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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

#261

Post by est31 »

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)

Note that even if a vaccine/drug/etc. gets approval, people are still looking for side effects. The approval process is designed to catch and document such side effects, but only once you give it to millions of people you find out about the side effects that are more rare. Also, due to the extremely sped up approval process, you know only little about any long term side effects.

Ideally you spread the doses over a few weeks or months so that you can stop the vaccinations should any issues arise. I'm not saying the current distribution is fine, it's far too slow. But not even Israel has vaccinated everyone in a single day, nor would that be a god idea.

This is btw also the way Google play distributes updates. Instead of every user getting the update right away, they first give it to a small group, then that group increases gradually in numbers.

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

#262

Post by The_rationalist »

Ulrich2 wrote: post #246

The side effect of this amazing BioNTech/Pfizer success: Meanwhile AstraZeneca is clearly only the second choice. At least locally here in my town (EU) people line up for Biontech, but the vaccination centers that offer AstraZeneca report up to 50% no shows.

I wonder when sputnik V will be legalized. In France you don't get to choose the vaccine (most of the time?) you know which one you'll receive but not in advance.

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

#263

Post by hef19898 »

readittwice wrote: post #223
pa7x1 wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have already done so, the first production was potentially at a loss if the Phase 3 results were not good. And we have done so for each vaccination effort out there. So there is already a lot of oversupply we may be throwing. To be clear, I agree that the return on investment of a quick and successful vaccination campaign is so big that it makes sense to aggressively bet on it. But I also think the evidence shows…

I don't have confidence that (in the case of the EU) the same politicians that just claimed that they couldn't foresee any problems with mass production, did everything they could've done to ramp up production last summer. On the contrary the EU ordered quite late and less than they got offered from the vendors. In addition, the EU doubled the ordered doses only this January from 300M (100M of those were optional) to…

Imaginig that we ordered these doses in July, we would still have had close to 4 doses per person in the EU by July. Ordering more now didn't do anything ggod so far. Especially since these suppliers convientently left out when these additional doses they offered the EU would have been and will be available.

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

#264

Post by [deleted] »

zyxzevn wrote: post #247

Congratulations, but some sceptical notes. The spring is coming, ending the wave like last year. This can reduce the cases by a similar amount. We will have to wait till next season what will happen. The sun and season has a dramatic influence on Covid. We saw that last year. Related with vitamin-D and ultra-violet radiation. Recently some countries had changes in PCR tests. Austria had a similar reduction after not…

[deleted]

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

#265

Post by bodyfour »

hef19898 wrote: post #194
bodyfour wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is exactly what happened -- governments around the world paid for pre-approval manufacturing and the pharma industry has spent the last 6-8 months ramping up production. That's the reason we have any supplies at the moment. The truth is just that mass-manufacturing of a brand new vaccine is a hard problem. The fact that we're only a couple months from the very start of vaccinations and the world is already neari…

10 times that! The site you linked is really nice! Not sure where they get the numbers from, but regardless a great resource. One of the more interessting metrics in there is "daily doses per mil", as it shows the difference between the vaccination campaigns. Would be even better if the also shwed when each campaign started.

Yeah it's an interesting visualisation of the data.

I can't personally vouch for its exact accuracy -- every government reports their metrics on a different schedule and I guess they're building realtime estimates based on that. Certainly seems reasonable enough to look at for the broad trendline.

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

#266

Post by timrichard »

hef19898 wrote: post #212
timrichard wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quite right. And on the flip side, who would have guessed that haggling down the price of a super cheap at-cost AZ dose and playing hardball on liability when everyone else was bending over backwards would result in delays and supply problems for the EU...

Who would have thought ordering twice as many doses as needed wouldn't be enough for some? And who would have thought that ordering more, and above manufacturing capacity, would reduce availability?

Overestimating doses required allows you some room for manoeuvre. Plans can change, like when the Sanofi/Merck/Pasteur vaccine tuned out to be a dud and was abandoned within the EU.

Manufacturing capacity at the continental AZ facilities have been hit by teething issues. There were also teething issues at AZ's UK facilities, but the impact was less because the order was placed three months earlier in the UK.

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

#267

Post by tibu »

The_rationalist wrote: post #262
Ulrich2 wrote: post #246

The side effect of this amazing BioNTech/Pfizer success: Meanwhile AstraZeneca is clearly only the second choice. At least locally here in my town (EU) people line up for Biontech, but the vaccination centers that offer AstraZeneca report up to 50% no shows.

I wonder when sputnik V will be legalized. In France you don't get to choose the vaccine (most of the time?) you know which one you'll receive but not in advance.

In Hungary you can already get the Sputnik, government accepted it. I'm not sure whether it is good or not...

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

#268

Post by maxerickson »

jacquesm wrote: post #144
rock_artist wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To give some balance. Just as I got my second jab and waiting the 10min needed for surveillance. (Tel Aviv, Israel) > Israel feels like the only nation taking the importance and urgency of vaccination seriously. It's a mixed situation here. * Israel supposedly paid 3 times more than others per shot (but if it works, it's cheaper than the economy losses). * Israel has free public health care. * All public health care…

> Israel supposedly paid 3 times more than others per shot More than that even, closer to a factor of 10. https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/the-cost-of-vaccinating-is... $47 / head! VS closer to $5 in other countries.

The mRNA vaccines cost more everywhere.

Given the better efficacy, I think the comparison doesn't boil down to a single number very well.

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

#269

Post by ssijak »

tibu wrote: post #267
The_rationalist wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder when sputnik V will be legalized. In France you don't get to choose the vaccine (most of the time?) you know which one you'll receive but not in advance.

In Hungary you can already get the Sputnik, government accepted it. I'm not sure whether it is good or not...

Sputnik has pretty much same efficacy as Pfizer. Sinopharm a bit less, but also almost no side effects.

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

#270

Post by helge9210 »

amitport wrote: post #136
throwaway4good wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. I don't understand why it is so unpopular to ask this obvious question? 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. Given how much further Israel is, one would have expected it to stick much more out in the statistics. But it does not?

I live in Israel. There a three big points to make: 1 - There is a delay. While now we have more and more vaccinated people, much of the current cases in the hospital got infected before that. 2 - It changes from community to community but in general we have many people that are really not "disciplined". Either they believe coronovirus does not exist or it won't get them or that god will save them or the herd immunit…

> Either they believe coronovirus does not exist or it won't get them or that god will save them

You can take case of yeshivas (religious schools): some have 80% of infected and recovered students. So when authorities come to the head of the school with a story about deadly virus, they don't understand each other. And examples of 90 years old elders dying from COVID-19 are meet with question "What you expected them to do instead at this age?"

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