Oxford/AZ vaccine leak: Germany expects only 8% efficacy in ages 65+ | Hacker News Reader

Oxford/AZ vaccine leak: Germany expects only 8% efficacy in ages 65+

handelsblatt.com

26 pointstpmx18 comments

This has been comprehensively rejected as untrue by AstraZeneca, widely reported by Reuters and other agencies.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-eu-ast...

https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2021/jan/25/coronavir...

This is apparently purely down to the fact that people over 65 were recruited later than those under 65 in the phase 3 trials.

This means that once the trial had ended their wasn't enough infected versus uninfected in the over 65 groups to get a proper efficacy number. It may / probably will be a lot higher than 8%.

This feels like scaremongering.

Thanks. I posted this here because a) Handelsblatt is kinda serious/reliable, b) I wanted an explanation.

Edit: Do have any source/reference to your explanation? (German language is okay.)

Maybe. But it’s no less a thesis then the thesis that the vaccine is more effective with a half dose. This is why test design matters. You can’t say which of the thesis is true.

This was the concern with the mismatching sample groups. If the decreased efficacy was because of age differences rather the dosing differences - congrats! You just convinced the entire UK to adopt only a significant alt wise dosing scheme because the vaccine is actually worse at people Over 65.

The science behind this vaccine has been sloppily done. Let’s hope that the USA trials and the J&J vaccine make up for it.

I've been skeptical of the AZ vaccine for awhile. I don't know much about biology but I do know statistics. And many of their published results smelled of p-hacking[^1] by cherry-picking the best countries and the best (often accidental!) vaccination regime. Well credentialed people don't actively criticize it because despite those statistical issues, the vaccine is likely still 60-70% effective which is a big deal. But! If the stats side of the house is a clown show, it hurts my confidence in the entire house, especially when BioNTech and Moderna have been great in this respect.

[1]: Perhaps not in the typical sense of "getting a statistically significant result" but in the closely related sense of "getting a larger effect size

That's quite some allegation. You would want to be very confident you understand things to allege p-jacking.

While I do agree with you a bit, I think the big problem with Astrazeneca is that people hated on it so much that it's banned in the US. This is despite the fact that statistically it is extremely likely to be both safe and 100ish% effective at preventing death.

If we could magically jump in a time machine and vaccinate the whole US with Astrazeneca last Feb, would we have had a pandemic? No. We would have had some cases, maybe a few deaths, but nothing resembling this year.

So I get it. You don't love the studies. I agree they aren't perfect. But I think it would be helpful if everyone who wanted to point a study flaw would end with a disclaimer: "But of course the FDA should instantly lift the ban on Astrazeneca, because such a ban is absurd."

> it's banned in the US

cite? Its banned in Iran.

In the US all medications must be approved by the FDA before they can be used; therefore, technically all medications are banned by default. Since the FDA has not approved the vaccine it remains banned.

Pending approval and banned have wildly different connotations and I honestly can't assume such a substitution was done in good faith. It's like saying an engaged couple is divorced because they're not currently married.

"It's like saying an engaged couple is divorced because they're not currently married."

The two are nothing alike because banned may have a different connotation for you but its use is proper by the denotation of the word. Your example is not correct by the common connotation or denotation of the word.

For those that down voted my answer I would like to point out that I wasn't the one to originally use the word "banned" to describe the status of the vaccine nor would I normally do so. I was attempting to explain the thinking behind someone else using it.

That is not the proper denotation of the word. The FDA has not placed any ban on the AstraZeneca vaccine. The FDA has not yet approved the vaccine, and there are various limitations on what can be done with a medicine prior to approval (note these limitations are on manufacture, importation, and marketing, not on taking the drug, you can easily and legally be prescribed and buy unapproved drugs), and approving the vaccine could be thought of as analogous in several ways to lifting a ban, but it is incorrect to say that there is a ban for the FDA to lift. The FDA can ban drugs, and there are many that it has, but AstraZeneca's vaccine is not one of them.

Likewise, an engaged couple is just as un-married as a divorced one, and there might be various analogues between a divorced couple getting remarried and an engaged couple being married for the first time, but it is still incorrect to say an engaged couple that has never been married should get remarried.

The definition of ban is "officially or legally prohibit". The use of the AstraZeneca vaccine meets that definition until action is taken by the FDA.

The definition of divorced is not un-married. It is "no longer married because the marriage has been legally dissolved". Unless the engaged couple was previously married to each other they don't meet that definition.

I think you're at risk of wanting to be more right, than advance the discourse. What can we say, who believe you used ban in a technically correct but misread and misreceived manner?

Try not doing this. Try to consider why another term might be better.

AstraZeneca's vaccine is not officially or legally prohibited by the FDA. It's impractical but perfectly legal to acquire and use.

Pending approval != banned to exactly the same degree that pending marriage != dissolved marriage.

I don't understand the article, but why is this a leak? Shouldn't it be public knowledge how effective a vaccine is expected to be?

Often times there is a strict timeline for results and when they're processed and released to the world, I assume leak means someone just kinda went around the regular and pretty slow channels of reporting this info. Perhaps this info would be published when the trial is done in a month or however long.

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