Coronavirus 2019-2020 thread (no unsubstantiated rumours!)

KYli

Brigadier
I am very surprised that the Sinopharm vaccine has been approved for children's use so quickly. It was my understanding that children needed a lot more time than adults to make sure the vaccine is absolutely safe. Is the Chinese government that confident of Sinopharm's safety?
Chinese health agency didn't approve the vaccine for children yet. It is just Sinopharm has conducted the trial and testing that demonstrates the efficacy rate and side effects are the same as adults. Even if it is approved, I would be surprised if the vaccines would be given to children in the near term. Maybe six months and a year from now.
 

Nutrient

Junior Member
Registered Member
[Corruption is always possible, in spite of police like Jin Yi Wei]

I agree that corruption is a never-ending worry. "Who can guard the guardians?" is an old problem. In the sciences, I understand that a standing joke between medical researchers is, "Even if it was published in Nature it might still be true".

In the Pfizer/Israel vaccination case, a more than usual amount of caution is probably advisable. The Chairman and CEO of Pfizer, Albert Bourla, is Jewish. And the Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, is embroiled in corruption scandals and is desperate to stay in office, where he can't be convicted. Israel has been heavily hit by Covid-19, and the displeasure of the people is seriously threatening Bibi's reelection hopes. So Netanyahu is motivated to show some progress against the pandemic, and may be tempted to fake the vaccination data. I would be extremely skeptical of any Covid-19 information coming from the Israelis.
 
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KYli

Brigadier
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China's COVID-19 protein subunit vaccines have reported encouraging progress as a leading Chinese vaccine producer, Sinopharm, plans to bring its newly developed recombinant subunit vaccine candidate into clinical trials.

Sinopharm's vaccine is the second protein subunit vaccine in the country after one developed by China's Anhui Zhifei Longcom Biopharmaceutical Co, which started late-stage trials in Pakistan upon approval on Sunday.

The protein subunit vaccine is expected to perform better than the inactivated vaccines, and would be easier to mass produce, Sinopharm Chairman Liu Jingzhen suggested in a recent interview with China Central Television (CCTV).

Liu said its second COVID-19 inactivated vaccine - developed by subsidiary Wuhan Institute of Biological Products - is now applying for conditional approval for mass use.

China's first recombinant subunit COVID-19 vaccine, co-developed by Zhifei and the Institute of Microbiology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (IMCAS), has been approved to enter phase III clinical trials in Pakistan.

The double-blinded, placebo-controlled trials will involve around 10,000 participants in Pakistan, of whom 30 percent will be seniors, according to news released by IMCAS on Sunday.

Experts said the recombinant subunit vaccine can be an important addition to the two Chinese inactivated vaccines already in mass production, considering its shorter production process.

"Traditional inactivated vaccines normally take several months to develop, and require biosafety level 3 labs for production. Meanwhile, access to the recombinant protein vaccine is easier, and the biotechnology is more mature than the mRNA and adenovirus-vector techniques used in some available vaccines," Zhuang Shilihe, a Guangzhou-based doctor closely studying the COVID-19 vaccines, told the Global Times on Tuesday.

Novavax, a US-based pharmaceutical company that developed a similar protein-based COVID-19
vaccine, reported an efficacy rate of 89.3 percent in its phase III clinical trials conducted in the UK in early February, boosting global confidence in this type of technical innovation.

Zhuang believes that protein subunit COVID-19 vaccines can perform better against new COVID-19 variants, as lab research found these new vaccines remain effective in triggering an immune response.

In a pre-print published on biology server BioRXIV on February 2, Gao Fu, director of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, revealed that Zhifei's recombinant protein vaccine was still effective against the South African variant, although its efficacy was reduced by 1.6 times, which is within acceptable parameters. In particular, it was advantageous in comparison to the mRNA vaccine, leading with a reduction of three to eight times more.

Giving these promising signs, Uzbekistan's government has decided to purchase 1 million doses of Zhifei's vaccine and start voluntary mass vaccination, media reported.

Uzbekistan will almost double the number of volunteers from 5,000 to 9,000 involved in a phase III trial, the Uzbek Ministry of Innovative Development said in early February.
 

KYli

Brigadier
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65.28% at preventing all symptomatic cases and 90.07% at preventing severe disease 28 days after a single dose has been given.

Compare with J&J which didn't include mild symptomatic cases.

The committee will also look at how effective the vaccine is. According to Johnson & Johnson's interim results, the data
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the vaccine was 66% effective in preventing moderate and severe disease. The vaccine is 85% effective overall at preventing hospitalization and 100% at preventing death in all regions where it was tested.
 

KYli

Brigadier
Negative press has dampened the demand of AstraZenceca but UK results showed that AstraZeneca outperformed Pfizer. Not sure who is telling the truth. That's why making comparison without a simple standardized criteria is such a bad idea. It is a good thing that China and Chinese companies maintained silence and just forged ahead.

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People in France, Germany, and the UK are turning down the AstraZeneca vaccine because they want the Pfizer one instead, reports say

  • Some people in France, Germany, and the UK are insisting on a particular coronavirus vaccine.
  • European officials are struggling to give out AstraZeneca's jab, citing concerns about performance.
  • The Washington Post reported that some in the UK preferred AstraZeneca's locally developed vaccine.
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    .
People receiving vaccines in the UK, France, and Germany are complicating the rollouts by trying to insist on receiving a particular shot, according to reports.

In continental Europe, officials have pointed to unfilled appointments and empty vaccination hubs when the AstraZeneca vaccine is on offer.

The resistance appears to stem from trial data that suggested AstraZeneca's vaccine was less effective than the one from Pfizer, the other widely used vaccine in Europe.​


In the UK, there are anecdotal reports of some people insisting on the Pfizer jab and others pushing for the AstraZeneca one, citing its local credentials.

Here's what's happening:

  • In Germany, hundreds of thousands of doses of the AstraZeneca shot have gone unused,
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    . Fewer than 200 people were showing up for 3,800 daily appointments at centers in Berlin offering only the AstraZeneca shot,
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    .
  • Officials in Austria and Bulgaria have also described public resistance to the AstraZeneca vaccine,
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    .
  • In Italy, teachers and police officers have expressed concerns about the AstraZeneca vaccine,
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    .
  • In France, officials
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    after several workers who had received the AstraZeneca vaccine called in sick over flu-like side effects. Last month, President Emmanuel Macron
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    .
  • In Sweden, two regions
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    after hospital staffers who had received one jab reported mild side effects.
In the UK, the picture is more complicated.
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that some Britons were canceling and rebooking vaccination appointments to secure either the Pfizer or AstraZeneca shot based on rumors and insider information about which centers have which doses.

Johnson thumbs up vaccine astraZeneca UK

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson visits a coronavirus vaccination center in southeast London on February 14. Jeremy Selwyn-WPA Pool/Getty Images
The outlet reported that some people were insisting on getting the AstraZeneca shot because AstraZeneca is jointly headquartered in the UK and developed its vaccine with the University of Oxford.

A doctor
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that while his medical colleagues had a slight preference for Pfizer's vaccine, his patients tended to prefer the Oxford-AstraZeneca "made-in-Britain" vaccine.

Differences in data on efficacy​

The dynamic appears to be shaped by data from the phase-three trials of both vaccines.

Late last year, AstraZeneca
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that its vaccine was 62% effective after two full doses in its trial but 90% effective after a half-dose and a full dose,
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, as Insider's Isabella Jibilian
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.

British regulators now say
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, while the European Medicines Agency says it's 60%, The Post reported.


Compared with the 95% efficacy that Pfizer found in trials of its vaccine, it might seem that the AstraZeneca vaccine does not perform as well.

But Andrew Pollard, a scientist who led the AstraZeneca vaccine development, told The Post that the figures were not directly comparable.

"Unless you run the trials head-to-head, you don't really know whether a 95 percent figure on trial and 62 percent in another trial mean the same thing," Pollard told The Post.

Results from such a head-to-head trial in the UK should be available soon, Sarah Gilbert, another leader of the vaccine's development, told The Post.

The UK's
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, where Pollard is a lead scientist, has said the Pfizer and AstraZeneca vaccines both "give very high protection against severe disease" and "have good safety profiles."

Pollard told The Post that he would personally "have whichever vaccine offered."

Real-world data in countries where the vaccines have been rolled out, such as
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and
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, is starting to provide more clarity on the vaccines' effectiveness.
 

AssassinsMace

Lieutenant General
Now I hear Pfizer's can be stored at normal refrigerator temperature. First they found out you can just take one shot instead of two and now it doesn't need to be stored in unnatural temperatures. Was the second shot because they wanted to make money on a second shot? Double the profits but now the upcoming J&J vaccine which is only one shot and can be store in a home refrigerator, Pfizer's can magically do exactly the same thing.
 
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