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Oxford University breakthrough on global COVID-19 vaccine

ox.ac.uk

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Re: Oxford University breakthrough on global COVID-19 vaccine

#441

Post by Exmoor »

Scandiravian wrote: post #292
Tinyyy wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Only if the vaccine gives permanent immunity, which I haven't found any research suggesting that it will. In all likelihood, it will be necessary to give yearly booster shots, so the companies developing the vaccines will be able to sell vaccines every year The quantity of vaccines needed will make even a $0.50 markup worth billions of dollars every year

You can't measure long-term immunity on a virus that's only been in the wild for ~11 months. That said, all the recent studies I've seen show no signs that immunity is going to drop significantly after a year.

I hate to link to a Youtube video, but this doctor walking through the research in the first part of the video is honestly better than any news article I've seen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFeJ2BqCFY0

Re: Oxford University breakthrough on global COVID-19 vaccine

#442

Post by coliveira »

bumby wrote: post #377
flexie wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> Expensive, inaccessible except to the rich I don’t think the data bears this out exactly. US healthcare tends to optimize for access and quality to the detriment to cost. As the saying goes: access, quality, or cost... you only get to choose two. The US tends to measure better than any comparable country of its size on those two metrics (and quite poorly on cost...but some of that is because the US funds about 50%…

The US healthcare is good only when considering those who can pay to access it. But since large swathes of the US population cannot afford to have access (expensive insurance costs, even with Obamacare support), this becomes a mute point. If that is the metric, then even Brazil (and many other 3rd word countries) also has good medical care, because it works for the small percent of the population with money to access it.

And in fact this is one of the big differentiators between 1st world and 3rd world countries: if the population has access to quality services, in health care or other important areas like education and sanitation. The US seems to be designing its systems to become a big 3rd world country.

Re: Oxford University breakthrough on global COVID-19 vaccine

#443

Post by strombofulous »

sgt101 wrote: 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....

3m worth of working vaccines would do a lot of good, the problem is we aren't sure it works (or even that it doesn't harm you or make you more susceptible)

Re: Oxford University breakthrough on global COVID-19 vaccine

#444

Post by bluGill »

Zenbit_UX wrote: post #338
bluGill wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dry ice is very common, and you get 5 days at refrigerator temperature. Everywhere in the world is reachable in 5 days if you need to. It gets really expensive to charter flights to many areas, but it is possible if you have money to burn. Of course we now have reason to believe that vaccines that don't need dry ice will be approved, so logistics will direct the easier to ship ones to remote places.

You can reach everywhere in 5 days but that's not enough. People have to come and get it, there's also a chance there will be a slow start due to concerns over a new drug that the media may emphasize was "rushed". Then there's the logistics of scheduling so many people. If you don't bring yourself a cold storage freezer you're committing to using 100% of your doses within 5 days which may not be possible.

For the first few months all doses will go to high risk people. Most won't have the option to refuse it.

Eventually you are right. If the Pfizer vaccine is to be used in remote places the people getting the vaccine will need to schedule it in advance (and probably pay for it) to ensure that once it arrives it is used.

Re: Oxford University breakthrough on global COVID-19 vaccine

#445

Post by sgt101 »

strombofulous wrote: post #443
sgt101 wrote: 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....

3m worth of working vaccines would do a lot of good, the problem is we aren't sure it works (or even that it doesn't harm you or make you more susceptible)

More data required - and then approval, I hope.

But you are right, today we don't have all of that information.

Re: Oxford University breakthrough on global COVID-19 vaccine

#446

Post by bumby »

coliveira wrote: post #442
bumby wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Expensive, inaccessible except to the rich I don’t think the data bears this out exactly. US healthcare tends to optimize for access and quality to the detriment to cost. As the saying goes: access, quality, or cost... you only get to choose two. The US tends to measure better than any comparable country of its size on those two metrics (and quite poorly on cost...but some of that is because the US funds about 50%…

The US healthcare is good only when considering those who can pay to access it. But since large swathes of the US population cannot afford to have access (expensive insurance costs, even with Obamacare support), this becomes a mute point. If that is the metric, then even Brazil (and many other 3rd word countries) also has good medical care, because it works for the small percent of the population with money to access…

Your points are baked into the data that I linked. The metric within is "HAQ Index" which stands for "Healthcare Access and Quality". I.e., access is part of the measure. In the US everybody has access, which is part of the problem that drives costs higher.

E.g., if you don't have insurance you can walk into an emergency room and get treated even if it's not an emergent situation. If you don't have insurance, there is a higher risk you won't pay. That cost then gets spread to others who do.

Re: Oxford University breakthrough on global COVID-19 vaccine

#447

Post by bumby »

twoslide wrote: post #431
bumby wrote: post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Couldn’t the same be said in reverse? I.e., due to sampling error the reports could be amended to a 95% efficacy when more data comes in?

I don't think we know based on public information. Some media report "up to 90%" which suggests the upper bound of the confidence interval, rather than the centre. Could also be a very wide CI, that overlaps with the standard dosage.

That's a fairer statement than the original which seemed biased towards only reporting the lower end of the interval without acknowledging the upper bound.

Re: Oxford University breakthrough on global COVID-19 vaccine

#448

Post by colinmhayes »

Mumps wrote: post #335
bawolff wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like the sample size is probably too small to draw any conclusions there. 131 got covid in the trial, if 70% effective than 39 should be from the group that got the vaccine (i think. Did i do that right given they're combining the two dosing regime)? Maybe its chance that none of those 39 got really sick. I'm not sure what the age breakdown of trial participants was- were the people in the oxford trial younger?…

(afaict) You're right about the 39 (risk reduction = 1-39/131 ~= 70%). But you're less correct about saying "smple size is probably too small" (in general, people really really really need to stop dismissing things based on sample sizes until they actually go through a Power calculation!). Your question about demographic breakdown is entirely valid. Hospitalization rate for covid is about 228.7 hospitalizations per 1…

I don't think it's fair to say " that is it unlikely that the _lack of seeing any hospitalizations in the vaccine+covid-positive group is by chance" until we see the demographic breakdowns. The difference in hospitalization likelihood between demographics is too big to ignore.

Re: Oxford University breakthrough on global COVID-19 vaccine

#449

Post by ssully »

jonplackett wrote: post #417

We (Britain) may have totally screwed up our general response to COVID. But at least we’re still pretty good at science. Thanks Oxford for saving the day.

Not to downplay Oxford or Britain's work, but I think it's safe to argue that the poor general response to COVID is also an indicator of your skill at science. And I say this as American, who's response was just as bad or worse.

People are going to look back at this pandemic with amazement at the work the world scientists did to create a vaccine in record time, but with shame and embarrassment at the loss of life in countries that are considered world powers due to politics, ignorance, and stubbornness.

Re: Oxford University breakthrough on global COVID-19 vaccine

#450

Post by Ericson2314 »

Scandiravian wrote: post #172
aquadrop wrote: post #144

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

> regulations have become stricter over the years

Not this year!

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