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

Sconsey

Skyfloater wrote: »

The Guardian used to have a useful progression chart showing what stage each potential vaccine was in the approval process, but it's not there anymore.
Does anyone know the current possible timelines for J&J, Sanofi etc?
Thanks.

This is a good tracker:
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/science/coronavirus-vaccine-tracker.html
It says J&J phase 3 trial results are expected in January.

AutoTuning

stephenjmcd wrote: »

The Pfizer order is now 3.4 million doses

Combine that with the Moderna order and J&J / Janssen and we might not need AstraZeneca at all.

Moderna is likely to be approved by EMA on Wednesday.

I’d rather take something I can be sure of the data for.

Treseemme.

Micky 32 wrote: »

I’ll know there will be some on here who won’t want to know or like to hear but the vaccines can be tweaked as we keep rolling it out. The flu vaccine gets tweaked all the time for it’s variations.

What happens to the millions already shipped if they're not effective on the SA variant

ixoy

Micky 32 wrote: »

I’ll know there will be some on here who won’t want to know or like to hear but the vaccines can be tweaked as we keep rolling it out. The flu vaccine gets tweaked all the time for it’s variations.

Indeed. In fact the posted article explicitly states that too and that the existing one could even still work, if not as well.

Irish Stones

Bubbaclaus wrote: »

Also, total vaccines provided to date:
France 516
Netherlands 0

Even where the distribution is faster, it'll take a decade to cover the whole population.
In Italy they provided 120k vaccines in a week, though they received nearly 500k doses. This means that, if they keep this pace, which is highly probable, it will take nearly 15 years to just cover 75% of the population. Wow!

Sconsey

Irish Stones wrote: »

Even where the distribution is faster, it'll take a decade to cover the whole population.
In Italy they provided 120k vaccines in a week, though they received nearly 500k doses. This means that, if they keep this pace, which is highly probable, it will take nearly 15 years to just cover 75% of the population. Wow!

Why do you bother?

Russman

stephenjmcd wrote: »

EMA approval for Moderna brought forward to TODAY according to AFP.

Just to note the meeting for Wednesday is still planned just incase but a new meeting has been convenved for today to look at Moderna.

https://twitter.com/dannyctkemp/status/1346092129555255298?s=19

Tremendous news if true

Sweet.Science

Probably been asked already . Has vaccinations been added to the Covid data hub online ?

ShyMets

Anyone else get the impression that some posters seem to want the vaccines to be ineffective against the new variants

Summer2020

ShyMets wrote: »

Anyone else get the impression that some posters seem to want the vaccines to be ineffective against the new variants

Absolutely, there’s a definite cohort of society who for whatever reason don’t want life to return to what it was. Perhaps the restrictions masks their crippling social awkwardness who knows.

titan18

AutoTuning wrote: »

Combine that with the Moderna order and J&J / Janssen and we might not need AstraZeneca at all.

Moderna is likely to be approved by EMA on Wednesday.

I’d rather take something I can be sure of the data for.

Tbf, depends on when we get them. If we're only getting 40k a week of pfizer, and probably a similarly tiny amount off moderna, we still do need the AstraZeneca one.

hmmm

Nice to see that Professor Andrew Pollard who leads the Oxford vaccine group was one of the first to get the vaccine today.

https://twitter.com/OUHospitals/status/1346024125370949635

Irish Stones

Sconsey wrote: »

Why do you bother?

What do you mean?

VG31

Irish Stones wrote: »

What do you mean?

The constant negativity and fear mongering?

nommm

Great news on Moderna, not expecting deliveries of the same volume as Pfizer but still better than just using Pfizer alone!

ixoy

I see this sort of thing on thejournal (yeah, I know but it is widely read) with 39 likes:

Good, now what about the Oxford vaccine. All our eggs are in that basket, can media investigate the delay in approval of this vaccine?

There's still a belief that this is the only vaccine or something? Is it unclear how the EU spread their bets?
And what investigation is the media supposed to do here when we have a good understanding of the why - it being clarifications required in the testing. Or would that require a bit of effort for people to understand without going , "But the UK is doing it!"

Irish Stones

VG31 wrote: »

The constant negativity and fear mongering?

Someone here should seek help from a good doctor!
A poster wrote some data, I added mine, and see/read something else.
Either you're biased or you need serious help.

Where is the negativity in what I wrote? It's news, easily verifiable.

Anyway, because Italy will be making the vaccine mandatory, as announced two days ago, and there is a luck of trained doctors, as said by the NHS, and we have run out of syringes, as reported yesterday, it won't be going faster than it is going, and people who MUST take the vaccine will be waiting for years.
At this point, we should hope the vaccine will give a longer than a year protection, or we will never get out of this loop.

Irish Stones

Irish Stones wrote: »

Even where the distribution is faster, it'll take a decade to cover the whole population.
In Italy they provided 120k vaccines in a week, though they received nearly 500k doses. This means that, if they keep this pace, which is highly probable, it will take nearly 15 years to just cover 75% of the population. Wow!

At 120k per week it will take just over 7 years to vaccinate 75% of the population of Italy. Now what makes you think that as supply increases the number of vaccinations will not increase? Bare in mind this was also the first week

tobefrank321

I presume the Oxford AZ vaccine is being administered with half doses first?

AutoTuning

All I know is if the data for AstraZeneca isn’t stacking up reliably, it could be a fiasco to rollout a vaccine with poor or patchy efficacy. It’s not impossible to imagine a scenario where HM Gov is explaining itself in a few months time if people who’ve been vaccinated with it start getting COVID having being going around with assumptions of total immunity.

At least with what is approved in the EU we can are damn sure it definitely works.

You can be entirely certain that a lot of people will be like “yay! I’m vaccinated! Vax n’ go baby!! Ibiza here I come.” so the vaccines need to work very reliably.

It’s the same reason that they were very concerned about tests that might give false negatives as people getting a negative will typically throw caution to the wind and make decisions assuming that they’re definitely negative.

stephenjmcd

Irish Stones wrote: »

.

Anyway, because Italy will be making the vaccine mandatory, as announced two days ago.

Might need to have a word with your PM so.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-italy-vaccine-idUSKBN29415B

"We are not considering (making it mandatory), we rule it out," Conte told reporters at his year-end news conference

stephenjmcd

tobefrank321 wrote: »

I presume the Oxford AZ vaccine is being administered with half doses first?

In the UK ? Nope full dose regime

AutoTuning

AutoTuning wrote: »

All I know is if the data for AstraZeneca isn’t stacking up reliably, it could be a fiasco to rollout a vaccine with poor or patchy efficacy. It’s not impossible to imagine a scenario where HM Gov is explaining itself in a few months time if people who’ve been vaccinated with it start getting COVID having being going around with assumptions of total immunity.

At least with what is approved in the EU we can are damn sure it definitely works.

You can be entirely certain that a lot of people will be like “yay! I’m vaccinated! Vax n’ go baby!! Ibiza here I come.” so the vaccines need to work very reliably.

It’s the same reason that they were very concerned about tests that might give false negatives as people getting a negative will typically throw caution to the wind and make decisions assuming that they’re definitely negative.

Even if the efficacy in Preventing illness with the AZ vaccine is at the lower end, the effectiveness in preventing serious illness has being demonstrated. The "its just a flu bro" refrain would be overplaying the effect of the virus on those who have gotten the AZ vaccine

tobefrank321

stephenjmcd wrote: »

In the UK ? Nope full dose regime

Understandable I guess as that's the one that went through full trials. I think they can get the efficacy up to about 80% depending on when the second dose is given.

The Oxford AZ issues shows how difficult it is to get dosage right and periods between dozes. Theoretically you end up with numerous combinations of dosage and time between doses.

Makes the time to market of the covid vaccines all the more impressive, and I've every sympathy for the Oxford AZ scientists trying to come up with the "winning formula".

stephenjmcd

tobefrank321 wrote: »

Understandable I guess as that's the one that went through full trials. I think they can get the efficacy up to about 80% depending on when the second dose is given.

The Oxford AZ issues shows how difficult it is to get dosage right and periods between dozes. Theoretically you end up with numerous combinations of dosage and time between doses.

Makes the time to market of the covid vaccines all the more impressive, and I've every sympathy for the Oxford AZ scientists trying to come up with the "winning formula".

Yeah the current USA trials of half dose full dose will probably be the basis if theres enough data to support that regime. Until then the majority of data is on full dose regime which has proven safe and effective

St.Spodo

Donnelly says we'll be vaccinating 35,000 with the Pfizer dose from next week. I read somewhere that we'll have 20,000 doses of the Moderna vaccine the first week it arrives here, so hopefully we'll be doing 55,000 a week by mid-late January. As others have said, approval for Astrazeneca and Jansen (late Jan and mid Feb?) will be key to really accelerate the rollout.

Irish Stones

[Deleted User] wrote: »

At 120k per week it will take just over 7 years to vaccinate 75% of the population of Italy. Now what makes you think that as supply increases the number of vaccinations will not increase? Bare in mind this was also the first week

It's a two-doses vaccine, so it'll take twice 7 years.
The vaccine supplies have been fixed at 470k per week, but we lack doctors and the news of today is that in several hospitals they ran out of syringes.
Then we have to add that we are historically prone to mess things up.
We knew vaccines were coming, we didn't prepare the vaccination centres, for instance.

Water John

We are also, like Germany looking into the one dose Oxford/AZ strategy.

Melanchthon

AutoTuning wrote: »

At least with what is approved in the EU we can are damn sure it definitely works.

Except it's looking increasingly like the EU regulator is just slow and bureaucratic.

Before the cry of NO THEY JUST FOLLOW THE SCIENCE, they have already pushed forward a number of dates due to political pressure. So you've a choice of (A) they are not as fast as they could be and rely on arbitrary dates to set meetings for approval and so on (B) they cave to political pressure.
Since the change of dates due to pressure (mainly German) the evidence based defence does not work

DaSilva

Irish Stones wrote: »

It's a two-doses vaccine, so it'll take twice 7 years.
The vaccine supplies have been fixed at 470k per week, but we lack doctors and the news of today is that in several hospitals they ran out of syringes.
Then we have to add that we are historically prone to mess things up.
We knew vaccines were coming, we didn't prepare the vaccination centres, for instance.

Any link for this syringe story? I can't find anything on google