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Israeli study finds 94% drop in symptomatic Covid-19 cases with Pfizer vaccine

reuters.com

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Re: Israeli study finds 94% drop in symptomatic Covid-19 cases with Pfizer vaccine

#231

Post by mschuster91 »

krzyk wrote: post #168
mschuster91 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem was, as usual, EU countries' nationalism and wealth disparity. Macron insisted that the EU not order more doses from Germany's Biontech than from French Sanofi. So far so usual, but the worst problem were the Eastern European countries - they insisted on also keeping AstraZeneca with their 1.78€ a dose on board because well they are poor and can't afford more.

> So far so usual, but the worst problem were the Eastern European countries - they insisted on also keeping AstraZeneca with their 1.78€ a dose I thought AZ was €5 a dose. Well, as for EE countries, the largest by population size (EE country that is in EU) is Poland and they (we, I live here) ordered from multiple sources, and AZ isn't the largest one (J&J is, followed closely by Pfizer): Janssen Pharmaceutica NV /…

Nope, AZ was 1.78 a dose while BT was 12€ (of which 2 are needed, so 24€ a person): https://www.spiegel.de/wirtschaft/unternehmen/belgien-politi...

Re: Israeli study finds 94% drop in symptomatic Covid-19 cases with Pfizer vaccine

#232

Post by kjakm »

ck425 wrote: post #196
Milner08 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had my first jab yesterday in London, I am (just) under 30 so I was surprised to be offered it, but I went along anyway and it was very well organised. In an out in 5 mins, the vaccines were being given by army and navy medics (all in uniform, which was cool but also a bit apocalypse-y). They said they were giving over 100 an hour in there alone, and there can't have been more than 15 bays for vaccines. I was very…

Out of curiosity how did you qualify for the vaccine? I work for the NHS but as I'm not frontline don't qualify for it. Not that I disagree with the decision but the internal talk I've heard is that the government has been extremely strict about only vaccinating those in the priority groups.

I am in the same situation as the parent comment. Youngish but offered it at the weekend. I would be group 6 but I think there is more at play.

There are vaccine centres in London (certainly the one I attended) having to close early because a lot of people in group 1-4 are refusing to take up their appointments. I believe that so they can make use of their supply they've had to transition to lower groups a lot sooner than planned.

Re: Israeli study finds 94% drop in symptomatic Covid-19 cases with Pfizer vaccine

#233

Post by bluGill »

aquadrop wrote: post #114
ilkkao wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been wondering this myself too. Lockdowns are so expensive that I'd assume every unconventional method to expand the production is taken into use. The situation is bad but not so bad that competitors could be forced to work together it seems. I expect that the amount of angry people in EU will peak in spring or early summer when UK, US, and Israel are mostly back to normal and we are not.

Yes, I was wondering that very much myself. I remember talks about ramping up production preemptively, starting from spring, to have large stock of vaccine available when they are approved. Bill Gates talked about that specifically, taking like first 5 most promising vaccine candidates and starting production ramp up immediately, even risking the possibility they will not be approved and wasting some money. I thought…

Pfizer and moderna were not in the most promising vaccines list. MRNA was too new and untried. I'm not sure why Oxford/az wasn't ramped up more though, they were the ones everyone was waiting for.

Re: Israeli study finds 94% drop in symptomatic Covid-19 cases with Pfizer vaccine

#234

Post by RobinL »

nicoburns wrote: post #208
throwaway_Ie8th wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are saying "Late vaccinated 0-59 years old" should be read as "Unvaccinated and late vaccinated 0-59 years old"? Why didn't they use that label then?

Because they have been vaccinated. The vaccine just (likely) hasn't taken affect and started affecting the statistics yet.

I'm not sure that is true. As I understand it, it's a cohort of people of that age who live in a geographical area of Israel where vaccination was started early. So it includes people of that age who declined the vaccine/didn't get it fr other reasons.

Of course, you're also correct that another important factor is that some of the cohort are not yet fully protected.

The definitions are here: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.02.08.21251325v...

Quote: In order to distill the possible effect of the vaccinations from other factors, including a third lockdown imposed in Israel on January 2021, we compared the time-dependent changes in number of COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations between (1) individuals aged 60 years and older, eligible to receive the vaccine earlier and younger individuals (0-59 years old); (2) early-vaccinated cities compared to late-vaccinated cities; (3) early-vaccinated geographical statistical areas (GSAs) compared to late-vaccinated GSAs;

Re: Israeli study finds 94% drop in symptomatic Covid-19 cases with Pfizer vaccine

#235

Post by bluGill »

hef19898 wrote: post #191
corty wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How do you decide which factories to build? All of them. Or at least all of the different kinds of factories (mRNA, vector, live vaccine) for the most promising candidates. If there is a shortage of something, force production, apply imminent domain, force cooperation. War against Corona should be handled like a war, not like a toilet paper shortage.

In a lot of regards the "vaccine shortage" (hint: there is no real shortage, we are currently just in the early ramp up phase of production) should exaclty be treated like the toilet paper shortage.

Not really, because toilet paper was a different issue, there was plenty of supply. With vaccines I want the 300 million doses made in the US the day it is approved. Then nothing for three weeks and then make the booster all at once . That isn't possible, but it is what we want. (As each country approves repeat for them)

Re: Israeli study finds 94% drop in symptomatic Covid-19 cases with Pfizer vaccine

#236

Post by EvgeniyZh »

corty wrote: post #230
EvgeniyZh wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was large amount of 60+ vaccinated with second dose 2 to 4 weeks ago. Iirc it was at least 50%. If half of population responsible for 90% of deaths is vaccinated it should affect death-per-case ratio.

Vaccinated with a second dose means full immunity 1 week after, possible death 3 to 7 weeks after (1 + (1 to 2) + (2 to 4)). So a decline should start to be visible since last week maybe. But I wouldn't get nervous for another 2 to 3 weeks in case it doesn't fall sharply, data is always noisy and everything is spread out the more dependencies on previous events and times there are.

We don't need full immunity to see the effect tho.

Re: Israeli study finds 94% drop in symptomatic Covid-19 cases with Pfizer vaccine

#237

Post by infinitysky »

oblio wrote: post #201
thu2111 wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The numbers are falling all over the western world; probably because the policy response is largely same and maybe also because the virus' natural cycle is at the same stage. Probably the latter. Mortality doesn't seem to be affected by (covid specific) policy: https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w27719/w277... https://ideas.repec.org/p/wai/econwp/20-06.html https://www.thelancet.com/journals/eclinm/arti…

Interesting. In Luxembourg at least you can see the clear seasonal variation and also the enforcement of stricter lockdowns pretty much 1:1 in death rates and infection rates, accounting for the ~2-3 week delay in infection intervals.

Well, as I saw in Luxembourg you surely can’t experience any of the vaccination effects yet. Is there a government there or what is going on?

Re: Israeli study finds 94% drop in symptomatic Covid-19 cases with Pfizer vaccine

#238

Post by edanm »

ImaCake wrote: post #178
kesor wrote: post #66

It is worth adding that the Israeli government is very aggressively pushing vaccination. So aggressively that there is a notable movement of people who oppose to get vaccinated because of the blatant violations to basic human rights in a democratic country. At the very beginning of vaccination in Israel the demand was very high, since all those waiting for the vaccine rushed and went to get it asap. Now that most of…

>At the same time, there is a little known "cure" that was developed in a Tel Aviv hospital that has been tried on 30 people I want to make it really clear that I am downvoting you for this last sentence. N=30 and no link to a publication is insufficient information for anyone to be talking about it except those organising the next (much larger) trial. Right now, what you say cannot be verified and appears to me to b…

Just to back OP up a bit, this was indeed heavily publicized in the Israeli press. Though obviously your caveats apply - it's too early to tell if this is a real cure for COVID since it's just one experiment.

Re: Israeli study finds 94% drop in symptomatic Covid-19 cases with Pfizer vaccine

#239

Post by hef19898 »

bluGill wrote: post #235
hef19898 wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a lot of regards the "vaccine shortage" (hint: there is no real shortage, we are currently just in the early ramp up phase of production) should exaclty be treated like the toilet paper shortage.

Not really, because toilet paper was a different issue, there was plenty of supply. With vaccines I want the 300 million doses made in the US the day it is approved. Then nothing for three weeks and then make the booster all at once . That isn't possible, but it is what we want. (As each country approves repeat for them)

A shortage is a is a mismatch between demand and supply. When you are in the ramp up of production, the art is to match these. That means a closely monitored planning covering both aspects. Which is exactly what was done with toilet paper.

Done right, one could even get away with not reserving the second shot from the first deliveries. Another parallel between toilet paper and vaccines is the sudden demand spikes, read additional orders from the EU in January, that resulted in reduced short term availablity.

Re: Israeli study finds 94% drop in symptomatic Covid-19 cases with Pfizer vaccine

#240

Post by _ph_ »

DalasNoin wrote: post #63
ancymon wrote: post #17

As I understand, for example in Europe Pfizer is producing vaccines in single factory and not in sufficient number. Why production doesn't happen in more places? Couldn't they sell license to other European pharmaceutical companies to produce it? Is production process so unique it can't be replicated in other places?

Pfizer does most of the production of the vaccine, but in Europe a large part of the vaccines is also manufactured by their German partner BioNtech. BioNtech is setting up a new factory in Marburg Germany right now. https://investors.biontech.de/news-releases/news-release-det... From their press release: "Facility will become one of the largest mRNA manufacturing sites in Europe and the third site in the BioNTech man…

It should be noted that BioNTech developed the vaccine and partnered with Pfizer for testing and worldwide production/distribution.
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