WHO Lists AstraZeneca/Oxford COVID-19 Vaccine for Emergency Use (yahoo.com) 65
The World Health Organization (WHO) on Monday listed AstraZeneca and Oxford University's COVID-19 vaccine for emergency use, widening access to the relatively inexpensive shot in the developing world. From a report: A WHO statement said it had approved the vaccine as produced by AstraZeneca-SKBio (Republic of Korea) and the Serum Institute of India. "We now have all the pieces in place for the rapid distribution of vaccines. But we still need to scale up production," said Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General. The listing by the UN health agency comes days after a WHO panel provided interim recommendations on the vaccine, saying two doses with an interval of around 8 to 12 weeks must be given to all adults, and can be used in countries with the South African variant of the coronavirus as well. The AstraZeneca/Oxford shot has been hailed because it is cheaper and easier to distribute than some rivals, including Pfizer/BioNTech's, which was listed for emergency use by the WHO late in December.
Cheaper and easier to distribute (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Cheaper and easier to distribute (Score:5, Interesting)
It's less effective, but who cares? The FDA stated it would have approved any vaccine over 50%. A 50% reduction in infections would save many many lives.
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Re:Cheaper and easier to distribute (Score:4, Insightful)
This may sound cruel (no more than your comment), but I'll remember you said that when it is YOUR loved one that ends up being a death statistic between 50% and 95%.
THAT is the difference, dumbass.
The death rate for COVID19 is already less than 1%. Anything that cuts the infection rate in half is good. Also understand that cutting the infection rate by 50% will also likely lower the virus' R factor below 1, which means that the infections trend towards 0 eventually.
People have died from COVID. More people WILL die from COVID. That's unavoidable. An appeal to emotion argument isn't going to help anything. The thing is that a vaccine that lowers the infection rate is a good thing. While this one may be cheaper and less effective, it's better than no vaccine at all if that's the alternative.
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Even if it doesn't completely prevent infection, does it reduce the severity of infection in those remaining 50%?
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I guess you can use it if you don't have anything better, but you can't treat it as if all vacc
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Well that depends on your definition of effectiveness. A vaccine that is 60% effective but that can be given to 100% of the people is better overall than a vaccine that is 100% effective but can only be given to 50% of the people.
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It depends on whether it keeps you from getting a more effective vaccine later. A 50% effective vaccine now that prevents a 100% effective vaccine from being given in a few months may not be worth it.
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preliminary (unpublished) data suggest delaying the second dose improve the efficiency:
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/p... [ssrn.com]
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About 20 years ago, I was flipping channels, and I ran across some stupid reality TV Show, I think families swapped wifes/mothers and they put some lady from a wealthy family in with a lower-middle class family.
She was complaining because they were driving a car that was too small, not comfortable at all, and old and ran down, that needed some repairs. She was like just get a Mercedes SUV, that will fix all your problems. The Father of the family pointed out, that it was too expensive, and she responded i
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Not so much a coin toss as an occasion to weigh local circumstances. There are some places where the AstraZeneca vaccine is going to be a clear winner and other places where the mRNA vaccines would be clearly better.
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It's less effective but not ineffective. People who have had the full dose are much less likely to get seriously ill or die from COVID and are less able to spread the disease, even if they catch it.
WHO is first. WHAT's second? (Score:2)
Third? I dunknow.
Re:Covid is about done (Score:5, Informative)
There has never been a single recorded case of herd immunity via mass infection. That has never happened ever in the history of the world. "Herd immunity" like you are describing is not a real thing that has ever happened and isn't happening with Covid either.
Mass vaccinations are the only way to beat viral diseases like this.
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nonsense, we get herd immunity all the time from minor things. Too bad they mutate and come back changed every year. Happens every year in the world
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The mutations are literally exactly the reason why herd immunity by infection isn't a thing in the real world.
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Absolutely false, the phrase "herd immunity" was invented after being observed by it occurring by natural means only.
You are making something up that contradicts known science.
Herd immunity can occur, antigenic drift to a new form of the virus that can cause doesn't invalidate natural herd immunity.
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But OP and you have misunderstanding, a mutant virus that sufficiently diverges to cause infection has nothing to do with the herd immunity against original virus. So no, OP and you are coming up with your own definition of herd immunity not used by scientists, that exists between your ears.
Natural herd immunity in humans is documented occurring thing, look it up. Mutant viruses that can infect those humans is another matter and not considered a loss or lack of herd immunity. Sorry, but science has anot
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Why did you feel like you needed to repeat me?
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Before we had measles vaccines (45 years ago), there was natural herd immunity. Of course, new people get born that dilute the herd immunity.
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Sure there is. The common cold. It used to kill people (e.g. Native Americans). It no longer does because we've all been exposed to a variant of it which decreases the symptoms of future infections.
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The common cold will give us the occasional sniffle, but if someone in an uncontacted tribe catches it, they will likely die. So I guess that is an example.
I wouldn't call it "done" (Score:4, Insightful)
The real problem is that those vaccination numbers are going to drop off a cliff once we get 60-70% vaccinated and start going after the anti-vaxxer crowd. Nobody's talking them.
Moreover the vaccine doesn't make you immune, it makes you less likely to get it (and get sick) for each exposure. But without herd immunity (which needs 85-90% vaccination) odds are good you're going to be exposed periodically, and it becomes a game of Russian roulette.
This means it's probably going to linger into 2022 unless we can find some way to get those anti-vaxxers on board. But for them personally the risk is low and there's little social pressure (since we've become obsessed with respecting opinions, even verifiably wrong ones) let alone legal pressure.
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Talk radio in America (Score:3)
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stop worrying, for most people the disease is nothing anyway. two-thirds of the populace vaccinated and most the rest having had the disease is good enough.
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Pressure--you can have your opinions, but pay (Score:2)
I think folks who refuse vaccinations ought to be made to pay a financial penalty to cover:
1) The risk they impose upon their insurance companies
2) The indirect risk they impose on insurance companies in general by potentially spreading COVID or measles or whatever.
3) Compensation to victims of the diseases they refuse to help control.
Also, I think it'd be fair to exact a social price in refusers not being allowed to participate in certain parts of society--like sports events, public schools....
Let folks
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The real problem is that those vaccination numbers are going to drop off a cliff once we get 60-70% vaccinated and start going after the anti-vaxxer crowd. Nobody's talking them.
I think that's insanely pessimistic. The actual anti-vaxxer crowd is maybe 5% as demonstrated by the measles vaccine situation (which has a ridiculously high R rate so need huge compliance). There is a wider group that is simply less trusting in general of those in authority about any issue, and the solution to that is to get trusted figures in their communities to communicate the benefits of vaccination.
I actually think the most dangerous thing is when you get folks who believe that the way to get those pe
Third world countries are breeders (Score:2)
And that is a big problem.
For lots of bad reasons large parts of Africa, South America and central Asia are unlikely to get much vaccination. But they will get some. Which is a very bad mix.
It sets up the perfect environment for Covid-19 to become resistant to the vaccines. And then expect a second wave.
At the moment, with nobody vaccinated, there is no selective pressure for a virus to be resistant. But that is about to change, big time.
This is what happens to anti-biotics, why the bugs become resistan
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The solution to misinformation is more information, not censorship.
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I agree that the trends are looking good, but it's beyond foolish, when things ARE looking good, to rush prematurely to open and create another unnecessary spike in preventable cases. Let's let the vaccination program take its natural course, and let the actual numbers of new cases dictate when re-opening makes sense. Re-opening too soon may actually prolong the pandemic.
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You can find relevant covid statistics here. [ourworldindata.org]
The US has currently vaccinated over 50 million people(*), and there are roughly 50 million people over the age of 65 in the US.
If your state has prioritized the at-risk population for vaccinations, then you're done. You can reopen your economy, let businesses open and get people back to work.
Whoa there. More than 65+ are at risk when the health care system gets overwhelmed, and even recovered people can have long term complications.
It's *probably* a good idea to keep wearing masks for the next month (maybe two months) until herd immunity kicks in.
It's *probably* a good idea to keep wearing masks when you reopen just like it's *probably* a good idea to wear a seat-belt while drunk driving.
Deaths and active cases [worldometers.info] are dropping off quickly, so herd immunity might come faster than 2 months.
Because of the massive wave of new lock-downs necessitated by the folks who are keep acting like they're not living in a pandemic.
And herd immunity isn't some magic threshold, you can still get sick or even have a big super-s
It *is* an emergency (Score:1)
we are in a global pandemic
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Pandemics have hot and cool zones. It isn't evenly distributed across all our global communities. Being that we do not have a unified government, and we don't pay Earth Taxes. Every country has unequal amount of tools help help fight it. So if a hot spot appears in a country with less resources, there is a real emergency, for them. Vs a larger country that may have resources to deal with such a hot spot.
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So we have hot spots and very hot spots and very very hot spots.
AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccine (Score:3, Insightful)
This is the one that made news in 2020 because they messed up the trials. That's all been memory holed now. Google for it and nothing comes up. The stories still exist though.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/1... [nytimes.com]
https://www.wired.com/story/th... [wired.com]
https://www.news18.com/news/in... [news18.com]
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Another question I have been unable to find any useful answer too is how effective a booster shot will be. My original understanding of the adenovirus vector was that your body developed a level of immunity to the vector, which meant that subsequent attempts to use that vector would be ineffective (or at least, less effective). I know in previous trials with other vectors they have had problems with prior immunity within a community, but the counter to this is that a two shot regime of the vaccine seems to
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A booster shot might work okay. The second dose of the AZ vaccine, which is a booster after all, is the same viral vector. The immune system reacts to it, but usually not before it manages to infect some cells and get them to pump out spike protein.
A well recognized problem with viral vector vaccines is that vaccines that use the same vector aren't likely to be effective, so you'd have to keep track of exactly which formulation of what you'd already gotten.
Viral vector vaccines are probably going to get the
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Huh? It googled just fine - I just googled for "astrazeneca trial 95 percent bad data" and it pops up all sorts of information about the bad trials that were run. I believe your NYT story was the first link as well.
That's also why the approval is delayed so much - you have to remember that the trials and news were only announced around the october/november timeframe and was in competition with Moderna and Pfizer-BioNtech. But the bad data came about which forced them to have to restart all the trials and w
Doornob being emergency when dentist isn't avail (Score:2)
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Emergency use? (Score:1)
Uh.
If you have a COVID emergency, it's already too late...
Meanwhile in Putin's Russia... (Score:2)
For a bit of perspective, let me report from a different world :). The vaccine Sputnik V is has been generally available since early December, and its clinical trials have recently been completed (showing it's basically on par with the other best vaccines). There are vaccination stations in many of the local hospitals, no queues, and they have a surplus of the vaccine sitting in the fridges and nurses waiting. There is no appointment needed, just come and get it. The problem: the population does not want to
Emergency Use? (Score:2)
If you're using a vaccine in an emergent situation, likely you're already screwed.
It's not like *POKE* YOU ARE NOW IMMUNE!
It takes time, days, sometimes weeks, for your body to begin producing the things it needs to fight off infection.
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If you're using a vaccine in an emergent situation, likely you're already screwed.
The emergency is the pandemic; approvals have been fast tracked but are subject to later review.
Aren't China giving away vaccines? (Score:2)
I see lots of stories about them being shipped all over the place.... for free?