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The AZ was the second vaccine to be approved after the Pfizer one at the beginning of December, and then Moderna was approved days later. All of the vaccines p

The AZ was the second vaccine to be approved after the Pfizer one at the beginning of December, and then Moderna was approved days later. All of the vaccines passed through the standard clinical trials and phases and were approved by the MHRA using the same process that would be applied to any other vaccine. The vaccine testing and approval was fast because layers of bureaucracy were removed (e.g. writing proposals, securing funding, finding volunteers). It's not fair to say that the UK rushed either the approval or the rollout. It's a bit like saying Usain Bolt rushed to win the 100m. Someone has to do it first. The UK approval process is one of the most stringent in the world.

dragontamer 6y ago
1. USA only finished its trials this past week of AZ's vaccine, and those trials took place basically the same time as the UK's. In contrast, UK approved the vaccine in December 2020. The 3-months of difference between the two countries is pretty pronounced, no matter how you look at it. 2. https://www.businessinsider.com/uk-approved-pfizer-covid-19-vaccine-too-quickly-eu-politicians-2020-12?r=US&IR=T https://www.businessinsider.com/uk-approved-pfizer-covid-19-... I remember articles at the time that highly criticized the UK's rollout of AZ vaccine. 3. It probably doesn't matter: the USA has found AZ to be very safe and highly effective: in fact, the USA's trials suggest a 79% efficacy rate (while the UK's own trial numbers were in the 60s). So if anything, the AZ vaccine has been proven to be safer and better in the tests on our-side of the Atlantic. The issue is that extra 3-months of difference. Whether December 2020 approval was premature or not.
- DrBazza 6y ago
  > The issue is that extra 3-months of difference. Whether December 2020 approval was premature or not. And yet the USA approved the Pfizer vaccine on Dec 11, only a week after the UK. I'm not sure why there's a 3 month difference in approving the AZ vaccine, but I do know that the USA has some particularly draconian import rules on foreign medicines, especially untested ones, so perhaps extra bureaucracy, and almost certainly a different testing regime for medicines to the UK and EU. I'm satisfied that the UK MHRA and JVI have satisfactorily assessed the data from AZ, Pfizer, Moderna, (and Novavax). They're world experts in their fields.
  - brianwawok 6y ago
    We had Pfizer and Moderna approved. We had JJ in the final steps. I think there wasn't a huge urgency behind the fourth vaccine when all signs pointed to three good vaccines.
- mprovost 6y ago
  Since both approval processes reached the same conclusion it clearly wasn't premature.
  - dragontamer 6y ago
    A coin-flip would have reached the same conclusion 50% of the time. That's why process is important: you can get lucky and come to the correct results with an improper process (ex: coin flips).
    - mprovost 6y ago
      I don't think you can argue that the UK's process was random. There is a process, it went faster, and achieved the same result. Maybe in some other universe it would have missed something and the longer process would have had a different result but that's not the world we live in, in which some not-insignificant number of people didn't die of covid in those 3 months.
      - dragontamer 6y ago
        I'm not saying the UK's process is random. I'm saying your logic and argument is fundamentally unsound. Your __logic__ applies just as easily to coin-flips / random-chance to make decisions, and therefore your argument is unable to differentiate between a good system and a bad one.
- dbetteridge 6y ago
  For 1. That would be because the FDA insisted on a US run phase 3 trial (which is fine) but that only began around the time the UK approved Oxford/AZ as AZ had first tried to use their UK/SA study for US approvals

dragontamer 6y ago

1. USA only finished its trials this past week of AZ's vaccine, and those trials took place basically the same time as the UK's. In contrast, UK approved the vaccine in December 2020. The 3-months of difference between the two countries is pretty pronounced, no matter how you look at it. 2. https://www.businessinsider.com/uk-approved-pfizer-covid-19-vaccine-too-quickly-eu-politicians-2020-12?r=US&IR=T https://www.businessinsider.com/uk-approved-pfizer-covid-19-... I remember articles at the time that highly criticized the UK's rollout of AZ vaccine. 3. It probably doesn't matter: the USA has found AZ to be very safe and highly effective: in fact, the USA's trials suggest a 79% efficacy rate (while the UK's own trial numbers were in the 60s). So if anything, the AZ vaccine has been proven to be safer and better in the tests on our-side of the Atlantic. The issue is that extra 3-months of difference. Whether December 2020 approval was premature or not.

DrBazza 6y ago
> The issue is that extra 3-months of difference. Whether December 2020 approval was premature or not. And yet the USA approved the Pfizer vaccine on Dec 11, only a week after the UK. I'm not sure why there's a 3 month difference in approving the AZ vaccine, but I do know that the USA has some particularly draconian import rules on foreign medicines, especially untested ones, so perhaps extra bureaucracy, and almost certainly a different testing regime for medicines to the UK and EU. I'm satisfied that the UK MHRA and JVI have satisfactorily assessed the data from AZ, Pfizer, Moderna, (and Novavax). They're world experts in their fields.
- brianwawok 6y ago
  We had Pfizer and Moderna approved. We had JJ in the final steps. I think there wasn't a huge urgency behind the fourth vaccine when all signs pointed to three good vaccines.
mprovost 6y ago
Since both approval processes reached the same conclusion it clearly wasn't premature.
- dragontamer 6y ago
  A coin-flip would have reached the same conclusion 50% of the time. That's why process is important: you can get lucky and come to the correct results with an improper process (ex: coin flips).
  - mprovost 6y ago
    I don't think you can argue that the UK's process was random. There is a process, it went faster, and achieved the same result. Maybe in some other universe it would have missed something and the longer process would have had a different result but that's not the world we live in, in which some not-insignificant number of people didn't die of covid in those 3 months.
    - dragontamer 6y ago
      I'm not saying the UK's process is random. I'm saying your logic and argument is fundamentally unsound. Your __logic__ applies just as easily to coin-flips / random-chance to make decisions, and therefore your argument is unable to differentiate between a good system and a bad one.
dbetteridge 6y ago
For 1. That would be because the FDA insisted on a US run phase 3 trial (which is fine) but that only began around the time the UK approved Oxford/AZ as AZ had first tried to use their UK/SA study for US approvals