Donate to Remove ads

Got a credit card? use our Credit Card & Finance Calculators

Thanks to johnstevens77,Bhoddhisatva,scotia,Anonymous,Cornytiv34, for Donating to support the site

The vaccine

The home for all non-political Coronavirus (Covid-19) discussions on The Lemon Fool
Forum rules
This is the home for all non-political Coronavirus (Covid-19) discussions on The Lemon Fool
dealtn
Lemon Half
Posts: 6072
Joined: November 21st, 2016, 4:26 pm
Has thanked: 441 times
Been thanked: 2324 times

Re: The vaccine

#403470

Postby dealtn » April 11th, 2021, 7:08 pm

Fourth consecutive day with second doses > 400k.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-56709870

I think those concerns about supply a week or so back now look to have been unjustified. No guarantees that won't become an issue at some point, but I think the lows behind that concern were clearly Easter related.

Julian
Lemon Quarter
Posts: 1385
Joined: November 4th, 2016, 9:58 am
Has thanked: 532 times
Been thanked: 676 times

Re: The vaccine

#404156

Postby Julian » April 14th, 2021, 12:23 pm

Some interesting and potentially very useful vaccine updates today.

People here have asked about mixing vaccines. Here is an update on trials underway...

A major UK study examining whether Covid vaccines can be safely mixed with different types of jabs for the first and second doses is to be expanded.

Researchers running the Com-Cov study, launched in February to investigate alternating doses of the Oxford/AstraZeneca and Pfizer vaccines for the first and second doses, will now include a shot of the Moderna or Novavax vaccines.
...
Snape said he hoped the results of the second part of the study would be available in June or July, with the first part expected to report results next month.
...


So first results on mixed AZ/Pfizer results next month and results on adding Moderna and Novavax into the trial combos in June or July. This will be very helpful if it gives more flexibility for the vaccination roll out and even better if it also increases efficacy. Also particularly valuable to know safety profiles and efficacy if a third booster shot does get rolled out in the UK in Q4-2021.

[ Source: https://www.theguardian.com/society/202 ... e-expanded ]

But there's another very interesting twist to this...

People aged under 60 who have been given a first dose of the Oxford-AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine in Germany will receive a different jab for their second dose, federal and regional health ministers agreed Tuesday.


[ Source: https://www.france24.com/en/europe/2021 ... s-under-60 ]

It's not clear what data Germany has on safety and efficacy on mixed doses, surely it must have some to be going ahead with this? If this means that there is at least some early data already on AZ/Pfizer mixed dosing that is great and the fact that Germany now seems about to start creating a reasonably sized cohort of AZ first dose + presumably mostly Pfizer second dose vaccinated people from which I would hope to see some fairly large scale observational studies at some point is a very welcome extra source of data (provided safety of the people being vaccinated is not being put at risk).

Within the next few months we should have an awful lot of extra data from the combination of the two items mentioned above that could be of huge help re flexibility and confidence in possible modifications and extensions (boosters) to the UK vaccination strategy in the 2nd half of 2021.

- Julian

gryffron
Lemon Quarter
Posts: 3608
Joined: November 4th, 2016, 10:00 am
Has thanked: 551 times
Been thanked: 1587 times

Re: The vaccine

#404201

Postby gryffron » April 14th, 2021, 2:55 pm

Julian wrote:Some interesting and potentially very useful vaccine updates today.
People here have asked about mixing vaccines. Here is an update on trials underway...

Of course, the fact that cases amongst the UK general population are now so low, is going to make it much more difficult to conduct meaningful trials here.

“We observed 0 cases amongst our mixed vaccine recipients, and 1 in our control group. Proving conclusively that mixed vaccines are 100% effective - maybe”

Tests carried out where case levels are still high might be more useful.

;)

Julian
Lemon Quarter
Posts: 1385
Joined: November 4th, 2016, 9:58 am
Has thanked: 532 times
Been thanked: 676 times

Re: The vaccine

#404220

Postby Julian » April 14th, 2021, 3:50 pm

gryffron wrote:
Julian wrote:Some interesting and potentially very useful vaccine updates today.
People here have asked about mixing vaccines. Here is an update on trials underway...

Of course, the fact that cases amongst the UK general population are now so low, is going to make it much more difficult to conduct meaningful trials here.

“We observed 0 cases amongst our mixed vaccine recipients, and 1 in our control group. Proving conclusively that mixed vaccines are 100% effective - maybe”

Tests carried out where case levels are still high might be more useful.

;)

Yes. I heard some more detailed discussions about this trial and as you observe any statistically valid case-related efficacy conclusions are pretty much out of the window for a study being run in the UK at the moment, and the number of volunteers isn't huge either, certainly not to the level of the 30,000 - 40,000 original phase 3 trials. As I understand it the efficacy assessments aren't being taken from infection rates in the various groups but are being estimated from levels of antibodies and T-cell generated, assessed from blood samples obviously. Safety data is of course still collected in the same way as previous phase 3 trials.

I'm still curious about what data Germany has seen to make it comfortable going with its AZ plus something else strategy. Maybe one could argue that efficacy isn't a big concern since if Germany doesn't want to give a second dose of AZ at all then the efficacy of an AZ + Pfizer regimen only needs to be no worse than a single AZ shot with no second dose ever given so that it is not detrimental to Germany's efforts. In the same way that the UK took the decision to extend its dosing interval on the basis of immunological theory it's maybe not at all unreasonable for Germany to take a calculated risk that giving a Pfizer dose to someone who has already had an AZ first dose won't actively reduce the level of protection that person already had after the AZ dose. Safety however is another matter and even though I assume the overwhelming expert consensus is that an AZ+Pfizer combo is highly unlikely to trigger some serious previously unencountered side effect I would hope that there is at least some human data to confirm that since on safety one does need to be very careful with making any sort of "Oh, I'm sure it'll be fine" assumptions based on theory rather than real life testing.

- Julian

EssDeeAitch
Lemon Slice
Posts: 655
Joined: August 31st, 2018, 9:08 pm
Has thanked: 268 times
Been thanked: 251 times

Re: The vaccine

#406437

Postby EssDeeAitch » April 23rd, 2021, 10:31 am

gryffron wrote:
Julian wrote:Some interesting and potentially very useful vaccine updates today.
People here have asked about mixing vaccines. Here is an update on trials underway...

Of course, the fact that cases amongst the UK general population are now so low, is going to make it much more difficult to conduct meaningful trials here.

“We observed 0 cases amongst our mixed vaccine recipients, and 1 in our control group. Proving conclusively that mixed vaccines are 100% effective - maybe”

Tests carried out where case levels are still high might be more useful.

;)


I signed up for the trail and had my second (unknown) jab yesterday. I have no clue as to the statistical accuracy of the trial but I do trust them to get this right (enough) despite the current low infection rate. Maybe I should put myself in harms way to help the trial along? Besides the efficacy of mixing the types is also the monitoring of any change in side effects experienced. All in all, I am happy to contribute. And I had a thorough MOT as part of the process.

Julian
Lemon Quarter
Posts: 1385
Joined: November 4th, 2016, 9:58 am
Has thanked: 532 times
Been thanked: 676 times

Re: The vaccine

#406448

Postby Julian » April 23rd, 2021, 11:57 am

EssDeeAitch wrote:
gryffron wrote:
Julian wrote:Some interesting and potentially very useful vaccine updates today.
People here have asked about mixing vaccines. Here is an update on trials underway...

Of course, the fact that cases amongst the UK general population are now so low, is going to make it much more difficult to conduct meaningful trials here.

“We observed 0 cases amongst our mixed vaccine recipients, and 1 in our control group. Proving conclusively that mixed vaccines are 100% effective - maybe”

Tests carried out where case levels are still high might be more useful.

;)


I signed up for the trail and had my second (unknown) jab yesterday. I have no clue as to the statistical accuracy of the trial but I do trust them to get this right (enough) despite the current low infection rate. Maybe I should put myself in harms way to help the trial along? Besides the efficacy of mixing the types is also the monitoring of any change in side effects experienced. All in all, I am happy to contribute. And I had a thorough MOT as part of the process.

Thanks for the update. Great to hear directly from someone on such a trial. Thanks also for participating, it helps us all.

Since you're enrolled I assume you went through informed consent and they told you what follow up they will be doing and how often they need reports and/or want to see you in person. Did they give you a schedule for taking bloods one or more times after your second jab? If yes then that is pretty indicative that they will be looking at antibody and probably other markers to try to gauge efficacy rather than waiting, almost certainly in vain, for sufficient infections to arise amongst the study groups to form any statistically valid conclusions.

In my opinion it sounds as if they should have made it clearer to you how they will be assessing efficacy because if it is via bloodwork then they really should not have left you wondering whether it would be helpful to put yourself "in harms way". I realise that comment might have been tongue-in-cheek - or it might not have been, it's so hard to tell on forums sometimes - but personally I certainly would not be going out licking lamp posts any time soon. I am sure the trial designers have factored in the rapidly diminishing chances of naturally acquiring an infection in the UK hence my suspicion (hope) that they are relying on blood work to assess relative efficacies across the different combos being trialled vs single-vaccine dosing regimens.

- Julian

EssDeeAitch
Lemon Slice
Posts: 655
Joined: August 31st, 2018, 9:08 pm
Has thanked: 268 times
Been thanked: 251 times

Re: The vaccine

#406473

Postby EssDeeAitch » April 23rd, 2021, 1:47 pm

Julian wrote:Since you're enrolled I assume you went through informed consent and they told you what follow up they will be doing and how often they need reports and/or want to see you in person. Did they give you a schedule for taking bloods one or more times after your second jab? If yes then that is pretty indicative that they will be looking at antibody and probably other markers to try to gauge efficacy rather than waiting, almost certainly in vain, for sufficient infections to arise amongst the study groups to form any statistically valid conclusions.


It was a thorough informed consent process. Starts with a 25 minute video explaining the purpose of the trial, how it is conducted and the associated commitment by the participants and of course risks. The format, risks and commitment are discussed individually with the doctor (in my case a second doctor was brought in to have a look as my pulse rate was 44 (usually 47/53 and always has been) and body temperature 35.3c. They checked back on medical records to see if there was any indication of underactive thyroid (none, blood tests taken six weeks ago covered that) and the green light was given after another short chat.

Over the next twelve months I will have to go back five times to give blood samples (six vials drawn on the first visit) and some participants will go an extra three times for nasal fluid and throat swabs.

I could not feel more confident about the process tbh.

Julian
Lemon Quarter
Posts: 1385
Joined: November 4th, 2016, 9:58 am
Has thanked: 532 times
Been thanked: 676 times

Re: The vaccine

#407650

Postby Julian » April 28th, 2021, 12:55 pm

This might be useful info for anyone out there who might have IBD (Inflamatory Bowel Disease). It's only one study but anyone potentially affected can read the reasonably short linked article and make their own judgement..

People who take a commonly-prescribed drug for inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) should not assume they are protected after a first dose of vaccine.

This is the finding of new research, from a number of institutions including Imperial College London. The study measured antibody responses after vaccination with the Pfizer/BioNTech or the Oxford/AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine in 865 people treated with infliximab, an anti-tumour necrosis factor (anti-TNF) biologic drug, prescribed to around two million people worldwide.

...

After a single dose of vaccine, only about one third of participants (103 of 328) treated exclusively with infliximab generated adequate levels of antibodies to the virus for the vaccine to be considered effective.

...

Dr Nick Powell, co-senior author of the study from Imperial's Department of Metabolism, Digestion and Reproduction, said: "This is a really important study, showing that a single dose of SARS-CoV2 vaccine is insufficient to generate protective antibody responses in patients treated with anti-TNF drugs.


[ Source: https://www.imperial.ac.uk/news/220253/ ... lammatory/ ]

There's a fair amount of additional detail in the linked article including discussions of alternative IBD medications. I haven't really tried to absorb all the details since I don't have IBD. I stumbled across the article while on Imperial's site trying to learn more about its saRNA vaccine platform and thought it might be useful to post a link to the report here just in case there are any people with IBD following this forum. (Note: the report I linked to is discussing the Pfizer and Oxford/AZ vaccines currently being used, it has nothing to do with the Imperial vaccine that is currently still under development.)

- Julian

Julian
Lemon Quarter
Posts: 1385
Joined: November 4th, 2016, 9:58 am
Has thanked: 532 times
Been thanked: 676 times

Re: The vaccine

#414363

Postby Julian » May 23rd, 2021, 11:36 am

I recently watched a video by Prof Tim Spector of the Covid-19 Zoe survey project. It's the first of what is intended to be a regular Q & A series with a few of the most popular questions chosen for each video. This one had some interesting stats at time index 4:41 when he addresses the question "How many people who have had both jabs have died of COVID-19?". The video is here and what I am about to discuss starts at timestamp 4:41 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZlNqMR0u9M

In his answer Prof Spector cited a study from April by an organisation called ISARIC. For some reason I can't find the report he mentions on ISARIC's web site (https://isaric.org/), maybe it is as yet unpublished and TS is a peer reviewer, but the numbers from the report that he quoted were encouraging. The report followed up 52,000 people who had "got infected after vaccination". Of those 526 (pretty much exactly 1%) got admitted to hospital and of those 113 (0.22% of those infected after vaccination) died. Further however, of the 113 who died 97 were in the highest 2 risk categories regarding Covid-19 i.e. frail/elderly/vulnerable leaving 16 who did not have significant risk factors. So for someone not in the highest 2 risk categories who has been fully vaccinated then, even if you do still end up catching Covid-19 (and the vaccine should reduce the chances of even that happening very significantly) you then have a 16/52,000 i.e. a 1 in 3,250 chance of dying due to that infection. Given the protection against getting infected in the first place, and even if you do the subsequent very low chance of that infection killing you, seems very encouraging to me.

There is so much more detail I would like to know so if anyone can track down the full study please do post it. I find it a bit disappointing that a professor-level academic doesn't do a better job of citing his sources. Dr John Campbell for instance is quite diligent about providing links to his source material in his videos.

What I'd be really interested in seeing is the break down of results by vaccine type; as someone who has now had both doses af the AZ vaccine I would like to see results specifically for that. Sadly I fear this study wouldn't actually give me that since in the video Tim Spector mentions that ISARIC is an international group and the fact that they identified 52,000 people who had had both doses of a vaccine but still got infected makes me think that they must have cast their net far wider than just the UK in order to get to those numbers. I suspect that their "hunting ground" must have been countries with very rapid vaccine rollout on the manufacturer-recommended dosing intervals so possibly the USA, Israel and U.A.E.. In that case the vaccines would have been predominantly Pfizer with, thanks to the USA, Moderna probably also well represented but potentially no Oxford/AZ representation at all.

It's possible that the U.K. population did contribute some data to the ISARIC study mentioned above but if so, due to our later (than Pfizer) AZ rollout and our switch to an extended dosing interval, we would primarily have been contributing Pfizer cases I suspect. Which actually brings me onto the other bit of good news breaking today, the report by PHE on vaccine efficacy against the Indian variant - https://www.gov.uk/government/news/vacc ... er-2-doses with full/source report here - https://khub.net/documents/135939561/43 ... 664107ac42

This study might also suffer from a lack of sufficient both-dose data on the Oxford/AZ vaccine due to rollout starting later than the Pfizer one. This is explicitly suggested in the report to account for the fact that the AZ both-dose efficacy against both the Kent and Indian.2 variants is significantly lower than that seen for the both-dose Pfizer population...

Vaccine effects after two doses of ChAdOx1 vaccine were smaller than for BNT162b2 against either variant. This is consistent with reported clinical trial findings. However, rollout of second doses of ChAdOx1 was later than BNT162b2 and the difference may be explained by the limited follow-up after two doses of ChAdOx1 if it takes more than two weeks to reach maximum effectiveness with this
vaccine. Consistent with this, 74% of those who had received 2 doses of ChAdOx1 had done so between 2 and 4 weeks prior to symptom onset compared to 46% with BNT162b2 (supplementary figure 1).


(I couldn't find "supplementary figure 1" in the report by the way. Was that PHE's error or did I miss it somehow?)

As an AZ vaccinee I hope the above is the case because the difference seen in the efficacy of a two-dose Oxford/AZ vaccination vs a 2-dose Pfizer vaccination against either the Kent or the Indian.2 variant is, from my perspective as an AZ vaccinee, disappointingly large. For the Pfizer vaccine the efficacy against the Kent/Indian.2 variants is 93.4%/87.9% respectively vs the Oxford/AZ efficacy of 66.1%/59.8% so the Oxford/AZ vaccine is showing about 27% lower efficacy against either strain compared to the Pfizer vaccine. I really hope that is because the cutoff date of this PHE study was such that many of the Oxford/AZ recipients had not had enough for their second doses to reach full efficacy before the study closed.

To end on a positive note though I see one big positive takeaway from the above that I haven't seen discussed. At the time that the decision was made there was much discussion here about the wisdom of the UK extending the dosing intervals for both the Pfizer and AZ vaccines with some expressing particular concern about the Pfizer vaccine since AZ had at least some data from their clinical trials covering dosing intervals up to 12 weeks and there were even some signals in that data suggesting that extending the dosing interval might actually increase efficacy whereas there was no such data available at that time for the Pfizer vaccine even maintaining the efficacy levels seen in the clinical trials. Well, presumably all data for this PHE study was collected in England hence the excellent efficacy data being quoted for the 2-dose Pfizer recipients will predominantly be for the 10 to 12 week dosing interval that has been the norm for the last few months. If I was a Pfizer vaccinee I would be very reassured by this data.

- Julian

funduffer
Lemon Quarter
Posts: 1330
Joined: November 4th, 2016, 12:11 pm
Has thanked: 122 times
Been thanked: 835 times

Re: The vaccine

#414631

Postby funduffer » May 24th, 2021, 2:20 pm

Julian wrote:
What I'd be really interested in seeing is the break down of results by vaccine type; as someone who has now had both doses af the AZ vaccine I would like to see results specifically for that. Sadly I fear this study wouldn't actually give me that since in the video Tim Spector mentions that ISARIC is an international group and the fact that they identified 52,000 people who had had both doses of a vaccine but still got infected makes me think that they must have cast their net far wider than just the UK in order to get to those numbers. I suspect that their "hunting ground" must have been countries with very rapid vaccine rollout on the manufacturer-recommended dosing intervals so possibly the USA, Israel and U.A.E.. In that case the vaccines would have been predominantly Pfizer with, thanks to the USA, Moderna probably also well represented but potentially no Oxford/AZ representation at all.

It's possible that the U.K. population did contribute some data to the ISARIC study mentioned above but if so, due to our later (than Pfizer) AZ rollout and our switch to an extended dosing interval, we would primarily have been contributing Pfizer cases I suspect.
- Julian


Thanks for posting this, very interesting!

If they cast the net wider than the UK, it could also be that countries who have used the Chinese or Russian vaccine are also included.

52,000 infections following double vaccination sounds a lot to me, so I suspect covers several countries.

FD

EssDeeAitch
Lemon Slice
Posts: 655
Joined: August 31st, 2018, 9:08 pm
Has thanked: 268 times
Been thanked: 251 times

Re: The vaccine

#414642

Postby EssDeeAitch » May 24th, 2021, 2:58 pm

As posted earlier on, I have volunteered to take part in a trial to test the efficacy of mixing vaccine types (Com-Cov 2 trial). My first jab was Pfizer and the second is unknown but will be one of Pfizer, Moderna or Novavax. For the first seven days after the second jab one has to complete a fairly long questionnaire on side-effects but this reduces to a set of five for the next 21 days only and there are four follow up visits to give blood for testing over the next 12 months.

I have just received the first progress email which says "Early data from the Com-Cov study has suggested an increased frequency of mild to moderate side effects (referred to as ‘reactogenicity’), when participants take different first and second vaccines (a mixed dose vaccine schedule). Any adverse reactions were short lived and there were no other safety concerns" and that it is too early to say how efficient the mixed doses are.

I had no side-effects whatsoever so perhaps the second dose was the same as the first. That information will only be revealed at the end of the trial.

Julian
Lemon Quarter
Posts: 1385
Joined: November 4th, 2016, 9:58 am
Has thanked: 532 times
Been thanked: 676 times

Re: The vaccine

#414643

Postby Julian » May 24th, 2021, 2:58 pm

funduffer wrote:
Julian wrote:
What I'd be really interested in seeing is the break down of results by vaccine type; as someone who has now had both doses af the AZ vaccine I would like to see results specifically for that. Sadly I fear this study wouldn't actually give me that since in the video Tim Spector mentions that ISARIC is an international group and the fact that they identified 52,000 people who had had both doses of a vaccine but still got infected makes me think that they must have cast their net far wider than just the UK in order to get to those numbers. I suspect that their "hunting ground" must have been countries with very rapid vaccine rollout on the manufacturer-recommended dosing intervals so possibly the USA, Israel and U.A.E.. In that case the vaccines would have been predominantly Pfizer with, thanks to the USA, Moderna probably also well represented but potentially no Oxford/AZ representation at all.

It's possible that the U.K. population did contribute some data to the ISARIC study mentioned above but if so, due to our later (than Pfizer) AZ rollout and our switch to an extended dosing interval, we would primarily have been contributing Pfizer cases I suspect.
- Julian


Thanks for posting this, very interesting!

If they cast the net wider than the UK, it could also be that countries who have used the Chinese or Russian vaccine are also included.

52,000 infections following double vaccination sounds a lot to me, so I suspect covers several countries.

FD

I agree. To get 52,000 infections after 2 doses I would hope they had to cast the net very wide across multiple countries and that’s a very good point about that possibly causing some of the Chinese vaccines to be included e.g. Chile had an aggressive vaccine rollout with “ 93% of the doses administered were the CoronaVac vaccine, manufactured by Chinese state run pharmaceutical Sinovac, and 7% the more effective Pfizer BioNTech vaccine” [ Source: https://www.bmj.com/content/373/bmj.n1023 ]. I wonder if Sputnik V might be another one that might have been included in the data depending on which countries were contributing cases to this study.

- Julian

AleisterCrowley
Lemon Half
Posts: 6381
Joined: November 4th, 2016, 11:35 am
Has thanked: 1880 times
Been thanked: 2026 times

Re: The vaccine

#414646

Postby AleisterCrowley » May 24th, 2021, 3:02 pm

Another possible complication - how good are the vaccine supply chains?
- If x% of people get a dose that hasn't been stored/transported correctly....or even out-of-date doses?

Julian
Lemon Quarter
Posts: 1385
Joined: November 4th, 2016, 9:58 am
Has thanked: 532 times
Been thanked: 676 times

Re: The vaccine

#414653

Postby Julian » May 24th, 2021, 3:15 pm

AleisterCrowley wrote:Another possible complication - how good are the vaccine supply chains?
- If x% of people get a dose that hasn't been stored/transported correctly....or even out-of-date doses?

That is a worry isn’t it, maybe out of date doses less so though. At least there is a visible indication of an out of date dose provided that someone bothers to read the label. I also read a news article last week about at least one African country burning a fairly large number of out of date doses because they hadn’t managed to use them in time which, although disappointing in the wider sense, is at least encouraging re countries not playing fast and loose with expiry dates.

- Julian

AleisterCrowley
Lemon Half
Posts: 6381
Joined: November 4th, 2016, 11:35 am
Has thanked: 1880 times
Been thanked: 2026 times

Re: The vaccine

#414658

Postby AleisterCrowley » May 24th, 2021, 3:23 pm

It's going to be more of a problem in countries with a lot of widely dispersed rural communities and/or poor transport infrastructure

88V8
Lemon Half
Posts: 5770
Joined: November 4th, 2016, 11:22 am
Has thanked: 4101 times
Been thanked: 2560 times

Re: The vaccine

#414662

Postby 88V8 » May 24th, 2021, 3:34 pm

It does seem that some third world countries are receiving vaccines with little remaining shelf life.
Here... Malawi destroys 16,400 out-dated shots.
https://www.africanews.com/2021/04/14/malawi-to-destroy-thousands-of-expired-covid-vaccines-minister/

Mind you, before one starts feeling too sorry for such countries, they are not exactly well run https://www.ganintegrity.com/portal/country-profiles/malawi/ so when I hear calls for us to provide more help, I'm not inclined.

V8

Julian
Lemon Quarter
Posts: 1385
Joined: November 4th, 2016, 9:58 am
Has thanked: 532 times
Been thanked: 676 times

Re: The vaccine

#417686

Postby Julian » June 6th, 2021, 2:30 pm

Some encouraging news coming out about mixed vaccine regimens. Three studies all of which, based on my quick initial read, seem to be showing AZ followed by Pfizer as well tolerated and, depending on what type of response is looked at(*), showing at least equal or in some cases significantly better immune responses vs a homogenous Pfizer + Pfizer regimen.

(*) All the studies are using blood work to assess the likely level of immunity as opposed to waiting for a statistically valid number of infections to be recorded in the different groups which would in the current environment presumably take an impractical length of time to accrue or require an absolutely ginormous number of volunteers in a trial to get sufficient infections in an acceptably short amount of time.

The high level article in the Guardian is here: https://www.theguardian.com/society/202 ... ine-autumn

And the links to more details on 3 specific trials (the first one in Spanish but at least for Google Chrome you can simple right-click and select "Translate to English") are here ...

https://www.isciii.es/Noticias/Noticias ... ivacS.aspx

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101 ... 21257334v2

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101 ... 21257971v1

As long as these results hold up, and I see no reason why they wouldn't, it looks as if the world is soon to get some extra flexibility in terms of managing the logistics of the vaccine rollout by not necessarily needing both doses to be the same vaccine.

One thing I'm a bit confused about is where the UK government's thinking is going re late 2021 booster shots if the decision is made to go ahead with that. I've seen a few potentially contradictory reports on what's going on there, perhaps it is simply undecided at this time. My confusion is because we have been hearing almost since the first vaccines were approved that particularly the mRNA vaccines, but also to a slightly lesser extend the Oxford/AZ vaccine hence presumably also J&J and Sputnik V, could be "tweaked" very quickly for new variants but I have also read reports that if the booster shots do go ahead they will be using the same "generation" of vaccines as the first roll out i.e. not modified for new variants. I think that in the latter case (not modifying the existing vaccines) the thinking is that by giving people (mostly) 3 shots of the first generation vaccines (the original 2 doses plus a booster, or J&J 1-dose + booster) the antibody and T-cell responses will be boosted even higher such that, even if they are then eroded 3, 5 or even 10-fold in neutralising ability by a new variant the antibody and T-cell levels will still be high enough to protect significantly better than people who only had the initial f2-dose regimen (or 1 dose for J&J).

Right now if at least some people do get boosters in late 2021 I am totally unclear about whether it will be unmodified 1st generation vaccines or modified 2nd generation versions (where available) ordered(**) for that.

(**) Or should I say "delivered"? With the number of doses that the UK has already pre-ordered (thank you soon-to-be-Dame Kate Bingham!) I suspect the doses for a late-2021 booster campaign have effectively already been ordered but not yet manufactured or delivered.

- Julian

pje16
Lemon Half
Posts: 6050
Joined: May 30th, 2021, 6:01 pm
Has thanked: 1843 times
Been thanked: 2066 times

Re: The vaccine

#417687

Postby pje16 » June 6th, 2021, 2:36 pm

I haven't read the entire post but gping back to the O/P's point
I felt the same way having had both jabs (AZ) and had no reaction to either
I had two blood tests after the first jab which both showed negative for antibodies
however have now had one blood test after Jab 2 and that showed positive for antibodies
I will be tested every month until next April so it will be interesting to see how long the "positive" results lasts for

swill453
Lemon Half
Posts: 7962
Joined: November 4th, 2016, 6:11 pm
Has thanked: 984 times
Been thanked: 3643 times

Re: The vaccine

#418311

Postby swill453 » June 9th, 2021, 9:35 am

There was a discussion recently about a mismatch between the national and regional "percentage vaccinated" figures. I can't find it right now, it may or may not have been in this thread.

The subject is covered in today's More Or Less on Radio 4. The issue is that the figure for England as a whole is about 75%, but this figure is higher than the figure for any of the regions that make up England. How's that?

The answer is that they're using different figures for the (adult) population. The national number uses the ONS estimate for population in 2019, which is likely to be an underestimate, hence making the the percentage higher.

However the regions use the number of people registered with the NHS, which is likely to be an overestimate*. This is because people, especially students, may be registered with more than one GP, or people may have moved house and not bothered deregistering. This therefore makes the percentage lower.

EDIT: * - this number comes from the National Immunisation Management Service (NIMS)

Scott.

Itsallaguess
Lemon Half
Posts: 9129
Joined: November 4th, 2016, 1:16 pm
Has thanked: 4140 times
Been thanked: 10023 times

Re: The vaccine

#418515

Postby Itsallaguess » June 10th, 2021, 6:05 am

I think there may have been some initial scepticism regarding the potential take-up of vaccines by the younger population, so it must have come as a great relief to see just how engaged those between the ages of 25 to 29 were on Tuesday, when the booking system opened up to that age-group -

Young people booked vaccines at rate of 100,000 an hour -

We've got more now on the record day for vaccination bookings.

When vaccine appointments opened to 25 to 29-year-olds yesterday the initial surge prompted 100,000 bookings an hour between 07:00 BST and midday, according to NHS figures.

NHS chief executive Sir Simon Stevens labels it a "Glastonbury-style" rush for jabs - a reference to the traditional stampede to book tickets for the music festival.

He says: "The obvious enthusiasm of younger adults to get their jab has blown out of the water the suggestion that people in their 20s might not come forward to protect themselves and their loved ones."

Hitting one million bookings in a day "sends a fantastic signal", says Dr Emily Lawson, lead for the NHS Covid Vaccination Programme.

She says it shows "the Covid-19 vaccine is something that all of us - no matter our age – can value and be excited by and most importantly should get, when our opportunity comes."


https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-57409973

Credit where it's due, and let's hope the superb enthusiasm shown above continues as they work down towards the 18+ groups as well.

Cheers,

Itsallaguess


Return to “Coronavirus Discussions”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 2 guests