Oxford vaccine results - not superduper, not terrible either:
Seems like it might be a good idea to target the moderna/pfizer vaccines at at risk groups and front line workers and then use the Oxford one for the rest of us.
The study used data from teacher strikes to arrive at conclusions about the effects on educational attainment, so the loss of education was non-voluntary. But it doesn’t matter because this wasn’t a reason you’re ignoring the study, it’s a rationalization. Me pointing this out changes nothing because there are no circumstances under which you will accept the conclusion.
Sorry to hear about your wife’s sister’s friend, that sucks.
Any of our scientific or medical minds have any insight on this? Makes me think there’s an issue with the trial, it’s hard to believe it would actually work this way. But I’m just a layman obviously.
Multiple doses separated by at least a month is how several common vaccines are administered.
Right but why would full dose full dose be way less effective than half, full?
I also don’t know why it would work this way. I thought it might be that the 1/2 dose group was too small to make any confident statistical assertions but the Astrazeneca press release had this to say:
One dosing regimen (n=2,741) showed vaccine efficacy of 90% when AZD1222 was given as a half dose, followed by a full dose at least one month apart, and another dosing regimen (n=8,895) showed 62% efficacy when given as two full doses at least one month apart. The combined analysis from both dosing regimens (n=11,636) resulted in an average efficacy of 70%. All results were statistically significant (p<=0.0001). More data will continue to accumulate and additional analysis will be conducted, refining the efficacy reading and establishing the duration of protection.
No report I’ve seen offers any possible reason why there’s such a stark mismatch in outcome.
It might be just a sample size thing but with a live virus vaccine of this type it sort of makes sense that this could happen. The AstraZeneca vaccine is an adenovirus vector, it uses an actual live, functioning virus as a vector and straps the COVID antigen to it to provoke an immune response to that. What I could see happening is that the first full dose makes the body so effective at killing this attenuated virus that it renders it ineffective as an antigen delivery mechanism. The vaccine uses a chimpanzee adenovirus for exactly this reason, i.e. that the problem with using a human virus as a vector is that people might have already encountered it and have antibodies which polish it off before it can do its job. Possibly a half-size dose allows the body to recognise the antigen but not become super resistant to the vector, and then the full size dose provokes a strong response.
All just speculative but in the realms of possibility I think.
Idk. The fact that they tested for that tells me they expected it might be a thing so it’s maybe not the first time we’ve seen this effect. To speculate why means getting way into the weeds on this stuff, I don’t have the time to learn enough to have an opinion. Calling it a thing experts in the field know happens sometimes is fine imo. We don’t need to dunning kruger every little thing.
The other possibility though is that they tested it that way to check if it would be just as effective because that reduces the amount of the stuff they need to produce. The fact that they devoted three-quarters of the trial participants to the 2 x full regimen suggests that might be the deal.
From an In The Pipeline post about the CanSino vaccine candidate, just to demo what I’m talking about with developing vector resistance. CanSino were trying to use a human adenovirus as a vector and had concerns with pre-existing immunity:
Overall, then, this is a useful but limited publication. It tells us more about the CanSino vaccine’s profile, but it also raises some worries about just what everyone was already worried about: the pre-existing Ad5 immune response. This should come as no surprise to anyone, and the paper states clearly that this is their biggest concern going forward. In the Chinese population, about 50% of the population is in that category – in India it’s 80%, and in the US around 30%. The question is what differences one might see in the Phase II efficacy readouts. Remember, giving a booster shot with one of these viral-vector agents is quite problematic – after the first dose, the number of your patients who have neutralizing antibodies to the vector is now 100%.
You can see how giving a half-dose as the first shot might end up being more effective, maybe.
Theoretically, isn’t air travel federally regulated? Couldn’t the Federal government ground commercial planes for, say, two weeks in the middle of a surge?
The Federal government is on the virus’s side tho. The CDC can do almost whatever they want to stop the virus, they just won’t.
Right, that’s kind of my point. The tools are in place but the government just isn’t using them. As much disdain as I have for excessive technocratic approaches to everything, a “believe in science and government” team in the Biden administration should establish a set of pandemic protocols that includes prescribed steps to take. Like, closing airports for Thanksgiving weekend during a pandemic isn’t something that should be debated on Thanksgiving weekend during a pandemic. It should just be in the playbook.
I can’t even imagine the reaction of the FREEDUMBS crowd if they weren’t allowed to travel all over the country infecting people.
A. Silence is worth sanity at times
B. No one is saying that there isn’t a cost to having face to face learning closed for a significant amount of time. Ergo false straw-man argument.
C. One side is trying to analyze data and infer impact on community spread. The other side is making wild ass assumptions extrapolating dropouts to remote learning. Conclusions in search of arguments.
D. See previous post about false choices
E. Wail (as in wah-wah) away all you want. I can’t waste my time listening and responding to arguments presented in bad faith.
Agree. We don’t get normal in 2020/2021.
Hmm. A drive-through COVID testing site opened recently less than a mile from my house. I drove past it this morning and there is a line of cars stretching a couple blocks. I’m hoping it’s just lots of people deciding they should get testing before stupidly traveling for Thanksgiving, rather than lots of people thinking they might have COVID.
Where I live you can only get tested if symptomatic.
I checked a variety of routes on Delta for this weekend (ATL to DTW, TPA, LGA) and the results are encouraging. Fares are still low (you can fly intra-east coast for like $350 in most cases, still), and flights on Wednesday (busiest travel day) have available inventory half filled, even after the middle seats are blocked out. Normally these flights would be $500+ and 80-90% full by this point.
People must actually be staying home at much greater rates than normal.
I would imagine lots of bellyaching online and lots of long road trips. Seems like a win vs. the Great Thanksgiving Super Spreader Event of 2020.