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

bbc.co.uk

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

#621

Post by bluGill »

TearsInTheRain wrote: post #575
cashsterling wrote: post #569

Earlier quoted context omitted.

-80C storage is an issue, you are definitely right, but it is a common requirement for many biological samples and protein-based drug therapies. -80C lab freezers are not that expensive and all over the place. I used to work in biotech and, at one company, all of our intermediate drug substance storage was -80C. we had freezers big enough to drive a forklift into; one such a freezer could store millions of doses... a…

> There are numerous companies which specialize in -80C transport and shipping. These containers can be used as temporary (3-7 day) storage at destinations where they do not have infrastructure. But what kind of capacity can they handle? I imagine the scale of a Covid vaccine rollout would overhelm prior existing infrastructure

There are a lot of other things that need this treatment. There is also limited ability to make doses. If you don't already have the infrastructure in place, then you will get notified when you shipment is arriving, and you get a few days to administer it. You schedule everyone who will get a dose for their shot and they are in and out quickly. If it takes more than half a day to use up their entire shipment it is because some dosages are reserved for 3rd shift and will be administered 12 hours later. Then repeat 3 weeks latter.

Of course larger institutions already have everything in place and will get shipments with less warning (but they will also get smaller shipments since they don't have to get everyone done at once)

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

#622

Post by [deleted] »

317070 wrote: post #396
stu2b50 wrote: post #373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quick Google seems to indicate it's true. >Pfizer said it will wait until after the US election to file its COVID-19 vaccine with the US regulator, as it awaits important safety data to become available. https://pharmaphorum.com/news/pfizer-to-wait-until-after-ele...

Yes, but if you read the source [0], they will wait until after the US election, but not for reasons related to the US election. Just because they expect their results to arrive after the US elections. It's like saying that I will wait to have a baby until after the holiday period. Factually correct, but that baby will arrive in January irregardless of the holiday period. The holiday period is for sure not the reason…

[deleted]

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

#623

Post by BurningFrog »

StavrosK wrote: post #588
innomatics wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is great news. I didn't see the case numbers but I've inferred to arrive at 90% that there were 9 cases in vaccinated group vs 85 in controls. (95% C.I. 80-99%) Very interested to see forthcoming results from competitors that don't face the -80 degrees issue.

Out of 45,000 people, only 86ish people got infected in the trial arm? Isn't that too few? Even for the control arm, that's still only 774 people infected.

No, 94 people total got infected. At least 85 were in the control group.

Those are the numbers that matter, statistically. If the total number of people in the study were 2 thousand or 2 billion doesn't enter into the math.

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

#624

Post by peter422 »

sologoub wrote: post #587
corobo wrote: post #501

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least this one has a decent looking 'n' value. The BBC also address this in part > There are still questions - how long does immunity last, does the vaccine work as well in high-risk elderly people, does it stop you spreading the virus or just from developing symptoms? I'd rate the news as "vibing" on a scale of clickbait to party for the world

The current n=94. The real n=43.5k data apparently will come later. Article doesn’t specify when, but “hopes” to have enough of the larger n analyzed to submit to regulators by 3rd week of November.

No, 43.5k is the number of people in the trial and 94 is the number of confirmed COVID cases within the entire population.

The trial will be complete from an effectiveness perspective once there are ~150-200 cases.

Safety is a different story and may take more time to wait for side effects.

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

#625

Post by bluGill »

berdario wrote: post #467
jakozaur wrote: post #214

Good: + ~90% of individuals achieve immunity. + no significant side-effects. Not so good: - two doses needed, 3 weeks apart, immunity after one month from first dose. Slow rollout. - -80C storage and transport needed. Challenging, but doable in developed countries, but still may slow down mass rollout. Not feasible in many developing countries. I still wonder about long-term immunity. Anyone can share any insight?

How does this compare to the chinese vaccine? It's already in use around the world[1], but I haven't heard of how many people gain immunity thanks to it in percentage, nor if that one also requires multiple jabs. 1. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/11/3/uae-pm-and-dubai-ru...

Who knows. This is the first to track and announce scientific results. It may be better or worse, we don't know. Maybe numbers are being kept and we can figure out in a few years. Maybe the Chinese are not keeping track in any way and we will never know.

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

#626

Post by scottlamb »

jakozaur wrote: post #214

Good: + ~90% of individuals achieve immunity. + no significant side-effects. Not so good: - two doses needed, 3 weeks apart, immunity after one month from first dose. Slow rollout. - -80C storage and transport needed. Challenging, but doable in developed countries, but still may slow down mass rollout. Not feasible in many developing countries. I still wonder about long-term immunity. Anyone can share any insight?

> - two doses needed, 3 weeks apart, immunity after one month from first dose. Slow rollout.

Yeah, this alone is bad news.

Last year my parents got a two-dose shingles vaccine. The two doses are supposed to be separated by two to six months. My parents struggled to find their second doses in the window. Apparently there was limited supply and no one had the foresight to reserve second doses when people received their first, or even to prioritize second doses over first.

The covid vaccine will have much more demand and apparently a tighter window, and our health system isn't exactly well-coordinated right now, so I anticipate a lot of people will be unable to get the second dose with the proper timing.

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

#627

Post by 0_____0 »

oakesm9 wrote: post #118
danpalmer wrote: post #46

Fascinating logistics problem here - distributing a vaccine that needs to be stored at -80C. This is significantly colder than the standard cold logistics chain. I believe Pfizer are working on a special transport box that can, unpowered, stay at the right temperature for a week as long as the box is only opened for something like 1 minute a day. That's a good thing, but with a capacity of I believe 10k vaccine doses…

Great video about this exact topic https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=byW1GExQB84

interesting... vid suggests that we have to use cryogenic techniques to store vaccine partly because there hasn't been enough time to test how they store at higher temperatures.

so perhaps the infrastructure requirements will relax as time goes on

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

#628

Post by BurningFrog »

aquadrop wrote: post #351
Roonerelli wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You're probably right, but since that has not been tested, I don't think it can't be used, by FDA rules.

The FDA is not known for its improvisational disposition :)

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

#629

Post by bluGill »

jp555 wrote: post #419
gen220 wrote: post #382

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe that temperature is achievable with fairly simply-insulated dry ice containers, in situations where mechanical cooling is not feasible. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/18/business/coronavirus-covi... I guess you should invest in dry ice manufacturing companies!

dry ice manufacturing companies? Do You mean the Co2 supply chain? We make a lot of carbonated beverages; there will likely be no shortage.

There is a glut in the CO2 supply - it is a byproduct of several industrial processes. (even before carbon capture for environmental reasons.)

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

#630

Post by coryfklein »

eric_b wrote: post #531
bufferoverflow wrote: post #305

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…

This disease will never be "eradicated" and it is not helpful to use that word to discuss policy decisions. Sars CoV-2 has numerous animal reservoirs and an incredible transmission rate. It will never be gone from this Earth. We will get vaccines and we will come up with better treatments negating its effects, but this coronavirus is here to stay. It will be a fifth endemic human coronavirus.

Can't believe I had to scroll down this far to find this - but this is exactly true. Since the virus has a non-human animal reservoir that means that even if every human receives the vaccine, all it takes is re-transmission from the animal reservoir back into the human population after the immunity period expires.

This means we'll probably have to receive Covid vaccination on a regular basis along with the flu vaccine in order to maintain a permanent broad-scale immunity. At least until we have a radical new treatment for this family of viruses that can confer a "permanent" immunity - something that for now is in the realm of science fiction.

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