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FDA grants authorization to Moderna's Covid-19 vaccine

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Re: FDA grants authorization to Moderna's Covid-19 vaccine

#81

Post by dwaltrip »

tyre wrote: post #71
finolex1 wrote: post #59

Anyone knows why they insist on both doses given the limited supply of the vaccine and the marginal increase in effectiveness with the second dose? I would imagine every single day counts. https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/Rvzdi8RS9Bda5aLt2/covid-12-1...

From the linked article[0]: “Yes, Moderna’s vaccine prevents transmission. One dose is good for reducing infection by 63%, two by over 90%.” The number of people you need to vaccinate with a 63% effective vaccine versus a 90% effective vaccine is a huge gap. There are two issues with vaccines that staring at these numbers won’t tell you: 1. Not everyone is going to get vaccinated. 2. The number of people who will get…

The lesswrong quote seems to be misleading. It links to an article that says the vaccine may prevent / reduce transmission but that it hasn't been proven yet. Did I miss something?

Re: FDA grants authorization to Moderna's Covid-19 vaccine

#82

Post by bawolff »

CyanLite4 wrote: post #66
cameldrv wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If every single day counted, they would have done challenge trials. What counts is following the FDA's process, and the FDA's process says that you have to administer it in the same way as the trial. No one at the FDA is going to go out on a limb just to save a few thousand lives.

Challenge trials don’t work when 40% of infected are asymptomatic. And challenge trials especially don’t work when 15% of cases require hospitalization and ICU beds are already maxed out.

What doesn't work about it?

Being ethical and getting results are not the same thing.

Re: FDA grants authorization to Moderna's Covid-19 vaccine

#83

Post by morsch »

tyre wrote: post #72
djsumdog wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well hundreds of millions have already flowed into every major pharma company for development costs, so the price for tax payers in every contributing country is substantially higher than $40/person. That's just the price an individual may see.

It’s fun to shit on Big Pharma but this isn’t true. Pfizer specifically rejected government funding. It did so because it didn’t want to be dragged into bureaucracy.

Biontech, Pfizer's research partner, received 375 million Euro from the German government.

https://www.bundesregierung.de/breg-de/themen/themenseite-fo...

Re: FDA grants authorization to Moderna's Covid-19 vaccine

#84

Post by bawolff »

blibble wrote: post #69
stjohnswarts wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean does anyone even care if it's under $100? Given what it has cost economies all over the world it is a drop in the ocean.

developing economies certainily do

Developing economies are probably not going to be paying the same prices.

Re: FDA grants authorization to Moderna's Covid-19 vaccine

#85

Post by morsch »

aphextron wrote: post #19
roody15 wrote: post #8

Hmm super expensive hard to transport Pfizer vaccine ... first to be approved. Next Moderna ... also super expensive second to be approved. After six months to a year ... and after making huge profits.... Then the AstraZeneca/Russian vaccine variants will be “found” to be also effective. We must first wait and let Pfizer make a few billion !!!

What exactly is wrong with allowing a company to profit from performing a literal miracle?

A literal miracle that was performed three to five times in less than a year! Truly we live in wondrous times.

Re: FDA grants authorization to Moderna's Covid-19 vaccine

#86

Post by IfOnlyYouKnew »

finolex1 wrote: post #59

Anyone knows why they insist on both doses given the limited supply of the vaccine and the marginal increase in effectiveness with the second dose? I would imagine every single day counts. https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/Rvzdi8RS9Bda5aLt2/covid-12-1...

They played it save when designing the protocol. Better to err on that side, than to risk failure because you chose a dose that's too low.

Given that's what they trialled, there really isn't a mechanism that would allow either them or the FDA to change the protocol from what was tested.

Yes, this is annoying. You can make that educated guess and not show up for your second shot and you'll probably help someone.

But medicine has a long history of people being rather convinced of theories that made an awful lot of sense and killed an awful lot of people.

At some point, they noticed. The double-blind trial became not just the preferred method or something like that. It became absolute gospel. Anything else is considered the GOTO of injecting people with... stuff: Even if it's exactly what you believe is needed right now, it's just not going to happen.

See also: "masks don't work" ( = "even though it sounds like a good idea, there is just as much actual evidence for their usefulness in preventing viral diseases right now, January 2020, as there is for crystal healing. Give us a month and we'll have data")

Re: FDA grants authorization to Moderna's Covid-19 vaccine

#88

Post by [deleted] »

refurb wrote: post #36
shoo wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Belgium’s budget state secretary, Eva De Bleeker, posted the price list on Twitter, with the amounts of each vaccine that her country intends to buy from the EU. The tweet was quickly deleted, but not soon enough to prevent interested parties taking screenshots, which have now made it public knowledge. This is the list of what the EU is paying: Oxford/AstraZeneca: €1.78 (£1.61) Johnson & Johnson: $8.50 (£6.30) Sano…

Well that's not good. Pharmaceutical companies are typically willing to negotiate on price if the agreed price is confidential. (I have no idea if that was the case here or not)

[deleted]

Re: FDA grants authorization to Moderna's Covid-19 vaccine

#89

Post by petre »

systemvoltage wrote: post #33
handmodel wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the US that is what is happening - no one is paying for the vaccine. It is intellectually vapid to get worked about the fact companies are making a $15 marginal unit profit on a vaccine that has 10x the utility of the average annual physical but costs 1/10th as much.

I wasn't aware it is free in the US. That's great.

If it isn't free then it isn't effective because it would drastically reduce the number of recipients.

Re: FDA grants authorization to Moderna's Covid-19 vaccine

#90

Post by nerfhammer »

lisper wrote: post #20
FreakyT wrote: post #7

Glad to hear it! One key advantage of the Moderna one versus the similar Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine is that it doesn't require deep freeze storage, only regular freezing temperatures. (-90º C for Pfizer/BioNTech vs -20º C for Moderna)

Does anyone here know the reason for the difference? They're both mRNA vaccines, right? So why does one need a deep freeze and the other one not?

Pfizer wanted to release as quickly as possible and didn't want to bother doing another study to tell
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