The Oxford control group was 99% effective in “preventing” deaths.

[MyDcAreMarvel]

The Oxford vaccine is 100% effective in preventing severe illness or death. I initially felt this was really positive as it’s only 70% effective in stopping people contracting Covid-19. However in the control group there were only two people who had a severe Covid related illness, and out of the two one person died.
So it wasn’t the vaccine that prevented the deaths in those who still contracted Covid it was the demographic of the group. Healthy people or those with a stable medical condition, with the vast majority under the age of 55.

You should inform the many scientists, medical professionals and other professionals who have been working on this that you have cracked it. Or it could be that it's the norm in clinical trials, they are aware of the limitations, and account for it. Also hello Germany.

Sorry I think you are confused this it’s my my theory this is published data.

Is not my theory.

My point is is not that the vaccine doesn’t work in older people. It’s that there is no significant difference in deaths or severe illness between the control group and the vaccine group. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t prevent 70% of Covid-19 cases among people who are vaccinated.
What in means is the 30% percent who are unlucky enough to still contract Covid-19 are not more protected because they have had the vaccine.
One would assume when the government scientist stated the vaccine was 100% effective in preventing severe disease and deaths, that the control group would be significantly different- it is not.

Although the data is not great it is slightly better than you are presenting. 10 people in the control group were admitted to hospital and none in the vaccinated group. I think the definition of severe is very high.

Yes ten were admitted to hospital In the control group but 5171 were not. I assumed naively when the government scientists promoted the Oxford vaccine as having a 100% success rate there would be a significant difference.

I think it's still very positive but I had similar thoughts about the Pfizer one. Even though it was tested on large numbers, there were very few who were seriously ill in either group. I think there were nine who became seriously ill in the unvaccinated group (out of 8 cases) and one in the vaccinated group (out of 162 cases). One out of eight cases becoming severely ill actually seems quite high - but of course, it's tiny numbers.

I think that must be where the 90% figure comes from, that I've been hearing in the media. Ten people gives a better idea than your figure of two in total in the Oxford trial, but it's still a pretty small number.

I think from the numbers, it's not really clear if the vaccines have an effect on the severity of the illness if you do develop it, even though I keep hearing this being claimed. You are less likely to become seriously ill because you're less likely to get ill at all (but if you do get ill, then maybe the chance of it become serious is similar?).

You are less likely to become seriously ill because you're less likely to get ill at all (but if you do get ill, then maybe the chance of it become serious is similar?).
Yes that is my concern .

@Backbee

You should inform the many scientists, medical professionals and other professionals who have been working on this that you have cracked it. Or it could be that it's the norm in clinical trials, they are aware of the limitations, and account for it. Also hello Germany.

Your comment is daft. I wish more people would do what the OP has done, and use their own critical thinking capacities to review / consider / evaluate the evidence/ conclusions the scientists have presented. We are all capable of doing that, and it is a civic duty imv.

It was a purely ethical choice by Oxford uni not to have elderly people in that initial trial. Theyb took the view that it was a brand new drug and it was not ethical to try it on elderly and frail people. This problem arose due to the need to compress all the time scales.

It was a purely ethical choice by Oxford uni not to have elderly people in that initial trial

Exactly. There will be critics on all sides, but I think it was right not to include medically vulnerable people in the earliest trials.

I was in the control group of phase 2 - apologies for not dying or at least being hospitalised to further cement any claims

Your comment is daft. I wish more people would do what the OP has done, and use their own critical thinking capacities to review / consider / evaluate the evidence/ conclusions the scientists have presented. We are all capable of doing that, and it is a civic duty imv

No. I really wish they wouldn’t. Not with something as complex as this. Leave interpreting data to the people who know how to do it. And Google the ‘Dunning-Kruger’ effect while you’re at it.

there would be a significant difference

But there couldn't be a significant difference, the risk from covid is so very low that there can't be a significant difference in such studies.

At younger ages covid has very little risk, in older and vulnerable groups it doubles the risk of death, which sounds a lot, and indeed is, but because even in older and vulnerable groups most people don't die a doubled risk of death is still not that high - if you have a 10 year life expectancy (roughly an average 80 year old woman) then doubling your risk will reduce that to 5 years, significant of course, but it's nowhere near enough for you to see massive differences in vaccine trials

The problem is that you need huge numbers in a trial unless the prevalence of covid in the population is exceptionally high. I am not sure how high it was when the trial ran but say for example 1 in 100 people were infected then out of the 5000 people in the control group only 50 would be expected to catch it. Then if the death rate is 2% you would only expect 1 person in the control group to die. So you are effectively comparing 1 death in the control group with zero deaths in the vaccinated group if your trial is based on 5000 people in each group.

Your comment is daft. I wish more people would do what the OP has done, and use their own critical thinking capacities to review / consider / evaluate the evidence/ conclusions the scientists have presented. We are all capable of doing that, and it is a civic duty imv.

I agree that everyone should make their own critical analysis but I am not sure that many people have the skills to do that. We saw that with the whole debacle over the 8% efficacy of the vaccine in over 65s. Clearly neither the journalist or politician that made the leak had no idea what the insane 95% confidence interval (something like -1040 to 94) meant (that nothing meaningful could be concluded from the data).

@MyDcAreMarvel can you link to the statement that the vaccine is 100% effective in preventing severe illness or death? I haven't seen it stated like that, only that none of the participants developed severe illness nor died.

only that none of the participants developed severe illness nor died

I mean in the vaccinated group.

Please stop!

We, Josephine Public, don't get to have a meaningful opinion unless we have an equally meaningful understanding of how clinical trials work; how the various efficacy rates are worked out and how 'enough' data is decided.

Without detailed knowledge of all the extant data clinical decisions rely on any opinion is uninformed, missing essential data.

I don't have that extant data at my fingertips but I do have education and experience in research studies. I know how ethics works, I have a good idea of the reams of extant data that the research team will have been working from, that the MHRA also relied on.

That's why statements such as "It doesn't stop you transmitting it" annoy me so much. It's a bastardisation of what is actually known. But it gets trotted out like some Great Trump Card, a total mic drop. And it just is not!

And this? Just more misunderstanding based on little knowledge, misinformation, conjecture with no underpinning understanding.

100% protective against severe covid has been mentioned in the popular press but there don't seem to be any scientific sources. I think it is just journalists taking liberties with the scientific infomation.
metro.co.uk/2020/12/30/oxford-coronavirus-vaccine-approved-in-uk-as-millions-to-get-jab-in-weeks-13822948/

[quote soundofsilence1]100% protective against severe covid has been mentioned in the popular press but there don't seem to be any scientific sources. I think it is just journalists taking liberties with the scientific infomation.
metro.co.uk/2020/12/30/oxford-coronavirus-vaccine-approved-in-uk-as-millions-to-get-jab-in-weeks-13822948/[/quote]
Ys, that article was obviously written by somebody who doesn't really understand the data @soundofsilence1 eg another somewhat inaccurate statement from the article.

The vaccine has been shown to be 90% effective when a half dose is given, followed by a full second dose. This drops 62% in people receiving two standard doses, meaning the overall efficacy is 70.4%.

I also agree with @CuriousaboutSamphire on this:

That's why statements such as "It doesn't stop you transmitting it" annoy me so much. It's a bastardisation of what is actually known. But it gets trotted out like some Great Trump Card, a total mic drop. And it just is not!

However, it's probably not a bad thing. I'd rather people act like the vaccine doesn't stop transmission until we know how effective at preventing/reducing transmission it is.

@Wherediditgo

Your comment is daft. I wish more people would do what the OP has done, and use their own critical thinking capacities to review / consider / evaluate the evidence/ conclusions the scientists have presented. We are all capable of doing that, and it is a civic duty imv

No. I really wish they wouldn’t. Not with something as complex as this. Leave interpreting data to the people who know how to do it. And Google the ‘Dunning-Kruger’ effect while you’re at it.

It’s really not that complex.

Oh and by the way I work in research and I know what the Dunning-Kruger effect is so I don’t need to google it.

“So it wasn’t the vaccine that prevented the deaths in those who still contracted Covid it was the demographic of the group.”

There’s nothing in your first paragraph that validates this very matter of fact conclusion of yours.

While a higher number of deaths in the control group would have made it more conclusive, that wasn’t to be (thankfully), so it is what it is - zero deaths in the vaccinated group, compared to nearly zero in the control group. Plus far fewer severe illnesses. I’ll take that all day long.

I think I'm just going to follow the scientists and not someone on Mumsnet. I'm having my vaccine on Tuesday and I'm very grateful to be having one at all.

Sadly orange it is often used as a reason to undermine the vaccine as a whole, justify breaking lockdown regs and other such selfish, uninformed behaviour.

We don't know the true extent, so act as though it doesn't prevent transmission.

Not the same as it doesn't prevent transmission so fuck it!

@CuriousaboutSamphire

Please stop!

We, Josephine Public, don't get to have a meaningful opinion unless we have an equally meaningful understanding of how clinical trials work; how the various efficacy rates are worked out and how 'enough' data is decided.

Without detailed knowledge of all the extant data clinical decisions rely on any opinion is uninformed, missing essential data.

I don't have that extant data at my fingertips but I do have education and experience in research studies. I know how ethics works, I have a good idea of the reams of extant data that the research team will have been working from, that the MHRA also relied on.

That's why statements such as "It doesn't stop you transmitting it" annoy me so much. It's a bastardisation of what is actually known. But it gets trotted out like some Great Trump Card, a total mic drop. And it just is not!

And this? Just more misunderstanding based on little knowledge, misinformation, conjecture with no underpinning understanding.

We, Josephine Public, don't get to have a meaningful opinion.

I thought a central principle of democracy was that we do. We must listen to the scientific / expert advice , but we must also , having listened to that evidence, (whilst mindful of the limitations in our knowledge), exercise our own critical thinking skills- including through asking questions , as the OP has done. How else can we hold scientists to account? If you yourself work in research you must know that there are diverse opinions within science, that the interpretation of scientific evidence can be subjective / open to challenge, and plenty of times stuff is published even when misleading or inaccurate.

This narrative of “following the science” without question is very very dangerous. It is based on a number of erroneous assumptions. The first of which being that “science” speaks with one voice.