Astrazeneca v Pfizer.

[Tolkienista]

I had my first jab on Thurs the Astrazeneca vaccine. Felt dreadful Thurs night, but took a couple of paracetamol and thankfully felt back to normal yesterday.

Spoke to my next door neighbour this morning who had his vaccine yesterday in the same centre as me and received the Pfizer vaccine. I know it's pot luck which you get on the day, but why do I feel cheated out of a better vaccine? Have only started looking at the statistics which seem to err on the side of Pfizer and the fact that some European countries are not using their allocation of Astrazeneca, making me feel like I got second best.

Any thoughts?

Re. the under-65s, it seems it may only be Germany that is restricting AZ to under 65s (but thanks to those who were so gracious in pointing out the error)

The trial Mixing first and second doses has already started. I’m on it and had my first mystery vaccine a week ago.

I had the Pfizer Friday ! I had no clue what I was having or I didn’t even think about it I was just absolutely delighted to have been offered it and the fantastic team that gave it to me ! A vaccine is a vaccine doesn’t matter what one it is tbh as long as u have one xx

According to this article "France, Germany, Sweden and Austria say the vaccine should be prioritised for those under the age of 65. Poland only recommends it for those younger than 60. Italy goes one step further and only recommends it for those 55 and younger."
theconversation.com/not-recommending-astrazeneca-vaccine-for-the-elderly-risks-the-lives-of-the-most-vulnerable-154605

Which is one of the reasons why up to 95% of the AZ vaccine is sitting unused in storage in some areas. mobile.twitter.com/AntBreach/status/1365633790622789634

[quote CoffeeandCroissant]Why does the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine appear to have a higher efficacy than the Pfizer vaccine?

I can think of a couple of reasons that could potentially explain why the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine had a higher efficacy in this study.

The first being that Scotland 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 prioritised vaccinations in Care homes and so utilised the initial Pfizer stocks on those older people most vulnerable to COVID infection. The Oxford AstraZeneca vaccination likely seeing more use amongst independent individuals in better health living in the community.

The second is that Vaccines utilising virus vectors such as the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine generate a higher proportion of their overall effectiveness through the 1st dose. The T cell levels being close to the maximum just 2-3 weeks after the 1st dose of the vaccine.

The differences between the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccines are not very significant when it comes to T cell levels that are thought to be a key component of protecting against severe disease.

The Pfizer vaccine does produce higher levels of neutralising antibody after two doses, which is the likely reason why after 2 doses it has a higher efficacy in preventing symptomatic disease. The levels of neutralising antibody being the crucial factor in preventing infection. If the antibodies can prevent infection, they will also prevent disease (both symptomatic and asymptomatic).
coviddatareview.wordpress.com/2021/02/22/trying-to-understand-vaccine-efficacy/amp/?[/quote]
What a bizarre commentary. The data is available and shows more of the very elderly were given Oxford AZ, probably because it's easier to distribute. It just performed better against the metric "how protected against hospitalisation our death are you after 4 weeks on one dose?". Other vaccines perform better on other metrics or other studies e.g. Pfizer second dose results from Israel are great. All the approved vaccines are well worth having and people lucky enough to get one should stop whining.

"The first dose of the BNT162b2 vaccine was associated with a vaccine effect of 85% (95% confidence interval [CI] 76 to 91) for COVID-19 related hospitalisation at 28-34 days post-vaccination. Vaccine effect at the same time interval for the ChAdOx1 vaccine was 94% (95% CI 73 to 99)."
(BNT is Pfizer and ChAdOx1 is AZ).
"Results of combined vaccine effect for prevention of COVID-19 related hospitalisation were comparable when restricting the analysis to those aged ≥80 years (81%; 95% CI 65 to 90 at 28-34 days post-vaccination)."
The report opens in PDF here are has charts in it showing the larger numbers of elderly getting Oxford AZ: papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3789264

[quote CoffeeandCroissant]According to this article "France, Germany, Sweden and Austria say the vaccine should be prioritised for those under the age of 65. Poland only recommends it for those younger than 60. Italy goes one step further and only recommends it for those 55 and younger."
theconversation.com/not-recommending-astrazeneca-vaccine-for-the-elderly-risks-the-lives-of-the-most-vulnerable-154605

Which is one of the reasons why up to 95% of the AZ vaccine is sitting unused in storage in some areas. mobile.twitter.com/AntBreach/status/1365633790622789634[/quote]
That's so infuriating isn't it!

(Also, just looking at what I wrote, I know you were posting someone else's article, I wasn't criticising you but them!)

I think you're extremely lucky to get a vaccine.

I don't live in the UK and it might not be until next year for me.

I just got Pfizer this afternoon. Had I been able to choose I may have gone for AZ but only because the 12 week gap data is looking good. In reality I'm happy to just have had a vaccine that will work well, whichever one it is.

@bigginswitch

Bear in mind that in the EU the AstraZeneca vaccine is only licensed for under 65s so no-one over 65 can have it. As they are starting with the most elderly and working downwards, it is only logical for not much AZ to have been used compared to other vaccines.

That is incorrect. The EMA, backed by the WHO, have licensed AZ for everyone.

It has been the choice if individual countries not to use it for their elder cohorts. Decisions taken on partial information and emotive disinformation from journalists and politicians alike.

I’ve been volunteering at various vaccine clinics around the south east. We’ve been using both vaccines although mainly Pfizer due to availability. I must’ve been present for around 3000 shots by now, I’ve yet to see anyone have a serious reaction.

Ive had the Pfizer vaccine as that was the one going spare when I was on shift. I’ve also had my second dose, within the ideal 3-4 weeks after as a spare dose was available then. First shot had slight ache in arm after about 12 hrs that lasted around 12 hrs. Second shot I was ok until end of the following day when was trampled by a herd of flu bearing buffalo which left me in bed utterly exhausted until Sunday night when suddenly felt as usual again.

I do know of a number of people who’ve had the AZ abs felt like utter cr*p after the first dose, it nothing life threatening. You aren’t given choice in clinics I’ve worked (except for specific medical reasons), it’s take what’s offered or leave and wait for an unknown period of time until you are offered again although still won’t necessarily be what you want. Any vax is a great achievement however, so I really look forward to numbers increasing and is not having so many empty appointments each day!

OP, you might want to have a look at the numerous threads where posters have been fighting over who should take priority in the vaccination programme, with vulnerable people really upset that they haven’t managed to get the vaccine yet - I’m sure most of them would be happy to have relieved you of the vaccine you’re so dismissive of.

Do your gold shoes hurt, OP?

I'd love to have any vaccine. Maybe all the reporting will mean the AZ will just be offered to anyone and I can get mine early!

really look forward to numbers increasing and is not having so many empty appointments each day!

Where have you got empty appointments @Adarajames? I volunteered this week at a GP surgery giving vaccines - it was fully booked and 94% turned up. I'm shocked that all clinics aren't fully booked. From what I saw there is HUGE demand, we had lots of people walking up on spec trying to blag themselves 'leftovers'.

The European situation is more political rather than anything else. There are plenty of vaccines being thrown away because the people are refusing them after their politicians.
Ema has approved it for any age. I think ema will have more knowledge about vaccines than macron (president one of the biggest anti vax coutries)

Cheated ? Tell that to the person that has died without having the chance of having a vaccine. These vaccines prevent you from dying. Would you really call that cheated ?

[quote CoffeeandCroissant]According to this article "France, Germany, Sweden and Austria say the vaccine should be prioritised for those under the age of 65. Poland only recommends it for those younger than 60. Italy goes one step further and only recommends it for those 55 and younger."
theconversation.com/not-recommending-astrazeneca-vaccine-for-the-elderly-risks-the-lives-of-the-most-vulnerable-154605

Which is one of the reasons why up to 95% of the AZ vaccine is sitting unused in storage in some areas. mobile.twitter.com/AntBreach/status/1365633790622789634[/quote]
That article is from almost a month ago and Italy has done a U-turn. AZ is being given to anyone up to the age of 65 now.

I read a great article on BBC the other week written by a doctor. It was entitled something like ‘don’t ask me which vaccine is better’

He explained that there is little discernible difference and the concept of consumer choice surrounding vaccines is a very new one. We don’t usually ask which brand/type of vaccine we are getting with anything else.

Seriously, look for the article.

@Sunshinegirl82

In the recent Scottish data AZ actually performed better than Pfizer in terms of reducing the risk of hospitalisation (although both performed brilliantly).

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/health-56153600

Both vaccines are great so I really wouldn't give it a second thought to be honest.

Yes real world data is what pp should look at

FFS. Anyone would think you'd been given a dose of GCSE science project TestVac class c(iii) which had just gone past its expiry date.

It’s unfortunate that people want to make this a battle of the vaccines.

Every day or so a different report comes out and new info emerges all the time. Both work. As time passes (after many people have had them) more info becomes available with slightly different figures.

We have had to start vaccinating as fast as possible. We know both are safe and both work. That was good enough. It is amazing to get either and most people in the world aren’t going to have it as fast as we all will.

This ‘I’ve had the better one’ is crazy and so unhelpful. With most medicine and vaccines more than one is available and we take what we are given and don’t try to compare. We tryst that if it’s approved it works and are reassured.

This pointing out positives of one over the other is daft because day to day more info emerges but the key thing is that having a vaccine helps to significantly reduce your chance of dying from the disease. That’s all we need to know really.

I really don’t like the idea that people develop a sense that one is better and then start not wanting the other. That would really be crazy, but these kind of threads fuel that danger.

No-one comes back from flu jab and ask which they had or asks the nurse jabbing them which it is. Is it too much time in our hands, or is it the Desiree to be competitive and to have had something others haven’t that leads to this? It’s hard to know, and most people don’t have a choice which seems a good thing.

I had no choice, and I was glad not to have to pick....because it would be on the basis of incomplete info and lack of knowledge really. I won’t say which I had but I wa S just very happy to be having it and am trying to avoid mentioning which one it was if asked.

Pfizer is so efficacious there’s a buffer so although say the SA variant reduces efficacy in both AZ and Pfizer the buffer means even with the variant and immune escape Pfizer still performs very well.

Those quoting the Scottish study showing AZ at 94% (I’m not a statistician but) this 94% was based on 2 events so I doubt statistically robust.

The mRNA are superior and we’ll likely use them or Johnson and Johnson going forward that said AZ will likely keep you out of hospital.

I had a preference for the Astra Zeneca one but ended up with the Pfizer one. No real scientific reasoning behind my preference, I’d just followed it very closely since the announcement they had modified their MERS vaccine.

It’s awful really but these vaccines have been heavily politicised. Try not to get too drawn into it, it’s amazing that we’re even having this debate at this time - we could have been waiting much, much longer for any vaccine at all if the earth ones had been unsuccessful.

Earth = early.

Previewing/proofreading is for wimps

The vaccine insert leaflet for AZ says your second dose should also be AZ.

At the moment that is the best advice.

There are ongoing studies, some MNers are part of them...

AZ uses "standard" vaccine technology with a weakened version of the virus

No it doesn’t. It uses a viral vector (an attenuated chimp adenovirus) to deliver the SARS-CoV2 spike protein.

The mRNA vaccines have a spectacular rate of effectiveness (95%) but the technology is very new and they can also cause more allergic side effects

They both (Pfizer & Moderna) contain polyethylene glycol which is associated with anaphylaxis in a very small number of people. The anaphylaxis is nothing to do with the new technology per se.