November 19, 2020 - 11:19am
It’s all been good news on the vaccine front lately: Pfizer and Moderna have released results suggesting that their products are in the region of 95% effective.
One concern I’ve seen, though, is that the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine results haven’t been released yet, and it’s Oxford’s that will be doing the heavy lifting in the UK. We’ve got 40 million Pfizer doses ordered, but 100 million of the AstraZeneca. Will it be as effective as those, or will we have backed the wrong horse? Results released this morning show “promising” immune responses, but so far there is no data on the actual efficacy: whether people are less likely to get Covid-19 if they’ve had the vaccine than if they haven’t.
I think, though, that the success of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines is extremely good news on that front, and should make us more confident in the effectiveness of the Oxford vaccine.
Here’s why. Pfizer and Moderna’s vaccines are both mRNA vaccines. They get a short segment of RNA into your cells: that RNA then instructs the cell machinery to make a protein, the glycoprotein “spike” on the outside of the coronavirus. It’s that spike which acts as the “antigen”, the thing your immune system latches on to and remembers, (hopefully) giving you immunity when the virus turns up for real. You can read more about the different kinds of vaccine here.
Oxford’s vaccine is not an mRNA vaccine: it’s a viral vector vaccine. It uses an adenovirus which causes colds in chimpanzees to get into your cells. But once it’s there, it does the exact same thing: it instructs your cell machinery to make the same glycoprotein.
Since we already know that the glycoprotein is effective at creating an immune response — that’s why the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines have worked — then, as long as the Oxford vaccine is effective at getting your cells to make the glycoprotein, it’s a fair bet that it will be effective at getting the immune response.
I’ve checked this hypothesis with Rupert Beale, head of the Cell Biology of Infection lab at the Crick Institute, and with Robin Shattock, who is leading Imperial College London’s effort to produce a Covid vaccine (which by the way is another mRNA vaccine). They both agree that it’s good news for all the vaccine candidates which are using the spike protein as the antigen, whether directly (such as the Novavax product) or by having the body make it (mRNA or viral vector vaccines).
Shattock does raise an interesting question: what decisions should we make if, for instance, a vaccine becomes available that is less effective, but cheaper and more easily stored? “How would you trade off a 70% effective vaccine that can be stored for two years in the fridge and costs $3,” he asks, “against a vaccine that is 90% effective, but has the added cost and difficulty of a –80°C cold chain and costs higher than $20 a dose?”
How do we decide where to spend the money? It’s probably not entirely relevant for Britain since we’ve made our decision, but for intergovernmental bodies buying for the world at large – such as the ACT Accelerator — it could well be a live decision.
Still though: this is good news, not just for countries that will get access to the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, but for all the vaccine candidates that will use the glycoprotein spike as an antigen, which is pretty much all of them. And the ones that don’t are traditional vaccines, which are harder to make but reliable, so we should be confident they work too. It’s looking good all round.
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SubscribeIt’s an entirely new type of vaccine, ergo, experimental. The Nuremberg Code specifically bans medical experimentation without the patient’s consent.
I do not consent.
Then be prepared for foreign countries to not allow you in.
All new vaccines are experimental and all new medical treatments – in fact anything new. A new type of braking system would be ‘experimental’ or an aircraft engine, or an airplane. As long as they go through recognised trials and regulations it should be fine.
I’m much more relaxed about single variable trials of vaccines over 10,000s people than the lockdown policies that have been implemented in panic. There’s no parameters, results for the lockdown ‘trials’, no caring about side effects – which some put at 10x worse in health terms alone.
‘Experts’ who wish to coerce people into vaccines and prosecute anti-vaxers are really idiotic. It’ll play into the conspiracy theory game and further alienate people from government and ‘experts’.
It’s being tested right now on people who definitely did consent!
The heading should be “why we should be ashamed of wasting all this time and effort on a vaccine” while ignoring the fact that lockdowns are killing more people than Covid19 ever will. Have we not learned any lessons from the Swine Flu debacle of 2009?
Yes, we should totally ashamed. We are spending billions chasing asymptomatic cases up and down the country with manic obsession and driving up fear in much of the population (who sadly still think the BBC gives us news) while not actually treating all the people we know are dying fom cancer and heart disease etc,etc not to mention driving people to despair and suicide etc. Just to keep with the narrative that we so need a vaccine…..
But what if the vaccine (any vaccine) proves to be an effective antidote to the insanity of lockdowns, regardless of how effective it is or isn’t against the actual virus. Surely that would be worth it.
Or the lessons from the “Spanish” flu epidemics in the early 1900s? That came back three times and killed more the second time than the first.
Am I missing something? I keep hearing about vaccines but surely we already have a pretty big degree of immunity in the population? Simple arithmetic says if we’ve had 50,000 deaths than we must’ve had in the order of 30 million infections and these people have immunity? Or are we saying these 50,000 deaths weren’t from covid? Then there is the natural and cross immunity to factor in? Recent studies show immunity is very likely to be long lasting. Why have the south west, south east and London not been clobbered again? Maybe I’m just a bit thick. Happy for anyone to explain what I’m not getting.
You are too logical?
LOL! Comes from a lifetime using statistical process control.
I suspect this might be all over before a vaccine comes on stream.
The Bat Lady of Wuhan said there were reams of bat corona viruses of this nature, some much worse. I wonder if the National and International governing bodies have had such a good time with covid that once it is over they will be clamoring for the next one. China may also have some thoughts on this as it would seem they have enjoyed their distracted adversaries being focused elsewhere.
in the US, the CDC says 94% of the deaths were among people WITH Covid; only 6% were solely BECAUSE OF it. The 94% cohort skewed old, avg age of something like 75, and there was an average of 2.5 other health conditions involved.
No doubt something like Covid can exacerbate existing problems; that happens all the time with deaths from pneumonia, for example. There was an underlying condition and the illness piled onto an already weakened system. You’re not thick at all.
Thanks for the info, in the UK it’s ave age 82 with 2 comorbidities. There are similar figures for OF and WITH. I assume the 30 million as the 50,000 are with a positive test so based on the IFR it’s in the order of 30 million infections.
The vaccine is the thin edge of the wedge. It is the vaccine passport for internal and foreign travel and attendance to everything which is the point of it all. And once papers exist and must be carried they have spaces for every kind of data on them. I begin to think Covid is merely Revelations 16:13, the mark of the beast all must carry to be allowed to buy or sell.
I totally agree re immunity. We now have population immunity. No excess respiratory deaths.There was already robust long lived immunity in a high proportion of the population from pre-existing T cells, memory B cells and IgG antibodies (number of research papers confirming this ). And research (ever exanding numbers) shows that both B memory(which make antibodies), and T memory cells are definitely established following even mild Covid infection. The point about antibodies decining is a massive red herring as thats normal and does NOT mean a loss in immunity.There is no reason for immunity not to be long lasting; both memory B cells and T cells from the first SARS, SARS-CoV-1 were found to be still present 12-17 years later. Your 30 million figure may be far less if an IFR of 0.57% (from John ionnidis’s peer reviewed paper on the WHO Bulletin) in used (only 9 million) but that doesnt really change the overall picture. It is depressing that science is being twisted, mirepresented and corrupted to support a narrative and immunologists whose research funding depends on industry grants cannot speak up. The editor of the BMJ recently published an article on corruption in politics and science. Do take a look. Just google BMJ and corruption , politics. I wont include a link as that seems to prevent or delay messages from appearing.
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It is a misuse of statistics to try to back calculate number of cases
from observed number of deaths. For example, if a disease has a CFR
of 1% and 1000 people have been infected, statistically it is likely
10 will die, but it could be more or less than this because of chance
factors. The distribution will be Gaussian and the probability of any
given number of deaths obtained from the binomial expansion.
What you cannot
conclude is that if there have been 10 deaths, therefore 1000 people
must have been infected.
You could make a
better estimate by stratifying the population and using an
age-related CFR, as there seems to be at least a 1000 fold difference
in CFR across the population
As I said the exact numbers do not matter as much as the overall picture
If you use an incorrect method, then you cannot know the overall picture. Things do not become facts just because you assert them to be so.
It’s a shame doctors are also being told not to speak out. I’ve heard it said that the only scientists you should listen to are retired ones as they have nothing to lose.
Out of interest what information are you using to conclude that if we had have 50,000 deaths then there must have been 30 million infections. As i understand there’s no consensus yet on what the infection fatality rate is.
Prof J Ioannidis peer reviewed and published paper which cites the IFR as 0.15-0.2% and for under 70’s to be 0.03-0.04%. I just used a rough calc on the headline figure.
Depends what you think the overall population infection fatality rate / ratio / risk is. An almost meaningless statistic because the IFR varies so much according to age (among a lot of other factors).
However if you really want to use it then an ONS random sample in May gives a point estimate of 0.83 % (95% CI 0.65 – 1.08) so this gives a figure of people infected at that time of about 6 million.
Some epidemiologusts claim that this sort of back calculation (deaths >> number of people infected) is impossible because :
1. You can never know what the true infection number is because we aren’t testing enough and the antibody and antigen tests are fraught with false positive and negative problems particualrly at low prevalences so you can never generate an accurate IFR
2. IFR is a measure of probability not a rate or a ratio. I quote : ” For example, if a disease has a IFR of 1% and 100 people have been infected, statistically it is likely one person will die, but it could be 0 or more than 1.
What you cannot conclude is that if one person has died, therefore 100 people must have been infected.
It is a basic error of logic that if A implies B, then to assert that B implies A.”
The results of a nationwide serological study done in Spain at the begining of May (61,000 bods) came up with a national prevalence of 5% – a long way off the generally accepted 60% required for population protection with this virus.
Nice article in Nature about all this on Oct 21 :
“The false promise of herd immunity for COVID-19”
See reply to c no below. Prof Ioannidis has a peer reviewed number.
Spain has a seroprevalence of 5% and UK has 7%. In terms of immunity both are wrong. Anyone infected has immunity that isn’t always shown in antibodies which fade over time for any disease. The B cell and memory T cell immunity is well documented and shown recently to be long lasting. Anyone who has been infected has immunity is described as immunology 101 by immunologists. We have vaccines that rarely produce an antibody response, the best known being hepatitis.
There is evidence in South Korea of people with T cell immunity that have never been exposed to sars-covid2 which supports the cross immunity understanding.
The IFR is so varied by age group that it’s fairly meaningless. Covid is not exclusively a killer of the old, but the correlation is massive. Tragically this has not informed most of our reaction to it.
What doesn’t help is the torrent of poor quality research and guesswork presented by all sides. There’s people with fancy sounding titles saying it’s all a hoax and equally fancy pants titled people behave as if the black death has come once again and that Covid deaths or illnesses are worse than all the other ways of dying.
I don’t agree that the IFR is meaningless. It’s understood by age group and should help to inform strategy. This has been known to SAGE since 6th March in a paper that is spookily accurate.
I do agree with your second paragraph. We have a National covid Service to the detriment of just about everything else. On a personal level I haven’t had a clinic appointment since February (and I need one!) and my broken tooth is being treated with an emergency kit from Sainsburys. If you want a dental appointment you will need to lie.
I had immediate dental treatment and an extraction 7 weeks ago, so dental treatment can be had.
You can only get a dental appointment if you have pain. You may well lose a tooth that may otherwise have been saved and preventative care is off the cards completely. The current situation is storing up a dental care crisis that will come home to roost over the next few years.
My advice about the emergency kit from Sainsbury’s came from a dentist who wouldn’t see me unless I had pain!!
However there have apparently been cases where people have been reinfected.
5 cases and some doubt on some of them apparently but an accepted 5. WHO say 750 million infections.
Just because some people may have B and T memory cells and / or cross reactivity with other corona viruses does not necessarily = a useful immunologcal response reducing disease severity in a new or repeat infection.
If the pre-existing immunity was so prevalent after the first wave in Spain why are they experiencing a larger second wave ? (along with France, Germany, Italy, Sweden, Peru, Belgium, Switzerland etc.)
“We have vaccines that rarely produce an antibody response ” – que ?
Viruses don’t do 2nd waves and their “2nd wave” is nowhere near the “first” time. It’s now an endemic virus behaving with seasonality. If you want to see that then look at the winter of 2018/9 in the UK and compare it to now. Remember, 55,700 EXCESS deaths happened in that winter due to respiratory illnesses. Excess deaths in the home are hugely above those in hospitals and care homes and are almost exclusively NON covid. Hepatitis vaccine rarely produces antibodies. This is well documented. It does however provide immunity. B and T cells become active when required to do so. This is immunology 101, see Ivan Roitt. There are only 5 documented re-infections and some of those have been challenged. The idea that B and T cells will not give protection is a flight of fancy.
SW and SE were not clobbered the first time and maybe for the same reasons have not been clobbered again this time. London is interesting though.
Having too many vaccines to choose from is certainly a good problem to have but I can’t help thinking the government has been too pre-emptive in banking on the Oxford vaccine.
Also I wouldn’t be so confident to assume that just because the mechanism of the Oxford vaccine is ‘similar’ to that of a lipid nanoparticle, they will necessarily have similar efficacy.
Yes, the protein and the way it’s made once the RNA is in the cell is the same, but otherwise, everything else is different. Additionally the adenovirus vector has the added disadvantage of being cleared by ones immune system as a pathogen before entering the cell. Possibly reducing its potency.
The levels of protein expression, once the vector inters the cell may also differ from that of a nanoparticle delivered construct, leading to differing levels of immune response.
Also, the reason for using a chimp adenovirus is so that it won’t be rapidly and readily recognised by the human immune system and destroyed before reaching its destination. Some of the other adevovirus vectored vaccines that use human adenovirus (eg Chinese one?) do have this issue so they try to select more unusual adenovirus. However, if there is a second dose (or a repeat dose the following year) this will presumably be very much be a problem for the Oxford vaccine as the immune system will recognise it too quickly and I guess (although I may be completely wrong) that they might use a maximum dose for the first one with no booster for that reason.
Good points! It’s worth noting that lipid nanoparticles can also be vulnerable to immune clearance and immune recognition upon re-dosing. Though it’s possibly easier to engineer a less immunogenic nanoparticle, than do the same with an adenovirus
I do notice any conspiracy theory posting disappears. Is it because it is thought to be off topic or because it is thought to be a trash posting by the moderation? I happen to think most of what goes on in the world on a macro scale is caused by what would be thought a conspiracy. It would seem almost any covid topic should be allowed some conspiracy thinking as so little of the whole responce, and covid its self, can be explained by rational planning.
Confidence. Phase 3 efficacy data.
Cart. Horse.
But I hope it works like the other 2 announced so far.
Danish mask trial: 6.000 participants, 94 infections.
Conclusion: at such a low number, the results are sastistically irrelevant, they could be random.
Vaccine trials: 43.000 participants, 94 infections.
Conclusion: the results are statistically relevant, show 90% efficiency, blahblahblah.
Connect the dots.
The media must think society is filled with morons. I’m old to remember when skepticism of authority was the norm among journos.
Take an acquaintance of middle brightness and understanding and remember half of the people are less sharp and knowledgeable than them. A democratic society is governed by morons, as the Biden win shows.
You’ve misunderstood those numbers. Each of those trials split the participants into two groups with roughly 50% of participants each:
In the Mask trial one group wore masks and the other didn’t wear masks. In the Vaccine trial one group got the vaccine and one group didn’t.
In the mask trial 42 of those participants who were asked to wear masks got covid while 53 of those who didn’t wear masks got covid.
In the vaccine trial 5 of those participants who got the vaccine got covid while 90 of those who didn’t get the vaccine got covid.
Think it’s clear why the mask trial doesn’t demonstrate efficacy while the vaccine trial does.
You are right in what you are saying, but there is still the assumption that both groups in both trials had exactly the same chance of catching COVID in the first place.
In fact it is also worth remembering that no vaccine stops you becoming infected – it does not throw up a magical shield viruses can’t penetrate. The vaccine, if it works, just makes your natural response to being infected more rapid. We also know that antibodies – what the vaccine is trying to get your body to produce are not the only immune mechanism at work. Factor in the large number of people who have tested positive yet did not later test positive for anti bodies. Then also factor in the fact that a significant proportion of negative tests turn out to be false negatives.
Does a tiny proportion of both test groups getting positive tests really tell us anything just because one tiny proportion is more tiny than the tiny proportion in the placebo group?
For what it is worth I do feel the mask trial has provided credible evidence that masks don’t really work, I just question whether the vaccine trials provide credible evidence that these vaccines do really work. I am not saying they don’t, only that the level of evidence or burden of proof that seems to be required when making decisions is massively impacted by confirmation bias – yes I have always believed masks wearing was a complete waste of time, funnily enough exactly as WHO said right from the outset.
By what mechanism (other than the vaccine itself) would one group have a higher chance of getting infected? The trials were randomised double blind so I simply can’t imagine what would cause to that to happen.
Poor people doing key worker jobs and living in crowded housing are far more likely to catch covid than others – that is the main reason why the BAME study was flawed indicating the virus is racist. Randomisation does not guarantee an even split of all the factors that affect likelihood of catching it. Then consider that a tiny proportion of both groups actually tested positive and it is easy to see how the results could be down to factors other than the vaccine.
Rather than randomising, the trial needed to carefully screen for all the factors which could affect likelihood and ensured both groups were even and then looked at whether there was a difference in risk factors of those who actually got it in both groups. When you have so many factors which introduce uncertainty, what you need is a far larger proportion of the groups to test positive to have confidence that the difference between the groups is down to the vaccine and not other factors.
However if a study gives the answer you want to hear, then who cares about the obvious flaws? Surely science is only there to give politicians the answers that support their policy.
Politicised science is the greatest scourge of modern times and the whole global warming thing is just one prime example of its dangers.
LOL!!
Also, if only round 86 (inferred by 90% effectiveness) get as little as a v mild symptom and a PCR postive (at goodness knows how many Ct so could easily not even be Covid – could be a viral fragment or one of 100’s of varieties of other respiratory virus which PCR is capable of amplifying per Dr Clare Craig podcast with Alex McCarron 10 Nov), and placebo group is 22,000 (half), chances of getting a Covid (possibly all were mild as they didnt tell us) is o.4% at very most over a 3/4 (?) month period, even in countries where they actually did the trials which were selected to give them the best chance of catching Covid. Which makes the chances of getting it in the UK what then?
The Moderna trial had 30,000 participants, 15,000 with vaccine and 15,000 given a placebo. The control group had 90 infections (11 serious), the vaccine group 5 infections (0 serious). The assumption is that without the vaccine the vaccinated group would also have had 90 infections. Thus 85 infections were prevented (90-5), or the effectiveness is 85/90 = 94.4%.
https://www.nih.gov/news-ev…
Do you have a link for the mask trial? Was it double blind (as if that’s possible with a mask).
Many people in the medical establishment have come out saying these vaccines are an overreaction to hyperbolic media and political reporting of the COVID19-virus. They are highly experimental and contain heavy metals, as well as animal and fetal DNA. I’d rather take my chances with the virus.
Which people? I’ve not seen anyone saying this.
The Pfizer and Moderna vaccines may, because of their profiles (storage, handling, time window, and other considerations), be totally unusable in some situations. The main cohort for vaccination at the moment are the very old and those in care homes. They may need individual visits and roving vaccination for which neither of the two vaccines is the best fit.
The AstraZeneca vaccine has, according to reports, a much better flexibility. If it becomes the preferred vaccines for the oldest (who need the greatest protection) then it is likely to be accepted for all other cohorts. I believe that the government has, by luck, bet on the correct vaccine.
This is an interesting paper:
https://www.thelancet.com/j…
The evidence reported and analysed in the paper points to 2 different strains of COVID 19 and immunity gained from 1 not protecting against the other. So will the vaccine protect against both?
It is a sample of 1 but what are the chances of the same person getting 2 different strains in quick succession in a place that had the technology and resources to investigate as thoroughly as is reported here?
The other tiny number of reinfections reported around the world also point to different stains (phylogenetically distinct) indicate the chances are not that high. The literature search for the paper did not identify any reports of reinfection by the same strain.
So what is more interesting is why the finger is being pointed at immunity not lasting (we have good evidence from other coronaviruses that immunity lasts for 1-3 years). Nobody in the media or government who makes a big deal about uncertainty over immunity seems to be considering that there may be more than one strain out there, which all get picked up by the same basic test.
Why would anyone in his right mind submit to a ‘vaccine’ for an ailment whose average mortality at 82 years exceeds the average lifespan of 81? The mortality rate being 0.14% same as respiratory viruses every other year.
That figure, incidentally, is WHO’s own. I got it from the latest video update from Dr Reiner Fuellmich, the German corporate fraud lawyer who’s bringing a class action on the basis of ‘criminal PCR tests. In it he names guilty parties and cites scientific authorities ignored by the media.
Even ‘sceptic’ journalists are lying by omission. I don’t know how the law stands with journalists. But if the lawyer is telling the truth, and no one has refuted him, then this author ought to be in the dock along with any number of his colleagues.
Actuarially 80 – 89 year olds in the UK right now, with 2 long term conditions can expect to live for another 5 years at least.
As David Spiegelhalter has pointed out – “The risks of catching and dying from the virus vary 10″‰000-fold depending on age”
From github : From 13 different studies the IFR for Covid in an 80 year old is 5 – 10%. For influenza it is 0.5 – 0.8%
I suppose the 0.14% is a composite covering all ages – a useless statistic for both Covid and influenza.
Since when is prolonging life in and of itself the supreme value? If anyone lived his own life by the precautionary principle to the extent that has suddenly become the norm it would be considered pathological. If it weren’t for the media no one would be any the wiser about this relatively harmless virus than any other year. Elderly or infirm are routinely seen off by respiratory viruses. For most over 80s, almost certainly those who succumb to such infections, who by definition are too weak too withstand them, death is a blessing. Channel 4 visited a care home with a view to exposing inadequacy of restrictions etc. Of course the residents thought the restrictions were ridiculous. We all have to meet our maker. The medicalisation of “deaths” and obsession with statistical values as a kind of political scorecard is licensing political and economic chicanery on a gigantic scale.
As a minimum, we should be looking at years of life saved not just the number of lives saved. We should also look at the opportunity cost of the hundreds of billions spent to save those lives. How many life years could have been saved if that amount of money had been spent elsewhere?
Discussion here seems to assume that we have the luxury of good government, or have ways of obtaining it. In fact we have only two options, widespread take-up of some new effective vaccine or eternal lockdowns. Perhaps only one, the latter. Prove me wrong.
https://summit.news/2020/11…
Doesn’t look like our government has as much faith in the vaccines as you do Mr Chivers.
II.1.4)
Short description:
“The MHRA urgently seeks an Artificial Intelligence (AI) software tool to process the expected high volume of Covid-19 vaccine Adverse Drug Reaction (ADRs) and ensure that no details from the ADRs’ reaction text are missed. “
https://ted.europa.eu/udl?u…
So, Tom, what are the long term outcomes for auto-immunity, neurology, cancer, fertility, mortality? We shall probably never know: people may have had three different products by the end of next year. And if people still catch the virus it can always be blamed on the people who did not have the products. All this was always nonsensical and what people like you, who opted for the trials were doing was not showing faith in science but showing faith in techno-babble. The end point was utter confusion.