COVID Vaccine !

[lane]

I guess time will tell. Don't think there's merit in slowing down the vaccination programme, giving it gives evidence-based protection from serious illness and death, and putative reduction in transmission: and therefore overall numbers infected. In South Africa the proportion of variants is substantially different to UK so their decision to pause the use of the Oxford-AZ vaccine because of this small cohort inefficacy result is based on different circumstances. I note that the Pfizer vaccine has not been tested (clinical trial) against the B.1.351 variant, sfaik. Maybe it will do better.
Recommend two snips of media to people: Oxford Uni's Prof Sarah Gilbert's interview on the 'Andrew Marr show' on Sat am (about 0940 - 32:50 - 46:00) and a set of Q&A with two experts (one ex-RCGP Head, one JCVI) on BBC's 'Today' programme this Tue am (0842-0855 2:41:50 - 2:55:00). One of the questions in the latter makes exactly @roubaixtuesday 's point (above, about the effect of the vaccine suppressing the B.1.1.7 variant and therefore giving benefit to the B.1.351 variant). Answer (my best): "There'll be lots of variants; think the focus is too much on the SA variant; yes, vaccination will have effect on relative variant success but it's still the way out of high levels of serious illness and deaths; it's a paradox."

I agree there is no merit in slowing down the programme. However where is the evidence based protection from serious illness and death, from what I gather it is at best inferred for the AZ vaccine.

Flu of course changes every year but the world has a well established approach for dealing with that. Covid still seems very much an unknown in terms of how it will mutate and how often.

 

[Ajax Bay]

The UK signed a deal with CureVac last week. The EU signed theirs months ago. How different things could have been if the vaccines had developed at different rates.

When will the first CureVac vaccines be delivered - not for a fair while aiui? You're right: things could have been different. But by June the UK had already secured far more than needed (to allow for some failure) and had no need of CureVac: its vaccine had not shown promise at that stage - in the short term. The "different rate" was already clear to the UK VTF.
Maybe the UK VTF were looking to procure vaccines which had the best prospects of being trialed with successful outcome, manufactured at scale and supplied before the end of 2020 or in very early 2021. The VTF early procurement deliberately backed three different vaccine technologies: mRNA (Pfizer 40M), adenoviral-delivered (Oxford-AZ 100M) and inactivated whole virus (Valneva 100M). And the UK government threw money at UK-based effort early on - manufacture in UK was a consideration (I wonder why?). CureVac got tens of millions Euro from Germany, eventually.
The CureVac Phase 3 clinical trial only started on 21 Dec. They hope for results in Q1 2021.
Aiui the CureVac-UK advance purchase agreement is to secure supplies, for later this year (?booster?), of a vaccine which will have been tested for efficacy against newer variants (as opposed to the leader trials in July-November versus V0). Also linked to GSK agreement with CureVac and (assumed manufacture in UK at GSK site ?Barnard Castle ) after GSK pulled out of the (French) Sanofi failure.

 

[Ajax Bay]

where is the evidence based protection from serious illness and death, from what I gather it is at best inferred for the AZ vaccine.

I assume you mean the effectiveness of the Oxfiord-AZ vaccine against the B.1.351 variant (SA). That's my understanding too: inferred. Given the low prevalence of the B.1.351 variant around the world, aiui no clinical trials against it have been concluded, for any vaccines. The emerging press reported inferences are from a cohort of (?) 2064 in a trial (about 2/3rds vaccinated and one third control not (control)) of young cohort exposed to mostly the SA variant, within a larger trial (?). The deductions being made seem reasonable (vaccine reduced efficacy against B.1.351) which is, I suspect why the big 'jumping-up-and-down' last week to endeavour to limit the spread in UK and reduce the amount of more being imported.
As an aside, why are people flying round the world eg from South Africa? What exactly are the purposes of these trips? Did they need to go out there for a Christmas break?

 

[nickyboy]

The UK signed a deal with CureVac last week. The EU signed theirs months ago. How different things could have been if the vaccines had developed at different rates.

Sometimes it sounds like you wish the UK's vaccination program wasn't as successful as it is

 

[Craig the cyclist]

The UK signed a deal with CureVac last week. The EU signed theirs months ago. How different things could have been if the vaccines had developed at different rates.

But they weren't.

I am sure you agree that we are lucky as a population that our politicians and scientists were clever enough to back the right horse eh?

 

[lane]

But they weren't.

I am sure you agree that we are lucky as a population that our politicians and scientists were clever enough to back the right horse eh?

Although we are relying on the AZ vaccine a lot which the Guardian said yesterday the evidence is growing its not quite as potent as the others. As a minimum you would have to say there are more questions about it. I would be very happy to have it but would prefer one of the others.

 

[Ajax Bay]

Bingham and Dix

 

[midlife]

Although we are relying on the AZ vaccine a lot which the Guardian said yesterday the evidence is growing its not quite as potent as the others. As a minimum you would have to say there are more questions about it. I would be very happy to have it but would prefer one of the others.

Starting to look like my first vaccination was Pfizer but something else for the second.....

 

[lane]

Starting to look like my first vaccination was Pfizer but something else for the second.....

Why do you think that? I thought current advice was not to mix?

 

[lane]

Bingham and Dix

Care to expand?

 

[Ajax Bay]

From the Guardian (edited): (wrt 15 Feb target - JCVI Gps 1-4)
A Royal College of Nursing (RCN) survey found that 15% of nurses remained unvaccinated.
The government is in danger of failing to deliver on its pledge: all health and social care staff – to have been offered a first shot by next Monday. Every effort must be made to reach all nursing staff to ensure their protection and that of the patients and vulnerable people they care for.
15% scaled up suggests an estimated 75,000 nurses had still not had their initial jab.
91% of nurses directly employed by the NHS have had at least one jab, but just 71% working for other organisations – such as district nurses, health visitors or those in care homes – have received theirs.
In the survey, nearly all NHS nurses have been offered a vaccine but the proportions of 'agency' nurses that had not been offered one was (35%) and temporary staff (19%).
"The RCN asked the 1,624 nurses who had not taken up an offer of a jab why they had refused. Of those, 38% said they did not want to have the vaccine at the moment or were undecided, and 12% did not want to have a vaccine at all. A third (33%), however, had an appointment booked and planned to attend."

I presume that those who been 'missed', especially those working outside NHS settings can (now) call 119, and hope they do.
Credit to VTF Kate Bingham and Clive Dix @lane , for effective UK vaccine procurement.

 

[srw]

clever

Lucky

 

[Rusty Nails]

The UK signed a deal with CureVac last week. The EU signed theirs months ago. How different things could have been if the vaccines had developed at different rates.

If my aunt had had a penis s/he'd have been my uncle.

(Or should this post be in one of the transgender threads?)

 

[Ajax Bay]

Make-Your-Own-Luck
VTF reads as if both clever and lucky: see this Lancet article (author Bingham): The UK Government’s Vaccine Taskforce: strategy for protecting the UK and the world.
Has the EU EMA written something similar that we can use to inform ourselves whether they were clever and unlucky, and what lessons can be identified (and ideally learned)?

 

[mjr]

Sometimes it sounds like you wish the UK's vaccination program wasn't as successful as it is

That says more about your prejudices than my posts. Firstly, this is about vaccine procurement not vaccination (where sensibly gov.uk seems to have mostly got out of the road and let the excellent NHS crack on).

And secondly, I think it's a bit early to be declaring success. Thankfully, our politicians are not usually so crass to stand atop a hospital with a "MISSION ACCOMPLISHED" banner mid-crisis.

I am sure you agree that we are lucky as a population that our politicians and scientists were clever enough to back the right horse eh?

Lucky? Clever? Let's reserve judgment until the enquiry and for now be thankful that so far so good and hope it continues, whatever it is. Even the most dedicated supporter of the current political elite can only say "maybe", "AIUI" and lots of "?"s because most of the deals are still shrouded in (understandable due to the rules on commercial sensitivities) secrecy.