Does anyone know an Anti Covid vaxxer?

[Don1]

Not for these ones.

It's normally ~10 years to get a drug approved. Under a year is eyebrow raising. Yes, it is not a unique delivery system or a brand new drug in totality. But it is strange.
I have no doubt the MHRA has done everything right and all is above board, both morally, ethically with correct GxP practise employed. But it is a little strange.

[Prof Prolapse]

Absolutely shocked so many won't have the vaccine. It's not about the personal risk, it's about the risk to society both in terms of deaths of vulnerable, and the huge economic burden.

The excess mortality in the UK since 7th March 20 is over 119,324. I believe that's over 20% deaths over the predicted average and that is almost certainly due to direct and indirect deaths due to the pandemic (and lockdowns and their associated fk-wittery).

The solution though is simple. If sufficient people decline the vaccine, the passport gets put in place.

Edited by Prof Prolapse on Monday 1st March 09:53

[Prof Prolapse]

Don1 said:

Not for these ones.

It's normally ~10 years to get a drug approved. Under a year is eyebrow raising. Yes, it is not a unique delivery system or a brand new drug in totality. But it is strange.
I have no doubt the MHRA has done everything right and all is above board, both morally, ethically with correct GxP practise employed. But it is a little strange.

This isn't true.

You're confusing the submission for a marketing authorisation with clinical testing. The later can take months to years, the former just months.

All the MHRA did was agree to work with pharma companies and carry out a rolling review, and prioritised the work due to the national urgency. This is all public knowledge.

It's not strange or untoward in the slightest. Our regulators are known to be very innovative. They're often well respected for that reason.

[Don1]

Prof Prolapse said:

This isn't true.

You're confusing the submission for a marketing authorisation with clinical testing. The later can take months to years, the former just months.

All the MHRA did was agree to work with pharma companies and carry out a rolling review, and prioritised the work due to the national urgency. This is all public knowledge.

It's not strange or untoward in the slightest. Our regulators are known to be very innovative. They're often well respected for that reason.

So you're saying it's normal for a brand new drug to to through the approvals process in a few months?

Edit, sorry, re-reading that made it sound confrontational- it isn't. An honest question.

Edited by Don1 on Monday 1st March 11:06

[SpeckledJim]

Don1 said:

Prof Prolapse said:

This isn't true.

You're confusing the submission for a marketing authorisation with clinical testing. The later can take months to years, the former just months.

All the MHRA did was agree to work with pharma companies and carry out a rolling review, and prioritised the work due to the national urgency. This is all public knowledge.

It's not strange or untoward in the slightest. Our regulators are known to be very innovative. They're often well respected for that reason.

So you're saying it's normal for a brand new drug to to through the approvals process in a few months?

Where did you get that from?

It's not normal to build a house in a month, but if you try really hard, and throw a lot of resources at it, and stop building any other houses at the same time, then you can do it, and the house itself will be absolutely fine.

Expensive. But fine.

[TwigtheWonderkid]

SpeckledJim said:

Don1 said:

Prof Prolapse said:

This isn't true.

You're confusing the submission for a marketing authorisation with clinical testing. The later can take months to years, the former just months.

All the MHRA did was agree to work with pharma companies and carry out a rolling review, and prioritised the work due to the national urgency. This is all public knowledge.

It's not strange or untoward in the slightest. Our regulators are known to be very innovative. They're often well respected for that reason.

So you're saying it's normal for a brand new drug to to through the approvals process in a few months?

Where did you get that from?

It's not normal to build a house in a month, but if you try really hard, and throw a lot of resources at it, and stop building any other houses at the same time, then you can do it, and the house itself will be absolutely fine.

Expensive. But fine.

Exactly this. When they converted Excel in Docklands into a Nightingale Hospital within a few weeks, no one said "ooo, I don't like the sound of that, it would normally take a year to do that conversion". These aren't normal times, and the manpower and resources thrown at the problem meant the end result was achieved much sooner.

[Prof Prolapse]

^^^ this for sure. The house is a good analogy, as is time taken if you were to take Concorde to New York, rather than a modern commercial airline.

This isn't aimed at anyone in particular, but I do find myself increasingly baffled how so many people have suddenly become such experts in these subject matters, that they can overrule expert opinion, and gamble with the collective health of a nation as a result.

We really are living in the "post truth age".

Edited by Prof Prolapse on Monday 1st March 13:12

[otolith]

Prof Prolapse said:

^^^ this for sure. The house is a good analogy, as is time taken if you were to take Concorde to New York, rather than a modern commercial airline.

This isn't aimed at anyone in particular, but I do find myself increasingly baffled how so many people have suddenly become such experts in these subject matters, that they can overrule expert opinion, and gamble with the collective health of a nation as a result.

We really are living in the "post truth age".

They are leveraging the study skills they gained while becoming constitutional law experts a few years back.

Edited by otolith on Monday 1st March 13:43

[TwigtheWonderkid]

Prof Prolapse said:

^^^ this for sure. The house is a good analogy, as is time taken if you were to take Concorde to New York, rather than a modern commercial airline.

This isn't aimed at anyone in particular, but I do find myself increasingly baffled how so many people have suddenly become such experts in these subject matters, that they can overrule expert opinion, and gamble with the collective health of a nation as a result.

We really are living in the "post truth age".

Edited by Prof Prolapse on Monday 1st March 13:12

It's largely down to the fact that we live in a time where it's fashionable to believe that everybody's opinion deserves to be respected (even in you disagree), and even more worrying, that all opinions are equal.

Whilst it's perfectly possible to respect an opinion you don't agree with, it's not compulsory. Some opinions are just fking idiotic, and deserve to be called out as such. If you don't want your opinions ridiculed, then don't believe ridiculous stuff.

And not all opinions are equal. Vera who works in Greggs, is perfectly entitled to hold an opinion about vaccines, but her opinion is not equal to a Professor who has 30 years experience in vaccine development. When I want to know how best to heat up a sausage roll, then Vera's opinion will be worth more than the vaccine Professor.

[monkfish1]

Prof Prolapse said:

^^^ this for sure. The house is a good analogy, as is time taken if you were to take Concorde to New York, rather than a modern commercial airline.

This isn't aimed at anyone in particular, but I do find myself increasingly baffled how so many people have suddenly become such experts in these subject matters, that they can overrule expert opinion, and gamble with the collective health of a nation as a result.

We really are living in the "post truth age".

Its not a good analogy at all.

Building a house is a known proven process. Nothing is being reseached, invented or discovered. More people = faster house.

The vaccine is "new". More people will surely speed it up the development. Testing and proving its safe, not so much. That requires time as well as resource.

So, poor analogy.

Edited by Prof Prolapse on Monday 1st March 13:12

[otolith]

Testing and approval and manufacture of vaccines is also a well trodden and well defined path. Throwing money and resources at it and running processes in parallel rather than in series also works for that.

[Wombat3]

Don1 said:

So you're saying it's normal for a brand new drug to to through the approvals process in a few months?

Edit, sorry, re-reading that made it sound confrontational- it isn't. An honest question.

There was a program made about the development of the AZ vaccine. They received the genetic code of the Virus from the Chinese on a Friday and the Vaccine had been designed by Sunday night. Scientifically, it wan't that taxing to deal with!

The reason vaccines normally take so long to develop is firstly because of the time taken to get funding (think in terms of developing a solution for a problem that may not really exist!) and secondly because the testing process is normally much longer than used with the Covid vaccines. That's partly because its usually more difficult to get sufficient volunteers to run the trials with. No such problem with the Covid trials

Also best to look at what these vaccines are doing, they are triggering a response from your immune system, not adding some kind of virus killing toxic chemical. Its your own immune system which is going to protect you, not the substance of the Vaccine. The difference between them is that they do it in different ways.

What none of the Western vaccines are are innoculations with either live or dead versions of the Covid virus. I think one of the Chinese ones does use the dead version though, but even that is a perfectly tried & tested method of developing an innoculation.. There is an important distinction between innoculation and vaccination, they are not the same thing.

There is an argument to say that you could actually become immune to the AZ vaccine which hides its payload inside another virus. This because you could become immune to the carrier virus . So if you were re- vaccinated with a revised version of it (because of say a new variant) then your immune system might jump on the carrier virus & kill the whole thing before the payload could be delivered & therefore it would not be as effective.

The mRNA stuff is a newer & different technology but basically does the same job, i.e. it triggers your immune system.

Its that process which takes 3-4 weeks & why you have no protection much before then. There are increasing amounts of evidence to show that immunity really only starts to build after 2 weeks but that it doesn't stop there , it really gets going at 3-4 weeks after the first dose. Most of the measurements they took during the trials were at the 2 & 3 week marks (because they were giving the second dose at 3 weeks). What we are now finding is that the immunity from the first does keeps on building past that point. IN fact at 3/4 weeks the AZ vaccine now looks to be the most effective of the lot.

The other thing to note is that if you have a stronger reaction to the jab then that's actually a good thing - its your immune system getting to work with it. The advice (as far as I know) is that if you can tough it out without using paracetamol etc then so much the better.

So I wouldn't hesitate to have any of the available vaccines & am not in the least bit concerned about doing so. My daughter works in bio research labs in Cambridge (but in a different field) & has regular contact with virologists. None of them are giving it a second thought.

I do know somebody who has long Covid though - she's not 100% well 10 months later and I have met a few people who have lost older but much loved & valued relatives. I don't think they would argue/accept that they were a price worth paying for anything.

[105.4]

@Wombat3

Thanks for the informative and detailed post.

[anonymous-user]

What I find odd is Israel, they have now jabbed nearly 95% of the population but are still getting 2,000+ cases a day, the equivalent of us getting 16,000 a day after 60 million have been vaccinated.
So the rate there hasn’t exactly fallen off a cliff. The 7.5% are either getting a real hammering, the vaccine doesn’t work or maybe it’s something else they’re doing ie no lockdown or loads off mass gatherings?

Edited by anonymous-user on Monday 1st March 14:57

[TwigtheWonderkid]

V6 Pushfit said:

What I find odd is Israel, they have now jabbed 95% of the population but are still getting 2,000+ cases a day,

How many of them are actually ill? As opposed to just a bit unwell.

[TwigtheWonderkid]

otolith said:

Testing and approval and manufacture of vaccines is also a well trodden and well defined path. Throwing money and resources at it and running processes in parallel rather than in series also works for that.

Exactly. The more people you have working on something, and the more money you can throw at it, then on the whole, the quicker it gets done. Houses, vaccines, making cars, approving vaccines, turning exhibition halls into hospitals.

This isn't a revelation.

[monkfish1]

TwigtheWonderkid said:

V6 Pushfit said:

What I find odd is Israel, they have now jabbed 95% of the population but are still getting 2,000+ cases a day,

How many of them are actually ill? As opposed to just a bit unwell.

Exactly. Who cares how many cases there are if no one is ill?

[Prof Prolapse]

monkfish1 said:

Prof Prolapse said:

^^^ this for sure. The house is a good analogy, as is time taken if you were to take Concorde to New York, rather than a modern commercial airline.

This isn't aimed at anyone in particular, but I do find myself increasingly baffled how so many people have suddenly become such experts in these subject matters, that they can overrule expert opinion, and gamble with the collective health of a nation as a result.

We really are living in the "post truth age".

Its not a good analogy at all.

Building a house is a known proven process. Nothing is being reseached, invented or discovered. More people = faster house.

The vaccine is "new". More people will surely speed it up the development. Testing and proving its safe, not so much. That requires time as well as resource.

So, poor analogy.

It's really not.

As above, some of these vaccines involve novel methods for development, but the science is literally over a hundred years old, and the testing and regulatory platform is what we've been using for decades.

As for the clinical trial design. I'm not anyone important, but I've worked on clinical trials for over thirteen years, I now have the privilege to be entrusted trusted to manage significant aspects of them, and, whilst I'm actually the least qualified of my staff (a humble BSc), it happens to be immunology, so perhaps you could enlighten me as to what part of the trial design you feel falls short?

As from where I'm sitting it looks pretty robust.

[Prof Prolapse]

V6 Pushfit said:

What I find odd is Israel, they have now jabbed nearly 95% of the population but are still getting 2,000+ cases a day, the equivalent of us getting 16,000 a day after 60 million have been vaccinated.
So the rate there hasn’t exactly fallen off a cliff. The 7.5% are either getting a real hammering, the vaccine doesn’t work or maybe it’s something else they’re doing ie no lockdown or loads off mass gatherings?

Edited by V6 Pushfit on Monday 1st March 14:57

Educated guess;

1) Incubation period of virus - Already infected and too late.
2) Time for immunity - Caught infection before immune response.
3) Poor immune response - Compounding factors meant insufficient immunity gained from vaccine
4) In most data I've seen the ~90% vaccinated refers to the first vaccination only, I believe (someone please correct me if I'm wrong) predominantly uses the Pfizer-BioNTech two part vaccine, so they're not done yet.. You'd need to vaccine, presumable, 200% to get full immunity...

It's worth bearing in mind that Pfizer said that a single doses was only 52% effective, it was only later on that the UK's vaccine committee used an entirely different methodology to claim 92% efficacy.

[ben5575]

Prof Prolapse said:

It's really not.

As above, some of these vaccines involve novel methods for development, but the science is literally over a hundred years old, and the testing and regulatory platform is what we've been using for decades.

As for the clinical trial design. I'm not anyone important, but I've worked on clinical trials for over thirteen years, I now have the privilege to be entrusted trusted to manage significant aspects of them, and, whilst I'm actually the least qualified of my staff (a humble BSc), it happens to be immunology, so perhaps you could enlighten me as to what part of the trial design you feel falls short?

As from where I'm sitting it looks pretty robust.

It's more than pretty robust. I don't think people's issues are around whether the processes that where gone through were compromised or short circuited.

But even Doris in Greggs knows that we haven't invented time travel yet so it is impossible to have conducted long term studies into the vaccines.

Now sensible people (like me and the vast majority of people) will trust in the expertise of people who have developed the vaccines and that there will no doubt be lots of reasons why the lack of long term studies shouldn't be an issue for concern.

Perhaps the way to encourage those that are nervous about possible long term effects is to provide reassurances and information so they no longer need to fill that gap in their understanding with carp found on the internet.

I suspect that piss poor attempts at patronising them will only serve to have the opposite effect.

Great post @Wombat3 btw.