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Covid-19 #30: Vaccines and All That JJAZ


Fragile Bird

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7 hours ago, JEORDHl said:

iono if anyone's posted this yet [apologies if so] but could this new covid treatment be as good as it sounds?

from the link: 

i. patients with a self-administered nasal spray application found to have reduced SARS-CoV-2 log viral load by more than 95% in infected participants within 24 hours of treatment, and by more than 99% in 72 hours

ii. trial concluded that treatment accelerated clearance of SARS-CoV-2 by a factor of 16-fold versus a placebo

iii. randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial evaluated 79 confirmed cases of COVID-19, the majority heavily-infected with the UK variant

iv. no adverse events were recorded in the group

v. submission for Emergency Use in the UK and Canada for the treatment and prevention of COVID-19 is planned immediately

This is very interesting and potentially very useful. I've seen something about Nitric Oxide before and speculations that might be the reasons why smokers get less covid.

I remember there is trial of something similar in Australia and just found this while looking for the former.

Efficacy of a nasal spray containing Iota-Carrageenan

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.04.13.21255409v1

If I understand the stats correctly, it gives a reduction of 80% in testing positive for covid19.

There is an Italian group suggesting povidone iodine nasal sprays and a German group recommending Listerine. I'm doing the later and using a salt water spray from time to time. Maybe it helps?

EDIT: I found the Australian nasal spray! and it turns out is already approved in Europe  (although, it doesn't seem to be available). I goes by the name Viraleze https://viraleze.co/

 

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9 hours ago, Chataya de Fleury said:

One of the things that had really made me roll my eyes is how “vaccinated people can now hug their grandchildren”.

The lady next door has been hugging her grandchildren since last summer. She had a bad time last year when she didn't see them for months. She told me once she prefers to die than to miss how her grandchildren grow. To be sure, they mostly go for walks around the neighbor instead of staying in her flat. I don't know if she has gotten the vaccine at that time.

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2 hours ago, Filippa Eilhart said:

We had a first confirmed AZ-related death. 74 y.o. woman. :(

eta: that's out of 36 000 administered doses.

Hmm.  I suppose it's cases like that which complicates the theory regarding age and these blood disorders.  Not good.

Good news on the nasal treatments anyhow!

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51 minutes ago, rotting sea cow said:

This is very interesting and potentially very useful. I've seen something about Nitric Oxide before and speculations that might be the reasons why smokers get less covid.

I remember there is trial of something similar in Australia and just found this while looking for the former.

Efficacy of a nasal spray containing Iota-Carrageenan

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.04.13.21255409v1

If I understand the stats correctly, it gives a reduction of 80% in testing positive for covid19.

There is an Italian group suggesting povidone iodine nasal sprays and a German group recommending Listerine. I'm doing the later and using a salt water spray from time to time. Maybe it helps?

So our health minister said he also used Listerine gurgling when having Covid. all of these applications work under the theory that if you kill the virus early enough in the nasal and throat area (with Listerine -alcohol or NO2 or whatever) then it cannot spread and infect the lung. It makes sense and doesnt hurt, but I think there is only evidence that it reduces the virus load in these areas. It may follow that then you do not get the dangerous complications but I think thats not proven yet.

I like the asthma spray idea more (that is protecting the lung while you have Covid in the nasal and throat area). Perhaps one can also do both.

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4 minutes ago, Padraig said:

Hmm.  I suppose it's cases like that which complicates the theory regarding age and these blood disorders.  Not good.

Good news on the nasal treatments anyhow!

One case can always be a bad coincidence. You need higher numbers of vaccinations and cases to conclude anything

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34 minutes ago, JoannaL said:

So our health minister said he also used Listerine gurgling when having Covid. all of these applications work under the theory that if you kill the virus early enough in the nasal and throat area (with Listerine -alcohol or NO2 or whatever) then it cannot spread and infect the lung. It makes sense and doesnt hurt, but I think there is only evidence that it reduces the virus load in these areas. It may follow that then you do not get the dangerous complications but I think thats not proven yet.

I like the asthma spray idea more (that is protecting the lung while you have Covid in the nasal and throat area). Perhaps one can also do both.

I think the main difference between Listerine gargling, the different nasal sprays and asthma sprays is that the former category can be used as prophylaxis to reduce the overall risk while the second can be used once you get the disease.

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The CEO of Pfizer has said in an interview that he believes people will need a booster shot within 12 months if their initial vaccination.

Unless Pfizer opens some more plants in other parts of the world, I don’t think you ‘re going to see a heck of a lot of exports out of the US any time soon. There might be a brief window for exports, but then it will be shut again.

What’s the news on Moderna in Europe? Their delivery promises are very GoT, “words are wind”. They were supposed to deliver 845,000 doses to Canada two weeks ago, failed, then last week, failed, then delivered this week. A million were supposed to be delivered this week, which got pushed to next week, then the week after, and at the rate they’re going, it may be the first week of May. Vaccination sites here and across the country had to be shut down because there was no vaccine. The excuse being given is that their quality control, which tests every batch, is backlogged.

And, finally, J&J wanted to put together a industry group to study the blood clot issue. AZ agreed but both Pfizer and Moderna passed on it because they don’t have a problem.

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1 hour ago, Fragile Bird said:

The CEO of Pfizer has said in an interview that he believes people will need a booster shot within 12 months if their initial vaccination.

Unless Pfizer opens some more plants in other parts of the world, I don’t think you ‘re going to see a heck of a lot of exports out of the US any time soon. There might be a brief window for exports, but then it will be shut again.

What’s the news on Moderna in Europe? Their delivery promises are very GoT, “words are wind”. They were supposed to deliver 845,000 doses to Canada two weeks ago, failed, then last week, failed, then delivered this week. A million were supposed to be delivered this week, which got pushed to next week, then the week after, and at the rate they’re going, it may be the first week of May. Vaccination sites here and across the country had to be shut down because there was no vaccine. The excuse being given is that their quality control, which tests every batch, is backlogged.

 

Moderna is a little bit problematic deliverywise, sometimes one or two weeks late, but in the end it arrives...They kept the promises for the last quarter in the end.

AZ on the other hand said it would deliver 3,8 mio in April here in Germany and now shortened that to 1,6 mio . Thats very problematic also because as mentioned in the last threat its usefulness will end here after the 60 year old and over are vaccinated, that will be in the next 4-6 weeks , so afterward there is no reason to get any AZ . I hope we do not have to pay for it afterwards, since there were that many delivery failures ( and then that spectacular best efforts contract and the 125 mio in the first quarter of which the EU only got 29 and the scandal with hiding the doses to smuggle them out and ... so on , I dont want to start again)

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So following our news, Luxembourg issued a temporary recommendation to restrict the use of AZ in people under 55 (unless there is no alternative available) and at the same time to open a waiting list for volunteers aged 30-55 who wish to be vaccinated with AZ ahead of schedule. I think it's a good compromise. I also have no intention of volunteering :p

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16 minutes ago, Filippa Eilhart said:

So following our news, Luxembourg issued a temporary recommendation to restrict the use of AZ in people under 55 (unless there is no alternative available) and at the same time to open a waiting list for volunteers aged 30-55 who wish to be vaccinated with AZ ahead of schedule. I think it's a good compromise. I also have no intention of volunteering :p

I think that’s the way to go as well.

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As others have reported above, from the NYT report on the annual boosters, starting within a year, most likely necessary.

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/04/16/world/covid-vaccine-coronavirus-cases#pfizer-vaccine-booster

Quote

 

....Vaccine makers are getting a jump-start on possible new rounds of shots, although they sound more certain of the need for boosters than independent scientists have.

Pfizer’s chief executive Albert Bourla said on Thursday that a third dose of the company’s Covid-19 vaccine was “likely” to be needed within a year of the initial two-dose inoculation — followed by annual vaccinations.

Dr. David Kessler, who runs the Biden administration’s vaccine effort, told a House subcommittee on Thursday that the government was also looking ahead. One factor at play is the spread of coronavirus variants and whether further vaccination could better target mutant strains.

Mr. Bourla said that “a likely scenario” is “a third dose somewhere between six and 12 months, and from there it would be an annual re-vaccination.” Moderna said this week that it was at work on a booster for its vaccine, and Johnson & Johnson has said that its single-shot vaccine will probably need to be given annually.

Dr. Kessler emphasized the “strong efficacy” of the current vaccines, including against the variants, but said that the government was “taking steps to develop next generation of vaccines that are directed against these variants if in fact they can be more effective.”....

,,,In February, Pfizer and its partner, BioNTech, said that they planned to test a third shot and to update their original vaccine. The F.D.A. has said that vaccine developers will not need to conduct lengthy trials for vaccines that have been adapted to protect against variants.

On Tuesday, Moderna said that its vaccine continued to provide strong protection in the United States against Covid-19 six months after it is given, and the company’s chief executive, Stéphane Bancel, told CNBC that he hoped to have booster shots ready by the fall.

 

 

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Okay, back to Moderna. They just cut our next shipment in half. We were supposed to get 1.2 M doses next week, a delivery that was pushed back to two weeks, then a suggestion was made it might be May.

Now we’re going to get only 550,000, I’m not sure if that’s next week or in two weeks.

Moderna hasn’t even tried to label it as a testing issue anymore, they’re just shrugging their shoulders and saying, hey guys, it’s a product in demand. I wonder if our shipment is being diverted to EU countries. Or, for crying out loud, to the UK. If there’s any country that could handle their shipment being cut, it’s the UK. 

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This does not sound good.

Ten scientific reasons in support of airborne transmission of SARS-CoV-2

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(21)00869-2/fulltext

Quote
“The lack of recoverable viral culture samples of SARS-CoV-2 prevents firm conclusions to be drawn about airborne transmission”.
1
This conclusion, and the wide circulation of the review's findings, is concerning because of the public health implications.
If an infectious virus spreads predominantly through large respiratory droplets that fall quickly, the key control measures are reducing direct contact, cleaning surfaces, physical barriers, physical distancing, use of masks within droplet distance, respiratory hygiene, and wearing high-grade protection only for so-called aerosol-generating health-care procedures. Such policies need not distinguish between indoors and outdoors, since a gravity-driven mechanism for transmission would be similar for both settings. But if an infectious virus is mainly airborne, an individual could potentially be infected when they inhale aerosols produced when an infected person exhales, speaks, shouts, sings, sneezes, or coughs. Reducing airborne transmission of virus requires measures to avoid inhalation of infectious aerosols, including ventilation, air filtration, reducing crowding and time spent indoors, use of masks whenever indoors, attention to mask quality and fit, and higher-grade protection for health-care staff and front-line workers.
2
Airborne transmission of respiratory viruses is difficult to demonstrate directly.
3
Mixed findings from studies that seek to detect viable pathogen in air are therefore insufficient grounds for concluding that a pathogen is not airborne if the totality of scientific evidence indicates otherwise. Decades of painstaking research, which did not include capturing live pathogens in the air, showed that diseases once considered to be spread by droplets are airborne.
4
Ten streams of evidence collectively support the hypothesis that SARS-CoV-2 is transmitted primarily by the airborne route.
 
In conclusion, we propose that it is a scientific error to use lack of direct evidence of SARS-CoV-2 in some air samples to cast doubt on airborne transmission while overlooking the quality and strength of the overall evidence base. There is consistent, strong evidence that SARS-CoV-2 spreads by airborne transmission. Although other routes can contribute, we believe that the airborne route is likely to be dominant. The public health community should act accordingly and without further delay.

 

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30 minutes ago, AncalagonTheBlack said:

Ten scientific reasons in support of airborne transmission of SARS-CoV-2

Is this a throwback article from April of last year?  Because that's when the "is COVID airborne?" debate was raging.  It has long been settled that COVID is airborne and that it where the majority of transmission is coming from. 

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59 minutes ago, Zorral said:

As others have reported above, from the NYT report on the annual boosters, starting within a year, most likely necessary.

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/04/16/world/covid-vaccine-coronavirus-cases#pfizer-vaccine-booster

They should certainly be preparing for boosters.  But its very unclear when they would be required.  Pharma companies have a financial interest in emphasising the need (keep orders coming in) but all we know right now is that Moderna/Pfizer lasts at least 6 months.  I doubt protection will fall off a cliff from 6 months.

The one thing we can hope for is that only 1 injection would be required, so that will ensure any follow-up requirement will be twice as fast.  And in fact, it is likely to be way faster.  Pfizer/Biontech are talking about having the capacity to deliver 3bn doses next year.  Moderna probably close to a billion.  And that ignores all the other suppliers that are coming on stream.  Novavax has big plans.

Once we have to seriously worry about boosters, I don't think think supply will be the issue.  (Even if 1 manufacturer hits upon the winning formula that lasts forever, at 95%+ efficacy).

Moderna's problem is that it is relying on European factories to supply the rest of the world.  It had no presence here before 2020.  So while it produced 100m in the US in Q1, I doubt it managed much more than 15m from Europe (the EU got 10m).  It is ramping up to 35m for the EU in Q2.  Maybe 50m altogether but going from 0 to 15 to 50 is clearly challenging.

1 hour ago, Filippa Eilhart said:

Luxembourg issued a temporary recommendation to restrict the use of AZ in people under 55 (unless there is no alternative available) and at the same time to open a waiting list for volunteers aged 30-55 who wish to be vaccinated with AZ ahead of schedule.

Interesting.  I wonder will more countries go this route.  It was suggested here also.  Otherwise, what do you do with all the AZ vaccines ordered?  I'll be very curious to see what Denmark does with its AZ vaccines.  I know a few countries were hoping to grab some/all of them.

I suppose there is still a small chance that scientists will figure something out and allow the current restrictions to change but that, admittedly, looks unlikely right now (given that statistically, it is already safe to use).

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11 minutes ago, AncalagonTheBlack said:

It popped up on my news feed today and the Lancet article was published yesterday. :unsure:

The peer-reviewed journal articles may just be catching up now, but all the visible evidence has been for over year that airborne transmission was the primary (and possibly only) form of spread.

In fact, the larger story for a while is how much money is being spent on "deep cleaning" when there's still barely any evidence of fomite transmission occurring.

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2 minutes ago, Maithanet said:

Is this a throwback article from April of last year?  Because that's when the "is COVID airborne?" debate was raging.  It has long been settled that COVID is airborne and that it where the majority of transmission is coming from. 

Published in Lancet on April 15, 2021 - https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(21)00869-2/fulltext

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17 minutes ago, Padraig said:

I'll be very curious to see what Denmark does with its AZ vaccines.  I know a few countries were hoping to grab some/all of them.

They're giving them to Covax. It's not really ideal messaging to say 'we don't think this is safe enough to give to any of our population' then hand it over to covax countries though.

ETA: Huh, maybe I'm wrong about that. I was sure I'd read that they were donating them to the covax scheme but I can't seem to find the story anywhere now.

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4 minutes ago, Padraig said:

The one thing we can hope for is that only 1 injection would be required, so that will ensure any follow-up requirement will be twice as fast.  And in fact, it is likely to be way faster.  Pfizer/Biontech are talking about having the capacity to deliver 3bn doses next year.  Moderna probably close to a billion.  And that ignores all the other suppliers that are coming on stream.  Novavax have big plans.

Once we have to seriously worry about boosters, I don't think think supply will be the issue.

That's what the people quoted in the article mention also (not in the text I pulled from it, though).

What I would like to see established in this time are community walk-in vaccine-testing centers everywhere, so they are ready to by the time boosters are called for, instead this hideous manner of search, refresh, repeat repeat repeat ad infinitum to get appointments.  It's no coincidence that here in NY seeking an appointment anywhere, whether in one's so-called 'medical care' "centers", a pharmacy, city / state mass vaccination sites, church, is as crazy impossible as registering to vote (particularly if one is registering as a Dem -- and it IS the fault of the state Dem party), and voting itself.

If it were convenient to get vaccinated, surely many more of the semi-reluctant sorts would do it.

 

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