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Originally Posted by jfman
I wouldn’t describe it as a deeper understanding of the science, no. But I don’t see much science in the decision going against the advice of those who conducted the trials.
All other trials are finding that results against UK and SA variants are lower so unless we have a case of British exceptionalism I’d expect 62% to drop on the basis of one dose and drop against new mutations. To what degree is unknown.
Watching the Government spring into action like I’ve never seen it before with door to door testing makes me naturally wonder what do they know that I don’t?
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Fretting about the South Africa variant is a red herring, given that deployment decisions were taken well before the data around it had been collated, or indeed that there was evidence of community transmission in the UK. Nobody can be said to have taken a risk with that. The timing doesn’t fit.
Furthermore I think you’re misunderstanding the words of advice from the vaccine manufacturers, none of whom have said “don’t change the dosage schedule” - what they have said is, “we have no data for that schedule” which is a bald, factual statement and exactly what you would expect from a scientist qualified only to report what their actual trial results are.
In fact there is evidence that the first dose of any of the approved Covid vaccines is sufficient to very significantly reduce the incidence of serious disease. This is the public health outcome the UK government is pursuing at the moment; the first aim is to stop people dying of it. The AZ CEO said as much last week, and endorsed the UK government strategy for both the Pfizer and AZ vaccines. Of course I’m aware you rejected that when it came up in discussion last week - that’s why I tend to be cynical about your profession of concern, and tend to ascribe it to cynicism yourself. I don’t think you’re engaging in good faith with data or genuine public health policy aims, and are instead taking the usual path of least resistance, which is to assume everyone involved is incompetent, on the take, covering their own backs, etc.
---------- Post added at 18:02 ---------- Previous post was at 17:55 ----------
Quote:
Originally Posted by Damien
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Yup ... that’s still pre-print, but given that it builds on earlier work and is not inconsistent with what you’d expect from comparable vaccines there’s reason to be confident in the findings. I’m pretty sure Pascal Soirot had this research very much in mind when giving his interview last week.
And of course the point about comparable vaccines is worth stressing again and again. UK government policy in this area is not being developed in an absolute vacuum.