A Fifth of Coronavirus

[Hurlshort]

I think I've railed against the follies of private schools enough, so I won't get into this story.

[BruceVC]

https://www.newindianexpress.com/world/2021/apr/28/brazil-regulator-rejects-sputnik-vaccine-russia-cries-foul-2295841.html

Big issues with Sputnik and  key data missing from its testing trials ....Russia should know better than to sell vaccines that are lacking in necessary testing data. Well done to Brazil health department for identifying this, to quote 

"We will never permit, without the existence of due proof required, millions of Brazilians to be exposed to products without the due proof of their quality, safety and efficacy or, at minimum, in the face of the grave situation that we’re living through, a favorable cost-benefit relationship,” Anvisa’s president Antônio Barra Torres said in the statement "

[Gorth]

21 minutes ago, BruceVC said:

https://www.newindianexpress.com/world/2021/apr/28/brazil-regulator-rejects-sputnik-vaccine-russia-cries-foul-2295841.html

Big issues with Sputnik and  key data missing from its testing trials ....Russia should know better than to sell vaccines that are lacking in necessary testing data. Well done to Brazil health department for identifying this, to quote 

"We will never permit, without the existence of due proof required, millions of Brazilians to be exposed to products without the due proof of their quality, safety and efficacy or, at minimum, in the face of the grave situation that we’re living through, a favorable cost-benefit relationship,” Anvisa’s president Antônio Barra Torres said in the statement "

"Anvisa’s decision doesn’t affect a separate request from Brazilian company Uniao Quimica for emergency use authorization of Sputnik V produced locally, according to an emailed statement from Anvisa’s press office."

So, it's unusable if they have to import it but not if the same product is manufactured locally. Smells "fishy"?

[BruceVC]

12 minutes ago, Gorth said:

"Anvisa’s decision doesn’t affect a separate request from Brazilian company Uniao Quimica for emergency use authorization of Sputnik V produced locally, according to an emailed statement from Anvisa’s press office."

So, it's unusable if they have to import it but not if the same product is manufactured locally. Smells "fishy"?

Gorthfuscious please lets not play the " I know more than scientists "  card, not this time 

Lets just accept their wasn't adequate testing data ?

[Gromnir]

15 hours ago, rjshae said:

The school was founded by an anti-vaxxer, so... consistent. Funny thing about anti-vaxxers -- you probably get a lot worse injected into your body just from the bug bites. But that's "natural" so it's okay.

considering how the US antivax movement has become conflated with liberty and personal rights, the demand for employees to not be vaccinated is perhaps not so much surprising as naked hypocritical... in addition to being complete anti-science and nonsensical. is impossible for us to prove that the pfizer vaccine won't turn at least one person into a bridge troll, save to note there is nothing in the pfizer vaccine which would accomplish such a transformation. we similar cannot prove there is a microscopic and undetectable chip in the vaccine which through sooper-science would reveal your every move to the government or bill gates or the illuminati. is equal true there is nothing 'bout the pfizer vaccine as described which would or could turn a person into an ambulatory covid-19 factory, nevertheless, the school is denying choice o' their employees to get vaccinated 'cause o' magical thinking embraced by 100ns and perhaps a few obsidian boardies.

also, have mentioned some time past how the legal defense to resist mandatory vaccinations is inextricable tied with pro choice cases. the irony o' far right folks needing rely on a my body, my choice approach to resisting government compelled vaccinations should be a wakeup call for some o' the far right who has curious coopted the antivax movement in the past year.  but again, the florida school takes a noteworthy step beyond previous antivax resistance efforts. current efforts is not simple a demand for personal choice in deciding whether or not to be vaccinated but is rather a prohibition on continued employment to prevent others from choosing.

so little about the story makes sense to us. is not that the story is surprising, but the abandonment o' even the pretense o' reason is discouraging.

HA! Good Fun!

[Zoraptor]

3 hours ago, BruceVC said:

Lets just accept their wasn't adequate testing data ?

It wasn't rejected for bad data per se, it was rejected because the adenovirus vector had reverted back to a self replicating form. That means you could get (very mildly) sick from the vaccine itself as its base vector causes Common Cold in the wild. There's always a small chance of that happening if you use a viral vector, and while it has very low potential danger it should be caught and fixed anyway. That's also why they'd still be happy with a locally manufactured version.

[Gorth]

On 4/29/2021 at 3:11 AM, BruceVC said:

Gorthfuscious please lets not play the " I know more than scientists "  card, not this time 

Lets just accept their wasn't adequate testing data ?

Not questioning the science. Questioning the Bolsonaro governments handling of the pandemic and all things around it... Ok, maybe just all things Bolsonaro and his motives.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-56913943

"Only around 13% of Brazilians have received one vaccine dose and 6% both shots: slow procurement is one of the issues a senate inquiry will now examine, since the government turned down offers of tens of millions of shots from Pfizer last year. The parliamentary commission could recommend the president's impeachment or even criminal charges.

Mr Bolsonaro has been bullish as ever, threatening to send in the army to stop states locking down. And his supporters claim the government could not have purchased vaccine doses sooner, since it was waiting for approval from Brazil's health regulator."

 

Yeah, sending in the army to prevent lockdowns and measures that could prevent the spread of the virus. Refusing not only the Russian vaccine, but telling Pfizer to take their vaccine and leave, not wanted here.... You would think the guy really want his people to die in droves.

 

[Zoraptor]

Turning down Pfizer is fine*, they're extremely expensive and also of significantly reduced practicality for a lowish infrastructure tropical country due to their strict storage conditions- and they're also massively over subscribed. They may be the most effective, but you can vaccinate 20+ people for the same cost using vaccines that store long term in the fridge rather than at -70 and all the vaccines reduce severe infections to nearly zero, even the worst (but also cheapest to make...) Chinese one. Really, Brazil should be licensing then producing their own vaccines en masse (as with local Sputnik), and IIRC that is the intention. Why it's taking so long I don't know, Brazil has a pretty decent bioscience sector so far as I'm aware.

*not least because they're already planning to annualise shots, so they make a non pandemic 26+USD off everyone in their system, every year. Thanks, but I'd rather have a 1$ Astra Zeneca/ Sputnik/ J&J annually and do something constructive with the extra $25 saved like buy computer games I'll never get around to playing, or something actually decent like greasies at Maraetai.

[Elerond]

"Brazil should be licensing then producing their own vaccines en masse (as with local Sputnik)"

That is easier said than done, as scaling up adenovirus has turn out to be more complex than was anticipated which is why AZ, Sputnik and J&J all have failed to match predicted production numbers

 

[Zoraptor]

They've scaled up fine for their existing production base though, and gone from zero to multiple tens of millions of doses per month per company. That's facilities that would have been used to make other vaccines and the like under normal circumstances. It's new production facilities that require certification etc and some raw material supply that are limiting numbers, and some one off batching issues like for AZ in Belgium and one US plant making J&J's being contaminated (plus the Brazilian and Slovak Sputnik issue, assuming it isn't just politics).

Brazil is making vaccine domestically now, but they started later and are producing less than they really should have given their theoretical capabilities.

[Elerond]

51 minutes ago, Zoraptor said:

They've scaled up fine for their existing production base though, and gone from zero to multiple tens of millions of doses per month per company. That's facilities that would have been used to make other vaccines and the like under normal circumstances. It's new production facilities that require certification etc and some raw material supply that are limiting numbers, and some one off batching issues like for AZ in Belgium and one US plant making J&J's being contaminated (plus the Brazilian and Slovak Sputnik issue, assuming it isn't just politics).

Brazil is making vaccine domestically now, but they started later and are producing less than they really should have given their theoretical capabilities.

They didn't start from zero, adenoviruses are used in quite lot other medicines (cancer etc.) which is why they were able to reach their current capacity. But they estimated that they could increase their capacity to hundreds of millions dozes in months, which proven to be much more difficult than they anticipated. And it is even more difficult if there isn't existing facilities to produce adenoviruses.

[Zoraptor]

You don't need particularly specialist equipment to make adenovirus vaccines though. In essence, you need a growing medium for the Human Cell Line with the virus genome in it and a way to purify off the virus product (plus packaging, bulking out etc). That's similar enough to any other process involving cells-in-a-medium that you can readily convert from, say, traditional vaccines to adenovirus mediated ones. While adenoviruses do have a lot of other uses none of them are bulk uses on the tens of millions of doses per month from multiple vendors scale, or even really close to that. Yeah, there's some cancer treatments based on them, and Ebola vaccines plus various research projects etc, but they're all small scale.

The problem they have is that while it's relatively easy to convert existing medical level 'fermenters' to produce the vaccines from other vaccines or other similar uses- hence the rapid production rise despite there being few specialist production sites and them being, well, cheap- it's non trivial to scale up beyond that. The mRNA vaccines kind of have the reverse problem, scaling up is 'easier' (largely because it's done as a in vitro chemical reaction rather than an in vivo biological one) but the precursor nucleosides and lipids fundamentally cost a lot.

Edited May 1, 2021 by Zoraptor

[Gorth]

In a first for Australia, it's now a criminal offense for Australian citizen to return to Australia...

if you travel from India that is.

 

Australian citizens returning home from India could face up to five years in jail and fines after the government made the journey temporarily illegal.

The health ministry said the ruling had been made "based on the proportion of people in quarantine who have acquired a Covid-19 infection in India".

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-56953052

"From Monday, anyone who has been in India within 14 days of their intended arrival date in Australia will be banned from entering the country.

Failing to comply with the new ruling could result in a five-year jail sentence, an A$66,000 (£37,000) fine, or both. The decision will be reviewed on 15 May, the health ministry said."

 

"Anyone" meaning Australian citizen as they are currently the only ones allowed to enter Australia (except Kiwis, who also are free to travel from NZ to Australia).

[Zoraptor]

Relevant to above, India has been holding a major Cricket tournament involving a lot of international players during the pandemic surge, and as should probably surprise no one its biobubble has now been well and truly pierced. Which leads to perhaps Australia's premier player being potentially stranded in India or facing a 5 year jail term for returning home. At least one commentator has fled the country for the Maldives to sit out the 2 weeks there.

(There's at least one NZer effected too, though I know all our players have been vaccinated before leaving and they're off to England in a few weeks anyway rather than returning home. At least theoretically the Indian Cricket team is meant to be going to England too, but at the moment that has to be in question I would have thought)

[rjshae]

Safe to say, the new Aussie law isn't Cricket.

[rjshae]

Our city (Seattle) just announced we reached 70% of the populace at least partially vaccinated. Crushing it here at least.

[BruceVC]

4 hours ago, rjshae said:

Our city (Seattle) just announced we reached 70% of the populace at least partially vaccinated. Crushing it here at least.

Some good virus news, nice to hear 

[Gorth]

After banning the use of AZ vaccine last month, Denmark has now also put an end to any roll out of J&J vaccine as of today. Looks like they don't like the possible side effects...

https://www.france24.com/en/europe/20210503-denmark-drops-johnson-johnson-shot-from-national-vaccine-rollout

On a more positive side note, looks like their own, "homegrown" vaccine is ready for human testing

https://dagensmedicin.dk/dansk-coronavaccine-klar-til-test-paa-mennesker/

Not much details:

https://covidvax.org/covid19-vaccine/Statens/DNA---CoVAXIX-Statens-Serum-Institut

DNA based whatever that means

[ShadySands]

I get my shot tomorrow and I also convinced my cousin and aunt to get vaccinated

[BruceVC]

1 hour ago, Gorth said:

After banning the use of AZ vaccine last month, Denmark has now also put an end to any roll out of J&J vaccine as of today. Looks like they don't like the possible side effects...

https://www.france24.com/en/europe/20210503-denmark-drops-johnson-johnson-shot-from-national-vaccine-rollout

On a more positive side note, looks like their own, "homegrown" vaccine is ready for human testing

https://dagensmedicin.dk/dansk-coronavaccine-klar-til-test-paa-mennesker/

Not much details:

https://covidvax.org/covid19-vaccine/Statens/DNA---CoVAXIX-Statens-Serum-Institut

DNA based whatever that means

Gorthfuscious I am shocked by Denmark's decision to not use J&J ....this is something I imagine you must be very concerned about considering its your old home country. We cannot accept this and I think we both know what you must do....you must make a stand in the interests of science and saving lives. You must protest every day outside the Danish embassy...forget anything else, even your Mandarin and Arabic lessons,  this is more important !!!

I am with you in spirit and any pain you suffer, like being arrested, you must realize I share your pain in a true vicarious sense 

 

[Gorth]

1 hour ago, BruceVC said:

Gorthfuscious I am shocked by Denmark's decision to not use J&J ....this is something I imagine you must be very concerned about considering its your old home country. We cannot accept this and I think we both know what you must do....you must make a stand in the interests of science and saving lives. You must protest every day outside the Danish embassy...forget anything else, even your Mandarin and Arabic lessons,  this is more important !!!

I am with you in spirit and any pain you suffer, like being arrested, you must realize I share your pain in a true vicarious sense 

 

Actually, I'm fully behind the decision, even if it doesn't affect me personally. I would also sit it out and wait down here if AZ or JJ were the only ones on offer. Even a low risk is too much if you don't strictly need the vaccine (yet)

In Denmark's case, the infection rate is manageable as is, while they wait for better alternatives (or use Pfizer, even if more pricy)

 

Edit: Danes don't trust large companies and organisations as a rule of thumb. Just check what happened with the Maastricht Treaty. Every man and his dog of the political and economical elite recommended unanimously across the political spectrum that they should vote 'Yes'. The rest is history, no trust in what comes from the EU whatsoever.

[Zoraptor]

3 hours ago, Gorth said:

DNA based whatever that means

DNA vaccines. Will definitely trigger antivaxxers.

(Wikipedia article would usually be easier reading, but in this case has multiple mistakes in it such as claiming the J&J/ AZ vaccines are DNA vaccines which they aren't)

[Malcador]

With the concern over J&J was sort of funny to read some advocate saying they should give it to the homeless here.  It makes sense, mind you.

[Hurlshort]

Pfizer is going to be approved for 13 and up soon. I have no problem getting my 14 year old daughter vaccinated. She is a fully grown person for the most part. My wife and I had the pfizer vaccine and it was a breeze.

I'm a little more nervous about my 10-year old son. He's still pretty small. But that is probably silly.

[Elerond]

20 minutes ago, Hurlsnot said:

Pfizer is going to be approved for 13 and up soon. I have no problem getting my 14 year old daughter vaccinated. She is a fully grown person for the most part. My wife and I had the pfizer vaccine and it was a breeze.

I'm a little more nervous about my 10-year old son. He's still pretty small. But that is probably silly.

Consider that 1-year old has usually got ~15 vaccination shot against more deadly diseases.

Even though medical experts use high caution principal towards covid vaccines, all the vaccines that have been approved so far have been effective and safer than almost all the medicine that you commonly use.

And even though covid is only rarely dangerous for children, vaccines have been so far much much less dangerous to anybody.