US trial of AZ vaccine confirms its safety

[Circumlocutious]

Results from the long-awaited US trial of the Oxford-AstraZeneca Covid vaccine are out and confirm that the shot is both safe and highly effective.

More than 32,000 volunteers took part, mostly in America, but also in Chile and Peru.

The vaccine was 79% effective against stopping symptomatic Covid disease and 100% effective at preventing people from falling seriously ill.

And there were no safety issues regarding blood clots.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-56479462

Great news :)

Mine will be 11 weeks and 3 days looking at my appointments again - hopefully optimal!

Great news

I’m sure it will be fine!

That was to @minchinfin

This is great news.
So 100% effective against serious disease which is hospitalisation and deaths? My maths must be crap because I don’t understand. For most Covid is mild (30% asymptomatic) for some it is serious. We have a vaccine that is 100% effective against serious disease. We have huge vaccine take up here.

So the doom and gloom about restrictions for years are because the few that can’t have the vaccine might get seriously ill? But that can’t be in huge numbers to overwhelm the NHS?

And I know someone will pop along and talk about ‘but variants’. But we don’t know about variants yet so we can’t make any predictions.

you know I''m going to stress about the 4 days though ... :)

I did have a nice strong reaction to the first jab so hopefully I am packed full of covid antibodies already and 79% plus would be amazing - especially since I had 0% protection from Covid 19 before I went for the vaccine.

notimagain

In January, Macron claimed the AZ jab was "quasi-ineffective" for people older than 65.

Given that he's in his 40s - his later indication in February that he'd be willing to have the AZ vaccine himself is not inconsistent with his earlier (erroneous) claim - and doesn't really help undo the damage he did.

I wonder if he's now going to backtrack on claiming that he'd be happy to have it himself (in his 40s) as French regulators are currently saying it should ONLY go to people over 55???

Mixed messaging? Just a bit!!

Much as I despise many members of the current UK government - the simple "get vaccines out of fridges and into arms" message does seem to be effective (credit to JVT).

I wonder if they are now working on how long the efficacy from the vaccine lasts?

Of course. I enrolled on the Oxford trial, although was in the meningitis control group and subsequently had the Pfizer vaccine through work. However, I'm still monitored under the Oxford trial with weekly swabs and routine blood tests to monitor longterm efficacy of the vaccine I did have.

raviolidreaming a big thank you from me - people like you have played a huge part in making the vaccines a success.

pinkearedcow it's been really positive to be a part of

The sad part about all this is that the AZ vaccine isn't really 'meant' for wealthy western nations - countries that all have great alternative vaccines. It's a vaccine destined for 2nd and 3rd world countries: it's much much much cheaper than the alternatives and it is far less difficult to transport. AZ has also signed something like six times more manufacturing contracts than the closest other vaccine. It’s the vaccine that will do the heavy lifting globally (or was meant to).

I'm on the Oxford trial and have had two doses of the actual vaccine - I ended up having a reasonably large gap due to being on holiday and then the pause in the trial (I think they were probably 2.5 months apart, the second was towards the end of September).

I'm still on the trial and will swab weekly, had bloods taken recently and will have them done again after a six month gap. So presumably all that will feed into knowledge about the lasting antibodies. I don't know if I'll be getting a booster in the Autumn.

Actually have just checked and I had my booster exactly three months later than the first, so more than 12 weeks. As I say, this was inadvertent but I daresay all quite useful in terms of the trial. I'd initially been offered it to take place two months after the first one.

@raviolidreaming I agree, I feel thrilled to be a part of it and irrationally defensive if anybody knocks 'my' vaccine.

@Circumlocutious

The sad part about all this is that the AZ vaccine isn't really 'meant' for wealthy western nations - countries that all have great alternative vaccines. It's a vaccine destined for 2nd and 3rd world countries: it's much much much cheaper than the alternatives and it is far less difficult to transport. AZ has also signed something like six times more manufacturing contracts than the closest other vaccine. It’s the vaccine that will do the heavy lifting globally (or was meant to).

That's not true though, they aren't selling it for profit to developing countries, and it is easier to transport, but it was not developed purely for other countries- but obviously due to those reasons it is the vaccine of choice. Doses have been arriving abroad already, and the manufacture of those under the Covax programme are seperate in terms of numbers to contractual agreements elsewhere, so they aren't having to wait until everyone else has had their entire allocation, thankfully.

Valleyofthedollymix - irrationally defensive if anybody knocks 'my' vaccine

Same!! I felt soooooo guilty getting the Pfizer one; it felt like such a betrayal

I wonder if the EU will threaten to stop shipments to America now?

Some European leaders have a lot to answer for when it comes to encouraging vaccine hesitancy in their populations. The few people vaccinated the longer this nightmare will continue. Some leaders rival Trump in their wackiness.

Thank you to all the trials participants

Fantastic news, though not a surprise.
I'm another one who received the AZ vaccine, and very happy about it.
dontsaveusername I think the US have their own manufacturing bases and aren't reliant on exports.

They have published that in both groups there were 141 cases of the Virus. Purely for interest, I calculated that for the control group 99 / 10816 tested +ve. For the vaccinated group, it was 42 / 21633

BUT What they haven't said is how many severe cases or deaths there were. I know there we 0 in the vaccinated group but this figure really doesn't tell the story without knowing how many there were in the control group. I suspect there were actually too few to be able to draw a conclusion which makes me think we're being played a little here.