The dreaded South African variant

[ZammoUK]

What are peoples thoughts on this variant ? Supposedly the AZ vaccine is only 10% efficient against it, the Pfizer and Moderna supposedly do a lot better against it though. Given the millions who have had the AZ jab this gives the SA variant a chance to spread. Anyone got any predictions on what they think this variant may or may not do ? I hope we, the UK, are finally being pro-active with travel from overseas.

What's it supposed to do above and beyond regular covid? The vaccine is only 10% effective? Err why, surely if it was that different from the original virus, it would be err a different virus.

I had the SA variant in January. ( Felt terribly unwell but fully recovered in two weeks)
Everyone I'd been in contact with was tested including removal men, many work colleagues across two employments and my family who lived with me. Nobody contracted it.
Still to this day no idea where I contracted it from but I do now know I now have antibodies to this variant thanks to PHE taking bloods. I've also had the Pfizer vaccine
So my prediction is it wont be as contagious as initially thought

My friend is South Africa. Apparently they have no lockdowns, normal life exists there. Their hospitals have never been overrun.

Where do you get the 10% figure from?

Yeh, good question, if the SA variant is so much worse why is it normal life there?

Astra Zeneca was 10% effective in a lab test. This means antibodies were less effective, but it doesn’t take T cells into account. Johnathan Van Tam explained this the other night in the briefing. The actually efficacy of The AZ jab could be much higher. JVT also said he thinks that if there is a reduction in efficacy it will an increase in mild disease, rather than deaths/hospitalisation.

No it was 10% effective in a real world environment. It’s why SA sold or donated all their AZ vaccines. There was no point in continuing a vaccination program which showed that there was very little difference in infection rate between those who’d had the vaccine and those who hadn’t.

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.forbes.com/sites/williamhaseltine/2021/03/17/astrazeneca-vaccine-fails-to-protect-against-the-south-african-variant/amp/

The fact that the SA variant evades immunity from the AZ vaccine isn’t controversial at all. It’s pretty widely accepted. And yes it is a concern OP, which is why the government are monitoring the spread of it.

Read this:

*It was a small study of an average of 31.

• This age group were unlikely to need hospitalisation so it’s affect against preventing serious illness could not be evaluated *But it didn’t seem to protect very well against catching it *Studies are ongoing

March called, it wants it's thread back.

Maybe look up some stuff from the scientists who have said that there aren’t vaccine escaping mutations yet. Even the ever gloomy Chris Whitty has been relatively optimistic of late.

Maybe evades immunity wa the wrong phrase. But the AZ vaccine provides very little protection against the SA strain.

My understanding is that the AZ vaccine is not very effective at all in terms of reducing transmission of the SA variant, but that we are not yet sure as to how effective the vaccine in terms of preventing serious illness or death. I am hoping that it will be found that, even if the variant spreads, people are less likely to be really ill with it.I guess time will tell!

@RafaIsTheKingOfClay

Maybe evades immunity wa the wrong phrase. But the AZ vaccine provides very little protection against the SA strain.

That depends what you mean by protection. Severe disease vs “catching it” are very different things.

@RafaIsTheKingOfClay

Maybe evades immunity wa the wrong phrase. But the AZ vaccine provides very little protection against the SA strain.

No this is incorrect.

Vaccines don't STOP anyone getting infected - they merely speed up the process by which the infection is destroyed.

With covid, you have the following timeline
Day 0: infection
Day 1-2: PCR +ve possible
Day 3-14, typically 4-5: Symptoms show
Day 10-> serious illness/death

So we know for example that against the strains the vaccines encountered during trials, the AZ vaccine was about 65% effective at stopping the infection BEFORE symptoms. However, the protection against serious illness/death is MUCH higher - around 95% based on real world data.

Changes in a virus that make it less recognisable to the immune system have the effect of slowing down the immune response.

Even if it's only by a day or two, that could be enough to see enormous differences to whether people show symptoms or not, but STILL confer excellent protection against serious illness.

The biggest concern with the SA variant is that infectiousness starts even before symptoms show. A vaccine that is poor at stopping symptomatic infection is going to be hopeless at preventing transmission, ergo if the SA strain becomes dominant here, then unless we revaccinate all the AZ people, we won't have ANY herd immunity benefit.

@HolmeH

Read this:

*It was a small study of an average of 31.

• This age group were unlikely to need hospitalisation so it’s affect against preventing serious illness could not be evaluated *But it didn’t seem to protect very well against catching it *Studies are ongoing

The study also had the gaps between doses as the original 4 weeks instead of 12. AZ is more effective at 12 weeks between doses.