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Pfizer Covid vaccine approved for use next week in UK

bbc.com

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Re: Pfizer Covid vaccine approved for use next week in UK

#11

Post by ascorbic »

_Microft wrote: post #5

How did they approve it that fast? Is the approval process so different and so much more efficient than the one in the EU or USA? Was it extremely rushed to make sure to get doses before they have to compete with other countries for limited supply? I'm pretty curious now. Let's hope for the best, i.e. a good vaccine, a good process and no trust problems, the latter because at least it feels rushed.

Unlikely to be the latter, because they've already prepurchased millions of doses. Unlikely to be the former either. The UK regulatory system is highly-regarded, and until January the EU medicines regulator was based in London. It may just be that they're particularly efficient.

Re: Pfizer Covid vaccine approved for use next week in UK

#12

Post by _Microft »

adrianN wrote: post #7
_Microft wrote: post #5

How did they approve it that fast? Is the approval process so different and so much more efficient than the one in the EU or USA? Was it extremely rushed to make sure to get doses before they have to compete with other countries for limited supply? I'm pretty curious now. Let's hope for the best, i.e. a good vaccine, a good process and no trust problems, the latter because at least it feels rushed.

Germany is planning to start vaccinations in December too, it's probably a matter of days before the vaccine gets approval in Germany.

I read that the approval process might take until end of December and that first vaccinations for people at risk and system-relevant groups was expected for beginning of January.

Source (german):

"Bund und Länder stellen sich darauf ein, dass "bei bestmöglichem Verlauf" noch im Dezember mit ersten Impfstoff-Lieferungen gerechnet werden kann. Gesundheitsminister Jens Spahn sagte heute im Deutschlandfunk, dass Anfang Januar die Ersten aus den Risikogruppen und auch schon Pflegebeschäftigte geimpft sein könnten.", https://www.tagesschau.de/inland/faq-corona-impfstoff-105.ht... , 1. Dezember 2020, 11:00 Uhr

Re: Pfizer Covid vaccine approved for use next week in UK

#13

Post by ealexhudson »

_Microft wrote: post #5

How did they approve it that fast? Is the approval process so different and so much more efficient than the one in the EU or USA? Was it extremely rushed to make sure to get doses before they have to compete with other countries for limited supply? I'm pretty curious now. Let's hope for the best, i.e. a good vaccine, a good process and no trust problems, the latter because at least it feels rushed.

It hasn't been approved esp faster than anywhere else - it's just the first out the gate. The regulators have had the data for a while now, you'll see steady approvals over the next couple weeks.

The only danger sign I would foresee that would indicate a rush is if some regulator declines to approve emergency use - but given the data that seems highly unlikely.

Re: Pfizer Covid vaccine approved for use next week in UK

#14

Post by simonbarker87 »

_Microft wrote: post #5

How did they approve it that fast? Is the approval process so different and so much more efficient than the one in the EU or USA? Was it extremely rushed to make sure to get doses before they have to compete with other countries for limited supply? I'm pretty curious now. Let's hope for the best, i.e. a good vaccine, a good process and no trust problems, the latter because at least it feels rushed.

I believe a big part of speeding up was parrallelization(spelling?) of the phases rather then the usual running them in series. Also I would imagine that the teams working on these had all the resources they needed, minimal internal delays and no expense spared on budget. I can see how those things combined, coupled with 10 months of “crunch time” work from the teams involved could see a 10x improvement in vaccine production.

Re: Pfizer Covid vaccine approved for use next week in UK

#15

Post by bawolff »

qz2 wrote: post #2

Does anyone have any non-press infested material about this vaccine? As far as I’m aware this is the first roll out of an mRNA based vaccine. While I’m no anti vaccination idiot I’d like to understand the risks to some degree.

I don't know much about this subject but i found https://www.nature.com/articles/nrd.2017.243 to be quite interesting. Its from 2018, before all the covid stuff hit, so i think it gives a much more detached overview. However it might not be precisely about the current crop of vaccines.

Re: Pfizer Covid vaccine approved for use next week in UK

#16

Post by redisman »

orobinson wrote: post #8

Amazing that people will be getting vaccinated against coronavirus before the year is out. Is there any evidence of whether these vaccines prevent transmission of the virus yet? Or so far do we just know that they protect the person who is vaccinated?

I’m also interested is the mRNA vaccine different or the same vis-a-vis stopping(or not) transmission

Re: Pfizer Covid vaccine approved for use next week in UK

#17

Post by oezi »

qz2 wrote: post #2

Does anyone have any non-press infested material about this vaccine? As far as I’m aware this is the first roll out of an mRNA based vaccine. While I’m no anti vaccination idiot I’d like to understand the risks to some degree.

Isn't there usually at least a 1:100 or 1:1000 safety buffer between vaccination and control to make a vaccine safe? At least for other vaccines that's a common threshold.

Re: Pfizer Covid vaccine approved for use next week in UK

#18

Post by Hamuko »

_Microft wrote: post #5

How did they approve it that fast? Is the approval process so different and so much more efficient than the one in the EU or USA? Was it extremely rushed to make sure to get doses before they have to compete with other countries for limited supply? I'm pretty curious now. Let's hope for the best, i.e. a good vaccine, a good process and no trust problems, the latter because at least it feels rushed.

As far as I've understood it, the whole COVID-19 vaccine research has been going at a breakneck speed. First vaccine batches were made back in February.

https://patrickcollison.com/fast

Re: Pfizer Covid vaccine approved for use next week in UK

#19

Post by jakozaur »

In terms of rollout. UK is the ideal country to be the first:

1. Heavily impacted by Covid-19.

2. Centralised health care system makes it easier to compare results and efficiency. E.g. it's UK which figured out that dexamethasone is efficient against Covid https://www.who.int/news/item/16-06-2020-who-welcomes-prelim...

3. Developed country with great logistics.

Re: Pfizer Covid vaccine approved for use next week in UK

#20

Post by waihtis »

Not sure why the posts asking for vaccine risks are getting downvoted. Pandemrix, the vaccine for swine flu, caused a notable amount of narcolepsy cases in recipients here in FIN (notable here meaning the amount of yearly cases spiked by 3-4x) and as with anything that's taken quick to market there has to be some risk of overlooking some tail events somewhere.

It's not an anti-vaccine attitude, just healthy skepticism considering how much pressure there is to get this out and into distribution.

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