, duh). Yes they are a desperate and foolish attempt to make up for being left behind. Yes they undermine international cooperation, and will be as detrimental to EU citizens as anyone else, and so will be ultimately self defeating if used. So it's time for all our key politicians and the companies involved got their heads together, and got it sorted. A "thanks for all the vaccines, but it's not out concern" approach taken here isn't going to de-escalate a political standoff that could cost lives on all "sides".
Well, India and Belgium.
Or are we still ignoring the millions of vaccine doses from the EU being put in our arms?
Vaccines are manufactured by private companies, not nation-states or supranational blocs.
But, as ever, there is always far more to it.
For a start it’s not just our press
Dont get me wrong, we should be cooperating hand in hand with the EU as our closest friends. Well, we should really be cooperating with everyone.
Deaths appear to be levelling off slightly
All-cause mortality is finally back to reference levels. We are past the normal winter peak for deaths too. Still evidence that differential effects on deaths across the age groups. But very pleasing.
If you are talking about the daily death figures, we are still dropping 1/3 per week. The weekend figures were down 50% on last w/e, so a bit of lag in reporting washed out into a higher tuesday figure. The trend is still as it was, which is in a good direction 👍
I've been popping into this thread over the last year and find it really taxing what with all the media too. I honestly don't know how some of you guys can stay here obsessing over all the details on a daily basis for over a year!
Late to commit to purchase, and unwilling to join the USA and UK in a bidding war to gain a bigger share of production? Yes. Unwilling to take on the liability to ensure sooner delivery? Yes. All true. Being overcautious (governments taking on the liability to speed up approval would have been received differently in many countries with high vaccine scepticism) and unwilling to pay more (hubris about the buying power achieved by grouping together played a big part) were mistakes for sure. Slowed down by so many countries having to agree to and sign off on purchasing? For sure. Outplayed and outmanoeuvred by the UK there. Hugely. Late to fund vaccine development and production? No. European vaccine production and development is still what helped us with our early start here in the UK.
All those things you mentioned in which the EU has failed, is what can be summarised to "they came in late", does it paint the whole picture? No, is it a somewhat reasonable assessment? Yes, and a kind one I must say. As I said in a previous post, will they have the balls to put a ban on any exports of the vaccine to Israel?? I'd like to go over to Spain and see my family, but no, politicians across both side of the pond have managed to mess things up at the different stages. We shat on BOJO 24/7 for not learning from what was happening in other countries, but somehow, shitting on th EU for cocking up their vaccine strategy is not acceptable?
So the real learning point from the pandemic is that running down key national services, and relying on overseas global supply chains for everything leaves you very vulnerable.
Hands up who thinks the UK will learn anything?
Hands up who thinks the UK will learn anything?
*sits on hands*
This just seems like complete lunacy! I predict a roaring trade in fake passports (whether that's bits of paper or digitally on your phone) so that the idiots can get pissed all summer.
Pubs that check Covid status may be allowed to drop social distancing
Hands are most definitely staying down!
I honestly don’t know how some of you guys can stay here obsessing over all the details on a daily basis for over a year!
Busman’s holiday ;-). It’s my day job to obsess over these things. But at the same time it’s a privilege to explain what can be quite complex science to people who have every right to understand what’s behind the noisy headlines. Public health has always been very newsworthy.
As for the politics, notably the vaccine noise, this is just that, posturing noise by politicians. In another 8-12 months, production and supply of multiple vaccines will be normalised. Just give it some time. This is unprecedented speed already.
This just seems like complete lunacy! I predict a roaring trade in fake passports (whether that’s bits of paper or digitally on your phone) so that the idiots can get pissed all summer.
Pubs that check Covid status may be allowed to drop social distancing
That's only between May 17th and June 21st anyway, isn't it?
I thought the plan was to be 'back to normal' from June 22nd - no masks, no social distancing, no other restrictions (apart from not being allowed out of the UK unless we have an overseas holiday home that we need to, ahem, get ready to be let)