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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

#761

Post by otherme123 »

mrozbarry wrote: post #618
tinus_hn wrote: post #582

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well that settles it then. We’ll just wait for a few more years to see what the long term side effects are.

I know you say that in mockery, but I'd rather be in isolation for longer and have a better idea what the long term of this looks like. Most other vaccines have the same process.

Long term effects of covid seems awful though. This, as with any vaccine or medicament out there (or actual living for that matter) is a quest to hit a sweet balance:

- Yes, you can avoid covid and potential long effects of vaccine by living in a cave for the next 10 years.

- You can "gamble" on a 0.01% chance of getting any long-term effects from the vaccine in exchange of getting 90% safe from covid.

I take this "gamble" every year with a flu shot, because to me it sounds safer than getting flu followed by pneumonia.

If everybody waits for the other 99% of people to get vaccined before them, so we can a free-ride on the herd immunity, we would never reach herd immunity.

I don't know of any drug that is 100% safe. Heck, even a tampon could send you to the grave. For this kind of vaccinations, we should have a margin of confidence that, being similar to other vaccines in composition but just changing the viral load, long term effects should be similar. The Moderna vaccine is a different animal.

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

#762

Post by thehappypm »

k__ wrote: post #392

A friend of mine (who is a nutjob), said a few months ago that even if the vaccine doesn't work, they can say it would work 80-90%, because that's the amount of people who don't show symptoms anyway. I don't know anything about this, but now it happened in a way he said, so what do professional here think about this?

The 90% is more like this. You have a twin who lives exactly the same life as you. You get vaccinated but anti-vax Andy doesn't. Andy is 10x more likely to get Covid than you are now.

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

#763

Post by ttul »

734129837261 wrote: post #757

I'm 100% for vaccines and I trust in the scientific process more than anything else. That said, how weird is it for someone like myself (late thirties, healthy, no direct contact with any human being) to just... wait it out? I am not too eager to be among the first humans to take a rushed vaccine. So, how rushed is this vaccine? Is there any precedent with other vaccines that were developed this quickly? Is there a k…

The vaccine was tested on 44,000 people and they will spend two more months watching for adverse effects. If it is shown to be safe after that period, it's extraordinarily safe for you to take.

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

#764

Post by m-ee »

734129837261 wrote: post #757

I'm 100% for vaccines and I trust in the scientific process more than anything else. That said, how weird is it for someone like myself (late thirties, healthy, no direct contact with any human being) to just... wait it out? I am not too eager to be among the first humans to take a rushed vaccine. So, how rushed is this vaccine? Is there any precedent with other vaccines that were developed this quickly? Is there a k…

There's a very good chance you will never be able to wait this out, SARS-CoV-2 could easily become another endemic coronavirus. In that situation you're getting to get exposed eventually unless you become a recluse, and you'll be better off with the vaccine than without it.

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

#765

Post by coob »

734129837261 wrote: post #757

I'm 100% for vaccines and I trust in the scientific process more than anything else. That said, how weird is it for someone like myself (late thirties, healthy, no direct contact with any human being) to just... wait it out? I am not too eager to be among the first humans to take a rushed vaccine. So, how rushed is this vaccine? Is there any precedent with other vaccines that were developed this quickly? Is there a k…

You're going to be last in line anyway:

https://twitter.com/jkottke/status/1325854372077707264

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

#766

Post by ApolloFortyNine »

coldpie wrote: post #135
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!

Yeah, setting aside all the politics and silliness, the science going on around this pandemic is remarkable. Going from nearly zero (yes, there was a bunch of research from SARS-Cov-1, MERS, and similar to build off of but nothing like this) to a functioning, tested, and mass manufactured vaccine in a year is absolutely jaw dropping. Even if it takes two years to distribute widely, three years to stomp out a pandemic…

What I find more impressive is Moderna was finalized in February, and most of the other candidates were finalized by March.

If we could somehow develop rapid testing in some way, it's shocking to me that the vaccine could have entered mass production by the Summer.

There was a time where the only true way to test a new model Aircraft was to build one, but nowadays pretty much every characteristic is well understood by the time it enters service. To reach a similar point with vaccine testing will be important when the next pandemic hits.

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

#767

Post by bigbubba »

WanderPanda wrote: post #730
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…

> Mutations aren't a serious concern. Because when viruses mutate it's the strains that are more infectious and less lethal that win out What if it has the contagiousness of covid but the long term lethality of hiv? The long term lethality would have low evolutionary pressure to be less harsh to its host as the implications only follow after many infectious years. Is there anything fundamentally prohibiting the emerg…

> What if it has the contagiousness of covid but the long term lethality of hiv?

What if we get hit by a comet?

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

#768

Post by forgot_user1234 »

bufferoverflow wrote: post #305
lbeltrame wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The latest data (preprint, not peer reviewed etc etc) mention memory B and T cells up to 8 months after recovery from the illness. This means that an immunity of one year is probably likely. This would be probably enough to quench the spread, but not to eradicate the virus.

I think we can eradicate it by contact tracing. With 90% efficiency it will be extremely tough for the virus to spread. For any new cases you simply test everyone in the vicinity of the infected person. But I don't think even that will be necessary. 90% efficiency reduces R so much, it will probably die out on its own. The real problem is mutations that are not covered by the vaccine. If it mutates as efficiently as…

it's a mRNA vaccine and a lot easier to change in case of a mutation

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

#769

Post by thehappypm »

rq1 wrote: post #87

The virus is (heavily) mutating folks. Heavy mutations likely related to recombination with rhino-viruses. This vaccine will likely be outdated when generally available.

There is no evidence of recombination in Sars-cov-2

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

#770

Post by usaphp »

hm10 wrote: post #690
mandeepj wrote: post #683

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right. But, I think it's double-sided. Would they started the research without US govt's contract of almost $2B to buy their vaccine? https://www.pfizer.com/news/press-release/press-release-deta...

Of course, do you think they would be hurting for money once they have a vaccine developed? The demand will always be there. They just took the risk with their own money. They have been in the business for decades and they know how to sell a prized drug - with or without a buyer already lined up. A commitment to purchase doesn't mean much in a "seller's market". It will be profitable for the company either way - with…

Not necessarily, even if another company beats them to market and has a better vaccine - they will still get $2bln, it's easier to work when you are not under time pressure to beat the market.
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