It’s likely that the SA variant is near everywhere, at this point it will spread as did the English variant. If this is the case then why bother with the AZ vaccine if we don’t know if it works at preventing the most severe of symptoms. Are we not just wasting our time and resources as well as possibly having people who now believe they are protected going back out into the community and putting themselves at risk.
1 Like
Sorry, no offence meant
2 Likes
Yeah, the genie is out of the bottle. Important we still don’t know what the effect on severe cases is, so there remains some hope. But your point about the behavioural consequences is well-taken. The Government in the UK has been making some very optimistic statements, which will produce one hell of a backlash if 8 weeks from now the SA variant is the dominant strain and the situation is about as bad as it has ever been.
2 Likes
Given the concern about the SA variant escaping its current locations and spreading further this must be crucial.
I wonder how other countries are going to be able to track such migration as effectively? The inability to sequence all positive tests might be a limiting factor in rolling out the AZ vaccine to places where the SA variant has been found, particularly if found in significant numbers.
I haven’t yet seen whether the Pfizer jab is going to be the one used exclusively where SA variant outbreaks have been detected but this would seem to be the obvious approach, subject to infrastructure/logistical issues.
1 Like
Moderna has similar performance, but there just isn’t enough of those two. At one level, the sequencing doesn’t matter for that. Over time, the SA variant is going to become the dominant variant. It can compete directly with B117, and can infect populations protected from B117 by other vaccines as well as infect people who have previously had other variants. All sequencing will do is provide a transitional snapshot. With reports of the SA virus in 40 countries, it is probably too late to contain it already.
2 Likes
According to the BBC:
What has caused particular concern with these Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine results, however, is the vaccine appeared to have just a “minimal” impact, maybe only around 22%.
The finding is based on a small study, involving fewer than 2,000 people, with an average age of just over 30.
Is a sample size of <2000, from a limited age range, large enough to be statistically significant?
1 Like
If it repeats yes, alone it’s still needs clarification.
It is, though there are limitations - that is why the result for severe cases is inconclusive. The subjects were media age of 31, so the expected number of severe cases/hospitalization/death is very low, and the observed variance doesn’t allow a characterization.
I have not seen the pre-print, just the summaries issued as press releases, but the fact that they explicitly rule out a conclusion on severe cases based on the statistical significance of what observations they made would imply that the other results are statistically significant. A sample of 2000 is not particularly small, while of course not being large either.
1 Like
This South African variant, how has it dispersed itself so quickly into general population in so many different countries. I’m no expert on this but is it possible that it was out there before being identified here or is it possible that the virus underwent the same mutation in other locations (chances are astronomical I know but with trillions of the little buggers out there… )
2 Likes
Has any hotel signed up to the Quarentine scheme yet?
Yes, 16 have apparently. The government have booked 4,600 rooms across 16 hotels (not sure how many different hotel groups that is).
1 Like
Is anybody shocked that the SA variant coincides exactly with where the ski resorts are? Or that just recently there were 96 people caught breaking the law to get to these ski resorts? The sort of people that can’t really give a fuck about following the rules, keeping people safe and therefore being the exact sort of selfish dumb fucks that would carry the SA variant.
I guess the only shock is that these ‘people’ hadn’t already built up immunity from being selfish dumb fucks over the last 10 months.
4 Likes
That’s the sort of hard line I wished they had the balls to make 10 months ago. It’s never too late to try though.
3 Likes
1 Like
The Brazilian variant is more or less exactly that, a different strain that underwent many of the same mutations (all three of SA. UK, and BR have the same mutation that distinguishes the B117 UK variant) that has no direct genetic link to the SA variant. The chances are not that astronomical if there is a competitive advantage. It is possible that it did not originate in SA, but more likely that it passed undetected for some time in SA, and managed to leap elsewhere - that being the statistical inference based on numbers and timing of observations.
As I said a month ago, and have repeated since, the smart play would have been to focus on containing those two variants with the antibody-defeating mutation.
3 Likes
I remember you saying so quite clearly. Quite likely that some brains in the scientific community trying to beat this thing thought so too and then realised that it will have been a political minefield to navigate trying to get done. We really are a doomed species eventually, aren’t we.
2 Likes
The sooner the better.
1 Like