COVID-19: Vaccine and testing procedures Megathread Part 2 [Mod Warning - Post #1]

Probes

Irish Stones wrote: »

This article

https://www.irishtimes.com/life-and-style/health-family/the-future-of-coronavirus-nothing-worse-than-a-common-cold-1.4457245

seems to imply that both vaccine and natural infection give an immunisation against the coronavirus, but it seems to say that natural infection (and hence the natural immunity that derives from it) is more effective than the vaccine.

Anyway, this should also imply that those who had the Covid could even do without the vaccine, or did I misunderstand?
And if it's true, couldn't this mean that millions doses might be spared for the benefit of those who haven't contracted the disease yet and speed up the roll out a bit?

Pretty sure all the vaccines give a much stronger immunity response than you get naturally. Also, a lot of people who've had Covid don't retain the immunity, I believe up to 10% of people.

Probes

Probes wrote: »

Pretty sure all the vaccines give a much stronger immunity response than you get naturally. Also, a lot of people who've had Covid don't retain the immunity, I believe up to 10% of people.

The article specifically call out that the immune response from Natural infection is stronger in the Nasal passage. So an immune response preventing infection is more likely in those who contracted the virus. But as you say the immune reponse preventing illness will be stronger with the vaccine. The article also specifically calls out that both Natural infection and vaccination are routes to the endpoint of Sars-2CoV just becoming another common cold variant.

Someone posted a link to the article that formed the basis for the IT article here yesterday. What are the odds the IT editorial staff got their idea to syndicate the NYT article from boards?

Icantthinkof1

Probably a bit early to be asking but I’ll ask anyways as someone here might know...
My mum is in her late 60’s and is considered high risk due to a medical condition. She does not drive- how would she be given/ get her vaccination?
I’m due to get my vaccine (hopefully) any day now. Would she be safe if I drove her there although it’s not proven that the vaccinated person won’t pass it on to others?

mightyreds

[Deleted User] wrote: »

I wonder will US multinationals be looking to source some independently for their staff. I know of a couple of places that have had massive production issues due to Covid absence and close contact absence

See pfizer vaccinating their staff here in ireland this week, not sure if it's because of disruption or just that they can

Cork2021

mightyreds wrote: »

See pfizer vaccinating their staff here in ireland this week, not sure if it's because of disruption or just that they can

Just that they can I’d say.

MerlinSouthDub

IRISHSPORTSGUY wrote: »

Won't be available in large quantities for a long while :(

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/13/health/covid-vaccine-johnson-johnson.html

Just wondering if supply issues in the US necessarily mean that the EU supplies will also be impacted? The EU has a larger deal with J&J than the US, and it will be manufactured in the EU so that story may or may not be relevant to us here.

is_that_so

Icantthinkof1 wrote: »

Probably a bit early to be asking but I’ll ask anyways as someone here might know...
My mum is in her late 60’s and is considered high risk due to a medical condition. She does not drive- how would she be given/ get her vaccination?
I’m due to get my vaccine (hopefully) any day now. Would she be safe if I drove her there although it’s not proven that the vaccinated person won’t pass it on to others?

They will also be using the GP and pharmacies network so that might be an option for her. She's Group 5 so probably March/April based on what they are planning.

AdamD

https://twitter.com/irvinederm/status/1349321943087017985

Hmmzis

Here is the J&J updated phase 1/2 paper:

https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2034201

Some interesting bits out of it:

- looks to be working notably better in the younger cohort

- single dose looks fine in the younger cohort, bringing the neutralization titers into convalescent range

- from my layman's look the older cohorts would benefit greatly from a 2nd dose

- after a single dose the titers are still increasing up to day 71. This is very good as something in the vaccine is engaging dendritic cells very well and resulting in prolonged B cell maturation in germinal centers. Generally that gives a much broader and more robust antibody arsenal capable of dealing with mutated versions of the virus better.

Irish Stones

Deleted User wrote: »

The article specifically call out that the immune response from Natural infection is stronger in the Nasal passage. So an immune response preventing infection is more likely in those who contracted the virus. But as you say the immune reponse preventing illness will be stronger with the vaccine. The article also specifically calls out that both Natural infection and vaccination are routes to the endpoint of Sars-2CoV just becoming another common cold variant.

Someone posted a link to the article that formed the basis for the IT article here yesterday. What are the odds the IT editorial staff got their idea to syndicate the NYT article from boards?

So, in the viewpoint of a possible or likely requirement of a proof of vaccination to get access to events or travels or else, why shouldn't a proof of disease be as effective and valid?

Irish Stones

Irish Stones wrote: »

So, in the viewpoint of a possible or likely requirement of a proof of vaccination to get access to events or travels or else, why shouldn't a proof of disease be as effective and valid?

I would be very sceptical that this will exist in any meaningful manner, within the EU at least. For one there appears to be no coherent approach to vaccine certs and realistically by the time any integrated system would get up and running most of the EU will already be vaccinated

snotboogie

Deleted User wrote: »

I would be very sceptical that this will exist in any meaningful manner, within the EU at least. For one there appears to be no coherent approach to vaccine certs and realistically by the time any integrated system would get up and running most of the EU will already be vaccinated

I'd be shocked if we won't need some sort of vaccination proof to travel to Asia and Aus/NZ.

snotboogie

snotboogie wrote: »

I'd be shocked if we won't need some sort of vaccination proof to travel to Asia and Aus/NZ.

That wont impact the vast majority

Gile_na_gile

Hmmzis wrote: »

Here is the J&J updated phase 1/2 paper:

https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2034201

Some interesting bits out of it:

- looks to be working notably better in the younger cohort

- single dose looks fine in the younger cohort, bringing the neutralization titers into convalescent range

- from my layman's look the older cohorts would benefit greatly from a 2nd dose

- after a single dose the titers are still increasing up to day 71. This is very good as something in the vaccine is engaging dendritic cells very well and resulting in prolonged B cell maturation in germinal centers. Generally that gives a much broader and more robust antibody arsenal capable of dealing with mutated versions of the virus better.

I can only add speculation, but <speculation>a few on the Reddit /Covid19 discussion on the above article were making conjectures, based on titres and comparison to convelescent (plus an internal J&J press conf), of around 70-80% for a single dose, and 90% for a double dose and 57 day gap, so close to but better than AZ in some senses but with more robust data</speculation>. Perhaps Sputnik V is comparable to the J&J results, if they ever publish their papers as they had announced. I presume it is in peer review or about to be submitted.

The Novavax platform might be in between the mRNAs and adenovectors based on the same, but who knows? We'll see in a few weeks. I'm not in medical sciences (geographical research), just an interested observer who looks forward to worrying more about climate change instead!

josip

Why don't Sputnik/Sinovac publish their trial results? Is it because

• they never intended selling to US/EU, they didn't bother with a detailed enough trial to meet Western Standards?
  
• Or is it because they have the results, but the efficacy is not as good as the Western vaccines and for multiple reasons they would rather that not be known?
  
• Or because there are side effects for their vaccines that would not be acceptable in the US/EU but are acceptable in other countries?

Stark

Most recent Sinovac trial in Brazil showed only 50% efficacy. Now I'm not sure if that's because the vaccine was **** to begin with or because the new variant they have in Brazil is resistant to the vaccine. An earlier trial showed much better results.

CIARAN_BOYLE

Stark wrote: »

Most recent Sinovac trial in Brazil showed only 50% efficacy. Now I'm not sure if that's because the vaccine was **** to begin with or because the new variant they have in Brazil is resistant to the vaccine. An earlier trial showed much better results.

The Turkish and Indonesian trials considered very mild symptoms as full preventing of disease so were done on a different basis.

hotmail.com

A Mater Hospital doctor on Claire Byrne criticising the vaccine rollout.

Hmmzis

Stark wrote: »

Most recent Sinovac trial in Brazil showed only 50% efficacy. Now I'm not sure if that's because the vaccine was **** to begin with or because the new variant they have in Brazil is resistant to the vaccine. An earlier trial showed much better results.

The explanation given for it was the inconsistent symptomatic case definition across trial sites. The main result was the moderate to severe case absence in the vaccine arms in all trial sites, even the Brazilian one.

Once they publish data it'll be easier to see what was what there, though having inconsistent case definitions for your primary trial endpoint is not great to bolster confidence.

In theory once the viral vector and mRNA vaccines have been proven to work, the responses in either cohort should be similar irrespective of manufacturer? Eg. all mRNA vaccines should have similar performance once the ability of mRNA to deliver protein is established and similarly for the viral vector?

is_that_so

hotmail.com wrote: »

A Mater Hospital doctor on Claire Byrne criticising the vaccine rollout.

Which one is it?

Azatadine

hotmail.com wrote: »

A Mater Hospital doctor on Claire Byrne criticising the vaccine rollout.

I shouldn't joke but the phrasing is kinda funny.

ixoy

hotmail.com wrote: »

A Mater Hospital doctor on Claire Byrne criticising the vaccine rollout.

What were her criticisms? I imagine it's the failure, in some, to follow the groupings based on the risk categories.

is_that_so

ixoy wrote: »

What were her criticisms? I imagine it's the failure, in some, to follow the groupings based on the risk categories.

Alleged failure, kind of along the lines that Nurse Mary saw John from Accounts coming out after getting a shot!

Stheno

ixoy wrote: »

What were her criticisms? I imagine it's the failure, in some, to follow the groupings based on the risk categories.

It's Jack Lambert I think, saying the plan is too slow and unambitious

https://www.newstalk.com/news/ireland-will-take-years-to-get-back-to-normal-under-unambitious-vaccine-plan-prof-jack-lambert-1134559

is_that_so

Stheno wrote: »

It's Jack Lambert I think, saying the plan is too slow and unambitious

https://www.newstalk.com/news/ireland-will-take-years-to-get-back-to-normal-under-unambitious-vaccine-plan-prof-jack-lambert-1134559

Yeah Jack has had a LOT to say during this. Given to some rants on PPE in the early days. Not sure how we can be ambitious on such low supplies.

seamus

Lambert seems like he loves the attention. Himself and Philip Nolan had a spat in October after Lambert wrote an article claiming NPHET were overreacting and hurting the economy.

He's obviously gone quiet about that in the last few weeks, but has decided instead to focus on vaccine rollout. His argument is clearly ignoring the issue of constrained supply, and he's glad to have something contrarian he can say so that he can get some airtime. He's even brought up the "What about Israel" nonsense.

Which doesn't surprise me, given that he's a literal bolloxologist.

ixoy

is_that_so wrote: »

Yeah Jack has had a LOT to say during this. Given to some rants on PPE in the early days. Not sure how we can be ambitious on such low supplies.

It'll gain notice though. Over and over on other threads and elsewhere, such as esteemed publication thejournal, people are screaming about why we're slow, what about Israel!, etc. The message about supply restrictions currently isn't getting through.

is_that_so

ixoy wrote: »

It'll gain notice though. Over and over on other threads and elsewhere, such as esteemed publication thejournal, people are screaming about why we're slow, what about Israel!, etc. The message about supply restrictions currently isn't getting through.

And it won't because we have two villains to blame: the government and the HSE. They can't win here even if they do a superb job. IMO it's great that care homes will be done by next week but stories about dodgy hospital policies will gain more traction. 60% and more of us won't have a look-in on vaccines till summer yet what we need to do now just as we had to do the day before the vaccines arrive is to follow the guidance. Somehow in this vaccine mania we've forgotten that.

Amirani

seamus wrote: »

Lambert seems like he loves the attention. Himself and Philip Nolan had a spat in October after Lambert wrote an article claiming NPHET were overreacting and hurting the economy.

He's obviously gone quiet about that in the last few weeks, but has decided instead to focus on vaccine rollout. His argument is clearly ignoring the issue of constrained supply, and he's glad to have something contrarian he can say so that he can get some airtime. He's even brought up the "What about Israel" nonsense.

Which doesn't surprise me, given that he's a literal bolloxologist.

Lambert had a bit of a disagreement with Austin O'Carroll early on the pandemic too when he made some outrageously false claim for the proportion of homeless and Roma had been infected (it was 50% or something silly like that).

Austin is the GP lead for Homeless response and was quick about correcting him. Lambert does seem to like the attention and is fairly liberal when it comes to using accurate data or detail.