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Vaccine hopes rise as Oxford jab prompts immune response among old and young

reuters.com

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Re: Vaccine hopes rise as Oxford jab prompts immune response among old and young

#471

Post by IvyMike »

ponker wrote: post #387
nate510 wrote: post #362

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Generally speaking, experimental drug trials are run first on healthy groups and then in at-risk groups (old, young, those with co-morbidities). From the article, my guess is that they are expediting the sensitive groups trials, but unfortunately there's a lack of technical detail. Source: My partner is an infectious disease specialist and we talk about this pretty much daily because I'm so curious.

But for this disease that's particularly bad because Covid has shown to be worst in 55+, obese, comorbidities, etc... which means that the trials on healthy groups are proving very little, since the virus itself is so much weaker on healthy groups.

> trials on healthy groups are proving very little

It's proving it doesn't make healthy people unhealthy (see https://www.cdc.gov/vaccinesafety/concerns/guillain-barre-sy... and specifically the 1976 flu vaccine, for example).

Re: Vaccine hopes rise as Oxford jab prompts immune response among old and young

#472

Post by 627467 »

cookingrobot wrote: post #402
EpicEng wrote: post #391

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>But for this disease that's particularly bad because... Doesn't change the fact that, when you're developing a new drug, you want to test it in a way which will cause the least harm. You don't begin trials with those most at risk for obvious reasons. The primary goal of this phase it to asses the safety of the vaccine candidate. I'm also unaware of any disease that isn't more threatening to people in relatively poor…

You say it’s “obvious” but it’s the opposite of my intuition. Can you explain the logic a bit more? I would have thought you’d give a risky new drug to the least healthy, most likely to die without it population, to raise the chance of survival from low to unknown.

If you did start experiments with those most vulnerable you exposing them to far more risks.

Drug trials always start from learning more about safety of treatment (as opposed to efficacy) and once deemed statistically safe, you move to test for efficacy.

I assume you're thinking about treatments who could give a chance to those who have little hope/time for surviving. There's probably a chance they can benefit from taking experimental drugs but if we know little about it (because they are early in trial phases) we less confident this treatment will be useful and worst, we maybe not learn much from why it failed

Re: Vaccine hopes rise as Oxford jab prompts immune response among old and young

#473

Post by jberryman »

cwhiz wrote: post #436
DiogenesKynikos wrote: post #433

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People who know they've been vaccinated will behave more recklessly than people who haven't been vaccinated. You need to have a control group, in order to assess the efficacy (and safety) of the vaccine. If the control group is wearing masks and socially distancing, but the vaccinated group is going partying at bars and clubs every night, then comparisons of how often each group gets infected won't have much meaning.…

What you’re describing as “reckless behavior” is just normal behavior in a non-covid world. If vaccine candidates are social distancing, wearing masks, and staying home how will the researchers get the data they need? If you are following “covid best practices” it is extremely unlikely that you will contract covid. Would the researchers not want people to go out and live their normal lives?

The point is if the two groups behave differently wrt risk then the trial is probably ruined. Maybe you're assuming the vaccine will be 100% effective; experts I've heard are saying to expect something like the flu shot.

Re: Vaccine hopes rise as Oxford jab prompts immune response among old and young

#474

Post by kortilla »

cwhiz wrote: post #436
DiogenesKynikos wrote: post #433

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People who know they've been vaccinated will behave more recklessly than people who haven't been vaccinated. You need to have a control group, in order to assess the efficacy (and safety) of the vaccine. If the control group is wearing masks and socially distancing, but the vaccinated group is going partying at bars and clubs every night, then comparisons of how often each group gets infected won't have much meaning.…

What you’re describing as “reckless behavior” is just normal behavior in a non-covid world. If vaccine candidates are social distancing, wearing masks, and staying home how will the researchers get the data they need? If you are following “covid best practices” it is extremely unlikely that you will contract covid. Would the researchers not want people to go out and live their normal lives?

> If you are following “covid best practices” it is extremely unlikely that you will contract covid.

It’s spreading like wildfire to people following best practices too all over the world. It only takes a small subset not following these practices to spread it all over.

Re: Vaccine hopes rise as Oxford jab prompts immune response among old and young

#476

Post by ageitgey »

learc83 wrote: post #467
dougweltman wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Early on, one person got symptoms consistent with typical vaccine side effects, but it was determined that the person had a previously undiagnosed, unrelated disease. Second, there was the highly publicized case where a patient suffered temporary spinal inflammation and recovered shortly. It is unclear if this event is related to the vaccine, ... This seems rather worrying as these Phase 1 and Phase 2 trials are pre…

It’s in phase 3 now. I believe all of the above poster is mentioning happened in phase 3 as well.

That's right. Out of ~18,000 people total across 3 countries (UK, South Africa and Brazil), there have been 3 reported events requiring a pause, of which two involved people who got the real vaccine and one who got the placebo.

Keep in mind they pause anytime anything serious happens to anyone in the trial to give them time to make sure the vaccine didn't cause it. Pauses are a good thing - they are a sign they are following the protocols and not just pushing something through.

Re: Vaccine hopes rise as Oxford jab prompts immune response among old and young

#477

Post by romanoderoma »

cookingrobot wrote: post #402
EpicEng wrote: post #391

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>But for this disease that's particularly bad because... Doesn't change the fact that, when you're developing a new drug, you want to test it in a way which will cause the least harm. You don't begin trials with those most at risk for obvious reasons. The primary goal of this phase it to asses the safety of the vaccine candidate. I'm also unaware of any disease that isn't more threatening to people in relatively poor…

You say it’s “obvious” but it’s the opposite of my intuition. Can you explain the logic a bit more? I would have thought you’d give a risky new drug to the least healthy, most likely to die without it population, to raise the chance of survival from low to unknown.

One of the goals of pre trials is to establish that negative effects, if there are any, aren't caused by other factors other than the drug itself.

It's already hard to prove it on healthy candidates, it's pretty much impossible on candidates whose immune system is already weakened by previous conditions.

Re: Vaccine hopes rise as Oxford jab prompts immune response among old and young

#478

Post by ksk »

bufferoverflow wrote: post #143
apexalpha wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who cares. I'd gladly give this company a couple of billion if it means they can get us back to normal. Oxford develops the vaccine with public money. We also, god willing, need to manufacture billions of them and transport them around the globe. For that manufacturing, give me a solid existing multinational with a proven manufacturing record and base please, not some non-profit startup.

I care. Just like about the bailouts. Socializing the funding/losses and privatizing the profits is just pure corruption.

You don't get it. Developing vaccines is nothing like making cars. Our understanding of how the human body works is comical compared to our understanding of materials science and engineering, design and other aspects of making cars.

Developing vaccines is a long, treacherous journey on a narrow ledge with cliffs on either side from start to finish. Infectious diseases research has seen a sharp decline in funding and commercial interest in general. Because of how little we know about the body, most research doesn't generate results that can be turned into money. The only way to continue to support research is via public funds and grants. The public funding of science has been a major contributing factor for our advancements in this kind of research.

Re: Vaccine hopes rise as Oxford jab prompts immune response among old and young

#479

Post by codeulike »

nickcotter wrote: post #152

Good news but still a long way to go. How's it going to be rolled out? Here in the UK we have tried and failed to get a regular flu jab (our GPs have run out of a very small supply and the pharmacies don't have any to sell) and I'm not optimistic about our chances of getting this next year or whenever it arrives.

They are manufacturing it already supposedly. But I think the current UK plan is not to vaccinate everyone, but to start with the high risk groups. Perhaps they will then expand out to everyone else later.

They have massively expanded the flu jab programme in the UK this year (to try and avoid hospital overloading) so thats one of the reasons flu jab is in short supply. Apparently its mainly a logistics problem, the doses are there, somewhere, see: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/oct/04/gp-surgeries...

Re: Vaccine hopes rise as Oxford jab prompts immune response among old and young

#480

Post by 0xffff2 »

ksk wrote: post #451
0xffff2 wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which countries have eliminated the latter 4? I would consider an illness "eradicated" if the vaccine is no longer regularly given. At least 10 years ago (when I was in the field), MMR and Chickenpox vaccines were still regularly administered in the US.

>I would consider an illness "eradicated" if the vaccine is no longer regularly given. That's not how it works. Just because you don't see an outbreak for a while, that is never a reason to stop immunizing children. Pathogens can and do have natural reservoirs. This is why when some idiots stopped taking the Measles vaccines we had an outbreak here in the US. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_reservoir

Of course that's how it works. We don't regularly administer small pox vaccines anymore because it has been eradicated except for a couple of very tightly controlled samples. That's what "eradication" means. My memory is slightly hazy, but I think we might have skipped Polio as well for anyone not going oversees, because Polio largely meets the definition of "eradicated" in the US. Meanwhile, we continue to administer MMR and Chickenpox vaccines because those diseases still exist in the wild. The very fact that Measles has returned is ipso facto proof that it was never eradicated, and the fact that (normal) people never stopped giving that vaccine to their kids is proof that no one ever believed it was.
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