I should add the reason I am questioning it it not for the political aspect. Under normal circumstances I would agree. Its best taking a cautious approach. But during a pandemic for me it is poor risk management.
Germany, France, Italy, Poland and Sweden and Austria have a combined population of 56M who are over 65. They have already had 280,000 deaths between them. >75% of deaths are in this age group.
All of this counties though have only immunized 2.2-2.6% of their population due to shortages.
ehh?
AZ is less efficace than Pfizer and Moderna in that age group.
Use Pfizer and Moderna for older people and AZ for younger health workers seems logical.
I can not believe your not still pushing your political stance. AZ delivery shortfall means that it’s an insignificant vector for another 2 months at least. Why isn’t this fact being picked up in your posts?
That’s cool. I don’t mind if you keep repeating something that’s not being discussed.
Various countries in the EU have chosen that there isn’t data as yet to demonstrate efficacy in over 65s.
That hasn’t changed yet. Is it likely that it’s efficacious in over 65s? IMO almost certainly. But until there is evidence, I don’t think it is wrong to take that stance. Going on the evidence is never wrong.
Germany, France and Poland will likely change their stance when there is evidence in.
But put that into the context of risk. Vaccination programs across virtually every country in Europe is halting due to lack of supply.
You have 450M people in the EU. If you continued to target over 65s you have 90M people.
AZ being able to provide vaccine (40M doses) to those at high risk (rather than only low risk), could have a significant impact on mortality. The alternative it seems waiting until Q2 for many of the elderly.
Would you mind providing some evidence? You’ve been posting like a madman in here so I may have missed something, but all I don’t is the Lancet article about the 12 week interval.
Everything I can find that is recent (last couple of days) still states that there was only a very small sample of over 65s in the phase 3 trial, which they have added to to improve that data quality, and that plus the UK’s post-vaccine surveillance over the next month will improve the data. But I don’t see any news if that yet. And I’d imagine it would be all over the news if there was that sort of data available.
Yes that the key paper, it has focused on the improved efficiency (thats what the press has been focusing upon). But itis a large study from multiple countries, and includes substantial number of older people.
Thanks ISMF. A trial showing that elderly generated spike-specific antibodies is good but I don’t think its the kind of evidence that proves efficacy of avoiding infection.
I guess we would need to know the situation in Germany for example. I agree with you that if there is no alternative, the Oxford-Astrazeneca vaccine should absolutely be administered to over 65’s there. But I really don’t know the German roadmap in terms of Pfizer supplies in the short term. Its a no-brainer that the Pfizer vaccine should only be used in the over 65’s if they will be able to obtain enough doses for vaccinating the at-risk population over the next month, but if we are here in 6 months and the at-risk are still unvaccinated it would be fair to suggest it was a bad choice by Germany. The Pfizer trial had over 41% participants over 56.
literally posted this four hours ago
