If verified, 90% effectiveness and good safety are the best possible news we could have hoped for in neutralizing the threat of COVID-19 over the course of the next year or so. There are some...
If verified, 90% effectiveness and good safety are the best possible news we could have hoped for in neutralizing the threat of COVID-19 over the course of the next year or so.
There are some challenges with this vaccine, like keeping it at -70°C during distribution. I also haven't seen details about successful immune response in elderly people.
But this is another giant shot of hope in a week of relief, so enjoy!
I see what you did there. This really is great news, even though it's going to be months before I personally will be prioritized to get it. And it is also what I was secretly hoping for, that the...
this is another giant shot of hope
I see what you did there.
This really is great news, even though it's going to be months before I personally will be prioritized to get it. And it is also what I was secretly hoping for, that the timing of announcements like this would happen to work out that Trump can't use it as election fuel.
Sadly, it still will be. Not for this one, but for 2022 campaigns. 'Look, when Trump was kicked out of office, a vaccine had been developed (even though politicians likely had 0 to do with it) and...
the timing of announcements like this would happen to work out that Trump can't use it as election fuel.
Sadly, it still will be. Not for this one, but for 2022 campaigns.
'Look, when Trump was kicked out of office, a vaccine had been developed (even though politicians likely had 0 to do with it) and was weeks away from widespread distribution (lie), but now 18 months later, it's obvious the Democrats haven't been remotely effective in bringing our economy back to the astounding highs it hit during Trump's presidency. Let's make America great again!'
It is quite likely that Pfizer intentionally delayed reporting these results until after the election. Via Stat News:
It is quite likely that Pfizer intentionally delayed reporting these results until after the election. Via Stat News:
In their announcement of the results, Pfizer and BioNTech revealed a surprise. The companies said they had decided not to conduct the 32-case analysis “after a discussion with the FDA.” Instead, they planned to conduct the analysis after 62 cases. But by the time the plan had been formalized, there had been 94 cases of Covid-19 in the study. It’s not known how many were in the vaccine arm, but it would have to be nine or fewer.
Gruber said that Pfizer and BioNTech had decided in late October that they wanted to drop the 32-case interim analysis. At that time, the companies decided to stop having their lab confirm cases of Covid-19 in the study, instead leaving samples in storage. The FDA was aware of this decision. Discussions between the agency and the companies concluded, and testing began this past Wednesday. When the samples were tested, there were 94 cases of Covid in the trial. The DSMB met on Sunday.
This means that the statistical strength of the result is likely far stronger than was initially expected. It also means that if Pfizer had held to the original plan, the data would likely have been available in October, as its CEO, Albert Bourla, had initially predicted.
Well, I don't know about "intentionally delaying it to after the election". It was after the election, they said that. But is it not just an easier explanation that this week is when they'd have...
Well, I don't know about "intentionally delaying it to after the election". It was after the election, they said that. But is it not just an easier explanation that this week is when they'd have the data ready? Remember, it's not like everyone knew the election was going to take until Saturday to call. The election was a week ago (minus a day) from today.
It's like saying Apple intentionally delayed their ARM Macbook announcement until after the election.
Transitions are funny moments in public opinion. Polarization has a powerful effect on political attitudes. Republicans think things are on the right track when there is a GOP president and on the wrong track when they are out of power. Democrats hold the exact opposite set of attitudes.
A transition between a president of one party to one of another party, however, can produce rare confluences in public opinion.
I absolutely hate that I'm about to say this: I'm not getting a COVID vaccine for at least 6 months from initial widespread distribution. I have 0 faith that this vaccine was developed with any...
I absolutely hate that I'm about to say this:
I'm not getting a COVID vaccine for at least 6 months from initial widespread distribution.
I have 0 faith that this vaccine was developed with any concern of safety or effectiveness beyond 'it worked in miniscule sample sizes.'
Release the drug into the public domain for the common good of the world and I'll change my tune real quick.
Define 'miniscule'. Because they've tested this on 43,000 people so far. The Oxford vaccine has been tested on 50,000 people and it's still in stage three testing (stage four involves even more)....
'it worked in miniscule sample sizes.'
Define 'miniscule'. Because they've tested this on 43,000 people so far.
The Oxford vaccine has been tested on 50,000 people and it's still in stage three testing (stage four involves even more).
I'm not really disagreeing with you, I agree caution is important. But I'm curious as to what your cutoff is. Personally I'd take something which had passed stage four trials.
Also, while public domain-ing the drug design is a great idea and I'd be completely behind such a thing, it doesn't really impact safety or effectiveness, so I'm not sure why you'd consider that a factor in the changing of your tune.
DISCLAMER: I am a layperson, I have no idea about the methodologies in play, and would like to learn more. If it is placebo-controlled, that's about 22,000 that received the vaccine. They've had...
DISCLAMER: I am a layperson, I have no idea about the methodologies in play, and would like to learn more.
If it is placebo-controlled, that's about 22,000 that received the vaccine. They've had 94 confirmed cases so far.
USA has 9.8 million cases, a 0.28% infection rate overall.
Study has 43,000, with a 0.21% infection rate.
Call me skeptical. I look forward to reading the studies, which will hopefully be freely available once they pass peer review.
From cnbc from pfizer from statnews So. They have dosed 38k participants. 19k had a placebo, 19k had the vaccine. Out of all 38k dosed, 94 tested positive for Covid. With 90% effeciency, they are...
The companies said they planned to submit for emergency use authorization to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration soon after they have two months of data, which is currently on track for the third week of November.
Thee Phase 3 clinical trial of BNT162b2 began on July 27 and has enrolled 43,538 participants to date, 38,955 of whom have received a second dose of the vaccine candidate as of November 8, 2020.
Analysis evaluated 94 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in trial participants
The study would continue until at least 164 cases of Covid-19 — individuals with at least one symptom and a positive test result — had been reported.
The study would continue until at least 164 cases of Covid-19 — individuals with at least one symptom and a positive test result — had been reported.
So. They have dosed 38k participants. 19k had a placebo, 19k had the vaccine. Out of all 38k dosed, 94 tested positive for Covid. With 90% effeciency, they are saying 85 of those who had the placebo tested positive after displaying at least one symptom, and only 9 of those who had the vaccine and displayed at least one symptom tested positive.
So we can tell that this vaccine is certainly safe, and it is almost certainly effective. The study ends when they have 164 confirmed cases, which happens in a couple more weeks. If the vaccine were not effective, they probably would have hit that number already.
Then they request emergency use authorization, while presumably collecting more data about long term efficacy.
Edit: it's definitely safe over the short term, long term effects are unknown.
Thanks for the better breakdown. I actually came kinda close to your numbers with some terrible maths. At this point, my concern is now how they determined confirmed cases. If it was only on at...
At this point, my concern is now how they determined confirmed cases. If it was only on at least 1 symptom...how are the accounting for asymptomatic cases? What if (and it's a big if) it's not actually prevention infection and just making it asymptomatic?
I would hope they were getting tested on a regular basis and not just when symptoms crop up. I was actually assuming they did before your post.
Counter layperson-argument: your skepticism is uncalled for because it's operating under a false assumption. There are a confirmed 200,000 COVID deaths in the US. Going off of that and assuming a...
USA has 9.8 million cases, a 0.28% infection rate overall.
Counter layperson-argument: your skepticism is uncalled for because it's operating under a false assumption. There are a confirmed 200,000 COVID deaths in the US. Going off of that and assuming a 1% mortality rate (actual mortality rate is between .125% and .5%), that's 20,000,000 cases. Minimum. If you take into account excess deaths from January to now (around 300,000), let's say 250,000 of those are from COVID and divide them by a .5% case fatality rate that gets you 50,000,000 cases.
Edit: Wow, this is long and rambling with likely a lot of mistakes. You should probably only read on if you're interested in how my brain works. TL;DR: I do feel a bit more optimistic than I did...
Edit: Wow, this is long and rambling with likely a lot of mistakes. You should probably only read on if you're interested in how my brain works.
TL;DR: I do feel a bit more optimistic than I did with my original post.
But I hadn't thought to reverse-engineer off the death statistics, as that might give a better idea. I also didn't think to lop off from before July, when the study started.
So, in a (semi-optimistic) napkin math re-calculation (showing work this time):
Using CDC numbers and Wikipedia estimation of USA population, and press release for study numbers:
330,000,000 estimated population USA, rounded down for pessimistic death/population
Study has been going for 15 weeks.
6575 deaths in last week.
104k new cases this week.
This week's mortality rate is 6.3%
COVID has been in USA since first week of January, giving us about 46 weeks worth of COVID time, pessimistic
Back-calculating prior two assumptions at a flat rate (yes this is a terrible method b/c of countermeasures or lack thereof) gives us 302k deaths
236k deaths reported by CDC. We'll assume 300k deaths for easy pessimistic math.
CDC death counts are harder to fake than case counts.
44,000 participants in study (rounded up for optimistic infection rate)
Study has 94 confirmed cases (kept exact)
Study placebo group would be in line with that infection rate.
Study is placebo controlled as reported
Some columns were calculated based on prior assumptions, I have placed these first with a * on the source number.
Mortality Rate Percentage
Total real cases
Population % infected
3.1%
9,808,000*
2.9%
2 %
15,000,000
4.5%
1%
30,000,000
9.1%
0.5
60,000,000
18.1%
0.125
240,000,000
72.7%
So if the CDC is fudging numbers, either our mortality rate is very, very high or the official infected case count is very, very low. The reality is likely somewhere in between. Next table has the placebo at 100% and 0% first, as both shouldn't be the case since they say that the study is placebo-controlled.
New assumptions:
Prior table is actually pessimistic infection rate relative to current reported infection rate. Will use reported infection rate per week (0.03%), calculated from new cases this week and total population.
Total chance of infection during study (again assuming linear backwards infection rate): 0.4%
CDC information is correct, this provides most optimistic numbers
Cases placebo can't exceed current rate of USA infection
Percent study is Placebo
Cases placebo
Cases vaccinated
Infection rate of vaccinated
0%
0
94*
0.21%
100%
176*
0
N/A
50%
88
6
0.02%
Horrible napkin math result:
Current infection rate placebo: 0.4%
Vaccine is 95% effective
So, this exercise, with the most optimistic results in favor of vaccine (using official CDC numbers) actually makes me feel a bit more optimistic about the whole thing overall
However, if any of those assumptions are off in a less favorable direction, it makes me worried that there's something off with the sample sizes. Possibly a non-random distribution, given the volunteers are probably more cautious and less likely to get infected than average.
One factor I'm kinda confused by is this "rate of infection per week." I'm assuming it's based off of population as a whole, but I still feel kinda lost reading through it. Are you familiar with...
One factor I'm kinda confused by is this "rate of infection per week." I'm assuming it's based off of population as a whole, but I still feel kinda lost reading through it. Are you familiar with R-eff? It seems much more useful in the use-case of determining increase/decrease in rate of infection, and the factors that play into it.
Edit: I'm also going to add that using the mortality rate to extrapolation actual infection numbers isn't particularly useful, as you probably already noticed. The mortality rate isn't an absolute and is affected by too many other factors (treatments available/comorbidity prevalence in the population/hospital capacity/patient willingness to undergo therapy/testing rate/positivity rate/failure to classify mortalities as covid-related).
One thing I'll add to the overarching subject is that despite risks from a vaccine, risks from covid are high. It's not just a matter of mortality. Covid can cause extremely high rates of oxidative stress even in asymptomatic carriers, which in turn causes a whole slew of secondary conditions. I'm anticipating seeing a marked increase in those conditions through the population as a whole within the next year. Including thrombosis, diabetes, cancer, stroke, and a wide range of organ failure.
The vaccines are getting pushed through at an amazing pace, to be certain. But they're also under a high degree of collective scrutiny. These trials are likely to be the largest "peer review" in history, as they have the eyes of the world on them. While that doesn't eliminate complications entirely, it does significantly increase the odds of finding problematic factors in advance. It also increases the odds of problematic factors being blown out of proportion. It's necessary to weigh the risks, but equally important in that is to factor in the risks of covid beyond just mortality, because they are many, more common, and in many cases severe.
That number was basically just the number infected divided by total pop, yes. I was not really doing any Algebraic or higher maths, and no, R-eff was not on my radar. Most of the math is basically...
One factor I'm kinda confused by is this "rate of infection per week." I'm assuming it's based off of population as a whole, but I still feel kinda lost reading through it. Are you familiar with R-eff?
That number was basically just the number infected divided by total pop, yes. I was not really doing any Algebraic or higher maths, and no, R-eff was not on my radar. Most of the math is basically useless beyond a gut-check, at best. The only reason I posted is because I already went through the motions.
The only thing I might have sussed out by walking through that is that the CDC numbers for total cases definitely feels much too low. Either that, or our mortality rate is real bad.
That, and even if I mostly wasted my time, it did comfort me that my initial gut-reaction was likely wrong.
Unfortunately my initi gut reaction might be the more common one, especially among those who already don't isolate properly.
Keep in mind in all this the times over which the study was conducted. US case numbers are from the entire year. I don't know when they started collecting data for the participants. However, hhh's...
Keep in mind in all this the times over which the study was conducted. US case numbers are from the entire year. I don't know when they started collecting data for the participants.
However, hhh's caveats definitely apply. There are undoubtedly a lot of undiscovered infections around.
I feel the same concerns but frankly, if you are young or in good health you probably won't even be able to get it within 6 months even if you try. Here, I'm gonna bet on my vaccination date:...
I'm not getting a COVID vaccine for at least 6 months from initial widespread distribution.
I feel the same concerns but frankly, if you are young or in good health you probably won't even be able to get it within 6 months even if you try.
Here, I'm gonna bet on my vaccination date: September 25th, 2021.
I agree, but I'm going to be a bit more optimistic on the date, for two reasons. One, Biden is going to appoint some people who actually knows wtf they're doing logistics-wise. And two, I think by...
I agree, but I'm going to be a bit more optimistic on the date, for two reasons. One, Biden is going to appoint some people who actually knows wtf they're doing logistics-wise. And two, I think by mid Jan there's a good chance we'll see some additional vaccines from other companies available.
Widespread vaccination in 2021 already relies on multiple vaccines being available. Any given vaccine candidate is going to be able to produce a few hundred million doses worldwide in 2021.
Widespread vaccination in 2021 already relies on multiple vaccines being available. Any given vaccine candidate is going to be able to produce a few hundred million doses worldwide in 2021.
I can't tell from the press release and there has been some mixed usage in various discussions I've read today. Is that 1.3 billion vaccinations or 1.3 million shots (i.e. 0.65 vaccinations)? If...
I can't tell from the press release and there has been some mixed usage in various discussions I've read today. Is that 1.3 billion vaccinations or 1.3 million shots (i.e. 0.65 vaccinations)? If it's the former I stand half corrected. That's certainly much higher than anything I had read previously. (But still nowhere near enough for widespread vaccination with just this vaccine if the doses are distributed fairly evenly to all countries.)
We had a vaccine released a few years back to defend against... now I can't remember the name of that illness in 2010, avian flu (EDIT: it was swineflu)? The first batches caused sleepsickness and...
We had a vaccine released a few years back to defend against... now I can't remember the name of that illness in 2010, avian flu (EDIT: it was swineflu)? The first batches caused sleepsickness and it hit young and old equally with horrifying results. So NOW, they are basically going "if you're old, take whatever vaccine comes out" (to minimize the need for young people taking it) - the logic is that not only is the core risk group for the illness the ones taking it but it also protects younger people and let older people carry the weight and risk as they are comparatively more expendable.
For me, being in the middle-aged group it seems I get to pick my own poisons here... which will be kind of interesting when a vaccine is finally produced.
EDIT2: this vaccine was approved and tested but rushed through. No guilt lies in the parties that did - they did as much testing as they could and the risk for a pandemic was high enough to warrant short testings. Also the number of cases with Narcolepsy was low.
If you’re not in a risk group there is pretty much no chance you’re getting it within 6 months of the widespread distribution... if the vaccine went through all stages of trial, I’d get it as...
If you’re not in a risk group there is pretty much no chance you’re getting it within 6 months of the widespread distribution...
if the vaccine went through all stages of trial, I’d get it as early as I could. I don’t mind staying at home but I’d love to be able to leave as soon as I could
A tweet by Mike Pence claims this was the result of an effort by Trump: This has no basis in reality. Pfizer was not part of Operation Warp Speed, received no funding from the government, and this...
HUGE NEWS: Thanks to the public-private partnership forged by President @realDonaldTrump, @pfizer announced its Coronavirus Vaccine trial is EFFECTIVE, preventing infection in 90% of its volunteers.
This has no basis in reality.
Pfizer was not part of Operation Warp Speed, received no funding from the government, and this wasn't even discovered in the US - it was a pair of Turkish people in Germany.
90% would be great! That means that if only 60% of the population takes it (due to fears of it being improperly tested, containing Bill Gates' 5G tracking chips, or just your garden variety...
90% would be great! That means that if only 60% of the population takes it (due to fears of it being improperly tested, containing Bill Gates' 5G tracking chips, or just your garden variety anti-vaxxers) then we'll still be able to kill off the virus.
I suppose that also assumes that the people that do take the vaccine are spread around uniformly. My guess is that cities will have much higher vaccination rates.
I would caution against naive calculations with R and effectiveness rates etc, though I myself like to do them. Sure, if R = 1.5 currently, or so, then 90% effectiveness in 60% of people...
I would caution against naive calculations with R and effectiveness rates etc, though I myself like to do them.
Sure, if R = 1.5 currently, or so, then 90% effectiveness in 60% of people theoretically reduces that to 0.81, which is good enough for us. But if we choose those 40% of people non-randomly, and instead assume they have predominantly social connections amongst themselves, then the disease will keep spreading among them. Which keeps a host around to spread it to those who can't have the vaccine or in whom it isn't effective.
People have reasonably reacted differently to the prospect of taking a vaccine that will have been developed and tested and released in the course of less than a year. Taking the vaccine should...
People have reasonably reacted differently to the prospect of taking a vaccine that will have been developed and tested and released in the course of less than a year. Taking the vaccine should definitely be a personal choice, but of course the people who opt-out of taking the vaccine will increase the risk for people who do take the vaccine, and people who do take the vaccine decrease risk for people not taking the vaccine. Is that fair?
Personally I still have faith in the FDA and in HHS, and the various regulatory agencies around the world. If they tell me it's safe to take the vaccine and it becomes available to me, I'll take it.
Once enough people get the vaccine, I'll probably try my best to exclusively socialize with other people who have taken the vaccine. I'm wondering if any public places like restaurants and bars will require proof of vaccine before allowing entry? It would make me feel safer going to those places, but what implications would that have for society? I'm not sure if I would be for or against such a thing.
From humble roots as the son of a Turkish immigrant working at a Ford factory in Cologne, BioNTech Chief Executive Uğur Şahin, 55, now figures among the 100 richest Germans, together with his wife and fellow board member Özlem Türeci, 53, according to weekly Welt am Sonntag.
[...]
Türeci, the daughter of a Turkish physician who had migrated to Germany, said in a media interview that even on the day of their wedding, both made time for lab work. Together they honed in on the immune system as a potential ally in the fight against cancer and tried to address the unique genetic makeup of each tumor.
[...]
The BioNTech story took a twist when Şahin in January came across a scientific paper on a new coronavirus outbreak in the Chinese city of Wuhan and it struck him how small the step was from anti-cancer mRNA drugs to mRNA-based viral vaccines.
The primary source of the news, headlined by a “90% effective” claim, isn’t a peer reviewed journal article. [...] it’s a media release issued [...] by Pfizer
In [the author's] view, it’s misleading, far too premature and disingenuous for Pfizer to be telling the world that the trial has demonstrated 90% effectiveness
There are insufficient data to support
If verified, 90% effectiveness and good safety are the best possible news we could have hoped for in neutralizing the threat of COVID-19 over the course of the next year or so.
There are some challenges with this vaccine, like keeping it at -70°C during distribution. I also haven't seen details about successful immune response in elderly people.
But this is another giant shot of hope in a week of relief, so enjoy!
I see what you did there.
This really is great news, even though it's going to be months before I personally will be prioritized to get it. And it is also what I was secretly hoping for, that the timing of announcements like this would happen to work out that Trump can't use it as election fuel.
Sadly, it still will be. Not for this one, but for 2022 campaigns.
'Look, when Trump was kicked out of office, a vaccine had been developed (even though politicians likely had 0 to do with it) and was weeks away from widespread distribution (lie), but now 18 months later, it's obvious the Democrats haven't been remotely effective in bringing our economy back to the astounding highs it hit during Trump's presidency. Let's make America great again!'
It is quite likely that Pfizer intentionally delayed reporting these results until after the election. Via Stat News:
Well, I don't know about "intentionally delaying it to after the election". It was after the election, they said that. But is it not just an easier explanation that this week is when they'd have the data ready? Remember, it's not like everyone knew the election was going to take until Saturday to call. The election was a week ago (minus a day) from today.
It's like saying Apple intentionally delayed their ARM Macbook announcement until after the election.
It looks like that could pay huge dividends
Pfizer's Perfect Timing
I absolutely hate that I'm about to say this:
I'm not getting a COVID vaccine for at least 6 months from initial widespread distribution.
I have 0 faith that this vaccine was developed with any concern of safety or effectiveness beyond 'it worked in miniscule sample sizes.'
Release the drug into the public domain for the common good of the world and I'll change my tune real quick.
Till then, voluntarily lockdown continues.
Define 'miniscule'. Because they've tested this on 43,000 people so far.
The Oxford vaccine has been tested on 50,000 people and it's still in stage three testing (stage four involves even more).
I'm not really disagreeing with you, I agree caution is important. But I'm curious as to what your cutoff is. Personally I'd take something which had passed stage four trials.
Also, while public domain-ing the drug design is a great idea and I'd be completely behind such a thing, it doesn't really impact safety or effectiveness, so I'm not sure why you'd consider that a factor in the changing of your tune.
DISCLAMER: I am a layperson, I have no idea about the methodologies in play, and would like to learn more.
If it is placebo-controlled, that's about 22,000 that received the vaccine. They've had 94 confirmed cases so far.
USA has 9.8 million cases, a 0.28% infection rate overall.
Study has 43,000, with a 0.21% infection rate.
Call me skeptical. I look forward to reading the studies, which will hopefully be freely available once they pass peer review.
From cnbc
from pfizer
from statnews
So. They have dosed 38k participants. 19k had a placebo, 19k had the vaccine. Out of all 38k dosed, 94 tested positive for Covid. With 90% effeciency, they are saying 85 of those who had the placebo tested positive after displaying at least one symptom, and only 9 of those who had the vaccine and displayed at least one symptom tested positive.
So we can tell that this vaccine is certainly safe, and it is almost certainly effective. The study ends when they have 164 confirmed cases, which happens in a couple more weeks. If the vaccine were not effective, they probably would have hit that number already.
Then they request emergency use authorization, while presumably collecting more data about long term efficacy.
Edit: it's definitely safe over the short term, long term effects are unknown.
Thanks for the better breakdown. I actually came kinda close to your numbers with some terrible maths.
At this point, my concern is now how they determined confirmed cases. If it was only on at least 1 symptom...how are the accounting for asymptomatic cases? What if (and it's a big if) it's not actually prevention infection and just making it asymptomatic?
I would hope they were getting tested on a regular basis and not just when symptoms crop up. I was actually assuming they did before your post.
Counter layperson-argument: your skepticism is uncalled for because it's operating under a false assumption. There are a confirmed 200,000 COVID deaths in the US. Going off of that and assuming a 1% mortality rate (actual mortality rate is between .125% and .5%), that's 20,000,000 cases. Minimum. If you take into account excess deaths from January to now (around 300,000), let's say 250,000 of those are from COVID and divide them by a .5% case fatality rate that gets you 50,000,000 cases.
Edit: Wow, this is long and rambling with likely a lot of mistakes. You should probably only read on if you're interested in how my brain works.
TL;DR: I do feel a bit more optimistic than I did with my original post.
I was going off here: https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/
But I hadn't thought to reverse-engineer off the death statistics, as that might give a better idea. I also didn't think to lop off from before July, when the study started.
So, in a (semi-optimistic) napkin math re-calculation (showing work this time):
Using CDC numbers and Wikipedia estimation of USA population, and press release for study numbers:
So if the CDC is fudging numbers, either our mortality rate is very, very high or the official infected case count is very, very low. The reality is likely somewhere in between. Next table has the placebo at 100% and 0% first, as both shouldn't be the case since they say that the study is placebo-controlled.
New assumptions:
Horrible napkin math result:
So, this exercise, with the most optimistic results in favor of vaccine (using official CDC numbers) actually makes me feel a bit more optimistic about the whole thing overall
However, if any of those assumptions are off in a less favorable direction, it makes me worried that there's something off with the sample sizes. Possibly a non-random distribution, given the volunteers are probably more cautious and less likely to get infected than average.
One factor I'm kinda confused by is this "rate of infection per week." I'm assuming it's based off of population as a whole, but I still feel kinda lost reading through it. Are you familiar with R-eff? It seems much more useful in the use-case of determining increase/decrease in rate of infection, and the factors that play into it.
Edit: I'm also going to add that using the mortality rate to extrapolation actual infection numbers isn't particularly useful, as you probably already noticed. The mortality rate isn't an absolute and is affected by too many other factors (treatments available/comorbidity prevalence in the population/hospital capacity/patient willingness to undergo therapy/testing rate/positivity rate/failure to classify mortalities as covid-related).
One thing I'll add to the overarching subject is that despite risks from a vaccine, risks from covid are high. It's not just a matter of mortality. Covid can cause extremely high rates of oxidative stress even in asymptomatic carriers, which in turn causes a whole slew of secondary conditions. I'm anticipating seeing a marked increase in those conditions through the population as a whole within the next year. Including thrombosis, diabetes, cancer, stroke, and a wide range of organ failure.
The vaccines are getting pushed through at an amazing pace, to be certain. But they're also under a high degree of collective scrutiny. These trials are likely to be the largest "peer review" in history, as they have the eyes of the world on them. While that doesn't eliminate complications entirely, it does significantly increase the odds of finding problematic factors in advance. It also increases the odds of problematic factors being blown out of proportion. It's necessary to weigh the risks, but equally important in that is to factor in the risks of covid beyond just mortality, because they are many, more common, and in many cases severe.
That number was basically just the number infected divided by total pop, yes. I was not really doing any Algebraic or higher maths, and no, R-eff was not on my radar. Most of the math is basically useless beyond a gut-check, at best. The only reason I posted is because I already went through the motions.
The only thing I might have sussed out by walking through that is that the CDC numbers for total cases definitely feels much too low. Either that, or our mortality rate is real bad.
That, and even if I mostly wasted my time, it did comfort me that my initial gut-reaction was likely wrong.
Unfortunately my initi gut reaction might be the more common one, especially among those who already don't isolate properly.
Keep in mind in all this the times over which the study was conducted. US case numbers are from the entire year. I don't know when they started collecting data for the participants.
However, hhh's caveats definitely apply. There are undoubtedly a lot of undiscovered infections around.
I feel the same concerns but frankly, if you are young or in good health you probably won't even be able to get it within 6 months even if you try.
Here, I'm gonna bet on my vaccination date: September 25th, 2021.
I agree, but I'm going to be a bit more optimistic on the date, for two reasons. One, Biden is going to appoint some people who actually knows wtf they're doing logistics-wise. And two, I think by mid Jan there's a good chance we'll see some additional vaccines from other companies available.
I'll place my bet on June 11 2021.
I'm in Europe, which I think is also a factor; we will probably get vaccines a bit later than the US on average.
Widespread vaccination in 2021 already relies on multiple vaccines being available. Any given vaccine candidate is going to be able to produce a few hundred million doses worldwide in 2021.
from pfizer
I can't tell from the press release and there has been some mixed usage in various discussions I've read today. Is that 1.3 billion vaccinations or 1.3 million shots (i.e. 0.65 vaccinations)? If it's the former I stand half corrected. That's certainly much higher than anything I had read previously. (But still nowhere near enough for widespread vaccination with just this vaccine if the doses are distributed fairly evenly to all countries.)
We had a vaccine released a few years back to defend against... now I can't remember the name of that illness in 2010, avian flu (EDIT: it was swineflu)? The first batches caused sleepsickness and it hit young and old equally with horrifying results. So NOW, they are basically going "if you're old, take whatever vaccine comes out" (to minimize the need for young people taking it) - the logic is that not only is the core risk group for the illness the ones taking it but it also protects younger people and let older people carry the weight and risk as they are comparatively more expendable.
For me, being in the middle-aged group it seems I get to pick my own poisons here... which will be kind of interesting when a vaccine is finally produced.
EDIT2: this vaccine was approved and tested but rushed through. No guilt lies in the parties that did - they did as much testing as they could and the risk for a pandemic was high enough to warrant short testings. Also the number of cases with Narcolepsy was low.
If you’re not in a risk group there is pretty much no chance you’re getting it within 6 months of the widespread distribution...
if the vaccine went through all stages of trial, I’d get it as early as I could. I don’t mind staying at home but I’d love to be able to leave as soon as I could
This is my primary concern. That corners are being cut in order to be first to market.
Yep. I'm young, healthy, and have no issues doing my work remote (assuming my company allows it.)
I fully expect to be last in line.
Pfizer is aiming for 100m doses in the U.S. by March. That's ~15% of the population.
I mean, it is around 15%, they're not wrong.
A tweet by Mike Pence claims this was the result of an effort by Trump:
This has no basis in reality.
Pfizer was not part of Operation Warp Speed, received no funding from the government, and this wasn't even discovered in the US - it was a pair of Turkish people in Germany.
90% would be great! That means that if only 60% of the population takes it (due to fears of it being improperly tested, containing Bill Gates' 5G tracking chips, or just your garden variety anti-vaxxers) then we'll still be able to kill off the virus.
I suppose that also assumes that the people that do take the vaccine are spread around uniformly. My guess is that cities will have much higher vaccination rates.
I would caution against naive calculations with R and effectiveness rates etc, though I myself like to do them.
Sure, if R = 1.5 currently, or so, then 90% effectiveness in 60% of people theoretically reduces that to 0.81, which is good enough for us. But if we choose those 40% of people non-randomly, and instead assume they have predominantly social connections amongst themselves, then the disease will keep spreading among them. Which keeps a host around to spread it to those who can't have the vaccine or in whom it isn't effective.
That said, 90% is indeed great.
People have reasonably reacted differently to the prospect of taking a vaccine that will have been developed and tested and released in the course of less than a year. Taking the vaccine should definitely be a personal choice, but of course the people who opt-out of taking the vaccine will increase the risk for people who do take the vaccine, and people who do take the vaccine decrease risk for people not taking the vaccine. Is that fair?
Personally I still have faith in the FDA and in HHS, and the various regulatory agencies around the world. If they tell me it's safe to take the vaccine and it becomes available to me, I'll take it.
Once enough people get the vaccine, I'll probably try my best to exclusively socialize with other people who have taken the vaccine. I'm wondering if any public places like restaurants and bars will require proof of vaccine before allowing entry? It would make me feel safer going to those places, but what implications would that have for society? I'm not sure if I would be for or against such a thing.
This is true. If I choose to not vaccinate, I am well aware that I should be treated as if I am currently infected.
Spotlight: The Turkish-German 'dream team' couple behind Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine
[...]
[...]
Criticism of Pfizer's claim:
https://www.anhinternational.org/news/premature-and-presumptuous-pfizer-vaccine-publicity/