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AstraZeneca vaccine doesn't prevent B1351 Covid in early trial

263 points by reddotX 6y ago

TobySKT 6y ago
How to Build a Medical Startup: A Useful Resource Guide Building a healthcare startup is not a simple task: The risk is higher than for almost any other vertical, the costs of building and launching a healthcare product are huge, and, on top of that, the regulatory clearance might take a long time. While the above sounds terrifying, there are plenty of cases highlighting that it's fully possible! Thie guide was created speacially for those who thinks about healthcare app development https://steelkiwi.com/blog/how-to-build-a-medical-startup/ https://steelkiwi.com/blog/how-to-build-a-medical-startup/
throwaway888abc 6y ago
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2102214 https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2102214 CONCLUSIONS A two-dose regimen of the ChAdOx1 (AstraZeneca) nCoV-19 vaccine did not show protection against mild-to-moderate Covid-19 due to the B.1.351 variant. (Funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and others; ClinicalTrials.gov number, NCT04444674. opens in new tab; Pan African Clinical Trials Registry number, PACTR202006922165132. opens in new tab).
- zimpenfish 6y ago
  I thought the point of the vaccines wasn't to provide an absolute block against the virus but to reduce the incidence of severe symptoms and hospitalisations? Rather than running rampant and killing hundreds of thousands, it'll be pushed down to mild flu or common cold kind of levels?
  - Dylan16807 6y ago
    That's definitely not "the" point. Reducing spread is also extremely important.
    - ppf 6y ago
      It most certainly is the point. Many other vaccines also do not provide sterilising immunity.
      - Dylan16807 6y ago
        That makes them a significantly worse vaccine. If you had a vaccine that only prevented spread, not illness, it would still be useful.
        ppf 6y ago
        Well, it's what we got, and it's how we plan to get out of this (apparently). Also, what's wrong with a vaccine that stops people dying?
        nicoburns 6y ago
        It still allows the virus to replicate and mutate, potentially into a variant that is different enough that the vaccine no longer prevents people from dying.
        ppf 6y ago
        Like I said - so do many vaccines. I suppose we need to all lock ourselves back in our houses for a few more years while researchers make a new vaccine for Covid-19, that does provide sterlising immunity? This is why creating a vaccine for coronaviruses is a fool's errand. This is all very predictable. We have to look at the actual harm being done, and decide if all this is worth it.
        sharken 6y ago
        Indeed, some realism to the coronavirus aftermath has been lacking. If the vaccines do reduce hospitalizations and ultimately deaths, then we can live with it and can forget about vaccine passes and restrictions. Getting your optional and yearly coronavirus booster is a likely and realistic outcome of all this.
  - samastur 6y ago
    Yes, that's often neglected. However this paper states that the lack of severe reactions may be down to the age of participants (around 30 years) so it is basically unknown if it reduces those.
  - kolinko 6y ago
    If the vaccine doesn’t protect from mild symptoms, there is no reason to think it would protect from severe.
    - dbetteridge 6y ago
      I mean if you actually read the published data that is categorically wrong. The variant in question escapes Antibody detection, but T-Cells still seem to provide significant protection against severe disease and death. https://academic.oup.com/cid/advance-article/doi/10.1093/cid/ciab083/6124512 https://academic.oup.com/cid/advance-article/doi/10.1093/cid... https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.03.11.435000v1 https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.03.11.435000v1 The main published results aren't yet from human scale studies but here is one in hamsters showing a comparison in organ damage and results between unvaccinated and vaccinated with the Oxford/AZ vaccine.
ImaCake 6y ago
Maybe I am wrong, but I feel they have published this a bit prematurely? The data is reported honestly, but their power (as indicated by the confidence intervals) is pretty terrible. I wish they had waited longer. At the same time the trend looks bad, and one would suspect it will continue to look bad. But the group with the outcome is pretty small. I hope they plan to keep monitoring this population. EDIT: I should point out that they backup their data with antibody activity assays which do support the narrative in their primary outcome data. EDIT2: ahh, I think I just don't like this result. Frankly it doesn't look good. Boy am I glad I live somewhere there isn't any circulating COVID.
- herbst 6y ago
  Moon?
  - ImaCake 6y ago
    No, Australia. But there are a fair few developed, isolated countries with little to no COVID.
    - sumedh 6y ago
      > with little to no COVID. To be fair there was a time it could have gone out of control but Aussies followed the rules, trusted the govt and they got it under control.
      - Symmetry 6y ago
        And more importantly the government actually tried to stop it while that was still possible. In most countries there was a progression of "no evidence for human to human transmissoin" to "just the flu" to "flatten the curve" to "huh, I guess we want to avoid most people getting it but our caseloads too high high for contact tracing to work".
dogma1138 6y ago
FYI it’s the same study as the previous news about this, as in the same 2000 individuals study with no severe cases (hospitalization) or deaths in either group and very wide margins for confidence. This is just the actual paper rather than the leaked abstract from a few weeks ago. They commissioned a new study to assess the efficacy more precisely especially for severe cases.
- raducu 6y ago
  I seriously don't understand this. How does J&J vaccine offer 50%+ protection, but AZ does not? Don't they use the same technology? Don't they target the same spike protein?
  - bushbaba 6y ago
    Different tech. J&j isn’t an mrna vaccine
    - tebbers 6y ago
      Nor is AZ. The Pfizer is one with the mRNA technology.
      - godelmachine 6y ago
        Pfizer and Moderna use mRNA.
        elif 6y ago
        neither of those are astrazeneca
    - ilogik 6y ago
      neither is AZ
  - dogma1138 6y ago
    The J&J and AZ vaccines both use a similar viral vector with a modified gene. They target the same protein but just like with the mRNA vaccine they usually do not encode the entire protein but rather target specific amino acid chains in various regions of interest on the protein itself. Other differences in the vaccine would be the level and type of immune response generated in general which will be based on the specific viral vector used, dose and regiment, adjuvants etc. The study which measured the J&J efficacy also used a different methodology to this one. Overall this is a very limited study and should be taken in context. Another key part is that the T-cell response for the AZ vaccine group seems to remain intact. >Although the correlation between antibody response and vaccine efficacy is high, which suggests that the neutralizing antibody response is important, T-cell responses may contribute to protection from Covid-19 even in the presence of lower neutralizing antibody titers.32 In a post hoc analysis reported here, we found that in spike-specific T cells that expanded after vaccination with ChAdOx1 nCoV-19, the majority of antigens and epitopes remained intact in recognition of the B.1.351 variant. Until we have data on actual severe cases it seems that the AZ vaccine is still effective at preventing hospitalization and deaths. There were also no tracking of non-symptomatic cases in the study so the actual prevalence of infections in either group is unkown.
bushbaba 6y ago
B1351 was also detected in the US. https://www.doh.wa.gov/Newsroom/Articles/ID/2639/First-case-of-B1351-variant-identified-in-Washington-State-as-cases-of-B117-increase https://www.doh.wa.gov/Newsroom/Articles/ID/2639/First-case-...
danielovichdk 6y ago
Almost all EU has banned AZ because of blood cluttering sideeffects. Happens in perfectly healthy humans.
- nindalf 6y ago
  It’s clotting, not cluttering. And that decision was taken by politicians keen to cover their ass, afraid of idiotic anti-vaxxers. Here’s what the EU regulator says. The European Medicines Agency is 'firmly convinced' benefits outweigh risks - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-56411561 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-56411561
  - Uberphallus 6y ago
    > And that decision was taken by politicians keen to cover their ass, afraid of idiotic anti-vaxxers. It's more of the EU playing "well, we didn't want it anyway" after getting the short end of the stick in AZ vaccine production (the EU has been a net exporter of AZ vaccine, but AZ deliveries are lagging behind significantly compared to UK).
    - youngtaff 6y ago
      They didn't get the short stick. EU deliveries of the AZ vaccine are behind the UK ones because they started production at least 3 months later and it takes time to debug pharmaceutical plants for new drugs. Even in the UK the production process is still inconsistent with fluctuating yields
      - FranzFerdiNaN 6y ago
        One of the production places in the EU mentioned in the EU contract still isnt up and running because AZ has refused to file the proper paperwork to be able to use it. Its insane.
        youngtaff 6y ago
        Is that Halix in NL - https://www.politico.eu/article/breton-no-astrazeneca-jabs-exported-from-netherlands-after-eu-export-controls/ https://www.politico.eu/article/breton-no-astrazeneca-jabs-e...
onetimemanytime 6y ago
Damn, and this was the best hope due to price and once early lead. Let's hope J&J fills their void (Not all countries can afford $60 shots and have ultra cold fridges)
- bawolff 6y ago
  Well this isn't ideal, its not like this means the vaccine is useless.
  - onetimemanytime 6y ago
    "I'm vaccinated" when you really aren't is dangerous.
    - bawolff 6y ago
      No vaccine is 100%. They don't have to be to be useful. Study only talked about mild-moderate cases of one specific variant. Well i would like it to work across the board, working well against the other variants and preventing severe cases of the problematic variant, is still a win, even if a qualified one.
      - cblconfederate 6y ago
        they mean that a person who thinks they are vaccinated is more dangerous than one who doesnt, because they change their behavior
        bawolff 6y ago
        Yes, but it doesn't follow that someone with this vaccine is more dangerous than someone without one. The result of this study is not that this vaccine is totally useless, just that its not ideal. There is big gap between what is reported here and having nothing. Its still likely to be beneficial.
      - onetimemanytime 6y ago
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
jjjeii3 6y ago
30% of children in Germany have mental issues due to the coronavirus-measures and it looks bad in other countries as well: https://www.bbc.com/news/health-55863841 https://www.bbc.com/news/health-55863841 This is a typical situation when the cure (coronavirus measures) is worse than the disease.
- morsch 6y ago
  30% of children in Germany have mental issues due to the coronavirus-measures Citation needed. The only thing I could find is this[1], which is just nonsense. It's probably similar to the much more sensible numbers from the UK, maybe a bit better since, so far, Germany hasn't had a lockdown as strict as the UK. [1] https://www.meinbezirk.at/c-lokales/corona-krise-30-prozent-der-kinder-erleiden-posttraumatische-belastungsstoerung_a4044717 https://www.meinbezirk.at/c-lokales/corona-krise-30-prozent-...
  - neuronic 6y ago
    30% may be bullshit but the mental health issues are clearly a problem in Germany. [German] https://www.zdf.de/nachrichten/panorama/corona-kinder-psychische-folgen-betreuung-shutdown-100.html https://www.zdf.de/nachrichten/panorama/corona-kinder-psychi...
- sharken 6y ago
  Which is one of the reasons I do not understand Norway's recent tightening of restrictions: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-norway-idUSKCN2AS0LE https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-norway... In this matter lifting restrictions like Texas, Mississippi and other US states have done seems more reasonable. In Denmark nearly everybody who is at risk has been vaccinated, but still the government hesitates to remove restrictions.
MrAlex94 6y ago
If anyone is curious, one of the Moderna scientists who helped develop their mRNA vaccine had a thread about this when this first made the rounds: Twitter thread: https://twitter.com/sailorrooscout/status/1358869462414467085?s=21 https://twitter.com/sailorrooscout/status/135886946241446708... Easier to read version: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1358869469125296135.html https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1358869469125296135.html > Let’s talk about immunity and why it’s important to take certain factors into consideration when we look at these studies and maybe why the most recent one on AstraZeneca’s effectiveness on the B.1.351 is a tad bit bothersome. For starters this beauty wasn’t tweeted initially. > See that last bullet point? The one of T-cell immunity. Yeah, that’s vital. Why? The study failed to discuss this aspect. You cannot disregard T-cells in the same breath you are discussing B-cells, vaccines and their respective induced antibody responses. It’s a package deal. > T-cells help protect against severe disease. Their analysis shows 76 out of 87 TCB sites (87%) are NOT impacted by the mutations seen in B.1.351. What does this mean? It means the T-cell response generated by AstraZeneca’s vaccine should be highly effective against this variant. > How are you going to disregard our actual immune systems and their ability to make antibodies for later? Which may I remind you are DRIVEN by vaccines. They teach our bodies to make antibodies for later, not just during active infection (memory T-cells anyone). That’s immunity! If I’m not mistaken, this study doesn’t have enough information on severe disease and hospitalisations since there were no cases in either group. I think we still need more information from the looks of it.
- kolinko 6y ago
  Weird. Are you sure the tweets talk about the same study? The study in the article didn’t look at antibody response, but at the clinical outcome - just like the original Phase III studies did, just with a smaller group of people. As for the claim that we don’t know how the vaccine protects from hospitalisations - if there is literally no difference in mild cases, why would there be any difference in severe? Is there a single vaccine for any disease that offers no protection against mild cases, but a high protection from severe?
  - 360walk 6y ago
    Regarding the question about how the vaccine could protect against severe but not mild infection, I think they answer that here: > Antibodies can prevent infection, your T cell-responses ensure that those antibodies keep doing their job and they kick in after you're infected OR oh my goodness stop the presses- VACCINATED (how about them apples). In other words, while robust T-cells responses cannot protect you from a mild or moderate infection sometimes (think cough, sniffles, etc.) they can however proliferate rapidly and prevent the build up of viral load. Psst- you want this to be LOW. VL drives disease severity.
elwell 6y ago
> The finding underscores the importance of genomic surveillance Sounded dystopian until I realized it was in reference to sequencing the virus variants, not the hosts.
- Cthulhu_ 6y ago
  It is a viral dystopia though, they are being persecuted and decimated left and right and have to fight for survival. (this post is tongue in cheek of course)
  - tim333 6y ago
    The anti-vaxx alliance is their only hope.
  - elwell 6y ago
    > You move to an area and you multiply and multiply until every natural resource is consumed. The only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus.
    - nicolauz 6y ago
      This quote always puts me off. In individual virus might be that - but thats not how virus live as a species/group/form of existence. Usually they are a thriving and useful part of the ecosystem they belong to. Virus, under normal circumstances, will live happily along a bunch of other guests in foreign hosts. No issue. It's human that give virus a bad raputation! We breed the fuck out of them and then are shocked when this bits us in the ass. Or in other words: The only way this comparison (human==virus) gets accurate, is when you use the human-super-breed version of "virus" (edit: leave vs. live)
  - bvm 6y ago
    I bet on some dark corner of the internet those sentiments are echoed tounge firmly outside of cheek.
easytiger 6y ago
The late summer booster for AZ that will be issued (prob in the UK first) has already been adapted to this variant specifically and is in advanced trials. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-02-07/new-astra-vaccine-in-development-to-fight-south-africa-variant https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-02-07/new-astra... And other vaccines (e.g. Novavax) have been shown to be pretty effective against it https://www.fox5atlanta.com/news/novavax-vaccine-has-96-efficacy-against-original-covid-19-strain-55-4-against-south-africa-variant https://www.fox5atlanta.com/news/novavax-vaccine-has-96-effi...
- tpmx 6y ago
  Autumn, not late summer, according to the Bloomberg article.
- phnofive 6y ago
  So - AZ will catch up... with a second shot? *whoops, confused AZ and J&J, nevermind this.
  - bushbaba 6y ago
    Wouldn’t this be a third shot? It’s 2 shots for the AZ vaccine. And a third booster.
    - globular-toast 6y ago
      Everyone I know has been out of action 1-2 days after the AZ vaccine. So three shots could be a week out of action. Similar to people who have had corona virus. It had better be worth it.
      - Lewton 6y ago
        Just a side note, everyone I know who’s had a symptomatic case (n=3) were out for more than two weeks. Not that it changes your point much. Having to keep getting booster shots that knock you out for a day or two is not a great situation
jjjeii3 6y ago
Let's put children in the "prison" for another 2 years and destroy their lives, just to allow 90-years-olds to live 2 months longer.
- mhh__ 6y ago
  And your parents too?
  - jjjeii3 6y ago
    My old mother is against any corona-measures and don't even want to do vaccination. She also meets her friends at least once a week, ignoring the contact guidance.
    - adrianN 6y ago
      I'm sorry to hear that.
  - Tossitto 6y ago
    My folks don't want the shots, my grandparents refuse to mask any time it isn't critical. Pops wants to get the shit. I don't have an opinion myself, but I'm going to hold off on the vaccine just in case there's some crazy ultra-low probability shit that spontaneously crops up, frankly I'm not concerned with my own risks as judged by probability: I'm inordinately low-risk. Last I heard they hadn't confirmed the vaccines contributed to sterilizing immunity anyways, so for all we know currently there's no strong link that vaccines are going to prevent transmission, but rather will mitigate symptom development and disease severity; so again, I don't see the point even at the resolution of populations.
    - turbinerneiter 6y ago
      Despite that, if you get sick, we will still offer all of you a hospital bed and try our best to help you.
      - 6y ago
yread 6y ago
In other news Norway is considering completely stopping with AZ due to unreliable shipments and longer interval between doses. They are saying they can get everyone vaccinated faster https://direkte.vg.no/nyhetsdognet/news/fhi-norge-kan-bli-vaksinert-raskere-uten-astrazeneca-vaksinen.bncB8QbIz https://direkte.vg.no/nyhetsdognet/news/fhi-norge-kan-bli-va...
benlumen 6y ago
This was discussed in the press several weeks back, there was a Downing Street briefing that day about it - they hammered home two points 1) The data isn't in on severe disease and hospitalization - and they strongly suspect that it will still have a positive impact on that 2) B1351 is not our dominant strain (in the UK and elsewhere) and since it's not more infectious than our already very infectious strain, probably won't be
- neuronic 6y ago
  But it will be dominant if it's the only strain capable of spreading within a population immune against other strains, no?
  - 00deadbeef 6y ago
    Yes but they made the point that by time it is we could already be rolling out a booster
    - numpad0 6y ago
      So is it that it could be the next seasonal COVID-22 and vaccines will be ready by then?
      - DetroitThrow 6y ago
        Yup, trials have been happening for months already with mRNA vaccines targeted specifically for these variants, so if there is any risk of deadly seasonal COVID from them there will likely be vaccines to address them.
        stoddur 6y ago
        Interesting, did not know this. Any links / sources on ongoing trials?
        6y ago
Mvandenbergh 6y ago
I wonder if the differential response between AZ and J&J/Pfizer/Moderna is due to the use of the stabilised form of the spike used by the latter and not the former?
dbetteridge 6y ago
This paper is looking at a small scale human study in SA with mostly younger participants, which does make the results difficult to apply to the wider population. They also only use a 4 week dosing schedule where the suggestion and actual rollout in the UK is following the 10-12 week schedule between first and second doses. The variant in question seems to escape the majority of Antibody detection, but T-Cells still seem to provide significant protection against severe disease and death. https://academic.oup.com/cid/advance-article/doi/10.1093/cid/ciab083/6124512 https://academic.oup.com/cid/advance-article/doi/10.1093/cid... https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.03.11.435000v1 https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.03.11.435000v1 The main published results aren't yet from human scale studies but here is one in hamsters showing a comparison in organ damage and results between unvaccinated and vaccinated with the Oxford/AZ vaccine.
victordmor 6y ago
The real boogeyman here is the P1 and P2 variants found in Brazil. These are the ones which mutated offspring can evade vaccines completely.

263 points by reddotX 6y ago

How to Build a Medical Startup: A Useful Resource Guide Building a healthcare startup is not a simple task: The risk is higher than for almost any other vertical, the costs of building and launching a healthcare product are huge, and, on top of that, the regulatory clearance might take a long time. While the above sounds terrifying, there are plenty of cases highlighting that it's fully possible! Thie guide was created speacially for those who thinks about healthcare app development https://steelkiwi.com/blog/how-to-build-a-medical-startup/ https://steelkiwi.com/blog/how-to-build-a-medical-startup/

throwaway888abc 6y ago

https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2102214 https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2102214 CONCLUSIONS A two-dose regimen of the ChAdOx1 (AstraZeneca) nCoV-19 vaccine did not show protection against mild-to-moderate Covid-19 due to the B.1.351 variant. (Funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and others; ClinicalTrials.gov number, NCT04444674. opens in new tab; Pan African Clinical Trials Registry number, PACTR202006922165132. opens in new tab).

zimpenfish 6y ago
I thought the point of the vaccines wasn't to provide an absolute block against the virus but to reduce the incidence of severe symptoms and hospitalisations? Rather than running rampant and killing hundreds of thousands, it'll be pushed down to mild flu or common cold kind of levels?
- Dylan16807 6y ago
  That's definitely not "the" point. Reducing spread is also extremely important.
  - ppf 6y ago
    It most certainly is the point. Many other vaccines also do not provide sterilising immunity.
    - Dylan16807 6y ago
      That makes them a significantly worse vaccine. If you had a vaccine that only prevented spread, not illness, it would still be useful.
      - ppf 6y ago
        Well, it's what we got, and it's how we plan to get out of this (apparently). Also, what's wrong with a vaccine that stops people dying?
        nicoburns 6y ago
        It still allows the virus to replicate and mutate, potentially into a variant that is different enough that the vaccine no longer prevents people from dying.
        ppf 6y ago
        Like I said - so do many vaccines. I suppose we need to all lock ourselves back in our houses for a few more years while researchers make a new vaccine for Covid-19, that does provide sterlising immunity? This is why creating a vaccine for coronaviruses is a fool's errand. This is all very predictable. We have to look at the actual harm being done, and decide if all this is worth it.
        sharken 6y ago
        Indeed, some realism to the coronavirus aftermath has been lacking. If the vaccines do reduce hospitalizations and ultimately deaths, then we can live with it and can forget about vaccine passes and restrictions. Getting your optional and yearly coronavirus booster is a likely and realistic outcome of all this.
- samastur 6y ago
  Yes, that's often neglected. However this paper states that the lack of severe reactions may be down to the age of participants (around 30 years) so it is basically unknown if it reduces those.
- kolinko 6y ago
  If the vaccine doesn’t protect from mild symptoms, there is no reason to think it would protect from severe.
  - dbetteridge 6y ago
    I mean if you actually read the published data that is categorically wrong. The variant in question escapes Antibody detection, but T-Cells still seem to provide significant protection against severe disease and death. https://academic.oup.com/cid/advance-article/doi/10.1093/cid/ciab083/6124512 https://academic.oup.com/cid/advance-article/doi/10.1093/cid... https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.03.11.435000v1 https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.03.11.435000v1 The main published results aren't yet from human scale studies but here is one in hamsters showing a comparison in organ damage and results between unvaccinated and vaccinated with the Oxford/AZ vaccine.

ImaCake 6y ago

Maybe I am wrong, but I feel they have published this a bit prematurely? The data is reported honestly, but their power (as indicated by the confidence intervals) is pretty terrible. I wish they had waited longer. At the same time the trend looks bad, and one would suspect it will continue to look bad. But the group with the outcome is pretty small. I hope they plan to keep monitoring this population. EDIT: I should point out that they backup their data with antibody activity assays which do support the narrative in their primary outcome data. EDIT2: ahh, I think I just don't like this result. Frankly it doesn't look good. Boy am I glad I live somewhere there isn't any circulating COVID.

herbst 6y ago
Moon?
- ImaCake 6y ago
  No, Australia. But there are a fair few developed, isolated countries with little to no COVID.
  - sumedh 6y ago
    > with little to no COVID. To be fair there was a time it could have gone out of control but Aussies followed the rules, trusted the govt and they got it under control.
    - Symmetry 6y ago
      And more importantly the government actually tried to stop it while that was still possible. In most countries there was a progression of "no evidence for human to human transmissoin" to "just the flu" to "flatten the curve" to "huh, I guess we want to avoid most people getting it but our caseloads too high high for contact tracing to work".

dogma1138 6y ago

FYI it’s the same study as the previous news about this, as in the same 2000 individuals study with no severe cases (hospitalization) or deaths in either group and very wide margins for confidence. This is just the actual paper rather than the leaked abstract from a few weeks ago. They commissioned a new study to assess the efficacy more precisely especially for severe cases.

raducu 6y ago
I seriously don't understand this. How does J&J vaccine offer 50%+ protection, but AZ does not? Don't they use the same technology? Don't they target the same spike protein?
- bushbaba 6y ago
  Different tech. J&j isn’t an mrna vaccine
  - tebbers 6y ago
    Nor is AZ. The Pfizer is one with the mRNA technology.
    - godelmachine 6y ago
      Pfizer and Moderna use mRNA.
      - elif 6y ago
        neither of those are astrazeneca
  - ilogik 6y ago
    neither is AZ
- dogma1138 6y ago
  The J&J and AZ vaccines both use a similar viral vector with a modified gene. They target the same protein but just like with the mRNA vaccine they usually do not encode the entire protein but rather target specific amino acid chains in various regions of interest on the protein itself. Other differences in the vaccine would be the level and type of immune response generated in general which will be based on the specific viral vector used, dose and regiment, adjuvants etc. The study which measured the J&J efficacy also used a different methodology to this one. Overall this is a very limited study and should be taken in context. Another key part is that the T-cell response for the AZ vaccine group seems to remain intact. >Although the correlation between antibody response and vaccine efficacy is high, which suggests that the neutralizing antibody response is important, T-cell responses may contribute to protection from Covid-19 even in the presence of lower neutralizing antibody titers.32 In a post hoc analysis reported here, we found that in spike-specific T cells that expanded after vaccination with ChAdOx1 nCoV-19, the majority of antigens and epitopes remained intact in recognition of the B.1.351 variant. Until we have data on actual severe cases it seems that the AZ vaccine is still effective at preventing hospitalization and deaths. There were also no tracking of non-symptomatic cases in the study so the actual prevalence of infections in either group is unkown.

bushbaba 6y ago

B1351 was also detected in the US. https://www.doh.wa.gov/Newsroom/Articles/ID/2639/First-case-of-B1351-variant-identified-in-Washington-State-as-cases-of-B117-increase https://www.doh.wa.gov/Newsroom/Articles/ID/2639/First-case-...

danielovichdk 6y ago

Almost all EU has banned AZ because of blood cluttering sideeffects. Happens in perfectly healthy humans.

nindalf 6y ago
It’s clotting, not cluttering. And that decision was taken by politicians keen to cover their ass, afraid of idiotic anti-vaxxers. Here’s what the EU regulator says. The European Medicines Agency is 'firmly convinced' benefits outweigh risks - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-56411561 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-56411561
- Uberphallus 6y ago
  > And that decision was taken by politicians keen to cover their ass, afraid of idiotic anti-vaxxers. It's more of the EU playing "well, we didn't want it anyway" after getting the short end of the stick in AZ vaccine production (the EU has been a net exporter of AZ vaccine, but AZ deliveries are lagging behind significantly compared to UK).
  - youngtaff 6y ago
    They didn't get the short stick. EU deliveries of the AZ vaccine are behind the UK ones because they started production at least 3 months later and it takes time to debug pharmaceutical plants for new drugs. Even in the UK the production process is still inconsistent with fluctuating yields
    - FranzFerdiNaN 6y ago
      One of the production places in the EU mentioned in the EU contract still isnt up and running because AZ has refused to file the proper paperwork to be able to use it. Its insane.
      - youngtaff 6y ago
        Is that Halix in NL - https://www.politico.eu/article/breton-no-astrazeneca-jabs-exported-from-netherlands-after-eu-export-controls/ https://www.politico.eu/article/breton-no-astrazeneca-jabs-e...

onetimemanytime 6y ago

Damn, and this was the best hope due to price and once early lead. Let's hope J&J fills their void (Not all countries can afford $60 shots and have ultra cold fridges)

bawolff 6y ago
Well this isn't ideal, its not like this means the vaccine is useless.
- onetimemanytime 6y ago
  "I'm vaccinated" when you really aren't is dangerous.
  - bawolff 6y ago
    No vaccine is 100%. They don't have to be to be useful. Study only talked about mild-moderate cases of one specific variant. Well i would like it to work across the board, working well against the other variants and preventing severe cases of the problematic variant, is still a win, even if a qualified one.
    - cblconfederate 6y ago
      they mean that a person who thinks they are vaccinated is more dangerous than one who doesnt, because they change their behavior
      - bawolff 6y ago
        Yes, but it doesn't follow that someone with this vaccine is more dangerous than someone without one. The result of this study is not that this vaccine is totally useless, just that its not ideal. There is big gap between what is reported here and having nothing. Its still likely to be beneficial.
    - onetimemanytime 6y ago

deleted 6y ago

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jjjeii3 6y ago

30% of children in Germany have mental issues due to the coronavirus-measures and it looks bad in other countries as well: https://www.bbc.com/news/health-55863841 https://www.bbc.com/news/health-55863841 This is a typical situation when the cure (coronavirus measures) is worse than the disease.

morsch 6y ago
30% of children in Germany have mental issues due to the coronavirus-measures Citation needed. The only thing I could find is this[1], which is just nonsense. It's probably similar to the much more sensible numbers from the UK, maybe a bit better since, so far, Germany hasn't had a lockdown as strict as the UK. [1] https://www.meinbezirk.at/c-lokales/corona-krise-30-prozent-der-kinder-erleiden-posttraumatische-belastungsstoerung_a4044717 https://www.meinbezirk.at/c-lokales/corona-krise-30-prozent-...
- neuronic 6y ago
  30% may be bullshit but the mental health issues are clearly a problem in Germany. [German] https://www.zdf.de/nachrichten/panorama/corona-kinder-psychische-folgen-betreuung-shutdown-100.html https://www.zdf.de/nachrichten/panorama/corona-kinder-psychi...
sharken 6y ago
Which is one of the reasons I do not understand Norway's recent tightening of restrictions: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-norway-idUSKCN2AS0LE https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-norway... In this matter lifting restrictions like Texas, Mississippi and other US states have done seems more reasonable. In Denmark nearly everybody who is at risk has been vaccinated, but still the government hesitates to remove restrictions.

MrAlex94 6y ago

If anyone is curious, one of the Moderna scientists who helped develop their mRNA vaccine had a thread about this when this first made the rounds: Twitter thread: https://twitter.com/sailorrooscout/status/1358869462414467085?s=21 https://twitter.com/sailorrooscout/status/135886946241446708... Easier to read version: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1358869469125296135.html https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1358869469125296135.html > Let’s talk about immunity and why it’s important to take certain factors into consideration when we look at these studies and maybe why the most recent one on AstraZeneca’s effectiveness on the B.1.351 is a tad bit bothersome. For starters this beauty wasn’t tweeted initially. > See that last bullet point? The one of T-cell immunity. Yeah, that’s vital. Why? The study failed to discuss this aspect. You cannot disregard T-cells in the same breath you are discussing B-cells, vaccines and their respective induced antibody responses. It’s a package deal. > T-cells help protect against severe disease. Their analysis shows 76 out of 87 TCB sites (87%) are NOT impacted by the mutations seen in B.1.351. What does this mean? It means the T-cell response generated by AstraZeneca’s vaccine should be highly effective against this variant. > How are you going to disregard our actual immune systems and their ability to make antibodies for later? Which may I remind you are DRIVEN by vaccines. They teach our bodies to make antibodies for later, not just during active infection (memory T-cells anyone). That’s immunity! If I’m not mistaken, this study doesn’t have enough information on severe disease and hospitalisations since there were no cases in either group. I think we still need more information from the looks of it.

kolinko 6y ago
Weird. Are you sure the tweets talk about the same study? The study in the article didn’t look at antibody response, but at the clinical outcome - just like the original Phase III studies did, just with a smaller group of people. As for the claim that we don’t know how the vaccine protects from hospitalisations - if there is literally no difference in mild cases, why would there be any difference in severe? Is there a single vaccine for any disease that offers no protection against mild cases, but a high protection from severe?
- 360walk 6y ago
  Regarding the question about how the vaccine could protect against severe but not mild infection, I think they answer that here: > Antibodies can prevent infection, your T cell-responses ensure that those antibodies keep doing their job and they kick in after you're infected OR oh my goodness stop the presses- VACCINATED (how about them apples). In other words, while robust T-cells responses cannot protect you from a mild or moderate infection sometimes (think cough, sniffles, etc.) they can however proliferate rapidly and prevent the build up of viral load. Psst- you want this to be LOW. VL drives disease severity.

elwell 6y ago

> The finding underscores the importance of genomic surveillance Sounded dystopian until I realized it was in reference to sequencing the virus variants, not the hosts.

Cthulhu_ 6y ago
It is a viral dystopia though, they are being persecuted and decimated left and right and have to fight for survival. (this post is tongue in cheek of course)
- tim333 6y ago
  The anti-vaxx alliance is their only hope.
- elwell 6y ago
  > You move to an area and you multiply and multiply until every natural resource is consumed. The only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus.
  - nicolauz 6y ago
    This quote always puts me off. In individual virus might be that - but thats not how virus live as a species/group/form of existence. Usually they are a thriving and useful part of the ecosystem they belong to. Virus, under normal circumstances, will live happily along a bunch of other guests in foreign hosts. No issue. It's human that give virus a bad raputation! We breed the fuck out of them and then are shocked when this bits us in the ass. Or in other words: The only way this comparison (human==virus) gets accurate, is when you use the human-super-breed version of "virus" (edit: leave vs. live)
- bvm 6y ago
  I bet on some dark corner of the internet those sentiments are echoed tounge firmly outside of cheek.

easytiger 6y ago

The late summer booster for AZ that will be issued (prob in the UK first) has already been adapted to this variant specifically and is in advanced trials. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-02-07/new-astra-vaccine-in-development-to-fight-south-africa-variant https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-02-07/new-astra... And other vaccines (e.g. Novavax) have been shown to be pretty effective against it https://www.fox5atlanta.com/news/novavax-vaccine-has-96-efficacy-against-original-covid-19-strain-55-4-against-south-africa-variant https://www.fox5atlanta.com/news/novavax-vaccine-has-96-effi...

tpmx 6y ago
Autumn, not late summer, according to the Bloomberg article.
phnofive 6y ago
So - AZ will catch up... with a second shot? *whoops, confused AZ and J&J, nevermind this.
- bushbaba 6y ago
  Wouldn’t this be a third shot? It’s 2 shots for the AZ vaccine. And a third booster.
  - globular-toast 6y ago
    Everyone I know has been out of action 1-2 days after the AZ vaccine. So three shots could be a week out of action. Similar to people who have had corona virus. It had better be worth it.
    - Lewton 6y ago
      Just a side note, everyone I know who’s had a symptomatic case (n=3) were out for more than two weeks. Not that it changes your point much. Having to keep getting booster shots that knock you out for a day or two is not a great situation

jjjeii3 6y ago

Let's put children in the "prison" for another 2 years and destroy their lives, just to allow 90-years-olds to live 2 months longer.

mhh__ 6y ago
And your parents too?
- jjjeii3 6y ago
  My old mother is against any corona-measures and don't even want to do vaccination. She also meets her friends at least once a week, ignoring the contact guidance.
  - adrianN 6y ago
    I'm sorry to hear that.
- Tossitto 6y ago
  My folks don't want the shots, my grandparents refuse to mask any time it isn't critical. Pops wants to get the shit. I don't have an opinion myself, but I'm going to hold off on the vaccine just in case there's some crazy ultra-low probability shit that spontaneously crops up, frankly I'm not concerned with my own risks as judged by probability: I'm inordinately low-risk. Last I heard they hadn't confirmed the vaccines contributed to sterilizing immunity anyways, so for all we know currently there's no strong link that vaccines are going to prevent transmission, but rather will mitigate symptom development and disease severity; so again, I don't see the point even at the resolution of populations.
  - turbinerneiter 6y ago
    Despite that, if you get sick, we will still offer all of you a hospital bed and try our best to help you.
    - 6y ago

yread 6y ago

In other news Norway is considering completely stopping with AZ due to unreliable shipments and longer interval between doses. They are saying they can get everyone vaccinated faster https://direkte.vg.no/nyhetsdognet/news/fhi-norge-kan-bli-vaksinert-raskere-uten-astrazeneca-vaksinen.bncB8QbIz https://direkte.vg.no/nyhetsdognet/news/fhi-norge-kan-bli-va...

benlumen 6y ago

This was discussed in the press several weeks back, there was a Downing Street briefing that day about it - they hammered home two points 1) The data isn't in on severe disease and hospitalization - and they strongly suspect that it will still have a positive impact on that 2) B1351 is not our dominant strain (in the UK and elsewhere) and since it's not more infectious than our already very infectious strain, probably won't be

neuronic 6y ago
But it will be dominant if it's the only strain capable of spreading within a population immune against other strains, no?
- 00deadbeef 6y ago
  Yes but they made the point that by time it is we could already be rolling out a booster
  - numpad0 6y ago
    So is it that it could be the next seasonal COVID-22 and vaccines will be ready by then?
    - DetroitThrow 6y ago
      Yup, trials have been happening for months already with mRNA vaccines targeted specifically for these variants, so if there is any risk of deadly seasonal COVID from them there will likely be vaccines to address them.
      - stoddur 6y ago
        Interesting, did not know this. Any links / sources on ongoing trials?
        6y ago

Mvandenbergh 6y ago

I wonder if the differential response between AZ and J&J/Pfizer/Moderna is due to the use of the stabilised form of the spike used by the latter and not the former?

dbetteridge 6y ago

This paper is looking at a small scale human study in SA with mostly younger participants, which does make the results difficult to apply to the wider population. They also only use a 4 week dosing schedule where the suggestion and actual rollout in the UK is following the 10-12 week schedule between first and second doses. The variant in question seems to escape the majority of Antibody detection, but T-Cells still seem to provide significant protection against severe disease and death. https://academic.oup.com/cid/advance-article/doi/10.1093/cid/ciab083/6124512 https://academic.oup.com/cid/advance-article/doi/10.1093/cid... https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.03.11.435000v1 https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.03.11.435000v1 The main published results aren't yet from human scale studies but here is one in hamsters showing a comparison in organ damage and results between unvaccinated and vaccinated with the Oxford/AZ vaccine.

victordmor 6y ago

The real boogeyman here is the P1 and P2 variants found in Brazil. These are the ones which mutated offspring can evade vaccines completely.