Fantastic Vaccine Results in US

[Chuckanut]

Did the DARPA guy really say a coronavirus vaccine would get rid of the common cold? That seems like an oversell.

60 Minutes is not what it used to be. Like many other news sources they go for the quick stuff that has some shock value, IMO.

I have heard some speculation that the mRNA technology may allow for more universal vaccines for flue, covid, and others. How accurate that is, I don't know. I would take a look at specialized science publications to see what's up.

https://hub.jhu.edu/2021/02/15/mrna-new-frontier-of-vaccination/

The extra immune firepower mRNA vaccines provide could also yield more durable protection. "We could probably generate a flu vaccine that could theoretically protect us for five years instead of just one," Pekosz says. Indeed, he believes the COVID-19 vaccine effort's success heralds a bright future in the fight against other pathogens.

 

[braumeister]

A DARPA guy on 60 Minutes says we are on the verge of a universal Coronavirus vaccine. No more Covid, no more SARS, no more common colds. That would be nice.

WADR to DARPA, I put that in the same category as "We'll have unlimited free energy from controlled nuclear fusion in just 20-30 years." How many decades have we been hearing that one?

 

[brett]

In our area we have a few fully vaccinated people who now have the virus again. They new strain. Apparently they are not doing well in hospital.

 

[REWahoo]

In our area we have a few fully vaccinated people who now have the virus again.

So they had Covid, got vaccinated and now have it again? Wow.

 

[ivinsfan]

In our area we have a few fully vaccinated people who now have the virus again. They new strain. Apparently they are not doing well in hospital.

Can you provide a link or quote..I'd like to see the actual numbers

 

[stepford]

WADR to DARPA, I put that in the same category as "We'll have unlimited free energy from controlled nuclear fusion in just 20-30 years." How many decades have we been hearing that one?

Brings back fond memories of DARPA 6.1 (basic research) programs - they'd let you do ANYTHING. After a while all that we could get funded were 6.3-6.4s which were much more restrictive.

Other than reminiscence my point is that DARPA is a big place with a broad range of programs and interests, from extremely practical to stuff that makes the X-Files look like the Wall Street Journal.

 

[Sojourner]

So they had Covid, got vaccinated and now have it again? Wow.

Yeah, this seems very unlikely. Certainly there will be a few scattered instances of people developing symptomatic COVID two weeks or more after being fully vaccinated, but TWO people in the same local area, both of whom are in the hospital and "not doing well"? Color me skeptical.

 

[Aerides]

I have a friend who swears she had Covid last March, and I know she was ill, but she was never tested. Could have been any bug or cold or flu for all anyone knows. Millions of us think we "probably" had it, but didn't. (me included, according to the antibody test I took last summer). So when she got it for real in November, she believes now she's had it twice (oh and also believes several of her coworkers all had it twice too)...

Actual cases of repeat covid where there was a positive PCr test both times, and a reasonable duration between illnesses to not be just a residual positive, are not at all common. Various articles site them as extremely rare, uncommon, etc., using numbers like 1 in 6000, stuff like that (all on the front page of google). Similarly, Covid infections in fully vaccinated individuals are even more rare (meaning 2 weeks post shot #2).

So to combine the bad luck of catching covid a 2nd time, and also have had completed both vaccines in between, would be like a reverse lottery win.

And yes, for those kinds of posts, articles, links data, etc., are really needed as back up.

 

[Alan]

You just have to Google “Covid breakthrough cases” to find plenty of examples such as in Oregon where 168 fully vaccinated people out of 700,000 caught Covid.


https://www.forbes.com/sites/brucel...aths-among-700000-fully-vaccinated-in-oregon/

In Oregon, at least 168 fully vaccinated people have had “breakthrough” Covid-19 coronavirus infections so far. Of those, 19 ended up being hospitalized, and three died, according to the Oregon Health Authority (OHA). Fully vaccinated means that you are at least two weeks past getting the second dose of the Pfizer/BioNTech or Moderna vaccine or one dose of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, which should be enough time for your immune system to build up enough protection.

 

[Gumby]

That still means 99.98% did not contract COVID after vaccination. So it is well within the bounds of what was represented about vaccine effectiveness. Not something I'm planning to worry about.

 

[Alan]

That still means 99.98% did not contract COVID after vaccination. So it is well within the bounds of what was represented about vaccine effectiveness. Not something I'm planning to worry about.

Absolutely agree. I was just providing an actual reference as requested above.

 

[meierlde]

What if it turns out that the vaccines are not effective after a year and there needs to be annual boosters? A regular passport only has to be renewed every 10 years. Would a Covid passport have to be renewed annually? Seems that it would open a "can of worms".



Cheers!

Actually this has been tackled with the long existing vaccine certificates that handle vaccines from 10 years to 6 months by putting an expiration date on the page about the vaccine, This is the book that covers yellow fever etc for the other vaccines it covers disease date administered, name batch and brand name of vaccine date next booster and clinician stamp/signature. https://www.who.int/ihr/IVC200_06_26.pdf?ua=1

 

[RAE]

Personally, I'd get the shot. All any of us can do is play the odds. But most people don't understand statistics. That's why they can be unafraid of Covid but afraid of the vaccine. Nothing in life is without risk, but this is a case where the risks are well-known and one is far riskier than the other.

Well, some people would argue that the risks of these vaccines are not "well known", at least not yet. Remember, all of the vaccines approved so far have only been given "emergency use authorization" by the FDA, rather than full (regular) FDA approval. Full approval is normally only given some time after a vaccine with an has been in use, and many more Phase 3 clinical trial results have come in. I'm not saying that the current vaccines are not safe, because all indications are, at least to this point, that they are. But it's a stretch to say that all of the risks of these emergency use vaccines are well known.

 

[braumeister]

All any of us can do is play the odds. But most people don't understand statistics.

But in fairness, they may just be a bit skeptical because it's well established that 83.4% of all statistics found on the internet are made up.

 

[CardsFan]

My research says it only 82.45%.

But in fairness, they may just be a bit skeptical because it's well established that 83.4% of all statistics found on the internet are made up.

 

[USGrant1962]

My research says it only 82.45%.

https://www.amazon.com/How-Lie-Stat...books&sprefix=how+to+lie+with+,aps,148&sr=1-1

 

[audreyh1]

There are COVID vaccine breakthrough cases although rare. We were never promised it gave 100% protection from infection.

Israel recently published a paper from a small study that said their after full Pfizer vaccination breakthrough cases were had more of the South African variant (8x higher compared to unvaccinated) whereas the breakthrough cases that occurred between the two doses (not yet fully vaccinated) were mostly the more common B117 UK variant. This indicates that the Pfizer vaccine offers less protection against the South African variant which is still rare in the US as well as Israel. Because the study was small, results may be skewed. The vaccine makers are hard at work making improvements. https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-...izer-vaccine-israeli-study-says-idUSKBN2BX0JX

That was the only vaccine studied AFAIK.

 

[homestead]

That still means 99.98% did not contract COVID after vaccination. So it is well within the bounds of what was represented about vaccine effectiveness. Not something I'm planning to worry about.

That sounds really good until I remembered only 4% of Oregonians actually caught the virus so 96% of the unvaccinated didn't catch covid either.
Nevertheless I am fully vaccinated now.

 

[CaptTom]

Well, some people would argue that the risks of these vaccines are not "well known", at least not yet. Remember, all of the vaccines approved so far have only been given "emergency use authorization" by the FDA, rather than full (regular) FDA approval.

While those sound like reasonable arguments, I see it differently.

First of all, the same people who don't trust the government for anything are suddenly putting their faith in "regular" over "emergency" approval. That seems to me like splitting hairs. The development and testing of vaccines for this pandemic was one of the greatest cooperative technical efforts in the history of mankind. Nothing was done the "regular" way. But every person in research, industry and government was acutely aware that they had one chance to get this right. Any mistake would be highly visible and catastrophic for our species.

Just because they had to use the "emergency" procedure does not make it less well researched. If anything, more.

Second, I think we're at the point now where enough people have gotten the vaccines that we do know a lot. Certainly much more than drugs which spent years in clinical trials and limited roll-outs. Likewise, we know a lot about the risks of Covid. No doubt we'll learn more, but as of right now, the risks of each are probably better known than almost any other medical issue. When sample sizes are this large, good statistics are almost guaranteed.

 

[ivinsfan]

That sounds really good until I remembered only 4% of Oregonians actually caught the virus so 96% of the unvaccinated didn't catch covid either.
Nevertheless I am fully vaccinated now.

This is another buggy stat statement. First more then a few people had Covid and did not know it. And many people took serious steps to be sure they didn't get Covid. I didn't set foot in my favorite grocery for over a year until I was full vaccinated.

 

[audreyh1]

That sounds really good until I remembered only 4% of Oregonians actually caught the virus so 96% of the unvaccinated didn't catch covid either.
Nevertheless I am fully vaccinated now.

It’s important to realize that 99.98% is way way better than 96%, because you are really comparing 4% infected against 0.02% of fully vaccinated infected - orders of magnitude!*

*That would be 200x difference.

 

[tmm99]

Great to hear that a lot of people here are now fully vaccinated!

I live in Canada (Ontario) and I should be getting my first shot soon, but I've been told that the second shot here may be delayed up to 4 months so that they can give the first shot to as many people as possible. It all depends on the supply. My mom lives in Tokyo Japan and she's in her early 90s - no shots yet. She said the vaccination for the general population will start next month - starting with seniors in nursing homes, etc.

 

[GTFan]

Even if the 60 Minutes DARPA comment about a universal vaccine doesn't prove out, at least now there's been massive funding in an area that has been sadly underfunded for years. We're going to be much better off on prevention than we ever have been before, all because of Covid.

 

[Gumby]

It’s important to realize that 99.98% is way way better than 96%, because you are really comparing 4% infected against 0.02% of fully vaccinated infected - orders of magnitude!*

*That would be 200x difference.

Exactly. The two mRNA vaccines reported 95% efficacy, which means that the vaccinated test subjects were 20 times less likely to be infected than the unvaccinated subjects. Of course you need to adjust for the differing times involved (4% of Oregonians infected over the course of a whole year versus .02% of the vaccinated infected over a shorter period of time) and you need to account for the fact the COVID infections over the past year have been estimated to have been underreported by a factor of 4 or so (due to limited testing initially and to asymptomatic cases). But you get the general idea -- your safety as a vaccinated person is still orders of magnitude better than as an unvaccinated person.

 

[RetMD21]

The vaccines are highly effective and very safe. Perfect effectiveness and safety is not realistic. Personally, I think that the UK/Ontario approach of first dose ASAP and with on the second makes a lot of sense. Also limiting the use of vaccines after rare reports of side effects costs lives. I would also like to see vaccine distribution in the US tailored to demand. With the surge in Michigan there are many eager to get vaccines that may be going unused in other states