No one who got Moderna's vaccine in trial developed severe Covid-19 • Hacker News Board

Re: No one who got Moderna's vaccine in trial developed severe Covid-19

#231

Post by _underfl0w_ » Mon, Nov 30, 2020, 6:07 PM UTC

shawnz wrote: post #219

spullara wrote: post #215

The vaccine was developed in 48 hours (Feb 24th) following China sharing the DNA sequence. How many could we have saved?

How many could have been killed if we rushed and it turned out to have serious side effects?

That's still a possibility, though "rushing" can be somewhat subjective. By strictly adhering to the scientific method/process, we can hope to eliminate uncertainty in this regard. Unfortunately... as the parent points out, that requires cooperation between geographically dispersed parties (some of whom may have priorities emphasizing social norms such as "saving face")

Re: No one who got Moderna's vaccine in trial developed severe Covid-19

#232

Post by Antimateri4 » Mon, Nov 30, 2020, 6:26 PM UTC

Shared404 wrote: post #225

Antimateri4 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks! Yes I should have googled it myself as you mentioned. Silly me!

You've probably already seen it, but this [0] has served me well. We're all here to learn! [0] http://catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

Thank you! Never saw it, interesting read for sure. Have learned something from it!

Re: No one who got Moderna's vaccine in trial developed severe Covid-19

#233

Post by Skunkleton » Mon, Nov 30, 2020, 6:29 PM UTC

w45673456354 wrote: post #124

disgruntledphd2 wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think (from my parents and in-laws) that immunosuppression is normally associated with current cancer treatment. So, for example, it looks like this protocol would exclude people getting chemotherapy. Happy to be proven wrong on this by someone with more information.

And autoimmune conditions, robbing a list from wikipedia: celiac disease, diabetes mellitus type 1, Graves' disease, inflammatory bowel disease, multiple sclerosis, psoriasis, rheumatoid arthritis, and systemic lupus erythematosus. I don't know how many people with conditions take immunosuppression medication. I take it for arthritis and alopecia and have come across many people on similar meds for diabetes or other…

Don't forget organ transplants.

Re: No one who got Moderna's vaccine in trial developed severe Covid-19

#234

Post by estebank » Mon, Nov 30, 2020, 6:30 PM UTC

totony wrote: post #137

estebank wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We don't know a priori who will have very adverse reactions. Comorbities and old age increase your chances, but those are categorically not the only variables at play.

I'll admit I'm not super well informed on covid, so my opinion on this is weakly held, but isnt that an insanely small percentage of people? I was under the impression that vaccine + immunity will just lead to herd immunity and the disease to go away on its own.

US population: ~330 million people

Confirmed cases: 13.4 million people

Confirmed deaths: 267 thousand people

deaths / confirmed: ~2%

2% of the US dead (assumes homogeneous 2% death rate, which is incorrect but an upper bound): 6.6 million people

Distribution of deaths by age bracket, including population distribution: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid_weekly/index.htm

About half the population is over ~45 years old.

Anything we do now to reduce the R0 of this disease will disproportionally enable people to live long enough for herd immunity to be attained, courtesy of the exponential growth curve. The amount of people that has to get sick to overwhelm hospitals is smaller than you might think. When hospitals get overwhelmed people die of other preventable cases due to reduced resources, tired physicians, lack of time to see patients at all and people being scared of even going to the hospital in the first place. Old people are not "disposable" and for younger people that happen to have the genetic (or other) predisposition to bad or fatal cases it will be hard to tell them "sucks to be you" when the preventive steps are well understood by now: interact with people as little as possible and when you do, do so outside while wearing masks.

Also, the death rate among poorer people is a multiple of that of the general population, among other reasons because they are working essential jobs to not starve. Those of us that can isolate and don't are saying that these people's lives (essential workers, including health care workers) have no value, they are just meat for the meat grinder.

Re: No one who got Moderna's vaccine in trial developed severe Covid-19

#235

Post by therealdrag0 » Mon, Nov 30, 2020, 6:31 PM UTC

blhack wrote: post #48

Does anybody have a good link for a layman's overview of how mRNA vaccines work? Lot's of nervousness from people around this, and would love to be able to help quell some of that.

Wikipedia may or may not be at the level you're interested: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RNA_vaccine#Theory

Re: No one who got Moderna's vaccine in trial developed severe Covid-19

#236

Post by LgWoodenBadger » Mon, Nov 30, 2020, 6:34 PM UTC

CyberRabbi wrote: post #112

MacsHeadroom wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the US it's not possible to sue for damages caused by vaccines. I'm sure the courts will find a way to make it work. The concern seems to be that stifling vaccine development for the benefit of a few just isn't worth the risk of future plagues.

What do you mean by the “benefit of a few”? How does anyone benefit from stifling vaccine development?

"benefit of a few" meaning "allow those few that were adversely affected to sue for damages" which would have the follow-on effect of hampering vaccine development

Re: No one who got Moderna's vaccine in trial developed severe Covid-19

#237

Post by Antrikshy » Mon, Nov 30, 2020, 6:40 PM UTC

spullara wrote: post #215

The vaccine was developed in 48 hours (Feb 24th) following China sharing the DNA sequence. How many could we have saved?

It seems obvious in hindsight, but such trials do have an important role in this process. Not to mention mRNA vaccines are new and it could possibly just have made things worse.

Re: No one who got Moderna's vaccine in trial developed severe Covid-19

#238

Post by noja » Mon, Nov 30, 2020, 6:40 PM UTC

spullara wrote: post #215

The vaccine was developed in 48 hours (Feb 24th) following China sharing the DNA sequence. How many could we have saved?

How many could have been saved from injecting an untested vaccine on billions of people? What a weird question.

Re: No one who got Moderna's vaccine in trial developed severe Covid-19

#239

Post by bluGill » Mon, Nov 30, 2020, 6:45 PM UTC

jaywalk wrote: post #101

officialjunk wrote: post #63

note there is not a claim this vaccine prevents infection, only lessens symptoms, meaning you are still contagious. "We all expect an effective vaccine to prevent serious illness if infected. Three of the vaccine protocols—Moderna, Pfizer, and AstraZeneca—do not require that their vaccine prevent serious disease only that they prevent moderate symptoms which may be as mild as cough, or headache." "Prevention of infec…

With this being the case, how does it even make sense for companies like Ticketmaster and Quantas to announce that they'll require their customers to be vaccinated? Yeah, 90-95% of your customers won't have symptoms if they get infected. But they'll still have the ability to pass on that infection to someone who wasn't vaccinated, or falls into the 5-10% of people who the vaccine isn't effective for. Obviously the va…

Companies want customers, as a business decision is makes sense to require vaccinations because if they check that means governments will let them open. Ticketmaster wants to get whatever the big name acts are on stage with a full house. If they check vaccination status they can sell out a large auditoriums in February to nurses and a few lucky others. If they wait until governments allow large venues to open up they might be waiting until next fall. That is a large amount of money they are leaving on the table. Likewise, Quantas flys international to places that lockdown as eliminated covid - if they check vaccine status they can fly anyone in without worry about restrictions. So it makes business sense.

Re: No one who got Moderna's vaccine in trial developed severe Covid-19

#240

Post by mattkrause » Mon, Nov 30, 2020, 6:46 PM UTC

mam2 wrote: post #228

CodeWriter23 wrote: post #13

Wonder what the trial exclusion criteria was...it’s not referenced in this article.

Yeah how would they find anyone careless enough aged more than 65 who would accept to 1/ take the vaccine 2/ expose himself to the virus to chekc his immunity. We will never know before trial

None of these trials have used a "challenge" design where people were deliberately exposed to the virus. Instead, they vaccinate a ton of people and then let them go about their lives.

Participants' risk of getting COVID shouldn't go up, unless participating in the trial induces them to behave more riskily.