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It took two days to develop Moderna’s vaccine

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Re: It took two days to develop Moderna’s vaccine

#171

Post by hjnilsson »

fortran77 wrote: post #110
coding123 wrote: post #107

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAQ_Ef-OqrI India's death rate has been much lower than the US. Part of this is because they're already doing widespread cholecalciferol roll-out. If cholecalciferol is not on 2021's CDCs/FDA/AMA number one recommendation list for pre-Covid control, I will have considered the AMA a complete and utter failure in the united states. Edit: Also https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ha2mLz-Xdpg

Don't underestimate how much of the US's problem (and UK, Canada, etc) was caused by obesity, too. https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/09/why-covid-19-more-de...

Average age in India is 26.

Average age in the US is 38.

This probably accounts for the difference in death rate.

Re: It took two days to develop Moderna’s vaccine

#172

Post by mzs »

toufka wrote: post #53
tzs wrote: post #31

The layman's explanation I've seen about how these mRNA vaccines work is that they get some of your cells to manufacture a protein that is characteristic of the virus, which the cells release and the immune system takes care of. Then later if you get the virus, the immune system already recognizes that protein and takes care of the virus. Question: why do we need to have our cells make the protein? Couldn't we synthe…

These are good questions. Proteins are chemical compositions - useful machines. Each one (especially outside the context of a cell) requires custom environments to be kept stable. And the processes to manufacture them require other organisms - from which you must now purify that (unstable) protein. And it’s not self-replicating so if you need weekly doses of Ng of material for X doses, you need to produce that much m…

What changes are made to mRNA in these vaccines to make them last longer? Also wouldn't our immune system attack it as foreign then? It seems to me as a layperson that this must have been a key novel and clever part to make these vaccines work. I'd like to read more but don't know where to start.

Re: It took two days to develop Moderna’s vaccine

#173

Post by michaelt »

causality0 wrote: post #6

I wonder if any, or if many, Moderna employees have been walking around off-the-books immunized since January. I know I would've been tempted.

Unless you're in a high-risk group, getting a vaccine early is kinda irrelevant.

Being able to go to concerts and sports events and theatres safely is pointless if there aren't any concerts or sports events or theatres open.

If you've got elderly loved ones you want to keep safe, you'd need to vaccinate them, not yourself.

And if all you want to do is go to the shops without a mask, while everyone assumes you're a dumbass? You don't need a vaccine to do that.

Re: It took two days to develop Moderna’s vaccine

#174

Post by renewiltord »

Barrin92 wrote: post #161
renewiltord wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not relevant. The point is that Moderna had a low-latency solution when the moment showed itself. It isn't that it's easy. It offers some thinking that their technology is revolutionary and that perhaps we need to revisit our calculations to see if the risk/reward means we should attempt earlier roll out. We know, this time with hindsight, that it would have saved hundreds of thousands of lives and billions of…

> if the risk/reward means we should attempt earlier roll out you still need to make sure the vaccine actually works in trials and has no severe side effects. It takes one , and only one minor vaccine scandal to completely blow the trust of the public in public health. There is no linear risk/reward when it comes to vaccines. You need to be incredibly confident that they are safe or else you're going to screw yoursel…

Sure, but we have experimental drug programs. People will sign up for challenge trials. We don't do it for the same reason IBM doesn't end up making the iPhone: risk aversion is really strong. If trust in the public were a thing the HHS were interested in they wouldn't have lied to the public about masks.

Re: It took two days to develop Moderna’s vaccine

#175

Post by dag11 »

michaelt wrote: post #173
causality0 wrote: post #6

I wonder if any, or if many, Moderna employees have been walking around off-the-books immunized since January. I know I would've been tempted.

Unless you're in a high-risk group, getting a vaccine early is kinda irrelevant. Being able to go to concerts and sports events and theatres safely is pointless if there aren't any concerts or sports events or theatres open. If you've got elderly loved ones you want to keep safe, you'd need to vaccinate them, not yourself. And if all you want to do is go to the shops without a mask, while everyone assumes you're a du…

There's a strong social benefit too. Being able to more comfortably spend time with friends and family you care about, even if they can't be vaccinated yet, seems worthwhile in itself. There's also the related consideration for dating, etc.

Re: It took two days to develop Moderna’s vaccine

#176

Post by dragonwriter »

michaelt wrote: post #173
causality0 wrote: post #6

I wonder if any, or if many, Moderna employees have been walking around off-the-books immunized since January. I know I would've been tempted.

Unless you're in a high-risk group, getting a vaccine early is kinda irrelevant. Being able to go to concerts and sports events and theatres safely is pointless if there aren't any concerts or sports events or theatres open. If you've got elderly loved ones you want to keep safe, you'd need to vaccinate them, not yourself. And if all you want to do is go to the shops without a mask, while everyone assumes you're a du…

> If you've got elderly loved ones you want to keep safe, you'd need to vaccinate them, not yourself.

If the vaccine substantially reduces viral load, and degree and period of contagiousness for those who receive it, as well as reducing the risk of illness (which AFAIK it does, while falling short of sterilizing immunity), and you are the elderly loved ones main interface to the outside world, getting vaccinated on top of other precautions provides a real benefit.

OTOH, if you have to choose one to be vaccinated, it's them, not you. If you do this for lots of elderly family members, getting yourself vaccinated may be better than getting any one of them vaccinated, though. And, of course, of you are doing an off the books pre-approval use of the vaccine, accepting the risk of unexpected side effects for yourself may be more reasonable than imposing them on, or even suggesting them to, someone else who may be in a more fragile state.

Re: It took two days to develop Moderna’s vaccine

#177

Post by fortran77 »

hjnilsson wrote: post #171
fortran77 wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't underestimate how much of the US's problem (and UK, Canada, etc) was caused by obesity, too. https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/09/why-covid-19-more-de...

Average age in India is 26. Average age in the US is 38. This probably accounts for the difference in death rate.

From this article

> We didn’t understand early on what a major risk factor obesity was. … It’s not until more recently that we’ve realized the devastating impact of obesity, particularly in younger people,” says Anne Dixon, a physician-scientist who studies obesity and lung disease at the University of Vermont. That “may be one reason for the devastating impact of COVID-19 in the United States, where 40% of adults are obese.”

Re: It took two days to develop Moderna’s vaccine

#178

Post by ebiester »

ThrustVectoring wrote: post #135
jwilk wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is it obvious?

What this class of vaccine does is make a bunch of foreign proteins for your immune system to attack in your arm without actually infecting you with the disease. So you get inflammation and soreness at the injection site, and this is not from the physics of having an injection. The placebo arm injects with a saline solution, so there's no immune response, and you miss those symptoms.

From what I've heard from one of the trials, they used a meningitis vaccine that actually does hurt. (Its side effects are known but minor.)

That was hearsay, though, and I don't have access to the internal protocol.

Re: It took two days to develop Moderna’s vaccine

#179

Post by lostlogin »

hcknwscommenter wrote: post #157
lostlogin wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, and why were the shutdowns done? If you compare what happens with uncontrolled covid spread to a those of a flu season, they aren’t really all that similar. Even with the lockdowns, the deaths have been considerably more than tens of thousands.

Wrong. First, you have no uncontrolled covid spread to compare to. You are actually comparing tightly locked down COVID spread to a normal flu season. And COVID is still killing a lot more people. The closest example for an "uncontrolled covid spread" would be Bergamo in Jan-Mar 2020. Is that what you want repeated world-wide? The death rate there was astronomical.

I think you are making my point, which I didn’t convey very well.

Re: It took two days to develop Moderna’s vaccine

#180

Post by JoeAltmaier »

All correct. But also, disturbingly Utilitarian. Release vaccines before they are tested, and withdraw those that cause more deaths than they save? Trading lives for lives, coldly.

There are costs to calculated Utilitarianism. The damage to public confidence in vaccines springs to mind. If a vaccine is provably killing 1% of those receiving it, yet saving the lives of 2% (and more once herd immunity is reached) it may raise some alarmist criticism (to say the least) over the safety and advisability of getting vaccinated. Making it harder to convince the public to get vaccinated at all.

Other costs are, mis-estimating the ultimate death toll may lead to killing more up front than was strictly necessary. Or the vaccine may have side effects down the road, shortening lives or diminishing quality of life (sterilization? memory loss? immune system compromises?).

Unless all the costs are factored in, Utilitarianism become a guess, and can be used to serve profit or social agendas. The law of unintended consequences will loom large.

We have a vaccine protocol for a reason.

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