It’s interesting how the Astra Zeneca vaccine is such an emotional topic. In the UK it’s seen as the greatest weapon against the pandemic, in the US it is not playing much of a role and in the EU public perception is super negative.
Personally I think the UK approach is the way to go and that the EU being cautious might backfire. We know the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine is pretty safe and the UK has been giving it to over-65s quite happily. If it does turn out that it’s less effective, then we’ll still have gotten some efficacy across the vast majority of our population much quicker, and probably not added to the deaths. If it turns out that it’s just as effective as on everyone else, then the EU will have lost time yet again and have left their older population at risk for longer.
In a month or two there will be more data, but in Q2 there will also be more supply of Pfizer and Moderna in the EU.
The EU can be cautious with AZ to elderly now because it can afford to due to large quantities of rna vaccine.
A few thousand elderly will die waiting for the slow buildup of rna delivieries while AZ could be made available. That’s the obvious drawback of this caution.
With Pfizers (and Moderna) ~95% efficacy and AZ at 60% I would give AZ to only those that want to jump the line or as the last resort.
You don't want doctors to spread COVID (40% vs 5% that can spread is huge).
Poland wants to give AZ to teachers, a group that has contact with many children (which have contact with their families) - this is poor thinking. AZ should go to people that don't have much contact with others, e.g. unemployed or volunteers.
I'm very excited that RNA vaccines are now a reality.
But the logistics for these RNA vaccines is much more difficult. Specialist freezers are required. Meaning it takes longer to vaccinate folk.
I can't speak for India but I imagine that they are happy to have access to this vaccine as well, as they are similarly going to manufacture it, and to a scale that will dwarf everyone else. And it not needing a special cold chain is even more of a plus in India of course.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/08/business/covid-vaccine-ox...
It's great the vaccine is as effective and safe as predicted, but fumbling the most important clinical trial in the companies history reflected very poorly on their competence.
That's not a "full trial which proved safety and efficacy".
Reason is that early on they were rushing data and approvals on grounds of national pride, in a very similar way to the Chinese and Russian authorities.
Pfizer and Moderna seem to have been more thorough.
I don't disagree about the process, though.
We knew back in December how effective just one dose[1] of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine is, at stopping death. See figure 2 on page 28.
I have no qualms with the Moderna vaccine, I consider it and the Pfizer to be the most effective and least questionable.
What an absolutely ridiculous statement to make. I can only believe you are trolling in some way, or have you own nationalist pride over Pfizer/Moderna.
Initially they pretended this was done on purpose, and claimed 90% efficacy:
https://www.bbc.com/news/health-55040635
Later it came out this was an accident and cover-up, spun as a lucky discovery:
https://www.wired.com/story/the-astrazeneca-covid-vaccine-da...
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-astraz...
Even now, the lower bound of 95% C.I. around efficacy with two doses is 63% which is quite low, relative to the headlines:
https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2021-02-02-oxford-coronavirus-vacc...
I'm not a troll, just a critic of a lab and a U.K. government that fudged some data because they needed a PR win.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2020-07-15/oxford-s-...
"I hope we can improve on those timelines and come to your rescue.” - Sarah Gilbert
That kind of hubris made it hard to admit process errors and low efficacy rates.
That's because the FDA is waiting for the completion of AZ's trial in the US. This should be definitely better run than the meta-trials done elsewhere and give clearer numbers.
A likely readout would be in March, or April.
The Oxford vaccine simply isn't that important to the US accordingly. We have Pfizer/BioNTech, Moderna, Johnson & Johnson, Novavax, along with Oxford. The US will end up with far more vaccine options than it needs. The EU is desperate for any vaccine supply because of how they massively screwed everything up. The US by contrast is going to be flooded with vaccine supply and is barely breaking a sweat. Given the US didn't even put forth its best effort and it's showing up the EU so dramatically, you know the EU really botched things.
Beg to differ there. We need to vaccinate the world. This is in the interests of the US. (Consider mutation etc). The analysis of the Oxford vaccine is that it is much easier to perform the logistics because of the significantly more modest refrigerations requirements. The US needs 7 billion to be vaccinated as much as anyone is my understanding.
$140 billion to vaccinate the world is not a large cost, and many nations will choose (have chosen) their own solutions, for the remaining, perhaps $60bn, that's not a large amount for developed nations to pay compared to the costs of reduced trade and potential further mutations, that's $60-$100 per person in developed countries in cash, or more likely however countries want to amortise that.
[1] https://www.npr.org/2021/02/01/962705729/eu-to-get-9-million...
AZ had production problems in the EU -- perfectly understandable as it’s a complex operation and they started somewhat later than in the UK. The EU Commission responded by threatening legal action (??) and almost bypassing the hard-won Northern Ireland border agreement (!!??!!) before backtracking. Ridiculously petty, dangerous, and does nothing to solve the problem and save lives.
You may want to read this for a more balanced view :
https://www.irishtimes.com/business/health-pharma/dragging-a...
It was really AZ's screw up. The fact is that the EU had a contract with AZ that explicitly required the use of UK plants for fulfilling the EU's orders if need be. But the problem is that AZ had also promised the UK it would have priority over the goods produced on its soil...
The threat to invoke the border protocol was absolutely shocking to me, so I’m very interested to learn more of the background.
Edit to add: for others reading this thread, here’s an article from the same site about that border protocol dispute: https://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/shellshock-in-bruss...
The UK has many issues, and it's gone through a horrible few years but, in the case of the Oxford/Astra Zeneca vaccine specifically, I am incredible proud of what they have done.
In the EU AZ is under delivering doses at present[0], also they had that whole trial dosing mishap.
In the US AZ wasn’t as fast at delivering a vaccine as Pfizer & Moderna & AZ isn’t a US company, but Moderna & Pfizer are. So not really a shock that they get most of the buzz in the US.
Interestingly the US has ordered more AZ doses than any other vaccine & AZ is the most ordered/purchased vaccine worldwide[1].
It’s no surprise to me that countries are hyping up their own products and/or getting them approved first. As for the EU, they are certain to be sore given the lack of doses they’ve been able to acquire & their vaccination strategy in general.
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25964197
[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/covid-vaccine-tracker-glo...