There doesn’t seem to be much truly negative in the Astra-Zeneca situation, but at the very least it would appear critical time has been lost - which is somewhat tragic when you look at the AZ cost and production figures. Astra-Zeneca was projecting to hit 250M doses a month in February, where the other two together are hoping to reach 300M/month by March.
The lack of conscious randomization means these lots were likely not evenly distributed among the various research sites, but concentrated in a few. If so, that introduces a site/cohort effect in which the lower rate of infection can be attributed to unique characteristics of the participants at the sites (younger, more educated, local economy that better allows for better social distancing, lower rates of community transmission) rather than the dosing regimen itself. Unless they can do some real magic with the stats, the regulators will have to throw the higher 90% effectiveness value out of the window and evaluate it based on an average effectiveness that is lower than the other 2 vaccines. That probably wont stop it getting provisional approval, but it complicates a lot of decisions. If you are at your state Dept of Health and responsible for writing a check to AZ in Jan or waiting until March to write one to Moderna, what do you do?
Agreed - the negative is that it is quite possible the entire trial needs to be redone to provide sufficient confidence, or at least the confidence we thought we had.
Went to see one of my fav bands at the Albert Hall once, an utterly surreal experience. Instead of getting legless and down with the tunes, we sat politely. Weird.
Dammit, they should be spaced out 4 meters or so apart, surrounded by cardboard cutouts, and told to sing and shout like they are a group of 20. Only the Kop’s finest need apply…
Now confirmed that the AZ low-concentration doses that produced the 90% efficacy had no subjects above the age of 55, where the broader population did. Given that the 70% is a function of 90% from the lower dose and 62% from the other trials, that is going to come under increasing scrutiny. A 62% effective cheap vaccine is still a potentially useful contribution, but no G8 country is going to be purchasing that over the Pfizer one.
Sort of in line with what @Klopptimist said earlier, I think all this is a PR disaster that the anti-vaccine lobby will just eat up. Production accident followed by what they will no doubt frame as lying by big pharma (together with the lizard people and/or insert someone ‘powerful’.)
What, meters? That is one of those words I consistently screw up between American English, Commonwealth English, and French. Hard to keep them apart sometimes.
I actually have some sympathy with @Arminius. Only English could screw up the spelling of a 5 letter word for … reasons. I’ll ignore all references to blame the French for this.
Curious if anyone has seen or heard anything concrete yet about local vaccination plans. In the UK, that is probably still indefinite pending resolution of the Astra-Zeneca trials and approval. But it would appear that Pfizer will be making shipments as soon as next weekend in the EU and possibly the US. The EU has secured a large percentage of the initial production, and has sent out a directive to the members to get ready, just wondering if anyone has seen that trickle down to the citizen level?
We appear to have made a complete mess of it here, with deliveries ‘maybe’ starting in January, but no commitment before March.