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

tobefrank321

In fairness, Dr. Doshi, who knows a lot more about this than most, is right to temper expectations.

For me these are the key points:

This may be down to the numbers of people involved in trials, he said, pointing out that the majority of confirmed Covid-19 infections involve mild or no symptoms.

And few if any current trials are designed to find out whether there is a benefit among the elderly, a key at-risk constituency.

Without enrolling frail and elderly volunteers in trials in sufficient numbers, Mr Doshi said "there can be little basis for assuming any benefit against hospitalisation or mortality".

He added that children, immunocompromised people and pregnant women had largely been excluded from trials, making it unlikely that the experiments will address key gaps in our understanding of how Covid-19 develops differently among individuals.

Basically the trials are skewed towards the young healthy part of the population, who overwelmingly have mild symptoms and don't end up in hospital.

He's right to point out covid 19 will be here for years and that governments shouldn't be pinning their hopes on a vaccine or lockdowns as a solution. Increase ICU, buy a private hospital or two as covid hospitals, improve test and trace, and so on. Stop thinking short term like our government and the HSE.

JDD

i imagine they go even further than that. They should be looking at the age profile of infections over the past two weeks, and predicting hospitalisation numbers on both the age profile and the number of infections. So if you had 15,000 infections over the past two weeks, 70% of whom are under 40, you are obviously going to have less hospitalisations next week than if only 30% of the infections were under 40.

This will also be relevant for when we have vaccinated as many of the older population as possible. 1,000 cases a day now is an entirely different kettle of fish than if there are 1,000 cases a day in July but most older and vulnerable people have been vaccinated. In fact we could probably go back completely to normal in that scenario as our hospitals would be able to cope with anyone taken ill.

is_that_so

FintanMcluskey wrote: »

I was under the impression that the R0 number was the metric for the review on December 1st?

I could be wrong, but from what I read cases numbers are just as important to NPHET as hospital numbers

It seems to be two things: an R0 of about 0.5 which will bring 50-100 cases a day. That may change of course to include other metrics, one reason the Dec 1 date may not be a reliable indicator of anything.

timsey tiger

begbysback wrote: »

There should be an enforced regulation on the media in this country that when they report rates they are obliged to also give new cases/deaths as a % rate for context, if we have 5000 new cases in a week and 5 deaths then mortality rate needs to be reported as .001 %

There’s people now going on national radio believing this is “Russian roulette” - they need help.

You'll change your tune at the other side of the level 5 lockdown, when your calc. above will give a far higher figure.

Manipulating the news to suit your agenda is called propeganda, that is not a good thing, in case you didn't know.

JDD

tobefrank321 wrote: »

In fairness, Dr. Doshi, who knows a lot more about this than most, is right to temper expectations.

For me these are the key points:



Basically the trials are skewed towards the young healthy part of the population, who overwelmingly have mild symptoms and don't end up in hospital.

He's right to point out covid 19 will be here for years and that governments shouldn't be pinning their hopes on a vaccine or lockdowns as a solution. Increase ICU, buy a private hospital or two as covid hospitals, improve test and trace, and so on. Stop thinking short term like our government and the HSE.

From the little I read on the Oxford vaccine, their trials have elderly people included.

You'll never have pregnant women putting themselves forward for vaccine trials. That being said, you would hope that anyone planning to try for baby would get the vaccine if they hadn't got it already. That should help protect a good number of pregnancies.

There's not much you can do about the immunocompromised. They could have a really bad reaction to the vaccine itself, so it would be hard to find a lot of volunteers.

Children are a difficult one too. I was thinking about how we managed to prove the MMR vaccine was safe for babies and young children to take. Then I remembered all the trials they did on children in orphanages and mother and baby homes. Clearly (and rightly) not available as an option now.

Do people get paid to take part in vaccine trials?

Hmmzis

This FDA meeting is happening today:

https://www.fda.gov/advisory-committees/advisory-committee-calendar/vaccines-and-related-biological-products-advisory-committee-october-22-2020-meeting-announcement

From a vaccine perspective I think only Pfizer have said they'll present something there. In any case, it might provide some actual information on the trials as they are. Hopefully there will also be some treatment information presented.

tobefrank321

JDD wrote: »

From the little I read on the Oxford vaccine, their trials have elderly people included.

You'll never have pregnant women putting themselves forward for vaccine trials. That being said, you would hope that anyone planning to try for baby would get the vaccine if they hadn't got it already. That should help protect a good number of pregnancies.

There's not much you can do about the immunocompromised. They could have a really bad reaction to the vaccine itself, so it would be hard to find a lot of volunteers.

Children are a difficult one too. I was thinking about how we managed to prove the MMR vaccine was safe for babies and young children to take. Then I remembered all the trials they did on children in orphanages and mother and baby homes. Clearly (and rightly) not available as an option now.

Do people get paid to take part in vaccine trials?

The ones in Brazil I think are unpaid volunteers, mostly frontline medical staff. From what I read about it, although it might have changed since, they sought volunteers in the 21-59 age bracket with no underlying conditions. Hopefully its been expanded.


I think the Challenge Trial participants get paid which are on the way in the UK.

seamus

FintanMcluskey wrote: »

I was under the impression that the R0 number was the metric for the review on December 1st?

I could be wrong, but from what I read cases numbers are just as important to NPHET as hospital numbers

Only based on the seriousness of the disease, is my point.

If the major at-risk groups are no longer at risk, then higher R0 numbers (up to 1 or potentially even 1.5) are tolerable.

What "tolerable" means is still unknown. Covid might be less serious for those under 55, but in general for adults it still represents a threat several times larger than 'flu. So uncontrolled spread may still be undesirable.

begbysback

timsey tiger wrote: »

You'll change your tune at the other side of the level 5 lockdown, when your calc. above will give a far higher figure.

Manipulating the news to suit your agenda is called propeganda, that is not a good thing, in case you didn't know.

Manipulating news?? The media have done a proper job on you.

If 5000 people are diagnosed with covid, and 5 people out of those 5000 die because of covid, then the mortality rate is .001, I didn’t make up the rules of math, nor am I breaking the rules - this is FACTUAL

zuutroy

Pathetic by RTE. Will be making a conscious effort to avoid their website from now on.

tobefrank321

begbysback wrote: »

Manipulating news?? The media have done a proper job on you.

If 5000 people are diagnosed with covid, and 5 people out of those 5000 die because of covid, then the mortality rate is .001, I didn’t make up the rules of math, nor am I breaking the rules - this is FACTUAL

5 out of 5000 is 0.1%.
5 out of 500 is 1%
5 out of 5 million is 0.001%

Regards mortality rate, it probably makes sense to include a time period, eg died within a year. For example if no-one died on a particular day from covid 19, would you say, this disease kills no-one?

begbysback

tobefrank321 wrote: »

5 out of 5000 is 0.1%.
5 out of 500 is 1%
5 out of 5 million is 0.001%

Regards mortality rate, it probably makes sense to include a time period, eg died with a year. For example if no-one died on a particular day from covid 19, would you say, this disease kills no-one?

I stand corrected mathematically, so .1%, which is so low, and symptoms so minute in the majority of cases that we can’t even gather enough sick people to carry out an informative vaccine trial, why isn’t that printed in the media?

starlit

I read that about the Doctor in Brazil. Very sad. You would wonder are these vaccine trials safe. It be some time before a vaccine will be deemed safe. Its possible the virus might mutate to a point of extinction or that we have to live with it for ever more but that it mutate into a normal flu. Even with a vaccine it's likely it have to be topped up to keep immunity ticking over.

Bit cynical

We're complaining now about news reports suggesting that vaccines may not be a panacea and that their effectiveness will not be known for some time.

However wasn't this the case also with immunity from the virus itself - that no strategy could take into account possible immunity from contracting the virus since the longevity of immunity could not be known at the outset?

This is the problem with propaganda. It takes on a life of its own. We want the economic and social damage to end with vaccination, however the propaganda we put out earlier in order to focus efforts on developing a vaccine now work against that vaccine putting an end to restrictions.

Le Bruise

starlit wrote: »

I read that about the Doctor in Brazil. Very sad. You would wonder are these vaccine trials safe. It be some time before a vaccine will be deemed safe. Its possible the virus might mutate to a point of extinction or that we have to live with it for ever more but that it mutate into a normal flu. Even with a vaccine it's likely it have to be topped up to keep immunity ticking over.

The Doctor in Brazil was given the placebo, so his death was tragic, but nothing to do with the vaccine.

This won't mutate into a normal flu, as it's not an influenza virus.

ACitizenErased

starlit wrote: »

I read that about the Doctor in Brazil. Very sad. You would wonder are these vaccine trials safe. It be some time before a vaccine will be deemed safe. Its possible the virus might mutate to a point of extinction or that we have to live with it for ever more but that it mutate into a normal flu. Even with a vaccine it's likely it have to be topped up to keep immunity ticking over.

How did you possibly deduce that the trial is not safe when the participant was given a placebo? Sounds like you’ve read **** all.

Dressoutlet

I had my flu vax this morning, the pharmacist and I had a chat about the vaccine for Covid, she was really optimistic about the Pfizer vax and it was nice to talk to someone with a brain tbh, it gets waring when your own friends tell you you are mad getting a flu vaccine. I'm in a high risk group and had the flu last year, If you transferred 1 million euro to my bank I wouldnt have even looked at an online shop I was so sick, so yes I got the vaccine! And I will get the Covid one too.

begbysback

Dressoutlet wrote: »

I had my flu vax this morning, the pharmacist and I had a chat about the vaccine for Covid, she was really optimistic about the Pfizer vax and it was nice to talk to someone with a brain tbh.

Could we invite her to join boards.ie? Would be a nice change.

landofthetree

tobefrank321 wrote: »

In fairness, Dr. Doshi, who knows a lot more about this than most, is right to temper expectations.

For me these are the key points:



Basically the trials are skewed towards the young healthy part of the population, who overwelmingly have mild symptoms and don't end up in hospital.

He's right to point out covid 19 will be here for years and that governments shouldn't be pinning their hopes on a vaccine or lockdowns as a solution. Increase ICU, buy a private hospital or two as covid hospitals, improve test and trace, and so on. Stop thinking short term like our government and the HSE.

All the experts told us a second lockdown wouldn't be needed. Here we are a few months later and back in lockdown.

We could be in and out of lockdown for 3 years+.

VillageIdiot71

hmmm wrote: »

<...> the relatively small number of people with Covid who go on to develop very severe illness<...>

A point of much wider interest than for vaccine trials.

Dressoutlet wrote: »

I had my flu vax this morning, the pharmacist and I had a chat about the vaccine for Covid, she was really optimistic about the Pfizer vax <....>

Great that Pfizer are putting the effort into keeping local Irish pharmacists fully up to speed. I wouldn't have expected local pharmacists to know anything more than we might read in the media.

mohawk

landofthetree wrote: »

All the experts told us a second lockdown wouldn't be needed. Here we are a few months later and back in lockdown.

We could be in and out of lockdown for 3 years+.

Given levels of anger out there about this lockdown. Do you really see majority of people tolerating another three years of rolling lockdowns? How many SME’s would survive that?

polesheep

zuutroy wrote: »

Pathetic by RTE. Will be making a conscious effort to avoid their website from now on.

Unfortunately you can't avoid the licence fee.

JDD

We could be in and out of lockdown for 3 years+

Why do you think that? Do you mean in a scenario where no viable vaccine is approved?

I think, to be honest, if we get to May 2021 and none of the front runners vaccine candidates are approved, we'll have to rethink everything.

We can't have further rolling lockdowns, it's just not economically possible.

We can't let the virus run free for six months, while telling over 70's and all people with obesity, heart disease, diabetes, and asthma to isolate. You can pontificate all you like, but they just won't do it for that length of time. If they did comply, then the hospitals might be just able to cope with the hospitalisations of previously healthy people. But they won't, so hospitals will be overrun.

As much as I would hate it as it seems really draconian, I think they'd have to bring in legislation where if you test positive, or if you are identified as close contact of a positive test, you would have to be forcibly isolated in a facility for a week, or in the case of a close contact who test negative the first time, but positive seven days later, a further week, until you are deemed no longer contagious.

If you are the sole carer of children or parents, then they isolate at the facility with you.

It would be a horrendous intrusion into people's freedoms and human rights, but it is literally the only way I can see that we can "live with the virus" without a vaccine or rolling lockdowns.

Limpy

polesheep wrote: »

Unfortunately you can't avoid the licence fee.

Don't open the door for strange men.

Charles Babbage

mohawk wrote: »

Given levels of anger out there about this lockdown. Do you really see majority of people tolerating another three years of rolling lockdowns? How many SME’s would survive that?

It is the fault of people acting the maggot that we have this second lockdown, let people be angry at those that went on the piss, at those who didn't isolate when required to do so, at those who held parties, at those who refuse to wear masks, at businesses that pack in their customers, at pubs with lockins. Let the anger be at those who caused the problem, if people had behaved responsibly then we would not have needed a second set of restrictions. Instead those that caused these restrictions will whine and deflect and try and blame someone else.

bennyineire

There is a steel frame of a private hospital that was never built in Tullamore, some of you may have seen it as you drive by the town.

The steel structure is still fine, it is right beside the Midlands Regional Hospital. Just off the M6 and in a central location.

Would it not be prudent of the HSE to purchase this site an build a Covid hospital here ? It appears even with vaccines available we sill still need a to deal with Covid so surly this would make a prefect site for it as it is half built already

Santy2015

Possible chat about their own vaccine at this stage being distributed....

https://twitter.com/oxmartinschool/status/1319211429371760641?s=21

smurfjed

To me he is talking a lot of sense, so lets see what others think.

https://youtu.be/Xy3tP-BW5do

landofthetree

smurfjed wrote: »

To me he is talking a lot of sense, so lets see what others think.

https://youtu.be/Xy3tP-BW5do

He sums up the hysterics of it all. As we are more hysterical that most countries it's no surprise that we have the harshest lockdown.

We arent looking at the bigger picture at all.

hmmm

Good (short) interview with Dr. Amesh Adalja in the video below about the likely future of Covid when we have vaccines and treatments.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k10XxqxEVnQ

Irish Stones

hmmm wrote: »

Good (short) interview with Dr. Amesh Adalja in the video below about the likely future of Covid when we have vaccines and treatments.

Endemic is the word that I have been reading for a few days now.
The forecasts is of a forever condition, with waves during years and seasons.

seamus

starlit wrote: »

I read that about the Doctor in Brazil. Very sad. You would wonder are these vaccine trials safe. It be some time before a vaccine will be deemed safe. Its possible the virus might mutate to a point of extinction or that we have to live with it for ever more but that it mutate into a normal flu. Even with a vaccine it's likely it have to be topped up to keep immunity ticking over.

For the avoidance of confusion, none of the vaccine trials involve actually exposing anyone to covid.

The participants receive either the vaccine or a placebo, and then are sent on their way to live their life. They are not supposed to act any differently to anyone else, they must adhere to exactly the same public health advice as everyone else, take the same precautions.

In effect, all participants are told to assume they haven't been vaccinated.

They then just wait to see how many participants contract covid naturally and then run a comparison between the vaccinated group and the placebo group.

This is why the trial itself is safe - they're not making it any more likely that an individual will contract covid.

Whether annual boosters will be required, remains to be seen. Acquired immunity through infection and through vaccination aren't necessarily the same thing. Some vaccines can produce a much longer immunity than natural exposure.
Financially though it doesn't make much sense for a company to aggressively look for a permanent vaccine. There's money in boosters so long as they can keep up with demand.

Timistry

There actually are concerns within the pharma industry about the efficacy of the vaccines in the pipeline, the scale up of the manufacture and the logistics of supply (many variants may have to be frozen). Just off a work call there, one year will be nothing short of amazing, 2 years more realistic.

Most of the reported "breakthroughs" are about treatments for SARS COV-2, which will save lives and help people recover faster. However, they will not stop the spread nor offer us any protection - self isolation and lockdowns still necessary. This is where a globally coordinated vaccination program is required, with potential booster shots after 6/12/24 months. This has not been attempted before in a short timeframe (normally takes >10yrs)

landofthetree

seamus wrote: »

For the avoidance of confusion, none of the vaccine trials involve actually exposing anyone to covid.

The participants receive either the vaccine or a placebo, and then are sent on their way to live their life. They are not supposed to act any differently to anyone else, they must adhere to exactly the same public health advice as everyone else, take the same precautions.

In effect, all participants are told to assume they haven't been vaccinated.

They then just wait to see how many participants contract covid naturally and then run a comparison between the vaccinated group and the placebo group.

This is why the trial itself is safe - they're not making it any more likely that an individual will contract covid.

Whether annual boosters will be required, remains to be seen. Acquired immunity through infection and through vaccination aren't necessarily the same thing. Some vaccines can produce a much longer immunity than natural exposure.
Financially though it doesn't make much sense for a company to aggressively look for a permanent vaccine. There's money in boosters so long as they can keep up with demand.

Yep.

But there will be in January.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.voanews.com/covid-19-pandemic/imperial-college-london-recruiting-healthy-volunteers-infect-covid-19%3famp

stephenjmcd

Timistry wrote: »

There actually are concerns within the pharma industry about the efficacy of the vaccines in the pipeline, the scale up of the manufacture and the logistics of supply (many variants may have to be frozen). Just off a work call there, one year will be nothing short of amazing, 2 years more realistic.

Most of the reported "breakthroughs" are about treatments for SARS COV-2, which will save lives and help people recover faster. However, they will not stop the spread nor offer us any protection - self isolation and lockdowns still necessary. This is where a globally coordinated vaccination program is required, with potential booster shots after 6/12/24 months. This has not been attempted before in a short timeframe (normally takes >10yrs)

Do you work in Pharma? People can give opinion of course but many of the things you list have been previously addressed by manufacturers.

I asked because previously a poster put up a very informative article on logistics & production for example with regards to Pfizer. A very robust plan in place with work on going since March with regards to production and delivery. Supply chains and distribution is planned right up to the country of delivery. After that it would be up to the dept of health/HSE to get their house in order.

I will try and find the very informative piece that laid bare manufacturing and distribution.

The vaccine landscape is alot different than it was this time last month and will be again this time next month

Gael23

hmmm wrote: »

Good (short) interview with Dr. Amesh Adalja in the video below about the likely future of Covid when we have vaccines and treatments.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k10XxqxEVnQ

My concern is the fixation around the R0 number. People are going to get this virus for years to come, they just won’t get seriously ill.
So as long as there are people getting it, that won’t get the world open again.

As always open to correction but that’s my layman’s assessment of this clip

This is it

With regards to testing procedures, if you have a positive result they request that you self isolate for 10 days, when does that 10 day clock start? From first symptoms I'd have thought but it's a bit unclear. Also will there be a second test to prove negative or back to "normal" after the 10 days? Normal being standard restrictions, etc. Thanks

dominatinMC

hmmm wrote: »

Good (short) interview with Dr. Amesh Adalja in the video below about the likely future of Covid when we have vaccines and treatments.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k10XxqxEVnQ

He's saying what a lot of others are saying without the dramatic headline. Essentially, that a vaccine will not be a panacea/silver bullet but, instead, will work in conjunction with improved treatments to allow us to live with the virus. And, contrary to what RTE want us to believe, live normally.

Mark1916

https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/22/health/moderna-covid-19-vaccine-trial-30000-participants/index.html

Modena have all 30,000 participants enrolled all of whom have received first shot and the majority (26k) of which have received the second.

Will go to FDA for approval in early December If all continues to go to plan

dominatinMC

dominatinMC wrote: »

One would have to seriously question RTEs journalistic integrity at this stage. I'm not going to go down the road of conspiracy theories and agendas, but their fixation on doom and gloom can't be ignored. Yes, their duty is to inform the public and to maintain realism. But to cherry pick that one story from all the others out there stinks of clickbait negativity. Thank god we have this thread.

If it bleeds, it leads

Mark1916

Timistry wrote: »

There actually are concerns within the pharma industry about the efficacy of the vaccines in the pipeline, the scale up of the manufacture and the logistics of supply (many variants may have to be frozen). Just off a work call there, one year will be nothing short of amazing, 2 years more realistic.

Most of the reported "breakthroughs" are about treatments for SARS COV-2, which will save lives and help people recover faster. However, they will not stop the spread nor offer us any protection - self isolation and lockdowns still necessary. This is where a globally coordinated vaccination program is required, with potential booster shots after 6/12/24 months. This has not been attempted before in a short timeframe (normally takes >10yrs)

https://www.wsj.com/articles/pfizer-sets-up-its-biggest-ever-vaccination-distribution-campaign-11603272614

Might be worth a read....

Beanybabog

This is it wrote: »

With regards to testing procedures, if you have a positive result they request that you self isolate for 10 days, when does that 10 day clock start? From first symptoms I'd have thought but it's a bit unclear. Also will there be a second test to prove negative or back to "normal" after the 10 days? Normal being standard restrictions, etc. Thanks

I spoke to the contract tracers today about this, I had already organised my test. I restrict for 14 days as a close contact. If I test positive from today's test I isolate for 10 days more. If negative, I have a second test next week- if that's positive I've to isolate for 10 days from that test. If I am positive today I don't need a second test. If I stay negative for both tests my restriction ends at 14 days after contact.

Le Bruise

Le Bruise wrote: »

The Doctor in Brazil was given the placebo, so his death was tragic, but nothing to do with the vaccine.

This won't mutate into a normal flu, as it's not an influenza virus.

HOC-43, one of the 4 coronaviruses that cause 10-20% of common colds, is now thought to have caused the "Russian Flu" pandemic of the 1890's. The link was established as genetic comparisons between this virus and a bovine coronavirus, identified the the likely timeframe for the two viruses having a common ancestor was ca.1890, and also that the described symptoms matched SARS much more than a typical influenza virus (study from 2006 - pre covid). Over the course of the 1890's the effects of the russian flu lessened and retreated into the background.

There is also a study - not peer reviewed as yet - linking lower effects seen with some patients to previous exposure to OC43
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.10.12.20211599v1

davemckenna25

This is it wrote: »

With regards to testing procedures, if you have a positive result they request that you self isolate for 10 days, when does that 10 day clock start? From first symptoms I'd have thought but it's a bit unclear. Also will there be a second test to prove negative or back to "normal" after the 10 days? Normal being standard restrictions, etc. Thanks

Its 10 days minimum from the date of the test, with the last 5 days being symptom free.
So if you show symptoms for 8 days then 5 without its 13 days.
If you show no symptoms its 10 days only.

JacksonHeightsOwn

dominatinMC wrote: »

He's saying what a lot of others are saying without the dramatic headline. Essentially, that a vaccine will not be a panacea/silver bullet but, instead, will work in conjunction with improved treatments to allow us to live with the virus. And, contrary to what RTE want us to believe, live normally.

Grim if true.

Imagine this was life now, what a load of bollox that would be.....

Gael23

Any treatment has failed so chances of that are slim

Gael23

Some good news from Oxford
You https://news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-oxford-astrazeneca-vaccine-behaves-as-desired-analysis-finds-12111085

dominatinMC

I know Luke is an eternal optimist, but good to hear one of the experts so upbeat and positive. Given his favourable outlook on the situation, I'm shocked RTE let him on The Late Late Show a few weeks ago!

https://www.newstalk.com/news/luke-oneill-course-well-get-back-pre-covid-world-will-take-time-1094674

martingriff

dominatinMC wrote: »

I know Luke is an eternal optimist, but good to hear one of the experts so upbeat and positive. Given his favourable outlook on the situation, I'm shocked RTE let him on The Late Late Show a few weeks ago!

https://www.newstalk.com/news/luke-oneill-course-well-get-back-pre-covid-world-will-take-time-1094674

Don't be talking about him in those terms you will be slaughtered

martingriff

Gael23 wrote: »

Any treatment has failed so chances of that are slim

That is the very definition of a virus a treatment helps it does not cure. If it did we would not need a vaccine. You could say the same about the flu or any virus that need a vaccine