Covid-19 #30: Vaccines and All That JJAZ

[Altherion]

15 hours ago, S John said:

I’m tired of hearing their bullshit and I can’t wait until the only people hurt by their destructive and moronic behavior will be themselves and others like them.

That will never happen as long as there are many of these people though. The vaccine is a means of tricking the immune system into recognizing the virus and destroying it before it can do harm, but the downside of this is that it may not work well (or at all) for people with weakened immune systems. There is a variety of diseases and disorders (auto-immune disorders, organ transplants, etc.) which either directly or indirectly result in these people having weakened or suppressed immune systems and it's not at all obvious that even the best of the vaccines will work for them. There are also people who are allergic to something about the vaccine and therefore can't get it even if they wanted to. Thus, the only way to truly stop the virus from hurting people who are doing their best to stop it is to end it once and for all.

I got my second shot of Pfizer yesterday. The reaction is way worse than after the first shot (this time, there was fever and muscle aches in addition to the sore arm), but it appears to be subsiding.

[Filippa Eilhart]

https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-preparing-legal-case-against-astrazeneca-over-vaccine-shortfalls/

[Fragile Bird]

Canada has stopped flights from India and Pakistan for the next 30 days, starting tonight.

The mayor of the community where Toronto’s airport is located just wants the airport shut down, period. And people are complaining that people in India and Pakistan can just travel through alternate countries.

[Zorral]

Seems a wise move, on Canada's part. 

Partner observed, "India, another country like Brasil, and in nightmarish memory, the US, run by a rightwinger.:

[Padraig]

4 hours ago, Filippa Eilhart said:

They paused until the EMA review but administered the rest of the doses now. We only got 2500 though.

But there is no age restriction?  AZ is limited to over 60s here.  If J&J is treated the same, then its effectively useless.  I think France have gone with 55 (for now).  Germany hasn't released a figure yet (I think).

The UK has released a lot more info on these blood disorders. 

Quote

Of the 168 cases in the latest summary, cerebral venous sinus thrombosis (CVST or blood clots in the brain) was reported in 77 cases, with an average age of 47.  A further 91 cases had other "major thromboembolic events" along with thrombocytopenia - low platelet counts - with an average age of 55.

Overall, 93 women and 75 men suffered clots after receiving the vaccine.

Based on that, age and gender don't seem to be contributing factors.  You should restrict from younger people because they are less likely to get bad cases of COVID (and thus, the balance of risks around using AZ is poorer), not because they are more likely to get this blood disorder.

https://www.rte.ie/news/uk/2021/0422/1211516-uk-astrazeneca/

1 hour ago, Altherion said:

The vaccine is a means of tricking the immune system into recognizing the virus and destroying it before it can do harm, but the downside of this is that it may not work well (or at all) for people with weakened immune systems.

Yes.  In South Africa, the Novavax vaccine fell from 60% efficiacy to almost 40% (IIRC) based on whether a patient had HIV.  That was against the South African variant.

By the way, do they know how bad the Indian variant is yet?  Similar to the South African one?  Or even worse? Or better.

[williamjm]

1 hour ago, Padraig said:

By the way, do they know how bad the Indian variant is yet?  Similar to the South African one?  Or even worse? Or better.

I don't think there's any hard data on its impact yet but it apparently has some mutations similar to the Brazilian and South African variants.

[Old Zog]

9 hours ago, Fez said:

Three things that would help a lot: [...] 2) Have states mandate that kids be vaccinated, once it's approved for them, for them to attend school, [...]

I know it's stretching the definition of "kids", but the University of California and California State University systems (combined over 750,000 students) have announced that students, faculty and staff will need to be vaccinated for this Fall. I'm hopeful that the California community college system (in which I teach) follows suit. I'm curious to see if this starts a trend of other colleges and universities mandating vaccines.

I imagine that once vaccines are approved for kids, many/most states will mandate vaccines to attend public school.

[Impmk2]

4 hours ago, Fragile Bird said:

Canada has stopped flights from India and Pakistan for the next 30 days, starting tonight.

The mayor of the community where Toronto’s airport is located just wants the airport shut down, period. And people are complaining that people in India and Pakistan can just travel through alternate countries.

Australia is reducing flights from India by 30% for the foreseeable future to manage the risk in the hotel quarantine system, as upwards of 40% of current cases are from there. The infection numbers being seen are just crazy, moreso as it's almost certainly just the tip of the iceberg.

[Luzifer's right hand]

We hit 10k official Covid-19 deaths...

A sad and unnecessary landmark.

[Filippa Eilhart]

8 hours ago, Padraig said:

But there is no age restriction? 

not for the moment. 

[RhaenysBee]

My mother is getting a Pfizer shot in minutes   

And in other news, we are reopening entertainment businesses to those already vaccinated - temporarily. That means you will be able to go to cinema even if you refuse to get yourself vaccinated because you think it’s a political agenda. Just not right now, you’ll have to wait a bit longer because you’re not even semi-protected. But since we are us,  there’s a public outrage over this that my narrow mind cannot comprehend. Oh well. 

Numbers are better but this premature opening is going to come back and bite us in the arse, that much is certain. 

 

[JoannaL]

9 hours ago, Padraig said:

But there is no age restriction?  AZ is limited to over 60s here.  If J&J is treated the same, then its effectively useless.  I think France have gone with 55 (for now).  Germany hasn't released a figure yet (I think).

 

No age restriction as of yet. There is no scientific or statistical reason to do so yet. -There is only the theory that the problems may be the same as with AZ but thats not proven. On the pure data of the cases for J&J you can not conclude any kind of restrictions for a certain subgroup (as of yet). We will start vaccinating with it next week, but we only got 260000 doses not the 460000 doses planned. Has J&J also delivering problems?

[JoannaL]

3 minutes ago, JoannaL said:

 

I saw an interesting table about the distribution of the different variants in Germany. The  British mutant is now at 93%. What I found interesting:

At the beginning of January the distribution between variants  was  almost all wildtyp , 1-2 % South African and 2 % Britisch mutant. Now the British mutant has displaced the wild type, but the proportion of the south african mutant has not grown (2%). so I was thinking perhaps to have a more contagious variant can even be an advantage in the long run? It may keep other - less contagious but for other reason less favourable variants out (in case of the South African variant its less favourable because the vaccines do not work as well) ?

[rotting sea cow]

Just an anecdote from yesterday at the supermarket.

A mother with a toddler and two kids (around 5 and 8). Toddler was a bit anxious, not really crying but looking for attention. The kids were all over, chatting, removing their masks and doing kids things. Mother was stressed. An older man (maybe around 70) called her attention because of the kids were not following the rules, including not respecting the distance. Mother asked unexpectedly calm if the man has already gotten the vaccine, whose answer was no. Mother replied dryly: "please get an appointment and stop harassing other people". I had to chuckle of course. Man got red and an indirect discussion ensued.

 

[Padraig]

2 hours ago, JoannaL said:

No age restriction as of yet. There is no scientific or statistical reason to do so yet. -There is only the theory that the problems may be the same as with AZ but thats not proven. On the pure data of the cases for J&J you can not conclude any kind of restrictions for a certain subgroup (as of yet).

That makes a lot of sense.  Thanks.  8 cases is very small and the rate of cases per dose is a lot lower than AZ.

I'm a bit worried about what Ireland will do though.  We are a little conservative, which is good for vaccine uptake, but bad for deciding what is a "safe vaccine".  We waited for all the big countries in the EU to make a decision on AZ and then followed suit (but there is still no flexibility with AZ for Under 60s except for 2nd doses).  And we are doing the same with J&J.  So good to know that Germany is not applying restrictions.  Or Luxembourg!

The US will be announcing something today also on J&J.  I doubt there will be many restrictions there either.  So if nothing negative comes to light from all these countries, we may act consistently with the data.

2 hours ago, JoannaL said:

so I was thinking perhaps to have a more contagious variant can even be an advantage in the long run? It may keep other - less contagious but for other reason less favourable variants out (in case of the South African variant its less favourable because the vaccines do not work as well) ?

The worry presumably is that the UK variant will become less common once more people are vaccinated (since it does a good job against that variant), which could give the South African variant room to grow, since it is more resistant to the vaccine?

But people will hopefully get milder COVID, even if they do get the South African variant.

Leap's article support that....

Quote

A second shot of the Pfizer vaccine boosted protection further, causing symptomatic infections to fall by 90% and asymptomatic infections by 70%.

More people get asymptomatic COVID than symptomatic.  And probably reasonable to assume that more people will get mild sympotomatic COVID than severe COVID (but they wouldn't have the data yet to prove that).

[Toth]

15 hours ago, Zorral said:

@Toth  I am so sorry that happened.  It's not really your fault, you know. This could happen to anybody -- particularly me, particularly when one is in a location with which we have no familiarity, trying to pay attention to so much all at once.  So please don't beat yourself up. You have enough pain as it is, with missing fingernails, anxiety about your laptop.  Take some tylenol -- for the pain in your fingers, for sure!

Thanks. Though I doubt you are as bad with directions with me (I'm the one who is certain to ALWAYS leave a train station at the wrong end of where I am supposed to go).

Looking at my laptop now, it seems I've gotten lucky. The casing remains firmly shut and there were no performance drops or issues with the screen. I don't need anything for my fingers either, luckily my gloves cushioned the the fall somewhat, meaning I only broke the fingernails from pressure, but it's otherwise fairly clean.

Anyway, new morning, feeling relatively fine. Got a sting in my arm, but nothing serious. I'm more concerned looking at the Covid numbers now. My area is at an incidence of 194, but so for no information whatsoever whether the federal "emergency breaks" that were put in place last week actually get heeded. Technically school should be closed on Monday, but from the school administration I hear absolute silence...

[Gareth]

4 hours ago, JoannaL said:

I saw an interesting table about the distribution of the different variants in Germany. The  British mutant is now at 93%. What I found interesting:

At the beginning of January the distribution between variants  was  almost all wildtyp , 1-2 % South African and 2 % Britisch mutant. Now the British mutant has displaced the wild type, but the proportion of the south african mutant has not grown (2%). so I was thinking perhaps to have a more contagious variant can even be an advantage in the long run? It may keep other - less contagious but for other reason less favourable variants out (in case of the South African variant its less favourable because the vaccines do not work as well) ?

Unless that more contagious variant has more morbidity associated with it.  Also more contagious implies more chance for mutation, ie more variants.

[Which Tyler]

This doesn't really fit here, but may not deserve a thread of its own.

A different Oxford vaccine is proving effective against Malaria, humanity's biggest killer. 77% effective in children!

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/apr/23/oxford-malaria-vaccine-proves-highly-effective-in-burkina-faso-trial
 

Obviously small scale trial so far - but if it can be repeated in larger trials, this is massive

[Altherion]

5 hours ago, Leap said:

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/apr/23/one-dose-of-pfizer-or-oxford-jab-reduces-covid-infection-rate-by-65-study

Some good news today. 

The US did a similar study earlier and found that the mRNA vaccines are actually slightly better than that:

Quote

 

A single dose of Pfizer’s or Moderna’s Covid-19 vaccine was 80% effective in preventing coronavirus infections, according to a new Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study of vaccinated health-care workers.

The effectiveness of partial immunization was seen two weeks after the first dose, according to the CDC, which looked at nearly 4,000 health-care personnel, first responders and front-line workers between Dec. 14 and March 13. The health-care personnel and other essential workers in the study, which was published Monday, had no previous laboratory documentation of Covid-19 infection.

 

It looks like the UK study is averaging the Pfizer and AZ (probably with a strong lean towards AZ since they have more of it) to get the 65%. If we knew that Pfizer and Moderna were 80% effective after one shot before April, the strategy for rolling out vaccines might have been different -- we might have done what New Hampshire did and just given everyone one dose as soon as possible rather than chase that additional 10-15%. However, now that the vaccination rate in the US is constrained by demand rather than supply, that argument is moot.

[Which Tyler]

5 minutes ago, Altherion said:

The US did a similar study earlier and found that the mRNA vaccines are actually slightly better than that:

Also an issue with time frames - That recent UK study was after 3 weeks; yet Pfizer doesn't plateau effectiveness until week 5; whilst AZ is still increasing into week 6 - in terms of preventing disease; unknown, but reasonable to expect similar for preventing transmission of disease