I assume that the UK would similarly be targeting their Pfizer stock to the over 65s?
For my benefit you’re saying that the testing was flawed rather than the vaccine?
Conspiracy theorists are going to eat this for breakfast.
Hard to say it is flawed per se, there isn’t much of an alternative. The control population of over 65s also has a very low infection rate (1 case in 319), far below the other two cohorts. So one possible (incorrect) interpretation of this test is that over65s are less vulnerable to contracting the virus.
That then produces the outcome where the effect of virus is marginal - because the baseline it is compared to is already low.
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Yes, it would be interesting to know the breakdown as to who is getting the AZ vaccine and who is getting the Pfizer one.
There is no evidence that the vaccine doesn’t work - an absence of evidence rather than evidence of absence, if you like. The over 65 cohort in the trials was small, deliberately so, but there’s no reason it should work for someone aged 60 but not someone aged 65. There is data that indicates that the AZ vaccine does produce a strong immune response in the over 65s.
It will be interesting if the UK has been giving the AZ vaccine to over 65s in significant numbers because that will obviously provide further data.
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If there is a flaw in the trial design, I would say it is in that small number of people in the highest vulnerability category.
Yes…I’m not sure how usual that is (where’s @Limiescouse ) but I read a while back that they didn’t want to test out a new vaccine on too many potentially vulnerable people in case…you know…hence the proportionately small cohort of over 65s.
Will be interesting to see how many over 65 have been given the AZ vaccine since the beginning of December, and what number of those have received their second doses.
[Sorry, since the beginning of January as AZ was only approved then. Pfizer was December.]
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So nothing new, just confirmation. Lack of data.
What I found interesting is the asymptomatic infections with AZ as compared to control group, but I’m not sure if I understood that correctly.
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Same - I don’t really understand how to interpret that beyond just understanding the statistics. Another very broad confidence interval too.
I guess the really encouraging numbers are the two zeros for serious cases and hospitalizations.
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I guess that’s the key message here despite what some loon will make of that Tweet.
So next question is do you think that Germany is playing politics here? Hardly seems the time and the place. I could understand questions being raised on the testing data and rightly so (for example why didn’t he UK ask the same question? ) but you would hope that there’s a whole new raft of data available out there now that can be used to answer that question.
The amount of nerd in these threads is mind-blowing
Yes. Though maybe not that surprising if there were only 2 infections over 65 overall, which is the major high risk group. Just to be clear, I’m not putting AZ vaccine down, as I understand it there are good reasons to believe it is very effective, just saying that study alone doesn’t seem very representative.
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Missed the punchline “for the first time ever”
This recommendation not to inoculate the vaccine on over 65s comes from the Stiko (ständige Impfkommission) of the Robert-Koch-Istitut. This is absolutely nothing political and only happens because there is simply too little data in this age group and they don’t want to take any risks.
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It is somewhat surprising how much trouble AZ has had with their data, all of this is from a second run at it. In global terms, I hope this proves to be an anomalous early result, because the AZ vaccine is the truly important one. Between being cheaper and easier to manufacture in a wide range of localities, it will likely be the one that does the real heavy lifting of eradication. Pfizer and Moderna will be first world luxury solutions.
Looking at our pipeline, I suspect I will get a J&J one in July or so.
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This could make a massive difference. Importantly, it doesn’t involve swabbing the arse.
Report from last month
This would probably make distribution of a vaccine much easier in developing countries, if it works and the price is right.
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