Oxford University breakthrough on global COVID-19 vaccine • Hacker News Board

Re: Oxford University breakthrough on global COVID-19 vaccine

#241

Post by codeulike » Mon, Nov 23, 2020, 11:46 AM UTC

summerlight wrote: post #131

It's interesting to layman's eyes that the dosing regime using 1.5 doses is more effective than the one using 2 doses as I would expect the inverse; are there any plausible explanations for this?

These stats are based on 130 people getting covid out of an experiment of 25,000 people. They dont give a breakdown of the stats (e.g. who was on placebo, who was on which dosing regimen ) but those are small nubmers.

I think its possible that this is just noise. The difference between '60%' and '90%' might just be a handful of cases.

They show that it works though, thats the main thing.

edit: e.g. of those 130 cases lets assume half were in each regimen experiment. So 65 cases in the 'two full doses experiment' if they got 60% efficiacy then that means about 26 people with the vaccine got covid vs 39 with placebo. In the 'half dose then full dose' experiment if they got 90% efficacy then that means about 7 people with the vaccine got covid vs 58 with placebo. So the difference between 60% and 90% is 19 people. They show that the vaccine works but there is lots of uncertainty between the two dosing regimens.

Edit: why the downvotes?

Re: Oxford University breakthrough on global COVID-19 vaccine

#242

Post by christkv » Mon, Nov 23, 2020, 11:46 AM UTC

I really still hope mRNA vaccines work well and that we keep investing in them. The potential too rapidly create new vaccines and deploy them when needed without requiring a vector will be crucial to counter future pandemics.

Once the oxford vaccine is deployed I suspect they will then have to create a new vector if they need to create another batch in the future as your body might have developed immunity to the vector virus itself making future doses ineffective.

Re: Oxford University breakthrough on global COVID-19 vaccine

#243

Post by i_cannot_hack » Mon, Nov 23, 2020, 11:48 AM UTC

beagle3 wrote: post #202

noneeeed wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, the fact that this doesn't even need a freezer is great news. The fact that we have three highly effective vaccines in such a short period is amazing and between them we might stand a chance of making and distributing them at the scale necessary to get things under some kind of control by August.

The safety concerns cannot be resolved yet. Effective - yes. Safe? We won’t know for a while. Pandemrix, a flu vaccine, caused a notable uptick in narcolepsy in Sweden, Finland and likely the UK. This was not (and could not) be seen in smaller trial populations. It is not a given that any of the covid vaccines is safe enough. Historically, two cases of rushed vaccines (cutter polio and Gullah barre) were worse than t…

> Historically, two cases of rushed vaccines (cutter polio and Gullah barre) were worse than the disease - and these were for diseases worse than covid.

This is just patently untrue.

The Cutter Incidence gave patients Polio due to an improperly activated virus. While this is bad, it could not be worse than the disease itself - since it is the disease itself, no worse, no less.

Regarding risk of Gullain-Barre syndrome due to vaccination, Wikipedia has this to say: "In fact, natural influenza infection is a stronger risk factor for the development of GBS than is influenza vaccination and getting the vaccination does reduce the risk of GBS overall by lowering the risk of catching influenza." So here I also find it hard to believe the vaccine would be worse than the disease,

I'm also sceptical of the claim that Polio or the 1976 Swine Flu would unambiguously be worse than Covid19. 70% of Polio case have no symptoms, and less than 0.5% cause permanent injury, according to Wikipedia. The 1976 Swine Flu outbreak seems to have caused a few hundred cases and only one death.

Re: Oxford University breakthrough on global COVID-19 vaccine

#244

Post by snowwolf » Mon, Nov 23, 2020, 11:48 AM UTC

beagle3 wrote: post #202

noneeeed wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, the fact that this doesn't even need a freezer is great news. The fact that we have three highly effective vaccines in such a short period is amazing and between them we might stand a chance of making and distributing them at the scale necessary to get things under some kind of control by August.

The safety concerns cannot be resolved yet. Effective - yes. Safe? We won’t know for a while. Pandemrix, a flu vaccine, caused a notable uptick in narcolepsy in Sweden, Finland and likely the UK. This was not (and could not) be seen in smaller trial populations. It is not a given that any of the covid vaccines is safe enough. Historically, two cases of rushed vaccines (cutter polio and Gullah barre) were worse than t…

I wonder if because the Oxford vaccine has taken an already tested and approved vaccine approach it has a higher chance of safety than the other 2 which use a new approach that has never been approved by regulators before.

Re: Oxford University breakthrough on global COVID-19 vaccine

#245

Post by est31 » Mon, Nov 23, 2020, 11:51 AM UTC

anoncake wrote: post #226

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?

At least in the US, it seems so:

> Currently, OWS is working with 11 drug manufacturing companies to produce 800 million doses of six different COVID-19 vaccines, five of which are in Phase III clinical trials. By prepurchasing and premanufacturing these vaccines prior to approval, the vaccine distribution plan can be activated and supplies delivered within 24 hours of any of the vaccines receiving FDA approval.

https://college.acaai.org/updates-on-covid-19-vaccine-distri...

Re: Oxford University breakthrough on global COVID-19 vaccine

#246

Post by dri_ft » Mon, Nov 23, 2020, 11:54 AM UTC

guipsp wrote: post #216

HPsquared wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except for how, you know, weapons and medicines have slightly different effects when used.

Well, only to the extent that you distinguish killing someone via weapons and just letting them die via preventable disease.

With weapons, it costs money to kill someone; with medicine, it costs money to save them.

Re: Oxford University breakthrough on global COVID-19 vaccine

#247

Post by elmo2you » Mon, Nov 23, 2020, 11:54 AM UTC

bawolff wrote: post #143

elmo2you wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While for now just speculation and without a doubt Machiavellian, it could be that this price difference ends up a significant factor for major economies in their choice for an expensive vaccine. I guess we will know, if/when/once examples of individual discrimination based on what vaccine people received start emerging (hopefully, never). Regretfully, it would be not the first example of major economies using the cu…

What? I've read this 3 times and can't figure out what you're trying to say. Are you saying that rich countries are going to intentionally choose more expensive vaccines, with the intention of suppressing the lower classes? That's so rediculous. In rich countries (other than the usa) the gov pays for these things not the citizens. Even then, the expensive vaccine is only $40, that's within the means of most poor peop…

Fascinating ...

> .. the gov pays for these things not the citizens .. You do know that the only money governments have, is the money they got from its citizens, right? That is, aside from what they may have earned (though plundered or extorted might be more fitting) from other nations.

> .. the expensive vaccine is only $40, that's within the means of most poor people .. You may want to reevaluate your knowledge about the rest of the world. That is, outside the USA and some the more affluent parts of Europe. Also, that vaccine probably won't cost "just" $40 equally for everyone.

However, believe whatever you want. Time will no doubt teach us all a lessen. Personally, I hope it will teach me that I was wrong with my skepticism.

Re: Oxford University breakthrough on global COVID-19 vaccine

#248

Post by refurb » Mon, Nov 23, 2020, 11:55 AM UTC

aquadrop wrote: post #213

refurb wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I talked to a bunch of CROs about the cost of Phase 3 trials. It varies, but is roughly $10,000 to $15,000 per patient year. Pfizer’s trial will run for 2 years, so ~$900M for the trial alone. That’s excluding all the work to scale up the production, regulatory filing, distribution, etc. Edit: my math sucks. $900M, not $90M

Is it really $10-15k each additional patient year requires or it's more of "total cost was this much, we divide it by number of patients". Where do this money go to? Fx, with these covid trials, 40000 people in pfizer trial, half a year cost would be $200-300 mln. People presumably weren't paid for this. Of course there's some work by doctors that needs to be paid for, but that can't be this large amount. Also, does…

Ha! You think big pharma likes spending that kind of money on trials? I’ve been a part of those negotiations with the FDA. It costs that much because the company says “we believe a 6 month trial is sufficient to prove both safety and efficacy” and the FDA says “if you want it approved, you need to collect 2 years of data”.

Now, $10-15k per patient-year is for a typical therapeutic. And that is an average across global trial sites, not just the US. It’s not much money. You go a 15 min doctors appointment and your insurance is billed $150. Now imagine going 1 per week and having multiple tests run each time. Or having to stay in the hospital for a day when the drug is administered. You can burn through $1,000 per month pretty damn quickly.

Re: Oxford University breakthrough on global COVID-19 vaccine

#249

Post by andi999 » Mon, Nov 23, 2020, 11:57 AM UTC

andi999 wrote: post #123

SpaceRaccoon wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do we know there aren't long term side effects?

We can't. If everybody turns into superheros in 10 years, we wouldnt know; or maybe this is actually the backstory of 'children of men'; we can't know. RNA vaccines are researched in animals for about a decade, but long term effects are usually not beeing found in such studies (disection usually cuts that short). There is though no theoretical nor experiental evidence for that.

Downvoters: do you disagree with the 'we cant know', please explain then how you can know.

Re: Oxford University breakthrough on global COVID-19 vaccine

#250

Post by MagnumOpus » Mon, Nov 23, 2020, 11:58 AM UTC

flexie wrote: post #228

ddeck wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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]

> The AstraZeneca vaccine also has 90 percent efficacy when used twice

No it doesn't. Both dosings use two shots, and the "90%" number from the smaller dosing is from an unreliably small sample set of 33 infections -- it could easily be 70-80% by next month when more data comes in.