COVID-19 - Facts and Information Only Topic

[BillsFan4]

 

[Hapless Bills Fan]

Good summary article on vaccine development progress, organized a bit by phase of clinical trial

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/health-and-human-body/human-diseases/coronavirus-vaccine-tracker-how-they-work-latest-developments-cvd/

 

Slightly saltier blog from Derek Lowe, starting with readable but technical explanation of the different approaches being taken to vaccine development:

https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2020/09/03/coronavirus-vaccine-roundup-early-september

 

 

[shoshin]

From StatNews, just a good single location for all the vaccine progress to supplement Hapless's post above and IMO a little easier to digest quickly. The below is through 9/9.

 

Coronavirus Vaccines Tracker : Sheet1

	Company	Stage	Description	Notes & Updates	Related Coverage
	University of Oxford and AstraZeneca	Phase 3	University of Oxford researchers have developed a potential vaccine that uses a harmless virus engineered to contain the genetic sequence that encodes for a protein on the surface of the novel coronavirus. The researchers, from the University’s Jenner Institute and Oxford Vaccine Group, are working at uncommon speed, starting a placebo-controlled clinical trial while finalizing the manufacturing of their potential vaccine. British drug maker AstraZeneca has partnered on the project.	March 27: Oxford begins recruiting patients for a placebo-controlled trial that will enroll up to 510 healthy volunteers. The vaccine will not be ready for "some weeks," according to the university. April 30: AstraZeneca announces it will partner with Oxford to develop the vaccine. July 20: Oxford publishes Phase 1/2 data demonstrating an immune response with mild to moderate side effects. Aug. 31: AstraZeneca begins enrollment in a U.S. Phase 3 trial that will involved 30,000 volunteers. Sept. 8: AstraZeneca says a hold has been put on the trial following a suspected adverse reaction in a participant.	Read more
	Moderna Therapeutics	Phase 3	Moderna’s vaccine, mRNA-1273, is a synthetic messenger RNA that encodes for a protein found on the surface of the novel coronavirus. By compelling cells to produce that protein, the vaccine would spur an immune response, causing the body to generate antibodies that would protect against infection. The company set a drug industry record with mRNA-1273, identifying a vaccine candidate just 42 days after the novel coronavirus was sequenced.	March 16: First patient dosed in a Phase 1 trial April 16: Moderna plans to begin a Phase 2 study by July May 1: Moderna announces it will partner with Swiss firm Lonza on development May 7: FDA clears Moderna to start a 600-patient Phase 2 study, which will begin "shortly" May 18: Moderna discloses interim Phase 1 data, in which eight volunteers developed antibodies to the coronavirus May 29: Moderna doses the first volunteers in a Phase 2 study, planning to enroll about 600 people July 14: Moderna publishes Phase 1 data showing a consistent antibody response and mild to moderate side effects. July 27: Moderna begins enrollment in a 30,000-subject Phase 3 trial	Read More
	BioNTech and Pfizer	Phase 3	Germany’s BioNTech is working on a multitude of mRNA vaccines for the novel coronavirus, planning to develop them in parallel. Like its competitors, the company uses strands of mRNA to generate protective antibodies. Earlier this month, Shanghai’s Fosun Pharma signed a deal to market BioNTech’s vaccine in China if it’s eventually approved. Pfizer has agreed to co-develop the vaccine in the rest of the world.	April 9: BioNTech says it will begin its first human trials "as early as the end of April" April 29: BioNTech and Pfizer dose the first patients in a Phase 1 trial in Germany, planning to enroll about 200 patients May 5: BioNTech and Pfizer begin Phase 1 study in the U.S., recruiting up to 360 patients total May 12: BioNTech says it expects preliminary data in June or July July 1: In a Phase 1 trial, BioNTech's vaccine led to an increase coronavirus antibodies at three doses, according to a preprint paper July 27: Pfizer and BioNTech begin enrollment on a 30,000-volunteer study, expecting data as early as October	Read more
	Sinovac	Phase 2	Sinovac, headquartered in Beijing, is developing a vaccine using an inactivated version of the novel coronavirus. The company used the same technology to craft approved vaccines for hepatitis A and B; swine flu; avian flu; and the virus that causes hand, foot, and mouth disease.	April 17: Sinovac begins a placebo-controlled Phase 1/2 trial, planning to enroll 144 healthy volunteers in China May 6: Sinovac publishes results from a preclinical study in which its vaccine successfully protected monkeys from contracting the novel coronavirus. The company plans to start a second, larger human trial by mid-May June 14: Sinovac released preliminary results from its Phase 2 trial, saying its vaccine induced neutralizing antibodies in “above 90%” of participants	Read more
	CanSino Biologics	Phase 2	CanSino Biologics, headquartered in Tianjin, is developing a coronavirus vaccine using the technology that led to a China-approved Ebola virus vaccine. CanSino’s approach involves taking a snippet of coronavirus’ genetic code and entwining it with a harmless virus, thereby exposing healthy volunteers to the novel infection and spurring the production of antibodies.	March 17: CanSino begins Phase 1 trial in China April 10: Based on preliminary data, CanSino says it will move into Phase 2 "soon" May 22: CanSino published data from a 108-subject trial, in which its vaccine generated a immune response in volunteers June 29: Chinese regulators provisionally approved CanSino's vaccine for military use July 20: CanSino publishes interim Phase 2 data showing a consistent antibody response but one that seemed to wane in older subjects	Read more
	Inovio Pharmaceuticals	Phase 1	Inovio has spent the last four decades working to turn DNA into medicine, and the company believes its technology could quickly generate a vaccine for the novel coronavirus. Inovio has come up with a DNA vaccine it believes can generate protective antibodies and keep patients from infection. The company has partnered with a Chinese manufacturer, Beijing Advaccine Biotechnology, to produce the vaccine.	April 6: Inovio doses first patient in Phase 1 trial June 30: Inovio says its vaccine led to an immune response in 94% of patients but does not provide data	Read more
	Novavax	Phase 1	Novavax is at work on a coronavirus vaccine that begins in the ovaries of an insect. The company’s vaccine platform involves genetically engineering a harmless virus and exposing it to cells isolated from worms. Those cells then churn out the proteins needed to stimulate antibodies, and those proteins become vaccines. For Covid-19, Novavax has isolated the spike protein found on the surface of the novel coronavirus.	April 8: Novavax selects a vaccine candidate, planning to begin human trials in May with preliminary data in July May 26: Novavax begins Phase 1 trial, planning to enroll about 130 volunteers with data expected in July Aug. 4: Novavax presents detailed data from its Phase 1 trial, demonstrating an immune response with mostly mild side effects	Read more
	Sanofi and GlaxoSmithKline	Phase 1	Sanofi is employing the same technology it employs for flu vaccines, which uses a genetically modified version of a virus to create proteins that train the immune system to react. The company is combining its approach with GlaxoSmithKline's proprietary adjuvant, an additive that makes vaccines more potent.	Feb. 18: Sanofi begins work on a coronavirus vaccine April 14: Sanofi partners with GlaxoSmithKline and plans to begin human trials in the second half of 2020 and generate pivotal data in 2021 Sept. 3. Sanofi and GlaxoSmithKline begin a 400-volunteer, Phase 1/2 trial, expect data in December	Read More
	Johnson & Johnson	Preclinical	Johnson & Johnson, which has in the past responded to outbreaks of the Ebola and Zika viruses, is using the same technology to develop a vaccine for the novel coronavirus. J&J’s vaccine is made by grafting the coronavirus genes that confer immunity onto a harmless virus, injecting it triggering an immune response without causing infection.	March 30: J&J expects to begin Phase 1 by September, with a vaccine available for emergency use as soon as early 2021
	Arcturus Therapeutics	Preclinical	Arcturus Therapeutics is pressing forward with a vaccine that relies on engineering RNA. The company plans to take an RNA virus that has been edited to encode for proteins that will protect against infection and load it into a liquid nanoparticle. The resulting vaccine, being developed in partnership with Duke University, promises a better immune response at a lower dose than competing mRNA approaches, according to the company.	April 9: Arcturus plans to begin a Phase 1 trial in Singapore over the summer
	Clover Biopharmaceuticals and GlaxoSmithKline	Preclinical	Clover Biopharmaceuticals, headquartered in Chengdu, is developing a vaccine that would inject patients with a protein found on the surface of the novel coronavirus. GlaxoSmithKline is providing its proprietary adjuvant, an additive that makes vaccines more potent.	Feb. 10: Clover identifies its vaccine candidate Feb. 24: GlaxoSmithKline provides its adjuvant
	CureVac	Preclinical	CureVac uses man-made mRNA to spur the production of proteins and protective antibodies. Like Moderna, the company got a grant from the nonprofit Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations to apply its technology to coronavirus.	March 17: CureVac said it expects to have a candidate ready for animal testing by April, aiming to start a clinical study in the summer
	Imperial College London	Preclinical	Led by the immunologist Robin Shattock, Imperial College London is developing an RNA-based vaccine for the novel coronavirus. The scientists have engineered a virus-derived RNA strand that will get into cells, spur the production of the coronavirus’s signature protein, and then replicate itself. In animal studies, the vaccine has resulted in the generation of protective antibodies.	April 17: With funding from the U.K. government, Imperial plans to complete preclinical work and begin human trials in June
	University of Queensland and GlaxoSmithKline	Preclinical	Australia’s University of Queensland, with funding from the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, has been developing a coronavirus vaccine since January. Queensland has a proprietary technology meant to make protein vaccines more effective at triggering an immune response. Called a molecular clamp, the university’s approach keeps the coronavirus’s key protein in its natural shape before grafting it onto the vaccine.	April 9: Queensland plans to begin human trials in the third quarter
	Merck	Preclinical	Merck purchased a Vienna-based company called Themis, which is developing an experimental Covid-19 vaccine based on a measles vaccine. It also partnering with the nonprofit IAVI on the development of a coronavirus vaccine related to the company's existing Ebola vaccine.	May 26: Merck says the Themis vaccine will enter human trials in a matter of weeks while the second candidate could reach the clinic by the end of the year	Read more
	Sanofi and Translate Bio	Preclinical	Sanofi partnered with Translate Bio to develop potential vaccines using synthetic messenger RNA, which would compel the body to produce antibodies against the novel coronavirus. The two companies have worked together in the past on vaccines for infectuous disease.	March 27: Sanofi and Translate Bio announce their collaboration but do not specify a development timeline

Edited September 9, 2020 by shoshin

[DefenseWins]

https://www.yahoo.com/news/severe-covid-19-riskier-heart-190554603.html

[Hapless Bills Fan]

AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccine trial paused while adverse event is investigated:

https://abcnews.go.com/Health/astrazeneca-pausing-covid-19-vaccine-trial-good-news/story?id=72903384

This is how it's supposed to work. 

 

AstraZeneca chief says vaccine by the end of the year still possible

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/money/news/oxford-covid-19-vaccine-is-still-possible-this-year-says-astrazeneca-chief/ar-BB18TuZr

 

Transverse Myelitis is no joke.  Most people afflicted with it recover, but can suffer serious long-term effects:

https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/transverse-myelitis/symptoms-causes/syc-20354726

It is associated with viral infection, including infection with herpes viruses, CMV, Epstein-Barr, HepB, enteroviruses, influenza

 

The Oxford vaccine uses a chimpanzee Adenovirus particle to deliver the genetic material for the Sars-Cov2 coat protein that raises the desired anti-covid-19 immune response.

 

The Phase III trial aimed to enroll 50,000 people.  A serious vaccine-related adverse event at the 1 in 30,000 rate would affect about 10,000 people if administered to the majority of the 329 million population of US or 447 million population of EU

 

 

[Hapless Bills Fan]

Updated Covid-19 Vaccine Tracker at the NYT.

Can filter search results by the phase of clinical trial a vaccine is in.

 

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/science/coronavirus-vaccine-tracker.html

 

Astrazeneca has lifted their pause to Phase 3

 

[Hapless Bills Fan]

From NYTimes, via Shoshin:

 

Positive results from Eli Lilly's monoclonal antibody drug trial.  This is a double-blind, placebo-controlled study of 450 patients and the trial is ongoing, meaning the result was significant enough to break the blind:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/16/health/coronavirus-drug-eli-lilly.html?surface=home-discovery-vi-prg&fellback=false&req_id=841659783&algo=identity&imp_id=690733981&action=click&module=Science Technology&pgtype=Homepage

 

Key points:

-monoclonal antibody, meaning a single human anti-covid-19 antibody cloned and produced at large scale in mammalian cells

-administered to newly diagnosed patients, including those with mild or moderate disease

-1.7% of those who received the drug hospitalized, 6% of those who received placebo

 

An early clinical trial usually features healthy people, but this could be a true boon if, for example, it could be administered to exposed people who are at risk - nursing home patients exposed to an infected caregiver, say, or exposed people with known risk factors such as heart disease or diabetes.

 

Thanks @shoshin

 

Bit less excited article from Stat pointing out the watch-outs:

https://www.statnews.com/2020/09/16/lilly-covid-19-antibody-helps-patients-rid-their-systems-of-virus-sooner/

“This is a good start,” said Eric Topol, the director and founder of the Scripps Research Translational Institute. “A lot is pinned not only on Lilly but on the whole family of these [monoclonal antibodies], because even though they’re expensive and they’re not going to make a gajillion doses, they could make a big difference in the whole landscape of the pandemic.”

 

Lilly, which is developing the drug with the biotechnology firm AbCellera, tested three doses of its antibody against placebo in a trial enrolling about 450 patients recently diagnosed with mild to moderate Covid-19. The middle dose, 2,800 milligrams, met the trial’s primary goal of significantly reducing patients’ levels of SARS-CoV-2 after 11 days.

 

But other doses of the drug did not meet that goal, including a higher dose of 7,000 milligrams and a lower one of 700 milligrams. That could raise the risk that the benefit was due to chance, because normally one expects a medicine to become more effective as the dose increases, known as a dose response.

 

I can't think of an effective, approved drug that showed that pattern.  Normally what one sees is stronger therapeutic effect on the one hand vs increased side effects and adverse events on the other hand, and one chooses the dose to balance between the two.  Sars-Cov2 is a tricky virus, and "the human immune system is where intuition goes to die" so it's always possible.  The smart money says that ain't the result Eli Lilly expected, and it's worrisome.

 

But Lilly is targeting the right population next:

Lilly is conducting larger tests of the antibody, including one study in using the antibodies to prevent infection in nursing homes that is using recreational vehicles to provide on-site hubs for running the clinical trial. That study is being run with the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease.

 

Commentary from my boi Derek Lowe on why seeking an EUA for this would be bad, but I imagine Lilly will face a lot of pressure to that end:

https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2020/09/16/monoclonal-antibody-data

 

[Hapless Bills Fan]

https://apnews.com/article/pfizer-vaccine-effective-early-data-4f4ae2e3bad122d17742be22a2240ae8
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/09/health/covid-vaccine-pfizer.html?smtyp=cur&smid=tw-nytimes
 

Standard clinical trial design protocol is that an independent data review board to "break the blind" when a milestone is reached that will likely result in a statistically significant finding.  In this case, it was 94 total covid-19 infections in 44,000 trial participants. 

 

The number (which is set during the trial design phase) is chosen to allow a read out of statistical significance if the vaccine met a lower milestone for effectiveness - the FDA has said it will accept license applications for vaccines as little as 50% effective, but that was probably not Pfizer's target.  My guess would be they were going for 75%.

 

There have been challenges, such as individual behavior - for example if the placebo injection produces no vaccine-site reaction or symptoms, people who get the placebo may guess they likely got the placebo and may continue taking precautions that make them less likely to be infected. 

 

Pfizer had hoped to break the blind in September or October, but they simply weren't getting enough infections to allow that:

Pfizer Chairman and CEO Albert Bourla said on CNBC that the election was always an artificial deadline and that the data was going to be ready when it was ready. The independent data monitors met on Sunday, analyzing the COVID-19 test results so far and notifying Pfizer.

Pfizer's vaccine has been manufactured "at risk" but there are still hurdles to overcome such as assembling the safety data in trial participants, and stability data on the vaccine itself:

Pfizer plans to ask the Food and Drug Administration for emergency authorization of the two-dose vaccine later this month, after it has collected the recommended two months of safety data. By the end of the year it will have manufactured enough doses to immunize 15 to 20 million people, company executives have said.

 

This is the vaccine that raised eyebrows by requiring a -70C cold storage chain.

 

 

[Greg S]

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/18/nyregion/nyc-schools-covid.html

[Hapless Bills Fan]

Moderna's vaccine also 95% effective.  Very similar principles, but requires less stringent cold storage

 

https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/16/health/moderna-vaccine-results-coronavirus/index.html

[Hapless Bills Fan]

 

Pfizer and BioNTech announce they will file for EUA (emergency use approval) for their vaccine

 

https://www.pfizer.com/news/press-release/press-release-detail/pfizer-and-biontech-submit-emergency-use-authorization

 

 

[Hapless Bills Fan]

Astrazeneca vaccine.  Participants with 2 full doses, 64% effective.  Participants with 1/2 dose followed by full dose, 90% effective.  Overall, 70% effective.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-astrazeneca-idINKBN2830HC

 

To recap difference between Moderna, Pfizer, and Astra-Zeneca vaccines:

-all 3 work by handing over the genetic blueprint for making part of the Sars-Cov2 exterior protein coat to the part of your immune system that stimulates adaptive immunity (antibodies and t-cells)

-this means that absolutely no Sars-Cov2 virus is involved anywhere in the manufacturing process and the vaccine absolutely can not give you covid-19 disease.  No way.

-the difference is in the "delivery truck" used to deliver the blueprint to the correct part of your immune system.  Other parts of the human immune system are primed to seek-and-destroy foreign genetic material seen wandering randomly about your body's premises unescorted

 

-The Pfizer and Moderna vaccines use proprietary lipid (fat) particles to protect the genetic material long enough for proper delivery.  Lipids don't evoke much immune response.

-The disadvantage is that's not a particularly robust vehicle, so it needs careful (frozen) storage.  It's sort of like floating downriver in a birchbark canoe - it works, if you're careful.

 

-The AstraZeneca vaccine uses the empty shell of another virus as the "delivery truck".  This means the "delivery truck" itself is going to evoke an immune response which can interfere with the delivery of its payload to develop the desired Sars-Cov2 immune response

-The reason they do this, is because the viral shell is tougher and more stable than a little lipid particle.  Engineered by nature, so to speak.

-In AstraZeneca's case, the shell is a Chimpanzee Adenovirus.  The good news is most people probably don't have a strong pre-existing immune response to a chimp virus.  The bad news is that because human Adenoviruses are all over the place, some people likely do have a preexisting immune response, at least partially. 

 

[Hapless Bills Fan]

Some more good stuff about the Astra-Zeneca/Oxford vaccine and the Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna vaccines from Pharma Blogger Derek Lowe

 

Lowe shares my speculation that the 1/2 dose/ full dose improved efficacy might be related to the possibility of raising an immune response to the chimp Adenovirus “delivery truck”.  We’re all waiting to see more data.

 

 

 

 

 

[Hapless Bills Fan]

Vaccine Side Effects: bear in mind that when you look at ~70-80,000 people for a period of several months, you expect some deaths in the natural way of things.

 

Fact check of rumor piece:

https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-factcheck-pfizer-health-concerns-idUSKBN28K2R6

 

Good general commentary from a knowledgeable Pharma R&D guy:

https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2020/12/04/get-ready-for-false-side-effects

[Hapless Bills Fan]

State of the pharmaceutical treatment:

 

https://yourlocalepidemiologist.substack.com/p/covid19-drugs?fbclid=IwAR0VfGv7xjFTjxQItgI0onn4kd5hFfQGGy5iUkkrEbfZAi8mHUAjkatUNT0

Quote

On Feb 11, 2021, the National Institutes of Health published a 280 page report summarizing COVID19 treatment options. Treatment options were based on severity of disease (see Table for summary). And, really, there’re only two options that work so far:

Corticosteroids: This has been consistently effective against death from severe and critical COVID19 disease. Corticosteroids also help prevent mechanical ventilation and decrease ICU length of stay. There has been one study on mild COVID19 disease and corticosteroids did NOT help.

Remdesivir: This is the only FDA-approved antiviral drug found effective for COVID-19. And, specifically, only for people hospitalized needing supplemental oxygen (NOT ventilation).

 

The NIH report it references:

https://www.covid19treatmentguidelines.nih.gov/therapeutic-management/

 

She starts out with a clear explanation of the difference between population health and patient health, which is important to understand.

Quote

Preface: There is a difference between population health (another word for public health and epidemiology) and patient health (another word for clinical care or patient-care). The distinction is important and we shouldn’t use them interchangeably, especially when we talk about drugs. Population health fixes problems for populations at a time. It takes into account everything that impacts health: culture, environment, government, and even genetics. Patient health fixes problems for one person at a time. So, for example, Ivermectin might have worked for your uncle or neighbors mother. It may have even worked for 100 patients for one doctor. But this does NOT mean it works for the rest of the population. This is important to distinguish because population health (not patient health) drives policy. And… this is a blog about population health.

 

[Hapless Bills Fan]

Evidence that vaccines block transmission of Covid-19. 

https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/22291959/covid-vaccines-transmission-protect-spread-virus-moderna-pfizer?fbclid=IwAR1EF-UFnsKzL7Qixd_iGIY1kjFGMXqBiuRLFBRkqSd4LOYbMapf8tV0j5A

 

Public health figures are by nature cautious in their statements

Quote

“In their own lives, medical experts — and, again, journalists — tend to be cleareyed about the vaccines. Many are getting shots as soon as they’re offered one. They are urging their family and friends to do the same,” David Leonhardt argues in a New York Times piece. “But when they speak to a national audience, they deliver a message that comes off very differently. It is dominated by talk of risks, uncertainties, caveats and possible problems. It feeds pre-existing anti-vaccine misinformation and anxiety.”

 

Vaccination dramatically decreases infection overall, not just symptomatic infection:

Quote

A new working paper published with The Lancet’s preprint publication program on Monday looked at health care workers in the United Kingdom who were vaccinated with the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine. It finds that the vaccine doesn’t just make people less likely to get symptomatic infections (which we already knew from Pfizer/BioNTech’s initial trials) — it also makes them much much less likely to get infected at all. “Vaccine effectiveness was 72% ... 21 days after first dose and 86% ... 7 days after the second dose,” the study concludes.

That’s lower than the 95 percent headline number you might have seen, but that 95 percent measures symptomatic infections; this measures all infections, even “invisible” asymptomatic ones, through routine testing of healthy people.

 

Quote

Another new paper, this time out of Israel, looked at the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine as well. (A big caveat: The findings were announced in a press release, but the study itself hasn’t been released yet.) It found a drop of 89.4 percent in infections among people who got two doses of the vaccine, compared to unvaccinated people. We don’t have as much information from this research as we’d like yet, as the paper has yet to be made public, and given the methodological challenges of estimating transmission, the details of the paper matter a lot. But that number is similar to the one from the UK study.

 

Also this:

https://time.com/5942076/proof-covid-19-vaccines-work/

 

 

Quote

In their initial clinical trials, Moderna and Pfizer didn’t study whether vaccinated people got asymptomatic cases of Covid-19 — that is, people who tested positive for the coronavirus but did not suffer any symptoms. However, when people went in for their second shot, Moderna did give them a nasal swab test for Covid-19.....

Using Moderna’s nasal swab test data, infectious disease biologist Marm Kilpatrick at UCSC estimated that the vaccine, after a single shot, reduces a person’s odds of infection with Covid-19 by up to 90 percent. (When I emailed him, we determined that with some more pessimistic assumptions, the reduction might be more like 78 to 88 percent.) Of course, the overall efficacy of the vaccine after both doses will almost certainly be higher.

 

Quote

“Our discussion about vaccines has been poor, really poor,” Dr. Muge Cevik, a virologist, told the New York Times. It has overwhelmingly emphasized the fact that post-vaccine transmission is still possible, rather than frankly discussing the probability of such transmission and leaving it up to people to make their own risk calculation.
 

That’s because a lot of public health officials worry about encouraging people who’ve been vaccinated to “party like it’s 1999,” potentially spreading the virus to other people who haven’t had their chance to get vaccinated yet.
 

It’s important to note that for a vaccinated person’s behavior to be more dangerous than an unvaccinated person’s, they’d have to go really wild. If vaccines reduce infection by 90 percent, then unless your behavior gets 10 times more dangerous after you’re vaccinated, you are still safer to be around than you were before the vaccine. (...)
 

Vaccinated people should, of course, respect businesses’ rules about masks — the essential workers asked to enforce those rules have no way to know if you’ve been vaccinated. And while most people are still unvaccinated, the vaccinated should be thoughtful about protecting those who haven’t had a chance at the vaccines yet. But those reminders shouldn’t drown out an accurate understanding of the fact that the vaccines are really effective.

 

Another report on the Israel study of 1.2 million people (600,000 vaccinated:

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/pfizer-covid-19-vaccine-effective-real-world-study-israel/

 

Quote

The study, involving about 1.2 million people total, showed just one shot of the vaccine is 57% effective in protecting against symptomatic infections after two weeks. The vaccine also proved to be 62% effective at preventing severe disease after one shot, and 92% effective after two. ....In terms of preventing hospitalization, the shot was 74% effective after one dose and 87% effective after two. 

 

 

[Hapless Bills Fan]

New US study confirms earlier Israel, UK studies: in real life use, vaccines dramatically lower the number of infections, and if you're not infected, you can't spread disease:
 

Quote

The workers came from eight locations in six states — Arizona, Florida, Minnesota, Oregon, Texas and Utah. They received vaccinations between mid-December, when the doses first became available, to mid-March, a 13-week period that included the deadly winter surge that was killing more than 3,000 people a day by January. The study is also one of the first to estimate vaccine effectiveness among participants against infection — rather than just monitoring for symptomatic cases — including infections that did not result in symptoms, according to the CDC.

Quote

Among 2,479 fully vaccinated people, just three had confirmed infections. Among 477 people who received one dose, eight infections were reported.

By comparison, among 994 people who were not vaccinated, 161 developed infections.

No deaths were reported.

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2021/03/29/vaccine-effective-essential-workers-study/?fbclid=IwAR3HIvEXE_BS37MBwOV3fXNuVc6cwRd0hT9R8eWO4CM_mZNKQgdIWdCPHM8

PSA: Love One Another; Get the Jab

[Hapless Bills Fan]

Just found this site which gives the exact ingredients in all 3 currently authorized covid-19 vaccines

 

https://www.hackensackmeridianhealth.org/HealthU/2021/01/11/a-simple-breakdown-of-the-ingredients-in-the-covid-vaccines/

[Hapless Bills Fan]

Lancet study suggesting link between spike in area covid-19 cases and >5000 fans attendance at Football Games.

 

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3805754

[Hapless Bills Fan]

This is the vaccine assessment of a long term Pharma R&D scientist I respect a lot, "In the Pipeline" author Derek Lowe

 

https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2021/04/07/getting-vaccinated

 

Quote

I’ve now had my first coronavirus vaccine dose (Pfizer/BioNTech). Since I’ve been writing about the mRNA vaccines for months here and cheering on the vaccine efforts in general, I can tell you that I’m very, very happy to be able to follow through and actually take one. So far, the only signs are a sore upper arm.

 

Quote

I wondered if I should even mention this, to be honest, because with the vaccine supplies continuing to ramp up, it’s (fortunately) no longer such a rare event to get vaccinated. States all over the country are opening their programs up, in many cases to anyone who wants to come in, which is excellent news. But I decided to make the public statement, in light of the continued emails and comments I get about the vaccinations in general. There are a lot of people out there still worrying about a lot of things: antibody-dependent enhancement, short-term immune reactions, possible long-term side effects, CNS penetration, and more. And those are just the worries that are founded in actual medical science – beyond those, you have the Bill-Gates-George Soros-microchip crowd, the 5G activists, the mark-of-the-beast fringe, and who knows what else. Fortunately, we don’t get too many of those folks around this site, but I know that they’re out there.

 

Quote

For people who are honestly wondering about real immunological issues, though, I wanted to say that as someone who’s been doing drug discovery work for over 30 years now, and who has been covering the vaccine developments in detail with great interest during the entire pandemic, that I had no hesitation about rolling up my sleeve. I weighed the risks and benefits as thoroughly as I could, with all the medical knowledge that I could bring to bear on the decision, and my decision was clear: get the vaccine. My wife has been vaccinated, my college-aged children are getting vaccinated (my son a few days ago in another state, my daughter tomorrow), and my wife’s mother is way out ahead of us with both her shots done some time ago. In short, I am very, very willing to take this step and have my closest family members do likewise – and I take their health and safety very seriously indeed (not to mention my own). If this can be of any use in helping to persuade someone who’s worried and on the fence about this decision, I’m happy to offer it.