Covid-19 Vaccine Development

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I haven't been following these COVID threads yet so my apologies if I'm posting this in the wrong place. I am curious though if anyone else has seen this article and what others think about the outlook for COVID vaccines in general.
From what I've heard, general talk about these vaccines is that a person would need to have 2 vaccines for them to be effective. I have not yet heard any solid evidence that immunity from the vaccines will last more than the 90 day'ish time-frame that they say a general immunity from having had the disease might have given you. And it is sounding like the vaccines are generally assured to give the recipient a pretty negative experience (aches, pains, nausea, etc) for 12 to 36 hours.
So*IF* that's all true, a person will need to take up to 8 vaccine shots a year and be pretty sick for four to twelve days of the year in order for the vaccines to be effective for them. I know that would be a better outcome for them than dying from COVID - but that is what I call a "pretty big pill to swallow" too.
And then there is this story that I mentioned above which I just read. This story digs into the nitty gritty details of Pfizer's vaccine. Aside from the already known concerns about it needing to be distributed under very cold Temps, this story mentions that Pfizer only came to find a 95% efficacy rate by using results of 140 of the 40,000 participants in their study.
Pfizer's Vaccine Candidate Is Effective -- But It Has Issues | The Motley Fool
I could really use some help finding a
light at the end of this COVID nightmare tunnel we're in right now.
 
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““We are grateful that the first global trial to reach the final efficacy analysis mark indicates that a high rate of protection against COVID-19 can be achieved very fast after the first 30 µg dose, underscoring the power of BNT162 in providing early protection,” said Ugur Sahin, M.D., CEO and Co-founder of BioNTech. “These achievements highlight the potential of mRNA as a new drug class. Our objective from the very beginning was to design and develop a vaccine that would generate rapid and potent protection against COVID-19 with a benign tolerability profile across all ages. We believe we have achieved this with our vaccine candidate BNT162b2 in all age groups studied so far and look forward to sharing further details with the regulatory authorities. I want to thank all the devoted women and men who contributed to this historically unprecedented achievement. We will continue to work with our partners and governments around the world to prepare for global distribution in 2020 and beyond.”

The Phase 3 clinical trial of BNT162b2 began on July 27 and has enrolled 43,661 participants to date, 41,135 of whom have received a second dose of the vaccine candidate as of November 13, 2020. Approximately 42% of global participants and 30% of U.S. participants have racially and ethnically diverse backgrounds, and 41% of global and 45% of U.S. participants are 56-85 years of age. A breakdown of the diversity of clinical trial participants can be found here from approximately 150 clinical trials sites in United States, Germany, Turkey, South Africa, Brazil and Argentina. The trial will continue to collect efficacy and safety data in participants for an additional two years.

Based on current projections, the companies expect to produce globally up to 50 million vaccine doses in 2020 and up to 1.3 billion doses by the end of 2021. Four of Pfizer’s facilities are part of the manufacturing and supply chain; St. Louis, MO; Andover, MA; and Kalamazoo, MI in the U.S.; and Puurs in Belgium. BioNTech’s German sites will also be leveraged for global supply.

Pfizer is confident in its vast experience, expertise and existing cold-chain infrastructure to distribute the vaccine around the world. The companies have developed specially designed, temperature-controlled thermal shippers utilizing dry ice to maintain temperature conditions of -70°C±10°C. They can be used be as temporary storage units for 15 days by refilling with dry ice. Each shipper contains a GPS-enabled thermal sensor to track the location and temperature of each vaccine shipment across their pre-set routes leveraging Pfizer’s broad distribution network.

Pfizer and BioNTech plan to submit the efficacy and safety data from the study for peer-review in a scientific journal once analysis of the data is completed.“

Pfizer and BioNTech Conclude Phase 3 Study of COVID-19 Vaccine Candidate, Meeting All Primary Efficacy Endpoints | Pfizer
 
Lots more at link. It is important that they go back and track the origin of this virus. That would really be helpful to know what triggered it, how it spread, who it spread to, the rate of spread, etc. There is always going to be some virus out there and the world needs to learn to quickly extinguish them. What a worldwide learning opportunity.

Five questions on new data from China-WHO showing 124 confirmed coronavirus patients in December 2019 | Science Speaks: Global ID News (sciencespeaksblog.org)

By Daniel R. Lucey M.D., MPH, FIDSA

After China initially reported 41, then ~ 46, and then ~ 100 laboratory-confirmed cases in December 2019, a total of 124 confirmed cases in December was reported by China July 31 but for some reason only posted on the WHO website Nov. 5.

Snip:
First posted on the WHO website Nov. 5 the July 31 terms of reference for the WHO-convened Joint China-WHO team investigating the origins of SARS-CoV2 provided this new valuable data on page 5 of 9: “Retrospective review of cases identified a total of 124 confirmed cases with onset date in December 2019, 119 of whom were from Wuhan and 5 others from Hubei or other provinces, but all with travel links to Wuhan during the period of exposure. A study of 41 initially identified confirmed cases showed that 70% of the cases had a link to the Huanan market (Huang et al, 2020), but detailed exposure factors within the market and elsewhere remain unclear.”
 
margarita25 said:
Pfizer and BioNTech Conclude Phase 3 Study of COVID-19 Vaccine Candidate, Meeting All Primary Efficacy Endpoints | Pfizer
November 18, 2020
Click to expand...
So this link has some good details in it if you know how to find them (& if I am interpreting them correctly, of course). As I read this, their study had 43,661 participants. 2,526 (5.79%) of those did not return to take the second dose. Of the remaining 41,135 participants, only 170 participants (00.41%) were diagnosed with COVID. 162 of those were from the placebo group & 8 were from the group that received the vaccine. I dont believe any details were shared on the population sizes of the placebo vs vaccine recipient groups were so I'll assume they were equally distributed. So the percentages of how many in each group were diagnosed with COVID were 0.02% for the vaccine recipients & 0.39% for the placebo group. So dividing 0.02% by 0.39% gives you a difference of 5.13%. ...so am I correct in assuming that's where they come up with the 95% efficacy rate?
The first unanswered question if have is about the testing procedures followed by this study. It would be nice to know if they tested all participants on a regular basis regardless of symptoms, or if only those symptomatic participants were tested. (As asymptomatic cases are thought to comprise somewhere between 25% & 80% of cases, depending on age group and source citing the statistic, this seems to be prudent info to have!)

Those are a lot of statistics to digest. I'm hung up of a few of them personally, but will need tonsigest some of that and compare some of the info to national averages to see just how much I want to rely on it all.
 
Covid-19: Moderna submits vaccine for FDA regulatory approval (nbcnews.com)

Recent vaccine developments have been met with optimism among scientists and stock markets, but experts also urge caution until more data is released.

Moderna will submit its coronavirus vaccine for regulatory approval on Monday, the company said — the second leading drug to pass the milestone this month.

The Massachusetts biotech firm said it will ask the Food and Drug Administration for emergency use authorization after completing its Phase 3 trial, finding the vaccine was 94.1 percent effective against Covid-19.

Moreover, Moderna said the vaccine was 100 percent effective at preventing severe cases of the disease...
 
Covid-19 vaccines face a varied and powerful misinformation movement online (nbcnews.com)

New research shows the bigger threat to public trust in a Covid-19 vaccine comes from smaller, better-connected Facebook groups.

Vaccination proponents and misinformation researchers had been waiting for years for Facebook to take action against the biggest and most influential anti-vaccination pages.

So it was with some trepidation that they welcomed the news that the social network last week had banned some of the most popular and prolific anti-vaccination accounts — pages that had also pushed Covid-19 vaccination misinformation to millions of people.

Their impact, however, lives on. While researchers of extremism and public health advocates see the removal of the largest anti-vaccination accounts as mostly positive, new research shows the bigger threat to public trust in a Covid-19 vaccine comes from smaller, better-connected Facebook groups that gravitated to anti-vaccination messaging in recent months...
 
BetteDavisEyes said:
Covid-19 vaccines face a varied and powerful misinformation movement online (nbcnews.com)

New research shows the bigger threat to public trust in a Covid-19 vaccine comes from smaller, better-connected Facebook groups.

Vaccination proponents and misinformation researchers had been waiting for years for Facebook to take action against the biggest and most influential anti-vaccination pages.

So it was with some trepidation that they welcomed the news that the social network last week had banned some of the most popular and prolific anti-vaccination accounts — pages that had also pushed Covid-19 vaccination misinformation to millions of people.

Their impact, however, lives on. While researchers of extremism and public health advocates see the removal of the largest anti-vaccination accounts as mostly positive, new research shows the bigger threat to public trust in a Covid-19 vaccine comes from smaller, better-connected Facebook groups that gravitated to anti-vaccination messaging in recent months...
Click to expand...

The anti-vaccine undercurrents are everywhere. Even here on WS, IMO.

Are we looking at a new dark ages?
 
10ofRods said:
The anti-vaccine undercurrents are everywhere. Even here on WS, IMO.

Are we looking at a new dark ages?
Click to expand...
I understand that concern but I feel like the hesitancy with this vaccine is much more complex than with your standard vaccine. This COVID vaccine was expedited unlike any we've seen before. People's trust in the government, the CDC, the FDA, and especially MSM is probably at an all time low right now. As I understand it, this/these vaccine(s) is/are still pending approvals in many places, yet are already shipping to be administered. Medical professionals are openly warning the public that this vaccine WILL have noticeable side effects. No one really knows how long this vaccine will be effective. (Although I hear that Fauci is now saying it will last for a year - even though there is no proof of that & allnofficials I've heard lately have been very adamantly preaching that "natural" immunity should not be expected to last more than 90 days.)
I think that all adds up to be the reason that most are hesitant about this new vaccine. Hesitancy in the general "anti-vac" crowd is much more skewed toward the 'unusually paranoid for less-than-a-credible reason' crowd. There are just a LOT of unknowns here this time.
 
Finlay said:
I haven't been following these COVID threads yet so my apologies if I'm posting this in the wrong place. I am curious though if anyone else has seen this article and what others think about the outlook for COVID vaccines in general.
From what I've heard, general talk about these vaccines is that a person would need to have 2 vaccines for them to be effective. I have not yet heard any solid evidence that immunity from the vaccines will last more than the 90 day'ish time-frame that they say a general immunity from having had the disease might have given you. And it is sounding like the vaccines are generally assured to give the recipient a pretty negative experience (aches, pains, nausea, etc) for 12 to 36 hours.
So*IF* that's all true, a person will need to take up to 8 vaccine shots a year and be pretty sick for four to twelve days of the year in order for the vaccines to be effective for them. I know that would be a better outcome for them than dying from COVID - but that is what I call a "pretty big pill to swallow" too.
And then there is this story that I mentioned above which I just read. This story digs into the nitty gritty details of Pfizer's vaccine. Aside from the already known concerns about it needing to be distributed under very cold Temps, this story mentions that Pfizer only came to find a 95% efficacy rate by using results of 140 of the 40,000 participants in their study.
Pfizer's Vaccine Candidate Is Effective -- But It Has Issues | The Motley Fool
I could really use some help finding a
light at the end of this COVID nightmare tunnel we're in right now.
Click to expand...

The antibody studies on all the major vaccines show that antibodies are higher (twice as high in most people) than if they had acquired COVID naturally.

The antibodies are known to fade in those people who acquire COVID naturally, but the T-cell immunity studies are looking really really good. That means that both methods (either getting COVID or getting a vaccine) will probably provide immunity for at least a year - maybe far longer. However, getting the vaccine should in theory last way longer (especially in terms of circulating antibodies) than getting COVID.

95% efficacy is amazingly good. Pfizer has also stated that *not one* of the vaccinated patients got a moderate or severe case of COVID - while they still tested positive, they had mild cases that required no extraordinary treatment.

This is called "neutralizing immunity." The virus is met and stopped - but the time is variable (to get sterilizing immunity, certain antibodies (I think it's IgB, but don't quote me) must be present - and that is variable.

The upshot is that if we all get vaccinated, 95% of us will not get sick, not need medical care. 5% will test positive but not need medical care.

This is our path to normal. Emergency patients will no longer have to worry about getting COVID in hospital (a major vector); grocery workers will no longer worry about DYING if they go to work.

Things like that.
 
In Dr. Osterholm’s latest podcast, he gives a rather in-depth explanation and comparison of the vaccines. Good broadcast, as usual:

 
In Dr. O’s podcast posted above, he mentioned a very important article, noting to find that at some point. It was about the ethical considerations for determining vaccine prioritization, iirc. He had a lot to say about this literature going forward.

1 day ago (as we know vaccine prioritization was announced today)
 
10ofRods said:
The antibody studies on all the major vaccines show that antibodies are higher (twice as high in most people) than if they had acquired COVID naturally.

The antibodies are known to fade in those people who acquire COVID naturally, but the T-cell immunity studies are looking really really good. That means that both methods (either getting COVID or getting a vaccine) will probably provide immunity for at least a year - maybe far longer. However, getting the vaccine should in theory last way longer (especially in terms of circulating antibodies) than getting COVID.

95% efficacy is amazingly good. Pfizer has also stated that *not one* of the vaccinated patients got a moderate or severe case of COVID - while they still tested positive, they had mild cases that required no extraordinary treatment.

This is called "neutralizing immunity." The virus is met and stopped - but the time is variable (to get sterilizing immunity, certain antibodies (I think it's IgB, but don't quote me) must be present - and that is variable.

The upshot is that if we all get vaccinated, 95% of us will not get sick, not need medical care. 5% will test positive but not need medical care.

This is our path to normal. Emergency patients will no longer have to worry about getting COVID in hospital (a major vector); grocery workers will no longer worry about DYING if they go to work.

Things like that.
Click to expand...

@10ofRods
Above post says

"This is called "neutralizing immunity." The virus is met and stopped - but the time is variable (to get sterilizing immunity, certain antibodies (I think it's IgB, but don't quote me) must be present - and that is variable."​

I'm not following your comment..sorry I quoted as you asked not to on Igb.... can you give reference as there are only IgG, (antibodies), IgM.... and not many reports on IgA (through mucous membranes). And then we have the T cells.

I've never heard of IgB, and know nothing of such at all. Was that a typo?

IgG are antibodies... associated with neutralizing as they ZAP prior to infecting cells.



What is sterilizing immunity as I've never heard of that term as to differentiation of antibodies from the term "neutralizing immunity" of IgG.

We have the antibodies
from IgG.
we have the later IgM antibodies.
we have the killer T cells..
haven't seen IgA antibody reports much at all/if at all

what are you considering "sterilizing immunity" vs neutralizing immunity.

Just trying to keep up!

TIA
 
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