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Coronavirus: How dangerous a threat?

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"19% or 95%? US expert challenges Pfizer vaccine's efficacy, triggers debates in China."


"Questions raised by Peter Doshi, an assistant professor of pharmaceutical health services research at the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy, have triggered heated discussion on Chinese social media."

"Doshi on January 4 released an article on a blog platform under the UK pharmaceutical journal The BMJ, questioning Pfizer's efficacy rate."


"Pfizer revealed that it discovered 170 PCR confirmed COVID-19 cases during the phase III clinical trials and 3,410 suspected cases in total."

"However, if taking these suspected cases all as confirmed ones, the Pfizer vaccine's efficacy would be dramatically reduced to 19 percent. Even after omitting cases occurring within seven days of vaccination, which should include the majority of symptoms due to short-term vaccine reactogenicity, the efficacy rate remains as low as 29 percent, Doshi said in the article."

"Doshi also questioned the standards of how Pfizer excluded cases and the influence of the use of medication on the vaccine's efficacy."
All those suspected cases tested negative in PCR. If there was a significant proportion of them that was actually positive, it would mean the PCR tests, applied everywhere are broken and infection rates would in reality be massively higher, even though this is not in line with anti-body results.
 
I think there is a new variant that they are really worried about. That notion is mentioned briefly in the article. Similar to SA and UK in that it has one mutation at 501 in common.
View: https://twitter.com/CaddeProject/status/1349060088271679489


As for Doshi, It can't be a good feeling to write a solid article and then see a bunch of bad actors (i.e Global times) run with it for questionable reasons. His call for more transparency is really needed. Part of the reason is that this is an EUA. Full approval after the completion of the trials will require more data.

As for the argument, I think he answers his own question.
But considering that influenza-like illnesses have always had myriad causes—rhinoviruses, influenza viruses, other coronaviruses, adenoviruses, respiratory syncytial virus, etc.—some or many of the suspected covid-19 cases may be due to a different causative agent.
Some of the non-enveloped viruses are more resilient than CoV and Flu to the current prevention strategies. The key is that blinded people are selecting what event gets called COVID, so I am not persuaded by the 29% figure.
 
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More follow up on me/my company vaccination plan: The big boss asked each site boss to pick a few people to get their vaccine Saturday to show the rest of our colleagues how safe it is. I'm one of the people from my site! I'm excited and anxious. It will be about 50 of us total counting people who travel plus the people from each site. Of note, the PA who is at our site some days a week turned down the offer.

EDIT: The state just opened the window for teachers too so we might not be able to get in line until next weekend, vaccine inventory dependent. I won't know until Saturday morning if I will get it this Saturday or next Saturday...
 
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More follow up on me/my company vaccination plan: The big boss asked each site boss to pick a few people to get their vaccine Saturday to show the rest of our colleagues how safe it is. I'm one of the people from my site! I'm excited and anxious. It will be about 50 of us total counting people who travel plus the people from each site. Of note, the PA who is at our site some days a week turned down the offer.

Glad to hear you're one of the ones getting it. Let us know if you have any side effects.
 
Not saying this isn't serious but we do need to keep perspective. According to World-O-Meter, as I write there are 1,875 active cases in Australia and just 1 single case is listed as serious. Reading your article I note this quote:



I assume you would be listed as serious if this happened?

Also, the recent outbreaks in Sydney were all asymptomatic. I really doubt any asymptomatic person will end up with long term problems.

Anyway I hope the vaccine gets out faster and I worry that Australia is accessing the lower efficacy AstraZeneca vaccine. I note Pfizer just announced a massive increase in production so I wonder if Australia jumped too soon?
Yes but I think these stories are a good reality check for the people that think just because they are young they will only have a mild version of the virus. No one knows that before they are infected. It's all about risk and being community minded as far as I'm concerned..............
 
Japan cases continue to rise, the hospital system in Tokyo and other areas is getting severely strained, even with more beds allocated with hotels, etc - one extra problem is nurses have been resigning due to - on top of bad treatment, lousy hours and pay - more of the same and abuse from the public, so even with extra beds it doesn't mean there's enough staff. A pity the vaccine rollout isn't slated to begin until at least mid Feb, with greater population rollout further on.
 
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As for Doshi, It can't be a good feeling to write a solid article and then see a bunch of bad actors (i.e Global times) run with it for questionable reasons. His call for more transparency is really needed. Part of the reason is that this is an EUA. Full approval after the completion of the trials will require more data.
Well, if you use percentages that really stick out (19%, 29%), you must know that this will be used as clickbait. So if he really wanted to write a solid article, he should've avoided those rather back-of-the-envelope calculations.
 
Well, if you use percentages that really stick out (19%, 29%), you must know that this will be used as clickbait. So if he really wanted to write a solid article, he should've avoided those rather back-of-the-envelope calculations.
That is true that the article could've had the same message without the math. This time it was national propagandists, but it could just as well have been anti-vaxxers running with those numbers. That is the fine line that a person who truly is interested in transparency and safety in that space must walk. Re-reading the blog post, I don't see any thing that is incorrect. I don't buy the premise for the reasons that I mentioned yesterday, but the post is well balanced IMO. I don't know Doshi personally, nor have I heard of him despite working under the same umbrella.

As soon as I got home my partner (who got the Pfizer vaccine on Sunday) asked me if I heard any news about the Pfizer vaccine efficacy being disputed, so this story is definitely circulating outside of the normal channels of academia where it should've stayed. This situation reminds me of the study that CG posted about the Florida researcher who allegedly found no asymptomatic spread. Tomi Lahren and that whole media ecosystem spread that snippet far and wide. The researcher had to go on twitter to dispute that conclusion. In both cases, the stories lost nuance as they spread.

View: https://twitter.com/nataliexdean/status/1343989526503575554
 
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View: https://mobile.twitter.com/RobertKennedyJr/status/1349463283741421574



Have to laugh at the PR statement by Pfizer: It doesn't "believe at this time that there is any direct connection to the vaccine" and that "there is no indication that it could be connected to thrombocytopenia."

Amazing choice of words - I wouldn't expect them to saying anything else. Even though Pfizer (and Moderna) have complete protection from product liability, it would be a total marketing disaster for them to suggest that the death is possibly related to the vaccine and needs to be further investigated.

"You can't sue Pfizer or Moderna if you have severe Covid vaccine side effects. The government likely won't compensate you for damages either."

 
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Then why don't you confer with Doshi and show some professional courtesy instead of always condemning academics that you don't agree with.
Where was I condemning him? Quite the opposite if you read my posts.

View: https://mobile.twitter.com/RobertKennedyJr/status/1349463283741421574



Have to laugh at the PR statement by Pfizer: It doesn't "believe at this time that there is any direct connection to the vaccine" and that "there is no indication that it could be connected to thrombocytopenia."

Amazing choice of words - I wouldn't expect them to saying anything else. Even though Pfizer (and Moderna) have complete protection from product liability, it would be a total PR disaster for them to suggest that the death is possibly related to the vaccine and needs to be further investigated.

"You can't sue Pfizer or Moderna if you have severe Covid vaccine side effects. The government likely won't compensate you for damages either."

4K people are dying a day from COVID here in the USA, do you honestly think that vaccination should be halted? I don't know what happened to this Doctor. And neither does Spivak. The common bond between us is that neither have had access to his medical records.
 
I don't understand this story at all. So, there is no reserve at all? I wonder if the states that have already used >50% of their doses know that. This really limits the ability of states to expand vaccination to new tiers, because a lot of the upcoming vaccinations will be reserved for the second doses. There could be a lot more clarity on this. Does not sound ideal.

View: https://twitter.com/bylenasun/status/1350097111224901634
This is three fold: poor planning, poor execution, and lying.
 
I don't understand this story at all. So, there is no reserve at all? I wonder if the states that have already used >50% of their doses know that. This really limits the ability of states to expand vaccination to new tiers, because a lot of the upcoming vaccinations will be reserved for the second doses. There could be a lot more clarity on this. Does not sound ideal.

View: https://twitter.com/bylenasun/status/1350097111224901634

This is why I would decline the vaccine currently. I will eventually get it, but I'll wait until there is plenty of of it and I know I'll be able to get the needed 2 doses. If that's not possible, let's hope the J&J 1 dose vaccine is highly effective.
 
I don't know BMJ but maybe dj can jump in:
 
I don't know BMJ but maybe dj can jump in:

Personally if they tell me I won't get the 2nd dose as recommended by the company and the only interval that is known to work, I'd decline it. If I remember correctly Pfizer has literally said if you don't follow their 3 week schedule you have to start the dosing over from scratch. They will not promise there is any immunity at all for anything outside of their interval for the dosing. AstraZeneca's is a whole different story, but isn't available in the US.
To me doing it at 3 months instead of 1 month is just a great way to ensure the virus mutates to make the vaccine worthless. It's also a brilliant way to ensure even more people refuse to take the vaccine. We currently are at around 65% who are willing to take it. Do this and that number likely drops below 50% of people willing to take the vaccine. That is not helpful.
 
Personally if they tell me I won't get the 2nd dose as recommended by the company and the only interval that is known to work, I'd decline it. If I remember correctly Pfizer has literally said if you don't follow their 3 week schedule you have to start the dosing over from scratch. They will not promise there is any immunity at all for anything outside of their interval for the dosing. AstraZeneca's is a whole different story, but isn't available in the US.
To me doing it at 3 months instead of 1 month is just a great way to ensure the virus mutates to make the vaccine worthless. It's also a brilliant way to ensure even more people refuse to take the vaccine. We currently are at around 65% who are willing to take it. Do this and that number likely drops below 50% of people willing to take the vaccine. That is not helpful.
But are you shocked?
 

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