Coronavirus

[nomadking]

Originally Posted by jfman

However the point of moving the tennis players now, for a tournament taking place from 8th February, is to ensure they are taking appropriate measures.

I'm not saying we shouldn't play football or other elite sport if it's possible to do so safely - I'm just pointing out that JHB can't really point to Australia being a bad example when we opened travel corridors for "high value business travellers" among other things.

I wasn't aware that there was a planned delay for the tennis.


A "high value business traveller" is likely to behave very differently from somebody spending two weeks in Ibiza(just an example). It's all down to what are the nature of any likely interactions and how many of them there will be. "high value" had to be a specification or otherwise, hordes of people would have suddenly been on two week long business trips to the likes of Ibiza.


Not desirable for people to be travelling at all, but at least if there are some low risk exceptions, people shouldn't get all worked up over them.

[jonbxx]

Just catching up on this thread and have seem some vaccine hesitancy here, much like in the larger population. I have seem comments here questioning the safety of the vaccines due to the speed of the roll out, questioning the sample (cohort) size and lack of long term safety information.

The questions I would ask are these;

• What is a satisfactory cohort size to convince the doubters that a drug is safe?
• What is the basis on which this number is reached?
• How long is long enough to judge that there are no long term effects and again, what is this based on?
• Do doubters look at trial data for other drugs on the market to judge sufficient trial robustness?
• If not, why not? What is special about this vaccine?
• Is there still confidence in drug safety evaluation performed by regulatory agencies in light if the speed of approval for COVID vaccines?

This article gives data in table 1 on the cohort sizes for a number of vaccines approved by the FDA from 2000-2011. Some of the cohorts are pretty small! - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3551877/

[tweetiepooh]

My mum has had both doses of the Phizer vaccine, the second dose administered by pharmacist and left slightly sore arm but no other problems.

I did read something about pharma companies not normally wanting to do vaccines because of economics so the normal development cycle will have lots of pauses while the bean counters work out if it's worth going to the next stage. There was a lot less of this for the CV-19 vaccine so progress was quicker but not necessarily less thorough. Essentially the finance and admin people where pushed out of the way of the science/medicine. Certainly longer term affects would be "missed" but in a crisis situation that would apply anyway - you get someone out of a dangerous situation to save their life even it could leave them in a wheelchair.

This thread is not about Australian tennis players.Move on.

[jfman]

Originally Posted by jonbxx

Just catching up on this thread and have seem some vaccine hesitancy here, much like in the larger population. I have seem comments here questioning the safety of the vaccines due to the speed of the roll out, questioning the sample (cohort) size and lack of long term safety information.

The questions I would ask are these;

[*]What is a satisfactory cohort size to convince the doubters that a drug is safe?[*]What is the basis on which this number is reached?

Someone sceptical of the vaccines doesn’t have to consider these questions. In reality a “satisfactory cohort” has already been achieved by the millions of doses now issued worldwide.

[*]How long is long enough to judge that there are no long term effects and again, what is this based on?

This question is pertinent however.

[*]Do doubters look at trial data for other drugs on the market to judge sufficient trial robustness?[*]If not, why not? What is special about this vaccine?

The key difference here is, in general, people take medication to control their symptoms/illness. There’s a clear, obvious benefit to them and in the vast majority of cases medication will have been used on (in trials and in reality) people just like them with such symptoms for treatment.

The benefit if the vaccine (on a personal level) isn’t obvious - the amount of messaging around the vast, vast majority of people only getting “mild symptoms”.

If you said to someone you’re going to catch a cold this weekend, or you can take this medication developed a couple of months ago. By the way, if anything goes wrong neither the manufacturer, Government or the person who injects you with it has any liability. Most people, I’d imagine, would just take the cold.

[*]Is there still confidence in drug safety evaluation performed by regulatory agencies in light if the speed of approval for COVID vaccines?

This article gives data in table 1 on the cohort sizes for a number of vaccines approved by the FDA from 2000-2011. Some of the cohorts are pretty small! - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3551877/

[richard s]

Originally Posted by jonbxx

Just catching up on this thread and have seem some vaccine hesitancy here, much like in the larger population. I have seem comments here questioning the safety of the vaccines due to the speed of the roll out, questioning the sample (cohort) size and lack of long term safety information.

The questions I would ask are these;

• What is a satisfactory cohort size to convince the doubters that a drug is safe?
• What is the basis on which this number is reached?
• How long is long enough to judge that there are no long term effects and again, what is this based on?
• Do doubters look at trial data for other drugs on the market to judge sufficient trial robustness?
• If not, why not? What is special about this vaccine?
• Is there still confidence in drug safety evaluation performed by regulatory agencies in light if the speed of approval for COVID vaccines?

This article gives data in table 1 on the cohort sizes for a number of vaccines approved by the FDA from 2000-2011. Some of the cohorts are pretty small! - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3551877/

I have had the the injection on the 17/12/2020 because I did work in a care home. No side effects yet.

[OLD BOY]

Originally Posted by jonbxx

Just catching up on this thread and have seem some vaccine hesitancy here, much like in the larger population. I have seem comments here questioning the safety of the vaccines due to the speed of the roll out, questioning the sample (cohort) size and lack of long term safety information.

The questions I would ask are these;

• What is a satisfactory cohort size to convince the doubters that a drug is safe?
• What is the basis on which this number is reached?
• How long is long enough to judge that there are no long term effects and again, what is this based on?
• Do doubters look at trial data for other drugs on the market to judge sufficient trial robustness?
• If not, why not? What is special about this vaccine?
• Is there still confidence in drug safety evaluation performed by regulatory agencies in light if the speed of approval for COVID vaccines?

This article gives data in table 1 on the cohort sizes for a number of vaccines approved by the FDA from 2000-2011. Some of the cohorts are pretty small! - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3551877/

I think the major concern is with the RNA vaccines, like Phizer. I am satisfied that the immediate short term effects are minimal, and in most non-existent, but the issue relates to the longer term impacts, particularly given that this is a completely different kind of vaccine which involves injection of the virus’ DNA.

The testing of the vaccination over less than a year will not reveal longer term side-effects, whereas over the normal period of 10 years or so, testing is more likely to pick this up.

The vaccination could be completely safe - safer in fact than older style vaccines - but the point is, we don’t know that. Even with the rigour that has been deployed before, vaccines have had to be withdrawn urgently due to longer term effects that were not known when the vaccine was released. The SARS vaccine, which induced narcolepsy in a significant number of recipients, is a case in point.

It is for these reasons that I would only be prepared to take the Oxford AstraZenica vaccine at the present time, which I believe to be the safer, more conventional inoculation. We have ample supplies of that coming on stream, fortunately.

That was a swine flu vaccine, not the SARS vaccine...

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2015...sed-narcolepsy

Also, the mRNA vaccines don’t utilise the COVID DNA, they use mRNA, which is a non-infectious, non-integrating platform, so there is no potential risk of infection or insertional mutagenesis.

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019...ines/mrna.html

Also, the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine uses modified DNA.

[Angua]

Originally Posted by OLD BOY

I think the major concern is with the RNA vaccines, like Phizer. I am satisfied that the immediate short term effects are minimal, and in most non-existent, but the issue relates to the longer term impacts, particularly given that this is a completely different kind of vaccine which involves injection of the virus’ DNA.

The testing of the vaccination over less than a year will not reveal longer term side-effects, whereas over the normal period of 10 years or so, testing is more likely to pick this up.

The vaccination could be completely safe - safer in fact than older style vaccines - but the point is, we don’t know that. Even with the rigour that has been deployed before, vaccines have had to be withdrawn urgently due to longer term effects that were not known when the vaccine was released. The SARS vaccine, which induced narcolepsy in a significant number of recipients, is a case in point.

It is for these reasons that I would only be prepared to take the Oxford AstraZenica vaccine at the present time, which I believe to be the safer, more conventional inoculation. We have ample supplies of that coming on stream, fortunately.

From my Daughter who is doing a PHd in a highly specialised immunological field. She is also pretty good at explaining this in understandable terms.

The mRNA vaccine (Pfizer & Modena) is a strand of mRNA that encodes the Spike protein from covid. Our cells read the mRNA and produce the Spike protein. Our immune system recognises this Spike protein and forms a response to it, making all the antibody and memory to protect us from the real thing.

A vector vaccine (Oxford AZ) works in a very similar way but instead of just giving you the mRNA that encodes the Spike protein, they put it in a dead viral shell that protects it (allowing it to be kept at room temp) the cell then uses the genetic code inside the dead viral vector to make the Spike protein. The immune system then does the same to generate the immunity.

The pure mRNA would be more effective as it doesn't have to get out the dead viral shell (hence why the Pfizer ones efficacy is higher) but, mRNA degrades really easily. So it has to be stored at - 70. Which is a pain in the posterior.

Originally Posted by OLD BOY

I think the major concern is with the RNA vaccines, like Phizer.

I think if you want to make highly technical observations on a complicated topic, the very least you can do is get your spelling, your terminology and your facts right.

The drug company in question is Pfizer. The vaccine technology they are using employs mRNA (‘m’ for messenger). As Hugh said, swine flu, not SARS.

I normally resist the urge to be a grammar nazi but I make exceptions for people who presume to lecture others on the basis of their supposedly superior research. We are several months into this now, and these basic details are very accessible in the public domain.

[jfman]

Chris, meet Old Boy.

Old Boy, Chris.

[jonbxx]

Originally Posted by OLD BOY

I think the major concern is with the RNA vaccines, like Phizer. I am satisfied that the immediate short term effects are minimal, and in most non-existent, but the issue relates to the longer term impacts, particularly given that this is a completely different kind of vaccine which involves injection of the virus’ DNA.

The testing of the vaccination over less than a year will not reveal longer term side-effects, whereas over the normal period of 10 years or so, testing is more likely to pick this up.

The vaccination could be completely safe - safer in fact than older style vaccines - but the point is, we don’t know that. Even with the rigour that has been deployed before, vaccines have had to be withdrawn urgently due to longer term effects that were not known when the vaccine was released. The SARS vaccine, which induced narcolepsy in a significant number of recipients, is a case in point.

It is for these reasons that I would only be prepared to take the Oxford AstraZenica vaccine at the present time, which I believe to be the safer, more conventional inoculation. We have ample supplies of that coming on stream, fortunately.

The active part of the Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna vaccines is the mRNA which tends to have a pretty short half life in cells. The mRNA gets in, spike proteins are translated and the mRNA degrades. We're talking hours here so it's pretty impressive that such a short lived vaccine works at all! If there are long term effects, these are more likely to come from the spike protein itself and, if that's the case, then we are in deep trouble when it comes to COVID vaccine design as so many are spike protein based.

The Oxford/AZ vaccine is similar but uses DNA which in transcribed into mRNA in the cell which in turn is translated in to spike proteins so they are quite similar. I wouldn't call the Oxford/AZ vaccine traditional either to be honest.

I think if people want a traditional 'inject me with dead virus or bits of dead virus' type vaccines, the only candidates out there are the Chinese Sinopharm and Sinovac vaccines or the Indian Bharat Biotech one. Alternatively, I guess people can wait for the Novavax or GSK/Sanofi vaccine to come through but, by all accounts, the initial results don't look promising.

[1andrew1]

Originally Posted by OLD BOY

I think the major concern is with the RNA vaccines, like Phizer. I am satisfied that the immediate short term effects are minimal, and in most non-existent, but the issue relates to the longer term impacts, particularly given that this is a completely different kind of vaccine which involves injection of the virus’ DNA.

The testing of the vaccination over less than a year will not reveal longer term side-effects, whereas over the normal period of 10 years or so, testing is more likely to pick this up.

The vaccination could be completely safe - safer in fact than older style vaccines - but the point is, we don’t know that. Even with the rigour that has been deployed before, vaccines have had to be withdrawn urgently due to longer term effects that were not known when the vaccine was released. The SARS vaccine, which induced narcolepsy in a significant number of recipients, is a case in point.

It is for these reasons that I would only be prepared to take the Oxford AstraZenica vaccine at the present time, which I believe to be the safer, more conventional inoculation. We have ample supplies of that coming on stream, fortunately.

If someone tried to inject me with something labelled Phizer or AstraZenica, I would run a mile!

Originally Posted by 1andrew1

If someone tried to inject me with something labelled Phizer or AstraZenica, I would run a mile!

Pssst!

<looks around, checking for the filth>

Mate, fancy a vaccine? My mate got it from his next-door neighbour’s second cousin who knows someone who knows someone who empties the bins at a pharma company.

Sort you out like a proper geeza!!!

I can also get you a Sumsang Tablet or an eyePhone - just as good as the real thing, at half the price...

[jonbxx]

Originally Posted by 1andrew1

If someone tried to inject me with something labelled Phizer or AstraZenica, I would run a mile!

You'll get a free Bolex watch though...