The vaccines | vaxxed boosted unvaxxed? New poll

[Pogue Mahone]

Vaccine clinical trials - guinea pig's eye view - part 2.

Novavax trial. 21 days after jab 1 (of something), it's time to return to base for jab 2 (of something). The trial is based in the sports centre again - the sports hall is kitted out with a series of socially distanced stations - laid out as a numbered circuit of activities, you stick to your table number loop as you move.

Summary: a brief medical - as with jab1 day this is actually a longer "hands on" physical checkup than I've had from a GP in the past 30 years - medical history, any changes in medications/conditions, any after effects from jab 1. A trip to the nurse to get jab 2. A stay in observation, with another check of bp, pulse O2, temperature, vaccination site then release.

Spoiler: Step by step stuff for the detail oriented - including biscuit report

Front door - a new (disposable) mask as they prefer you to wear theirs, a temperature check, and "have you had any symptoms, met anyone who has tested positive?"
Reception - check-in, they give you your paperwork to carry round with you.
Introduction - a brief status report to the group in your timeslot on the trial from one of the senior trial doctors and a chance for questions. Mostly focused on the question, "what if I get a call to go for a (real) vaccine" again.
Doctor - go to your numbered station to see your doctor. Quick checkup of bp, temperature, pulse O2. Medical history update, including any changes. Any reactions to the jab. Physical checkup (in screened privacy booth) concentrating on lymph nodes, but with a quick "no changes" look at other things. A final check that you're willing to continue the trial.
Nurse - next numbered station. There's a pause now, while you wait for your jab to warm up (the vaccine is kept in the fridge) and dispensed in a screened pharmacy area. We had a nice chat and then it was jab time. Dose labels, name date of birth, patient number, checked by pharmacist, nurse and second nurse. Again, I don't actually feel the vaccination at all, there's not really even any mark beyond a tiny pinprick dot of blood.
Observation - 30 minutes in the comfy chair, with the coffee and biscuits. Choice of biccies available today I got the lemon cream. Another nurse checks your bp, pulse O2, temperature and asks how you're feeling, and makes sure you've still got your covid test kits at home and that the app is on your phone. Then you're done.
Appointments - book your next session in 14 days for a checkup

What's striking from the guinea pig side is just how smooth and professional the whole thing feels - and how seriously they take their responsibility for the volunteers. It's slick, the only pauses/waits are part of the trial - wait for the jab to warm up because it's in the fridge, then wait in observation - and that gives you time to talk to doctor for longer, or chat with the nurses as you wait together. It's also very labour intensive, which is a reminder why "normal" clinical trials don't get done this fast. They require lots of funding, clinical support and volunteers.

The staff are clearly enjoying the trial (as odd as that might sound). They believe in what they're doing. They're also very aware of what they aren't doing. One of the nurses I spoke to is normally involved in new cancer treatment trials, but has spent most of the year dealing with covid patients and then later with covid treatment trials on hospitalised patients. The vaccines come as a huge relief to them and running the trial has given them a boost.

And me? Well I don't know what I got - placebo or vaccine. I had a pain in the injected muscle after jab 1 (not bad, but enough that I couldn't sleep on that side on that first night). Same again after jab2, but for a couple of nights. Placebo or vaccine - it's an injection into the deltoid muscle (high on the arm) - maybe I just don't like them at all, maybe it's a coincidence. It won't change anything in my behaviour but obviously I hope I had the vaccine. I'll happily admit that I've become bizarrely committed to the Novavax vaccine - I want it to be the +90% efficacy, fridge storage, low side-effect vaccine of choice! But who knows.

What’s the placebo in this study? Saline? Or an active substance?

 

[jojojo]

What’s the placebo in this study? Saline? Or an active substance?

Saline.

 

[Pogue Mahone]

Saline.

Let’s be optimistic and assume this vaccine is extremely well tolerated!

Out of interest, do they do any kind of screening checks around how high or low risk your lifestyle is? You’d imagine that the more sociable, higher risk the lifestyle the more useful you are as a subject. But would be an ethical minefield to actually encourage someone to get out and about.

 

[jojojo]

Let’s be optimistic and assume this vaccine is extremely well tolerated!

Out of interest, do they do any kind of screening checks around how high or low risk your lifestyle is? You’d imagine that the more sociable, higher risk the lifestyle the more useful you are as a subject. But would be an ethical minefield to actually encourage someone to get out and about.

No screening checks for sociability! They need the numbers and they've already got a lot of other categorisations they're chasing. This one has emphasised the need for 65+ and BAME volunteers and they've got very few excluded conditions etc.

That said, I know they've consciously recruited quite a lot of people in exposed jobs - like health workers, education, and other "can't do it from home" professions, and most of the trials have been run in areas with very high case rates. It's got to be said though that almost by definition a triallist is a self-selecting oddity, and probably more conscious of covid rules etc than most.

I assume they just have to live with the delays caused by a lot of the trial being done under lockdown rules and in Tier 3 locations with hospitality closed etc. They didn't suggest we organise a covid party though.

 

[Wibble]

A

Bad news on the Sanofi/GSK vaccine. As @Brwned said, this really just confirms what I’ve been saying all along. Developing new drugs is tough. With lots of failures to be expected. Which makes the successes more impressive and gives us less reasons to doubt them.

Agreed. I though it close to a statistical certainty that we would get a vaccine but the odds of the first 2 or 3 not failing made it especially pleasing when they didn't. That one failed is no surprise but annoying when our Government relied on it too heavily because it was Australian developed.

 

[Pablo76]

It’s funny to see that even doctors appear a little anxious over being first and the of speed the vaccine has appeared but if a run of the mill caf poster talks about any hesitation they become a anti vaxxer and told they’re selfish and to believe the scientists by assume the caf COVID scientists

Interestingly ignored in this thread.

How long until we see the first annoyingly repetitive tv ads telling us we are eligible for compensation if we had the Covid vaccine?

 

[gormless]

Interestingly ignored in this thread.

How long until we see the first annoyingly repetitive tv ads telling us we are eligible for compensation if we had the Covid vaccine?

so you picked up on this bit but not the explanation from Pogue?

 

[Pablo76]

so you picked up on this bit but not the explanation from Pogue?

I skimmed through but didn’t see either a direct reply nor a quote, only opinions, and you’re only allowed one of those in here.

 

[jojojo]

I skimmed through but didn’t see either a direct reply nor a quote, only opinions, and you’re only allowed one of those in here.

Another opinion then, as you've chosen not to give one.

My interpretation of available data is that covid has already killed about 60k people in the UK (about 1:1000 of the population) and has led to longterm illness in many more. That's despite massive efforts at mitigation - which has ruined business and education, damaged health and social care, hurt families, friends, and our ability to make new relationships and has made big chunks of normal life impossible. Furthermore I think there's no reason to believe that the death rate will decline without a successful vaccine (or until we reach herd immunity - ie: kill a lot more people) .

It's my opinion that no vaccine will be approved that kills 1:1000 of the people who takes it. That's based on my knowledge of the clinical trial process and past data from vaccination campaigns.

Do you have a different opinion? Or are we supposed to just guess what ideas/evidence you've got?

 

[Wibble]

if a run of the mill caf poster talks about any hesitation they become a anti vaxxer and told they’re selfish

If it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, we have at least to consider the possibility that we have a small aquatic bird of the family Anatidae on our hands.

 

[KanieKaned]

Saline.

correct me if I'm wrong but I thought modern and Pfizer used a Pfizer meningitis vax as the placebo?

 

[jojojo]

correct me if I'm wrong but I thought modern and Pfizer used a Pfizer meningitis vax as the placebo?

Astra Zeneca initially used a meningitis vaccine as the placebo in their UK trial, but switched to saline later.

As far as I know: Pfizer, Moderna and Novavax have used saline as the placebo in all their Phase 3 trials.

 

[Zlatan 7]

If it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, we have at least to consider the possibility that we have a small aquatic bird of the family Anatidae on our hands.

Lots of assumptions you make from one question of hesitation don’t you think

I’m not fussed anyway, I’ll be taking the vaccine, I just won’t be calling people selfish for showing a little bit of doubt and hesitation while news of the vaccines is still coming out and not everything is known.

 

[tombombadil]

Dear Admins,

May I recommend having a pinned post like a FAQ specifically for the vaccines at the top in this vaccine thread that has all the relevant details answered and links to data for convenience? Of course then there is concern of liability that it needs to be updated regularly. I think we can just state "This is accurate as at xxx date. Please check in case of newer updates". I feel the pros outweigh the cons, for the sake of properly educating the public.

Lots of assumptions you make from one question of hesitation don’t you think

I’m not fussed anyway, I’ll be taking the vaccine, I just won’t be calling people selfish for showing a little bit of doubt and hesitation while news of the vaccines is still coming out and not everything is known.

It's already been mentioned in previous pages. The risks taken to speed up the vaccine are economic risks. Not health/safety risks.

You can refer the twitter thread below for more details. Basically govs and organizations like GAVI have subsidised the economic risks of vaccines. E.g. starting mass production of the vaccine, before phase 3 has completed. Which is risky if the phase 3 fails. Total loss on the mass production.



Both Moderna and Pfizer are very extremely effective at preventing disease (up to 95%) and very safe with tolerable side effects like minor pain in the injection area which is common in vaccines.



https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2034577?query=featured_home
https://www.fda.gov/advisory-commit...mmittee-december-10-2020-meeting-announcement

The only concerns left are
1) Allergies - this is common with vaccines. IINM, FDA is recommending epi pens are available and UK is recommending to focus on those with non severe allergies due to supply constraints.
2) How long will immunity last? We don't know. This is being continuously monitored but booster shots can be administered if required.
3) Will it prevent infection? This is being continuously monitored. We will know by Jan, apparently but preliminary data suggests there may be some benefits to preventing infection.
4) Any long term side effects? Highly unlikely. Side effects normally appear within 6 weeks of injection. This is because vaccines are not like medicines that need to be taken regularly for long periods of time. Vaccines are typically taken in one or two doses. Nothing after that. So if something is going to go wrong, it will go wrong up front. Not after a few years. Also, people have been taking the vaccines since June. By the time you get the vaccine, it will probably be Q2 - Q3 next year. There will have already been a year of data by then. So you can rest assured it will be safe (as far as we know at that point in time) if it is still being offered by then.

Everyone, please correct me if I have made any errors or omissions. Or you can just delete my post if it is totally wrong.

 

[Wibble]

It is now being suggested that not only was the UQ vaccine safe but also that the HIV false positive issue wasn't a total show stopper. The risk of decreasing confidence in vaccines is now the stated reason for cancellation. I'm sure it was a consideration but I wonder if it is mainly trying to spin the failure.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-12...accine-uq-trial-cancellation-setback/12973724

 

[4bars]

Dear Admins,

May I recommend having a pinned post like a FAQ specifically for the vaccines at the top in this vaccine thread that has all the relevant details answered and links to data for convenience? Of course then there is concern of liability that it needs to be updated regularly. I think we can just state "This is accurate as at xxx date. Please check in case of newer updates". I feel the pros outweigh the cons, for the sake of properly educating the public.


It's already been mentioned in previous pages. The risks taken to speed up the vaccine are economic risks. Not health/safety risks.

You can refer the twitter thread below for more details. Basically govs and organizations like GAVI have subsidised the economic risks of vaccines. E.g. starting mass production of the vaccine, before phase 3 has completed. Which is risky if the phase 3 fails. Total loss on the mass production.



Both Moderna and Pfizer are very extremely effective at preventing disease (up to 95%) and very safe with tolerable side effects like minor pain in the injection area which is common in vaccines.



https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2034577?query=featured_home
https://www.fda.gov/advisory-commit...mmittee-december-10-2020-meeting-announcement

The only concerns left are
1) Allergies - this is common with vaccines. IINM, FDA is recommending epi pens are available and UK is recommending to focus on those with non severe allergies due to supply constraints.
2) How long will immunity last? We don't know. This is being continuously monitored but booster shots can be administered if required.
3) Will it prevent infection? This is being continuously monitored. We will know by Jan, apparently but preliminary data suggests there may be some benefits to preventing infection.
4) Any long term side effects? Highly unlikely. Side effects normally appear within 6 weeks of injection. This is because vaccines are not like medicines that need to be taken regularly for long periods of time. Vaccines are typically taken in one or two doses. Nothing after that. So if something is going to go wrong, it will go wrong up front. Not after a few years. Also, people have been taking the vaccines since June. By the time you get the vaccine, it will probably be Q2 - Q3 next year. There will have already been a year of data by then. So you can rest assured it will be safe (as far as we know at that point in time) if it is still being offered by then.

Everyone, please correct me if I have made any errors or omissions. Or you can just delete my post if it is totally wrong.

Many thanks to put it so plainly and understandable

 

[Brwned]

Pretty sure Trump's rejection of the vaccine is going to put literally millions of people off taking it in the US, including some of the older people lined up to get it within weeks.

 

[Brwned]

Dear Admins,

May I recommend having a pinned post at the top that has all the relevant details answered and links to data for convenience? Of course then there is concern of liability that it needs to be updated regularly. I think we can just state "This is accurate as at xxx date. Please check in case of newer updates". I feel the pros outweigh the cons, for the sake of properly educating the public.


It's already been mentioned in previous pages. The risks taken to speed up the vaccine are economic risks. Not health/safety risks.

You can refer the twitter thread below for more details. Basically govs and organizations like GAVI have subsidised the economic risks of vaccines. E.g. starting mass production of the vaccine, before phase 3 has completed. Which is risky if the phase 3 fails. Total loss on the mass production.



Both Moderna and Pfizer are very extremely effective at preventing disease (up to 95%) and very safe with tolerable side effects like minor pain in the injection area which is common in vaccines.



https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2034577?query=featured_home
https://www.fda.gov/advisory-commit...mmittee-december-10-2020-meeting-announcement

The only concerns left are
1) Allergies - this is common with vaccines. IINM, FDA is recommending epi pens are available and UK is recommending to focus on those with non severe allergies due to supply constraints.
2) How long will immunity last? We don't know. This is being continuously monitored but booster shots can be administered if required.
3) Will it prevent infection? This is being continuously monitored. We will know by Jan, apparently but preliminary data suggests there may be some benefits to preventing infection.
4) Any long term side effects? Highly unlikely. Side effects normally appear within 6 weeks of injection. This is because vaccines are not like medicines that need to be taken regularly for long periods of time. Vaccines are typically taken in one or two doses. Nothing after that. So if something is going to go wrong, it will go wrong up front. Not after a few years. Also, people have been taking the vaccines since June. By the time you get the vaccine, it will probably be Q2 - Q3 next year. There will have already been a year of data by then. So you can rest assured it will be safe (as far as we know at that point in time) if it is still being offered by then.

Everyone, please correct me if I have made any errors or omissions. Or you can just delete my post if it is totally wrong.

Good summary! I think one of the biggest things to add about why a vaccine has been developed so quickly is the contribution of the MERS and SARS vaccination development. That's the bit that made the most sense to my more sceptical friends. They understood that companies were taking on more financial risk because the potential rewards are great, and they understood the government were happy to throw money and scientific support at it, but none of that seemed to explain how it went from a 10 year process to a 1 year process.

The fact that we already had identified the spike protein as the antigenic target from the preclinical trials of these two coronaviruses meant they were almost ready to start phase 1 as soon as they identified the virus. Most of these companies had already developed the vaccine platform that could be easily adapted to incorporate the spike protein / RNA. The fact we were able to move through trials so quickly was because we could make use of unparalleled resources made available, but the fact we were able to start the trials so early was a mixture of good fortune, foresight and a lot of great scientific work done behind the scenes pre-covid.

Then if you come back to this 10-year average, you have obvious exceptions like the Mumps vaccination developed and licensed in just 4 years, by 1 man and a small team, with half of that time taken up by those preclinical trials to develop and validate the vaccine construct. So if you can go from vaccine construct to vaccine licensing in just 2 years when it has only one team applied to the problem, it doesn't seem so crazy to cut that peak trial time in half with so many more teams working on it and volunteers available. What is kind of incredible is that 1 month after identifying it we had sequenced the genome, and 2 months after that multiple companies had already developed multiple vaccine constructs ready to go.

 

[jojojo]

Good summary! I think one of the biggest things to add about why a vaccine has been developed so quickly is the contribution of the MERS and SARS vaccination development. That's the bit that made the most sense to my more sceptical friends. They understood that companies were taking on more financial risk because the potential rewards are great, and they understood the government were happy to throw money and scientific support at it, but none of that seemed to explain how it went from a 10 year process to a 1 year process.

The fact that we already had identified the spike protein as the antigenic target from the preclinical trials of these two coronaviruses meant they were almost ready to start phase 1 as soon as they identified the virus. Most of these companies had already developed the vaccine platform that could be easily adapted to incorporate the spike protein / RNA. The fact we were able to move through trials so quickly was because we could make use of unparalleled resources made available, but the fact we were able to start the trials so early was a mixture of good fortune, foresight and a lot of great scientific work done behind the scenes pre-covid.

Then if you come back to this 10-year average, you have obvious exceptions like the Mumps vaccination developed and licensed in just 4 years, by 1 man and a small team, with half of that time taken up by those preclinical trials to develop and validate the vaccine construct. So if you can go from vaccine construct to vaccine licensing in just 2 years when it has only one team applied to the problem, it doesn't seem so crazy to cut that peak trial time in half with so many more teams working on it and volunteers available. What is kind of incredible is that 1 month after identifying it we had sequenced the genome, and 2 months after that multiple companies had already developed multiple vaccine constructs ready to go.

I've found a fascinating (ok, it's only fascinating if you're a geek) description of how these vaccines reduced that initial research phase from a couple of years (minimum) to a couple of weeks. It helps explain why the Moderna/Pfizer vaccines came in with such high efficacy numbers and why people have high hopes of vaccines like Novavax and J&J doing the same.

This video that describes how to quickly make a good spike for the body to learn to attack is excellent


More of the story with links at:

 

[tombombadil]

Many thanks to put it so plainly and understandable

Good summary! I think one of the biggest things to add about why a vaccine has been developed so quickly is the contribution of the MERS and SARS vaccination development. That's the bit that made the most sense to my more sceptical friends. They understood that companies were taking on more financial risk because the potential rewards are great, and they understood the government were happy to throw money and scientific support at it, but none of that seemed to explain how it went from a 10 year process to a 1 year process.

The fact that we already had identified the spike protein as the antigenic target from the preclinical trials of these two coronaviruses meant they were almost ready to start phase 1 as soon as they identified the virus. Most of these companies had already developed the vaccine platform that could be easily adapted to incorporate the spike protein / RNA. The fact we were able to move through trials so quickly was because we could make use of unparalleled resources made available, but the fact we were able to start the trials so early was a mixture of good fortune, foresight and a lot of great scientific work done behind the scenes pre-covid.

Then if you come back to this 10-year average, you have obvious exceptions like the Mumps vaccination developed and licensed in just 4 years, by 1 man and a small team, with half of that time taken up by those preclinical trials to develop and validate the vaccine construct. So if you can go from vaccine construct to vaccine licensing in just 2 years when it has only one team applied to the problem, it doesn't seem so crazy to cut that peak trial time in half with so many more teams working on it and volunteers available. What is kind of incredible is that 1 month after identifying it we had sequenced the genome, and 2 months after that multiple companies had already developed multiple vaccine constructs ready to go.

Thanks both. The Florian Krammer tweets were first shared by Pogue.

I do agree, Brwned, that prior development of vaccines with MERS and SARS did help speed things up as we had already become familiar with the coronavirus as well. Knowing what to look out for and target really helps.

 

[tombombadil]

I've found a fascinating (ok, it's only fascinating if you're a geek) description of how these vaccines reduced that initial research phase from a couple of years (minimum) to a couple of weeks. It helps explain why the Moderna/Pfizer vaccines came in with such high efficacy numbers and why people have high hopes of vaccines like Novavax and J&J doing the same.

This video that describes how to quickly make a good spike for the body to learn to attack is excellent


More of the story with links at:

Thank you for sharing!!

 

[gormless]

New variant in the U.K. according to health secretary. Hopefully vaccines still work

 

[Smores]

Isn't it very odd for Hancock to be the first to announce this new variant? Can't see anything about it until now.

 

[ha_rooney]

Really hope this new variant doesn’t affect the effectiveness of the vaccines. Also, makes the decision to open up over Xmas even more stupid.

 

[Berbasbullet]

So is the vaccine going to work still?

 

[NinjaFletch]

Isn't it very odd for Hancock to be the first to announce this new variant? Can't see anything about it until now.

Especially without mentioning anything about vaccinations given the obvious panic it's causing.

 

[cyberman]

So is the vaccine going to work still?

A post from Reddit

think it's important to note that countries have been reporting new variants for months now

So far there hasn't been any evidence that any of the variants have different symptoms or mortality rates. They all appear to be the same. But some variants do appear to be more contagious

Experts currently don't see any reason why they wouldn't respond to the vaccine, either - It seems like they're similar enough to the main variant to still respond to the vaccine perfectly fine

Edit: Wait, why the downvotes? I'm not trying to downplay to the virus at all. I'm just saying that this specifically is not as big as it first sounds. This new variant likely isn't even brand new - It's just new to the UK

 

[Berbasbullet]

A post from Reddit

think it's important to note that countries have been reporting new variants for months now

So far there hasn't been any evidence that any of the variants have different symptoms or mortality rates. They all appear to be the same. But some variants do appear to be more contagious

Experts currently don't see any reason why they wouldn't respond to the vaccine, either - It seems like they're similar enough to the main variant to still respond to the vaccine perfectly fine

Edit: Wait, why the downvotes? I'm not trying to downplay to the virus at all. I'm just saying that this specifically is not as big as it first sounds. This new variant likely isn't even brand new - It's just new to the UK

Course they got downvoted

 

[Pogue Mahone]

Isn't it very odd for Hancock to be the first to announce this new variant? Can't see anything about it until now.

It’s very weird. He seems to want to blame this variant for the rates taking off in London, with zero evidence that this is the case. Presumably to try and take the heat off their own tardiness in treating Dublin like the rest of the UK. At the very least this is disingenuous as feck. At worst, it’s utterly reckless, considering he’s supposed to be encouraging the Uk population to have faith in this new vaccine.

 

[Withnail]

It’s very weird. He seems to want to blame this variant for the rates taking off in London, with zero evidence that this is the case. Presumably to try and take the heat off their own tardiness in treating Dublin like the rest of the UK. At the very least this is disingenuous as feck. At worst, it’s utterly reckless, considering he’s supposed to be encouraging the Uk population to have faith in this new vaccine.

It does sound a little too convenient.


Also Dublin?

 

[Pogue Mahone]

It does sound a little too convenient.


Also Dublin?

My bad. London. Lived there for 12 years. Born and raised in Dublin (where I live now) Easy mistake for me to make!

 

[Maluco]

Is there any speculation yet on how long the protection from the vaccine may last? Any solid theories?

 

[Wibble]

Is there any speculation yet on how long the protection from the vaccine may last? Any solid theories?

I've read a couple of studies showing antibodies from natural infection detectable many months later, particularly when the symptoms were at least moderate, and memory cells usually last much longer.. Infection with other coronaviruses give protection for years. The vaccines are likely to provide protection at least as long as natural infection.

So although we can't know for sure until we conduct mass vaccination, while continuing to monitor those who got vaccines in trials, I think there is reason to hope that annual booster shots is the worst case scenario, with medium or long term protection quite possible.

Another unknown is how much each vaccine reduces transmission of the virus. We think it isn't sterilising, but many very successful vaccines aren't. However as, as it seems to hugely reduce symptoms, as an immune reaction builds, it is likely to make vaccinated people much less infectious either through reducing the symptoms like coughing that help transmission or reducing the infectious period or reducing the viral load of infected individuals. Long term monitoring as we mass vaccinate will be required to answer this.

Which all leads to the need for mass vaccination ASAP in the hope of reaching herd immunity (HIT).

 

[utdalltheway]

My bad. London. Lived there for 12 years. Born and raised in Dublin (where I live now) Easy mistake for me to make!

Dublin/London cockup; that’s unforgivable!

In other less important news the moderna vaccine looks to be approved by the FDA this week. The US, where I’m at, has also just ordered a 100m extra doses bringing total orders to 200m. Not sure if that means enough for 100m people or 200m?

Also, the latest I read on the timeline of full vaccine rollout is the end of the Q2 in 2021.

It might be time to look into flights if that’s the case.
edit: added this WaPo article on Moderna vaccine.

 

[lynchie]

Good Moderna news today, including this bit

 

[jojojo]

Something a bit different from the normal science/statistics. From one of the UK GP sites who are starting to distribute the virus:

 

[Kasper]

Something a bit different from the normal science/statistics. From one of the UK GP sites who are starting to distribute the virus:

 

[Wibble]

If the vaccine doesn’t prevent carrying then the greater good argument kind of goes out of the window, so again, I’m just taking it day by day and seeing what info becomes available instead of running to the front of the queue

If you reach or even get close to HIT it helps a great deal. A sterilising vaccine would be great but there are many highly successful vaccines that aren't sterilising i.e. they don't bind to the pathogen before they infect the cell.

Even if a non-sterilising vaccine doesn't reduce the length of time someone is infectious (and that has been found with other non-sterilising vaccines) or the viral load when infectious (also quite possible) then the reported reduction in symptoms still means transmission will be reduce as coughing and the like is a major driver of transmission of viruses that are primarily transmitted by droplet and aerosol.

 

[Tony Babangida]

Although it appears the front running vaccines aren’t sterilising, the small amount of data available suggests they may still reduce asymptomatic infections and transmission to some degree. I think people have taken the lack of sterilising immunity to mean they have no impact whatsoever on transmission, which seems unlikely to me.

 

[Zlatan 7]

If you reach or even get close to HIT it helps a great deal. A sterilising vaccine would be great but there are many highly successful vaccines that aren't sterilising i.e. they don't bind to the pathogen before they infect the cell.

Even if a non-sterilising vaccine doesn't reduce the length of time someone is infectious (and that has been found with other non-sterilising vaccines) or the viral load when infectious (also quite possible) then the reported reduction in symptoms still means transmission will be reduce as coughing and the like is a major driver of transmission of viruses that are primarily transmitted by droplet and aerosol.

Yeah fair point with the viral load if you’re in contact with someone who has it.