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

gctest50

El Sueño wrote: »

You should write to AstraZeneca, J&J, Novavax, Moderna and Pfizer and tell them that their trials and results are completely "meaningless" and "happy clappy" then. You obviously know better.

I said it was a happy clapp meaningless chart

Just want to win one over on someone stealing the happy clappy away ?

tfeldi

Just in news: Biontech to increase production output in 2021 by 50%. EU will get 75 Million additional doses in Q2.

JTMan

tfeldi wrote: »

Just in news: Biontech to increase production output in 2021 by 50%. EU will get 75 Million additional doses in Q2.

Some detail here: https://www.spiegel.de/wirtschaft/unternehmen/biontech-will-75-millionen-zusaetzliche-impfstoff-dosen-liefern-a-699b9505-e620-448a-9d44-de974268b585-amp?__twitter_impression=true

More production plants and more partners. Looks like there's scope for further production increases too ...

the company has expanded its European production network - from three partners in December 2020, when Biontech received its first approvals, to currently 13 partners (including the Marburg plant). "We are expanding this network and are currently in discussions with other qualified partners about possible new agreements."

stephenjmcd

tfeldi wrote: »

Just in news: Biontech to increase production output in 2021 by 50%. EU will get 75 Million additional doses in Q2.

Just to note these aren't doses outside of whats already agreed.

Looks like 75 million from the 200m extra that are contracted. More plants coming online means they can process that order a little quicker but it isn't additional outside of the contracted amount. It is good news though that they can process the order quicker

tfeldi

stephenjmcd wrote: »

Just to note these aren't doses outside of whats already agreed.

Looks like 75 million from the 200m extra that are contracted. More plants coming online means they can process that order a little quicker but it isn't additional outside of the contracted amount. It is good news though that they can process the order quicker

True. The total order volume is less relevant at the moment as we overall have far too many ordered. Crucial is what we get in Q2 and Q3.

Tyrone212

That's good news. Roughly an extra 750k jabs for Ireland in 2Q than we thought yesterday .

Mark1916

Tyrone212 wrote: »

That's good news. Roughly an extra 750k jabs for Ireland in 2Q than we thought yesterday .

You add in J&J, potentially Novavax and CureVac and you could see supply not being an issue as we move into April / May time.

stephenjmcd

tfeldi wrote: »

True. The total order volume is less relevant at the moment as we overall have far too many ordered. Crucial is what we get in Q2 and Q3.

Yes what we get is the big one. They've also caveated the announcement with " we could deliver up to 75 million extra"

Alot will depend on brining the new facilties online etc.

The additional EU order was due to start delivering in Q2/Q3 as it was so they've pulled it forward slightly which is good to start with.

To add to this heres the announcement from 8th Jan with the 75 million doses.

https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/statement_21_46[\url]

Gael23

tfeldi wrote: »

True. The total order volume is less relevant at the moment as we overall have far too many ordered. Crucial is what we get in Q2 and Q3.

Too many even with the AZ shortfall?

Bubbaclaus

Gael23 wrote: »

Too many even with the AZ shortfall?

There is no shortfall. It's just coming later than anticipated, we will still be getting the same amount.

funnydoggy

marno21 wrote: »

Just saw this Tweet

https://twitter.com/ashishkjha/status/1356079020878786561

Really sums up how good these vaccines are after all is said and done.

That chart really drives home the great efficacy of these vaccines.


Bye bye Level 3-5 soon, IMO.

Cole

gctest50 wrote: »

Meaningless happy clappy chart.

How many of the 15000, 18000 after vaccination were exposed to covid for long enough to "test" the vaccine

Control group etc ?

How does this work in vaccine trials? With many of the volunteers presumably in some kind of lock down and, therefore, limiting their exposure to Covid-19, how is the vaccine 'tested'? Maybe that's why they try to recruit a broad cross section of the community?

I'm not trying to make a point or undermine anything...just genuinely curious.

odyssey06

Cole wrote: »

How does this work in vaccine trials? With many of the volunteers presumably in some kind of lock down and, therefore, limiting their exposure to Covid-19, how is the vaccine 'tested'? Maybe that's why they try to recruit a broad cross section of the community?

More than a cross-section, they split similar groups of people randomly into vaccinated and placebo groups on the basis that their later exposure to the virus in society should be the same.
Then they wait until they have X cases in the placebo group which means in theory if 100 were infected in the placebo group that approx 100 people in the vaccinated group were also exposed.

Hmmzis

Short but informative paper from Israel on how the single shot works from an immunogenicity point of view:

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.01.27.21250567v1.full.pdf+html

Interestingly, the single shot works exceptionally well in those who have had a PCR+ result, regardless if they still had detectable antibodies or not. As they state in the description, that's a good thing as the immune system still remembers the pathogen and boosts the response accordingly (10x higher).


Also, more data from J&J and correlates of protection in their NHP model (challenge trial 6 months after vaccination):

https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.01.30.428921v1.full.pdf+html

Model predictions:

Remarkably, both the binding and neutralizing antibody logistic models based on
Ad26.COV2.S predict 60% protection based on immune response levels just above the limit of
detection.

Same on T cells:

The dataset based on Ad26.COV2.S alone shows that higher cellular responses are
associated with decreased viral load in both the lung and the nose (green curves). However,
even for Ad26.COV2.S alone, these models do not have a significant slope, and only the model for protection in the lung has a good discriminatory capacity (AUC=0.875)

This means, that T cells should help a lot in reducing lung pathology though antibodies are needed as well to have proper protection.

The above model predictions work out very well in the lung protection scenario (observed protection was better than in the model prediction) but not in the nose protection one (much lower protection than predicted). That said, the viral clearance in all the vaccinated animals form the nose was quick and the viral levels look to be about 10-50x lower by just eyeballing the charts.

To me this looks like another piece of data supporting the claim that this virus is going to become yet another cause for the sniffles.

timsey tiger

frozen3 wrote: »

Whats that got to do with smallpox and vaccination gun?

What we need is a machine vaccine gun. Step forward Doctor Stallone, the world needs you.

timsey tiger

gctest50 wrote: »

Meaningless happy clappy chart.

How many of the 15000, 18000 after vaccination were exposed to covid for long enough to "test" the vaccine

Control group etc ?

Given the levels of covid in the countries that have vaccinated most and longest, US,UK and Israel (I'm thinking of the Pfizer vaccine) there are plenty of people is the highest risk groups who would have been ill by now without the vaccine.

It's an awesome chart and a great source of hope, if course it is accurate.

is_that_so

Piece reflecting on how vaccines may be updated.

Researchers are still debating whether the new variants could undercut the effectiveness of these first-generation COVID-19 vaccines. But some vaccine developers are charging forward with plans to update their shots so that they could better target the emerging variants, such as those identified in South Africa and Brazil.

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-00241-6

timsey tiger

Are we testing the close contacts yet?

is_that_so

timsey tiger wrote: »

Are we testing the close contacts yet?

Since Friday they've resumed it.

is_that_so

is_that_so wrote: »

Since Friday they've resumed it.

I heard of a person at work who was tested as a close contact Saturday and returned positive Sunday, so has definitely resumed. Their work contacts from last week have now been referred for test

Responder XY

good to hear it's restarted. I know I was a close contact in early Jan, was told by the person who tested positive and I know my detail went to the HSE, never got a call though!

frozen3

funnydoggy wrote: »

That chart really drives home the great efficacy of these vaccines.


Bye bye Level 3-5 soon, IMO.

Vaccines are incredible alright

I posted figures earlier for Israel, 317 got infected after 2nd dose and only 16 needed hospital

5% hospital rate for the infected after full dose

Considering vaccines also seem to be 90% efficacious in Israel that suggests level 3-5 will be gone very soon indeed

Truly incredible vaccines tbh

Only worry is a mutation which will make the vaccines less efficacious, but does less efficacy mean severe illness happens?

Could you have 60% efficacy against SA type future strains but still keep that 5% hospital rate after vaccine full dose who got infected?

1,000,000 vulnerable population in reland?

Current strain 90% efficacy, 10% get infected, 5% hospital = 5,000 people hospital

SA strain 60% efficacy, 40% infected, 5% hospital = 20,000 people in hospital

Now thats worst case, as we assume everyone gets infected, in reality more like 10% would be alot to get infected, so 500 hospital vs 2000 hospital

Worst case its much milder than flu season

This is gonna be over soon

Apogee

tfeldi wrote: »

Just in news: Biontech to increase production output in 2021 by 50%. EU will get 75 Million additional doses in Q2.

The way this is being reported is a little ambiguous - hard to know is it real or rehash of a previous announcement. Is this really 75m additional doses in Q2 on top of previous promises, or 75m in total for Q2?

And is it the same 75m that was promised back on Jan 8th?

UvdLeyen/Jan8th wrote:

With the new agreement, we could purchase a total of up to an additional 300 million doses of the BioNTech-Pfizer vaccine – in other words, this will allow us to double the amount of doses of BioNTech-Pfizer.And I am particularly pleased that 75 million doses of this order will already be available as of quarter two onwards. The rest would then be delivered in the third and in the fourth quarter of 2021.

https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/statement_21_46

I can't figure out how many of the Pfizer vaccines in total are coming to Europe in Q2.

Water John

It isn't Waiting for Godot, we know the vaccines will come and the sooner the better. Once the high risk groups are fully done soon, I still expect the rest of the adult pop will be done between April and July. So allowing two months to full immunity Sept at the latest for full immunity against serious illness.
Hang in there and stay the course.

https://twitter.com/profshanecrotty/status/1355552003531755521?s=20

An excellent thread that discusses vaccine efficacy against the current variants.

tfeldi

Gael23 wrote: »

Too many even with the AZ shortfall?

The EU has for example 600 Million doses ordered from Biontec and 160 Million from Moderna. As both are two dose vaccines it is enough for 380 Million Europeans - or about 85% of the EU population. So even these two vaccines get us to herd immunity.

So the only but important issue is timing.

Malcomex

Water John wrote: »

It isn't Waiting for Godot, we know the vaccines will come and the sooner the better. Once the high risk groups are fully done soon, I still expect the rest of the adult pop will be done between April and July. So allowing two months to full immunity Sept at the latest for full immunity against serious illness.
Hang in there and stay the course.

It looks good to me for supply of vaccines mid-year and also looking good for combatting new variants

I think science has prevailed on this one

frozen3

Malcomex wrote: »

I think science has prevailed on this one

We are looking good

But no white flags yet.

Its still out there planning its next move

Cork2021

Good article from the New York Times

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/01/briefing/vaccination-myanmar-coup-rochester-police.html#click=https://t.co/hB2XB5gonv

frozen3

Hardyn wrote: »

https://twitter.com/profshanecrotty/status/1355552003531755521?s=20

An excellent thread that discusses vaccine efficacy against the current variants.

It is brilliant alright

Encouraging, interesting and scary at the same time, sometimes its nearly better not to read thoughts of those scientists, alot I don't understand anyway

Scientists are going to have many sleepless nights with this Sars Cov 2