Vaccine Trials

[Aerides]

Th Pfizer vaccine has passed regulatory approval in the UK. Once the manufacturing sites have been inspected vaccinations will begin, probably next week, starting with healthcare workers and care homes.

drop us a note when they get down to 51 year olds i might just dust off my old passport!

 

[Alan]

drop us a note when they get down to 51 year olds i might just dust off my old passport!

I certainly will, but that will probably be next summer

No time frame yet, except I understand they will get to the over 65's in the Spring.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/nov/27/covid-vaccinations-when-expect-start-uk

The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) has set the order of priority for the whole of the UK, mostly according to age. Care home residents and staff will be followed by the over-80s and healthcare workers. Next are the over-75s, then the over-70s and so on. People with underlying health conditions of any age will be vaccinated ahead of the under-65s.

The first phase includes everyone over 50, or about 22 million people. The JCVI says a decision has yet to be taken on priorities in the rest of the population, whose risk of severe illness is low.

 

[JoeWras]

I certainly will, but that will probably be next summer

No time frame yet, except I understand they will get to the over 65's in the Spring.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/nov/27/covid-vaccinations-when-expect-start-uk

I haven't seen that kind of granularity in our planning here, yet. I hope they eventually come to it, but I fear they may just group "everyone under 65" in one mass of chaos.

We'll see.

 

[SecondCor521]

CNBC reported yesterday that the CDC has recommended that health care workers and residents of long term care facilities are first on the American priority list. However, it will be up to the individual states to incorporate that CDC recommendation into their individual distribution plans.

I believe the story mentioned that "essential workers" and people at higher risk were next in line. I find these two categories problematic because they are hard to define and easy to game.

As a 51 year old member of none of the above categories, I will wait my turn and hope the wait is on the order of months, which it sounds to me like it will be.

FDA is scheduled to review Pfizer vaccine 12/10 and Moderna vaccine 12/17.

 

[Alan]

I believe the story mentioned that "essential workers" and people at higher risk were next in line. I find these two categories problematic because they are hard to define and easy to game.

I believe the UK is not going to try and identify "essential workers" other than healthcare workers as this makes rollout much more difficult. The NHS already maintains a list of people at higher risk as these are the folks that receive letters when higher restrictions and lockdowns are put in place, so they can expect to be higher up the vaccination priority list.

There is an very good podcast called "How to Vaccinate the World" that I have been listening to each week, (3 so far are available), and it delves into questions like this.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000py6s/episodes/downloads

 

[MrLoco]

CNBC reported yesterday that 42% of people don't want to be vaccinated even when a vaccine becomes available to them. That seems like a pretty significant accelerant to me, but it would of course depend on how those 42% are distributed across whatever priority scheme we end up with.

I was thinking about this and I have a question. So if only 50% of the US population get the vaccine, will those that do not get it still expect the rest of us to still wear masks, social distance, etc? Let's say that by Aug. 1, 2021......everyone who wants a Covid vaccine has had ample opportunity to get one.

Those that decide not to for whatever reason need to realize that they voluntarily take the risk of getting Covid until herd immunity develops.
My point is people have the right not to get the vaccine, but then they cannot expect the rest of us to not return to normal....i.e. no masks, social distance, etc. Otherwise why even get the vaccine

 

[Nemo2]

CNBC reported yesterday that 42% of people don't want to be vaccinated even when a vaccine becomes available to them. That seems like a pretty significant accelerant to me, but it would of course depend on how those 42% are distributed across whatever priority scheme we end up with.

So Douglas Adams was right! And here I thought he'd pulled 42 out of thin air. Who knew?

 

[Alan]

So Douglas Adams was right! And here I thought he'd pulled 42 out of thin air. Who knew?

 

[RetireBy90]

CNBC reported yesterday that the CDC has recommended that health care workers and residents of long term care facilities are first on the American priority list. However, it will be up to the individual states to incorporate that CDC recommendation into their individual distribution plans.

Heard on CNBC this morning a discussion with Dr Scott Gottlieb, he suggested that about 30% of population has been infected already and it may be closer to 50% by end of January. If that is anywhere near the reality, one could ask how that impacts the schedule for vaccinations. Would those that already have antibodies still get the vaccine ? Would they get it in the same priority ? How about if 10% of what he said was about 23M health care workers have antibodies already would that free up another 2.3M people to get vaccine sooner ? If only 50% don't have antibodies and under 18 aren't eligible yet, say 80M kids ? That would leave 150M that can get vaccine and of those if only 50% step up for the shot, now we are down to only needing 150M doses, if you need 2 shots. We have Pfizer and Moderna both should have something like 20M doses by end of Dec and Pfizer said 25-35 million produced each month. Depending on how many of those are allocated to US customers we could have enough vaccine by end of Feb or March to hit everyone of the 75M eligible to receive it. Then there are still 3 more companies that should have phase 3 results by end of Dec or Jan.

Just running some numbers through my head.

 

[Gumby]

If we can quickly and easily determine who has antibodies to COVID (either because they have had it or for some other unknown reason) and if we are confident that people with antibodies cannot catch COVID, then you could exclude that number from the calculation. Otherwise, you should probably leave them in the pool of vaccine candidates.

 

[gerntz]

Don't shoot the messenger. I'm just repeating the news. Found it odd that suddenly the experts are talking about possibly not having the nursing home folks vacinated in the beginning. When story after story them getting shots early was a no brainer.

So repeating a story over & over creates truth?

 

[gerntz]

I view the 95% effective thing as applying to 95% of us if we're lucky. There are always exceptions, people who can't get every vaccine safely. But every person vaccinated brings the R0 rate down for the rest of us.

I thought the 5% who tested + didn't have that severe of problems.

 

[pacergal]

I was thinking about this and I have a question. So if only 50% of the US population get the vaccine, will those that do not get it still expect the rest of us to still wear masks, social distance, etc? Let's say that by Aug. 1, 2021......everyone who wants a Covid vaccine has had ample opportunity to get one.

Those that decide not to for whatever reason need to realize that they voluntarily take the risk of getting Covid until herd immunity develops.
My point is people have the right not to get the vaccine, but then they cannot expect the rest of us to not return to normal....i.e. no masks, social distance, etc. Otherwise why even get the vaccine

Even when/after we get the vaccine, we still plan to wear our masks until the transmission is down, looking for R0!
None of the vaccines are 100% effective, but in the 90's is pretty darn great!
Still have no desire to catch SARScoV

 

[gerntz]

Good luck with that. It hasn't worked so far.

Define "hasn't worked so far", please. Our death rate is not out of line with most similarly situated geographies & wealth & information openness. There are geographically isolated countries doing better, yes.

 

[gerntz]

OK, so the news said CDC and not the FDA.. Assuming that's correct, which sounds right to me, then the same question applies... Why hasn't the FDA been keeping on top of this... Seems "on this one" they (Moderna) should have been submitting the data along the way and they (FDA) should have been analyzing it.

What's the basis for saying the FDA isn't on top of this? I haven't seen anything that they aren't. Help me, please.

 

[gerntz]

One can hope for that...because doing even half the country is a huge undertaking.

Over half the population votes in a month. 60M people choose to get the flu vaccine in 2-3 months period. Net, I think it's manageable. Yes, there will be hiccups.

 

[gerntz]

Th Pfizer vaccine has passed regulatory approval in the UK. Once the manufacturing sites have been inspected vaccinations will begin, probably next week, starting with healthcare workers and care homes.

WOW! Hadn't heard. great news!

 

[explanade]

I saw an advisory board member interviewed. He is chairman of the board advising the CDC on vaccination rollout.

He said that health care workers would include anyone working at a hospital, so janitorial staff and food service workers for instance.

 

[gerntz]

I was thinking about this and I have a question. So if only 50% of the US population get the vaccine, will those that do not get it still expect the rest of us to still wear masks, social distance, etc? Let's say that by Aug. 1, 2021......everyone who wants a Covid vaccine has had ample opportunity to get one.

Those that decide not to for whatever reason need to realize that they voluntarily take the risk of getting Covid until herd immunity develops.
My point is people have the right not to get the vaccine, but then they cannot expect the rest of us to not return to normal....i.e. no masks, social distance, etc. Otherwise why even get the vaccine

Agree totally, though I think your time allowance is a bit tight, say maybe 1/22. Regardless though....

 

[ivinsfan]

Over half the population votes in a month. 60M people choose to get the flu vaccine in 2-3 months period. Net, I think it's manageable. Yes, there will be hiccups.

Mainly because flu shots are in stock and ready to go every year by about September and can literally be given anywhere. Fingers crossed it is manageable

 

[gerntz]

Mainly because flu shots are in stock and ready to go every year by about September and can literally be given anywhere. Fingers crossed it is manageable

I thought each Fall's flu vaccine design isn't decided to like previous March/April. Net, not much time to design/produce/ distribute by Sept. to me.

 

[ivinsfan]

I thought each Fall's flu vaccine design isn't decided to like previous March/April. Net, not much time to design/produce/ distribute by Sept. to me.

Well they have a well established procedure and have almost a 5 month distribution network...but the kicker is the temp some of these vaccines need for storage and the second dose..so we will need many more vials of covid vaccine.

 

[Time2]

If we can quickly and easily determine who has antibodies to COVID (either because they have had it or for some other unknown reason) and if we are confident that people with antibodies cannot catch COVID, then you could exclude that number from the calculation. Otherwise, you should probably leave them in the pool of vaccine candidates.

That's the question, do we have a cheap, accurate antibody test for Covid. My wife got sick back in Feb, I didn't, we don't know if it was Covid. My Son-in-law got Covid, and my daughter living with him didn't. So does she have antibodies?


EDIT;

Now, this has me wondering, why have haven't we had a study with 30,000 tests of the general population to find what percentage is actually antibody positive. Or have we?

 

[gerntz]

EDIT;

Now, this has me wondering, why have haven't we had a study with 30,000 tests of the general population to find what percentage is actually antibody positive. Or have we?

No we haven't. And that's why the confirmed cases numbers and the fixation on them is so misleading. I've seen estimates that the actual infections are 6X-10X the confirmed cases. Holman Jenkins Jr. of the WSJ is my prime source of those estimates.

 

[Aerides]

That's the question, do we have a cheap, accurate antibody test for Covid.

By donating blood you can get a free antibody test. My PCP's will do them now also. My sister is testing her family and was told it's free.