Sorry to hear that, Strolls. 2nd opinion would be invaluable. Hope things go well for you
Off Topic Coronavirus
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Sorry to hear that, Strolls. 2nd opinion would be invaluable. Hope things go well for you
An excellent Reuters report on the utter failure of the government's Covid test and trace system.
https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/health-coronavirus-britain-newwave/
https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/health-coronavirus-britain-newwave/
Sadly spot on.
I’d love to tell everyone what tier I live in but the website has crashed.
It's quite simple. This lockdown will end on December 2nd and another one will start on December 3rd (unless you live in a cave on the Isle of Wight).
Not for me, tier 3! Haircut but no pint.
Anyone know the criteria for this? My local rate is 189/100,000, my daughters in Newcastle is 320, both tier 3. Telford is 255, tier 2. Given that we were insisting that people returning from holidays in places where they had a rate of 20/100,000 isolated for two weeks, I’d say this is all a bit ****ed up, and likely to be based more on predicted pressure on the NHS, and how well places can cope locally.
Both my kids mightily pissed off, but I’m quite relieved, makes Christmas a little simpler for my mum.
Most of it was leaked before. I see the government is maintaining it's serial incompetency record...
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Don't be Scilly...
So I still can't go to my wonderfully Covid19 safe pub (no serious food served) but if chosen by a draw me and 1999 others can go and see the Superhoopsa
( promise I won't sing!)
( promise I won't sing!)
You can go to Dubai... but I’m in a more severe and longer lockdown than at home and am expected to isolate for a further two weeks after driving home.
Sadly predictable that the bizarre result from a small arm of the Oxford/AZ vaccine trial, which showed greater effectiveness at a lower dose, is causing them problems, because it’s pretty inexplicable and calls the whole trial into doubt. AZ share price down 6% on the week, as US regulators have got twitchy. Bet it was academics rather than AZ who designed that bit of the trial, or it was a mistake. Might need to do more studies now. The ‘p’ values on both arms (which tell how reliable the results are) seem good, but seeds of doubt, or at least confusion, have been sown.
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I was under the impression that AZ is at least partly a Swedish company.
And that Oxford university is largely funded by China.
But it’s our ****ing flag, ok?
It’s 50% more effective if you belt out Land of Hope and Glory as the needle goes in though I’d be doing that anyway.
I think I understood that it was a mistake, on the Brazilian arm of the study. ( We went to Brazil to do stage 3 testing as their R rate was so much higher than ours over the summer months). TheOxford team went back to the regulators who said, as it didn't instigate any health risks, that they could continue with the whole study but at the correct dosage, and to include the half-dose results as an "addendum". This happens, but it doesn't usually impact on the study like this one has. The numbers are definately small still !00 odd in the full dose arm, 30 in the half dose "accidental" arm.
I also suspect some economic pressure from the american firms and their backers. There RNA vaccines have abetter efficacy, but they are more expensive (to make, store and distribute) and so will not "sell" as well as the cheaper vaccine, which may not be as effective. However if you convert your killer disease into a bad cold for half the price compared with double the price not to show any symptoms...I can guess what actually might sell more in the long run, especially to the 3rd world/WHO/charity outlets
Makes sense that it’s a mistake, but the fact that it’s only in one country (Brazil) makes it worse, sadly.
The RNA firms have the challenge of making enough to supply, and any US government would struggle to deny its citizens a vaccine available in the rest of the world. There’s loads of space for both versions, particularly as we don’t know how long any vaccine will be effective for and several billion people to vaccinate.
But I can guarantee that, in other circumstances (ie not a vaccine for a current pandemic, but say, a new oncology or arthritis treatment) this trial result would lead regulators to insist on another trial to verify the results. You might get conditional marketing in the meantime.
I don’t doubt that the AZ vaccine is as good as we need, but, perhaps under pressure from our government, they’ve made some mistakes in communications along the way. Implying that one arm was 70% effective, and that a smaller arm was 90% effective was just sloppy. The larger arm was 62% effective, the ‘mistake’ arm was 90%, the combined effectiveness was 70% (but that is irrelevant because nobody in the trial took the doses that would lead to 70%).
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You are right Stan. I am also pretty sure that a lot more phase 3 subjects would have be insisted on, rather than the very small numbers of vaccinated people in the trials (with any of the different vaccines so far reported) .
