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Covid vaccine: First ‘milestone’ vaccine offers 90% protection

bbc.co.uk

351–360 of 1001 posts

Re: Covid vaccine: First ‘milestone’ vaccine offers 90% protection

#351
post #5

At the time of writing (2020-11-09 12:04 UTC) the article uses "90% of people" and "90% protection" interchangeably. I assume it means "90% of individuals achieve immunity", rather than "individuals achieve 90% immunity". EDIT: See child comment re: Pfizer press release. EDIT 2: See [1] for said press release, which has more detailed information than the BBC article. [1] https://investors.pfizer.com/investor-news/pre…

Excellent news it's so high. For comparison, MMR is 88% effective on Mumps "One dose of MMR vaccine is 93% effective against measles, 78% effective against mumps, and 97% effective against rubella. Two doses of MMR vaccine are 97% effective against measles and 88% effective against mumps." https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vpd/mmr/public/index.html#:~:te... .

If new pfizer's vaccine has similar numbers, e.g. 90% after two shots and 80% after one shot, can it be more efficient to just use one shot, considering current race with time since we need to deliver vaccine to billions of people? Are there numbers for protection level after one shot somewhere? I couldn't find it at first glance.

Re: Covid vaccine: First ‘milestone’ vaccine offers 90% protection

#352
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Get some Peloton too. People will probably want to start exercising in their homes.

I think Nintendo will do pretty good as well, Animal Crossing looks like an ideal game for a lockdown.

Today is the day that "lockdown" stocks will go down.

Zoom -15%, Nasdaq flat, Norwegian Cruise Line +28%

Re: Covid vaccine: First ‘milestone’ vaccine offers 90% protection

#353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Ebola vaccine required -80 C storage as well and they got it into literal war zones. It’s a difficult problem, but a solved one.

Depends on the scale - we are talking mass vaccination of the whole planet here.

Not really, if every airport runs a vaccination program that takes 2 months before someone can fly there's very little need for more global infrastructure. The problem with lockdowns, etc is reinfection mostly by air travellers.

Re: Covid vaccine: First ‘milestone’ vaccine offers 90% protection

#354
post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think we can eradicate it by contact tracing. With 90% efficiency it will be extremely tough for the virus to spread. For any new cases you simply test everyone in the vicinity of the infected person. But I don't think even that will be necessary. 90% efficiency reduces R so much, it will probably die out on its own. The real problem is mutations that are not covered by the vaccine. If it mutates as efficiently as…

Yup. But we do need the government to step in and do this (contact tracing etc.). Hopefully, with the new administration...

Our rate of transmission is too high to do a nationwide contact tracing effort I think. We need to reduce the daily number of cases before we properly implement a contact tracing program.

Re: Covid vaccine: First ‘milestone’ vaccine offers 90% protection

#355
post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wake up long time ago when I realized the virus is not as dangerous as the media reported it. You too should wake up right now and live your life. Stop being afraid.

Who said I was afraid? I'm literally locked in my house in England, and all of the pubs are shut, and I'm banned from hanging out with my friends or my family. I want all that to end. I want to get back to seeing the world and going to festivals and for everyone to be able to do the same. I want my elderly grandmother to be able to see us again without worry. It's nothing to do with me being afraid.

Then either do it anyway or go protest. See grandma regardless, its not like grandma will surely die if you meet them. Grandma, due to old age has high chance to die anyway regardless of the covid or not, better meet them and spend quality time with them with the time they have now.

Re: Covid vaccine: First ‘milestone’ vaccine offers 90% protection

#357
post #216
post #16

Pfizer's press release with more information: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20201109005539/en/ - Vaccine candidate was found to be more than 90% effective in preventing COVID-19 in participants without evidence of prior SARS-CoV-2 infection in the first interim efficacy analysis - Analysis evaluated 94 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in trial participants - Study enrolled 43,538 participants, with 42% having div…

"diverse backgrounds" What does that mean exactly? Surely a random sample of people will have diverse backgrounds.

Random sample of women aged 19-30 would be less diverse than random sample from anybody.

Re: Covid vaccine: First ‘milestone’ vaccine offers 90% protection

#358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Ebola vaccine required -80 C storage as well and they got it into literal war zones. It’s a difficult problem, but a solved one.

Ebola was localized. COVID-19 is not. I like your optimism, and what you said isn't incorrect about Ebola at the time, but I don't think it's correct about our current situation. How many locations globally have this level of refrigeration? Given that there would be high demand for it, wouldn't prices on any available refrigerators exceed what even the most altruistic companies and organizations could pay? This still…

I dealing some on the distribution side of this. NYT has a pretty good article explaining all the infrastructure that is being rolled out. (1)

Even dry ice in coolers is low tech but gets you a lot of time considering storage for the second booster dose will be centralized.

The risk is real though. Breaks in cold chain storage have inactivated vaccines have been documented to leading to outbreaks in other disease states. Still, at this point, from my boots on the ground perspective -- so far, so good.

1. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/18/business/coronavirus-covi...

Re: Covid vaccine: First ‘milestone’ vaccine offers 90% protection

#359

I wonder if the people scared of permanent damage caused by Covid (for which there is no evidence) will be equally scared of the permanent damage caused by this experimental vaccine (for which there is no evidence either).

Given that there will be a limited number of initial doses, healthy people have the luxury of taking a "wait and see" approach. It will be interesting to see if vaccines are mandated generally or for travel.

Re: Covid vaccine: First ‘milestone’ vaccine offers 90% protection

#360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think we can eradicate it by contact tracing. With 90% efficiency it will be extremely tough for the virus to spread. For any new cases you simply test everyone in the vicinity of the infected person. But I don't think even that will be necessary. 90% efficiency reduces R so much, it will probably die out on its own. The real problem is mutations that are not covered by the vaccine. If it mutates as efficiently as…

Corona viruses cannot mutate as efficiently as flu. They are very different beasts.

17 million mink culled in Denmark for mutated Covid which was passed on to humans.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-denmar...

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