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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

#951

Post by abixb »

rrrrrrrrrrrryan wrote: post #809
Animats wrote: post #788

Earlier quoted context omitted.

-80C is dry ice (frozen CO2) temperature. So you can carry vaccine vials around in a cooler with a block of dry ice. Pfizer has a dry ice shipping container good for 10 days. FedEx can ship that. Then the vaccine can be stored at refrigerator temperature for maybe 5 days. Dry Ice costs maybe $3/Kg. The SF bay area has dry ice delivery.[1] Lagos, Nigeria has dry ice delivery.[2] Bismark, North Dakota has a dry ice pla…

It's still more difficult and expensive than the alternative. It's not a big deal for the first world, but poorer nations may hold out for future vaccines that remain stable at higher temperatures and only require a single dose.

>but poorer nations may hold out for future vaccines that remain stable at higher temperatures and only require a single dose.

Valid point, but I feel there's never been a better time for massively pushing this vaccine (after proper testing and regulatory approval, of course) to medium/low income countries.

Winter should make it much easier in managing the temperature range stability required for storing/shipping the vaccine, especially in countries around the equatorial region.

Doing it in late spring/summer will not be a good idea (assuming a better vaccine doesn't come out by then).

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

#952

Post by refurb »

asdfman123 wrote: post #946
lambdasquirrel wrote: post #922

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s an RNA vaccine. RNA degrades at room temperature.

Yes, but why that low?

Because it degrades at higher temperatures.

They do stability studies on these molecules, holding samples at different temperatures and measuring how much "is left" after a period of time.

This particular RNA sequence and carrier might be particularly unstable, so it require -80C if you want it to last longer than a few weeks.

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

#953

Post by m0zg »

rmk wrote: post #925
m0zg wrote: post #831

But I thought "nobody should trust the vaccine developed this quickly". What has changed in a week?

A democrat is President. Science will triumph from now onward.

But that's the democrat narrative as of a week ago: vaccine by EOY is too dangerous. Suddenly, a week later the same exact vaccine is perfectly OK and it's a scientific triumph. Is the attention span of the public _this_ short?

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

#954

Post by refurb »

topbanana wrote: post #691
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?

My understanding is that the -80C storage is most likely simply because they haven't tested at higher temperatures yet.

I'm highly skeptical. Needing -80C is a major disadvantage. Pfizer would have collected stability data at higher temperatures if they could get it.

The fact it's -80C means they can't prove it stable at higher temperatures.

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

#955

Post by Moghammed »

djanogo wrote: post #345
bufferoverflow wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

If you get the vaccine then get infected I wonder for how long you will be spreading it to others while you don't show any signs of virus.

That's not how vaccines and viruses work.

Normally when you get infected you get small number of viral particles in your system. Those then hijack your system to create more, and those new particles spread to other people through sneezing etc. In time your immune system learns how to recognise and kill the virus and eventually removes it from your system.

Now let's say you get vaccinated and you get that same small number of viral particles in your system. Your immune system will already know how to recognise and kill the virus, and immediately starts doing this. It doesn't multiply in your body, so it can't spread to others either.

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

#956

Post by mantap »

mknoke wrote: post #655
snarf21 wrote: post #430

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is good news but I'm worried about the mutation already showing up in minks in Denmark. Minks apparently have a near identical respiratory system. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/denmark-plans-kill-15-mil...

There is no need to be too worried about it right now https://www.statnews.com/2020/11/05/spread-of-mutated-corona... A more aggressive take: https://twitter.com/BallouxFrancois/status/13240857614493040...

The tweet doesn't mention the claim of antibody resistance, and the article just says that the evidence for it is yet to be announced. The article says that no single mutation is likely to cause resistance but doesn't explain why there would be only a single mutation.

I am yet to be reassured.

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

#957

Post by kgwgk »

jefe_ wrote: post #63
himlion wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So which company benefits the most here? From a cursory googling the following seem decent: - The Whirlpool Corporation - Electrolux AB - LG Electronics Inc. problem is these companies have a lot of exposure to other sectors as well of course.

Thermo Fisher Scientific has freezers that hit these temps. About $10-20k per unit it appears. https://www.fishersci.com/us/en/browse/90106033/ultra-low-te...

TMO was down 8% yesterday, the perspective of less testing seems to more than offset the positive impact of the news.

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

#958

Post by virgilp »

gizmo wrote: post #372
bufferoverflow wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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…

It's different now - because of the strict quarantine requests, coupled with the knowledge that there's no known treatment/vaccine, coupled with the fact that you have literally tens of thousands of cases per day - means that people don't cooperate that much, and the system is already over-stretched.

Also, "hasn't worked at scale anywhere is false" - AFAIK it worked fairly well in South Korea, Japan, New Zeeland, China.

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

#959

Post by m1aw »

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?

About the logistical part. Wendover did on Youtube a really great video explaining the cold chain in international shipping and what companies are already doing to be ready for it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=byW1GExQB84

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

#960

Post by throwaway9d0291 »

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?

> -80C storage and transport needed. Challenging, but doable in developed countries, but still may slow down mass rollout. Not feasible in many developing countries.

True but it's also a bit more complicated than that. The YouTube channel Wendover Productions has a great video on the subject: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=byW1GExQB84 (skip to 5:01 for the talk about the cold chain).

TL;DW, there are other factors:

- Whether the hospital is able to maintain the vaccine at the required temperature (many, especially the smaller ones, don't have the equipment)

- This is medical technology and unproven options (like buying a random box off Alibaba like someone suggested) are unlikely to be used

- Pfizer (vaccine in TFA) has developed a shipment container that uses dry ice and lasts 10 days but it can only be opened twice a day, for less than a minute at a time, so facilities administering vaccines need to be able to accurately predict how many they'll administer in a given day

- Pfizer's box is only built for multiples of a thousand doses and only lasts 10 days so isn't well-suited to smaller areas that can't administer 1000 vaccines in 10 days

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