Astrazeneca less effective against mild illness in SA variant

[bathsh3ba]

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-55967767

NB this was a sample of 2000, not yet peer reviewed.

I'm beginning to wish they wouldn't report incomplete findings so publicly. All the commentary suggests it's too early to say if this is a big problem or not - so why tell us?!

Their report is coming out tomorrow.

Pfizer appears to be fine

I just get so fed up with all these press reports. It feels like every day I wake up to a new issue to worry about. It’s endless and for me makes it so difficult to stay positive.

Or you could flip that on its head and say that this shows the vaccine IS affective in preventing hospitalization and death from the SA strain.

Did anybody else see the interview on Andrew Marr where Sarah Gilbert said that the immunity from the first AZ vaccine was not "expected to fall off a cliff after 12 weeks"?

@Iremembertheelderlykoreanlady

Or you could flip that on its head and say that this shows the vaccine IS affective in preventing hospitalization and death from the SA strain.

Agreed @Iremembertheelderlykoreanlady. The press always put a negative spin on these reports.

I agree, it says it doesnt (or not effective at) covering against the mild symptoms....so you might get a cold or flu like symptoms which the majority of people will recover from but it will prevent hospitalizations and death. Sounds good to me!

@Iremembertheelderlykoreanlady unfortunately I don't think that's the case here, they say they don't have data on that yet

Does it really matter if its not effective against mild disease? I mean the wording is mild so what does it matter. The focus has never been on getting rid of it - its not possible like flu. As long as people dont die thats good enough for me

@Iremembertheelderlykoreanlady

Or you could flip that on its head and say that this shows the vaccine IS affective in preventing hospitalization and death from the SA strain.

Agree and it’s what we need

Stop worrying

@Pastanred

Does it really matter if its not effective against mild disease? I mean the wording is mild so what does it matter. The focus has never been on getting rid of it - its not possible like flu. As long as people dont die thats good enough for me

Well, we want it to be effective enough to prevent severe disease & hospitalisations, not just deaths.

The Pzifer vaccine has the same issue too, I'm sure they will adjust the vaccine each year.

From memory I think Moderna was OK.

Professor Ravi Gupta from CITIID, who led the study, said: “Our findings suggest that the Pfizer BioNTech vaccine is likely to offer similar protection against B1.1.7 as it does against the previous strain of SARS-CoV-2. Although we found a reduction in the ability of antibodies to neutralise the virus, given the number of antibodies produced following vaccination, this should still only have a relatively modest effect and people should still be protected.

“Of particular concern, though, is the emergence of the E484K mutation, which so far has only been seen in a relatively small number of individuals. Our work suggests the vaccine is likely to be less effective when dealing with this mutation.

@Ilikewinter

I agree, it says it doesnt (or not effective at) covering against the mild symptoms....so you might get a cold or flu like symptoms which the majority of people will recover from but it will prevent hospitalizations and death. Sounds good to me!

Agree with you there

I feel encouraged by this. We know we can't eradicate the virus, so moderating so it does not become so severe and life threatening is fine.

@Iremembertheelderlykoreanlady

Or you could flip that on its head and say that this shows the vaccine IS affective in preventing hospitalization and death from the SA strain.

Yeah exactly. I saw the headline,read the full article which stated that none of the participants were hospitalised or died. Why the fuck didn't they lead with that headline? And don't get me started on the,it seems it's not as effective,but we don't know by how much. Well stop publishing storied that don't have the full truth behind them! Ridiculous scaremongering by the MS yet again. Seriously,if anyone can point me in the direction of a good outlet which gives a balanced view,please let me know.

Out of the 2000 no one got severe illness or ended up in hospital that is good enough

The reason they don’t say it definitely prevents against severe illness is that all the participants in the study were healthy young adults so they might not have been hospitalised or had severe disease anyway.

This is taken from another news article...

*The newspaper said none of the more than 2,000 trial participants had been hospitalised or died.

"However, we have not been able to properly ascertain its effect against severe disease and hospitalisation given that subjects were predominantly young healthy adults,"*

This to me sounds positive, with a bit of an unknown caveat.

It's all in the phrasing. Newspapers want to "sell newspapers"

Always worth reading from another viewpoint and by and large, completely ignore the headline

Out of the 2000 no one got severe illness or ended up in hospital that is good enough
But only half of those (1,000) got the vaccine whilst the other half (1,000) got the placebo.

But only half of those (1,000) got the vaccine whilst the other half (1,000) got the placebo.

Just read the article again and can't see where it says that?

I think this is why the govt is shitting it about the SA variant (the relevant mutation has now also been found in the Kent variant).

It does seem worrying to me - the median age of the sample was 31 so I guess you'd expect more severe disease in older groups? I believe the paper is being published tomorrow.

I read a similar article and I think it sounds like good news. AZ is preventing serious disease and hospital admissions and scientists are currently working at adapting the vaccine to be more effective against the new variants.

So great news!!

It was only tested in young people though, the median age was 31 - or have I got that wrong?

Just read the article again and can't see where it says that?
I don't think it does say it in the article but (please someone correct me if I am wrong) that is how vaccines are tested.

I will see if I can find a link though.

@StarCat2020

Just read the article again and can't see where it says that? I don't think it does say it in the article but (please someone correct me if I am wrong) that is how vaccines are tested.

I will see if I can find a link though.

That’s an RCT to test something works statistically better than doing nothing (placebo). No need to do that here, plus it would be unethical, so I assume they just used the vaccine