I think they are aiming for phase 3 trials being completed this month (barring a setback) and all the countries who have contracted to buy and/or make the vaccine know that and are gearing up assuming success. The company in Melbourne recently said they were already manufacturing although the current scale of production wasn't articulated. So administration to front line heath workers late 2020 or early 2021 seems at least possible. Wouldn't that be a great Christmas present - the news of front-line health workers getting a vaccination would give the world a much needed boost.
SARS CoV-2 coronavirus / Covid-19 (No tin foil hat silliness please)
- Thread starter Don't Kill Bill
- Start date
I think they are aiming for phase 3 trials being completed this month (barring a setback) and all the countries who have contracted to buy and/or make the vaccine know that and are gearing up assuming success. The company in Melbourne recently said they were already manufacturing although the current scale of production wasn't articulated. So administration to front line heath workers late 2020 or early 2021 seems at least possible. Wouldn't that be a great Christmas present - the news of front-line health workers getting a vaccination would give the world a much needed boost.
Osterholm predicting six digit cases in America in the next two to three weeks.
I am skeptical about the first vaccine being the golden bullet. Luckily we are manufacturing 150 of them, so one will certainly work.
A very recent report fro the Australian Actuaries professional body found at least 400 deaths per month have been saved here. Of course there will be long term detrimental effects as well but no way will it be worse, especially not worse than letting the virus run free.
Statistically there are likely to be failures. However, the first one is still looking good so lets keep everything crossed that it passes phase 3 and is highly effective.
Test and tracing has gone to shit. A lot less people who should be are not getting tested because of it.Beginning to look like Ireland’s second wave may have peaked:
Osterholm said that a vaccine might work, but only for a period of time, before it loses its effect.
It was struggling to cope with the surge. So as numbers got higher and higher we might underestimate more and more. However it shouldn’t cause total daily positives to decrease.
Total numbers aside, the positivity % has decreased from last week. Which also points towards things getting back under control. Mind you, I’d want to see more than just a few days data to have any confidence this is more than a blip in an upward trend.
In one sense he is merely stating a truism. Antibodies do decline usually and how long immunity in general last varies. Coronavirus immunity from being infected by the virus (SARS/MERS) tends to be plenty long enough for an annual vaccination to work but of course for this cornoavirus and these potential vaccines we don't know for sure yet. Vaccination is likely to produce an immune response comparable to or better than that given by infection as low/asymptomtic infections don't seem to produce as strong/long an immune response as a vaccine hopefully will - partly speculative but also with some evidence to support it. Given the news today I think we have increased hope that a vaccine will do a good job even though we aren't there yet and rolling out a vaccine or vaccines is far from a trivial matter. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...-astrazeneca-works-in-all-ages-trials-suggest
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Wow! I honestly didn't! Thanks for pointing out
"The number of deaths is still a far-cry away from the peak of the pandemic during the spring, when more than 9,400 patients died in the worst week. And to bring the figures into perspective, Covid-19 was only responsible for one in 16 total deaths in the UK in the most recent week, and flu and pneumonia killed twice as many people."
Where is this quote from? So is the flu worse than COVID-19?
Over 8 months in and people are still asking if the flu is worse.
And while the measures that reduce covid deaths also reduce flu deaths a bit the other causes of death are still there. It is additional so even if that statistic is true it is wildly misleading - most/all won't be contageous or be able to overwhelm our medical facilities etc etc etc
stop trolling the thread dude it isn't helpful, this quote is meaningless without context
people ask you legitimate questions and you just ignore it, so why wouldn't they ignore you?
I've reviewed your "contributions" to this thread and I'm thread banning you. I can't decide if you are trolling or in deluded covid denial. Either way .....
You are quoting a Daily Mail article AND somewhat out of context even thought the Mail Article is the usual Mail collection of turds for paragraphs rolled in glitter.
Poverty!
Bugger. Do you mean I could have been paid?
jump to 6:23
If a vaccine gets approval it will be based on a successful phase 3 trial and not in the way that hydroxychloroquine was which was withdrawn when the data come in - so that bit isn't a real or fair comparison. If a vaccine is approved for emergency use initially it will just be in the interim until full regulatory approval is sought and presumably obtained. Only then will the general public get it. He later makes that point and is also partly making a point about the potential perception if we give "emergency approval" and that it could undermine confidence in it. That could be true but denying front line medical workers the vaccine (who I believe will be the main beneficiaries of emergency approval - could be wrong) on those grounds isn't a call I'd like to make or justify to those putting their lives on the line for us. His other main point is that safety isn't the issue but that we will be sending a vaccine to market with much shorter efficacy testing than usual. Given the urgency of our need the risk of a safe vaccine being less effective than the phase 3 trials show is something that is worth risking and is going to happen. No way we aren't going to use a safe vaccine for months or years to study efficacy further just to make sure we know exactly how effective it is in comparison to the phase 3 trial. We just don't have the luxury of time.
Nothing he says is wrong (barring the possibly inadvertently dodgy comparison with Hydroxychloroquine) but the conversation will no doubt be leapt upon by the anti-vax mob.
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There wasn't really a comparison.
He mentions HCQ and plasma therapy as they both had EUA as well, but goes on to say the bar will be different for this.. but people just reading that its an EUA might feel its being rushed.
He is on the advisory committee that will be advising the FDA.
they had a meeting last week and decided they cant give out a licence unless they have data for a couple of years.. so it will be an EUA.
Nothing he says is wrong at all. Just an update from someone who knows whats happening..
If they are forced to give it to the public as an EUA that might well give the anti-vax nutjobs ammunition sadly. I wonder if that is going to be the same for elsewhere? I read that here in Australia an emergency approval would quickly follow with a full approval I think so assumed the process would be the same elsewhere. I'll have to check as I don't remember the source.
Edit: It looks like the normal pathway here is a provisional approval (less scary than an emergency one) which is already underway and now waiting for phase 3 results and that normally leads to a full one later, so it looks like the process will be similar here but without the scary language.
For those who are confused by this - this is an article from the Daily Mail about the amount of deaths registered two weeks ago. The average at the time was around 100 a day. You only need to look at the death figures for the last seven days (exactly 200) to see that the number will now be in line with flu and pneumonia and spreading a lot quicker.
My whole family recently recovered from Covid. We had a moderate fever for a week or so - and that's about it. Only my father steps out of the house for work and I have been working from home for the last seven months. I would say that if anyone in the family gets it, then there is a good chance that everyone else in the family will get it too.
How long would we now be immune? I have been reading conflicting reports on the internet.
How long would we now be immune? I have been reading conflicting reports on the internet.
Nobody knows and anybody who says otherwise is lying.
We know there is some immunity and we're pretty sure it's not lifelong, but the virus is too new to draw any other conclusions. Best guess at the moment is a year or two.
But wouldn't the positivity rate go down when tracing falls away and those most likely to be positive dont know to go for tests? People love small numbers but I go the other way, I want large numbers because it means they're being caught, anything else right now isnt realistic.
I just think its too early into lockdown to be optimistic about these numbers
Positivity rate will go up as soon as community testing starts to flounder because the emphasis shifts to sicker people self presenting, with a higher chance of being positive. The better we get at tracing and testing all contacts the lower the positivity rate. It’s currently at 5.7% which is still too high but good to see it lower than this time last week.
Here’s an article about the recent problems they have had which seem to have been fixed (or on the way to being fixed anyway).
I agree that it’s too early to get optimistic but would definitely prefer to see these numbers than the sort of increases we saw in recent weeks.
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There were arguments in this thread about the morality of people not isolating if they had come into contact with someone who has shown symptoms, or if they had any reasons to suspect they may have Covid. I think this points out why it's not so easy to make those judgement calls - if self-isolating sees your income fall to a level where you can't afford to pay your bills or feed your children, then why would you? You would obviously take the risk, hope that you don't make anyone unwell, but assume that the odds are in your favour that it's not worth you putting yourself (and potentially your loved ones) into a dire situation it's hard to get out of.
Yeah myself and others argued at the time about not judging those who can't afford to see their income fall. Some may well be in a position to but for millions of people across the country that simply isn't the case, they're on the precipice as it is and our SSP is a joke and not fit for purpose. I hope a consequence of COVID will be that we realise as a country how our benefits system and systems of support for people who need it is in need of a major overhaul and action is taken. Wishful thinking most likely, however.
Yeah, good luck with that.
This is definitely important and it looks as though EU countries with a better safety net in terms of sick pay seem to be doing less bad (nobody is doing well right now!)
I don’t think this means that we can assume that people failing to self isolate despite no financial downside isn’t also an issue. There’s a hell of a lot of people in the UK who can easily self isolate without becoming out of pocket at all. If every one of them did the right thing your stats on compliance would look much better.
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Ohhh I think one walks amongst us.
It's so out of control here. According to the numbers we've got 'only' 150-200 people dying per day due to covid the last few weeks but excess deaths last week were over 3k. Our government has also decided it's good time to ban abortion now, which has prompted protests and people on the streets so they can blame the outbreak of covid-19 on the pandemic (shifting the blame is their only goal because hospitals are done for anyway). Our death toll for yesterday was 236, on all Facebook posts about that people are laughing all over the place about fake pandemic and how all those people died from other causes for sure, and that we should all go out and protest against government taking away our freedom by forcing us to wear masks (same shit different day).
UK, Spain and Italy in Q2 will look wonderful compared to what we are going to have here and the worst thing is, people will still be laughing about all these deaths. I feel like crying. My mate's friend had his mother, father and grandpa infected within a few days. His grandfather and father died the same week. We are going to have so many more of these soon and there's nothing we can do because nobody here thinks it's issue, or that it's even a real virus.
UK, Spain and Italy in Q2 will look wonderful compared to what we are going to have here and the worst thing is, people will still be laughing about all these deaths. I feel like crying. My mate's friend had his mother, father and grandpa infected within a few days. His grandfather and father died the same week. We are going to have so many more of these soon and there's nothing we can do because nobody here thinks it's issue, or that it's even a real virus.
Sorry to hear about your friends family Sarni, all the best, stay safe.
@Sarni So sorry to hear that mate 
I was of the understanding that Covid deaths were now already ahead of Influenza and Pneumonia.
I thought the general consensus was that Influenza and Pneumonia attributed mortalities were heavily reduced due to Covid taking the lives of a large amount of at risk people.