When will this shit end?

[zahidf]

8 minutes ago, Copperface said:

Would you be saying the same if it had happened here and Priti Patel was the Health Minister?

Well true... but its a anonymous source inside the health ministry. The actual health minister says its rubbish.

[stuartbert two hats]

Does anyone know if you can get the raw ZOE data? That might be able to give a hint on whether the AZ vaccine has a dramatically lower efficacy in the over 65s.

[Copperface]

5 minutes ago, Toilet Duck said:

That was from the PCR tests checking for asymptomatic disease though. None of the current vaccines make any claims yet on sterilising immunity (and when describing the data above in their Lancet paper, the Oxford team suggested it was to early to tell but there was a signal for protection from actually catching the virus). This isn’t really related to the efficacy figures in the German newspaper. My best guess is that the EMA has looked at the trial data available and decided that there aren’t enough older participants (and not enough events in this subgroup) to absolutely say that it’s fine for older adults. The confidence intervals for efficacy in the oldest patients were the widest, but still above the minimum threshold for approval. This has possibly been leaked to the paper and they’ve misconstrued it as 8% efficacy rather than less than 10% of trial participants in the older group (which is true...Moderna for example had much better diversity in their trial). FWIW, I think the combination of the phase 2 and phase 3 data suggests the AZ vaccine will be fine for the older group, but the EMA might not see it that way (it’s all speculation at this stage, though there appear to be hints leaking out). 

 I really didn't understand much of it?  Low numbers in the trials have caused a statistical anomaly or that they simply don't have enough info to apply to the over 55s hence might not authorise?

[Deaf Nobby Burton]

Watching the BBC doc - So China never actually released the genetic code themselves, it was released against their orders.

[PM87]

12 minutes ago, Toilet Duck said:

That was from the PCR tests checking for asymptomatic disease though. None of the current vaccines make any claims yet on sterilising immunity (and when describing the data above in their Lancet paper, the Oxford team suggested it was to early to tell but there was a signal for protection from actually catching the virus). This isn’t really related to the efficacy figures in the German newspaper. My best guess is that the EMA has looked at the trial data available and decided that there aren’t enough older participants (and not enough events in this subgroup) to absolutely say that it’s fine for older adults. The confidence intervals for efficacy in the oldest patients were the widest, but still above the minimum threshold for approval. This has possibly been leaked to the paper and they’ve misconstrued it as 8% efficacy rather than less than 10% of trial participants in the older group (which is true...Moderna for example had much better diversity in their trial). FWIW, I think the combination of the phase 2 and phase 3 data suggests the AZ vaccine will be fine for the older group, but the EMA might not see it that way (it’s all speculation at this stage, though there appear to be hints leaking out). 

My worry about all this is the potential damage it could do to public confidence in vaccinations. It's such a shame because we're off to a great start here in terms of uptake and the roll out generally.

Obviously, if there are issues with the vaccine or if further questions need to be asked of the data, that of course should be addressed. It just seems like there's now a dark cloud hanging over the bright light that was the vaccine roll out - I know the Oxford vaccine isn't the only one out there and it's likely the data will be clarified in the coming days but sigh. 

Edited January 26, 2021 by PM87

[Toilet Duck]

Just now, Copperface said:

 I really didn't understand much of it?  Low numbers in the trials have caused a statistical anomaly or that they simply don't have enough info to apply to the over 55s hence might not authorise?

There wasn’t a lot of older participants, so this diminishes the statistical significance a bit. But when you have a big effect, you don’t actually need huge numbers. The trials were powered to test a vaccine of theoretical efficacy of 50% and the exceeded the number of events required for that and had a bigger effect. So, while the confidence interval (variation around the efficacy figure quoted) were a bit bigger for the older group, they weren’t ridiculously huge, so could still be taken as significant.

[Deaf Nobby Burton]

Double post 

Edited January 26, 2021 by Deaf Nobby Burton

[stuartbert two hats]

6 minutes ago, stuartbert two hats said:

Does anyone know if you can get the raw ZOE data? That might be able to give a hint on whether the AZ vaccine has a dramatically lower efficacy in the over 65s.

I don't think you can, but there's quite detailed information here, although nothing on vaccinations:

https://covid-assets.joinzoe.com/latest/covid_symptom_study_report.pdf

[PM87]

4 minutes ago, Deaf Nobby Burton said:

Watching the BBC doc - So China never actually released the genetic code themselves, it was released against their orders.

I'm about 20 minutes into watching and seeing the 2020 NYE celebrations that were briefly featured made me sad. We just had no idea what was about to come. There are so many 'what ifs.' It drives me mad when I think about it too much.

[km9]

While you're there @Toilet Duck, am I right in thinking that data will now be gathered on the older age groups who have been vaccinated with the pfizer and AZ drugs? If so, how would the other drugs get their data? Surely there wouldn't be any older people to trial on?

Sorry if that sounds naive.

[Ozanne]

19 minutes ago, PM87 said:

A few people have suggested that I watch that. Will definitely add to my watch list. I go through stages of not wanting to watch or read anything pandemic related because I worry I'm simply doom scrolling and then have days where I want to consume absolutely everything. Right now I'm doing the latter. 

I know what you mean, I’ve had a phase where I watch stuff like that including the lead up and look back knowing what we know now. It can be really interesting. 

[Leyrulion]

5 minutes ago, km9 said:

While you're there @Toilet Duck, am I right in thinking that data will now be gathered on the older age groups who have been vaccinated with the pfizer and AZ drugs? If so, how would the other drugs get their data? Surely there wouldn't be any older people to trial on?

Sorry if that sounds naive.

Pfizer and AZ are in what's now called a Phase 4 trial where they monitor the effect of a drug after its started to be distributed to the general population. So there are established procedures for on going evaluation, they haven't just given it a green light and forgotten about it.

 

In terms of finding elderly people for other trials now the vaccine is being distributed the trials are likely to move from testing no vaccine Vs trial vaccine into testing approved vaccine Vs trial vaccine to work out which is more effective.

[zahidf]

 

 

Oooof

[Toilet Duck]

3 minutes ago, km9 said:

While you're there @Toilet Duck, am I right in thinking that data will now be gathered on the older age groups who have been vaccinated with the pfizer and AZ drugs? If so, how would the other drugs get their data? Surely there wouldn't be any older people to trial on?

Sorry if that sounds naive.

Howdy, so, we will start seeing the impact of vaccination on outcomes in older adults as more get vaccinated (we are already seeing this in the hospitalisation rates in Israel), but they’re not part of a randomised trial, so we have no matched placebo group to compare to, therefore can’t really update the efficacy number from real world use. We’ll also get safety data from older people that get vaccinated though (so reporting deaths like those in Norway become really important to help decide the safest way to use the various vaccines). There will still be loads of populations that aren’t as far ahead with their vaccination programme, so those will be where vaccine vs placebo trials will be conducted. With approved vaccines available, it does eventually become an ethical question of whether new vaccines should be compared to authorised ones rather than having a placebo arm (so, we assume 95% efficacy for Pfizer, give the other group the new vaccine and compare infection rates...at 95% efficacy though, it’d take a while to get enough events!). Really, the sooner the other vaccine trials complete, the better. 

[hodgey123]

Is anyone else seeing more restlessness among their friends on social media about lockdowns and COVID in general? A few of my friends have moved to full on COVID/lockdown denial mode on Facebook over the last few days (it’s just a flu, why are we being locked down when only affects old people, 99% survival rate etc.) and I have not been able to bite my tongue on some of the posts.

[Deaf Nobby Burton]

One thing I’m confused by watching the BBC documentary...

The virus was circulating in China for an absolute bare minimum two months without any intervention whatsoever. During which time a mass migration of 300m people was allowed to happen so that people could return to their homes for their spring holiday.

We've got a population that is 5% of china’s, yet recently in a matter of three days we’ve had a death toll higher than china’s entire official total deaths. 

[Ozanne]

 

[Ryan1984]

 

[steviewevie]

100k deaths on all the front pages...so there you go...

[hodgey123]

3 minutes ago, Deaf Nobby Burton said:

One thing I’m confused by watching the BBC documentary...

The virus was circulating in China for an absolute bare minimum two months without any intervention whatsoever. During which time a mass migration of 300m people was allowed to happen so that people could return to their homes for their spring holiday.

We've got a population that is 5% of china’s, yet recently in a matter of three days we’ve had a death toll higher than china’s entire official total deaths. 

Two real explanations as far as I’m concerned: a) China’s figures can’t be trusted and b) they respond with extremely draconian measures to eradicate any outbreak which would not be tolerated here. 

[steviewevie]

5 minutes ago, Deaf Nobby Burton said:

One thing I’m confused by watching the BBC documentary...

The virus was circulating in China for an absolute bare minimum two months without any intervention whatsoever. During which time a mass migration of 300m people was allowed to happen so that people could return to their homes for their spring holiday.

We've got a population that is 5% of china’s, yet recently in a matter of three days we’ve had a death toll higher than china’s entire official total deaths. 

was it widespread in China at that stage, or still mainly concentrated in Wuhan?

Edited January 26, 2021 by steviewevie

[Ryan1984]

Just now, steviewevie said:

100k deaths on all the front pages...so there you go...

But a lot trying to garner Spaffer Sympathy...

[steviewevie]

Just now, Ryan1984 said:

But a lot trying to garner Spaffer Sympathy...

yes, he's sorry. 

[steviewevie]

Newsnight on in 5 mins...should be a cheery watch.

 

[squirrelarmy]

1 minute ago, hodgey123 said:

Two real explanations as far as I’m concerned: a) China’s figures can’t be trusted and b) they respond with extremely draconian measures to eradicate any outbreak which would not be tolerated here. 

Anyone seen on the streets would have been shot and the bill for the bullet sent to their family. 
 

It tends to make the population very compliant. We Brits have taken the piss with lockdowns and pushed our luck as much as possible and beyond in many cases.