Coronavirus and You - Page 294

Drugmaker AstraZeneca announced on Monday that its experimental coronavirus vaccine has shown an average efficacy of 70% in large-scale trials -- the latest of several vaccine trials worldwide to post their results this month.
The vaccine, developed with the University of Oxford, showed 90% efficacy in one dosing regimen -- when the vaccine was given as a half dose, followed by a full dose at least a month later -- and 62% efficacy in a second regimen -- when two full doses were given at least a month apart.
That averages to a 70% efficacy, AstraZeneca said.
It is not yet clear why the two dosages produced such different results.

More study participants were given the full dosage regimen, at 62% efficacy, while a smaller number of participants were administered the smaller half dose plus full dose combination at 90% efficacy, according to AstraZeneca's announcement.
[...]
Crucially, the AstraZeneca vaccine can be distributed and administered within existing healthcare systems, as it can be stored, transported and handled in normal refrigerated conditions (from 2-8 degrees Celsius, or 36-46 degrees Fahrenheit) for at least six months, the company said.
It will also be cheaper than rival coronavirus vaccines from makers Pfizer and Moderna. AstraZeneca has pledged to "ensure broad and equitable access to the vaccine at no profit for the duration of the pandemic."
The company said it was making "rapid progress" in manufacturing, with a capacity of up to 3 billion doses of the vaccine in 2021 on a rolling basis, pending regulatory approval.

On November 24 2020 00:45 Nevuk wrote:
Astro Zeneca results in. Not as good as the other ones. 62% efficacy with two full doses, but 90% with one half dose and one full dose. It is supposedly cheaper than the others though.



https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/23/europe/astrazeneca-oxford-coronavirus-vaccine-intl/index.html

On November 24 2020 00:48 Gorsameth wrote:
half a dose + full dose = 90%, 2 full doses = 62%.

Oo how does that work.
Considering it mentions the 90% test set was much smaller this feels like it was an outlier or otherwise faulty in some way?

When people were given the smaller dose, the number of asymptomatic infections dropped, indicating a difference in transmission, Professor Andrew Pollard, the trial's lead investigator at Oxford, said in a call with journalists on Monday.
"What we've always tried to do with a vaccine is fool the immune system into thinking that there's a dangerous infection there that it needs to respond to -- but doing it in a very safe way," Pollard explained. "So we get the immune response and we get the immune memory ... waiting and ready if the pathogen itself is then encountered."
It may be that the best way of "kicking the immune system into action" is to give the body a small amount of the vaccine to begin with -- and then follow up with a larger amount, but as the data on that method is preliminary, there is still more work to do, Pollard said.
[...]
AstraZeneca is the third drugmaker to unveil promising results in the fight against coronavirus this month, with Moderna announcing earlier in November that its vaccine was 94.5% effective against coronavirus, and Pfizer/BioNTech revealing that its vaccine was 95% effective.
Pollard addressed the efficacy differences between those other trials on Monday, explaining that AstraZeneca had used slightly different protocols to measure the disease that included all aspects of the disease -- including mild cases -- which are harder to predict.

On November 23 2020 18:54 Gorsameth wrote:
And it runs into the very same problem. It works if people use it and take it seriously, it doesn't work if everyone has it but doesn't listen to it.

Interim data suggests 70% protection, but the researchers say the figure may be as high as 90% by tweaking the dose.
...
Overall, there were 30 cases of Covid in people who had two doses of the vaccine and 101 cases in people who received a dummy injection. The researchers said it worked out at 70% protection, which is better than the seasonal flu jab.

Nobody getting the actual vaccine developed severe-Covid or needed hospital treatment.

Prof Andrew Pollard, the trial's lead investigator, said he was "really pleased" with the results as "it means we have a vaccine for the world".

However, protection was 90% in an analysis of around 3,000 people on the trial who were given a half-sized first dose and a full-sized second dose.

On November 24 2020 05:16 Lmui wrote:
Sweet.
3rd vaccine is effective:
Possibly up to 90% effective vaccine. Also much easier to manufacture and distribute than the pfizer/moderna vaccines.

UK will have enough vaccinate their population by March, and it's significantly cheaper too. The light at the end of the tunnel is brighter every day




https://www.bbc.com/news/health-55040635

“There is no doubt that there is a lot of fatigue that is out there and that a lot of people might be flouting the rules and having social gatherings but the true story of Brampton that we have always been speaking to is that these are individuals who work in jobs where they might not be able to work from home and if precautions are not being taken there is a great opportunity for COVID to spread, especially in crowded, large, industrial workplaces,” he said. “Then when people bring the virus home it is not coming to a home of one or two people living in a condo; t is coming to a home with a large family, maybe multiple families and that is essentially leading to significant household spread.”

On November 24 2020 03:38 JimmiC wrote:

No sources required, just completely unrelated to this thread.

On November 23 2020 10:02 TheYango wrote:
America could never achieve a hard lockdown the same way Australia or Asian countries could because of the way Americans behave. The not-so-nice way of putting it is that Americans are too stupid or too selfish to make lockdowns work. You can spend time moralizing about how wrong these people are for being that way, but the fact of the matter is it's still true nonetheless. If you know that 80% of the population are too stupid or too selfish to adhere to your restrictions, then you can't make policy that only works assuming that 80% follows it. You know they aren't going to. So what happens is that when you take half-measures that only 20% of people follow, you aren't achieving anything other than making that 20%'s quality of life worse.

On November 24 2020 08:39 Starlightsun wrote:
I don't think it's reducible to mere percentage of deaths. 9/11 and other terrorist acts have caused a miniscule amount of American deaths yet how much money and real freedom have we paid in order to "keep us safe" from them? To say nothing of the mayhem wrought in other countries, torturing prisoners and so on. People are willing to "surrender their freedoms" to a high degree so long as it's framed the right way. But I guess "help protect your neighbors and loved ones from pandemic" just doesn't strike the right chord in the current time.

The more I think about it, the stranger it is that people are so belligerent about masks and social distancing, yet have put up with the TSA literally searching all your stuff, confiscating bottles of liquid, making you take your shoes off etc.