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Oxford University breakthrough on global COVID-19 vaccine

ox.ac.uk

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Re: Oxford University breakthrough on global COVID-19 vaccine

#221

Post by factsaresacred »

oblio wrote: post #203
refurb wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course. And if they spent $100M on R&D and it failed? What then? Would the gov’t pay those costs? And maybe a small profit? It’s easy to complain about Pharma profits when you ignore all the money spent that goes “poof”.

When was the last time one of there big pharma companies went bankrupt, barring massive fraud? I'd be glad to be shown some examples, otherwise it's "privatize profits, socialize losses".

Survivorship bias. The bankrupt businesses never get the chance to become big and so you don't hear about them.

However I'm certain that the category "bankrupt pharma company" is littered with examples.

Re: Oxford University breakthrough on global COVID-19 vaccine

#222

Post by hutzlibu »

kuu wrote: post #185
rixrax wrote: post #90

Is there any research or early guestimates about risks (or benefits) of getting multiple different vaccines for Covid? E.g. What if one gets this, and then later moderna vaccine? Will they fight each other, or work together or is it unknown whats going to happen?

>Will they fight each other, or work together I'm not a microbiologist, but this is not how vaccines work. The vaccines are going to put "something strange" in your body that "resembles" the virus, but it's not the virus (it's either a deactivated version of it, or some proteins which identify it...) and then is YOUR immune system the one which "attacks" this pseudo-virus. In this way, your immune system is learning…

Most of the vaccines developed seem to work pretty much the same, by targeting the same spike protein. And I am also far from being a microbiologist either, but I do know that the immune system is very complex, so I would not rule anything out, when messing with it.

In any case, getting the vaccination can (maybe) actually increase your risk of a severe Covid sickness, when you are exposed to real covid virus at the same time.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ijcp.13795

And I have no data for it and I can imagine it being hard to get reliable data about it, but autoimmune sickness is on the rise. I am not sure a quickly hacked together vaccine can rule that possibility out.

Re: Oxford University breakthrough on global COVID-19 vaccine

#223

Post by jbb67 »

unlikelymordant wrote: post #19
2Gkashmiri wrote: post #7

over 7 billion human population, a 90% effectiveness is what? alright? please enlighten me. does anyone know what was the effectiveness of the smallpox vaccine that we did actually manage to eradicate successfully?

This depends on the r0 of the virus, an r0 of 2 means a 50% effective vaccine (and 100% vaccinated pop) will defeat the virus. With measles and a r0 of 18, youd need an effectiveness of 95%. Considering not everyone can or will take a vaccine, the effectiveness needs to be higher than this. Covid is apparently around 3, and if you can vaccinate 90% of the population then an effectiveness of 75% would be the minimum y…

This is if everyone is equally likely to spread the virus.

Probably 20% of people are responsible for 80% of infections. (People who work in shops or public places, people in large extended families, people who socialize a lot).

If you can identify and vaccinate those people it will be much more that 20% effective. (It might be hard to identify those but it's probably easy to identify people at low risk of spreading it and infer)

Re: Oxford University breakthrough on global COVID-19 vaccine

#224

Post by puzzlingcaptcha »

__warlord__ wrote: post #162

In general or specific to Covid-19 vaccines, does anyone knows what happens if you get vaccinated after you got the virus?

I doubt it would help much, for similar reasons why you don't give a flu vaccine to someone already sick.

A vaccine is meant to stimulate adaptive immunity which culminates in formation of memory cells - highly selected T and B lymphocytes which are very specific to the infectious agent. This process typically takes a couple days [1] and is rather involved. Once you have the memory cells, however, the next time you get in contact with the virus your memory cells will jump-start the immune response much more quickly, before the virus gets a chance to replicate.

In a regular infection the same mechanisms of adaptive immunity are activated, but on top of that you already have the complications from the virus itself (cell death in lung epithelium, accumulation of excess fluid, hypoxia, cytokine storm etc). A vaccine dose won't necessarily speed it up, there are plenty of virus particles already stimulating the immune system - it's just picking up the slack a bit too late.

There are other factors to consider but that's the general idea.

[1] https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Kinetics-of-CD8-T-cell-d...

Re: Oxford University breakthrough on global COVID-19 vaccine

#225

Post by OJFord »

bawolff wrote: post #57
jakozaur wrote: post #41

Title is misleading. They tested few configurations, we should use the most optimal one, not the average. Much better source: https://www.astrazeneca.com/media-centre/press-releases/2020... Good: + likely 90% effective if we use optimal dosing + no significant side effective. Looks better than Pfizer or Moderna. + already pre-produced at huge scale, 3 Bln doses in 2021 + easy to store and administer, just regular fri…

Interesting its cheaper than mRNA, i thought that was one of the benefits of using mRNA, was that it was supposed to be cheaper to manufacture.

If you're manufacturing something and selling it at a profit, that's absolutely a benefit!

I don't know that the manufacturing costs are less (for Pfizer, Moderna), but I think it's a fair assumption that the bulk of the difference is AstraZeneca (currently) providing it at cost.

Re: Oxford University breakthrough on global COVID-19 vaccine

#226

Post by anoncake »

sgt101 wrote: post #189

An important fact that I haven't seen mentioned in this thread is that 3m doses have been manufactured already and are available in the UK supply chain today. "All" that's required is the approval from the regulator - but I guess that is still a little way off. 3m would do a lot of good though - frontline staff, the most vulnerable, hotspots....

Were any doses produced yet of the other two vaccines?

Re: Oxford University breakthrough on global COVID-19 vaccine

#227

Post by SanderNL »

bleepblorp wrote: post #126
ddeck wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>At $3 to $4, many countries will jump on board ASAP and stay away from the expensive vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna. The price difference will likely remain substantial, but in case anyone is unaware, the difference is currently greater due to AstraZeneca pledging to the sell the vaccine at cost "during the pandemic", while Pfizer and Moderna have indicated that they fully intend to profit. [1] Once AstraZeneca de…

[flagged]

While off-putting, these same capitalist forces are what made companies like Pfizer possible in the first place. Where are the socialist factories? I do not see any communist, religious and/or otherwise motivated groups of people producing anything of value right now. Lots of noise, very little substance.

Re: Oxford University breakthrough on global COVID-19 vaccine

#228

Post by flexie »

ddeck wrote: post #204
flexie wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

To be fair, Johnson & Johnson (a US company) also made a similar pledge to AstraZeneca. These two companies have collectively received more than $1.5 billion from the US government [1]. As I understand it, Pfizer have not taken any federal funding. They do have government purchase agreements, but they are dependent on Pfizer delivering a viable vaccine. Their partner BioNTech received German government funding: Berli…

[flagged]

Re: Oxford University breakthrough on global COVID-19 vaccine

#229

Post by anoncake »

bb123 wrote: post #199
londons_explore wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Considering most economies are losing ~£100/person/day by having everything shut, the cost is fairly irrelevant.

Not for developing countries. And ultimately it is important for them to get vaccinated too, otherwise they will form a huge reservoir of COVID that will inevitably mutate and come back around to us.

That is not how it works. The Spanish Flu hasn't "come back" yet and coronaviruses mutate a lot more slowly. It couldn't really come back anyway, because it's still there, downgraded to regular flu.

Re: Oxford University breakthrough on global COVID-19 vaccine

#230

Post by oblio »

factsaresacred wrote: post #221
oblio wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When was the last time one of there big pharma companies went bankrupt, barring massive fraud? I'd be glad to be shown some examples, otherwise it's "privatize profits, socialize losses".

Survivorship bias. The bankrupt businesses never get the chance to become big and so you don't hear about them. However I'm certain that the category "bankrupt pharma company" is littered with examples.

How many of these small companies are

a) researching Covid-19 vaccines?

b) will they actually get to produce millions and millions of doses?

Almost every case I know of, it's a huge company or even a state owned one.

Who are we actually arguing for/against? The hypothetical "small pharma"?

Keep in mind that just like for banking, due to the amount of (necessary) regulation, there aren't many small pharma companies out there.

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