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The billion dollar question is how effective are the Chinese vaccines. The Zero tolerance policy may be a reflection of effectiveness or lack there of, of the C

The billion dollar question is how effective are the Chinese vaccines. The Zero tolerance policy may be a reflection of effectiveness or lack there of, of the Chinese vaccine.

chrischen 5y ago
Even the Pfizer vaccine isn’t super effective against Omicron, dropping to 15% by the 25 week mark. The boosters work but then efficacy seems to drop faster after them. https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2119451 https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2119451
- nicoburns 5y ago
  For Pfizer/Moderna/AstraZeneca, protection against severe disease seems to hold up better however, which may end up being the most important number.
  - chrischen 5y ago
    It's likely whatever vaccine they have has similar effects, but they're going for a zero-Covid strategy so death rate doesn't even matter.
    - nicoburns 5y ago
      My understanding is that that the clinical trials for Sinovac showed ~50% efficacy against the original covid variant vs 70-something percent for AstraZeneca, and 80-something for Pfizer and Moderna, and that efficacy for all of them has decreased as new variants have emerged. While 50% isn't useless it does seem significantly worse than the other vaccines. And frankly if I were Chinese I'd be questioning why China didn't license one of the other vaccines rather than continuing with their less effective homegrown version. My understanding is also that regardless of vaccine used, the Chinese government is still trying to blame outbreaks on foreigners, and as such has prioritised vaccinating people like dock workers and airline staff over their elderly which seems rather questionable at this point. Australia and New Zealand also attempted a zero-covid strategy, which worked well enough until Omicron. But they have both now abandoned this strategy, and I feel like China is going to have to do the same at some point.
      - chrischen 5y ago
        90% of the Chinese government's job is just saving face. They have the emotional maturity of a child, which makes sense because the whole system they have is relatively new. So pretending and acting as if the virus is some sort of foreign threat that can be curbed by 0-covid strategies (which failed even for hermetically sealed countries) is all part of that face saving campaign. They want to look like the country that had Covid under control—at all costs.
- marcosdumay 5y ago
  The article's contents mean that China would have to quickly vaccinate the population of Shanghai, and could remove the lockdown shortly after. This is much a easier feat than keeping the entire city fed (besides, is the Chinese strict lockdown effective enough for omicron?). A sizeable part of the Brazilian population got vaccinated with only Coronavac when omicron got here, but there wasn't enough difference on the death ratio to decide if it was less effective. So I imagine it isn't much worse than the Pfizer one on preventing death.
- jszymborski 5y ago
  The efficacy drop is for symptomatic disease, but those symptoms can be merely a runny nose. It's protection from severe disease, hospitalization, and death that are far more pertinent.
  - chrischen 5y ago
    Source?
    - jszymborski 5y ago
      I mean, I think it's uncontroversial to say that severe illness and death are less desirable than mild illness. That's the only claim I made. You can get more information on the spectrum of COVID symptoms here https://www.covid19treatmentguidelines.nih.gov/overview/clinical-spectrum/ https://www.covid19treatmentguidelines.nih.gov/overview/clin...

The billion dollar question is how effective are the Chinese vaccines. The Zero tolerance policy may be a reflection of effectiveness or lack there of, of the Chinese vaccine.

chrischen 5y ago

Even the Pfizer vaccine isn’t super effective against Omicron, dropping to 15% by the 25 week mark. The boosters work but then efficacy seems to drop faster after them. https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2119451 https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2119451

nicoburns 5y ago
For Pfizer/Moderna/AstraZeneca, protection against severe disease seems to hold up better however, which may end up being the most important number.
- chrischen 5y ago
  It's likely whatever vaccine they have has similar effects, but they're going for a zero-Covid strategy so death rate doesn't even matter.
  - nicoburns 5y ago
    My understanding is that that the clinical trials for Sinovac showed ~50% efficacy against the original covid variant vs 70-something percent for AstraZeneca, and 80-something for Pfizer and Moderna, and that efficacy for all of them has decreased as new variants have emerged. While 50% isn't useless it does seem significantly worse than the other vaccines. And frankly if I were Chinese I'd be questioning why China didn't license one of the other vaccines rather than continuing with their less effective homegrown version. My understanding is also that regardless of vaccine used, the Chinese government is still trying to blame outbreaks on foreigners, and as such has prioritised vaccinating people like dock workers and airline staff over their elderly which seems rather questionable at this point. Australia and New Zealand also attempted a zero-covid strategy, which worked well enough until Omicron. But they have both now abandoned this strategy, and I feel like China is going to have to do the same at some point.
    - chrischen 5y ago
      90% of the Chinese government's job is just saving face. They have the emotional maturity of a child, which makes sense because the whole system they have is relatively new. So pretending and acting as if the virus is some sort of foreign threat that can be curbed by 0-covid strategies (which failed even for hermetically sealed countries) is all part of that face saving campaign. They want to look like the country that had Covid under control—at all costs.
marcosdumay 5y ago
The article's contents mean that China would have to quickly vaccinate the population of Shanghai, and could remove the lockdown shortly after. This is much a easier feat than keeping the entire city fed (besides, is the Chinese strict lockdown effective enough for omicron?). A sizeable part of the Brazilian population got vaccinated with only Coronavac when omicron got here, but there wasn't enough difference on the death ratio to decide if it was less effective. So I imagine it isn't much worse than the Pfizer one on preventing death.
jszymborski 5y ago
The efficacy drop is for symptomatic disease, but those symptoms can be merely a runny nose. It's protection from severe disease, hospitalization, and death that are far more pertinent.
- chrischen 5y ago
  Source?
  - jszymborski 5y ago
    I mean, I think it's uncontroversial to say that severe illness and death are less desirable than mild illness. That's the only claim I made. You can get more information on the spectrum of COVID symptoms here https://www.covid19treatmentguidelines.nih.gov/overview/clinical-spectrum/ https://www.covid19treatmentguidelines.nih.gov/overview/clin...