Covid-19 #24: You Scream, I Scream, We all Scream for Vaccine

[Fury Resurrected]

17 hours ago, Padraig said:

I think Joanna is right here.

There are definitely indications that the EU wouldn't approve the Astrazeneca vaccine for over 65 year olds.  When you have the CEO of Astrazeneca say that is not a problem (see Guardian article that was linked earlier), that's a big red flag.

Now maybe the EMA will decide in the end that there is enough data but suboptimal.  I don't know.  But its disappointing news.

As for this whole "EU pressured the EMA" thing.  This is the problem with the age we live in.  Media must media.  What does "pressure" mean?  Ignore the science?  I very much doubt it.  Take short-cuts?  Doubt that too.  Approve as much overtime as you need?  Bring in contractors?  Work Christmas Day? Much more likely.

If something gets to the end of Phase 3 trials, it probably has a high probability of being approved.  People did get a little carried away and thought that was close to 100% but given the times, I can see why people would grasp onto any life vest they can.  They certainly need to prepare for approval, as if it will be approved.

Anyhow, if the approval is constrained, this will mess up plans.  I know Ireland was going to use this vaccine for older people that weren't in hospitals/care homes.  But there are plenty front line people that can use it.  And as mentioned, it probably will eventually get approved completely.

Roll on J&J.  The results next week are 1-dose, so let us see.

Edited to add:  This issue with lack of 65+ year olds clearly was known about months ago.  So I wonder what the logic was for the EU application.  Could they have waited for the US test data?  Did the EU encourage AstraZeneca to give it a shot?  Part approval was better than none.? Again, lots of questions.

Here’s what I know from participation in the AZN trial- at least my trial has 40,000 participants. Judging by when people who also applied told me they were accepted versus when they were full, I’m betting that they are done or almost done with second doses. Mine was 4 weeks ago this coming Monday. I have since independently gotten an antibody test, which was positive (yay!). There are weekly symptom check ins (in addition to a number you are supposed to call with any Covid symptoms), and blood tests every four weeks. Long term effects will be studied for two years. I think phase 3 data is coming very soon.

[Mlle. Zabzie]

3 hours ago, Fury Resurrected said:

Here’s what I know from participation in the AZN trial- at least my trial has 40,000 participants. Judging by when people who also applied told me they were accepted versus when they were full, I’m betting that they are done or almost done with second doses. Mine was 4 weeks ago this coming Monday. I have since independently gotten an antibody test, which was positive (yay!). There are weekly symptom check ins (in addition to a number you are supposed to call with any Covid symptoms), and blood tests every four weeks. Long term effects will be studied for two years. I think phase 3 data is coming very soon.

I just want to thank you for volunteering for the trials and going through with it.  It’s a huge personal commitment and a risk.  I really appreciate it. Thanks.

[JoannaL]

so now it happened, and interestingly the German Vaccine Commission acted before tha authorization tomorrow:

form the Guardian LIVE section (no idea how to link:)

"German authorities have blocked the use of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine on people aged over 65, the Financial Times has reports.

A statement by the Standing Vaccine Commission at the Robert Koch Institute (RKI), Germany’s main public health agency, reportedly said in a draft recommendation there were “insufficient data currently available to ascertain how effective the vaccination is above 65 years”.

Thus, it was recommended only that it be used for people aged between 18 and 64. It comes after the European Medicines Agency said on Tuesday that the vaccine may be authorised only for younger people in Europe, due to the insufficient data.

That followed reports of a lower-than-expected efficacy rate of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine for older people, which the German government challenged while reiterating concerns about the British-Swedish pharmaceutical giant’s data reporting."

[JoannaL]

ok, so it looks like the efficacy data from AstraZeneca which they used to apply in the EU are as follows for the older the 65 years (source here just Guardian again so perhaps wrong, will look for original publ):

 

1 out of 341 members of the vaccinated group got sick, and 1 out of 319 members of the control group got sick which means a efficacy of 6,3 % - which is naturlaly totaly nonsense because its just to few cases. How could AZ apply with these data?

 

 

[Winterfell is Burning]

Australia's Lowy Institute has now a ranking of the best and worst countries in dealing with the pandemic. To no one surprise, the best is New Zealand, with a 94.4 rating. The US is 94 out of 98, with 17.3. The worst is, of course, Brazil, with 4.3.

[Heartofice]

3 minutes ago, Winterfell is Burning said:

Australia's Lowy Institute has now a ranking of the best and worst countries in dealing with the pandemic. To no one surprise, the best is New Zealand, with a 94.4 rating. The US is 94 out of 98, with 17.3. The worst is, of course, Brazil, with 4.3.

Considering the death toll, the UK seems to have done better than I expected there, better than France it seems and not really all that different to the rest of Europe.

[Fragile Bird]

7 minutes ago, Winterfell is Burning said:

Australia's Lowy Institute has now a ranking of the best and worst countries in dealing with the pandemic. To no one surprise, the best is New Zealand, with a 94.4 rating. The US is 94 out of 98, with 17.3. The worst is, of course, Brazil, with 4.3.

I laughed out loud when I saw Canada ranked below Italy. Deaths and cases don't seem to be too important.

[Winterfell is Burning]

6 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

Considering the death toll, the UK seems to have done better than I expected there, better than France it seems and not really all that different to the rest of Europe.

It's still below a lot of poorer places, like Kenya, Ethiopia, Serbia, etc.

Regarding Italy and Canada, the former seems to have improved after it's disastrous start.

[Heartofice]

3 minutes ago, Winterfell is Burning said:

It's still below a lot of poorer places, like Kenya, Ethiopia, Serbia, etc.

Regarding Italy and Canada, the former seems to have improved after it's disastrous start.

Which begs the question as to whether comparing countries in this way has any real value. If  France has done worse than Rwanda and Malta, is that actually telling us anything?

[Clueless Northman]

Italy got hit second right after China, so I can understand that we cut them some slack at least for the 1st wave. Not sure Canada deserves to be below, though.

I'm just amused to see Rwanda at the top and the US at the bottom.

It also conforts what transpires from various articles and reports: NZ, Vietnam and Taiwan did a stellar job. There also should be reports about Thailand, which seemed to have done very well but hasn't been in the news.

 

1 hour ago, JoannaL said:

1 out of 341 members of the vaccinated group got sick, and 1 out of 319 members of the control group got sick which means a efficacy of 6,3 % - which is naturlaly totaly nonsense because its just to few cases. How could AZ apply with these data?

Yeah, statistically, it doesn't mean anything. You can extrapolate that it's the same as with 18-64 group, but considering that they don't give shots to people under 18 and to pregnant women because they've no idea how it would work, I can see why authorities would be cautious about elderly.

[Winterfell is Burning]

3 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

Which begs the question as to whether comparing countries in this way has any real value. If  France has done worse than Rwanda and Malta, is that actually telling us anything?

I really don't know anything about Rwanda and Malta's responses to answer that.

Though of course in nearly all rankings the middle part is more debatable than the top and the bottom, and that seems to be the case here as well.

[ljkeane]

2 hours ago, JoannaL said:

ok, so it looks like the efficacy data from AstraZeneca which they used to apply in the EU are as follows for the older the 65 years (source here just Guardian again so perhaps wrong, will look for original publ):

I'm not an expert but I don't think that's an entirely fair reading of the study. It wasn't a study of people 18-64 and another study of people over 65, it was a study of the vaccine's efficacy in the population over the age of 18. I don't think you're supposed to be able to just take out the data of a certain subgroup and expect to have a meaningful study of the vaccine's efficacy in that particular group.  

Having said all that there were obviously some other issues with the study and since over 65s are a group of particular interest I don't think it's unreasonable for medical authorities to say to Astrazeneca they'd actually like a study of it's efficacy in over 65s before they approve the vaccine.

[Fragile Bird]

17 minutes ago, Winterfell is Burning said:

I really don't know anything about Rwanda and Malta's responses to answer that.

Though of course in nearly all rankings the middle part is more debatable than the top and the bottom, and that seems to be the case here as well.

Yeah, sorry, I suspect someone in Australia consciously put another Commonwealth country below Italy, because politics affects everything. Italy has triple the death rate and double the case rate per million population. There are other factors they looked at I know, but those two facts alone would put Italy below Canada in my books. I mean, what the flying fuck, the number of people who died is bloody important. And while Italy was hit early, the early numbers pale in comparison to the second wave numbers, as they do in Canada.

[williamjm]

6 hours ago, JoannaL said:

ok, so it looks like the efficacy data from AstraZeneca which they used to apply in the EU are as follows for the older the 65 years (source here just Guardian again so perhaps wrong, will look for original publ):

1 out of 341 members of the vaccinated group got sick, and 1 out of 319 members of the control group got sick which means a efficacy of 6,3 % - which is naturlaly totaly nonsense because its just to few cases. How could AZ apply with these data?

I guess this explain the source of those news reports about low efficacy which now definitely seem to be another example of journalists completely misrepresenting data if they're trying to draw any kind of conclusion from such sparse data.

4 hours ago, ljkeane said:

Having said all that there were obviously some other issues with the study and since over 65s are a group of particular interest I don't think it's unreasonable for medical authorities to say to Astrazeneca they'd actually like a study of it's efficacy in over 65s before they approve the vaccine.

I think both the UK and German approaches to this seem like reasonable reactions to the data. I can understand the Germans wanting more comprehensive data, at the same time I can understand pressing ahead with vaccinations when waiting could lead to many unnecessary deaths.

[JoannaL]

5 minutes ago, williamjm said:

I guess this explain the source of those news reports about low efficacy which now definitely seem to be another example of journalists completely misrepresenting data if they're trying to draw any kind of conclusion from such sparse data.

I think both the UK and German approaches to this seem like reasonable reactions to the data. I can understand the Germans wanting more comprehensive data, at the same time I can understand pressing ahead with vaccinations when waiting could lead to many unnecessary deaths.

I think so, too. 

Does the UK monitor its vaccine success like the Israeli do? The NHS is centralized so it should be possible almost immediately to get data of the efficacy of the AZ vaccine. Lets say infections of 1 mio vaccinated persons older than 65  after 3 weeks in comparisons to 1 mio not vaccinated persons older than 65 ? The data should already be lying around somewhere on NHS computers. Is this monitored? It would be a great phase IV study.

[The Anti-Targ]

4 hours ago, Heartofice said:

Which begs the question as to whether comparing countries in this way has any real value. If  France has done worse than Rwanda and Malta, is that actually telling us anything?

They are not comparing, they are scoring based on ostensibly objective criteria (e.g. did the govt listen to and implement scientifically sound advice from experts in the field appropriate to their situation? Were PPE supplies adequate for the needs the govt's own policies created? how effectively implemented and enforced were the policies and regulations of the govt? Did any members of govt or prominent advisors undermine control measures by being total hypocrites and then not be held to account? tc) which is not the same thing. Though when you put the countries in a list from highest to lowest the natural inclination for people is to compare scores. I haven't looked at the criteria they used to come up with the scores, but I would hope a reputable institution would come up with criteria that are objectively measurable from publicly available information.

The fact that infection rate and death rate does not heavily dictate the scores suggests there were a lot of different factors considered when determining the score.

 

[JoannaL]

sorry, posted in wrong threat

[Impmk2]

7 hours ago, Clueless Northman said:

There also should be reports about Thailand, which seemed to have done very well but hasn't been in the news.

Thailand did very well in 2020, but they're now having a (first?) wave and getting towards 1000 cases a day. Hopefully they can get it under control.

I agree that report seems odd. Singapore a South Korea, both have done very well, and are comparatively poorly ranked. Not sure how you can put Singapore with a much lower infection, death, and pretty comparable testing rate 6 places below Iceland.

Japan below Sweden seems to be another very strange one.

2 hours ago, The Anti-Targ said:

The fact that infection rate and death rate does not heavily dictate the scores suggests there were a lot of different factors considered when determining the score.

 

Apparently only 6 indicators were used to construct the index:

Quote

Fourteen-day rolling averages of new daily figures were calculated for the following indicators:

• Confirmed cases
• Confirmed deaths
• Confirmed cases per million people
• Confirmed deaths per million people
• Confirmed cases as a proportion of tests
• Tests per thousand people

Collectively, these indicators point to how well or poorly countries have managed the pandemic. An average of the rankings across the six indicators was normalised for each country to produce a score between 0 (worst performing) and 100 (best performing) on any given day in the 36 weeks that followed their hundredth confirmed case of COVID-19.

The results seem very strange, given there isn't an indication they used anything else if you look at their methodology.

[Zorral]

7 hours ago, Clueless Northman said:

It also conforts what transpires from various articles and reports: NZ, Vietnam and Taiwan did a stellar job. There also should be reports about Thailand, which seemed to have done very well but hasn't been in the news.

Is Cuba on the list at all?  It's done a stellar job, pretty much.  Plus also making medications, including a vaccine of its own, which is being administered to trial subjects across the island right now. Cuba has had 5 deaths.

Also -- 'conforts' -- which is surely a finger slip typo, I've been mildly amusing myself with possible words were intended instead!  That an A-grade typo, when the context still doesn't provide that information!  

[The Anti-Targ]

14 minutes ago, Impmk2 said:

Quote

Fourteen-day rolling averages of new daily figures were calculated for the following indicators:

• Confirmed cases
• Confirmed deaths
• Confirmed cases per million people
• Confirmed deaths per million people
• Confirmed cases as a proportion of tests
• Tests per thousand people

Collectively, these indicators point to how well or poorly countries have managed the pandemic. An average of the rankings across the six indicators was normalised for each country to produce a score between 0 (worst performing) and 100 (best performing) on any given day in the 36 weeks that followed their hundredth confirmed case of COVID-19.

The results seem very strange, given there isn't an indication they used anything else if you look at their methodology.

Weird criteria, and the first two are of no value whatsoever. The other 4 are good measures for what they are measuring, but they don't tell a story in respect of policy-making decisions and scientific advice, which is really how one should be assessing a country's handling of the pandemic. Despite best efforts a country might still have bad numbers because the population refuses to comply, and there is only so much coercive action a govt can take to get people to do the right thing. So if you are a country full of dickhead COVID skeptics and minimisers things are going to be pretty bad no matter what. But then, if you are a country full of such people, chances are the govt is also full of such people.

On our side of the world

Quote

Twelve people who quarantined at the Pullman hotel in New Zealand, where it is suspected the highly infectious South African strain of coronavirus has spread, then travelled on to Australia, authorities have revealed.

Australia announced on Thursday that its pause of the trans-Tasman travel bubble would be extended for three more days after New Zealand recorded two additional cases of the variant linked to the Pullman in Auckland.

Cripes! I hope we don't end up sending Australia a few cases of the South Africa strain through the quarantine-free route. I guess the lesson there is, if you have a 2+ country travel bubble then you need common approaches and systems for keeping tabs on people who have recently left quarantine. I doubt such cooperative measures exist. It is good that Aussie has been informed of this within a relatively short space of time.