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Pfizer Covid vaccine approved for use next week in UK

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

#591

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The answer to that is two-fold, of course. In the US and UK any hold-up is going to be blamed on the government, while in the EU it’ll be blamed on some nebulous, far away EU institution which is not elected anyway. Second one country might care more about a lot of people dying unnecessarily (besides the burden on the economy) than another. Clearly the EU has no issue with it and prioritizes theatrics instead. Again,…

"Clearly the EU has no issue with [a lot of people dying unnecessarily]." wat?

Actions speak louder than words. 20 days delay is 100000 people dead. That’s the option they choose.

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

#592
post #510

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This place is a drop in replacement for r/asd.

Yeah uhm... Never been to /r/asd, and now I'm slightly afraid of checking it out, seeing as two comments have been deleted :D

Look at the way people communicate here, how little empathy they show, the complete sense of humour, how anal they can be about not about the big picture that the other person is arguing for but, say, choice of words, someone's formulation of a sentence, use of the oxford comma, whatever really.

Then tell me if this site is not the largest community for autistic software developers, diagnosed or not.

This is in no way meant as an offence to anyone.

Signed: someone also on the spectrum.

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

#593

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Generally approval of this is fast-tracked everywhere, but the UK being first is a political marketing stunt in my opinion. The UK government is in dire need to demonstrate positive aspects of leaving the EU, and being able to independently greenlight this vaccine first is one particularly well suited for PR. The Brits love their NHS system and healthcare in general, so hitting it home on that turf resonates with the…

To all the downvoters: they even openly kind-of-admit it, I've now got proof from the mouth of Matt Hancock, UK health secretary: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/dec/02/hancock-brexit... Money Quote: "...because of Brexit we’ve been able to make a decision to do this based on the UK regulator, a world-class regulator, and not go at the pace of the Europeans, who are moving a little bit more slowly."

The BBC's fact check column noticed that too and confirmed there was no truth to it: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/55163730

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

#594

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a bad argument. The two aren't comparable. Drinking a lot of alcohol and getting into a car is a choice. The intent doesn't even matter in most countries since it's a "Strict liability" crime. The government forcing you to take an injection is literally not your choice. Not to mention, we know drunk driving impairs people and increases risk. There are tons of studies that show that (they also show sleep depri…

> Drinking a lot of alcohol and getting into a car is a choice. Not taking a vaccine and interacting with other people is also a choice. > they also show sleep deprivation is worse than alcohol for driving, but that's not illegal Drowsy driving is difficult to prove, but generally held to be within the coverage of reckless driving laws. Some jurisdictions have expressly included coverage of it, as well, at least in t…

Taking a rushed vaccine with God knows what long-term effects is not going to be a choice. Have fun with it. You are playing Russian roulette that I do not wish to play. In majority of the cases COVID-19 is not lethal at all, there should be no mandatory vaccines, especially not when we have no knowledge of its long-term effects and so on and so on. If you want you can take the Chinese or Russian vaccine. I do not want to. Anecdotal: my grandmother (over 70) has been in contact with 4 COVID-19 positive people. She developed no symptoms. I think this is way too overblown. She has been in contact with many old people, too. No symptoms.

> Apr 2, 2020: Asymptomatic transmission refers to transmission of the virus from a person, who does not develop symptoms. There are few reports of laboratory-confirmed cases who are truly asymptomatic, and to date, there has been no documented asymptomatic transmission.

Any news on this?

Down-voter: I literally quoted https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/situati....

If you have news on it, say so instead of down-voting. I want to know how likely it is for asymptomatic people to spread the virus. I swear, I will keep checking the responses because I am curious how likely it is that people will catch it from me, excluding the fact that I do not leave the house for weeks (I work remotely).

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

#596

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good to hear you’re fine with 100000 people dying because we need to adhere to procedure. There is absolutely 0% chance at the end the vaccine will not be approved. But 100% chance 20 days will have been wasted.

If you are actually familiar with their processes, you could critique them and tell us where they could be improved. It doesn’t sound like you are, though.

So enlighten us! As far as I can tell it’s a bunch of scientists reading the report. There’s a reasonable procedure involving asking questions, responses, waiting, but it takes over a year. So it’s been shortened.

The report is about 15000 people who got the vaccine and didn’t get seriously ill. There’s nothing to judge on that you can seriously do in 20 days, in that time frame you can only look at the basics and these are clear: 15000 people got the vaccine, didn’t get seriously ill and mostly became immune.

It’s a waste of time and time is lives.

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

#597

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To all the downvoters: they even openly kind-of-admit it, I've now got proof from the mouth of Matt Hancock, UK health secretary: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/dec/02/hancock-brexit... Money Quote: "...because of Brexit we’ve been able to make a decision to do this based on the UK regulator, a world-class regulator, and not go at the pace of the Europeans, who are moving a little bit more slowly."

The BBC's fact check column noticed that too and confirmed there was no truth to it: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/55163730

Interesting. However, this does not undermine my original claim - actually I think it even increases its viability. The undisputable fact that several UK officials specifically praise Brexit as the enabler for this quick approval process, even though it actually was not necessary at all (which they possibly even knew in the first place), increases the likelihood that there was at least some political motivation behind the quick approval move. Whether the statements of the politicians are true or not does not matter with regard to the PR value of them; the only thing that matters is what the general public knows, and not knowing that the UK could have made a national approval even if still part of the EU is probably widespread.

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

#598
post #30
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My understanding is that they've been carrying out a rolling evaluation that has been going on for the duration of the trials, which has helped accelerate the normal process. Having said that, I believe the EMA (EU) also carried out a rolling evaluation, so I'm not sure what the differences are there.

The UK has put a lot of effort into speeding up the roll-out of these vaccinations in general. Enough that it basically leaked the fact some kind of Covid vaccine was coming a few weeks in advance because so many people were involved in the pre-planning and the timescale was so aggressive.

You make it sound like a bad thing. It was never a secret the vaccines were coming and as each day of delay means 5000 people dying I think putting a lot of effort into speeding up the rollout is pretty well worth it.

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

#600
post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be clear, the complete dataset and approval application was not delivered to the EMA by Pfizer until Monday. You can't expect a regulatory approval in two days - it takes longer to even read the complete application.

I have zero insight into what was shared when, but I'm assuming if Pfizer completed their primary analysis in time for the Nov 20th FDA submission, they could have shared that with the EMA at that point. So somewhat of a rolling review (submit data to regulator as it becomes available). But yes, you are correct, the EMA has specific requirements for it's submission and if they haven't received it until Monday, it's g…

I would assume the EMA has different forms, and wants the data in a different format. Pfizer as a US company presumably has more experience with FDA formats as well, and more FDA experienced people on staff (this is one of the advantages of the revolving door between industry and regulators - there are disadvantages as well). I'm not sure why the UK got things sooner unless it is because they accepted data sooner there was time to figure out how to submit it while not even knowing if they would submit to the FDA.
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