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Early data regarding late second inoculation of the AZ vaccine seems extremely encouraging, too. Efficiency seems vastly increased over the initially recommend regime.
It's utterly bizzare.
Great news for AZ though, we're seeing positive results in UK in general due to the vaccine rollout.
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Oxford/AZ fucked up the study for the over 65s. So many countries didn't autorise it for that age group. Until the data is in an analysed they will give other vaccines to that cohort.
When you consider that the primary purpose of lockdowns is to ease the burden on hospitals from admissions due to the virus, this is pretty dang huge. It's the sort of news that'll end the lockdowns and get people back to work much sooner, which will be a relief for just about everyone.
Yep here in Switzerland they didn't approve it at all, and are going to just sell their 5 million doses apaprently. Meanwhile they have supply issues with Moderna and Pfizer... it's bizarre. I have to go back to the UK to live in July and I am more likely to get a vaccine there now than here in Switzerland.
Further evidence how absurd it is that we are wasting doses on 2nd doses. The population is much safer, much quicker with 1 dose.
It's likely better longer, it's been increasing in efficiency with each passing week.
Is the reason for a second dose due to the first dose providing immunity for a short time only? Because otherwise all these recent stats regarding how effective first dose is ahould be a good sign for countries to switch to single dose strategy to get as many people protected as possible. Maybe I'm misunderstanding the stats and study tho.
That would be a fine defence if he had said wait for more data and left it at that but he went far further than that and questioned the effectiveness. When people are already nervous about vaccines that is irresponsible, and could lead to people under 65 to want a different vaccine baselessly.
Note the difference between Macron's quasi-effective comment and reality here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/55919245
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Yep and the disinformation campaign spread far and wide extremely quickly. Polls in a number of countries have shown many, many people will flat out refuse the AZ vaccine if offered and wait for another one, and as others have pointed out countries are literally selling off millions of their stock whilst their citizens go along unvaccinated. It's completely abysmal how the EU block in particular behaved. I'm still shocked by it all. Was it fueled by anti-UK sentiment?
Keep telling yourself that... a number of EU members have hung their citizens out to dry with how they've behaved.
I gotta love how the UK media keeps putting the fault on AZ not being fully approved on EU countries trying to be revengeful instead of AZ fucking up their tests several times.There is a reason AZ isnt yet approved by the USA either (and J&J might be approved before hand).
I think they are referring to the question of when the protective effects of the vaccine start to wane. A two-dose regimen may be more likely to provide longer lasting immunity.
Hypothetically, if a single dose provided protection for 1 year and two doses provided protection for 10 years, you might be better off going with the two-dose regimen now. The longer you delay the 2nd dose, the more people will not bother getting it.
There is a difference between not being approved, and being smeared.
There is a difference between reporting how much of a shitshow the AZ testing was (and the numbers they produced for EU approval) and smearing.
Is it smearing to report the AZ trials had issues that not only the EU but also other countries cite? Is it smearing to point out that the CEO of AZ had been caught lying in a large european newspaper?
The EU really is living rent free in some of your heads.
There has been exactly one case of bad reporting on this which was the Handelsblatt report about the efficiency and they rightly got scolded.
I am not supporting AZ's abysmal trial, and I am condeming how certain EU block members reacted to the situation, and I'm suggesting that anti-UK sentiment fueled it, in part. Brexit is living rent free in some of your heads.
That's true, Eitherway I'm happy with the results we're seeing in all of this
What anti UK sentiment exactly? The UK is cited as a model of vaccination along with Israel.
Maybe you should actually read european press instead of posting hot takes you read on twitter.
The only party getting scolded is AZ which some of you for some reason feel attacked for
Yeah, the main reason most countries didnt space out doses like UK is doing is the fear that the second dose is required to have medium/long term immunity. So you might be already not protected by the time of the second dose. Creating both a feeling of "invulnerability" on an at danger population, and wasting a vaccine.
Following the data is not absurd in the slightest. UK rolled the dice with this, it could have easily gone the other way, just like it did at the start of the pandemic. The fact they gambled and it turned out alright does not inspire confidence in your Tory government at all.
This study is a good news, but without further data, we can't state which way it'll go: a peak before a high drop could be on the horizon, or the way the protection level evolve could be the draw of a cat or straight to 100 % immunity.
According to the BBC article (the one cited by uncleniccius), the only country who decided to stop using the AZ vaccine is not even an EU member... France and Germany are using it, the French Health Minister even took it live on TV a week or so ago :
Bollox to that. AZ fucked up. Scientists are usually pretty conservative when it comes to public health shit like this.
You're deluded if you think this was some anti AZ/UK conspiracy. UK took a gamble and it looks like it may work out. It doesn't make them more competent.
Yeah people still claiming this is some anti UK conspiracy while the german government has been basically advertising the vaccine every day for weeks now are just clueless.This study is a good news, but without further data, we can't state which way it'll go: a peak before a high drop could be on the horizon, or the way the protection level evolve could be the draw of a cat or straight to 100 % immunity.
According to the BBC article (the one cited by uncleniccius), the only country who decided to stop using the AZ vaccine is not even an EU member... France and Germany are using it, the French Health Minister even took it live on TV a week or so ago :
Merkels spokesman even tweeting about it.
You can either have 1 million people at 85% effective or you can have 1 million people at 45% effective 50% have 2 doses, 50% have 0).
... American. Epidemiologists had been advocating for a 1 dose regime to reach the maximum amount of people and better outcomes for the entire population.
Doctors focused on individual outcomes were the driver for prioritizing a 2 dose regime.
The pharma companies from their own studies recommended the two does given x weeks apart because that's what their initial data said. Doing something off grid is not something I'd want my government (Ireland) to do on the off chance it works. I'd take a few more weeks of lockdown over a gamble any day.
If the recommendation changes to one dose, happy days, but doing shit on a wing and a prayer is what got many many people killed in multiple jurisdictions.
I'll feel a lot more comfortable after I get the first dose then. Still want both, and still want them soon as I'm teaching in-person right now.
Macron is increasingly looking like EU's Trump, from laws to jail anyone filming police brutality, holding minorities (Muslims) collectively accountable for other people's crimes, to holding himself above scientists when it comes to assessing efficacy of vaccines. He's a piece of shit .
Was listening to this on the radio coming into work. Fantastic news, especially as my dad got his 1st dose of AZ last week.
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This is my view on it too. "We need to wait for more data" - fine. "The vaccine appears to be quasi-ineffective in over 65s" seemingly with no evidence of such - not fine. Lack of data isn't evidence that it doesn't work. In fact, we now appear to have real world evidence that it does indeed work well in the older population.
If AZ ran a substandard trial and published the results that's on them. The UK took an enormous gamble on approving the vaccine. Yes it appears to have worked but it was incredibly risky.
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I never said it wasn't - but as far as I'm aware, none of the results - substandard or otherwise - indicated a lack of effectiveness in over 65s. It appears to have been a lack of data in that age group that made countries cautious, and there's nothing wrong with that. But a lack of data doesn't mean it's "quasi-ineffective", and saying so without evidence is wrong because it can put people off getting the vaccine. The data we now have disproves that it was "ineffective", so the correct response should have been "we'll wait for more data".
Let's ignore the scientists running phase 3 trials? People on Era know best.
It seriously did considering they had 1 case in the placebo group and 1 case in the vaccine group. Due to their terrible data, it showed a 6% effectiveness with a ridiculous confidence interval.
This is kind of a straw man when it has been asserted repeatedly that what Macron said did not match with the above and that is what is being discussed. 'Quasi-effective' and 'not enough data to make confident judgements due to a flawed trial ' are not the same.
We can agree there were issues with the trials, I don't think anyone has argued otherwise, but what you're saying is not relevant to what was a misleading and damaging claim by Macron that baselessly damages public trust in a vaccination when public trust is 1) espeically important and 2) more fragile than ever, especially (in the UK) in BAME communities.
The UK's decision was high risk but that is separate and unrelated issue to that discussed in the post you replied to.
I disagree, AZ presented data that could only be interpreted as "we are not confident this works on 65+ people". If your vaccine is not ready do not ask for approval.
edit: there were also concerns about decentralized manufacturing/quality controls for the doses administered in the trial.
There were also other suspicious elements, like AstraZeneca holding back safety data from the FDA during 1,5 months after that death in the US trial, while J&J in a similar situation took a week to respond. AstraZeneca's incompetence has meant a slower approval than it should have as they have caused delays in both the phase 3 trial and the approval submission, it has meant delayed production despite being paid to pre-produce no matter what, ... They have cost people lives. Partnering with AstraZeneca was a bad move for Oxford.
So you think that Macron's statement was fine? Did other leaders who didn't go as far as him not say enough in that case?
Literally all he had to do was say what others did (which were and continue to be with hindsight perfectly reasonable responses).
I'm no fan of Macron but if AZ acted in a proper and professional manner then Macron would have nothing to complain about. No one owes AZ anything, there are other effective vaccines available and the EU has been rightly aggressively pursuing them.
Considering what Handelsblatt posted, it seems German politicians said the same behind the scenes.
Yes, nobody owes AZ anything. They clearly have had issues, but that doesn't make the Macron statement remotely acceptable in the delicate climate we're in. It diminishes trust in the entire process. Admittedly so does the AZ trial having issues so both should be called out.
If data had actually showed it to be Quasi-effective then fine, but lacking data is what made his statement misleading and damaging.
I haven't seen the post in question so will check it, but there is a huge difference between expressing those concerns behind the scenes and a world leader making a public statement.
Edit: I actually had read the story. Still seems very different.
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Surely though the absurd confidence interval means the data was basically irrelevant, not that it proved it didn't work? It seems to me that the correct response there would be "This data is useless. We need to wait for more - and more reliable - data before making a decision", not "It seems to be ineffective".
Nobody owes AZ anything, no. But all governments owe their people, and to a lesser extent the world if they're speaking in the media, a good response to this pandemic. Damaging public confidence in a vaccine doesn't seem like a good response to me.
Having said that, Boris Johnson's response here has been a complete shambles from start to finish, so Macron is hardly the only leader worthy of criticism. About all I will give our government credit for is securing enough supply of vaccines - the NHS have done a fantastic job of the actual vaccination program, and it just goes to show that public bodies are infinitely preferable in these sorts of situations to the overpaid, under-delivering private sector. We only have to look at the failure of our test and trace program to see that.
You can't exactly sit on the vaccines, so you have to decide based on the data you get. The bad data shows it doesn't work, so let's not use it on the elderly. The WHO saying: the data is bad and shows it is not effective, but lets use it on the elderly anyway is not professional and doesn't help with anti-vaccine sentiment.
I wish I could take a look on the end of the year to see how bad the pandmic will still be. Really hoping things will be much better.
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I definitely agree you have to decide based on the data. If they weren't confident in the data then not giving the vaccine to the older population until they have data showing it works is the right thing to do. I just don't think saying it was "ineffective" was right, as I don't think useless data proves that. It doesn't prove it works either. It's meaningless data because the confidence intervals weren't anywhere near where you could draw a reliable conclusion.