Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Johnson and Johnson single-shot vaccine appears 66% effective in global trial

cbc.ca

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 274 posts

Re: Johnson and Johnson single-shot vaccine appears 66% effective in global trial

#11

Post by joncrane »

gogopuppygogo wrote: post #5
JamesBarney wrote: post #3

66% protection against getting moderate to severe Covid but 100% protection against death and hospitalization. I have no idea how the FDA can hold back these vaccines in good conscience while peoples are dying by the thousands on a daily basis.

Unpopular opinion: the FDA has to justify their existence. If vaccines can be developed safely and deployed quickly, inexpensively, and in large quantities all without FDA then people would realize how bloated our government really is.

I think this is a bit of a disingenuous approach. There's a slippery slope here.

Just because "humanity, including giant healthcare conglomerates who stood to profit came together to fast track vaccines against a deadly global pandemic" it doesn't mean "regulation of the vaccine and drug industry is pointless."

If the FDA were to relax its standards across the board due to this one success in the face of an anomaly, you'd better believe drug manufacturers would be fast tracking dangerous drugs.

Heck even in the current regulatory environment dangerous products make it through. As evidenced by all the ads I see for litigation based on harm caused by various already-approved (in a non-fast track manner) drugs that have made it to the market in the last decade.

Re: Johnson and Johnson single-shot vaccine appears 66% effective in global trial

#12

Post by foepys »

SubiculumCode wrote: post #10

imo 66% effectiveness is pretty good, not on a personal level, but at the population policy level. I'm glad to get another vaccine on the market soon.

On the other hand it's quite sad that we as humanity have already developed two vaccines with 95% (or even higher) effectiveness but are not able (or rather: are too greedy) to share this knowledge to vaccine every human on earth as fast as possible.

Instead the US and Europe are putting trade restrictions in place to keep the vaccines for themselves. India and China are more than capable to produce the vaccines in insane quantities but IP law doesn't let them.

Re: Johnson and Johnson single-shot vaccine appears 66% effective in global trial

#13

Post by FuckButtons »

gogopuppygogo wrote: post #5
JamesBarney wrote: post #3

66% protection against getting moderate to severe Covid but 100% protection against death and hospitalization. I have no idea how the FDA can hold back these vaccines in good conscience while peoples are dying by the thousands on a daily basis.

Unpopular opinion: the FDA has to justify their existence. If vaccines can be developed safely and deployed quickly, inexpensively, and in large quantities all without FDA then people would realize how bloated our government really is.

The reason this is unpopular is because of how obviously incorrect it is. The history of medicine is almost an allegory for why evolved evidence based systems like this to regulate what companies and doctors can do. Time and again, doctors and pharmaceutical companies have done unsafe, harmful and fraudulent things to patients who trusted them. The only reason we have medicine that works now is because we rigorously enforce the use of statistical proof that interventions work through bodies like the FDA.

Re: Johnson and Johnson single-shot vaccine appears 66% effective in global trial

#14

Post by elliekelly »

fattire wrote: post #8
GizmoSwan wrote: post #2

66% effectiveness in one shot is better than 50% - 1/2 shots where there is not enough vaccines to go around. In some places people are not getting both shots of vaccines. FDA approved two different shots of 2 shot vaccines. At this time they should just immunize everybody with one shot at least.

Would a partial or half immunized population not end up culturing a more resistant strain?

Or could it end up culturing a more mild strain? More like a common cold?

Re: Johnson and Johnson single-shot vaccine appears 66% effective in global trial

#15

Post by GizmoSwan »

cj wrote: post #4
GizmoSwan wrote: post #2

66% effectiveness in one shot is better than 50% - 1/2 shots where there is not enough vaccines to go around. In some places people are not getting both shots of vaccines. FDA approved two different shots of 2 shot vaccines. At this time they should just immunize everybody with one shot at least.

Have any trials been done to determine the efficacy of just 1 shot for the double dose vaccines?

Yes they have data for results of 1 shot of 2 shot vaccines.

Moderna has 80% in single shot I believe but it degrades over time so there is a second shot.

The 66% that does not degrade and can be kept in room temperature is not bad at all. Most vaccines are not 90%. Most flu vaccine don't cover all different types but they still protect people as they get some sort of immunity to major types A,B etc.

Re: Johnson and Johnson single-shot vaccine appears 66% effective in global trial

#16

Post by znebby »

I'm really struggling to understand these numbers.

In some other articles I'm seeing that it offers 100% protection against hospitalisation and death.

"The J&J vaccine was 85 per cent effective at preventing severe Covid-19. Twenty-eight days after the jab, it offered “complete protection” from hospitalisation and death." [1]

Wouldn't having "severe" infection require hospitilisation?

[1] https://www.ft.com/content/d05c7c57-da11-42a1-aa33-b66052c90...

Re: Johnson and Johnson single-shot vaccine appears 66% effective in global trial

#17

Post by roywiggins »

znebby wrote: post #16

I'm really struggling to understand these numbers. In some other articles I'm seeing that it offers 100% protection against hospitalisation and death. "The J&J vaccine was 85 per cent effective at preventing severe Covid-19. Twenty-eight days after the jab, it offered “complete protection” from hospitalisation and death." [1] Wouldn't having "severe" infection require hospitilisation? [1] https://www.ft.com/content/d…

I've seen "severe" be measured by oxygen saturation; some people are able to manage severe COVID at home.

Some people have to, because there simply isn't any hospital in their area with space for them.

Re: Johnson and Johnson single-shot vaccine appears 66% effective in global trial

#18

Post by tootie »

gogopuppygogo wrote: post #5
JamesBarney wrote: post #3

66% protection against getting moderate to severe Covid but 100% protection against death and hospitalization. I have no idea how the FDA can hold back these vaccines in good conscience while peoples are dying by the thousands on a daily basis.

Unpopular opinion: the FDA has to justify their existence. If vaccines can be developed safely and deployed quickly, inexpensively, and in large quantities all without FDA then people would realize how bloated our government really is.

Safe, effective vaccines are being developed because they know if they don't they won't get past the FDA.

Re: Johnson and Johnson single-shot vaccine appears 66% effective in global trial

#19

Post by cogman10 »

FuckButtons wrote: post #13
gogopuppygogo wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unpopular opinion: the FDA has to justify their existence. If vaccines can be developed safely and deployed quickly, inexpensively, and in large quantities all without FDA then people would realize how bloated our government really is.

The reason this is unpopular is because of how obviously incorrect it is. The history of medicine is almost an allegory for why evolved evidence based systems like this to regulate what companies and doctors can do. Time and again, doctors and pharmaceutical companies have done unsafe, harmful and fraudulent things to patients who trusted them. The only reason we have medicine that works now is because we rigorously…

Yup. There's a lot of distrust in doctors and the medical community and some of that has been earned by past lapses in ethics or rigor.

The only way to earn it back is by heightened scrutiny. That's the role the FDA finds itself in. It doesn't just approve things because approving something that later causes issues will ultimately result lost confidence.

Getting people to take these vaccines will be a challenge in and of itself. Can you imagine how much harder it will be if we give antivaxxers more "they rushed this" ammunition?

Re: Johnson and Johnson single-shot vaccine appears 66% effective in global trial

#20

Post by jiofih »

znebby wrote: post #16

I'm really struggling to understand these numbers. In some other articles I'm seeing that it offers 100% protection against hospitalisation and death. "The J&J vaccine was 85 per cent effective at preventing severe Covid-19. Twenty-eight days after the jab, it offered “complete protection” from hospitalisation and death." [1] Wouldn't having "severe" infection require hospitilisation? [1] https://www.ft.com/content/d…

Severe means severe symptoms but doesn’t imply hospitalization.
Post reply on HN