Re: Coronavirus
 

This Brazilian variant seems to be like a 'cut and shut' of the UK and South African variants around the business parts of the spike (amino acids 400-600ish)

Here are the three compared - https://twitter.com/sailorrooscout/s...75542097825792

Considering most of the vaccines out there work well against both the UK and South Africa types, I wouldn't panic just yet.

Re: Coronavirus
 

Interesting.
Which vaccines work well against both the UK and South African types?

Re: Coronavirus
 

All of the current ones, in the UK at least..

Re: Coronavirus
 

Re: Coronavirus
 

Nice to see your even-handed comments on this.

They made an stupid error, realised it, and are correcting it - this is a common occurrence, not the end of earth or a massive conspiracy against the British.

The throbbing vein on your forehead must be a sight to behold....

"Pig headed, self righteous, and pompous" - oh, the irony...

Re: Coronavirus
 

I'm expecting delays in easing lockdown due to the Brazilian variant.


My dad and I are hoping to be able to sit in my sister garden on the 27th which will be her 50th.


Even though hugging won't be allowed, at least we can sit in their garden and living room, but I'm expecting this to be cancelled.

Re: Coronavirus
 

An unfortunate combination of German cultural nationalism (we won’t have that, it’s Not Made Here), a population already prone to anti-vax, tinfoil hat stupidity, and crassly expressed, institutional outrage that the Brits dared make a flying success out of their vaccine programme at the same time as the EU was royally fecking up its own, has made for a toxic combination.

It’s only mildly entertaining watching German experts scratching their heads and wondering how the official denigration of a vaccine has led to a plummet in confidence and refusals to accept it. Mostly it’s tragic because they now have quantities of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine sitting in fridges rather than in the arms of people who may now get very sick or even die of covid.

Re: Coronavirus
 

Re: Coronavirus
 

Yup - letting nationalism over-ride rationality, and the negative impact on the German population, was very dumb.

Re: Coronavirus
 

Great, so that should make it less of an issue.

Re: Coronavirus
 

They followed the science.

At the time of submission, there was insufficient data to support the effectiveness of the AZ vaccine in over 65s. There is no reason to expect the reaction over over 65s to be significantly different based on the reactions to COVID infections but also no hard evidence to say it will work. That's good enough for an Emergency Use Authorisation but probably not for a Conditional Market Authorisation.

Probably explained better by people with brains much bigger than mine here - https://www.sciencemediacentre.org/e...for-under-65s/

Re: Coronavirus
 

This is a tad naïve - you offer “they followed the science” as if it’s an absolute statement that can be offered without qualification, when clearly, as you acknowledge yourself, it is not. Those countries that authorised it for over 65s and those that did not were all following the science and yet somehow came to different conclusions.

There was actually perfectly adequate scientific data to support emergency use authorisation, and we are after all in an emergency. The phase 3 trials lacked sufficient test subjects in that age group to produce definitive data but there was ample data on antibody response and equally ample understanding that it was most likely this would translate into comparable vaccine efficacy in that group.

Given the problem Germany and France have with anti-vax movements they more than anyone should have understood that you can’t simply say you’re following the science as if science exists in a cultureless vacuum. How the science is communicated and how it is used politically are vitally important - as Germany is now discovering to its cost.

Re: Coronavirus
 

Covid vaccines cut risk of serious illness by 80%

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-56240220 Excellent news.

Source - https://www.gov.uk/government/news/n...n-older-adults

Re: Coronavirus
 

Re: Coronavirus
 

But these countries chose not to do an Emergency Use Authorisation so the weight of evidence needs to be stronger. The opinion of the various regulatory bodies in a number of countries was that there was insufficient evidence of efficacy in the over 65s. In the absence of any other vaccine, that's a bold move but with the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine being on line, not such a risk as under 65s get AZ and over 65s get Pfizer/BioNTech who did produce enough data to make a judgement.

Where there's a stronger anti-vaccine sentiment, I don't think 'it will probably work in over 65s' is a strong argument to increase vaccine uptake. We have lots of arguments that it hasn't been tested enough in this country. The fact that efficacy in over 65s was assumed rather than proved was somewhat glossed over.

---------- Post added at 18:31 ---------- Previous post was at 18:28 ----------

No governments make errors, they simply 'do not recognise' the accusations levelled at them :D