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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

#671

Post by markus92 »

throwaway894345 wrote: post #539
markus92 wrote: post #500

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The phase 3 only did two shots. Afaik the only one shot vaccine in phase 3 trials is the J&J one. Looking at the phase 1/2 results, the booster shot seems to help a lot in getting the antibody levels up. See Figure 4 of their paper, https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2027906

I think the parent is asking (if 1 shot of this vaccine confers 80% immunity) would it not be better (for the purposes of curbing transmission) to give everyone a single injection now for 80% immunity among a broader population rather than giving half the number of people two doses for 90% immunity. The implicit constraint is that it will take a relatively long time to scale up production and distribution to the exte…

I understand what OP meant, but the data we currently have shows that one shot of this vaccine is not likely to convey a decent amount of protection.

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

#672

Post by pembrook »

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?

> What are the markets, a handful of rich in banks and large corporations?

Glad you asked. No, "the markets" are not simply a handful of rich people, banks and large corporations. The markets are also more than just "stocks."

In fact, the majority of "the markets" is actually bonds, and most of those bonds are debt issued by nearly all the countries of the world (sovereign bonds). I think roughly 80 Trillion dollars, but don't quote me.

If you live in a country with roads, infrastructure, buildings, etc.--then the markets are responsible for everything around you.

But you seem to be complaining about stocks since they get the most media attention, so let's look at those.

You may not realize it, but the future of every single country with a socialized pension system, sovereign wealth fund, etc. depends on the returns of global stocks. They make up only a portion of most pension portfolios, but deliver nearly all of the returns. Everybody has a stake in them even if they don't realize it.

Are the markets all-knowing or perfectly efficient? Of course not. But it's literally the only place where you can measure how a global herd of humans are feeling about the state of the world at any given time with a single number. This makes it a default reference for journalists to cite, ie. "thing happened, this is what the humans and their algorithms collectively think about it."

The journalists are often wrong and don't understand what's happening, but this case seems to be pretty straightforward.

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

#673

Post by credit_guy »

Can some explain why Pfizer insists they were not part of the Operation Warp Speed ([1] “We were never part of the Warp Speed”), despite the fact that both Warp Speed [2] and Pfizer itself [3] had press releases in July that stated the opposite?

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/09/health/covid-vaccine-pfiz...

[2] https://www.hhs.gov/about/news/2020/07/22/us-government-enga...

[3] https://investors.pfizer.com/investor-news/press-release-det...

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

#674

Post by castis »

matz1 wrote: post #637
Tor3 wrote: post #421

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why shouldn't I be afraid? If my parents get infected there's a close to 100% chance that they'll die, due to their existing conditions. And I have to visit them, so do others. There's a real risk of infection there.

I see my parents regardless. They are happy to see me. There are always a risk of some kind regardless of covid. My parents are old too, they have high chance of death and likely also have some kind of existing condition. Covid or not they have high chance of death at anytime.

This is what a subtle misunderstanding of risk and probability looks like. "It has not affected me so it probably doesnt affect anyone"

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

#675

Post by matz1 »

castis wrote: post #674
matz1 wrote: post #637

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see my parents regardless. They are happy to see me. There are always a risk of some kind regardless of covid. My parents are old too, they have high chance of death and likely also have some kind of existing condition. Covid or not they have high chance of death at anytime.

This is what a subtle misunderstanding of risk and probability looks like. "It has not affected me so it probably doesnt affect anyone"

Where is the misunderstanding ?

>It has not affected me so it probably doesnt affect anyone

I didn't say it won't affect me or it won't affect anyone.

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

#676

Post by m4rtink »

chinathrow wrote: post #315
sekai wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Ebola was localized. COVID-19 is not You could easily localize COVID-19, just make a vaccination passport. No entry to a country if you're not vaccinated. > How many locations globally have this level of refrigeration Almost all developer countries, urban centres, where majority of people live anyway.

> Almost all developer countries, urban centres, where majority of people live anyway. At -80C? Edit: There are hardly storage places right now for these temperatures. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=byW1GExQB84

If you are on the Concordia Station you can just leave it at the windowsill and it will be just fine. One of the perks of living in Antarctica. :)

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

#677

Post by DrBazza »

scottlamb wrote: post #626
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?

> - two doses needed, 3 weeks apart, immunity after one month from first dose. Slow rollout. Yeah, this alone is bad news. Last year my parents got a two-dose shingles vaccine. The two doses are supposed to be separated by two to six months. My parents struggled to find their second doses in the window. Apparently there was limited supply and no one had the foresight to reserve second doses when people received their…

I'm curious, which country is this?

In the UK, the NHS are generally on top of things like this, so it should not happen in most cases.

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

#678

Post by thehappypm »

ffggvv wrote: post #599

is the vaccine even worth getting or only for high risk groups?

Honestly? I think if you're not sure, you probably don't need it. I'm young, work from home, healthy. I have friends who are nurses -- they yearn for a vaccine. My grandparents and my parents know that they are at risk and would line up for one. I have a friend with diabetes who would feel like his life was back. I'd gladly take a vaccine if it became available -- would love to not worry about giving it to my parents, and contribute to herd immunity -- but for me personally the virus has never really scared me on a personal health level.

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

#679

Post by arn »

credit_guy wrote: post #673

Can some explain why Pfizer insists they were not part of the Operation Warp Speed ([1] “We were never part of the Warp Speed”), despite the fact that both Warp Speed [2] and Pfizer itself [3] had press releases in July that stated the opposite? [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/09/health/covid-vaccine-pfiz... [2] https://www.hhs.gov/about/news/2020/07/22/us-government-enga... [3] https://investors.pfizer.com/inves…

Looks like the government “pre ordered” vaccine from Pfizer but Pfizer didn’t actually accept funding for development:

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-electio...

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

#680

Post by maxerickson »

howlgarnish wrote: post #417
gizmo wrote: post #372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Contract tracing hasn't worked at scale anywhere. It's a nice idea conceptually, but the problem is psychological. People stop caring about tracing when 98% of all trace connections are false positives. If a person is infectious for a week and the r0 is around 1 then only 1 person of all the people they've been in contact with will actually contract the virus on average. The other 50+ people, assuming they can even b…

Contract tracing seems to work just fine in the Asian countries that have successfully stopped the virus in its tracks, and if China's 1.3 billion people isn't at scale, I'm not sure what is. But yes, it does require having few enough infected people to make it feasible, and places like the US and most of Europe are waaaaay beyond that point now.

China has also done mass testing when their contract tracing broke down.

If we could get high compliance with isolation of positives, the US/Europe could use mass testing to "reset" without lockdowns. Test all of Michigan across a couple days and you will identify a significant portion of the infected. Then do Wisconsin. Encourage people to limit travel during those periods and so on.

You wouldn't get to 0 in one cycle, but it would hammer the transmission rate.

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