Third wave

[zico]

I don't know how much Vietnam's test & trace system costs, but willing to bet it's a lot less than £22 billion.

This £22 billion used for this comparison troubles me. If it refers to the UK spending then one needs to distinguish between testing and tracing. We had the "Kent" variant of which you speak. The huge testing bill was affected by this, which happened in Kent not in a suburb of Ho Chi Minh City. Our tracing is only effective when the numbers involved are sufficiently tiny that our tracing resources can cope.

Yes, tracing is much easier and cheaper when the numbers involved are very small. I'm pointing out that the successful countries (such as Vietnam, Taiwan, New Zealand, Australia) acted early and decisively to control their borders so that they didn't have the problem of huge numbers of infections in their country. The example of Vietnam shows just how well Covid could have been controlled, and we in the UK could have continued daily life as normal, meeting friends and family, going to pubs, restaurants, concerts and festivals, and with a very low death toll.

There's a tendency to think what's happened in the UK was somehow inevitable, but successful countries show the scale of what could have been avoided - in deaths, economic harm and daily disruption.

On the "Kent" variant, it didn't just happen, it evolved from amongst the millions of people in the UK who've been exposed to the original virus. Now it's being exported to Europe and even further afield, and may well become the most dangerous variant for the world. If the UK had suppressed the virus much more effectively (either in March or again in September), the Kent variant may well never have developed.

Edited once to add final paragraph.

[Julian]

Dr John says the recent plummeting prevalence in the UK is now stopping and levelling off. Tim Spector notices the same.

Looks to me as though a reversal might be next on the menu what with kids being back at school and close neighbours France and Germany in 3rd wave - perhaps knocking the guvverment "road map out of lockdown" right off course.

Tim Spector suggests otherwise, probably because of the vaccine. I hope he is right, he seems to know more about this stuff than me

My one firm opinion on how this is going to pan out as far as a third wave is concerned, which I assume would emerge sometime in late autumn or early winter, is that what will actually happen is extremely uncertain right now with a very wide difference between best and worst case scenarios...

Best case scenario - Nasty new variants such as the South African one don't get a foothold in the UK and vaccine uptake across the whole UK adult (and maybe even ultimately child) population is excellent together with continuing excellent observed efficacy against symptomatic infection, severe illness and death. In fact in the best case scenario efficacy against transmission is also seen as excellent. If all of that could come together then I don't think we'll see a third wave at all, or at least not in any meaningful sense.

Worst case scenario - Nasty new variants such as the South African one (said now to be becoming quite widespread in France which is worrying) do get a significant foothold in the UK, in fact in the absolute worst case something like the SA variant becomes dominant, and the escape properties against the vaccines are as bad or worse than we think right now. In that case while booster jabs can of course be developed and rolled out I suspect it would be difficult to get them administered to enough of the population in time to stop another very serious third wave potentially of similar magnitude, or in a real worst case scenario even worse than the second wave we're just coming out of.

Where will the actual outcome be within those best and worst case bounds? I have no idea but many of the variables are in our (the citizens and the government's) control and there is still an awful lot to play for particularly during the remainder of 2021.

On the lockdown release timetable I don't yet detect enough warning signs to suggest to me that it is about to get delayed. I believe that the government's plans do anticipate and factor in an increase in cases due to the schools reopening and hospitalisation and death data are all still showing good declining trends. In one of the press briefings last week it was either Chris Whitty or Boris himself (and I think it was Boris) who explicitly said that the lockdown release timetable was factoring in the negative (in terms of cases and R number) effect of the schools reopening so I don't think it's the case that any stall or even some modest reversal of daily case rate reductions is necessarily a trigger to delay.

I still think that the potential for a new variant exhibiting a troubling degree of vaccine escape getting a substantial foothold in the UK is our single biggest threat right now. Assuming we do stick to the unlock timetable while still being able to exit this lockdown with daily case numbers(*) similar to where they were when we unlocked on 4th July last year we, as a few other posters have mentioned, really should be able to use a functional test, trace and isolate system to at least substantially delay any new variant running wild until booster jabs can be administered if necessary. Right now the test bit looks very good to me, trace is actually not bad if the 93% of first contacts that I read is accurate although there is always room for improvement, but a lot more thought, investment and perhaps legislation needs to go into the isolate bit because that seems to me to be be the weak link right now.

- Julian

(*) It's a bit tricky to compare case numbers between the two lockdowns since, on 4th July 2020, there were 114,274 tests conducted in the UK vs 1,437,257 tests conducted yesterday (and yesterday was by no means a record). Although I do moan from time to time it is too easy to forget sometimes just how far we have come in some areas.

[zico]

Dr John says the recent plummeting prevalence in the UK is now stopping and levelling off. Tim Spector notices the same.

Looks to me as though a reversal might be next on the menu what with kids being back at school and close neighbours France and Germany in 3rd wave - perhaps knocking the guvverment "road map out of lockdown" right off course.

Tim Spector suggests otherwise, probably because of the vaccine. I hope he is right, he seems to know more about this stuff than me

My one firm opinion on how this is going to pan out as far as a third wave is concerned, which I assume would emerge sometime in late autumn or early winter, is that what will actually happen is extremely uncertain right now with a very wide difference between best and worst case scenarios...

Best case scenario - Nasty new variants such as the South African one don't get a foothold in the UK and vaccine uptake across the whole UK adult (and maybe even ultimately child) population is excellent together with continuing excellent observed efficacy against symptomatic infection, severe illness and death. In fact in the best case scenario efficacy against transmission is also seen as excellent. If all of that could come together then I don't think we'll see a third wave at all, or at least not in any meaningful sense.

Worst case scenario - Nasty new variants such as the South African one (said now to be becoming quite widespread in France which is worrying) do get a significant foothold in the UK, in fact in the absolute worst case something like the SA variant becomes dominant, and the escape properties against the vaccines are as bad or worse than we think right now. In that case while booster jabs can of course be developed and rolled out I suspect it would be difficult to get them administered to enough of the population in time to stop another very serious third wave potentially of similar magnitude, or in a real worst case scenario even worse than the second wave we're just coming out of.

Where will the actual outcome be within those best and worst case bounds? I have no idea but many of the variables are in our (the citizens and the government's) control and there is still an awful lot to play for particularly during the remainder of 2021.

On the lockdown release timetable I don't yet detect enough warning signs to suggest to me that it is about to get delayed. I believe that the government's plans do anticipate and factor in an increase in cases due to the schools reopening and hospitalisation and death data are all still showing good declining trends.

I still think that the potential for a new variant exhibiting a troubling degree of vaccine escape getting a substantial foothold in the UK is our single biggest threat right now.

I agree with your best case & worst case scenarios. What's troubling is that the Kent variant appears to have taken only a couple of months to become the dominant strain throughout Europe, so South Africa, Brazilian and more vaccine-resistant strains could presumably spread with similar speed. Brazil just seems to be a huge laboratory for breeding new and more dangerous Covid strains, as its govt is now the most inept in the world.

My worry is that UK approach is just Vaccinate, Vaccinate, Vaccinate with no attempt to close borders or improve test,trace and isolate. That's fine is we don't get any more vaccine-resistant strains over here, but if we do, it'll be almost back to square one. I'd like there to be a plan to stop variants (which hopefully we won't need to activate), but unfortunately that doesn't fit in at all with government plans and messaging.

I'm also concerned about June 21st as the date where all restrictions are lifted, which most people will take as "no need to take any precautions" so it's likely there'll be a big increase in cases (particularly amongst the younger unvaccinated population).

[servodude]

Dr John says the recent plummeting prevalence in the UK is now stopping and levelling off. Tim Spector notices the same.

Looks to me as though a reversal might be next on the menu what with kids being back at school and close neighbours France and Germany in 3rd wave - perhaps knocking the guvverment "road map out of lockdown" right off course.

My one firm opinion on how this is going to pan out as far as a third wave is concerned, which I assume would emerge sometime in late autumn or early winter, is that what will actually happen is extremely uncertain right now with a very wide difference between best and worst case scenarios...

Best case scenario - Nasty new variants such as the South African one don't get a foothold in the UK

Worst case scenario - Nasty new variants such as the South African one do get a significant foothold in the UK

I still think that the potential for a new variant exhibiting a troubling degree of vaccine escape getting a substantial foothold in the UK is our single biggest threat right now.

I agree with your best case & worst case scenarios. What's troubling is that the Kent variant appears to have taken only a couple of months to become the dominant strain throughout Europe, so South Africa, Brazilian and more vaccine-resistant strains could presumably spread with similar speed. Brazil just seems to be a huge laboratory for breeding new and more dangerous Covid strains, as its govt is now the most inept in the world.

My worry is that UK approach is just Vaccinate, Vaccinate, Vaccinate with no attempt to close borders or improve test,trace and isolate. That's fine is we don't get any more vaccine-resistant strains over here, but if we do, it'll be almost back to square one. I'd like there to be a plan to stop variants (which hopefully we won't need to activate), but unfortunately that doesn't fit in at all with government plans and messaging.

I'm also concerned about June 21st as the date where all restrictions are lifted, which most people will take as "no need to take any precautions" so it's likely there'll be a big increase in cases (particularly amongst the younger unvaccinated population).

Does feel a bit like an impending boss fight..
smaller waves beaten, confidence is up, you're pretty sure you know what your doing... but you don't know exactly what to expect
and now you have a choice of running straight in and winging it
- or collecting crates and making sure you're in peak condition
- and hoping it's not a multi-phase boss!

I'd like to see more reliable data on how the AZ works/doesn't against the SA/Brazil variants - and this addressed (globally, and without flag waving nonsense)
the data I have seen is murky but not encouraging
- if these can "escape" the vaccines/antibodies then it does feel like the world is back to Feb 2020
I reckon a 50% drop in effectiveness would probably give you the "same again" in the UK (if present figures are on about a third having had the virus)
- that would hopefully be one way to get to the end of this but not necessarily given we've seen alarming re-infection rates in Brazil

I believe AZ would need to change their vector for a re-vaccination plan which I think would put them back to the start of approvals (it's a material change not just a tweak - and required because those who have had it will attack the vaccine next time )
- I am sure this is in the works already; with them and others aiming for a vaccine that targets the mutations that have been seen to repeatedly arise
- and that it will probably be the next generation of vaccine roll out that ends this pandemic

Surely the Tanzanian government must be ranking worse than Brazil now?

- sd

[dealtn]

That's fine is we don't get any more vaccine-resistant strains over here

What vaccine-resistant strains do we already have over here?

[servodude]

That's fine is we don't get any more vaccine-resistant strains over here

What vaccine-resistant strains do we already have over here?

There was the P1 (Brazil) and South African versions found with the E484K mutation
- and another with the same mutation that spontaneously arose on the Kent variant

We know that helps them escape antibodies
- the jury is out on how that equates to vaccines
- the question is how to determine that safely

-sd

[dealtn]

That's fine is we don't get any more vaccine-resistant strains over here

What vaccine-resistant strains do we already have over here?

There was the P1 (Brazil) and South African versions found with the E484K mutation
- and another with the same mutation that spontaneously arose on the Kent variant

We know that helps them escape antibodies
- the jury is out on how that equates to vaccines
- the question is how to determine that safely

-sd

Interesting, thank you.
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.03.12.435194v2.full.pdf

[servodude]

What vaccine-resistant strains do we already have over here?

There was the P1 (Brazil) and South African versions found with the E484K mutation
- and another with the same mutation that spontaneously arose on the Kent variant

We know that helps them escape antibodies
- the jury is out on how that equates to vaccines
- the question is how to determine that safely

-sd

Interesting, thank you.
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.03.12.435194v2.full.pdf

The variant I mentioned that arose on the back of the Kent strain is the B1525 and there's a bit of coverage about it here
- https://theconversation.com/new-coronavirus-variant-here-is-what-scientists-know-about-b1525-155388

What I find really interesting is that, even though there's a few "variants of concern", the notable mutations that make them so seem very limited.
There's only about handful of changes identified that seem to make the virus "worse"
This covers it well:
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-most-worrying-mutations-in-five-emerging-coronavirus-variants/
- and these seem to be arising repeatedly; in different combinations, in different places
- which is why I think it's the next tranche of vaccines that kill off this pandemic

- sd

[Julian]

...
I'd like to see more reliable data on how the AZ works/doesn't against the SA/Brazil variants - and this addressed (globally, and without flag waving nonsense)
the data I have seen is murky but not encouraging
- if these can "escape" the vaccines/antibodies then it does feel like the world is back to Feb 2020
I reckon a 50% drop in effectiveness would probably give you the "same again" in the UK (if present figures are on about a third having had the virus)
- that would hopefully be one way to get to the end of this but not necessarily given we've seen alarming re-infection rates in Brazil

I believe AZ would need to change their vector for a re-vaccination plan which I think would put them back to the start of approvals (it's a material change not just a tweak - and required because those who have had it will attack the vaccine next time )
- I am sure this is in the works already; with them and others aiming for a vaccine that targets the mutations that have been seen to repeatedly arise
- and that it will probably be the next generation of vaccine roll out that ends this pandemic
...

Me too. I think that’s the single thing I’d most like to know right now, more data on current AZ efficacy against the SA variant particularly wrt hospitalisation and death. I’m curious to know if those incredibly disappointing results from that small trial regarding efficacy against mild to moderate disease are replicated or contradicted in any other studies. I suppose hoping that small trial was somehow flawed is really clutching at straws but in the absence of any other trials I can’t stop myself hoping that might be the case. The other vaccines all show reduced efficacy against the SA variant wrt mild and moderate disease but not to the extent of having essentially zero efficacy which is what the one trial I saw was suggesting.

If the AZ vs SA variant data is bad then in the U.K. we are particularly exposed if the SA, or presumably by association any variant carrying the E484K mutation, were to become widespread in the U.K. because of the high percentage of our population who have been given the AZ vaccine.

I’m not sure you are correct on your thoughts re the tweaking of the AZ delivery vector. The reason I push back slightly is that I saw an interview with Professor Sir John Bell, the big boss that the Oxford vaccine group ultimately reports into and a very eminent immunologist in his own right. In that interview he was discussing how long it would take to tweak the vaccines all the way through to remanufacture. He did say that the mRNA vaccines would be quickest but the figure he gave for tweaking the Oxford vaccine, although I think about 2 or 3 months longer than the time needed to tweak the mRNA vaccines, didn’t sound to me like enough extra time to run a whole new set of phase 3 trials. I think the extra time for reworking the AZ vaccine was down to increased manufacturing time because the mRNA production is all synthetic whereas the AZ vaccine needs to be grown in cell lines which takes time.

Having said that when the viral vector viruses will run out of road in terms of a particular repeatedly-vaccinated person developing immunity to a specific delivery vector is something that has worried me for a while, especially with the talk of boosters, and is possibly the second thing on my list of things I would most like to know about Covid-19 and would be the very first question I would ask Sir John Bell or some equally qualified expert if I got the opportunity. As someone who has had his first dose in the form of the AZ vaccine I have a vested interest.

Back to our shared concern about the efficacy of the AZ virus vs the SA variant I see that South Africa has actually sold its stock of AZ vaccine’s to other African countries. There is a reasonably good discussion of that with what I assume is a government advisor justifying that decision in this 5 minute radio interview...

https://ewn.co.za/2021/03/24/selling-as ... rof-schoub

- Julian

[servodude]

I’m not sure you are correct on your thoughts re the tweaking of the AZ delivery vector. The reason I push back slightly is that I saw an interview with Professor Sir John Bell, the big boss that the Oxford vaccine group ultimately reports into and a very eminent immunologist in his own right. In that interview he was discussing how long it would take to tweak the vaccines all the way through to remanufacture. He did say that the mRNA vaccines would be quickest but the figure he gave for tweaking the Oxford vaccine, although I think about 2 or 3 months longer than the time needed to tweak the mRNA vaccines, didn’t sound to me like enough extra time to run a whole new set of phase 3 trials. I think the extra time for reworking the AZ vaccine was down to increased manufacturing time because the mRNA production is all synthetic whereas the AZ vaccine needs to be grown in cell lines which takes time.

If that's changing the underlying chimp adenovirus as well as the AZ "covid targeting" part then it's great news
- if it's just tweaking the current vaccine to target the new strains - it's not going to work very well for any already vaccinated
- it comes down to the meaning of "tweak" (I'm guessing a specific piece of pharma-argot )

I know with our covid work we were able to fast track approvals by relying on prior art - but that entailed working within a very narrow scope of changes

- sd

[Julian]

I’m not sure you are correct on your thoughts re the tweaking of the AZ delivery vector. The reason I push back slightly is that I saw an interview with Professor Sir John Bell, the big boss that the Oxford vaccine group ultimately reports into and a very eminent immunologist in his own right. In that interview he was discussing how long it would take to tweak the vaccines all the way through to remanufacture. He did say that the mRNA vaccines would be quickest but the figure he gave for tweaking the Oxford vaccine, although I think about 2 or 3 months longer than the time needed to tweak the mRNA vaccines, didn’t sound to me like enough extra time to run a whole new set of phase 3 trials. I think the extra time for reworking the AZ vaccine was down to increased manufacturing time because the mRNA production is all synthetic whereas the AZ vaccine needs to be grown in cell lines which takes time.

If that's changing the underlying chimp adenovirus as well as the AZ "covid targeting" part then it's great news
- if it's just tweaking the current vaccine to target the new strains - it's not going to work very well for any already vaccinated
- it comes down to the meaning of "tweak" (I'm guessing a specific piece of pharma-argot )

I know with our covid work we were able to fast track approvals by relying on prior art - but that entailed working within a very narrow scope of changes

- sd

It's a conundrum. Oh how I would like to get the chance to ask these questions of a scientist associated with the Oxford team.

One rather quick and dirty solution occurs to me that, given the clear and present danger posed by new variants keeping us, in my opinion, still in a precarious state of emergency albeit soon with far fewer restrictions, might just be something that is being considered. This is just one theory from a lay-person (me) that I'm offering for scrutiny rather than trying to present it with any authority but with that caveat...

If the AZ vaccine does need to tweak the vector as well as the payload in order to avoid viral vector immunity to a booster dose and if such a tweak to the adenovirus delivery vector would require full phase 3 trials to re-demonstrate safety and efficacy as opposed to simple bridging trials which I believe are what is being proposed/explored/discussed-with-MHRA regarding booster authorisation then just maybe Oxford/AZ might make a booster using the same chimp adenovirus as its current vaccine and simply include "previously vaccinated with ChAdOx1" as a contraindication for the booster shot.

Despite such a contraindication that would still I think be of huge value to the planet in the next 6 to 12 months since I strongly suspect that vaccine supply will still be massively constrained at the end of this year and into next year if certain countries such as the UK and the USA, and maybe by that time the EU are wanting stocks of tweaked vaccines for 3rd booster shots for their population while at the same time developing countries are still trying to get enough doses for their initial vaccination rollout. The UK having an AZ booster available to give to everyone here for whom Pfizer was used for their initial vaccination doses (and Moderna and whatever else is close to approval) adds another vaccine into the equation for the booster shots at an earlier stage than waiting for a full re-run of phase 3 trials for a tweaked AZ vaccine.

I confess that I'm a bit unclear on how safety and efficacy checks work in the absence of full phase 3 trials. Presumably the annual flu vaccine doesn't go through full high volunteer count phase 3 trials each year but I haven't been able to find much info (any in fact) about the process of annual recertification. My search results get drowned out by Covid-19 vaccine results. I'm guessing that safety is tested by smaller and shorter trials looking only at safety (since such smaller and shorter trials are unlikely to encounter sufficient natural infections in the test group to establish efficacy with any acceptable level of confidence) and that efficacy is estimated from antibody responses and in-vitro tests of those antibodies' neutralising properties against the target strain(s). If that is the process then an exclusion criteria for volunteers for the bridging study for an AZ booster would presumably be that they had not previously received a ChAdOx1 vaccine and an inclusion criteria would presumably be that they had been fully vaccinated against Covid-19 using one of the other vaccines.

To this lay person it seems as if the above might be a coherent and implementable strategy that still delivers significant global benefit wrt overall vaccine supply? (The question mark is meant as an indication that I am by no means confident in my musings. I am way beyond the limits of my knowledge and sadly one gap in the knowledge of the various pharmacologist friends that I know is that none of them have worked on vaccines which is a shame otherwise I might have access to a bit more insight on all of this.)

- Julian

[9873210]

If the AZ vaccine does need to tweak the vector as well as the payload in order to avoid viral vector immunity to a booster dose and if such a tweak to the adenovirus delivery vector would require full phase 3 trials to re-demonstrate safety and efficacy as opposed to simple bridging trials

Where is the idea that you can't reuse a vector coming from?

Aa far as I can tell some flu vaccines uses the same vector year after year without problems. In any case flue shots do not do full phase three trials every year so if they do change the vector it's not a huge production.

Notice that there is only a small amount of vector proteins per shot, since there are no vector genes and hence no replication of these proteins.

Despite such a contraindication that would still I think be of huge value to the planet in the next 6 to 12 months

Not to mention the billions for whom a tweaked shot would be the initial vaccine not a booster.

[Julian]

If the AZ vaccine does need to tweak the vector as well as the payload in order to avoid viral vector immunity to a booster dose and if such a tweak to the adenovirus delivery vector would require full phase 3 trials to re-demonstrate safety and efficacy as opposed to simple bridging trials

Where is the idea that you can't reuse a vector coming from?

Aa far as I can tell some flu vaccines uses the same vector year after year without problems. In any case flue shots do not do full phase three trials every year so if they do change the vector it's not a huge production.

Notice that there is only a small amount of vector proteins per shot, since there are no vector genes and hence no replication of these proteins.
...

People reading my posts might note that I am anxious not to claim to be any sort of expert and not come across as a "Chantelle"(*) so one possibility of where "the idea that you can't reuse a vector" is coming from is very possibility my misunderstanding of what I've read and tried to understand but I have seen a fair amount of stuff implying that might be the case e.g. https://cen.acs.org/pharmaceuticals/vac ... -19/98/i19 that says...

There’s another potential problem. Just as human bodies develop immune responses to most real viral infections, our bodies also develop immunity to adenoviral vectors. That makes booster shots of adenoviral vector vaccines problematic. Upon a second injection, our bodies will unleash an antibody attack on the vaccine itself. And since adenoviral vectors are based on natural viruses that some of us might already have been exposed to, the vaccines might not work for everyone.

In the case of an AZ booster on top of an AZ twin-dose full vaccination the first AZ dose should have no problems since the Oxford group deliberately use a chimp vaccine that humans won't have encountered before but by the time you get to the booster jab the immune system of the person being vaccinated will have seen the ChAdOx1 delivery virus twice already so there is, again as I understand it, a definite danger of that person's immune system attacking the adenovirus vector before it can deliver its payload.

As I understand it the two main types of flu virus do not use viral delivery vector technology but instead one of the two main types is an inactivated flu virus and the second main type is a live attenuated flu virus (https://www.euro.who.int/en/health-topi ... 20vaccines) hence for flu vaccines you actually want the immune system to react to and attack the virus in the syringe whereas for viral delivery vector vaccines the virus in the syringe is essentially a missile that needs to deliver its payload into the (primarily) muscle cells of the person being vaccinated where that payload is the specially inserted gene encoding for the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein so that the muscle cells can then build multiple copies of the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein to then be expressed on the surface of the muscle cells for the bodies immune system to see. In effect with the flu vaccines the "payload" is delivered as soon as the stuff in the syringe goes into someone's arm whereas with the viral vector vaccines what goes into the arm is a bunch of missiles (multiple copies of the viral delivery adenovirus) that you don't want the immune system to "shoot down" before they can deliver their payloads into the muscle cells.

Anyway, as I said up front I don't want to claim any sort of specialist expertise, I'm just a computer guy trying to read up and at least somewhat understand all of this stuff, so polite corrections as necessary from people who do actually work in this field would be most welcome.

- Julian

(*) The Chantelle reference is from what I considered a rather marvellous post from someone way back in the first lockdown about all the people coming out of the woodwork thinking they knew better than all of the experts. It's probably dated a bit by now but a random copy of someone reposting it in full is here (https://www.facebook.com/HistioMom/post ... 380130154/) and the section I am referring to and trying not to fall into that category is ...

As someone with a Masters in disease control, you can only imagine the sheer hell on earth that Facebook is for me at the moment.
From Chantelle who has impressively made the leap from bath bomb retailer to consultant virologist in a matter of weeks and can tell you exactly why the government and their experts are wrong, to Bob who claims to have secret intel from a secret government group on the secret programme of secret treatment measures that the government are definitely bringing in at 3pm next Thursday, only it’s a secret, but he’s posting it on Facebook so he feels like 007, to Steve who thinks it’s all a load of [expletive deleted] and if he wants to wander round town he bloody well can cos he doesn’t feel sick and why the hell is ‘spoons shut cos his granddad didn’t fight the nazis for him to be told to stay inside even if pornhub premium is now free for a week.

[9873210]

People reading my posts might note that I am anxious not to claim to be any sort of expert and not come across as a "Chantelle"(*) so one possibility of where "the idea that you can't reuse a vector" is coming from is very possibility my misunderstanding of what I've read and tried to understand but I have seen a fair amount of stuff implying that might be the case e.g. https://cen.acs.org/pharmaceuticals/vac ... -19/98/i19 that says...

There’s another potential problem. Just as human bodies develop immune responses to most real viral infections, our bodies also develop immunity to adenoviral vectors. That makes booster shots of adenoviral vector vaccines problematic. Upon a second injection, our bodies will unleash an antibody attack on the vaccine itself. And since adenoviral vectors are based on natural viruses that some of us might already have been exposed to, the vaccines might not work for everyone.

You have been quite careful and I apologize if I have implied otherwise. Your post was simply the last one in a series discussing the issue. And thank you for answering the question about the source of the concern.

I will add that at this point "potential problem" is not a reason to stop. I think you said this in your previous post. About a year ago there were potential problems with all proposed vaccines. For some of these the potential problem was an actual problem, which is why there is no Merck or GalaxoSmithKline vaccine. The strategy should be to try as many things as possible and hope some of them work.

As I understand it the two main types of flu virus do not use viral delivery vector technology but instead one of the two main types is an inactivated flu virus and the second main type is a live attenuated flu virus

Those are the main types of flu vaccine, but the recombinant Flublok has been available since 2013. This is an egg free formulation so it is popular among people who are allergic to eggs. Many people will have taken it multiple times.

[1nvest]

It the history of viruses there is never a second, third or fourth wave.........FACT !!

Spanish flu a little over a century ago had a first wave death toll much the same as Covid, In the second wave its death rate was more like north of 30% and a lot more quicker/aggressive - start coughing up blood in the morning, have drowned in blood later that same day. I guess you could consider a mutated form as being a distinctly different virus, not a second wave. Semantics?

[XFool]

It the history of viruses there is never a second, third or fourth wave.........FACT !!

Yeah, we know. Along with...

1. Everyone in the UK had "herd immunity" last summer.........FACT!!

2. The pandemic was over in the UK last summer.........FACT!!

3. It was never really a pandemic.........FACT!!

4. The vaccines are part of a depopulation project.........FACT!!


BTW. I see that Mike Yeadon has (as I believe I predicted earlier) now pretty well gone full 'rogue':

Exclusive: Former Pfizer VP to AFLDS: ‘Entirely possible this will be used for massive-scale depopulation’

https://www.americasfrontlinedoctors.com/exclusive-former-pfizer-vp-to-aflds-entirely-possible-this-will-be-used-for-massive-scale-depopulation/#

At the outset, Dr. Yeadon said “I’m well aware of the global crimes against humanity being perpetrated against a large proportion of the worlds population."

[XFool]

Anyone that thinks de-population is a theory, needs to sit down with a large drink and watch this. It has been happening for years....and by the same people

Doesn't seem to have been working too well then, does it?

[redsturgeon]

This talk of a third wave in the UK confuses me. As far as I can tell we have just had the third wave.

First wave peaked in April 2020

Second wave peaked Nov 2020

Third wave peaked Jan 2021

Next wave will surely be the fourth wave.

John

[Gersemi]

This talk of a third wave in the UK confuses me. As far as I can tell we have just had the third wave.

First wave peaked in April 2020

Second wave peaked Nov 2020

Third wave peaked Jan 2021

Next wave will surely be the fourth wave.

John

The 'second' wave didn't affect London. So it doesn't count.

[Lootman]

This talk of a third wave in the UK confuses me. As far as I can tell we have just had the third wave.

First wave peaked in April 2020

Second wave peaked Nov 2020

Third wave peaked Jan 2021

Next wave will surely be the fourth wave.

Agreed although I think the idea is that the 2021 wave will be the last, thanks to vaccinations.