291–300 of 569 posts
Is that the same vaccine that was approved in Russia? I remember Russia was working with AstraZeneca on their vaccine, but not sure if it's the same one.
No, the Russian one that was released for public use was developed by one of the government institutes (which has a very shady history of falsifying data).
Source?
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BioNTech developed the vaccine now mass-produced by Pfizer. For that, they received $445m from the German government. So, as a tax-paying German citizen I can say, not only will I do that, but even better, I already did. It also feels deeply wrong to pull the "but all the research efforts that did not lead anywhere" argument, when Pfizer did not do the research in the first place. They should get compensation for org…
Nobody’s getting a goose laying golden eggs from a covid vaccine. It’s a one time, relatively low-cost vaccine that is going to go out of demand once the population is immunized. Oh, and now there are multiple competitors in the market.
The quantity of vaccines needed will make even a $0.50 markup worth billions of dollars every year
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Not for developing countries. And ultimately it is important for them to get vaccinated too, otherwise they will form a huge reservoir of COVID that will inevitably mutate and come back around to us.
That is not how it works. The Spanish Flu hasn't "come back" yet and coronaviruses mutate a lot more slowly. It couldn't really come back anyway, because it's still there, downgraded to regular flu.
Yes it has, most recently in 2009. From Wikipedia:
“ Well known outbreaks of H1N1 strains in humans include the 2009 swine flu pandemic, as well as the Spanish flu.”
I find it a bit weird that there are fewer asymptomatic cases with this vaccine? Is it somehow increasing the immune response to COVID-19?
A vaccine is something that primes the immune system, so that when the real virus enters the body it is attacked and destroyed quickly. This means that the virus can never start multiplying in the body and shedding to other people.
I don't believe there is any modern vaccine that doesn't reduce or eliminate asymptomatic spreading of the disease.
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They also tried 2 different dose regimens, one of which had 90% efficacy. The 70% figure is the weighted mean of the two I think.
I would far rather we report 70% and find its more effective than we report is up to 90% effective but in field deployment find its less. A 70% vaccine at wide scale release can keep R under 1.0 1/5th the price, and no need for freezers. This vaccine is huge. I pray for more like this.
While we now get the results from various COVID-19 vaccines I see a societal issue brewing up. How will we deal with the perceived uncertainty of the safety of these vaccines and the surrounding (dis-)infodemic? I read recently that in some European country (was it Germany?) the willingness to vaccinate against COVID-19 went down from 80% to 60%. With these numbers policy makers will have a hard time convincing the b…
If even one gets sick after taking vaccine the media will jump on it and focus on nothing else for days / weeks. I think getting people vaccinated is going to be a huge challenge.
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> 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.
Can you count infections as a metric of efficacy for a vaccine that's designed to stop infection?
Consider [1]:
"However, protection was 90% in an analysis of around 3,000 people on the trial who were given a half-sized first dose and a full-sized second dose."
AFAIK it's not known how many of those 3,000 in that trial were exposed to potential infection.
While we now get the results from various COVID-19 vaccines I see a societal issue brewing up. How will we deal with the perceived uncertainty of the safety of these vaccines and the surrounding (dis-)infodemic? I read recently that in some European country (was it Germany?) the willingness to vaccinate against COVID-19 went down from 80% to 60%. With these numbers policy makers will have a hard time convincing the b…
I think whilst we all want to be safe, ultimately in a year or so, most of the population won't be getting this shot on a regular basis.
While we now get the results from various COVID-19 vaccines I see a societal issue brewing up. How will we deal with the perceived uncertainty of the safety of these vaccines and the surrounding (dis-)infodemic? I read recently that in some European country (was it Germany?) the willingness to vaccinate against COVID-19 went down from 80% to 60%. With these numbers policy makers will have a hard time convincing the b…
Just from a software perspective: never install the big version upgrade. Usually the X.0 versions still has bugs that only come out at huge roll outs. I am inclined to wait a few months to let early adaptors test the vaccine. Medicine is a bit different though and every country probably has institutes checking the vaccines independently. A lot of eyes are on this probably. No company wants to be the company that botc…
It depends what's more effective, as these groups are all different: do you jab first those who can most easily spread it, those who would most easily get it, those who would most severely be impacted if they got it, or do you jab those who are most diligent, enthusiastic and first in the queue?
I'd even wager that most healthy adults around the world will not be getting the vaccine (but that might be a negative story to run with) but that's at less odds than just healthy, enthusiastic, low risk people getting the jab first.
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Maybe for less developed countries, but i think for major economies, the price difference is insignificant relative to the benefits of any vaccine.
As I understand it, whatever gets us to herd immunity more quickly is the best solution. That probably means a mix of both heavily tilted to the Oxford one. This vaccine is cheap, 90% efficient and easy to get people vaccinated. The other ones are expensive, 95% efficient and difficult to get people vaccinated.
The Oxford is best only if you either live in a very remote place, or are a very poor place. If you rely on the oxford vaccine it will be a little longer to get herd immunity, but overall your costs will be cheaper.
But I must reemphasize, the above is only about logistics. Because most people live in cities, all vaccines will be distributed in big cities just to get the numbers they need. What ever vaccine you are offered first is the one to take. You personally are unlikely to be offered a choice other than take it or leave it.