Coronavirus 2019-2020 thread (no unsubstantiated rumours!)

manqiangrexue

Brigadier
First time the US spoke to the world in a sane manner since 2016...
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Fauci announces U.S. will remain part of the World Health Organization​

Thu, January 21, 2021

"ANTHONY FAUCI: I am honored to announce that the United States will remain a member of the World Health Organization. Yesterday, President Biden signed the letters retracting the previous administration's announcement to withdraw from the organization. And those letters have been transmitted to the Secretary General of the United Nations and to you, Dr. Tedros, my dear friend. The United States also intends to fulfill its financial obligations to the organization. The United States sees technical collaboration at all levels as a fundamental part of our relationship with WHO, one that we value deeply and will look to strengthen going forward."
 

vesicles

Colonel
That's why efforts must be made to try to avoid herd immunity skewing the trial results.

Testing 100 subjects in a hospital of 200 people are going to be heavily skewed by herd immunity than, say as an example, testing 100 subjects from a population of 10000 people from all the hospitals in a city.

Let's see what they're going to come up with the efficacy rates after the second dose, but 33% is quite a low figure to get boosted up from.
The Israeli hospital in question has >7000 employees. They tested 102 of them since these people have gotten both shots.

Also, we now have two completely separate preliminary studies from Israel. Please don't confuse them.

In one study, they tested the efficacy of TWO shots within a hospital. They tested 102 hospital employees who have had two shots and 100 of them show high levels of antibody. Again, the hospital has a staff of >7000 people. They are planning to test all of them once they are done with both shots.

In another study, an Israeli med center tested 200,000 subjects in the general public who have had only ONE shot. They found a ~30% efficacy with only one shot.

Also note that the "30%" protection efficacy in the larger study is NOT the same parameter as the "98%" high antibody level in the smaller study. Vaccine protection efficacy is calculated as this: 1 - (% infected in the vaccinated group / % infected in the placebo group). It's a more rigorous calculation. The "98%" in the smaller study is simply % of people who have shown high levels of antibody. It's a simple estimate, a suggestion. It means nothing in the real world, not yet. So no need to compare them. It's apples vs. oranges.
 
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KYli

Brigadier
The Israeli hospital in question has >7000 employees. They tested 102 of them since these people have gotten both shots.

Also, we now have two completely separate preliminary studies from Israel. Please don't confuse them.

In one study, they tested the efficacy of TWO shots within a hospital. They tested 102 hospital employees who have had two shots and 100 of them show high levels of antibody. Again, the hospital has a staff of >7000 people. They are planning to test all of them once they are done with both shots.

In another study, an Israeli med center tested 200,000 subjects in the general public who have had only ONE shot. They found a ~30% efficacy with only one shot
I don't think these two studies are fair comparison. For the hospital study, it assesses the levels of antibody not cases. Most vaccines have near 100% high level of antibody. It is not just Pfizer. On the other hand, the Israel medical center study tested subjects that took one shot and how many contracted the coronavirus. It is 33% which is lower than the 52% Pfizer reported in its clinical trial. So the second dose is unlikely to make the efficacy rate to 95%.
 

localizer

Colonel
Registered Member
I don't think these two studies are fair comparison. For the hospital study, it assesses the levels of antibody not cases. Most vaccines have near 100% high level of antibody. It is not just Pfizer. On the other hand, the Israel medical center study tested subjects that took one shot and how many contracted the coronavirus. It is 33% which is lower than the 52% Pfizer reported in its clinical trial. So the second dose is unlikely to make the efficacy rate to 95%.
Hard to compare any of these at this point.

They all got varying age groups and other criteria.

You also got Sinovac doing the mild n severe cases differentiation which needs a whole set of standards itself.
 

vesicles

Colonel
I don't think these two studies are fair comparison. For the hospital study, it assesses the levels of antibody not cases. Most vaccines have near 100% high level of antibody. It is not just Pfizer. On the other hand, the Israel medical center study tested subjects that took one shot and how many contracted the coronavirus. It is 33% which is lower than the 52% Pfizer reported in its clinical trial. So the second dose is unlikely to make the efficacy rate to 95%.
Yes, I agree.
 

vesicles

Colonel
One critical thing missing in these studies is the asymptomatic people. In all ongoing studies, if you don't show any symptoms, you are considered as un-infected and are counted as "protected" in the vaccine-treated group. In the real world, we know that these asymptomatic people are as dangerous as the symptomatic people since they equally shed viral particles. A more rigorous way is to PCR-test everyone in the trial, irrespective of their symptoms. Maybe later when things calm down a bit, they should go back and test these people again when they have more resources to spare...
 

Quickie

Colonel
The Israeli hospital in question has >7000 employees. They tested 102 of them since these people have gotten both shots.

Also, we now have two completely separate preliminary studies from Israel. Please don't confuse them.

In one study, they tested the efficacy of TWO shots within a hospital. They tested 102 hospital employees who have had two shots and 100 of them show high levels of antibody. Again, the hospital has a staff of >7000 people. They are planning to test all of them once they are done with both shots.

In another study, an Israeli med center tested 200,000 subjects in the general public who have had only ONE shot. They found a ~30% efficacy with only one shot.

Also note that the "30%" protection efficacy in the larger study is NOT the same parameter as the "98%" high antibody level in the smaller study. Vaccine protection efficacy is calculated as this: 1 - (% infected in the vaccinated group / % infected in the placebo group). It's a more rigorous calculation. The "98%" in the smaller study is simply % of people who have shown high levels of antibody. It's a simple estimate, a suggestion. It means nothing in the real world, not yet. So no need to compare them. It's apples vs. oranges.

I wasn't referring to the high percentage of antibody in the test subjects.

I recall that the Pfizer clinical trials have claimed an efficacy rate of over 90% in protecting the subjects from getting an infection. (95% according to KYli in the previous post)
 

manqiangrexue

Brigadier
Look at the data. He's not kidding at all. The US is having more and more 4K+ death days and today is shaping up to be another after it was 4.4k yesterday. At this rate, America will soon see days where there are more die in one day than all those who died from COVID in China for the whole pandemic (4.6K). The 7 day average curve puts the US current mortality at just over 3K per day. We are at 420K, which is 80K away from half a mill so that's 27 days (assuming the death rate doesn't climb some more) worth, putting the US at Feb. 17 give or take a few, for Joe's prediction.
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