Interesting results from the long term AZ trials that have been continuing with some of the original trial participants…
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Problem is Delta.
First dose of AZ is only 33% effective at reducing the risk of symptomatic illness and 71% effective at reducing the risk of hospitalization.
The hospitalization endpoint is more important than symptomatic illness endpoint but 71% is low enough that it still raises the risk of a not insignificant number of really sick people.
By now we are all familiar with the ups and downs of the AstraZeneca vaccine—controversies with US regulators, then bad press (some undeserved) in the EU, followed by the well-known rare but serious complications involving blood clots.
What the hell happened? Why did this nonprofit seemingly altruistic vaccine project become such a lightning rod of attention? In this deep dive article, the Guardian (linked here via the Taipei Times) tries to find out.
Guy
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Hmmm.
The main problem with that article is that nobody has even heard of this supposed “disinformation” seeded by the Russians. The debates that have occurred so far have been purely over the issues mentioned in the first half of the article - Matt Hancock being a scheming cnut, the originators and the manufacturers trying to spin up a production line from a cold start and getting it wrong, and the (completely inevitable) harms done by an immature technology rushed out at light speed.
If you roll out any brand-new product to hundreds of millions of customers without a full test suite, you’ll find that it does funny things at a non-zero rate. It’d happen with flashlights or corkscrews or safety razors, so the Oxford team really should have braced themselves accordingly, given the complexity of what they were doing. The first product on the market is almost always overshadowed by competitors in short order. That’s the downside of being first.
The Russian vaccine isn’t trusted even by Russians, AFAIK, while the AZ vaccine is in reasonably high demand even if it’s not the most popular. If the Kremlin were attempting “destabilize Germany and France” with King Kong memes, they’ve done a pretty poor job.
“It’s not our fault, it’s those damn Russians” is just not very plausible in this instance.
Ireland has gone back to recommending the AZ to the under 40s and telling everybody to get the second jab within FOUR week s ! More Yo-Yos than the Ma family.
No doubt more consistent messaging could help these guys.
I thought one point that was clear by now was the longer wait between doses actually seems to improve AZ’s efficacy . . .
Guy
Because of Delta…It changed all the calculations.
Cuba has a vaccine. They are using it in Venezuela and probably will be used in other South American countries.
Egypt is also investing in vaccines. Hopefully they can cover the African continent and Middle East.
I think that the Indonesians were using the Chinese “Placebo” before?
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Mad rush for shots
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And those are under 72 years old folk?!
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When I read the article I thought “this is some religious nut with an axe to grind”.
But I looked at the original paper and he appears to be right, in one respect at least: counting spontaneous abortions before 20 weeks for all 827 participants is completely daft, since most of the participants hadn’t had their vaccination at (or before) that point; therefore the vaccination couldn’t possibly be causative in those abortions.
I don’t think his 82% figure can be right, because it isn’t clear what the vax schedule was for the other (827-700) women who were vaxxed sometime before 28 weeks. Nor is there an exact record of how many spontaneous abortions occurred exclusively in this group. In fact it appears to be deliberately confusing.
But there is something odd here. Can someone else have a look at this and see if I’m just imagining things?
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Unfortunately, most readers of this report will never find these results because they’re deceptively buried in the footnotes of Table 4 where it is revealed that the findings were based on a total of 827 participants who reported a completed pregnancy, but 700 of them did not receive the COVID jabs until they were in their third trimester. Since the third trimester begins in week 28 of pregnancy, it makes no sense to include those 700 participants in the sample of women who lost their child during the first 20 weeks of pregnancy. Yet, they were included along with the 127 who actually did receive the jabs during their first 20 weeks of pregnancy or within 30 days of becoming pregnant. Since 104 participants lost their baby in miscarriages, the report draws a bogus conclusion that only 12.6% miscarried (104/827), but the real number is 81.8% based 104 miscarriages out of 127 pregnancies (104/127).
In Ireland:
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I mentioned this previously. Some people seem to think that it is ok to put young people and even kids in danger to save others. I don’t. Whenever you take a vaccine, it should be first and foremost to protect yourself. It definitely shouldn’t be taken just to protect others and even put yourself in more danger, even if the side affects are rare.
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In Ireland they are being given lots of choice .
One of the reasons, beyond fears about Delta coming down from northern Ireland , is that many young people want vaccination now for work and tourism purposes . So it is up to them. It’s all voluntary.
Purely voluntary
However, the HSE has now said that the offer of an AstraZeneca or Johnson & Johnson jab to the younger cohort is purely voluntary.
"If someone aged 18 to 34 would prefer to get their vaccine at a HSE vaccination centre, they can wait and register online later this month,” a spokesperson said. In the case of those who choose to opt for the AstraZeneca or Janssen shots, “getting either of these vaccines will mean they will be vaccinated earlier”, they said, than if they wait to get the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine.
Meanwhile in Chile, the outcomes of relying on Sinovac are . . . not ideal.
Guy
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