5 ms·

It seems a lot of people don't really want to discuss this, but I think the facts are relatively clear: The mRNA vaccines have an effectiveness above 90% and no

by hannob 6y ago

It seems a lot of people don't really want to discuss this, but I think the facts are relatively clear: The mRNA vaccines have an effectiveness above 90% and none of the others comes close to that. Biontech and Moderna are so close to each other that there's probably no argument for either of those. I'd take any approved vaccine without hesitation if it'd be offered to me right now. But if I am free to choose: It'd be Biontech or Moderna.

paconbork 6y ago
I opted for pfizer just because they let you get the second shot a week earlier
da_big_ghey 6y ago
I have been seeing legitimate concern with the response of "i want the better one" or "i want the quicker one" because these are being each obstacle to quick spread of vaccine. But attempting for to say only "just as good" or "no difference" is only creating more mistrust between public with agencies that already having great mistrust from public.
babelfish 6y ago
I received Pfizer, but I would also probably choose Moderna if I had the choice. IIRC a Pfizer shot has 30ml of mRNA and Moderna has 100ml of mRNA. I know that the amount of mRNA injected shouldn't make a difference so long as your body learns the proper immune response, but my monkey brain thinks "more = better".
- mgerullis 6y ago
  Wouldn’t less of the same thing with an almost identical outcome be better? I mean, it’s a liquid being shot into your arm, not chocolate.
- 0xcafecafe 6y ago
  I chose to get Pfizer for the exact same reason. If it was able to get the same effectiveness as Moderna with lesser mRNA it seemed to be an efficient choice (as a programmer :))
- rootusrootus 6y ago
  I'd choose Pfizer because AFAIK this is the first vaccine Moderna has ever made. At least Pfizer has some history, even if both are using a new technology. Also, anecdotally, the Moderna shot seems to cause more side effects. But I wasn't given a choice, and I'd happily get J&J if it was "this or nothin." So I ended up with Pfizer anyway.
- mardifoufs 6y ago
  Wait, I thought producing just a few grams of mRNA is very hard and requires huge amounts of resources. Surely there isn't that much mRNA in every vaccine? Does that include the nano lipids?
  - maxerickson 6y ago
    It's micrograms of mRNA per dose, not ml.
cyberlurker 6y ago
Effectiveness doesn’t really mean much between these vaccines. Please watch this video: https://youtu.be/K3odScka55A https://youtu.be/K3odScka55A From what we know so far, any of the approved vaccines are excellent and no one knows for sure if one is better than the other. The only logical thing to do is get what is offered to you as soon as possible.
- umeshunni 6y ago
  That video is bullshit (and Vox is a publication that in Feb 2020 was pushing the "just a flu" narrative). The effectiveness is measured as 1-(Nnotinfected / (Ninfected + Nnotinfected)). The video claims that when the study was done during the surge or in "other countries", the effectiveness might be different because Ninfected is higher, which makes no sense at all, since the probability of the vaccine protecting you shouldn't change based on how the virus is spreading in the general population. For a set of 100 placebo and 100 vaccinated, even if all 100 are infected, the vaccinated segment should be as protected as possible. 95% efficacy means only 5 in the vaccinated are infected. 66% efficacy means 50 in the vaccinated are infected.
  - tzs 6y ago
    That's not what they are claiming. They are claiming that the chance that a vaccinated person will get the disease is higher if that person is subject to more exposure events. What they say about trials during surges then follows from that. For the part about other countries, what they are saying is that there were more infectious strains circulating in those countries during the trial, so you can't compare to trials done before those strains were circulating.
    - ardit33 6y ago
      bro, you are missing out the news and the point of this whole post, pfizer is 90% effective against all current strans overral, even the nasty ones Unless you are claiming that right now there are less strains around, compared to october-novemeber (when the J&J data was compiled) This news just solidifies the argument that the mRna vaccines are much better. Suggesting otherwise is just either ignorance, or willful lie (let other take it, so i have more for me)
timr 6y ago
> It seems a lot of people don't really want to discuss this, but I think the facts are relatively clear: The mRNA vaccines have an effectiveness above 90% and none of the others comes close to that. Biontech and Moderna are so close to each other that there's probably no argument for either of those. There are error bars on those point estimates, and they're wide, because the trials didn't have a huge number of hospitalizations or deaths. You also can't compare them across trials, because they were tested on different populations, at different times, under different conditions (i.e. dominant variants, but also temperature, disease prevlance, etc.) Based on everything I've seen so far, the approved vaccines are all essentially statistically indistinguishable, with the caveat that the J&J vaccine is one dose, the mRNA vaccines are two, and the AZ trial was kind of a mess. But the choice of dosing strategy was always somewhat arbitrary, based on the inherent sloppiness of a combined phase 1/2 trial. Had Pfizer and Moderna decided to go with a one-shot regimen, the trial would have reported a very similar effectiveness profile to J&J. I strongly suspect we'll see better data on all three that will put them within a margin of error of each other, and suggest better dosing strategies.
- Izkata 6y ago
  > and the AZ trial was kind of a mess Also AstraZeneca keeps getting suspended due to blood clots. I think we're up to 7 or 8 countries now? Canada was the most recent I remember, but I think most have resumed now. https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2021/03/rare-clotting-disorder-may-cloud-worlds-hopes-astrazenecas-covid-19-vaccine https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2021/03/rare-clotting-disord... The running theory appears to be that in rare cases, that vaccine results in antibodies that attack platelets, causing a weird reaction that results in clotting.
  - timr 6y ago
    Maybe. It could also just be fear porn and bad luck. I'm definitely not an expert in this area, but people who are tell me that the rate of this (very rare) clotting abnormality is higher in the general public than it is amongst the vaccinated. At least so far. Certainly, the fact that governments choose to do something is not scientific evidence of much of anything. Governments have chosen to do a lot of objectively silly things during this pandemic.

by hannob 6y ago

paconbork 6y ago

I opted for pfizer just because they let you get the second shot a week earlier

da_big_ghey 6y ago

I have been seeing legitimate concern with the response of "i want the better one" or "i want the quicker one" because these are being each obstacle to quick spread of vaccine. But attempting for to say only "just as good" or "no difference" is only creating more mistrust between public with agencies that already having great mistrust from public.

babelfish 6y ago

I received Pfizer, but I would also probably choose Moderna if I had the choice. IIRC a Pfizer shot has 30ml of mRNA and Moderna has 100ml of mRNA. I know that the amount of mRNA injected shouldn't make a difference so long as your body learns the proper immune response, but my monkey brain thinks "more = better".

mgerullis 6y ago
Wouldn’t less of the same thing with an almost identical outcome be better? I mean, it’s a liquid being shot into your arm, not chocolate.
0xcafecafe 6y ago
I chose to get Pfizer for the exact same reason. If it was able to get the same effectiveness as Moderna with lesser mRNA it seemed to be an efficient choice (as a programmer :))
rootusrootus 6y ago
I'd choose Pfizer because AFAIK this is the first vaccine Moderna has ever made. At least Pfizer has some history, even if both are using a new technology. Also, anecdotally, the Moderna shot seems to cause more side effects. But I wasn't given a choice, and I'd happily get J&J if it was "this or nothin." So I ended up with Pfizer anyway.
mardifoufs 6y ago
Wait, I thought producing just a few grams of mRNA is very hard and requires huge amounts of resources. Surely there isn't that much mRNA in every vaccine? Does that include the nano lipids?
- maxerickson 6y ago
  It's micrograms of mRNA per dose, not ml.

cyberlurker 6y ago

Effectiveness doesn’t really mean much between these vaccines. Please watch this video: https://youtu.be/K3odScka55A https://youtu.be/K3odScka55A From what we know so far, any of the approved vaccines are excellent and no one knows for sure if one is better than the other. The only logical thing to do is get what is offered to you as soon as possible.

umeshunni 6y ago
That video is bullshit (and Vox is a publication that in Feb 2020 was pushing the "just a flu" narrative). The effectiveness is measured as 1-(Nnotinfected / (Ninfected + Nnotinfected)). The video claims that when the study was done during the surge or in "other countries", the effectiveness might be different because Ninfected is higher, which makes no sense at all, since the probability of the vaccine protecting you shouldn't change based on how the virus is spreading in the general population. For a set of 100 placebo and 100 vaccinated, even if all 100 are infected, the vaccinated segment should be as protected as possible. 95% efficacy means only 5 in the vaccinated are infected. 66% efficacy means 50 in the vaccinated are infected.
- tzs 6y ago
  That's not what they are claiming. They are claiming that the chance that a vaccinated person will get the disease is higher if that person is subject to more exposure events. What they say about trials during surges then follows from that. For the part about other countries, what they are saying is that there were more infectious strains circulating in those countries during the trial, so you can't compare to trials done before those strains were circulating.
  - ardit33 6y ago
    bro, you are missing out the news and the point of this whole post, pfizer is 90% effective against all current strans overral, even the nasty ones Unless you are claiming that right now there are less strains around, compared to october-novemeber (when the J&J data was compiled) This news just solidifies the argument that the mRna vaccines are much better. Suggesting otherwise is just either ignorance, or willful lie (let other take it, so i have more for me)

timr 6y ago

> It seems a lot of people don't really want to discuss this, but I think the facts are relatively clear: The mRNA vaccines have an effectiveness above 90% and none of the others comes close to that. Biontech and Moderna are so close to each other that there's probably no argument for either of those. There are error bars on those point estimates, and they're wide, because the trials didn't have a huge number of hospitalizations or deaths. You also can't compare them across trials, because they were tested on different populations, at different times, under different conditions (i.e. dominant variants, but also temperature, disease prevlance, etc.) Based on everything I've seen so far, the approved vaccines are all essentially statistically indistinguishable, with the caveat that the J&J vaccine is one dose, the mRNA vaccines are two, and the AZ trial was kind of a mess. But the choice of dosing strategy was always somewhat arbitrary, based on the inherent sloppiness of a combined phase 1/2 trial. Had Pfizer and Moderna decided to go with a one-shot regimen, the trial would have reported a very similar effectiveness profile to J&J. I strongly suspect we'll see better data on all three that will put them within a margin of error of each other, and suggest better dosing strategies.

Izkata 6y ago
> and the AZ trial was kind of a mess Also AstraZeneca keeps getting suspended due to blood clots. I think we're up to 7 or 8 countries now? Canada was the most recent I remember, but I think most have resumed now. https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2021/03/rare-clotting-disorder-may-cloud-worlds-hopes-astrazenecas-covid-19-vaccine https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2021/03/rare-clotting-disord... The running theory appears to be that in rare cases, that vaccine results in antibodies that attack platelets, causing a weird reaction that results in clotting.
- timr 6y ago
  Maybe. It could also just be fear porn and bad luck. I'm definitely not an expert in this area, but people who are tell me that the rate of this (very rare) clotting abnormality is higher in the general public than it is amongst the vaccinated. At least so far. Certainly, the fact that governments choose to do something is not scientific evidence of much of anything. Governments have chosen to do a lot of objectively silly things during this pandemic.