Oxford vaccine may not be effective against South African variant

[Ninbus]

This is awful news. I really hope the government take this news seriously and does everything to keep this variant from spreading here. Sadly I don’t have much confidence they will have learnt this lesson

@independent98

My stance on the south African strain is that the vaccine trials which were being conducted in south Africa in July has caused a mutant strain which is resistant to the current vaccines.

Can you allude to the research which infromed your stance?

@DoubleTweenQueen

The story is that it’s as yet unknown whether the Oxford vaccine will be sufficiently protective against the SA variant. It’s unknown - but the Oxford vaccine can be rejigged accordingly fairly quickly. That’s the story. It will be covered everywhere.

It's obviously good that the vaccine can be rejigged, but doesn't that mean that every one who has already been vaccinated will need to be re-vaccinated, and that once a new version has been developed unused but already manufactured doses will need to be discarded?

Matt Hancock has just spoken about this and has said he is 'incredibly worried' about the South African strain.

The full clip is here:
mobile.twitter.com/TimesRadio/status/1345695150165663745

What terrible scaremongering. Trawling and looking for any piece of news from yet another SAGE member (just how many are there!).

I really think some of you revel in this sort of thread...

Eh...all I have heard so far is that the mutations and stuff shouldn't affect the vaccines. Especially as they have been developed based on original SARS, which is a bit (20% is what I remember, might be wrong) different to cov19 anyway..

Might be totally wrong on that, But it was comforting at least.

@independent98

My stance on the south African strain is that the vaccine trials which were being conducted in south Africa in July has caused a mutant strain which is resistant to the current vaccines.

In theory this makes sense. I was actually slightly worried that this whole dallying about with the second doses might do something similar. Hopefully its bollocks though. Read a thread on here with loads of knowledgable qualified women talking about the vaccine thing though and it seems my fears are probably quite unfounded.

Ridiculous how the OP has posted a genuine news article for discussion and is being lambasted for it.

Yes, I don't like the Daily Mail either. But it is a newspaper whether you like it or not, sorry. It is also being reported by the Guardian and Times, among others. I think it is a valid topic for discussion whether it is incorrect, scaremongering, incompatible with your beliefs etc.

The South African strain is also more contagious than the Kent one so could easily take hold.

That's not necessarily accurate:
mobile.twitter.com/Tuliodna/status/1346051194184196096

mobile.twitter.com/iansample/status/1341817107349123073

From what I’ve read it seems there’s a question mark currently over the SA strain.

It’s a developing situation and fortunately there are some extremely talented individuals trying to collect data and interpret what needs to be done to navigate our way out of this. That doesn’t make a click bait story though.

No one should be sharing daily mail links, awful ‘news’paper. Totally scaremongering. A vaccine being less effective when it’s got so much space to do so (efficacy is so high) is not a problem .

@Obviouspretzel

Ridiculous how the OP has posted a genuine news article for discussion and is being lambasted for it.

Yes, I don't like the Daily Mail either. But it is a newspaper whether you like it or not, sorry. It is also being reported by the Guardian and Times, among others. I think it is a valid topic for discussion whether it is incorrect, scaremongering, incompatible with your beliefs etc.

Yes. This is a thing on here at the moment. I put it down to strained mental health. I think there are a lot of people that cannot stand the thought of anymore bad news (which is totally understandable). Unfortunately they can lash out in quite vicious ways.

Experts have flagged the potential for antigenic drift undermining the vaccines for some time now. Hopefully they’re working hard on being able to tweak the vaccines as efficiently as possible. We must be prepared, no heads in the sand.

@Bathroom12345

What terrible scaremongering. Trawling and looking for any piece of news from yet another SAGE member (just how many are there!).

I really think some of you revel in this sort of thread...

I definitely don't and am genuinely optimistic about the vaccines in general. There are posters on here who definitely do revel in doom mongering about vaccines. However this comes from Sir John Bell, Regius Professor of Medicine at Oxford University, and is now being widely reported. You can listen to his interview here. It's not been proven yet, so possibly he shouldn't be speaking so soon, but he has chosen to put it out there. The situation doesn't sound insurmountable if his fears do prove founded, and he also says he doesn't think the vaccines would be rendered totally ineffective, but it would obviously be an issue and is not what we want to hear. Let's just hope they do still work.

@tootyfruitypickle

No one should be sharing daily mail links, awful ‘news’paper. Totally scaremongering. A vaccine being less effective when it’s got so much space to do so (efficacy is so high) is not a problem .

The source is irrelevant when it’s being reported everywhere and the Health Minister expresses concern.

@BlueBlancmange You are getting carried away somewhat. We can only deal with the situation as it is in front of us now. Speculation is not useful

I would imagine if it's plastered all over the media, Mr Hancock would be obliged to be 'concerned'

@DoubleTweenQueen

I would imagine if it's plastered all over the media, Mr Hancock would be obliged to be 'concerned'

It is plastered all over the media that Boris is a complete tit, but that doesn't seem to concern him?

There is a question over whether they may be less effective but we don’t know that for sure or how much less effective. So this thread is complete speculation. It doesn’t warrant an entire discussion thread.

Hancock has expressed concern over how transmissible the South African variant is. He’s not said anything about the vaccine that I’ve seen.

We could speculate about a future pandemic worse than this. We could speculate about all sorts of things.

Best to focus on facts.

@BlueBlancmange thanks for that link. As I said up thread, listening to scientists/academics discuss this is so much better for anxiety than just reading threads on mumsnet. The information has context and nuance and isn’t just a series of headlines and hysterical bullet points.

Experts have flagged the potential for antigenic drift undermining the vaccines for some time now. Hopefully they’re working hard on being able to tweak the vaccines as efficiently as possible. We must be prepared, no heads in the sand.

If you re-word that

Experts have explained to the public/journalists the potential for antigenic drift undermining the vaccines for some time now. That's why many labs are working hard on being able to tweak the vaccines as efficiently as possible. We are prepared, no heads in the sand. Try to read through the journalistic urge to catastrophise

A friend's DD is working in one such lab; there are a few epidemiologists posting on MN; many othes of us have a smattering of epidemiilogy and/or Public Health work. I doubt we'll stop shouting about shite journalism undermining the message many scientists are trying to convey!

Antigenic drift is a potential concern for any vaccine

I seem to be following you across threads today @DoubleTweenQueen... stop it with the facts! You'll only annoy...

OMG - not stalking, I hope? :)