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

bbc.co.uk

961–970 of 1001 posts

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

#961

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:…

This is all true but is missing some important detail - the box (shipment container suggests shipping container sized things, it's more of a flight case size thing) is meant for long distance transport, rather than local distribution. It holds the vaccines at -80C for ten days, and can be refilled with dry ice (which is widely available anywhere that has a carbonated drinks industry) to extend that period. The ten days is how long it's expected to be in continuous transit, worst-case. The vaccine must be thawed before use, and can be stored in a regular freezer for a few days, just not indefinitely.

Since the transport cases are reusable, and don't need to be completely populated, what will likely happen in rural areas is that they'll have a case for shipment, refill it with dry ice on site, and use a second case to transport a small number of doses to the point of use. Repeat until used up, refilling with dry ice every few days at a central location (less than a week's travel from administration sites). I don't think it's going to be a major problem in practice.

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

#962
post #951

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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…

By late spring/summer you mean midwinter in the southern hemisphere.

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

#963

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is. I’m saying after that period. Not withstanding the rather enormous caveat of antivaxxers. They have grown significantly in number during this pandemic what with all the wild conspiracy theories. It’s worth checking that out.

More vaccine for me.

Same.

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

#964
post #580

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Measles et al never died out, despite very aggressive, and for years successful vaccination programmes (thank you anti-vaccesrs for messing that up). But even if we all need to get vaccinated once a year, for a 90% immunity, that sounds manageable. So good news, if it all holds up.

Measles was eradicated in the Americas. Wasn't until an antivaxer brought it back from Europe we had an outbreak.

Which is another way of saying, it wasn't eradicated.

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

#966
post #335
post #200

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Screw the media for pushing this and lockdown as the only possible solution. This will still take ages to be rolled out.

Look, I get that you find lockdowns an inconvenience but the real world isn’t a TV show where a cheap and easily distributed cure will be invented 10 minutes before the end of the episode. People will reliably die until a vaccine or highly effective treatment is widely available, and the only way to slow that is to rely on proven public health techniques. While you’re being inconvenienced remember that you’re better…

The lockdowns are causing immense economic damage. Even the WHO has pointed out that one of the main things they do is make the poor poorer. I have a feeling that this cure will cause more damage than the virus.

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

#967
post #372

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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…

So how is the corona situation currently in South Korea?

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

#968

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…

Except people like me refuse to participate in contact tracing and will actively evade it.

What are your fears exactly?

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

#969

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…

Contact tracing: must be required. I work someplace where we have been grappling with the legality of telling coworkers about infected colleagues (when exposed)—the government needs to create liability for failure to inform others as opposed to threatening liability for over sharing!

If I’m wrong, PLEASE provide a .gov link and I will personally make sure that our large academic org pulls out of reverse, and into first gear!

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

#970

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?

Only time will tell. But usually, vaccines will induce longer immunity than the real diseases themselves because they have been optimized for immunogenicity.

There will be no eradication of the virus, certainly not world-wide, short of multiple waves of vaccinations. Not even with one type of vaccine, but more likely more than one.

Some of the developing world might get vaccinated with a cheaper, more traditional vaccine, but later. But there is no good vreason why you can't have huge vaccination campaigns with cooling trucks at least in their bigger cities.

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