The biology of coronavirus COVID-19 - including research and treatments

That sounds like pure wishful thinking.

No, they'd have to start entirely new trials to gather data for the alternative dosing method.

The vaccine cannot be approved purely based on the "LD/SD" data as the sample size is too small. So any approval is being based on the overall data with it's inferior efficacy. So if they approve it, either those approving it are suffering from the same wishful thinking, or are fully content to approve a vaccine which has greatly inferior efficacy data, simply because it is cheaper and locally developed.

 

A news agency says that an Italian variant of the virus has been discovered in Lombardy and that it has been circulating since August.

It's similar to the English variant but has an additional mutation.

https://www.adnkronos.com/fatti/cro...na-circola-agosto_GqSU097PTY1xx9k4jm9TRN.html

 

https://www.livemint.com/science/he...-given-3-months-apart-sii-11609181643451.html

So AstraZeneca's "winning formula" is an extreme example of cherry-picking (a subgroup of a subgroup). I will be really surprised (and disappointed) if any regulatory authorities actually buy into this nonsense.

 

Apparently it's going to be approved in the UK within days

 

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/wor...o-more-active-immune-cells-in-blood-1.4444155

Based on a quick skim, it doesn't look like it followed patients for very long, so I'm not sure why the paper mentioned long Covid in the heading?
https://elifesciences.org/articles/63195

 

Let's hope their evidence for efficacy and safety will not be reliant solely on serendipity.

 

https://www.politico.eu/article/uk-to-speed-up-coronavirus-vaccine-rollout-reports/
The Telegraph predicted a decision by the end of Tuesday, which obviously hasn't happened, others were predicting a decision "before Thursday". But I wonder, are they being too presumptuous about the outcome of the decision?


The EMA isn't going to approve it...
https://www.brusselstimes.com/news/...ing-authorisation-pfizer-biontech-commission/

 

I'd be prepared to be surprised ---

How did they come up with 3 months apart?

Thanks @Snow Leopard

 

I'm beginning to wonder if the UK regulator is being "awkward" i.e. asking for data!

 

Ah well there's always the PACE approach of "make stuff up and hope people don't care". It's Oxford, after all, home of such science superstars as Michael Sharpe.

I don't know how university rankings work but I have a suspicion it mostly has to do with money.

 

By cherry picking the data. You can bet that the sample sizes will be very small with huge confidence intervals.

It's also completely ridiculous, because the primary argument for using the Oxford vaccine is that there are shortages - but what is the point if it takes an extra 3 months before recipients are immune.

I also remind readers that AstraZeneca has prior form in attempting to market vaccines with very low efficacy - their flu vaccine for example. Which isn't available in Australia for the very reason that the efficacy is too low and they've gotten into trouble with US regulators for the same reason.

 

The UK regulator has now approved the AstraZeneca vaccine. @Snow Leopard

 

BBC News: Covid-19: Oxford-AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine approved for use in UK

 

Political decision. They never would have approved this junk if it had been invented by a foreign country.

 

Well I'm still hoping it'll just be used as a temporary stop-gap at most, rather than see widespread use...

 

It will be interesting to see if other countries approve it. Could be a case of a government that’s more concerned about wanting to be seen to be doing something than doing the best thing.

 

I think the EMA already stated that it probably wouldn't approve it in January.

 

I would just amend slightly to "make stuff up and hope people don't care, or if they do care then hope they can't do anything about it ... in which case why should we care?"

 

Great news. The UK Government is now expecting me to have a vaccine which hasn't even been tested on my age group, let alone vulnerable groups. Is that right? Lovely.

 

So is this Oxford vaccine identical to that originally trialled? And the most recently published results for both dosing regimes unchanged? And do they still have no idea why the difference?

Also, given they are saying the more effective regime is half a shot first, then a full shot 2 or 3 months later, how well or poorly protected are people during that 2 or 3 month interval?

And how could there be any justification for administering only the first half shot (as was mooted at one point), other than politics?

ETA: I now realise it is the full/full dosage that has been approved in the UK, with a 12 week interval between doses. Compared to a 21 day interval for the Astra-Zeneca one. And the Oxford vaccine still only reached 62% efficacy after the 2nd shot. Is there any point? My understanding from somewhere in S4ME is that that is insufficient to support herd immunity for Covid 19?