COVID-19: Vaccine/antidote and testing procedures Megathread [Mod Warning - Post #1]

Prof Sarah Gilbert was on the Andrew Marr show today, when asked the likelihood of their vaccine being available (in the UK) by the end of the year, she said there was a high chance. As others have pointed out their published results were confused by the dosing and the time between doses being inconsistent, but interesting that she still seems to believe approval is close.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPfXkrxtEPg&feature=youtu.be

Deleted User

Deleted User wrote: »

Prof Sarah Gilbert was on the Andrew Marr show today, when asked the likelihood of their vaccine being available (in the UK) by the end of the year, she said there was a high chance. As others have pointed out their published results were confused by the dosing and the time between doses being inconsistent, but interesting that she still seems to believe approval is close.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPfXkrxtEPg&feature=youtu.be

She also highlighted that it will be more difficult to get back to normal by next summer if cases in January are surging after Christmas.

is_that_so

Deleted User wrote: »

She also highlighted that it will be more difficult to get back to normal by next summer if cases in January are surging after Christmas.

It might but if she's right about their vaccine we'll have at least 3, if not more vaccines, by summer. Even with a certain level of cases, hospital systems should be back to normal, and what's out there almost all of the mild variant.

hmmm

is_that_so wrote: »

None of which is happening anyway. This really seems like a conspiracy theory, with no foundation except your opinion.

Unlike vaccines, this is something I do know a lot about The misinformation tactics emerged during the cold war and were used both by the West & the Soviets to cause disruption in their client states. Unfortunately social media makes them easier. It's very obvious when you see the basic patterns, and they are being repeated both in vaccine misinformation and other parts of our society - watch Trump do the same, and also I'd argue some political parties in Ireland are using the same tactics.

The key strategy is to try and detach ordinary people from the institutions which are supposed to be informing them, and try and get them to rely on their own "common sense". Most people inform themselves about topics through simple emotional messages, and don't have the time or interest to go deep into analysis. If you can undermine the institutions ("you can't trust CEPI because Bill Gates is involved", or "xyz pharma are making billions on this", or "the Regulators previously signed off on this medicine which caused all these side effects"), then you have a much simpler job as it's easier to sell simple emotional messages to people. "RNA vaccine" = sounds scary. "Most vaccines take 10 years". "Natural immunity is better than artificial immunity". "It's just a flu for most people." All of these sound like common sense, and people will accept them and get on with the more important things in their life. Some people will take it on themselves to amplify these messages, and tell all their friends their "common sense" advice on the vaccine.

It's very difficult to counter, and disinformation is a weapon essentially.

hmmm

Deleted User wrote: »

As others have pointed out their published results were confused by the dosing and the time between doses being inconsistent, but interesting that she still seems to believe approval is close.

Good point in that interview that their US trial should read out soon. I would hope it could be approved relatively quickly for younger/not very vulnerable groups at the very least, and there are apparently lots of doses already manufactured. Particularly as it looks to be safe, prevents severe Covid and seems to have an impact on reducing transmission.

is_that_so

hmmm wrote: »

Unlike vaccines, this is something I do know a lot about The misinformation tactics emerged during the cold war and were used both by the West & the Soviets to cause disruption in their client states. Unfortunately social media makes them easier. It's very obvious when you see the basic patterns, and they are being repeated both in vaccine misinformation and other parts of our society - watch Trump do the same, and also I'd argue some political parties in Ireland are using the same tactics.

The key strategy is to try and detach ordinary people from the institutions which are supposed to be informing them, and try and get them to rely on their own "common sense". Most people inform themselves about topics through simple emotional messages, and don't have the time or interest to go deep into analysis. If you can undermine the institutions ("you can't trust CEPI because Bill Gates is involved", or "xyz pharma are making billions on this", or "the Regulators previously signed off on this medicine which caused all these side effects"), then you have a much simpler job as it's easier to sell simple emotional messages to people. "RNA vaccine" = sounds scary. "Most vaccines take 10 years". "Natural immunity is better than artificial immunity". "It's just a flu for most people." All of these sound like common sense, and people will accept them and get on with the more important things in their life. Some people will take it on themselves to amplify these messages, and tell all their friends their "common sense" advice on the vaccine.

It's very difficult to counter, and disinformation is a weapon essentially.

Most of the disinformation is coming out of YouTubers and bloggers discovering the "real truth" and channelling each other. I'd blame German "immunologists" for starting a lot of that. Add in the genuinely dangerous antivaxxers and those Deep State theorists and there's actually no reason for them to bother.
One can cee why they'd try to hack vaccine data, cold storage supply chain data and anything else they can get into but COVID disinformation really offers no benefits at all. The only thing they have clearly been up to is pushing their own vaccines and in China's case rewriting the COVID origin story.

hmmm

https://twitter.com/gabegutierrez/status/1338132794141237249?s=19

is_that_so

hmmm wrote: »

https://twitter.com/gabegutierrez/status/1338132794141237249?s=19

Good stuff. Hope it's not hijacked!

hmmm

is_that_so wrote: »

Good stuff. Hope it's not hijacked!

Each of those trucks represent potentially hundreds of lives. No pressure drivers

Russman

hmmm wrote: »

https://twitter.com/gabegutierrez/status/1338132794141237249?s=19

Now, imagine that truck with An Post on the side of it....:D

Great to see it kicking into action though, if for no other reason than giving people a sense that the end of the pandemic is, maybe not near, but on the horizon somewhere.

marno21

is_that_so wrote: »

Good stuff. Hope it's not hijacked!

They are being escorted by US Marshalls.

is_that_so

marno21 wrote: »

They are being escorted by US Marshalls.

I think I've seen that movie!

ZX7R

Russman wrote: »

Now, imagine that truck with An Post on the side of it....:D

Great to see it kicking into action though, if for no other reason than giving people a sense that the end of the pandemic is, maybe not near, but on the horizon somewhere.

If it was an post lorry it would be a late delivery

Van.Bosch

Is there any stats on how many UK vaccines were done this week

is_that_so

Van.Bosch wrote: »

Is there any stats on how many UK vaccines were done this week

According to this they are expecting 800,000 doses over the next few weeks.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-55227325

Marhay70

Ireland is not alone in having problems with cop-on among the ranks of its top judiciary, when it comes to accepting Covid for the threat that it is.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/dec/11/south-africa-chief-justice-unrepentant-link-vaccines-satanism-coronavirus

timsey tiger

Marhay70 wrote: »

Ireland is not alone in having problems with cop-on among the ranks of its top judiciary, when it comes to accepting Covid for the threat that it is.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/dec/11/south-africa-chief-justice-unrepentant-link-vaccines-satanism-coronavirus

Being an entitled douche who thinks the rules don't apply to onesself aka the RTE heros, is one thing this loon is in a totally different league.

Irish Stones

ACitizenErased wrote: »

The vaccine will bring a return to normal. Not sure why anyone would think otherwise.

I can't understand why people keep saying that things will go back to normal, when they obviously won't.
It will be a new normal, not the old normal, so it won't be the normal we used to know.

Irish Stones

is_that_so wrote: »

It might but if she's right about their vaccine we'll have at least 3, if not more vaccines, by summer. Even with a certain level of cases, hospital systems should be back to normal, and what's out there almost all of the mild variant.

News of today is that Sanofi and AstraZeneca had some issues with the production and their supply won't be available till early months 2022.
Italy was expecting 202 millions doses from different suppliers, but we'll have to say goodbye to at least 81 millions doses because of these technical issues.
I think all other countries will be in the same conditions according to their quotas.
Also, our emergency team said they're sure all the population will be given the vaccine before the end of September 2021, which I wonder how they will give them all with only 1,500 centres across the country, that is about 350 a day per centre. Impossible!

Water John

It all depends on whether those immunised can get and transmit Covid. The likelyhood is the disease will die out once enough are immunised.

hmmm

Irish Stones wrote: »

News of today is that Sanofi and AstraZeneca had some issues with the production and their supply won't be available till early months 2022.

Wil you please stop posting absolute nonsense.

Deeper Blue

Irish Stones wrote: »

News of today is that Sanofi and AstraZeneca had some issues with the production and their supply won't be available till early months 2022.
Italy was expecting 202 millions doses from different suppliers, but we'll have to say goodbye to at least 81 millions doses because of these technical issues.
I think all other countries will be in the same conditions according to their quotas.
Also, our emergency team said they're sure all the population will be given the vaccine before the end of September 2021, which I wonder how they will give them all with only 1,500 centres across the country, that is about 350 a day per centre. Impossible!

Could you provide a link to this please? It's a fairly big claim to make when there's been nothing in the news about it.

Then again considering your posting history I strongly suspect you're talking out of your hole. Cop on.

Irish Stones

Irish Stones wrote: »

News of today is that Sanofi and AstraZeneca had some issues with the production and their supply won't be available till early months 2022.
Italy was expecting 202 millions doses from different suppliers, but we'll have to say goodbye to at least 81 millions doses because of these technical issues.
I think all other countries will be in the same conditions according to their quotas.
Also, our emergency team said they're sure all the population will be given the vaccine before the end of September 2021, which I wonder how they will give them all with only 1,500 centres across the country, that is about 350 a day per centre. Impossible!

Want to check your maths there. At 350 a day, 1500 centres would cover the country in 2 weeks. To do it in 9 months, 1500 centres would need to average 12 per day.

Also, your assertion on vaccine production issues seems to be horsesh*t

VG31

El Sueño wrote: »

Then again considering your posting history I strongly suspect you're talking out of your hole. Cop on.

The same poster recently said that they expected never to be able to visit Ireland again. They could come right now, there's no travel ban.

Irish Stones

hmmm wrote: »

Wil you please stop posting absolute nonsense.

I would like to know who you are to say that what I'm writing is nonsense. It was on the news today, and it was discussed on TV for at least 15 minutes. You're not god, you haven't the absolute truth in your hands.

Irish Stones

El Sueño wrote: »

Could you provide a link to this please? It's a fairly big claim to make when there's been nothing in the news about it.

It was a TV program with a long interview with lots of slideshows and other evidences. We have been warned that the expected numbers of vials for the year won't be available and that our health system and emergency team have to find a quick solution to the problem.
We had just found 1.5 billion syringes (an absurd number of syringes for the needs) and now we're missing about 81 millions doses of vaccine.

Then again considering your posting history I strongly suspect you're talking out of your hole. Cop on.

Yes, you wrote the bible instead.

Cork2021

Irish Stones wrote: »

I would like to know who you are to say that what I'm writing is nonsense. It was on the news today, and it was discussed on TV for at least 15 minutes. You're not god, you haven't the absolute truth in your hands.

And have you a link to this major news??? I’ll tell you one thing If this bullshît was true we’d have all got at least a million push notifications from RTE et al!!!
So you obviously have had some serious Hallucinations today.

Irish Stones

VG31 wrote: »

The same poster recently said that they expected never to be able to visit Ireland again. They could come right now, there's no travel ban.

Oh yes, I will have to observe a quarantine on my way back, though.
Friends of mine can't go back visit their parents abroad because they fear they might not be allowed back to this country.

Deeper Blue

Irish Stones wrote: »

It was a TV program with a long interview with lots of slideshows and other evidences. We have been warned that the expected numbers of vials for the year won't be available and that our health system and emergency team have to find a quick solution to the problem.
We had just found 1.5 billion syringes (an absurd number of syringes for the needs) and now we're missing about 81 millions doses of vaccine.

Yes, you wrote the bible instead.

Any source? Link? Video? Anything?

At the end of the day if you post nonsense sensationalist claims (such as the above or your previous claim that there wouldn't be a vaccine until 2023) you'll get called out on it.

braychelsea

https://twitter.com/jensspahn/status/1338136689219416066

German health minister slating EMA's slow approval process. Kinda disappointing how far behind other regulatory agencies they are. Understand they need to see the data but every day delay is another 3000 deaths in EU.

Irish Stones

Cork2021 wrote: »

And have you a link to this major news??? I’ll tell you one thing If this bullshît was true we’d have all got at least a million push notifications from RTE et al!!!
So you obviously have had some serious Hallucinations today.

The interview should be available on the server of the broadcaster tomorrow, I guess, because right now only last Sunday's program is available.
It's an hour long program, with a few interviews, and one of this was telling what I wrote above.
I'll check it again tomorrow and if I find the link to the program I will provide it. It'll be in Italian, I think you're good with the language enough to understand it.

Irish Stones

El Sueño wrote: »

Any source? Link? Video? Anything?

The TV channel's server hasn't the program available yet. I guess they upload the day programs only at the end of the day. The last Sunday's program is available, I will check it again tomorrow and let you know.

At the end of the day if you post nonsense sensationalist claims (such as the above or your previous claim that there wouldn't be a vaccine until 2023) you'll get called out on it.

Well, officially we haven't any vaccine yet.

Irish Stones

Irish Stones wrote: »

The interview should be available on the server of the broadcaster tomorrow, I guess, because right now only last Sunday's program is available.
It's an hour long program, with a few interviews, and one of this was telling what I wrote above.
I'll check it again tomorrow and if I find the link to the program I will provide it. It'll be in Italian, I think you're good with the language enough to understand it.

Anytime I was in Italy I always thought the news programmes looked quite melodramatic when discussing the most mundane topics, so can only imagine what they are like when discussing Covid. There are no manufacturing issues which will delay either of the vaccines mentioned until 2022

Cork2021

Uk will have at least another 4million doses of vaccine before year end if this happens. EMA need to pull the finger out!!

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9048539/amp/Pretty-high-chance-Oxford-vaccine-rolled-end-year.html

Ce he sin

El Sueño wrote: »

Any source? Link? Video? Anything?

At the end of the day if you post nonsense sensationalist claims (such as the above or your previous claim that there wouldn't be a vaccine until 2023) you'll get called out on it.

I think the poster is referring to the Sanofi/GSK vaccine which has been found in trials to be less effective than hoped for older people and whose rollout will therefore be delayed until it can be reformulated and retested.

Ce he sin

Ce he sin wrote: »

I think the poster is referring to the Sanofi/GSK vaccine which has been found in trials to be less effective than hoped for older people and whose rollout will therefore be delayed until it can be reformulated and retested.

And it is now expected in the second half of 21. I.e not 2022. Astrazeneca will be shipping as soon as approved

marno21

Ce he sin wrote: »

I think the poster is referring to the Sanofi/GSK vaccine which has been found in trials to be less effective than hoped for older people and whose rollout will therefore be delayed until it can be reformulated and retested.

And indeed would be cause for concern if only there wasn't 5 other vaccines expected to be approved and deployed before this one.

funnydoggy

Irish Stones wrote: »

Well, officially we haven't any vaccine yet.

Who's we? 'cos the US and the UK have one now. On the island of Ireland, people are being vaccinated.

The antagonism is getting boring.

Supercell

Morocco is planning on having 80% of its adult population vaccinated this month whilst the EMA dawdles along.
Reading on rte.ie that Martin is saying that the vaccine wont be available to most of the population here until May or June, so we are six months behind other countries already..lets hope the same people that are involved in the National Children's hospital debacle are not making important decisions here or it will be May/June 2022.

Irish Stones

Irish Stones wrote: »

I'll check it again tomorrow and if I find the link to the program I will provide it. It'll be in Italian, I think you're good with the language enough to understand it.

I found what I was talking about.
This link takes you to a news article (2 minutes long) from a news program of yesterday at 1pm

https://www.mediasetplay.mediaset.it/video/tg5/vaccini-lobiettivo-e-partire-il-15-gennaio_F310153701390D03

The article begins with the description of the current situation in our country. We have the European record for deaths from Covid, at least we are first in something
Then it says about our vaccination campaign, with the aim (impossible, in my opinion) to give the vaccine to the whole Italian population within September, through 1,500 distribution centres and over 20,000 doctors and nurses involved.
It ends with the words (timecode 1:45) that Sanofi will give us their doses only in 2022 due to a technical issue, accounting for about 20% of the total doses we were waiting for.

The second link is from the program I told you about

https://www.raiplay.it/video/2020/12/Mezzora-in-piu-90745759-d71c-47c0-8fa9-7a65d31f5559.html

It begins with the interview to one our more famous senior doctors, founder of an NGO called Emergency. I am sure you have never heard of it, but over here it's very well known for their commitment to health care to civilians in war-torn countries. He says that he fears that the distribution in poorer countries might be slower and this might affect the success of a world vaccination. He also says that the vaccines will reduce the deaths, but won't stop the virus spreading, so unless the herd immunity is reached, the pandemic won't be stopped. He adds that the AZ vaccine has an efficacy of 62-90% which is too wide a range to be reliable and also has problem at supplying the 40 millions doses we are waiting for.
Further into the program (timecode 10:45), it says about the problems AZ had with the continuity of production, leading to a raise in the shares value when they announced the vaccine, followed by a collapse of the same shares three days later, along with the confusing data on the trials and (timecode 11:16 - 11:48) the not too representative panel of volunteers.
At timecode 13:02 - 13:40 they talk about the problems that AZ and Sanofi had in the production, and how Sanofi has to work again on the vaccine because they're using a protein from the HIV virus which might lead to a positive test for HIV when a person receives this vaccine.

A word of notice, the TV presenter in this program has a strong southern accent, that might sound unintellegible to a non-Italian speaker. The raspy voice of the senior doctor might also be a barrier to the comprehension of what he's saying.

I'm available to further translations, if you're interested.

Hopefully you Irish have the rights to access the links due to geographic and regional copyrights.

Irish Stones

funnydoggy wrote: »

Who's we? 'cos the US and the UK have one now. On the island of Ireland, people are being vaccinated.

The antagonism is getting boring.

We European who are waiting for the EMA approval. Technically, until a vaccine is approved, there's no vaccine.

stephenjmcd

Ce he sin wrote: »

I think the poster is referring to the Sanofi/GSK vaccine which has been found in trials to be less effective than hoped for older people and whose rollout will therefore be delayed until it can be reformulated and retested.

Sanofi/ GSK is indeed put back a few months.

AstraZeneca on the other hand is not so posting that both are delayed until 2022 is rubbish as others have pointed out.

AstraZeneca & Oxford will be delayed in the USA but in Europe it looks fine to submit for approval once full phase 3 readouts are completed

Russman

stephenjmcd wrote: »

Sanofi/ GSK is indeed put back a few months.

AstraZeneca on the other hand is not so posting that both are delayed until 2022 is rubbish as others have pointed out.

AstraZeneca & Oxford will be delayed in the USA but in Europe it looks fine to submit for approval once full phase 3 readouts are completed

Wonder is it fair to assume a similar time gap between interim results and full phase 3 results as Pfizer & Moderna had ? What was it, 2/3 weeks between interim & final for each ?

Hmmzis

Bahrain has also approved the Sinopharm vaccine for general distribution.

Official statement here

Henryq.

Surely the countries approving quickly are getting a double boost

They're vaccinating right now and getting ahead of the inevitable shortfalls in production

stephenjmcd

Russman wrote: »

Wonder is it fair to assume a similar time gap between interim results and full phase 3 results as Pfizer & Moderna had ? What was it, 2/3 weeks between interim & final for each ?

Yeah about that, all depends on infection levels in the areas where they're testing really.

Hopefully hear something this side of Christmas and then it slots in a few weeks behind Moderna in the EMA timeline fingers crossed

JDD

Does anyone know when the Astra Zeneca crowd will be submitting to the EMA for approval? I know they decided to go back and do more testing on the 1 dose + half a dose regime, but any idea when that second round of Phase 3 testing will be complete?

I don't think we're far off EMA approval for Pfizer. Days away really. It's obviously going to take a little longer to approve a vaccine for 26 countries than it is for one, and we all decided that we'd go down the group approval route. I have no particular issue with whatever our regulator is here, but in general I have a higher trust in a Europe-wide approval than I would with an Irish only approval. That may be because the Irish have a lower level of trust in their government institutions then the Brits do, but that's the way I feel.

stephenjmcd

JDD wrote: »

Does anyone know when the Astra Zeneca crowd will be submitting to the EMA for approval? I know they decided to go back and do more testing on the 1 dose + half a dose regime, but any idea when that second round of Phase 3 testing will be complete?

I don't think we're far off EMA approval for Pfizer. Days away really. It's obviously going to take a little longer to approve a vaccine for 26 countries than it is for one, and we all decided that we'd go down the group approval route. I have no particular issue with whatever our regulator is here, but in general I have a higher trust in a Europe-wide approval than I would with an Irish only approval. That may be because the Irish have a lower level of trust in their government institutions then the Brits do, but that's the way I feel.

On AstraZeneca what they published was interim results. They still require phase 3 to complete, that all depends on infections in the test group really.

The second round of phase 3 is really only to benefit the FDA, they won't accept the half dose full dose in its current state and it wasn't a trial ran in the USA.

BrianD3

Supercell wrote: »

Morocco is planning on having 80% of its adult population vaccinated this month whilst the EMA dawdles along.
Reading on rte.ie that Martin is saying that the vaccine wont be available to most of the population here until May or June, so we are six months behind other countries already..lets hope the same people that are involved in the National Children's hospital debacle are not making important decisions here or it will be May/June 2022.

Yes, Martin was saying on RTE radio that he "wants" and "hopes to be in a position to" start vaccinating within a week of EMA approval. A lot of other non committal language also.
https://www.rte.ie/news/2020/1213/1184225-ronan-glynn-vaccines/

Given the HSE's track record, hoping for and wanting a particular outcome are likely to result in not achieving that outcome.

I'd say there' s a good chance now that we will f*ck up the logistics, hopefully I'm wrong. Getting close to Christmas now too, at this time of the year there's a culture in the public service of winding down and putting things off until the New Year, maybe things will be different this time.

As for the EMA, good to see they are getting some flak. The British will be giving their vulnerable and healthcare workers booster shots while the EMA is having a meeting. Lots of anti British sentiment out there including some on this forum. This is clearly an emergency situation and while the EMA will do a very thorough appraisal of the vaccine, there would seem to be a danger of allowing the "near perfect to become the enemy of the excellent".

The faster the vaccine gets approved, the higher the chances of the HSE/Ireland and other countries getting caught with their pants down re: logistics. We might be more exposed than most given that Ireland was one of only 2 countries of the EU 27 that didn't respond to the EU HSC survey on vaccine rollout preparations.

Henryq.

BrianD3 wrote: »

Yes, Martin was saying on RTE radio that he "wants" and "hopes to be in a position to" start vaccinating within a week of EMA approval. A lot of other non committal language also.
https://www.rte.ie/news/2020/1213/1184225-ronan-glynn-vaccines/

Given the HSE's track record, hoping for and wanting a particular outcome are likely to result in not achieving that outcome.

I'd say there' s a good chance now that we will f*ck up the logistics, hopefully I'm wrong. Getting close to Christmas now too, at this time of the year there's a culture in the public service of winding down and putting things off until the New Year, maybe things will be different this time.

As for the EMA, good to see they are getting some flack. The British will be giving their vulnerable and healthcare workers booster shots while the EMA is having a meeting. Lots of anti British sentiment out there including some on this forum. This is clearly an emergency situation and while the EMA will do a very thorough appraisal of the vaccine there would seem to be a danger of allowing the "near perfect to become the enemy of the excellent".

The faster the vaccine gets approved the higher the chances of the HSE/Ireland and other countries getting caught with their pants down re: logistics. We might be more exposed that most given that Ireland was one of only 2 countries of the EU 27 that didn't respond to the EU HSC survey on vaccine rollout preparations.

At this stage we'd be better off with press conferences on vaccine rollout and not covid numbers