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

Water John

According to John Campbell, one of the ingredients for either the Oxford or Pfizer comes from China and there is a delay in that. Need to check back on yesterday's podcast.

mandrake04

Bit cynical wrote: »

I'm not sure small size is a great advantage. Yes, if a large country operated in the same way as a small country they would be slower; but in practice, regional distribution centres would be set up so that the driving is not done from the capital city but from one of these local centres. Effectively the large country would be operating as many small countries.

If what you were saying had a basis in reality then countries like Canada or Australia would not have a hope of distributing the vaccine to its population in any reasonable time frame. But that is not the case and we see Canada with its vast land area up there with most much smaller EU countries.

Funny the plan for Australia came out today, should be done by Sep/Oct

Health Minister Greg Hunt has explained some specifics of the roll-out plan, and which vaccine will be used when.

Late-February 2021: Pfizer vaccine (80,000 doses per week available)

Early March 2021: AstraZeneca produced internationally (80,000 doses per week available)

Late March 2021: AstraZeneca produced domestically (1 million doses a week available)

Irish Stones

Micky 32 wrote: »

Did you know the Spanish flu ( along with other past pandemics) burnt out after 2/3years.

The Spanish Flu (if we are still allowed to call it this way, rather than 1918 Pandemic), lasted about 18-20 months.
It first appeared March 1918 and was gone by the end 1919. In early 1920 they had already forgotten it.

What is amazing is that it vanished in a relatively short time though the hygiene standards of that time were lower, the science was less evolved, they had no medicines or vaccines, and they issued less restrictions.

Stark

Irish Stones wrote: »

The Spanish Flu (if we are still allowed to call it this way, rather than 1918 Pandemic), lasted about 18-20 months.
It first appeared March 1918 and was gone by the end 1919. In early 1920 they had already forgotten it.

What is amazing is that it vanished in a relatively short time though the hygiene standards of that time were lower, the science was less evolved, they had no medicines or vaccines, and they issued less restrictions.

And killed 50 million worldwide. Nothing amazing about it, it moved through the population quickly, culling anyone who was vulnerable to it on its way leaving just the strong to survive and be immune.

We're probably at about 10% (very rough estimate) of world's population having been infected at the moment. We could go with the same approach as for Spanish Flu but we'd probably end up with about 20 million dead at current fatality rates and likely a lot more as hospital systems collapse so a lot of the people who are currently showing up as hospital statistics, show up as mortality statistics instead.

Godot.

Yevon wrote: »

I don't understand how AZ can say that they will have ongoing production issues into Q2. Surely resources and expertise can be thrown at this problem to bring yield up to the expected level? Especially if other factories worldwide are producing the same product at the expected levels.

Or is the delay based on the fact that they are already behind due to production issues from the outset?

And why has the story about AstraZeneca's lack of yields only come out in the last week?

EU looking to shift the blame to cover up lacking the foresight to help scale up AZ's European facilities? Or were they informed late and it's pure incompetence by AZ? Or is it more corruption than incompetence and they have been shipping supplies to Britain on the behest of Boris Johnson?

An interesting week ahead when the full details emerge.

Gael23

Godot. wrote: »

And why has the story about AstraZeneca's lack of yields only come out in the last week?

EU looking to shift the blame to cover up lacking the foresight to help scale up AZ's European facilities? Or were they informed late and it's pure incompetence by AZ? Or is it more corruption than incompetence and they have been shipping supplies to Britain on the behest of Boris Johnson?

An interesting week ahead when the full details emerge.

Can we expect details to emerge quite quickly?

nommm

Based on twitter rumblings, I think we can expect JnJ news this morning. Hopefully it will be good.

TheValeyard

nommm wrote: »

Based on twitter rumblings, I think we can expect JnJ news this morning. Hopefully it will be good.

JNJ news?

seamus

Johnson & Johnson

nommm

TheValeyard wrote: »

JNJ news?

Johnson and Johnson analysis. It was reported that they had started analysis last week.

ACitizenErased

What's interesting about J&J.... one of their trials was in South Africa.
https://www.technologyreview.com/2021/01/23/1016684/whether-jnj-vaccine-works-against-scary-south-african-coronavirus-variant/?utm_medium=tr_social&utm_campaign=site_visitor.unpaid.engagement&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1611377622

Sweet.Science

nommm wrote: »

Based on twitter rumblings, I think we can expect JnJ news this morning. Hopefully it will be good.

As in all their data is in and its under review. Or that its been reviewed and approved ?

Russman

ACitizenErased wrote: »

What's interesting about J&J.... one of their trials was in South Africa.
https://www.technologyreview.com/2021/01/23/1016684/whether-jnj-vaccine-works-against-scary-south-african-coronavirus-variant/?utm_medium=tr_social&utm_campaign=site_visitor.unpaid.engagement&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1611377622

Very interesting indeed. Maybe they'll turn out to the the real game changer and not AZ.

Indestructable

If the J and J vaccine shows less efficacy in the South Africa trial, then we know we have a problem with that variant. Their data will be critically important.

lbj666

Sweet.Science wrote: »

As in all their data is in and its under review. Or that its been reviewed and approved ?

We're expecting the same sort of press release that pfizer and moderna and AZ released on consecutive Mondays in November announcing their efficacy results from phase 3 trials.

It has tended to come before the markets open for the week in the US.
Interesting to see if they make any specific remarks about their trials in South Africa.

No guarantee's though.

TheChizler

Indestructable wrote: »

If the J and J vaccine shows less efficacy in the South Africa trial, then we know we have a problem with that variant. Their data will be critically important.

That's assuming the current SA variant was predominant during the trials, was it?

ACitizenErased

TheChizler wrote: »

That's presuming the current SA variant was predominant during the trials, was it?

Based on its prevalence in SA you would assume its the dominant strain being tested

nommm

https://t.co/h5g4KogDn0

Merck are out of vaccine race.

Indestructable

TheChizler wrote: »

That's assuming the current SA variant was predominant during the trials, was it?

According to Sky News Africa correspondent:

"Of the 45,000 participants enrolled, around 7,000 have been given the vaccine in South Africa and the J&J study was launched exactly when the new variant was taking hold here"

TheChizler

ACitizenErased wrote: »

Based on its prevalence in SA you would assume its the dominant strain being tested

I'd assume nothing, hasn't one of the new strains become dominant here in a month or two? Trials operate on a longer timescale again.

ACitizenErased

nommm wrote: »

https://t.co/h5g4KogDn0

Merck are out of vaccine race.

That's quite a shock, merck are fairly well known for vaccines. I think their COVID one was using measles?

gally74

Merck cancels program

https://newsfilter.io/articles/merck-ends-covid-vaccine-program-cites-inferior-immune-responses-37850272cab7e12a2bd2f5dd6fbc84c6

CrabRevolution

Indestructable wrote: »

If the J and J vaccine shows less efficacy in the South Africa trial, then we know we have a problem with that variant. Their data will be critically important.

Depends when the trials were run. If the South African variant wasn't widespread during the JnJ trial, we won't have any useful information on it.

Edit: I see someone has confirmed the variant was present during the trials.

funnydoggy

funnydoggy wrote: »

My uncle is a nursing assistant and he got vaccinated this morning

Update: He's after testing positive for COVID! He'll more than likely be fine but damn.

lbj666

Indestructable wrote: »

According to Sky News Africa correspondent:

"Of the 45,000 participants enrolled, around 7,000 have been given the vaccine in South Africa and the J&J study was launched exactly when the new variant was taking hold here"

7000 is going to mean a very small sample size i imagine.

nommm

nommm wrote: »

Based on twitter rumblings, I think we can expect JnJ news this morning. Hopefully it will be good.

Not sure if these rumours are going to bear fruit now, press release should have gone out by now if it was going to happen. Apologies for getting hopes up. Hopefully we will hear in the next week, Fauci said they have enough data to start analysis.

stephenjmcd

Daily numbers from today according to Ossian Smyth

https://twitter.com/smytho/status/1353667199819513857?s=19

plodder

gally74 wrote: »

Merck cancels program

https://newsfilter.io/articles/merck-ends-covid-vaccine-program-cites-inferior-immune-responses-37850272cab7e12a2bd2f5dd6fbc84c6

Imagine the doom and gloom if they had reported this before the other successful ones..

If they license one of the successful ones to use their manufacturing capability then maybe it won't matter that much in the end.

Gael23

Not good news from Merk. Was that vaccine part if the EU programme?

RugbyLad11

is_that_so wrote: »

It was decided quite some back that the EU would do the buying. It made sense as the EMA is the approval authority and the last thing we want is EU countries outbidding each other for supplies. Those two are all about the money although Israel will provide the rest of us with a lot of valuable post-vaccination data.
Remember these supply issues are temporary and were well telegraphed in advance, although not the current AZ hiccup.

I think we can afford it....sure we've had our country shut down for almost a year!!