Coronavirus Sars-CoV-2/Covid-19 Megathread

[Sheilbh]

J&J one shot applying for FDA approval

[Grey Fox]

That won't help anyone the USA will just keep them to themselves.

[Sheilbh]

It looks like they're also manufacturing in South Africa and India, I imagine somewhere in Europe too. I don't think this requires super cold storage either so hopefully they apply for authorisation everywhere else soon.

[The Larch]

It looks like they're also manufacturing in South Africa and India, I imagine somewhere in Europe too. I don't think this requires super cold storage either so hopefully they apply for authorisation everywhere else soon.

Jannsen Pharmaceuticals, the pharma arm of Johnson & Johnson, is actually headquartered in Belgium. In Europe alone they have manufacturing plants in Belgium (3), Switzerland (2), Netherlands, Ireland and Italy.

[Sheilbh]

Jannsen Pharmaceuticals, the pharma arm of Johnson & Johnson, is actually headquartered in Belgium. In Europe alone they have manufacturing plants in Belgium (3), Switzerland (2), Netherlands, Ireland and Italy.

Looks like it's being made in Spain and Switzerland - but needs to go to the US for finish and fill (apparently this is explicitly in the contract with the EU). Apparently there are fears that may have a big effect on European supplies. Hopefully not because single shot, fridge temperature would be a really useful vaccine to have.

[Legbiter]

We're reopening pubs and clubs with restrictions next Monday. It's been weeks since there was a domestic covid case. We've been keeping it contained on the border with double testing and mandatory quarantine for all incoming travelers.

[Sheilbh]

Pre-print finds AZ vaccine basically as effective against the UK variant as the old variants - not sure about Brazil or South Africa yet.

[Josquius]

Apparently Swiss media is laughing at Frances decision to ban the Oxford vaccine for older people, with a lot of attention being given to Frances own vaccine failures and their just being salty about it being British.
I wonder.

[Sheilbh]

I don't know about France but I think there's some suspicion of a "British" vaccine. I remember comments from Nancy Pelosi about this, as well as Fauci and the EMA which I think were shaped a little bit by that. I think it's actually more common in the US than Europe - part of it is just a (wrong) Johnson/Brexit Britain = Trump read, but part of it is that I think in the US there's more of an expectation that there are lots of political appointees involved in UK decision making which isn't true. I think in Europe there's more of an understanding of the split between the political UK government and the non-political bits of the UK state like Public Health England, the CMOs, the MHRA etc because that's similar in Europe?

I think the over-65s point is fair and legitimate. But, personally, I think the decisions around that in France and other countries are far too "business as usual" and not enough this is a pandemic and, in my view, continental Europe will see the British variant become dominant in the next 8-12 weeks which will make the disease even more dangerous. But as I say there is a legitimate argument over that and we will have data from literally millions of British over-65s who've received the AZ vaccine which will help other countries on over-65s.

[celedhring]

We have banned it for the elderly, too. I personally don't think it's a big deal, AZ for the first-line workers and caretakers of the elderly until there's enough data. It's not that we're swimming on AZ vials that will go unused because of this 

[Josquius]

Wasn't the issue that not enough of the older people in the study actually caught corona?
Sounds like a good result to me....

[Sheilbh]

Wasn't the issue that not enough of the older people in the study actually caught corona?
Sounds like a good result to me....

Yeah I think so. From what I've read Oxford university designed the trials and from my understanding didn't think it would be ethical to give older people the vaccine in the first trials which would establish safety. So the first trials inlude only under-65s. Once they came back positive on safety and effectiveness there was a new trial started with 2-3,000 older people. Again from my understanding the way they measure effectiveness is through infection events and at the minute there haven't been enough (which likely reflects that older people are more cautious/likely to be shielding and that infection rates were lower in the early days of the trial - now they're higher). From what I've read they expect this trial to be completed in the next month or so.

So based on that we don't have data on effectiveness in older people because the first trial didn't include them. The perspective of the EMA and the MHRA in the UK is that we know it's safe and there is evidence of an immune response (i.e. presence of antibodies) in older people which is in line with younger people. There is no formal data and some regulators want to wait for that, which makes sense. On the other hand we have evidence that it is as effective in producing an immune response and the absence of formal data doesn't mean it's not effective, so it is very likely it does work at a similar level in older people which is the approach taken by other regulators.

Crucially from what I've seen no person in any of the trials has been hospitalised or died which is huge.

[Zanza]

The vaccination by itself will not save us from the pandemic considering mutations. The Pfizer and Astrazeneca vaccines look less effective against the South African B1351 variant. So in addition to vaccination we need to finally learn from East Asia and step up track and trace, mandatory quarantine not at home, better screening of travellers, immediate escalation on new outbreaks etc.

[Sheilbh]

100% - although from a European perspective one of the issues with that is that East Asian states are more intrusive in their use of personal data in ways that could be unlawful in Europe and also they do restrict people's liberties to enforce quarantines, for example. Given the issues we're having in even establishing proper border controls and quarantines I'm not sure if we'd be comfortable striking that same balance.

And I think we will probably be in a situation where we have booster shots, especially for the vulnerable, every 12-18 months. Especially because we don't know how long vaccines offer protection. And I know that several of the vaccine companies are already developing new shots to deal with variants - but that only takes a matter of weeks now they have a base - so that will probably become part of the arsenal as well. From what I've read I think Pfizer and AZ are less effective against the South African variant, but they are less effective against people getting mild cases there are still no cases that result in hospitalisation or death (yet - and God willing there won't be) which is the most important protection.

But I think aiming for a global vaccination program is probably the only long-term way out of this - I don't think that's plausible this year given that so many of these vaccines will just be starting production but by next year I think it'd be reasonable. If we had Moderna, AZ, Sputnik, Pfizer, J&J and possibly others like Valneva and Curevac all scaled up with 9-12 months plus of manufacturing  - then ad, probably, new vaccines still coming online - then I think the global community would be able to vaccinate everyone and I think that should be the goal. Maybe aiming for Winter 21/22 for the Southern hemisphere and Summer 22 for the Northern hemisphere.

[garbon]

I don't know about France but I think there's some suspicion of a "British" vaccine. I remember comments from Nancy Pelosi about this, as well as Fauci and the EMA which I think were shaped a little bit by that. I think it's actually more common in the US than Europe - part of it is just a (wrong) Johnson/Brexit Britain = Trump read, but part of it is that I think in the US there's more of an expectation that there are lots of political appointees involved in UK decision making which isn't true. I think in Europe there's more of an understanding of the split between the political UK government and the non-political bits of the UK state like Public Health England, the CMOs, the MHRA etc because that's similar in Europe?

I think the over-65s point is fair and legitimate. But, personally, I think the decisions around that in France and other countries are far too "business as usual" and not enough this is a pandemic and, in my view, continental Europe will see the British variant become dominant in the next 8-12 weeks which will make the disease even more dangerous. But as I say there is a legitimate argument over that and we will have data from literally millions of British over-65s who've received the AZ vaccine which will help other countries on over-65s.

I think you might be slipping into little islander mode again and thinking the world puts more thought about the actions of the UK than they actually do.

I do recall when Fauci and Pelosi spoke it was at the same time that the British government was cheering its vaccine nationalism.