Coronavirus 2019-2020 thread (no unsubstantiated rumours!)

supersnoop

Major
Registered Member
Don't have a good feeling regarding all these new findings.
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

Seems like the AstraZeneca vaccine seems to be the dodgiest of them all.
1st, they completely screwed up the clinical trial by messing up the dosages. This is just bad at a fundamental level.
2nd, there is the bad news coming out of South Africa that it doesn't seem effective on the strains there.
3rd, in Canada, because of the first two factors, approval is no longer fast tracked for the AZ vaccine. This is in spite of WHO's confidence in it.

In my opinion, I have no evidence here, just a suspicion, I think WHO's green light for AZ is because this is the one licensed in India. This is not because they want to do favours for India, but because their production capacity is quite great. It will be the only way non-western nations get vaccines other than China in 2021. Even if the vaccine is not the best, really it is the only one available for the COVAX program right now.

Even looking at the Chinese production, all these countries, Brazil, Turkey, UAE, Indonesia, Mexico, various African countries, already signed deals in way, way ahead of time, pretty much anticipating being shut out of Moderna and Pfizer.

As an aside, I saw some reader comments on SCMP saying the pro-China people can take Sinopharm, they will wait for AstraZeneca, lol. Gee I wonder if they are putting politics before science?

In my opinion, the Pfizer vaccine seems to have relatively positive clinical outcomes so far. However, there is a lot of changing news with regards to the execution, which understandably makes people weary of what is going on. Bottles marked 5 doses are now considered 6 does IF you use a special needle! Actually, you don't need -80C deep freeze! Why is this only being discovered now? People will naturally think, "What if I got the bottom of the vial dose and it is not enough?", "I want the deep frozen preparation because it is probably better preserved."

Oh her. She is the one I saw earlier being 'schooled' called out by Ted Lieu. About her own history that she knows nothing about. But still has an opinon on it any case. She is one crazy bitch.


Maybe she does know her own history and wished she could go back to owning slaves!
 

vesicles

Colonel
Don't have a good feeling regarding all these new findings.
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!
Why not a good feeling? I thought these were good news... Are you worried about some of them making up data and making their vaccines look good? No worries. With these high profile vaccines, it would be absolutely stupid for them to make idiotic moves, like falsifying data. Keep in mind that everyone, including the companies themselves, admits and accepts the limitations of experimental results and clinical trials. Tons of countries are conducting their own data gathering in the real-world conditions. They are all evaluating these vaccines on their own. For example, many countries are complaining about the AstraZeneca vaccine. No one will simply take the words of the companies. So at this point, it would be absolutely stupid for the companies to release false data. Someone will come out and make them look very bad in no time. In fact, I am almost 100% sure that, with these vaccines now widely available in all Western countries, some labs in almost every one of these countries are testing and verifying anything and everything coming out these companies. Many labs are actually looking very closely at every data. You would have a chance to get your research in some good journals if you can prove that a company has wrong data.
 

vesicles

Colonel
That is not what the latest data is saying
The latest data cannot distinguish between uninfected and infected but asymptomatic people. At least not yet. Any vaccine has two goals: prevention and ease of symptoms. We have been spoiled by the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, which show extremely effective ability to prevent infection. Most normal vaccines don't have this. Normal flu vaccines typically show about 50-60% efficacy in prevention. So almost half of the people who get flu vaccines will still get sick from a flu. They simply feel lighter symptoms and recover more quickly with the vaccines.
 

taxiya

Brigadier
Registered Member
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

There are consequences for attempting to hide the true scale of the Covid-19 f*ckup in India. Underreporting, lies, and total disregard to epidemic control. Now, there are 240 new strains being discovered in India. They are potentially endangering the world that is only just beginning to roll out vaccinations. Why is no one in the West grilling India about its Covid-19 statistics? If India is truly 'winning' against Covid-19, why are there 240 new strains popping up there? Why?
Because the West is not much better than India in terms of response. Lock-down, contact tracing, mass testing in the west are slightly better than India but using China as a bench-mark 100, India is about 1 while the west is 5. Slapping India would be slapping the west themselves, this is not even taking politics into consideration.

I have seen a statistic from some European countries, there was a moment before which there is no chance to test, after which one get chance to test, the case numbers before and after is hugely different, yet the death cases remain the same. That means lots of people contracted the virus, never got a chance to test, never admitted into the hospital, never entered into the statistics even though the prevalence of the infection remains the same. That tells us how reliable reliable these statistics are in the west.
 

KYli

Brigadier
Why not a good feeling? I thought these were good news... Are you worried about some of them making up data and making their vaccines look good? No worries. With these high profile vaccines, it would be absolutely stupid for them to make idiotic moves, like falsifying data. Keep in mind that everyone, including the companies themselves, admits and accepts the limitations of experimental results and clinical trials. Tons of countries are conducting their own data gathering in the real-world conditions. They are all evaluating these vaccines on their own. For example, many countries are complaining about the AstraZeneca vaccine. No one will simply take the words of the companies. So at this point, it would be absolutely stupid for the companies to release false data. Someone will come out and make them look very bad in no time. In fact, I am almost 100% sure that, with these vaccines now widely available in all Western countries, some labs in almost every one of these countries are testing and verifying anything and everything coming out these companies. Many labs are actually looking very closely at every data. You would have a chance to get your research in some good journals if you can prove that a company has wrong data.
These are good news but at the same time I am wonder how truthful they are. Over the years, many scientific researches have been retracted especially those of health and nutrients due to the fact many of the researches have been sponsored by corporate to skew the results.

What I am concerned is data manipulation or rely upon too small sample of data to draw a conclusion and leading to false sense of security. Below study indicated that AstraZeneca offered better protection than Pfizer which contradicted what other researches are telling us. Another thing is Pfizer clinical trial 3 results is done in a very short duration and the same can be said about the recent Israel studies. If the second dose like the first dose would give the person a peak of protection for about a month before drop off to a lower level, then the conclusion that Israel saying about the efficacy rate is not reliable.
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

Early data offers hope on AstraZeneca’s vaccine.

Scotland’s vaccination program substantially reduced Covid-19 hospital admissions, according to the results of a study released on Monday, offering the strongest real-world signal of the effectiveness of the AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine that much of the world is relying on to end the pandemic.

The study, encompassing both the AstraZeneca and Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines, examined the number of people who were hospitalized after receiving a single dose of the vaccine. Britain has delayed administering the second dose for up to three months after the first, opting to offer more people the partial protection of a single shot.

But the study sounded a cautionary note about how long high protection levels from a single dose would last. The risk of hospitalization dropped starting a week after people received their first shot, reaching a low point four to five weeks after they were vaccinated. But then it appeared to rise again.

The scientists who conducted the study said it was too early to know whether the protection offered by a single dose waned after a month, cautioning that more evidence was needed.

The findings in Scotland bolstered
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!
showing that the vaccines offered significant protection from the virus. The Israeli studies have focused on the Pfizer vaccine, but the Scottish study extended to the AstraZeneca shot, which has been administered in Britain since early January. The AstraZeneca shot is the backbone of many nations’ inoculation plans: It is far cheaper to produce, and can be shipped and stored in normal refrigerators rather than the ultracold freezers used for other vaccines.

“Both of these are working spectacularly well,” Aziz Sheikh, a professor at the University of Edinburgh who was involved in the study, said at a news conference on Monday.

The researchers in Scotland examined roughly 8,000 coronavirus-related hospital admissions, and studied how the risk of hospitalization differed among people who had and had not received a shot. Over all, more than 1.1 million people were vaccinated in the period the researchers were studying.

The numbers of vaccinated people who sought care in hospitals was too small to compare the AstraZeneca and Pfizer vaccines, or to give precise figures for their effectiveness, the researchers said.

But from 28 to 34 days after the first shot, the AstraZeneca vaccine reduced the risk of Covid-19 hospital admissions by roughly 94 percent. In that same time period, the Pfizer vaccine reduced the risk of hospitalizations by roughly 85 percent. In both cases, those figures fit within a broad range of possible effects.


Because the Pfizer vaccine was authorized in Britain before the AstraZeneca shot, the researchers had more data on the Pfizer vaccine, and found that the protection against hospital admissions was somewhat reduced at longer periods after the first shot.

“The peak protection is at four weeks, and then it starts to drop away,” said Simon Clarke, a professor in cellular microbiology at the University of Reading who was not involved in the study.

The AstraZeneca vaccine has faced skepticism in parts of Europe after many countries chose not to give it to older people, citing a lack of clinical trial data in that group. The Scottish study could not offer precise figures on that vaccine’s effectiveness in older people. But the combined effect of the AstraZeneca and Pfizer vaccines substantially reduced hospital admissions in people over 80. Many older people were given the AstraZeneca vaccine.
 

taxiya

Brigadier
Registered Member
Why not a good feeling? I thought these were good news... Are you worried about some of them making up data and making their vaccines look good? No worries. With these high profile vaccines, it would be absolutely stupid for them to make idiotic moves, like falsifying data. Keep in mind that everyone, including the companies themselves, admits and accepts the limitations of experimental results and clinical trials. Tons of countries are conducting their own data gathering in the real-world conditions. They are all evaluating these vaccines on their own. For example, many countries are complaining about the AstraZeneca vaccine. No one will simply take the words of the companies. So at this point, it would be absolutely stupid for the companies to release false data. Someone will come out and make them look very bad in no time. In fact, I am almost 100% sure that, with these vaccines now widely available in all Western countries, some labs in almost every one of these countries are testing and verifying anything and everything coming out these companies. Many labs are actually looking very closely at every data. You would have a chance to get your research in some good journals if you can prove that a company has wrong data.
My understanding of @KYli and myself included is that: if an expert kept changing their statement back and forth, there are big questions to ask:

Have you finished your study thoroughly? If your previous words were not accurate for whatever reason, how do you know you are accurate this time? Am I expecting you to come back tomorrow with some other surprise?

The doubt is not necessarily about the expert lying. It is the doubt of their doing job properly. I learned it from my engineering experience that customers are going to grill you if you ever made a mistake whether honest or not. This is why I preferred what China did so far.
 

MarkD

New Member
Registered Member
The latest data cannot distinguish between uninfected and infected but asymptomatic people. At least not yet. Any vaccine has two goals: prevention and ease of symptoms. We have been spoiled by the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, which show extremely effective ability to prevent infection. Most normal vaccines don't have this. Normal flu vaccines typically show about 50-60% efficacy in prevention. So almost half of the people who get flu vaccines will still get sick from a flu. They simply feel lighter symptoms and recover more quickly with the vaccines.

It also depends on the time frame. Suppose you take a vaccine. You might not get sick the same year, but nevertheless you would almost certainly get sick sometime in your lifetime. And I would wager every American gets sick from flu sometime in their lifetime, vaccine or not makes no difference.
 

vesicles

Colonel
These are good news but at the same time I am wonder how truthful they are. Over the years, many scientific researches have been retracted especially those of health and nutrients due to the fact many of the researches have been sponsored by corporate to skew the results.

What I am concerned is data manipulation or rely upon too small sample of data to draw a conclusion and leading to false sense of security. Below study indicated that AstraZeneca offered better protection than Pfizer which contradicted what other researches are telling us. Another thing is Pfizer clinical trial 3 results is done in a very short duration and the same can be said about the recent Israel studies. If the second dose like the first dose would give the person a peak of protection for about a month before drop off to a lower level, then the conclusion that Israel saying about the efficacy rate is not reliable.
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

Early data offers hope on AstraZeneca’s vaccine.

Scotland’s vaccination program substantially reduced Covid-19 hospital admissions, according to the results of a study released on Monday, offering the strongest real-world signal of the effectiveness of the AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine that much of the world is relying on to end the pandemic.

The study, encompassing both the AstraZeneca and Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines, examined the number of people who were hospitalized after receiving a single dose of the vaccine. Britain has delayed administering the second dose for up to three months after the first, opting to offer more people the partial protection of a single shot.

But the study sounded a cautionary note about how long high protection levels from a single dose would last. The risk of hospitalization dropped starting a week after people received their first shot, reaching a low point four to five weeks after they were vaccinated. But then it appeared to rise again.

The scientists who conducted the study said it was too early to know whether the protection offered by a single dose waned after a month, cautioning that more evidence was needed.

The findings in Scotland bolstered
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!
showing that the vaccines offered significant protection from the virus. The Israeli studies have focused on the Pfizer vaccine, but the Scottish study extended to the AstraZeneca shot, which has been administered in Britain since early January. The AstraZeneca shot is the backbone of many nations’ inoculation plans: It is far cheaper to produce, and can be shipped and stored in normal refrigerators rather than the ultracold freezers used for other vaccines.

“Both of these are working spectacularly well,” Aziz Sheikh, a professor at the University of Edinburgh who was involved in the study, said at a news conference on Monday.

The researchers in Scotland examined roughly 8,000 coronavirus-related hospital admissions, and studied how the risk of hospitalization differed among people who had and had not received a shot. Over all, more than 1.1 million people were vaccinated in the period the researchers were studying.

The numbers of vaccinated people who sought care in hospitals was too small to compare the AstraZeneca and Pfizer vaccines, or to give precise figures for their effectiveness, the researchers said.

But from 28 to 34 days after the first shot, the AstraZeneca vaccine reduced the risk of Covid-19 hospital admissions by roughly 94 percent. In that same time period, the Pfizer vaccine reduced the risk of hospitalizations by roughly 85 percent. In both cases, those figures fit within a broad range of possible effects.

Because the Pfizer vaccine was authorized in Britain before the AstraZeneca shot, the researchers had more data on the Pfizer vaccine, and found that the protection against hospital admissions was somewhat reduced at longer periods after the first shot.

“The peak protection is at four weeks, and then it starts to drop away,” said Simon Clarke, a professor in cellular microbiology at the University of Reading who was not involved in the study.

The AstraZeneca vaccine has faced skepticism in parts of Europe after many countries chose not to give it to older people, citing a lack of clinical trial data in that group. The Scottish study could not offer precise figures on that vaccine’s effectiveness in older people. But the combined effect of the AstraZeneca and Pfizer vaccines substantially reduced hospital admissions in people over 80. Many older people were given the AstraZeneca vaccine.
Yes, I share your concerns. This is why every country is doing their own work to verify everything. No one will simply take the companies' words as they are. You can be sure that everything coming out of any lab will be verified by others. And you will also expect that you will see different, sometimes completely opposite, results. This is a normal process in science. Data can be falsified, experiments can be designed in a flawed manner, experiments and trials might be conducted with flaws, findings can be interpreted in a wrong way. That's why peer review is so important. You need to share all your data with other experts in the field and every aspect of your work needs to be scrutinized.

Every piece of published work is flawed in some way because experiments and trials are designed and performed by human and human makes mistakes intentionally or unintentionally. Ambition, greed, technical limitations, lack of understanding of the whole thing, careless mistakes, etc. That's why it takes a long time to reach any consensus in science. You will always find conflicting data. One study tells you something is good for you while another study tells you this same thing is bad for you. One of them must be wrong, right? Actually not exactly. Yes, one of them might be wrong. Or both of them might be wrong. Many times, both of them might be correct...... in some way. These studies could simply be blinds feeling an elephant, telling you different aspects of the same thing. It will take many years for us to finally reach that kind of understanding. Typically, the scientific community fights over something for many years and finally reach some kind of consensus because we won't be able to distinguish anything unless we have tons of data to make any sense out of this mess. And this consensus reaches the general public. People only see the final result as some kind of ingenious things suddenly discovered by scientists. The title of a news article reads "Scientists discovered cure for X!!!". The fact is we already knew this 20 years ago. We only recently agreed that this thing can do x, y and z. No one in the public sees the mess behind of the scene.

The unique part of COVID-19 is that the entire scientific process is now put in front of the public in real time. And every aspect of this virus is now put under the microscope at the highest magnification. We have tons of labs doing COVID work now. Since media is pouncing on everything about COVID, typical lay people are now looking at this messy scientific process unfold in real time and almost like a tsunami. So much work, some good, some bad, some incomplete, all dumped on you within such a short period of time. Every one of them becomes a headline. Vaccine X does this to you! Vaccine X doesn't do this to you! Vaccine X may be doing this to you! Vaccine X may not do this to you! Vaccine X may or may not do this to you, depending on the situation! You begin to see these conflicting things. It's a mess, very messy. And people begin to freak out. Oh my God! Why are they showing different results? Why do they keep changing things? Wear a mask! Don't wear a mask! Wear double mask! N95 is good enough on one day and becomes hugely inadequate on the next... The virus can survive on a hard surface for a few hours in one study, but stays fully functional for 2 weeks in another study! My God! So crazy! Yes, this is crazy. But this is the best process that we can come up with, unfortunately. And we are all aware of it. That's why everything about this virus and about the vaccines will be checked and rechecked and rechecked again by different people, different labs and different countries. You will see this process continue to unfold in the years to come.
 

vesicles

Colonel
My understanding of @KYli and myself included is that: if an expert kept changing their statement back and forth, there are big questions to ask:

Have you finished your study thoroughly? If your previous words were not accurate for whatever reason, how do you know you are accurate this time? Am I expecting you to come back tomorrow with some other surprise?

The doubt is not necessarily about the expert lying. It is the doubt of their doing job properly. I learned it from my engineering experience that customers are going to grill you if you ever made a mistake whether honest or not. This is why I preferred what China did so far.
Please see my above post for some explanation.

More specifically, for the higher temperatures for storage, my guess is that, at the beginning, -70oC has been the usual temperature for their genetic vaccines. So to speed things up and not wasting time, they decided to go with their most comfortable conditions. They might tell people, "if you want to get these vaccines in people's arms ASAP, just go with this condition." Once the vaccine has been tested and verified, they hand over the vaccine to their clinical/statistics arm. Now with some breathing room, they go back and see how they can improve things a bit. They may go "well, we've never tested whether our vaccine can survive at a higher temperature. Let's do it now!" After some initial experiments, they might be encouraged and continued to finish the work.
 
Last edited:
Top