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Oxford University breakthrough on global COVID-19 vaccine

ox.ac.uk

251–260 of 569 posts

Re: Oxford University breakthrough on global COVID-19 vaccine

#251

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

On one hand, all of these vaccine trials excluded people who already had COVID, so we don't fully know what the effect would be in large numbers. However at least one person with COVID immunity accidentally got into the Oxford Phase 1/2 trial (according to earlier published results), so we at least know it didn't hurt them. On the other hand, it is generally thought that vaccines can trigger immune reactions that are…

>On the other hand, it is generally thought that vaccines can trigger immune reactions that are often much stronger and longer lasting than just being infected, so you would expect there to be a benefit to getting vaccinated even if you already had it.

Interestingly the opposite is true for influenza: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2870374/

Re: Oxford University breakthrough on global COVID-19 vaccine

#252
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?

I'm not aware of any risks.

There are definitely benefits to vaccine diversity. The Oxford ChAdOx1 virus involves putting a modified chimp adenovirus into people. People don't have immunity to chimp adenovirus, so it infects them and delivers the spike protein, which elicits immunity. But that might also elicit immunity to the chimp adenovirus! If that happens, then a later does of the vaccine - say, for a new strain of SARS-CoV-2 in a year or two - might not be as effective, because immunity to the chimp adenovirus will stop the vaccine delivering the spike. In that case, having a different way to deliver a vaccine will be a life-saver.

Re: Oxford University breakthrough on global COVID-19 vaccine

#253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the mRNA style viruses will probably decrease in cost exponentially the same way that DNA sequencing and computer technology have dropped in price.

However, mRNA vaccines require low temperature storage and are in general harder to handle. This translates to additional cost in production, throughout the logistics chain and delivery.

Pfizer are also working on a lyophilised, aka freeze-dried, version of their vaccine, which would not need to be stored at -80 C. This is from July [1], not sure if there is any more news:

> But we also hope to have, as we always do in life cycle management, a new lyophilized formulated vaccine by -- within maybe a year after initial delivery such as fourth quarter 2021 and the lyophilized formulation could be stored in refrigerator.

[1] https://s21.q4cdn.com/317678438/files/PFE-USQ_Transcript_202...

Re: Oxford University breakthrough on global COVID-19 vaccine

#254
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?

BioNTech/Pfizer plan to deliver 50 million doses by the end of the year.

https://investors.biontech.de/news-releases/news-release-det...

Re: Oxford University breakthrough on global COVID-19 vaccine

#255
post #187
post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me it's a simple risk proposition, how much at risk do I feel my children or I are from covid. For my children it's a slam dunk; their risk from covid is statistical non existent and weigh that against vaccines that may or may not have long term negative impact on them.

Just to be clear, you have no solid evidence on the long term negative impact on children for either the virus or the vaccine. We have no long term data on anything related to this disease. But for the deadly virus you interpret the lack sufficient evidence on children as no risk, for the vaccine as as a sign of risk. How do you justify that inconsistency?

>But for the deadly virus you interpret the lack sufficient evidence on children as no risk, for the vaccine as as a sign of risk. How do you justify that inconsistency?

Not the person you're replying to, but looking at similar viruses, there's basically never been a flu-like virus that has no short-term symptoms but serious long-term symptoms, however there have been rushed vaccines that had serious long-term symptoms.

Re: Oxford University breakthrough on global COVID-19 vaccine

#256
post #31

Incoming possible Silly, Stupid and Lazy Questions, 1. Are there any vaccine ( of any Disease ) that are 100% effective? Or do we operate ( as I would assume ) something like 5 Nines effective rate and call it 100%? 2. Across all type of Vaccine, what are the average or median effective rate? i.e Should we expect Vaccine to be 90%+ effective in the first place? Or is that a wrong expectation to make? 3. What happens…

> 2. Across all type of Vaccine, what are the average or median effective rate? i.e Should we expect Vaccine to be 90%+ effective in the first place? Or is that a wrong expectation to make? Sometimes, vaccines are only 30% or 40% effective, leading to terrible flu seasons. I don't really know the mean/median/mode, but 90% is really high for a vaccine. > 3. What happens in the case of 10% ineffective, do they take a t…

This has been downvoted, but it's absolutely true - see the table here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Influenza_vaccine#Effectivenes...

The best effectiveness of a flu vaccine in the US since 2004 was 60%.

Re: Oxford University breakthrough on global COVID-19 vaccine

#257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there somewhere any numbers on how much exactly does it cost? What portion is really "research" and what portion is marketing budget? How much trial phase 1/2/3 cost etc?

When I studied pharmaceutical sciences ten years ago, the rule-of-thumb was that it cost around 1 billion dollars from idea to the product being launched. That's only r&d costs and regulations have become stricter over the years, so I imagine the cost has risen since then

It's not so much the cost, it's also the delay. At a 5% cost of capital, and a 10 year lag between R&D and final approval, your real cash flows are 40% lower due to the delay. At a 10% cost of capital, they are 60% lower. Sales also take several additional years to ramp up.

This doesn't apply so much to Covid vaccines, as the time frame is accelerated and demand is already high.

Re: Oxford University breakthrough on global COVID-19 vaccine

#258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There were no hospitalisations or severe incidents for either the Pfizer and Moderna trials were was related to the vaccine. And it's pretty easy to compare the vaccines. It will mostly come down to price, ease of manufacture and ease of distribution i.e. temperature. Given that for the 3 viruses all have no risks associated with their use.

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

We don't for absolute certainty, but there's no reason to think there would be. Consider:

a) A virus that is known to cause severe disease in a significant proportion of people, including months-long serious health effects, hospitalisation and death.

b) A virus chosen because it doesn't causing any ill-effects in humans, modified to take on some non-harmful aspects of virus a) and found to not cause any significant harm in tens of thousands of people over several months.

Which is more likely to cause long-term side effects?

Re: Oxford University breakthrough on global COVID-19 vaccine

#259
post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The two existing mRNA vaccines touted earlier also require two doses.

I wonder what happens if you get two doses, but not of the same vaccine?

If the vaccines are for the same antigen (eg the spike protein), i would expect that to work fine. Your B cells don't care how the RNA encoding the proteins got into your cells, just what the protein looks like.

A caveat here is that different vaccines might use different versions or modifications of the spike protein, in which case it's possible they wouldn't boost each other. This feels unlikely, though, because i think that would also reduce their effectiveness against the real virus.

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