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Covid vaccine: First ‘milestone’ vaccine offers 90% protection

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Covid vaccine: First ‘milestone’ vaccine offers 90% protection

#281

Post by sambeau »

TremendousJudge wrote: post #15
3dbrows wrote: post #5

At the time of writing (2020-11-09 12:04 UTC) the article uses "90% of people" and "90% protection" interchangeably. I assume it means "90% of individuals achieve immunity", rather than "individuals achieve 90% immunity". EDIT: See child comment re: Pfizer press release. EDIT 2: See [1] for said press release, which has more detailed information than the BBC article. [1] https://investors.pfizer.com/investor-news/pre…

First phrasing makes more sense than the second one to me -- what would it even mean for somebody to be "90% immune" to a disease?

It means reduced severity so that people still get ill but you get 90% less people than you would expect hospitalised.

Re: Covid vaccine: First ‘milestone’ vaccine offers 90% protection

#282

Post by bipson »

Wintamute wrote: post #88
ro-_-b wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember that in March somebody posted here an entry saying that mutation of the virus will make vaccinations only useful in the short term. Were these concerns already addressed at this stage? We have seen mutations due to minks recently which could make the vaccinations ineffective. These mutations might have been controlled but similar situations may arise in the next years. For these reasons I am not entirely s…

Coronaviruses like SARS-COV-2 mutate relatively slowly and minimally compared to others. So mutation isn't expected to be a huge concern, unlike say influenza which mutates relatively rapidly and requires an annual tweak to the vaccines. What's more, any new strains we do see spreading more widely will do so because their mutations confer a competitive advantage. In practice that usually means more drift towards high…

It was said (arguably in the news, so, nobody knows if true) that the mutation found in the mink populations in Denmark has a significantly different response to antibodies, in particular, they are less effective.

This is why OP is asking and mentioning the minks in Denmark.

Re: Covid vaccine: First ‘milestone’ vaccine offers 90% protection

#283

Post by bluntfang »

jason0597 wrote: post #186

Why are people in the comments so interested in the reactions of stock markets? I don't understand. These are the same markets that cheer when job cuts and redundancies are announced. These are the same markets that cheer when horrible working conditions are enforced (see Tesla, Uber, Deliveroo, etc.) Why should I take the markets seriously? It's just a bunch of rich people in the end.

because number go up

seriously tho, hackernews demographic is upper middle class white men. The ones who benefit most from capitalism.

Re: Covid vaccine: First ‘milestone’ vaccine offers 90% protection

#284

Post by studius »

selectodude wrote: post #238
jakozaur wrote: post #214

Good: + ~90% of individuals achieve immunity. + no significant side-effects. Not so good: - two doses needed, 3 weeks apart, immunity after one month from first dose. Slow rollout. - -80C storage and transport needed. Challenging, but doable in developed countries, but still may slow down mass rollout. Not feasible in many developing countries. I still wonder about long-term immunity. Anyone can share any insight?

The Ebola vaccine required -80 C storage as well and they got it into literal war zones. It’s a difficult problem, but a solved one.

Ebola was localized. COVID-19 is not.

I like your optimism, and what you said isn't incorrect about Ebola at the time, but I don't think it's correct about our current situation. How many locations globally have this level of refrigeration? Given that there would be high demand for it, wouldn't prices on any available refrigerators exceed what even the most altruistic companies and organizations could pay?

This still needs to be solved. We have a lot of entrepreneurs, investors, and engineers reading this, so let's not be hasty in hand-waving over something serious.

Re: Covid vaccine: First ‘milestone’ vaccine offers 90% protection

#285

Post by crispyporkbites »

WhoIsSatoshi wrote: post #49
refurb wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least in the US "Pfizer and BioNTech will sell their mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccine to the U.S. government at an estimated cost of $19.50 per shot..." https://www.fiercepharma.com/pharma/pfizer-biontech-s-u-s-su...

=> projected cost to the customer seem to be ~ 80/100 per shot with 2 shots needed (if we go with a $20 base + $80 premium)

isn't the customer the government? are people on the street actually going to have to pay for this?

Re: Covid vaccine: First ‘milestone’ vaccine offers 90% protection

#286

Post by aphextron »

benlumen wrote: post #149

I'm feeling a deep-seated wave of relief that I never thought possible. Like waking up from a year-long nightmare. Thank God.

>I'm feeling a deep-seated wave of relief that I never thought possible. Like waking up from a year-long nightmare. Thank God.

Moderna is also only weeks behind Pfizer/Biontech here with a very similar technology and manufacturing capability of hundreds of millions of doses. We'll be seeing the first EUA's by December, and shots in the arm before the end of the year. Pretty incredible that we can just science our way out of things like this. Humans are awesome.

Re: Covid vaccine: First ‘milestone’ vaccine offers 90% protection

#287

Post by TomGullen »

andrepd wrote: post #155
TomGullen wrote: post #2

Great news and the markets are reacting very positively to the news as well which indicates to me this could be the beginning of the end!

The markets? Spare me. What are the markets, a handful of rich in banks and large corporations? They are neither wise nor competent, why should every news story be suffixed by how "the markets" (swt) react?

I'm not a vaccine expert, so when vaccine news comes out and the broader market reacts extremely positively to this news it just gives me confidence this is the real deal.

There has been other vaccine news in the past which my friends/family talk about excitedly but the broader market didn't budge much.

I don't see any problem in using it a general barometer for this sort of news.

Re: Covid vaccine: First ‘milestone’ vaccine offers 90% protection

#288

Post by TheHypnotist »

input_sh wrote: post #65
TomGullen wrote: post #2

Great news and the markets are reacting very positively to the news as well which indicates to me this could be the beginning of the end!

Except Zoom's, which fell from 514 to 410 in less than an hour. Really puts the nails in coffin of the whole "we're gonna work more remotely after the pandemic" narrative.

Zoom isn't going anywhere

Re: Covid vaccine: First ‘milestone’ vaccine offers 90% protection

#289

Post by TomGullen »

untog wrote: post #37
TomGullen wrote: post #2

Great news and the markets are reacting very positively to the news as well which indicates to me this could be the beginning of the end!

The markets seem to wildly yo-yo with every piece of negative and positive news. Case in point: Zoom is currently down 10% but I’ll bet it will have rallied by the end of the day.

I don't think it's worth looking at individual stocks in this instance, and I think you're not understanding why Zoom would drop on good vaccine news.
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