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

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

#251

Post by m-ee »

boulos wrote: post #246
m-ee wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re absolutely right, but I didn’t want the overall message to get lost in the details. I’ve been seeing people parrot the “AZ is actually much better than it looks because they included asymptomatic patients” for months now and it’s just incorrect.

I’m honestly confused! Can you point me to your source for the excerpts in your sibling comments? Edit: reading your lancet link now (sorry about that). My understanding from reading the description of the Moderna results was “XX / YYY people developed covid; but we didn’t test everyone in the YYY set” (so people who definitely got it / went to a hospital / whatever are in XX, but asymptomatic cases may not be). Agre…

A subset of people in the AZ study were tested weekly. However the primary endpoint was prevention of symptomatic disease. For someone to count in the top line efficacy number they would have to show symptoms and test positive on PCR. This is roughly equivalent to what the other studies did, although exact definition of "symptomatic" and how they monitored that can be slightly different. There's a common perception I've seen a lot that the AZ numbers are sandbagged because it included asymptomatic cases but that's not the case. If someone never developed symptoms they don't factor in to the 60% efficacy number.

As the other commenter pointed it may be possible that someone had mild symptoms they were ignoring then tested positive on the weekly screening and said "oh yeah I do have a sore throat" but the numbers should still be roughly comparable. It's not worth diving into 94% vs 95% efficacy but I think we can be pretty confident that the 95% vaccine is more effective than the 60% vaccine.

This is also muddied because the AZ trials were a bit of a mess with dosing error and varying times between shots. So now we have a number of different subgroups with their own statistics but not a big enough sample size to say anything confidently about half dose vs full dose or 2 weeks vs 12 weeks. The confidence intervals are a mile wide, but they still get talked about (and even drive policy) adding a lot of noise to the discussion about how effective the vaccine really was.

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

#252

Post by m-ee »

kelnos wrote: post #188
m-ee wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's quite literally one of the first things mentioned in the trial protocols and journal articles https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04516746 "The efficacy of 2 IM doses of AZD1222 compared to placebo for the prevention of COVID-19 in adults ≥ 18 years of age [ Time Frame: 1 year ] A binary response, whereby a participant is defined as a COVID-19 case if their first case of SARS-CoV-2 RT-PCR-positive symptomatic…

The links you provided seem to be for AstraZenica's vaccine, though, not for Moderna's or Pfizer's (which is what 'm12k was originally talking about). That seems to suggest that Oxford/AZN were only testing symptomatic trial participants, no? And says nothing about what Moderna or Pfizer were doing?

Moderna and Pfizer/Biontech did not do regular screening to check for asymptomatic cases, aside from some samples taken in between the shots. Oxford/AZ did regularly screen some participants, but the primary efficacy analysis only looked at symptomatic cases similar to the mRNA vaccines.

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

#253

Post by bobsil1 »

sdeep27 wrote: post #192
tpmx wrote: post #122

The mRNA vaccines are obviously the gold standard, they're what you want, if you're in a position to pick. The traditional vaccines, like this one and the Astra Zeneca one appear to be efficient at preventing hospitalization/death. That's great - it will ease the extreme load on the hospitals, and also reduce deaths greatly. What I'm concerned about is the long-term chronical diseases that's been reported ( https://w…

Such confidence about "gold standard" is hard to justify without ANY studies on mRNA long-term effects (how could there be > this is brand new vaccine technology and delivery). I would actually argue it is "safer" to take a more traditional vaccine (which have a long history of safety studies, including longer-term one) than an untested (in the long-term sense) mRNA vaccine, given equal efficacies. So, maybe not the…

There’s decades of research on mRNA, which we also know is temporary (explaining its fragility and ultra-cold requirement) and never enters the nucleus. Seems intrinsically safer than adenovirus-based vaccines.

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

#254

Post by henrikschroder »

greesil wrote: post #205
henrikschroder wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What specific policy are you suggesting? I think the biggest problem is the hyper-focus on a single cause of death. People look at the covid-19 death numbers, and have no idea how many people actually die in a normal year. And this causes people to focus on ensuring nobody dies of covid-19 to the exclusion of everything else. Yes, it absolutely sucks that a lot of vulnerable people in elder care facilities have die…

Yeah, this is a false dichotomy. There are other options other than lockdown vs no lockdown. You can have a social safety net and pay people to stay home. But if you're insistent that these are the only two options, look at Sweden. Their economy suffered despite not locking down last year because guess what, it turns out people don't want to go out and risk dying. So if your economy is doing to have mass unemployment…

> Their economy suffered despite not locking down last year

A forecast, but with data up to November 2020, which means it's probably not gonna change substantially when we have the full year data:

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1102546/coronavirus-euro...

So, Sweden is third least affected country in that list. It's missing Norway and Finland, though, but a quick google shows Norway at -3.5% and Finland at -4.0%, both worse than Sweden.

At the same time, the covid-19 deaths in Sweden is pretty close to the EU average, now, after the winter surge:

https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus-data-explorer?zoomToS...

The obvious conclusion of that data is that lockdowns destroy your economy, but don't actually save lives.

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

#255

Post by fsh »

riffraff wrote: post #243
maxerickson wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The J&J and AstraZeneca vaccines are both also very new technology. Here's the "platform" for the AstraZeneca vaccine: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ChAdOx1 They are somewhat similar to the mRNA vaccines, triggering cells in the recipients body to produce the SARS-CoV2 protein, but the mechanism is different, they use a virus to introduce the instructions into the cells instead of mRNA. The carrier virus has been alt…

But the Russian and Chinese vaccines are "old school", right? It would be fun if the least trusted sources ended up being the more reliable ones.

No, Sputnik V is a Vector vaccine just like AstraZeneca and Johnson&Johnson. There are several ones in development in China which all seem to be based on more "old school" technologies.

In terms of development they seem to be pretty far behind. As far as I know, none of the Russian or Chinese efforts have published serious data about safety and efficacy yet. According to publically available data, the vast majority of vaccinations done so far used European/American mRNA vaccines [1].

[1] https://ourworldindata.org/covid-vaccinations

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

#256

Post by M5x7wI3CmbEem10 »

tpmx wrote: post #122

The mRNA vaccines are obviously the gold standard, they're what you want, if you're in a position to pick. The traditional vaccines, like this one and the Astra Zeneca one appear to be efficient at preventing hospitalization/death. That's great - it will ease the extreme load on the hospitals, and also reduce deaths greatly. What I'm concerned about is the long-term chronical diseases that's been reported ( https://w…

are there any long-term concerns about mRNA vaccines? I have a feeling that the messenger response isn’t something that goes away easily. I’d rather take the AZ vaccine

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

#257

Post by kelnos »

m-ee wrote: post #252
kelnos wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The links you provided seem to be for AstraZenica's vaccine, though, not for Moderna's or Pfizer's (which is what 'm12k was originally talking about). That seems to suggest that Oxford/AZN were only testing symptomatic trial participants, no? And says nothing about what Moderna or Pfizer were doing?

Moderna and Pfizer/Biontech did not do regular screening to check for asymptomatic cases, aside from some samples taken in between the shots. Oxford/AZ did regularly screen some participants, but the primary efficacy analysis only looked at symptomatic cases similar to the mRNA vaccines.

Ok, but the question in the thread was about sources showing that Moderna & Pfizer did not do regular screening; seems like no one had found that info earlier, but I now see someone downthread has posted more about this.

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

#258

Post by lostlogin »

henrikschroder wrote: post #179
birken wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm quite confident people probably over-estimate their chance of dying in a plane crash by a few orders of magnitude as well. People are careful about their own lives, which is probably a good survival mechanism. What specific policy are you suggesting? The more As far as I'm aware no place has let the virus spread uncontrollably, think everything was fine, and not lock down at some point. The policy clearly has to…

> What specific policy are you suggesting? I think the biggest problem is the hyper-focus on a single cause of death. People look at the covid-19 death numbers, and have no idea how many people actually die in a normal year. And this causes people to focus on ensuring nobody dies of covid-19 to the exclusion of everything else. Yes, it absolutely sucks that a lot of vulnerable people in elder care facilities have die…

> the solution is to lock down the entire population, except "essential" workers? This argument doesn't make sense to me.

This is how covid has been eradicated in NZ and Australia. Locking down part of the population doesn’t work - isolating the vulnerable from those that are less likely to die isn’t possible.

> People have to be allowed to make their own choices, their own risk analysis, and live with the consequences.

And where has this worked? A portion of people refuse to listen to advice, refuse to wear masks and refuse to isolate. People go out while sick, they congregate in groups. Why should the vulnerable have to be exposed to this? If everyone follows the rules, you get back to normal faster.

An approach based on evidence is the way to get results.

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

#259

Post by lostlogin »

henrikschroder wrote: post #244
greesil wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, this is a false dichotomy. There are other options other than lockdown vs no lockdown. You can have a social safety net and pay people to stay home. But if you're insistent that these are the only two options, look at Sweden. Their economy suffered despite not locking down last year because guess what, it turns out people don't want to go out and risk dying. So if your economy is doing to have mass unemployment…

> You can have a social safety net and pay people to stay home. But if you're insistent that these are the only two options, look at Sweden. I think that first sentence sounds like a great strategy, and it's perfectly in line with what I suggested. Coincidentally, that's exactly what Sweden did as part of its strategy. So I'm not so sure how Sweden is an example of the opposite? > guess what, it turns out people don'…

> Again, lockdowns aren't 100% free. They also cause death, injury, and misery. Suicides are up, domestic violence is up, cancer screenings are down, drug overdoses are up, alcoholism is up, depression is way up.

In NZ the suicide rate dropped, despite a lockdown that was considerably more severe than done in many places. Possibly making this misleading, NZs suicide rate is atrocious to begin with.

Yes, there was a hell of a lot of grim news and poor stats - but the below seems a little hard to to believe. They will lose years of life?

> Poor kids in the US who relied on school lunches as their only decent meal of the day are suffering nutritionally, and will lose years of their life because of malnutrition

https://www.mentalhealth.org.nz/assets/Suicide/Chief-Coroner...

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

#260

Post by timr »

lostlogin wrote: post #210
timr wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Today, our state is at 24 days of zero community transmission of covid, managed largely via a small lockdown after a small outbreak from interstate. Before that small outbreak, we were up to 80-ish days of zero community transmission of covid, after a much much larger outbreak which was brought under control by a robust lockdown which began in March and continued into December. Lockdowns work, if people obey them.…

People rail against lockdowns and claim eradication isn’t possible for various reasons, yet when shown examples of where it has worked and the freedoms it has allowed somehow that is also not an option. If everyone did it, we would have a solution. What Victoria achieved looked an impossible task for a while there, and shows that a severe outbreak can be corrected. That’s an achievement that can’t be underestimated.…

> If everyone did it, we would have a solution.

> Why anyone in Australia or NZ would want to travel internationally for anything other than absolutely essential travel is baffling to me

"If it wasn't for other people, my plan would be perfect!"

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