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NB this was a sample of 2000, not yet peer reviewed.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

Do people not understand if vaccines don't prevent transmission, then the virus will spread and mutate. And fewer people wil be made very ill by it, or die!

If only the SA virus spreads amongst those vaccinated, then that will quickly be the dominant strain and that's the one that will mutate going forwards. And you think that virologists haven't been working on this for a couple of weeks now? All that going house to house etc etc!!

Stop catastrophising. It isn't good for your blood pressure!

I am so sad this is becoming a political issue with the media pouncing on a non peer reviewed study to bash us all with. I am a granny who has just had the AZ jab and I refuse to be cowed by commentators who are not qualified in any way trying to sell newspapers and raise their profiles. If it stops me being hospitalised or dead before my time, that's enough for me. I totally applaud all the effort and money being poured into the vaccination programme and am very grateful for it. It would be very nice if for once we thanked the powers that be for the work that has been put into it instead of seizing on stuff to be prematurely negative about. It must be so demoralising for all the care workers and support staff and volunteers to be squashed in the never ending effort to whinge about whichever government happens to be in power. At some point we have to realise that we can only do our best and that life is not, and never has been, risk free.

Do people not understand if vaccines don't prevent transmission, then the virus will spread

And so what?

Due to the vaccines if we are not dying and being hospitalised from the virus then quite frankly it doesn't matter one jot. We knew all along we may not be able to totally stop all transmission.

I do however support the border closure, because although I am not worried about these particular variants, there is bound to be one at some point that is very serious. The only way to prevent that is to go with an Australia style entry system.

@Dongdingdong

Yep! The flag wavers have gone a bit quiet.

@MrsMauryBallstein What are you on about? Sorry to burst your bubble, but the AZ vaccine is proven to be effective against the SA variant in that it prevents severe illness, hospitalisation and death. What more do you fecking want?

It isn't "proven" though, is it? There is currently insufficient data to reach any conclusion re severe illness/hospitalisation etc in the context of SA variant.

Also: it if doesn't affect transmissibility, that is a problem. Again, unknown.

I am not a "doomer" but the flag waving struck me as premature and made me cringe for sure.

How is this going to work when the entire population of 68 million need to be continuously vaccinated to evade mutations? Where is the infrastructure for this?

It isn't "proven" though, is it? There is currently insufficient data to reach any conclusion re severe illness/hospitalisation etc in the context of SA variant. It works against the dominant strains in the UK; there isn't enough data to say it does/does not work against th SA strain; it is already beng 'tweaked' to meet the new demand

Also: it if doesn't affect transmissibility, that is a problem. Again, unknown Always know and taken into consideration. It's an isue but may not be a large one, again... more data required.

I am not a "doomer" but the flag waving struck me as premature and made me cringe for sure. Whose flag waving. Across the EU as well as in the UK?

Reading these replies is such a rollercoaster 😳

What are you on about? Sorry to burst your bubble, but the AZ vaccine is proven to be effective against the SA variant in that it prevents severe illness, hospitalisation and death. What more do you fecking want?

It's not proven at all. It's thought likely to be, but that's hypothetical. It's not proven to be - that doesn't mean it isn't but it does mean there is no evidence (yet) that it is. In other words neither proven to be effective nor proven not to be effective.

@Donoteatthekittens

How is this going to work when the entire population of 68 million need to be continuously vaccinated to evade mutations? Where is the infrastructure for this?

Who knows? And that is the thing virologists, epidemiologists will be looking at really closely.

And if it does need constant vaccination it will be added to the flu jab procedure.

@doireallyneedaname

Reading these replies is such a rollercoaster 😳

Given we have no control, that is us, sat here typing, we all have to chose a reaction:

1. Stay calm, wait and see. Worrying isn't going to change the outcome

1. Read all the negative stuff and internalise it, scare yourself based on misunderstandings of insufficient data, misinformation and highly politicised crap - which still won't change the outcome!

@speaksofty

Do people not understand if vaccines don't prevent transmission, then the virus will spread

And so what?

Due to the vaccines if we are not dying and being hospitalised from the virus then quite frankly it doesn't matter one jot. We knew all along we may not be able to totally stop all transmission.

I do however support the border closure, because although I am not worried about these particular variants, there is bound to be one at some point that is very serious. The only way to prevent that is to go with an Australia style entry system.

very cheeky clipping there!

My actual sentence was:
Do people not understand if vaccines don't prevent transmission, then the virus will spread and mutate

The 'and mutate' bit is what's keeping Chris Whitty awake at night - if we thought it'd stay the same we'd be laughing now.

And so what?

Due to the vaccines if we are not dying and being hospitalised from the virus then quite frankly it doesn't matter one jot. We knew all along we may not be able to totally stop all transmission.

I do however support the border closure, because although I am not worried about these particular variants, there is bound to be one at some point that is very serious. The only way to prevent that is to go with an Australia style entry system.

Convergent evolution - as a pp has said, the 'UK'/Kent variant has already acquired the same E484K mutation that is present in the 'SA' and 'Brazil' variants, although only a very few cases so far. Population immunity (from natural infection and from vaccination) may place pressure on the virus to try and evade this immunity via further mutations.

theconversation.com/amp/concerning-coronavirus-mutation-now-found-in-uk-variant-heres-what-you-need-to-know-153248

Just read the below in the guardian. A setback but def not a disaster.

Prof Danny Altmann, professor of immunology at Imperial College London, said this morning that the research about the impact the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine has against the South African variant (see 9.05am) was a setback. He told Times Radio:

I think we can still win; it’s just got so much tougher again ...

I think the number of variants that can come out of this spike antigen is finite, and we’re not going to be playing this catch-up game for ever.

There is an end in sight and there is tweaking to be done, but I think we’ll get there.

The 'and mutate' bit is what's keeping Chris Whitty awake at night That's the bit we need to have understood. Not the newspaper, SM version of it, half baked, based on misinforation and incomplete data.

It IS an important issue but there are people all over the world, who know what they are doing, looking at it, looking for an effective answer.

Trust that. And of they can't negate it, listen to what they say happens next!

Scaring the shit out of yourself / each other isn't a viable solution! Journalists need to take a step back from their by-lines!

Early findings from a small study suggest the jab offers "minimal protection" against mild disease.

However, health minister Edward Argar said there was "no evidence" it was not effective at preventing severe illness.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-55976037

Yes quite - listen to the science.

We won't be free in one bound.

We're not doomed forever.

But it is important to wrap heads around why high levels of infection are not desirable.

Hopefully they will use an alternative for the second dose.

@Frazzled2207

Just read the below in the guardian. A setback but def not a disaster.

Prof Danny Altmann, professor of immunology at Imperial College London, said this morning that the research about the impact the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine has against the South African variant (see 9.05am) was a setback. He told Times Radio:

I think we can still win; it’s just got so much tougher again ...

I think the number of variants that can come out of this spike antigen is finite, and we’re not going to be playing this catch-up game for ever.

There is an end in sight and there is tweaking to be done, but I think we’ll get there.

That is sorted then. If the doomsters at imperial college aren't worried you know everything will be ok.

They normally air on the side of ringing bells in the street and crying bring out your dead😂😂😂😂😂

Also they can tweak the AZ to cover the SA virus, but i think by the autumn before full production. It only takes weeks to change the vaccine but production takes much longer.

I am sure they are modelling spread, vaccine resistance, herd immunity etc now to get a good idea of what the next steps are.

🙈

[quote Dongdingdong]Early findings from a small study suggest the jab offers "minimal protection" against mild disease.

However, health minister Edward Argar said there was "no evidence" it was not effective at preventing severe illness.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-55976037[/quote]
But there is no evidence either way! So I find that messaging slightly misleading. What the Oxford scientists have said is that

Efficacy against severe COVID-19 infection from this variant was not assessed....These early data, have been submitted for scientific peer-review, appear to confirm the theoretical observation that mutations in the virus seen in South Africa will allow ongoing transmission of the virus in vaccinated populations, as has been recently reported even in those with prior infection due to earlier circulating variants.

www.ox.ac.uk/news/2021-02-07-chadox1-ncov-19-provides-minimal-protection-against-mild-moderate-covid-19-infection

As reported in the FT on Saturday, AZ have said that they think the vaccine "could" still protect against severe illness, but also said they thought that other immune responses such as T cells might offer protection against the worst symptoms. So I guess the jury is out.

We're not doomed forever

That is almost certainly true. But our economy will be absolutely shot by they time we are able to meaningfully lift restrictions. That is my main concern, that too many businesses will not survive.

All the commentary suggests it's too early to say if this is a big problem or not - so why tell us?!

Why post a thread with this title and spread it even further?

But our economy will be absolutely shot by they time we are able to meaningfully lift restrictions

And it will recover too, just like it always does.

too many businesses will not survive.

In which case they were in a saturated market. We will still need the services we did before. Remember when everyone said childminders would go out of business? And yet now childminders are back in demand. The same will be true of bars and restaurants and shops etc. Too much is being made of the fact we have a temporary pause in the economy.

Iremembertheelderlykoreanlady

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,"
You think that it is positive that none of the 2000 mainly young, healthy participants who received the vaccine were hospitalised or had died? 😂

How is that any different from them not having the vaccine at all?