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

Dionaibh

charlie14 wrote: »

Your Brazilian friend either does not come from Amazonas, or is unaware of the situation there.
On September 21st. a research report s published on medRvix that claimed herd immunity had been achieved in Manaus, capital city of the state of Amazonas with a population consisting of 2.2 million of the states total population of 3.8 million.
September 25th. all bars, restaurants and beaches closed due to a large increase in Covid-19 cases.

That's strange. I didn't know that. Rolling lockdowns.

Dionaibh

Stark wrote: »

From his bio, he graduated from chemical engineering in 1990 then worked various corporate jobs in most of the time since before discovering there was money to be made in nutritional quackery in the last 4 - 5 years.

Not exactly someone I'd be trusting over people who've spent their careers specialising in public health and epidemiology.

You mean people like Neil Ferguson and his amazing models?

Dionaibh

charlie14 wrote: »

Just to be sure we are talking about the same Ivor Cummins.
Is he the same Ivor Cummins a biochemical engineer that has been running scared for months now from fact checks of his posts by Dr. Dominic Pimenta a cardiology registrar ?


With first the U.S.A. being a "particular case", and now after your suggestion we move to Europe Italy and Spain are also "particular cases", we have moved on to a the musings of, imo, a rather dodgy nutritionist whose musings do not stand up to fact checks, anonymous people dying in car crashes, and a Spanish doctor who hasn`t noticed that in the past week alone Spain has recorder 51,134 new Covid-19 cases and 981 deaths.
I`m getting the distinct feeling that what you read involves skipping over a great deal of verifiable facts while searching find dodgy and anonymous musings that suit your narrative.

Sorry, I meant that everything is political in the US, so the numbers can't really be trusted because of State politics. Doesn't help that it's election year.

But Spain and Italy are unique in so far as it's common for grandparents to live at home (more so in Italy than in Spain).

A lady who died in Tennessee six months ago managed to test positive for COVID-19 a few weeks ago. I've never heard of a test that can diagnose a dead person as being positive.

charlie14

Dionaibh wrote: »

That's strange. I didn't know that. Rolling lockdowns.

What I find strange is that people post "facts" on social media platforms based on nothing other than "he said she said" when even the most basic research would show them what the actual facts are.


I do not find it the slightest bit strange that a claim of acquired herd immunity was debunked.
Sweden whose laisseze-faire strategy was the pursuit of the same had antibody test results that nationally were no better than Spain or France who used lockdown, and were actually worse for both Spain and Italy`s epicenters than theirs for Stockholm.
In case you are interested there have been 4,168 new confirmed cases in Sweden since the 2nd of this month.

Dionaibh

charlie14 wrote: »

What I find strange is that people post "facts" on social media platforms based on nothing other than "he said she said" when even the most basic research would show them what the actual facts are.


I do not find it the slightest bit strange that a claim of acquired herd immunity was debunked.
Sweden whose laisseze-faire strategy was the pursuit of the same had antibody test results that nationally were no better than Spain or France who used lockdown, and were actually worse for both Spain and Italy`s epicenters than theirs for Stockholm.
In case you are interested there have been 4,168 new confirmed cases in Sweden since the 2nd of this month.

But my friend wasn't talking about that particular place in Brazil. She said beaches are packed in Rio and that people are enjoying themselves dancing and having a good time. Give me that any day over the moribund countries in the West. And before anyone says "go there then if you love it that much", that is my plan.

Cases are irrelevant. It's hospitalisations that count. Spain and France have been destroyed. The psychological damage of masks everywhere may never be overcome.

charlie14

Dionaibh wrote: »

Sorry, I meant that everything is political in the US, so the numbers can't really be trusted because of State politics. Doesn't help that it's election year.

But Spain and Italy are unique in so far as it's common for grandparents to live at home (more so in Italy than in Spain).

A lady who died in Tennessee six months ago managed to test positive for COVID-19 a few weeks ago. I've never heard of a test that can diagnose a dead person as being positive.

I have shown you how incorrect you were on the U.S.A.that nobody would know we had a pandemic if it was not for social media

I have followed you at your request to Europe and shown you how wrong you have been there on the same.
I have even shown you how incorrect your assumptions were on Brazil from your conversation with one Brazilian.
Am I now expected to now waste my time following you too God only knows where on the basis of one woman where a test center got the address wrong for one person out of 7.8 million U.S.A positive test results,

Gael23

I don’t like how quiet Oxford/AZ have been

charlie14

Dionaibh wrote: »

But my friend wasn't talking about that particular place in Brazil. She said beaches are packed in Rio and that people are enjoying themselves dancing and having a good time. Give me that any day over the moribund countries in the West. And before anyone says "go there then if you love it that much", that is my plan.

Cases are irrelevant. It's hospitalisations that count. Spain and France have been destroyed. The psychological damage of masks everywhere may never be overcome.

Good lad. Just keep ignoring the statistics on the ratios of deaths to confirmed cases and off you go to Brazil which has had 1.45 million deaths from 48.5 million cases. The worlds third largest case loads behind India and the U.S.

I hope the psychological damage you will have to undergo wearing a face mask to get you there does not scar you for life.

Before you do so though, it might be an idea to check out the actual rise in cases for your Shangri-La Rio de Janeiro, rather than go on the word of some randomer whose knowledge so far from one of your previous posts has been shown to be sketchy.

Diarmuid

charlie14 wrote: »

I hope the psychological damage you will have to undergo wearing a face mask to get you there does not scar you for life..

I don't know if I would be going to Brazil, but I have been to both France and Italy since Covid has kicked off. There's a massive difference between the attitudes in Ireland vs France and Italy. We have an unhealthy obsession with Covid, and with the daily numbers and press conference. I don't see any let up in Ireland for the next 6 to 12 months. To pretend that this isn't going to have a negative impact on people is somewhere between disingenuous and willfully ignorant.

Dionaibh

charlie14 wrote: »

Good lad. Just keep ignoring the statistics on the ratios of deaths to confirmed cases and off you go to Brazil which has had 1.45 million deaths from 48.5 million cases. The worlds third largest case loads behind India and the U.S.

I hope the psychological damage you will have to undergo wearing a face mask to get you there does not scar you for life.

Before you do so though, it might be an idea to check out the actual rise in cases for your Shangri-La Rio de Janeiro, rather than go on the word of some randomer whose knowledge so far from one of your previous posts has been shown to be sketchy.

Thanks for the statistics. I'm not ignoring them. But I think one has to take into account population size, population health, and living conditions.

All I wrote was that my friend said people were having fun, going to the beach, and enjoying themselves. Really what I was trying to do was compare attitudes in the West with attitudes outside of the West. In Ireland there was uproar over young people enjoying themselves in Galway (I think) recently. I'm just comparing the difference in attitude.

marno21

Gael23 wrote: »

I don’t like how quiet Oxford/AZ have been

With Phase III vaccine trials, it would seem that "no news is good news" is a fairly reasonable approach to take.

JimmyVik

Dionaibh wrote: »

Thanks for the statistics. I'm not ignoring them. But I think one has to take into account population size, population health, and living conditions.

All I wrote was that my friend said people were having fun, going to the beach, and enjoying themselves. Really what I was trying to do was compare attitudes in the West with attitudes outside of the West. In Ireland there was uproar over young people enjoying themselves in Galway (I think) recently. I'm just comparing the difference in attitude.

I work with a few people from Brazil.
I was on the phone with one of them about something work related just now and after reading the posts the last few pages, I decided on that subject for the small talk.

I said to him of them that I hear people are having fun over there and not worried about the virus at all.

Yes, he said. The young people are out partying and the old people are dying in their homes, or if they are lucky they get into hospitals.

That killed the smalltalk.

charlie14

Dionaibh wrote: »

Thanks for the statistics. I'm not ignoring them. But I think one has to take into account population size, population health, and living conditions.

All I wrote was that my friend said people were having fun, going to the beach, and enjoying themselves. Really what I was trying to do was compare attitudes in the West with attitudes outside of the West. In Ireland there was uproar over young people enjoying themselves in Galway (I think) recently. I'm just comparing the difference in attitude.

Do you not think perhaps what you really should be taking into account is how this virus is spread.
Give it a bit of thought and you may actually see why there is uproar when the vast majority see a bunch of selfish idiots blatantly showing they have no regard for anybody other than themselves.

tobefrank321

is_that_so wrote: »

New test research - detects the virus in 5 minutes, based on CRISPR. Work continuing on accuracy and validation of the set-up.



https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/10/new-test-detects-coronavirus-just-5-minutes

Amazing if it works. But it feels like all these breakthroughs take years to reach mass rollout.

is_that_so

tobefrank321 wrote: »

Amazing if it works. But it feels like all these breakthroughs take years to reach mass rollout.

Ordinarily probably but there is such a huge focus on COVID, there is a good chance it will be a lot quicker. There are lots of these rapid tests, even if they haven't quite hit the right accuracy levels.

CiarraiManc

Gael23 wrote: »

I don’t like how quiet Oxford/AZ have been

They're quiet because they're full of ****. Have been from the beginning

Thierry12

tobefrank321 wrote: »

Amazing if it works. But it feels like all these breakthroughs take years to reach mass rollout.

Not really useful, we have rapid tests already

Like PCR this cannot diagnose contagious people, merely presence of RNA.

Still the same of crap of detecting a dead virus

We need a test that detects live virus only

Until we are testing a load of people who are not sick and can't infect other people

Hmmzis

Randomized double blind CT results out of Bangladesh for ivermectin in combination with doxycycline:

https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/results/NCT04523831

The numbers overall look very good. The improvement in the treatment arm was quite solid even though it had more males in it and it had a slightly higher median age than the placebo arm.
It's a bit of a shame they couldn't get everyone from both arms followed up, but even with that there appears to be a decent signal there. Next would be trying higher doses to see if there is a dose response as well.

ElTel

Thierry12 wrote: »

Not really useful, we have rapid tests already

Like PCR this cannot diagnose contagious people, merely presence of RNA.

Still the same of crap of detecting a dead virus

We need a test that detects live virus only

Until we are testing a load of people who are not sick and can't infect other people

Last few paragraphs in article suggests that it will be quantitative though?

Gael23

marno21 wrote: »

With Phase III vaccine trials, it would seem that "no news is good news" is a fairly reasonable approach to take.

Maybe but should we not be starting to hear the outcome of phase 3 now? I know there was the pause which scuppered the September plan so well expected some delay.

Hmmzis

Gael23 wrote: »

Maybe but should we not be starting to hear the outcome of phase 3 now? I know there was the pause which scuppered the September plan so well expected some delay.

Not really, at best the largest trials would be getting 1-2 infection events per day. I think pfizer had the first checkpoint at 35, the others are higher. End of October is what Pfizer have said as their earliest preliminary readout, the others have been saying November for a good while now.

Ce he sin

CiarraiManc wrote: »

They're quiet because they're full of ****. Have been from the beginning

Link?

Gael23

Hmmzis wrote: »

Not really, at best the largest trials would be getting 1-2 infection events per day. I think pfizer had the first checkpoint at 35, the others are higher. End of October is what Pfizer have said as their earliest preliminary readout, the others have been saying November for a good while now.

I thought I remember Sarah Gilbert saying September but maybe I got it wrong

Hego Damask

Dionaibh wrote: »

Would you call the Lancet a trustworthy source? They were forced to withdraw a bogus study on hydroxychloroquine: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/sep/22/the-lancet-reforms-editorial-policy-after-hydroxychloroquine-covid-study-retraction

Yes, when a reputable journal has Trump derangement syndrome so bad .... worrying, the science should be unbiased.

Hmmzis

Gael23 wrote: »

I thought I remember Sarah Gilbert saying September but maybe I got it wrong

That was before the summer lull of cases in the UK. They're back to higher transmission rates now, but the trial would have lost a couple months already.

Hmmzis

AstraZeneca kicking off their monoclonal antibody phase 3 trials as well:

https://www.astrazeneca.com/media-centre/press-releases/2020/covid-19-long-acting-antibody-laab-combination-azd7442-rapidly-advances-into-phase-iii-clinical-trials.html

Similar to Regeneron they're using two mABs in their cocktail and in addition they're engineered for stability (6 to 12 months per dose) and are lacking the Fc receptor (can't serve as tags, but they're neutralizing anyway, so nothing lost there). Price for the US government looks to be around 5k per dose, 100k doses in 2020.

MerlinSouthDub

Hmmzis wrote: »

That was before the summer lull of cases in the UK. They're back to higher transmission rates now, but the trial would have lost a couple months already.

The increase in infection rates may speed things up a little.

I guess that that the more effective the vaccine is, the longer it takes for the required number of events to take place?

Ce he sin

MerlinSouthDub wrote: »

The increase in infection rates may speed things up a little.

I guess that that the more effective the vaccine is, the longer it takes for the required number of events to take place?

I would have thought the opposite. The idea is to compare the infection rates of two groups, one with and one without the vaccine. The better the vaccine is the greater the difference between the two.

Morries Wigs

so after all this the vaccine wont even give you immunisation

charlie14

Diarmuid wrote: »

I don't know if I would be going to Brazil, but I have been to both France and Italy since Covid has kicked off. There's a massive difference between the attitudes in Ireland vs France and Italy. We have an unhealthy obsession with Covid, and with the daily numbers and press conference. I don't see any let up in Ireland for the next 6 to 12 months. To pretend that this isn't going to have a negative impact on people is somewhere between disingenuous and willfully ignorant.

More a case from some posts on these threads of some pretending that Covid-19 does not exist rather than anyone pretending that it does not cause deaths and long term health problems.

What is disingenuous and willfully ignorant are posts on face masks that will leave people psychologically scared for life by having to wear one in the limited situations they are asked too.
Yet at the same time having no problem doing so to travel to other destinations where on arrival the regulations on mask wearing are much stricter than here.



Next time your are in Italy, try walking into a bar or restaurant, or even be in a public place between 6 p.m. and 6.a.m without wearing a face mask and let us know how you get on.

Russman

Apologies if this has been asked before but, in layman’s terms is this how Phase 3 trials work:

A large number of people are selected or volunteer, let’s say 30,000.
Half are given the vaccine and half are given a placebo.
When a certain number of infections are recorded, they look to see the split of those infections between the vaccinated and placebo groups.
If the ratio is a certain level, the vaccine is deemed to work or not.

If my understanding is correct, how do they decide the number of infections required before they look at the split ?
And what ratio between vaccinated and placebo would be deemed proof of efficacy ?

charlie14

Morries Wigs wrote: »

so after all this the vaccine wont even give you immunisation

Unless you have already been infected, (even if you have what level of immunity bestows or how long it may last, nobody knows), then you really have no immunity to begin with.
Nobody is expecting the first round of vaccines to provide 100% immunity. But any level of immunity that will counter the spread of infections is 100% better than what we have now, which is none.

MerlinSouthDub

Ce he sin wrote: »

I would have thought the opposite. The idea is to compare the infection rates of two groups, one with and one without the vaccine. The better the vaccine is the greater the difference between the two.

Yes, correct, but doesn't change my point. They only look at the data when they reach a certain number of infections (in total across the placebo group and vaccine group in the trial). If the vaccine is completely ineffective, then they will get to that number more quickly. Likewise, if the vaccine is 100% effective, it will take them twice as long to get to the total number of infections required (assuming placebo and vaccine group have equal numbers).

Dionaibh

charlie14 wrote: »

More a case from some posts on these threads of some pretending that Covid-19 does not exist rather than anyone pretending that it does not cause deaths and long term health problems.

What is disingenuous and willfully ignorant are posts on face masks that will leave people psychologically scared for life by having to wear one in the limited situations they are asked too.
Yet at the same time having no problem doing so to travel to other destinations where on arrival the regulations on mask wearing are much stricter than here.



Next time your are in Italy, try walking into a bar or restaurant, or even be in a public place between 6 p.m. and 6.a.m without wearing a face mask and let us know how you get on.

Just to clarify, I was referring to countries such as France, Spain, and now Italy, where people are forced to wear that thing everywhere and anywhere. I believe that will cause irreversible damage.

And I don't think people are saying it doesn't exist, but rather that it's been blown out if proportion and that for most people, with the exception of a few outlier cases, it is a mild virus.

And I know you weren't commenting on any of my posts, but I just wanted to clarify that I was referring to those countries where it's mandatory everywhere.

jackboy

charlie14 wrote: »

What is disingenuous and willfully ignorant are posts on face masks that will leave people psychologically scared for life by having to wear one in the limited situations they are asked too.

I don’t know about psychological scarring but masks are definitely changing people mentally. I see so many people driving alone in their cars wearing masks. If we get a successful vaccine and COVID is wiped out in the next few months I would still be confident that mask wearing will be common next winter regardless. I suppose you could say that long term behaviours are being changed by mask wearing.

Morries Wigs

no way will i ware a mask again once this is done -no need for it

seefin

What are thoughts about reported cases of reinfection and whether they scupper the hopes of vaccines being successful?

Dionaibh

jackboy wrote: »

I don’t know about psychological scarring but masks are definitely changing people mentally. I see so many people driving alone in their cars wearing masks. If we get a successful vaccine and COVID is wiped out in the next few months I would still be confident that mask wearing will be common next winter regardless. I suppose you could say that long term behaviours are being changed by mask wearing.

The problem is that they've become a fashion statement. One of the problems of a pandemic in the age of social media. Even with a vaccine people will still wear them. The interesting thing will be whether the requirement is ever lifted.

Dionaibh

Morries Wigs wrote: »

no way will i ware a mask again once this is done -no need for it

But a lot of people will continue to wear one.

Marhay70

jackboy wrote: »

I don’t know about psychological scarring but masks are definitely changing people mentally. I see so many people driving alone in their cars wearing masks. If we get a successful vaccine and COVID is wiped out in the next few months I would still be confident that mask wearing will be common next winter regardless. I suppose you could say that long term behaviours are being changed by mask wearing.

People in countries like China, Korea, Singapore etc have been wearing face masks for years now because of poor air quality, I've yet to hear of any reports of mass paranoia because of this.
Reports from Australia say cases of flu are way down this year, probably due to wearing of face masks and increased hand hygiene so it could well be that vulnerable people will continue to wear them, I know I wouldn't have a problem as I'm in one of the high risk groups.

Dionaibh

Marhay70 wrote: »

People in countries like China, Korea, Singapore etc have been wearing face masks for years now because of poor air quality, I've yet to hear of any reports of mass paranoia because of this.
Reports from Australia say cases of flu are way down this year, probably due to wearing of face masks and increased hand hygiene so it could well be that vulnerable people will continue to wear them, I know I wouldn't have a problem as I'm in one of the high risk groups.

Interesting that you mention Asian countries. I've always wondered why people in countries such as Japan, Thailand, Korea and the Philippines are so deferential to authority, and will never not do something the government tells them to do. There have been zero protests against masks or lockdowns in that part of the world (Japan didn't lock down, of course) and I read recently that Duterte has a 91%, approval rating. This is despite his not allowing people under the ages of 21 and over 60 to leave the house since March except for emergencies, his destroying of the economy through his pointless and neverending lockdowns, and his forcing people to wear a mask and a visor on public transport and planes. And yet 91% of Filipinos support him. Okay, one could argue that people are afraid to say they don't support him, but any Filipino I meet in Europe tells me they support him. I wonder is it more that they respect the office of presidency.

I'm sorry for going off on a bit of a tangent, but your mentioning those countries made me wonder why they always do as they're told.

On the flu, could it also be the case that flu cases were put down as COVID cases?

mandrake04

Marhay70 wrote: »

Reports from Australia say cases of flu are way down this year, probably due to wearing of face masks and increased hand hygiene so it could well be that vulnerable people will continue to wear them, I know I wouldn't have a problem as I'm in one of the high risk groups.

Flu season in Australia is usually introduced April/May, this coincided with reduced travel and movement during this time.

Thierry12

Morries Wigs wrote: »

so after all this the vaccine wont even give you immunisation

Media at its finest

No sterilising immunity was always on the fine print but media ignored it thinking we'd never spot it

No vaccine injected into the muscle will give sterilising immunity for a virus that enters mucous membranes

A nasal or anal one might come out someday ;-)

Hmmzis

seefin wrote: »

What are thoughts about reported cases of reinfection and whether they scupper the hopes of vaccines being successful?

Reinfections are normal for almost any pathogen. For coronaviruses that would be a given more than an exception. The question still needing an anwer is how long the period between infections is for the majority of the population and how the severity dynamics will play out on re-exposure.

For vaccines that's almost irrelevant though, a vaccine is not a wild type infection and durability of the response might have more to do with the design of the vaccine than the wild type pathogen. It's still an area of active research.

This article is worth a read if you're interested in the topic:

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/04/how-long-do-vaccines-last-surprising-answers-may-help-protect-people-longer

Gael23

Thierry12 wrote: »

Media at its finest

No sterilising immunity was always on the fine print but media ignored it thinking we'd never spot it

No vaccine injected into the muscle will give sterilising immunity for a virus that enters mucous membranes

A nasal or anal one might come out someday ;-)

To me there’s no point in getting the vaccine in that case

stephenjmcd

Gael23 wrote: »

To me there’s no point in getting the vaccine in that case

Of course there is.

It'll protect the lungs. Think about it what would you rather being floored and possibly end up in hospital or feel like you've a head cold?

Absolutely is a point. Limiting effects allows us to get back to normal

Thierry12

Gael23 wrote: »

To me there’s no point in getting the vaccine in that case

You'll be less sick thats all

You'll still be infected

I agree its better get it naturally from nature if your young and strong

I cant see them injecting U18s with that vaccine

Those injectable into the muscle vaccines will be adult only

Nasal ones in future that might give sterilising immunity will be for kids imo

Thierry12

stephenjmcd wrote: »

Of course there is.

It'll protect the lungs. Think about it what would you rather being floored and possibly end up in hospital or feel like you've a head cold?

Absolutely is a point. Limiting effects allows us to get back to normal

85% have no symptoms

He might be one of them

Those are good odds

stephenjmcd

Thierry12 wrote: »

85% have no symptoms

He might be one of them

Those are good odds

At the end of the day its still better to get a vaccine than play Russian roulette regardless of what the odds are.

Gael23

stephenjmcd wrote: »

Of course there is.

It'll protect the lungs. Think about it what would you rather being floored and possibly end up in hospital or feel like you've a head cold?

Absolutely is a point. Limiting effects allows us to get back to normal

The only benefit I see to a vaccine is if it turns life back k to what it was in before March