Vaccination Its Important 2 Information On: Fill & Download for Free

I disagree that “most governments right now can clearly not be trusted with delivering clear and correct facts regarding the virus.”To use the United States as an example, it's important to distinguish between the President and lawmakers, who have told various lies at various points of the pandemic, and actual government scientists, who have consistently relayed the most accurate information they had.I don't give a rat's ass what politicians say about the COVID vaccines. I care very much what the FDA and CDC say about the COVID vaccines. I also care about what the wider scientific community says about them. After all, the data the FDA relied on to approve the vaccines is publicly available. Anyone can read these reports, and decide for themselves if the FDA approval was reasonable. Many virologists and public health experts have done exactly that, and they aren't screaming that the FDA shouldn't have approved the vaccines.Let me be clear: It's very good to “question” the safety of the vaccines. But when you “question” something, you go looking for the answer. And if you didn't already read the publicly available information about the vaccines' clinical trials, you haven't been looking for the answer, and therefore you haven't been “questioning” at all. You've been supposing and guessing, which is very different.“Are these vaccines safe enough for everybody to get?” is a great question. Ask it. And then seek the answer, based on actual information. Here are some places to start:Safety and Efficacy of the BNT162b2 mRNA Covid-19 Vaccine | NEJMEfficacy and Safety of the mRNA-1273 SARS-CoV-2 Vaccine | NEJM

Everyone needs to be calm and thoughtful about this question because my overwhelming fear is that someone might be dissuaded from a vaccine which will not only save their lives but reduce the onward transmission of the disease.I have been vaccinated with the Oxford-Astra Zeneca vaccine and I am deeply, overwhelmingly glad to have received the treatment.Note that I have received the vaccine - not that I might at some time in the future or could when supplies are available.I not an expert on vaccines so I cannot make a detailed comment of the efficacy of each one. However, I have been part of the British vaccine volunteer programme since May and so have had rather more information than those who have not been part of effort.Note that I have received the vaccine - not that I might at some time in the future or could when supplies are available: I have had it.For the benefit of American readers, this is my objective assessment of the situation.1. Without a vaccine you are relying on your body’s own immune system to protect you from becoming either very ill or dying as a result of a Covid 19 infection. Your immune system may be excellent if you are young and in good health but less so the older you are or if you have any co-morbidities.2. All the three leading vaccines currently in widespread use are efficacious. It is a specious distraction to say if either the Pfizer, Moderna or Oxford Astra Zeneca vaccines is “better” than the other because the protocols used for evaluating each vaccine was different - a case of trying to compare apples with pears and tomatoes.Politicians should not try to score points with silly party political games by deliberately mis-quoting data.3. After four weeks, all three vaccines give around 70+% protection from Covid 19 from a single dose. After the second dose, the protection rises to around 90+%.In the case of Oxford vaccine, it seems to provide 100% protection against hospitalisation and/or death four weeks after one dose. Not dying is quite a significant factor in deciding whether to have a vaccination!4. All the vaccines are safe. We have now vaccinated over 20 million people in Britain and there have been no major adverse effects. The vast majority of us have had the Oxford vaccine. In my case, I had a sore arm for a few hours and then felt a little tired and had a nap.5. My wife felt something along the lines of a mild cold for an afternoon and an evening. This is considerably better than being admitted to an intensive care ward.6. There is no pain or discomfort during the vaccination process. It was fast, easy and the nurses were full of fun. In Britain, the vaccine is free too.7. If you wanted to be ultra-cautious, then the Oxford vaccine is the one to choose because it uses proven technology already established in treatments for SARS, MERS and the Ebola virus.The Oxford approach is to take an inert chimpanzee cold virus and then add the DNA from the protein which makes the Covid 19 spike. The recipient’s body is then primed to fight a Covid 19 infection because it already has anti-bodies and T-cells established.It is an incredibly clever piece of bio-engineering but well established. As an aside, if you want to impress your friends the vaccine’s designation is not Oxford Astra Zeneca but ChAdOx1. That’s a Quora fact for you!By contrast, the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines use new technology with the RNA technique in which the DNA of the spike protein is carried in a micro lipid (an artificial fat cell).I would happily have accepted any of the three vaccines because I am confident that they are safe, having been rigorously assessed by government regulators, and are efficacious. All three vaccines are proven to reduce the onward transmission of Covid 19 so I feel a civic duty to protect not only myself but my fellow citizens.8. I would not accept the Chinese Sinovac vaccine because I am not happy with the scrutiny it has undergone before being released.In conclusion, if you are offered the Oxford vaccine accept it immediately - there is no reason not to.ADDENDUM:As I have said,. I am not a scientist but have only a polymath’s knowledge of this disease and its associated vaccinations. However, I am concerned by the comments made by Ross Mallet and Martin Hogbin which seem suggest that the Oxford AZ vaccine is not highly efficacious. What I am desperate to avoid is anyone being offered ChAdOx1, and not accepting it because they think that there is a “better” option.First, the Oxford vaccine is hugely better than no vaccine. There can be no debate about this. In Britain, it is highly available and will be in in the US too.Second, it is safe.Third it does have around the 70% efficacy rate I suggested in the post. Here is what the British Medical Journal said:“A single standard dose of vaccine provided 76% protection overall against symptomatic covid-19 in the first 90 days after vaccination with protection not falling in this time frame.”Covid-19: New data on Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine backs 12 week dosing intervalAnecdotally, this is what the vaccination staff told me when I had my inoculation but they suggested the lower figure of 70%.Further, ChAdOx1 seems to confer 100% protection against very serious illness and death. I would rather have a mild dose of Covid 19 for a couple of days than die!Fourth, in accepting the Oxford vaccine you are protecting yourself - and your fellow citizens. This is what Astra Zeneca said:“Researchers found that after a single dose of vaccine, overall polymerase chain reaction test positive cases of covid-19 (both symptomatic and asymptomatic) fell by 67%, raising hopes that it may have a substantial impact on transmission by reducing the number of infected people in the population.”So, the Oxford Astra Zeneca vaccine works in real life, is safe and helps eradicate the disease. I would have thought that this made it a winner!Finally, the latest data sets indicate that 14% of the British population are now showing Covid 19 anti-bodies - around 9.5 million adults - so, thanks to our vaccination programme we are really making progress against Covid 19.If you are offered ChAdOx1 - take it immediately!FACT CHECK ON THE OXFORD ASTRA ZENECA VACCINE AND THE LIES ABOUT AN ALLEGED LINK TO BLOOD CLOTSI am so fortunate, in so many ways, that I try not to get angry about anything, or anyone, but the callous, political, cynical lies which EU countries are spreading about the Oxford AZ vaccine, and a spurious link to blood clots, does make me furious because it will result in innocent members of their populations dying.These are the facts about the supposed link between blood clots and the Oxford AZ vaccine. Please do check them if you doubt what I am saying and please do have a look at the accompanying graphic. Knowing the truth is vitally important.The data that I quote comes largely from John Hopkins’ University which has been providing the most accurate, empirical data throughout the pandemic.1) There have been 37 cases of recipients of the Oxford vaccine showing blood clots in over 17 million people who have been vaccinated. In simple terms, slightly less than 1 person in every ½ million.2) This is a lower incidence of blood clots than is apparent in a normal population which has not been vaccinated. Anecdotally, it would seem that if you want to avoid a blood clot get vaccinated!3) The Pfizer vaccine shows a, very, slightly higher number of recipients manifesting evidence of blood clotting – but even with the Pfizer vaccine the incidence of blood clotting is virtually non-existent.4) There is no reason, not even the most incredibly minor doubt, not to be vaccinated on the grounds that any of the major vaccines are likely to increase your chance of getting a blood clot.5) Vaccine take up in Britain is around 95%. We have vaccinated over 25 million of our citizens. There have been no reports of illness occurring as a result of being vaccinated.In the interests of fairness and objectivity, post vaccination some people have had a sore arm, felt a little bit tired or had a headache for a few hours. No-one has become seriously, or even moderately, ill. Huge numbers have had no side effects at all. Compare feeling a bit sleepy for an afternoon with becoming infected with Covid 19!6) Yesterday, the UK suffered just 110 deaths. Every single one was a tragedy but, thanks to the vaccination programme, our country is becoming safer by the hour.7) Our rolling average, seven-day, mortality rate is now 128 deaths per day.8) By contrast, Covid 19 infections, and resultant deaths, are spiralling out of control throughout Europe. Please fact-check this statement for yourself.European governments needed someone/something to blame for the contemptible failure of their vaccination programmes so turned, quite cynically, to an all British – and non-EU - success story: the Oxford Astra Zeneca vaccine.9) As a result of this false news, European citizens are – and I know this as fact from correspondence with my friends in Europe – becoming both unwilling to accept the Oxford AZ vaccine and, which is worse in some ways, vaccine averse in the wider sense.Thus, the callous political posturing of European governments - who have abandoned their citizens by failing with their vaccination programmes - will now lead to both increased mortalities and even greater economic hardship.10) Please do accept any of the four major vaccines if they are offered to you and let us try to bring an end to this world-wide tragedy.

The Oxford team have been very clear that they really don’t know, but that there do exist known mechanisms that could plausibly lie behind it. They are of course looking into it.On the other hand, there is a possibility that the increased efficacy is a statistical artifact, linked to the unfortunate fact that the varied dosing regime was an accident rather than part of the study as designed.Working out how likely this is, is rather tricky, as the various communications of the interim results have not given full information.And I am rather disappointed by this. The work itself is highly impressive, and the potential of a low-cost, easy-to-store vaccine is huge. But I feel the communications from AstraZeneca and the Oxford team have been needlessly unclear.Let’s start with the overall situation. What the team originally meant to do was give everyone a full first and full second dose — a trial with only one dosing regime. But early in the trial it was discovered that some participants had received a half-dose in the first administration of the vaccine/placebo. There were about 2,800 people in this cohort, compared to 8,900 who received the full dose.With regulatory approval, they continued the trial, tracking both cohorts, though with recognition that the trial had not been designed to look at different dosing regimes, and so any different results should be treated with caution. The key point is that no-one had made sure that the half-dose vs full dose populations were fully randomised. If there were systemic differences between the two populations, these could explain the differences in rate.So, finally they got to this point of the trial and found that — taken as a whole — the vaccine was about 70% effective. And that this was based on how 131 cases of sympomatic COVID were distributed between vaccine and and placebo.This is fine and statistically robust — these numbers are large enough to draw the stated conclusions.But they also reported that when you looked at the lo-hi doses alone, the vaccine seemed to show 90% efficacy. However, they did not report two, critically important, facts that are needed to judge how seriously we should take this 90% efficicy number.How many cases this was based on, and into which groups the cases fell.Whether they were satisfied that the low-high regime was randomised as well as the overall population was — and since the variable dosing was a mistake, this might or might not be the case.Further information on both of these are worrying. On point 1, back-calculations on the numbers suggest that the 90% efficicacy rate may be based on a total of only 25 cases in that arm of the study, of which 23 fell into the placebo group, and 2 into the vaccinated group.Now, even these small numbers are enough to be pretty sure that the vaccine is efficacious under the lo-hi dose regime (i.e., it definitely does not do nothing). And the AZ press-release gives the p-value for this, and accurately reports that it is significant.Let’s show quickly why we can be so confident of this, even at small numbers like “23” and “2”. If the vaccine was 0% efficicacious (i.e., it does exactly the same as the placebo) then anyone getting the virus would have equal chances of being in each group. So the distribution of cases in the vaccinated and placebo group of 25 would go as a binomial distribution with p = 0.5. Which looks like this:The area below the graph is the probability for the result to be obtained. So to get our result of two or fewer cases in the vaccinated group is incredibly unlikely. As a result, we can be pretty sure that the vaccine, even in the lo-hi regime is efficacious. And the press release proudly reports the associated p value with many zeros (6 of them) before the leading figure.So far, so good.But — assuming these 2 vs 23 numbers are right — it’s not anywhere near so convincing that there is a significant differentiated efficacy in the hi-lo dose vs the hi-hi approach.There are basically two issues. First, the randomisation could have been fine, but these numbers fallen out by chance alone.Let’s see this by putting forward a test hypothesis. Let’s imagine that the true efficacy of the vaccine regardless of the treatment regime is 70% — the value seen in the whole-group study.Then the distribution of outcomes of 25 cases in the lo-hi arm should would look something like this (binomial n = 25, p = 0.23)OK, now we can see there is a possibility of getting the result by chance. It’s the area under the graph until we get to 2 cases. And it’s visible. You can see it’s a small area but it’s there — in fact it’s just over 5%. That’s fairly unlikely to happen by chance, but it is very possible.And of course, if we assume that the true efficiacy is some other figure, like a mid-70s percent, then this probability goes up further.It is notable that the AZ-Oxford press release is very, very quiet on what significance they attach to the efficacies being different.ANOVA tests and similar are a more principled way of showing the calculations here. And doing it that way gets the same result - it falls out as fairly unlikely that the two dosing regimes have the same efficicacy, but it is quite possible.The second issue is - if anything - more serious. All of the above is predicated on the assumption that the randomisation has been preserved in the new “accidental” arm of the study. But we don’t know that. There are reports — apparently confirmed by AstraZeneca — that the lo-hi dose test population actually had an age cut-off of 55+, which may not have existed for the hi-hi arm. If this is true, then it’s a huge, non-random difference between the two arms of the study, and a very plausible confounding factor. At this point, we should be sceptical that anything at all should be concluded from that sub-group alone.All in all, the results so far could lead a reasonable person to these conclusionsThe AZ/Oxford vaccine is almost certainly effective to some extent (likely >70%)Given it is both cheap (<a tenth of the cost of the others), easy to handle and easy to manufacture, it is likely going to have a larger effect in suppressing COVID worldwide than the other candidates, even though they may be more effective. AZ deserve a lot of praise for accepting the Oxford team’s terms, by agreeing to distribute world-wide at cost-of-manufactureNo one has reported any robust evidence that would lead you to believe that the Oxford vaccine’s true effectiveness is 90% or more. From the information we know so far, we should expect it to be >70%, but we need a lot more data and for this to be reported openly, to know for sure.After praising AstraZeneca and Oxford for doing the right thing on pricing and distribution, they should be roundly condemned for their selective communication and lack of transparency. Some of these pieces of data have trickled out of private briefings to industry analysts and politicians rather than being reported publicly. This is not reassuring at all, and they are damaging their own credibility by doing it.