WizeGuy Posted December 9, 2020 Share Posted December 9, 2020 (edited) It's going to be interesting to see how they distribute the vaccine early on with the news Pfizer is 85%+ effective with one dose vs 95% effective with two doses. I wonder if they'd give one dose to those in tier one under the age of 65 with no pre existing conditions & two doses to the rest. Also, we just rcvd official word that vaccination should start at our hospital next week. They're not mandatory. Edited December 9, 2020 by WizeGuy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WizeGuy Posted December 9, 2020 Share Posted December 9, 2020 For anyone anxious about taking a vaccine that was developed quickly... This is very informative on how scientists were able to create a vaccine so quickly:https://www.reddit.com/r/Coronaviru...out_the_mechanism_and_progress_of_vaccines.3F Main points: -"First, previous research has enabled us to reduce the time necessary to begin developing and testing a vaccine candidate. Advances in vaccine technology have allowed researchers to develop vaccines based only on the genomic sequence of the virus in question (released on Jan 10th)." -"In addition, we have considerable existing research on other human coronaviruses, including SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV, that we were able to use to gain rapid insight into SARS-CoV-2. " -"In this case, however, governments around the world were willing to underwrite significant portions of the costs of clinical trials, reducing the financial risk for pharmaceutical companies to develop and produce a vaccine without preliminary data, but heavily leveraging existing research into coronaviruses. These two factors likely reduced the timeline required for vaccine development by months to years." -"...administrative delays in the vaccine-development timeline were mitigated or outright eliminated during the development of the COVID-19 vaccine candidates." -"One of the most difficult and time-consuming tasks for a vaccine or drug candidate is to show superiority over existing drugs or vaccines that are on the market already; however, there were no existing vaccines against COVID-19, so the vaccines simply needed to be tested for superiority over a placebo." -"...clinical trials often have difficulty enrolling subjects; it normally takes months to years to fully enroll a clinical trial. However, with the number of individuals that wanted to join each of the vaccine trials, enrollment was completed with unprecedented speed." -"However, in the midst of a global pandemic, infection events are in no short supply, and by sheer numbers, people are infected rapidly in the trials and statistical significance can be reached much more quickly." -"Again, collectively, these factors reduce the needed timeline by months to years without sacrificing rigor." -"We have considerable knowledge of the fundamental biology underlying many of these vaccine candidates that allow us to better judge their safety, and after confirmation of their safety, human studies using RNA as therapeutic, both for vaccines, and in other ways to treat diseases are underway since years." - Although mRNA vaccine are yet to be approved by the FDA for use in humans (in large part due to low cost-benefit to companies), the molecular biology of mRNA has been studied extensively for decades, and knowledge of the biological pathways involved with mRNA processing and degradation allows us to state with a high degree of confidence that the active component of the vaccine will be degraded quickly and poses no increased risk of causing genetic aberration. 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vikesfan89 Posted December 9, 2020 Share Posted December 9, 2020 17 hours ago, Xenos said: Biden seems to be heavily implying that teachers will get the second round of vaccines. Are all at risk people considered for round 1? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xenos Posted December 9, 2020 Share Posted December 9, 2020 13 minutes ago, vikesfan89 said: Are all at risk people considered for round 1? Healthcare and the elderly for round 1. The remaining at risk individuals covers at least 40% of the population. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xenos Posted December 9, 2020 Share Posted December 9, 2020 7 hours ago, ramssuperbowl99 said: Conceptually, I think we consider herd immunity a black and white threshold we hope to eventually reach, but really it's a sliding scale and the first few steps make the biggest practical difference. If someone would go out and infect 3 people of a naive population, with 58% vaccinated that number drops to only 1.26 people. Even at 30% vaccinated/immune, you're talking about infecting only 2.1 people instead of 3. And when you're talking exponential growth, the impact of that shift down a few tenths could be tens of thousands of cases a day in the short term. And, maybe more importantly, stopping us from getting to a million cases/day. Is it bad to have people get immunity through infection versus getting vaccinated though? I’m thinking more specifically to @Deadpulse concerns about the virus potentially mutating again and us being in the same boat same time next year. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deadpulse Posted December 9, 2020 Share Posted December 9, 2020 8 minutes ago, Xenos said: Is it bad to have people get immunity through infection versus getting vaccinated though? I’m thinking more specifically to @Deadpulse concerns about the virus potentially mutating again and us being in the same boat same time next year. Mutations have actually been few and far between, surprisingly. I am not as worried about that as I was. Data doesnt support it. This is a GREAT article detailing challenged of her immunity: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)32318-7/fulltext Quote For a vaccine with 100% efficacy that gives life-long protection, the level of herd immunity as a proportion of the population, pc, required to block transmission is [1 – 1 / R0], where R0 is the basic reproduction number. Given an R0 value before lockdowns in most countries of between 2·5 to 3·5, we estimate the herd immunity required is about 60–72%. If the proportional vaccine efficacy, ε, is considered, the simple expression for pc becomes [1 – 1 / R0] / ε. If we assume ε is 0·8 (80%), then the herd immunity required becomes 75–90% for the defined range of R0 values. For lower efficacies, the entire population would have to be immunised. These overall estimates ignore heterogeneities that can make these figures lower or higher in specific locations. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shanedorf Posted December 9, 2020 Share Posted December 9, 2020 (edited) 29 minutes ago, Xenos said: Is it bad to have people get immunity through infection versus getting vaccinated though? I’m thinking more specifically to @Deadpulse concerns about the virus potentially mutating again and us being in the same boat same time next year. You'd like to have as few infections as possible due to spreading it to others and some of the downstream post- COVID effects we're still learning about. But I don't think one method of immunization is necessarily "good" or "bad", just two different paths to the same goal. As far as mutations, the virus will replicate billions of times and each time there's a replication, "mistakes" in copying the DNA/RNA happen. Some of those changes won't matter, some will. But there's no way to know which mutations cause higher transmission or more serious disease. We'll cross next year's bridge when we get to it - but we will have the benefit of a years' worth of learning & research in terms of how to best handle it. And we now know that the spike protein is the key to the virus binding and entering into our cells and so long as the spike protein continues to be the key - the new strains should be blocked by our immune system whether we gained our immunity via an infection or a vaccine. Edited December 9, 2020 by Shanedorf 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1ForTheThumb Posted December 9, 2020 Share Posted December 9, 2020 On 12/8/2020 at 9:37 AM, theJ said: Man the last couple pages of this thread is just sad. At this point i'm resigned to the fact that only about half the country will willingly get the vaccine, and maybe another 10-20% will be "forced" to for employment related reasons. This is probably not enough for herd immunity, and we're still going to be talking about coronavirus next year at this time. Freaking sucks. Are you surprised? People politicized freaking masks. While I love our country and its' the greatest in the world, the pandemic has emphasized that 1) Americans are extremely selfish and 2) the general public has zero understanding of science and math. Agree though, it's the sad truth. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mega Ron Posted December 9, 2020 Share Posted December 9, 2020 The BBC are reporting that some people, who are known to have allergic reactions, have suffered severe reactions to the Covid jab. Is there anything from the trials to suggest this? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deadpulse Posted December 9, 2020 Share Posted December 9, 2020 46 minutes ago, Mega Ron said: The BBC are reporting that some people, who are known to have allergic reactions, have suffered severe reactions to the Covid jab. Is there anything from the trials to suggest this? Not really a big concern. Here is the article and some excerpts https://www.bbc.com/news/health-55244122 Quote People with a history of significant allergic reactions should not have the Pfizer/BioNTech Covid jab, regulators say. It came after two NHS workers had allergic reactions on Tuesday. The advice applies to those who have had reactions to medicines, food or vaccines, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency said. Quote Both NHS workers have a history of serious allergies and carry adrenaline pens around with them. Quote The two people had a reaction shortly after having the new jab, had treatment and are both fine now. Quote Professor Stephen Powis, medical director for the NHS in England, said both individuals were recovering well. He said this was "common with new vaccines", describing it as a precautionary measure. To be clear, what is common is the precautionary measure they are taking, not the reaction. Quote Reactions like this are uncommon, but do happen with other vaccines, including the annual flu jab. Basically, this is super basic stuff for any and all vaccine. Nothing to see here, unless you too have allergies. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shanedorf Posted December 9, 2020 Share Posted December 9, 2020 44 minutes ago, Mega Ron said: Is there anything from the trials to suggest this? Yes, as noted by Deadpulse above Your skin is a barrier designed to keep the bad guys out and as a result, it will react to foreign substances being injected. But that's also good thing, it initiates the cascade of immune responses and the redness & swelling are signs of your body recruiting immune cells to repel the attack. The challenge for some people is an over-reaction...like what happens in a bee sting for people who have been sensitized to bee stings. That's why they carry around an EpiPen. "It previously said it expected that between 50,000 and 100,000 people would have an adverse reaction for every 100 Million doses of Covid vaccine administered over the next six to 12 months. " Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mega Ron Posted December 9, 2020 Share Posted December 9, 2020 This is how a zombie apocalypse starts. I think, like a lot of others, I can only say that I am excited. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vikesfan89 Posted December 9, 2020 Share Posted December 9, 2020 36 minutes ago, Mega Ron said: This is how a zombie apocalypse starts. I think, like a lot of others, I can only say that I am excited. What else do we need besides toilet paper to prepare for it? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xenos Posted December 10, 2020 Share Posted December 10, 2020 (edited) On 12/8/2020 at 11:31 AM, Shanedorf said: the bots are just getting warmed up https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2020/12/04/get-ready-for-false-side-effects Get Ready for False Side Effects "We’re talking about treating very, very large populations, which means that you’re going to see the usual run of mortality and morbidity that you see across large samples. Specifically, if you take 10 million people and just wave your hand back and forth over their upper arms, in the next two months you would expect to see about 4,000 heart attacks. About 4,000 strokes. Over 9,000 new diagnoses of cancer. And about 14,000 of that ten million will die, out of usual all-causes mortality. No one would notice. That’s how many people die and get sick anyway. But if you took those ten million people and gave them a new vaccine instead, there’s a real danger that those heart attacks, cancer diagnoses, and deaths will be attributed to the vaccine. I mean, if you reach a large enough population, you are literally going to have cases where someone gets the vaccine and drops dead the next day (just as they would have if they *didn’t* get the vaccine). It could prove difficult to convince that person’s friends and relatives of that lack of connection, though. Post hoc ergo propter hoc is one of the most powerful fallacies of human logic, and we’re not going to get rid of it any time soon. Especially when it comes to vaccines. The best we can do, I think, is to try to get the word out in advance. Let people know that such things are going to happen, because people get sick and die constantly in this world. The key will be whether they are getting sick or dying at a noticeably higher rate once they have been vaccinated." Ran into some trouble after posting it on social media lol. Edited December 10, 2020 by Xenos 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xenos Posted December 10, 2020 Share Posted December 10, 2020 What life is like in other countries without Covid. Jealous I am. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/davidmack/countries-without-coronavirus-no-covid 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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