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Covid-19 - Treatments & Vaccines

That's amusing for some reason.

Warp Speed, in spite of a stupid name, is one thing the Trump admin appears to have gotten right. But then they undermined the acceptance of any results with their constant attacks on the scientific community. So dumb.
 
The company itself (actually has made many vaccines), and the backbone of Pfizer’s vaccine made it the safest bet. The biggest problem for their vaccine is distribution, it’s basically a urban vs rural divide again. You live near a major medical center, enjoy your vaccine. You live in the middle of nowhere or a less developed country, enjoy the wait.
 
The company itself (actually has made many vaccines), and the backbone of Pfizer’s vaccine made it the safest bet. The biggest problem for their vaccine is distribution, it’s basically a urban vs rural divide again. You live near a major medical center, enjoy your vaccine. You live in the middle of nowhere or a less developed country, enjoy the wait.

The other problem with Phizer's mRNA based vaccine is it has to be stored at -94, which exacerbates the distribution issue. Time to buy stock in whoever makes dry ice or those special freezers.

Louis, what do you think the time frame is going to be, and how many tiers? Is it health care workers 1st, at risk 2nd and then everyone else? Or more categories of folks than that? And even if a vaccine is mostly effective, what does it look like when 40% of the country doesn't get it?
 
The company itself (actually has made many vaccines), and the backbone of Pfizer’s vaccine made it the safest bet. The biggest problem for their vaccine is distribution, it’s basically a urban vs rural divide again. You live near a major medical center, enjoy your vaccine. You live in the middle of nowhere or a less developed country, enjoy the wait.

that's fine
 
 
Link to Washington Post article on Moderna vaccine. Preliminary results show nearly 95% effectiveness.

Storage of this vaccine should be a lot simpler than for the Pfizer vaccine. 6 months in a regular (0° F or -20°C) freezer. A month in a refrigerator. That should make distribution much easier.

The above good news is, in part, because if the surge in cases in the last few months. Moderna has 95 cases in its vaccine trial population, almost all in the placebo group.
 
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I hit this over on the Pit thread, but this is great news. Agree on the extreme cold chain, but also more doses = more doses. If the Zeneca one hits too we’ll have multiple vaccines with manufacturing scale all pumping by Q1.

I am curious on how the anti-vax crowd will handle this. Or even Trump. He’s been trying to take credit for the vaccine (though he doesn’t deserve any) will he tell people they need to take it?
 
Maybe Louie can talk about what makes one vaccine last at -20C for 1 month and another of similar type last a much shorter time at a much colder temperature.
 
I hit this over on the Pit thread, but this is great news. Agree on the extreme cold chain, but also more doses = more doses. If the Zeneca one hits too we’ll have multiple vaccines with manufacturing scale all pumping by Q1.

I am curious on how the anti-vax crowd will handle this. Or even Trump. He’s been trying to take credit for the vaccine (though he doesn’t deserve any) will he tell people they need to take it?

Anti-vaxxers have already hit this hard with specious arguments. I'm not repeating them here.

If Trump claims credit (it did happen on his watch) then it should go well. If he gets mad and cuts it down, because it was too late to save his election, it may not be as well received by his followers.

America needs a public Trump family vaccination.
 
The anti-vaxxers will (and are) reacting exactly as they always do. Add to them the COVIdiots who won't get vaccinated because "why bother when it's all a hoax" or whatever their delusion and I don't this going optimally. No doubt we'll be in a significantly better place as a country with the vaccines but I'm betting COVID will linger a little longer due to those 2 groups.
 
The anti-vaxxers will (and are) reacting exactly as they always do. Add to them the COVIdiots who won't get vaccinated because "why bother when it's all a hoax" or whatever their delusion and I don't this going optimally. No doubt we'll be in a significantly better place as a country with the vaccines but I'm betting COVID will linger a little longer due to those 2 groups.

The anti-vax folks inevitably refusing to get this have convinced me that the vaccine will be easier to get than the talking heads are hypothesizing.
 
If you choose not to get the vaccine (assuming its safe, free and widely available by this summer) by the end of 2021 then you shouldn't be admitted to any hospital receiving public funds moving forward. These anti-vaxers need to get in fucking line or accept the consequences. Let them all die out of their own.
 
The big point that I haven't seen many people speak about is vaccine drop out rate. All these first generation vaccines require two doses, the first dose sucks. There is significant side effects from all of them with that first does, it might just be unavoidable as that's what happens when you vaccinate adults with something they have never seen before. Yet now you have to convince people to take time to come back and get a second dose even though that second dose will have minimal to no side effects. I see the pools of people breaking down into won't get it because anti-vaccine, wont get it because it is a hoax, wont get it because its politicized and will wait till more people get it first, will get it but only one dose, and finally will get it correctly. That last group when all said and done might represent like 25-30% of people.
 
The big point that I haven't seen many people speak about is vaccine drop out rate. All these first generation vaccines require two doses, the first dose sucks. There is significant side effects from all of them with that first does, it might just be unavoidable as that's what happens when you vaccinate adults with something they have never seen before. Yet now you have to convince people to take time to come back and get a second dose even though that second dose will have minimal to no side effects. I see the pools of people breaking down into won't get it because anti-vaccine, wont get it because it is a hoax, wont get it because its politicized and will wait till more people get it first, will get it but only one dose, and finally will get it correctly. That last group when all said and done might represent like 25-30% of people.

Yo, I've asked this a couple of times on the pit thread without answer: Is there any reason to wait a few months before getting the vaccine once it is available? Is the formulation refined over time to reduce side effects or improve the efficacy? I would think no, but my veterinary medical professional wife says she is waiting a few months until "they've worked out any issues with the vaccine, after a few million people have taken it." Wouldn't even small tweaks to the formula require a whole new FDA approval process?
 
Yeah the Moderna, Pfizer, and any other vaccines that come out aren't being changed. They can work on improving them but what is out is what is out. For example the cold chain storage of the Pfizer vaccine, does it still work at higher temperatures, most likely yes. Has it actually been tested, no so it stays at -80. To test the efficacy at higher storage temperature would be a whole new trial undertaking comparing the two. The unprecedented rush to make a vaccine means that the most likely to succeed scenario was picked, hence the two doses and super cold chain that way you didn't have something that could work but failed because you didn't do the most likely scenario. Two doses and super cold is never going to make a vaccine worse, most likely only better.
 
Yo, I've asked this a couple of times on the pit thread without answer: Is there any reason to wait a few months before getting the vaccine once it is available? Is the formulation refined over time to reduce side effects or improve the efficacy? I would think no, but my veterinary medical professional wife says she is waiting a few months until "they've worked out any issues with the vaccine, after a few million people have taken it." Wouldn't even small tweaks to the formula require a whole new FDA approval process?

The main reason to wait and not be in the first few million is identification of rare side effects. "One-in-a-million" side effects may not be seen in a group of 15,000 people who received the vaccine in the phase 3 trial. Its the math.

ETA:
It is correct that significant changes would require another whole set of trials.
 
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*any* changes would require new trials. I suppose one might wait if in a low risk group just to let more data accumulate so you feel 99.99% good about taking it vs. 99%
 
To add: The Pfizer and Moderna products are a completely new type of technology compared to your typical flu (or other) vaccine. So i do think that adds a a bit of uncertainty. That said they both have tens of thousands people enrolled. That’s a lot of data, though Blue is right you may not see one in a million things until they’ve delivered millions of doses
 
If the negative side effects were just one in a million event, would it stop you from getting the vaccine?
 
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