Covid: Oxford jab protection against South Africa variant 'limited'

Probably some daft name like, us with kentvid-19.....

Its disappointing that already the virus has seemingly largely evaded the vaccine most being used in this country, if that variant spreads it would probably put any hopes of a return to normality back much further.

They can tweak it and release a vaccine in autumn but then have to inject all again, which takes months.

After all that positive news the other day this seems a blow.

The FT headline seems to say more clearly...

'Oxford/AstraZeneca jab fails to prevent mild and moderate Covid from S African strain, study shows'
 
JJpool said:
www.bbc.co.uk

Oxford jab offers less S Africa Covid protection - BBC News

Developers say they are likely to have a modified version of the jab by autumn to combat the variant.
www.bbc.co.uk www.bbc.co.uk

A bit disappointing if so, seeing as the Pfizer vacancie claims only slightly reduced efficiency against it.
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Early results from small scale studies, Pfizer are profit motivated whilst Ox/AZ are working on a not for profit basis, Pfizer have consistently reported better results but I think the reality is that both perform broadly similarly.

Although they use different technologies (mRNA v viral vector) the end result is the same, teach the immune system to recognise the same spike protein and react against it, if the new variant can avoid that reaction there is no reason to expect one vaccine to be better than another.

I'd say watch and wait for now, and do what the government is doing which is try to keep 501Y.V2 (SA variant name) out of the country in the first place.
 
Prof Gilbert from Oxford didn't seem too concerned about the new strains on the Andrew Marr Show. She said the vaccine already protects against serious illness and that they can easily add in proteins to combat different strains.

Also said she had no concerns about her vaccine being blanked by Switzerland and EU. She is confident that the latest trial results will be positive.

One oddity that nobody seems to have mentioned is that the improved vaccine will be available for the later first rollout on younger people so they will be better protected than the vulnerable even though they don't need to be.
 
Yeah points taken above however the results we want to hear is yes the vaccine is still effective against this variant albeit slightly less.

Its great if no one sees however the spread may still cause issues and delay relaxing of restrictions.

Saying they can release a new on in autumn is good but by then if everyone is vaccinated the SA could be the dominant strain and causing issues and it takes time to vaccinate everyone.

I guess wait and see but by the time an SA variant vaccine os out they'll be another strain.

I'm sure we will get on top eventually but just wan life back to some normality....
 
I think we will be playing cat and mouse with Covid mutations and vaccines for at least the next 2 or 3 years. Hopefully most of the world will have had a vaccine of one kind or another by 2024 and then we might see it starting to peter out but until then, all this vaccine nationalism will just prove futile. This is a global pandemic and can't be resolved until everyone, everywhere is protected.
 
BigHandsOliverKahn said:
I think we will be playing cat and mouse with Covid mutations and vaccines for at least the next 2 or 3 years. Hopefully most of the world will have had a vaccine of one kind or another by 2024 and then we might see it starting to peter out but until then, all this vaccine nationalism will just prove futile. This is a global pandemic and can't be resolved until everyone, everywhere is protected.
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I think we'll see off the worst of it with a single vaccination.
 
Lala said:
That’s what it said on the news 👍
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From the BBC article -

"In a separate statement, AstraZeneca said the jab offered "limited" protection against mild and moderate disease caused by the variant.
A spokesman for the pharmaceutical company said it had not yet been able to properly establish whether the jab would prevent severe disease and hospitalisation caused by the South Africa variant because those involved in the study had predominantly been young, healthy adults."

I think this is a key point. The average age of the participants was just 31. Surely, they need data on older people as it's mostly older people in danger?
 
Only means you may suffer with mild symptoms but won’t die and won’t end up in hospital. Relax.
 
Well the BBC is working hard to put people off having it. Every ten minutes throughout the day on the news channel it's warning about the lack of efficacy. Next, you'll have people turning up for a jab and insisting on a different vaccine.
 
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BigHandsOliverKahn said:
I think we will be playing cat and mouse with Covid mutations and vaccines for at least the next 2 or 3 years. Hopefully most of the world will have had a vaccine of one kind or another by 2024 and then we might see it starting to peter out but until then, all this vaccine nationalism will just prove futile. This is a global pandemic and can't be resolved until everyone, everywhere is protected.
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Just shows that BHOK can be right some of the time.

The important thing now though is that the overwhelming majority of cases in the UK are the original virus plus the so-called Kent variant, against which both vaccines being administered today are highly effective.
 
PoolBorn said:
Just shows that BHOK can be right some of the time.

The important thing now though is that the overwhelming majority of cases in the UK are the original virus plus the so-called Kent variant, against which both vaccines being administered today are highly effective.
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A broken clock is right twice a day
 
As with all things covid things get blown up out of proportion...Professor Robert Dingwall who sits on the NERVTAG group states Publicity over this small vaccine study is absurd...he also says "it is hard to see why this small study has generated so much publicity unless people are looking actively for bad news stories.........
 
Towerpower99 said:
As with all things covid things get blown up out of proportion...Professor Robert Dingwall who sits on the NERVTAG group states Publicity over this small vaccine study is absurd...he also says "it is hard to see why this small study has generated so much publicity unless people are looking actively for bad news stories.........
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Well we do know certain posters on here do actively look for bad news stories. And I hardly need to name them......
 
Scaramanga said:
What happened to the faux outrage when it was called the China virus ?
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It's a variant after the country of origin, much like the Kent variant.

Calling it the China virus was a typically immature response from some criminal who's disappeared since despite having a massive victory in the Presidential race.
 
Its virtually certain it emanated in China and their government`s initial response was to lie, cover it up and force those medical staff who had become aware of it to say nothing and fail to report it to the WHO.The worst possible response to contain it .

I am certainly no fan of Trump but when he frequently described it as the Chinese disease it was actually one of the few things he got right.
 
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The World Health Organisation today re-stated its view that the OxfordAZ vaccine is effective for over 65s "even if variants are present". The WHO dismissed the EU's concerns over the vaccine. Looks like Merkel, VDL and Macron are going to have to come up with another excuse for the pathetic EU vaccine roll out performance.
 
Tangojoe said:
The World Health Organisation today re-stated its view that the OxfordAZ vaccine is effective for over 65s "even if variants are present". The WHO dismissed the EU's concerns over the vaccine. Looks like Merkel, VDL and Macron are going to have to come up with another excuse for the pathetic EU vaccine roll out performance.
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Dr Alejandro Cravioto, chairman of the WHO's Strategic Advisory Group of Experts on Immunisation, said: "In the case of the data coming from clinical trials, we have seen that there was a small participation of people over 65 years of age.

"However, the results of the efficacy estimate for persons up to 65 and older had a wide confidence interval. And therefore we feel that the response of this group cannot be any different to groups that are of a younger age.


Shall we examine that statement?

If the confidence interval is relatively narrow, the effect size is known precisely. If the interval is wider, the uncertainty is greater. As such, it is often used when a sample size is too small.

So the next part of the statement doesn't really make sense because, whilst admitting to uncertainty in the data, they then use the words 'we feel' it cannot be different for the various age groups. I don't think this confused statement will cause a change in direction for countries which are basing their decisions on proven scientific test data.
 
BigHandsOliverKahn said:
Shall we examine that statement?

If the confidence interval is relatively narrow, the effect size is known precisely. If the interval is wider, the uncertainty is greater. As such, it is often used when a sample size is too small.

So the next part of the statement doesn't really make sense because, whilst admitting to uncertainty in the data, they then use the words 'we feel' it cannot be different for the various age groups. I don't think this confused statement will cause a change in direction for countries which are basing their decisions on proven scientific test data.
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Non-EFL speaker struggling to make his point?
 
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