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

nommm

ACitizenErased wrote: »

Someone would want to give J&J a nudge, I don't know if anyone was expecting Novavax to get there before them

They will wait till Monday so they can get a full weeks benefit in the stockmarket.

Cork2021

ACitizenErased wrote: »

Someone would want to give J&J a nudge, I don't know if anyone was expecting Novavax to get there before them

J&J seeing this won’t be far behind now I reckon! Faster the better!!!

titan18

Cork2021 wrote: »

100 million is what the talks concluded with an option 100 million more. Up to the EU now to sign contracts.
Possibly a big mistake not to have concluded this already!

Ya, even if they order now Novavax likely won't be prioritising us over other orders so probably be second half of the year like all the others before were getting anything decent

Malcomex

Malcomex wrote: »

Translate?

The numbers in the trial were very low. It's difficult to draw any conclusions.

ACitizenErased

What's the makeup of the Novavax effort? Maybe hmmzis can fill me in?

Cork2021

titan18 wrote: »

Ya, even if they order now Novavax likely won't be prioritising us over other orders so probably be second half of the year like all the others before were getting anything decent

Wouldn’t see it as a bad thing. Might free up capacity for AstraZeneca once deliveries of novavax starts rolling out in the UK

ACitizenErased

Hardyn wrote: »

The numbers in the trial were very low. It's difficult to draw any conclusions.

I'm surprised they're drawing a conclusion with a confidence interval range that high tbh

Cork2021

At the rate the UK are going especially on first dose they’ll be nearly done by the end of May, as they’ll have J&J and some moderna by then before that

hmmm

ACitizenErased wrote: »

Someone would want to give J&J a nudge, I don't know if anyone was expecting Novavax to get there before them

People are speculating that J&J are releasing results next week, and their execs are talking about production over on CNBC - I have to assume they have already seen the data. I'd be very surprised if it flopped.

Novavax is great news, they are aiming to produce 2 billion doses. We'll wait and see about the South African variant, there's too little data there to draw any conclusions - hopefully even if it is less protective it still prevents against severe disease.

Frank Bullitt

https://news.sky.com/story/covid-19-uk-trials-show-experimental-novavax-coronavirus-vaccine-is-893-effective-12201756

UK phase three trials of the experimental Novavax COVID-19 vaccine have found it demonstrated 89.3% efficacy against the virus.

I like news like this!

brickster69

Moderna say tell Switzerland to expect delays of it's vaccine

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-swiss-moderna/switzerland-says-moderna-covid-19-vaccine-deliveries-will-be-delayed-idUSKBN29X2UA?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

ACitizenErased

The main thing is that even with 60% efficacy it prevented severe illness in the SA cases. One severe case was placebo. Again, it was a small sample size, but you would expect one maybe.

Cork2021

Has anyone any idea as to how many of the moderna vaccine we’ll receive weekly?
All I’ve seen is the 3600 from a couple weeks back.

markodaly

Melanchthon wrote: »

So the German regulator has likely just given ammo to anybody looking to make the EU's rollout more awkward.

Is there any reason apart from internal politics for them to have released this ahead of the EMA :mad:

Science... if the science from the trial is poor, then why approve it for the over 65's?

CIARAN_BOYLE

Cork2021 wrote: »

Has anyone any idea as to how many of the moderna vaccine we’ll receive weekly?
All I’ve seen is the 3600 from a couple weeks back.

I think they said 6k in todays hse operations briefing.

Water John

markodaly wrote: »

Science... if the science from the trial is poor, then why approve it for the over 65's?

I could be wrong but, is there any reason why a specific age would mean a major drop in efficacy?

EU will probably be in for a bit more stick for not having concluded Novavax talks quicker.

It's a protein subunit type, used in other vaccines like pertussis and Hep B, so should be relatively straightforward to manufacture. None of the others pre-ordered by the EU use this method, so might look like all bases haven't been covered.

Anyway I'm sure a deal will be done soon and it might be the case that an update/booster needs to be developed for the South Africa variant in any event.

Malcomex

CIARAN_BOYLE wrote: »

I think they said 6k in todays hse operations briefing.

Ya but will we continue getting the rug pulled out from under us when it comes to supply of vaccines

JacksonHeightsOwn

Cork2021 wrote: »

100 million is what the talks concluded with an option 100 million more. Up to the EU now to sign contracts.
Possibly a big mistake not to have concluded this already!

fingers crossed the European bureaucrats get their finger out and actually do a deal for these vaccines and not a mickey mouse deal like they did with Astra Zeneca

Itsaduck1

JTMan wrote: »

Good news on the Novavax UK efficacy but bad news on the SA variant efficacy.

NY Times reports here that Novavax’s Vaccine had an efficacy rate of nearly 90 percent. But in a small South Africa trial, the efficacy rate dropped to just under 50 percent.

- First to conduct an efficacy trial in SA. Researchers expected the variants could change the trial results, but “the amount of change has been a bit of a surprise to everyone.”
- Novavax said 44 trial participants in SA developed Covid-19, and it sequenced the genetic lineage of 27 cases. Of those, 25 cases were caused by the more contagious version of the virus.

Man that SA strain is legit then, i'm pretty shocked at those results tbh, I was expecting a few percentage of a drop, maybe 80% or 75% at worst, but 50%.

90% for the old variant vs 50% for the SA variant is an insane difference, these are not challenge trials either, it might be only 50% because the other 50% didnt even come in contact with the virus?

If they had challenge trials I would hate to see the efficacy then, might be well below 50%.

How's that even possible anyway?

I thought the vaccine targeted the spike protein and Covid infects that way by latching onto the spike protein.

Is the SA variant infecting another way then?

Was explained to me earlier on here that for the vaccine's targeting the spike protein not to work, the virus would have to mutate in a way that it would be less contagious/worse at binding, the SA variant is going against that theory, as it's supposed to be more contagious and having no problems latching onto spike protein

Suppose my question is, how is it more contagious and evading the vaccine's?

Bit worried now tbh

astrofool

Water John wrote: »

I could be wrong but, is there any reason why a specific age would mean a major drop in efficacy?

Same reason why SARS-COV2 has a higher fatality rate in the older age group, your immune system loses effectiveness over time. A paper published recently about cold viruses in general, postulated that the reason we aren't overly effected by them (some old people do die from colds, as do young people in very low numbers) is because they're endemic and our immune system is constantly exposed, so is always able to respond, potentially if SARS-COV2 emerged 200 years ago, it would just be another virus that we live with, and that it's more the sudden emergence that makes it dangerous (just a theory based on other cold virus, so could be completely wrong , but it fits the narrative and some evidence, so easily believable if not factually provable).

Of course the drop off in immune response is different among people, and a 70 year old could have a better response than a 30 year old, but on average, it's much worse, worse enough for vaccines to have lower effect is the debate at the moment (and the high efficacy of mRNA vaccines is amazing, but really because the vector is much more direct than older vaccine tech).

Cork2021

CIARAN_BOYLE wrote: »

I think they said 6k in todays hse operations briefing.

Per week? Or in total so far?

CIARAN_BOYLE

Itsaduck1 wrote: »

Man that SA strain is legit then, i'm pretty shocked at those results tbh, I was expecting a few percentage of a drop, maybe 80% or 75% at worst, but 50%.

90% for the old variant vs 50% for the SA variant is an insane difference, these are not challenge trials either, it might be only 50% because the other 50% didnt even come in contact with the virus?

If they had challenge trials I would hate to see the efficacy then, might be well below 50%.

How's that even possible anyway?

I thought the vaccine targeted the spike protein and Covid infects that way by latching onto the spike protein.

Is the SA variant infecting another way then?

Was explained to me earlier on here that for the vaccine's targeting the spike protein not to work, the virus would have to mutate in a way that it would be less contagious/worse at binding, the SA variant is going against that theory, as it's supposed to be more contagious and having no problems latching onto spike protein

Suppose my question is, how is it more contagious and evading the vaccine's?

Bit worried now tbh

The South African trial wasn't a fair trial reasonably.

A large proportion of the trial group have HIV. I believe it was designed as a trial to see how the vaccine works in compromised people and is being used to talk about the South African variant. I believe it might have had similar numbers if they recruited a trial group from london's HIV positive population.

Also the numbers involved were low and the confidence interval of the results was relatively large.

ACitizenErased

Itsaduck1 wrote: »

Man that SA strain is legit then, i'm pretty shocked at those results tbh, I was expecting a few percentage of a drop, maybe 80% or 75% at worst, but 50%.

90% for the old variant vs 50% for the SA variant is an insane difference, these are not challenge trials either, it might be only 50% because the other 50% didnt even come in contact with the virus?

If they had challenge trials I would hate to see the efficacy then, might be well below 50%.

How's that even possible anyway?

I thought the vaccine targeted the spike protein and Covid infects that way by latching onto the spike protein.

Is the SA variant infecting another way then?

Was explained to me earlier on here that for the vaccine's targeting the spike protein not to work, the virus would have to mutate in a way that it would be less contagious/worse at binding, the SA variant is going against that theory, as it's supposed to be more contagious and having no problems latching onto spike protein

Suppose my question is, how is it more contagious and evading the vaccine's?

Bit worried now tbh

Look at the confidence interval. Humongous pinch of salt.

funnydoggy

Can anyone explain "confidence interval" please?

CIARAN_BOYLE

Cork2021 wrote: »

Per week? Or in total so far?

In the week ending mid night Wednesday.

brickster69

markodaly wrote: »

Science... if the science from the trial is poor, then why approve it for the over 65's?

The science was not poor. There was just not enough older people tested in that age group to make a decision. Still no reason for one EU member to come out with it's verdict before the whole group released it's findings.

Haven't read the thread properly yet but one question sorry if it was covered.
So the astvaccine isn't approved for over 65s? Is this due to the immune system and it could have undesirable side effects?
How about immunocompromised people? Same?
Anyone know if any of the current vaccines have any trials on immuno compromised people?

CIARAN_BOYLE

funnydoggy wrote: »

Can anyone explain "confidence interval" please?

Right. Very basic statistics.

You run a test in a trial group. Your trial group is small so there's a chance it doesn't reflect the whole population.

So you run your result and your trial group data through various formula and you say that your result is 50% and you are 95% confident that the real result is between 25 and 75.

Itsaduck1

Itsaduck1 wrote: »

Man that SA strain is legit then, i'm pretty shocked at those results tbh, I was expecting a few percentage of a drop, maybe 80% or 75% at worst, but 50%.

90% for the old variant vs 50% for the SA variant is an insane difference, these are not challenge trials either, it might be only 50% because the other 50% didnt even come in contact with the virus?

If they had challenge trials I would hate to see the efficacy then, might be well below 50%.

How's that even possible anyway?

I thought the vaccine targeted the spike protein and Covid infects that way by latching onto the spike protein.

Is the SA variant infecting another way then?

Was explained to me earlier on here that for the vaccine's targeting the spike protein not to work, the virus would have to mutate in a way that it would be less contagious/worse at binding, the SA variant is going against that theory, as it's supposed to be more contagious and having no problems latching onto spike protein

Suppose my question is, how is it more contagious and evading the vaccine's?

Bit worried now tbh

My knowledge of this is basic but as far as I understand it the mutations that risk vaccine efficacy are on the spike protein receptor binding domain, this can mean that the antibodies that the vaccine induce are no longer able to bind to the spike protein and neutralise it, or they are less effective at doing this.

The good news is the vaccines should be able to be tweaked so that whatever way they work they mimic the spike protein of the variant better, and the antibodies they then induce will be better able to bind and neutralise the virus, and stop it binding to and infecting cells.

Somebody with better knowledge might say they above is incorrect.