COVID topic vol 2

[stoneage]

thank you for that last link, jean.

[nomadscientist]

huh?

There are 3,000 total participants in the trial but the vast majority of them did not catch covid during the trial period.

The relevant numbers are those in the control group and the vaccinated group who got covid.

AZN and/or BBC don't give us these numbers, but they're probably 10-20 (combined).

This usually wouldn't be enough to publish preliminary analysis, but since they bundled this small subtrial with a larger trial they got away with publishing it anyway. I wonder what would've happened to their stock price if they'd only published the main trial result, that shows their vaccine is 62% effective?

It's a smart play, assuming it was a play: they have a good chance of datamining a statistically insignificant positive delta on the main trial, while if there's a negative delta everyone will say it's not surprising you get less protection when you receive less vaccine.

In france, according to official numbers, every year of life saved by the lockdown costed around 500'000 euros. Which is the average life saving of three french family.
Said otherwise, the cost of the lockdown, will require the savings of all french household for the five next year.

For french speaker, It's a quite mainstream investment channel (Grand Angle) that simply ran the numbers, so I was surprise to see him make a video with this angle on this topic.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-9xMD1Io7Cc

The last time I checked it, the English NHS valued a QALY at ~30k GBP. So that's an order 10x overweighting of this risk before including non-monetised costs. That's about what I'd guess back of the envelope.

[Alphaville]

There are 3,000 total participants in the trial but the vast majority of them did not catch covid during the trial period.

The relevant numbers are those in the control group and the vaccinated group who got covid.

AZN and/or BBC don't give us these numbers, but they're probably 10-20 (combined).

This usually wouldn't be enough to publish preliminary analysis, but since they bundled this small subtrial with a larger trial they got away with publishing it anyway. I wonder what would've happened to their stock price if they'd only published the main trial result, that shows their vaccine is 62% effective?

It's a smart play, assuming it was a play: they have a good chance of datamining a statistically insignificant positive delta on the main trial, while if there's a negative delta everyone will say it's not surprising you get less protection when you receive less vaccine.

ah, yeah, ok.

the 30+110 infected was for the preliminary trial, but yeah they don’ say what sample size.

the second trial said 3000 participants and 90% effectiveness

the 68% “combines” no idea

total volunteers os 20,000 not sure how many used

i don’t know the structure of the trial or sample sizes, so i’m afraid i can’t speculate, but you’re right it’s all a bit obscure, and so you’re trying to infer how many people actually tested from the numbers given, and you think it’s a small number, yes? like it’ a small cohort out of many?

either way even if only 67% it’ a great price & distribution options for that one. if there’s a way to give herd immunity to 3rd world populations that’s the ticket (so far’.

you keep bringing up the russian ones and it’s true they’re being ignored, but frankly “made in russia” is a bad global marketing brand these days, generally speaking, regardless of facts. even the good vodka is now french or polish or dutch or american

saw some news of it from back in august and putin was promoting without phase 3. “i gave it to my own daughter!” . they need better pr regardless. perhaps i’m prejudiced but i distrust them by default....and that’s how branding works, as a heuristic.and heuristics are not always rational but... we use them.

[nomadscientist]

ah, yeah, ok.

the 30+110 infected was for the preliminary trial, but yeah they don’ say what sample size.

the second trial said 3000 participants and 90% effectiveness

the 68% “combines” no idea

total volunteers os 20,000 not sure how many used

There are no preliminary trials.

There are two trials for which we have partial preliminary results. One has OK statistics and says the vaccine is 62% effective. One has undisclosed but presumably bad statistics that says the vaccine is 90% effective when you administer it in a way that few would predict would make it more effective.

AZN has then combined both trials into a single, third data set from which they derive their headline 70% effectiveness figure. This is utter nonsense given they're simultaneously claiming that the dosing regimen difference is highly material to the efficacy and basically fraud.

either way even if only 67% it’ a great price & distribution options for that one. if there’s a way to give herd immunity to 3rd world populations that’s the ticket (so far’.

you keep bringing up the russian ones and it’s true they’re being ignored, but frankly “made in russia” is a bad global marketing brand these days, generally speaking, regardless of facts. even the good vodka is now french or polish or dutch or american

saw some news of it from back in august and putin was promoting without phase 3. “i gave it to my own daughter!” . they need better pr regardless. perhaps i’m prejudiced but i distrust them by default....and that’s how branding works, as a heuristic.and heuristics are not always rational but... we use them.

If the BBC wants to say "we ignore the Russian effort because we, on our own scientific judgement as a News Organization, consider them to be nothing but dirty no-good stinkin' ferreners" then fine. Let them print it if they dare. Instead they simply write the vaccine out of history; even in the same article that has an infographic showing all four vaccines (perhaps infographics is a different department) they claim this is the third vaccine to be developed.

If the Russian vaccine turns out to be fine will the BBC take responsibility for the excess deaths? Will they caveat their stories as potential misinformation? As far as I can tell the Russian trial design is the same as those in the West; their government just issued an emergency safety license earlier than we did. This is not the decision of the company developing the vaccine, and since all the vaccines are apparently both highly effective and safe, appears with hindsight to have been correct.

[Alphaville]

well in the uk “made in russia” brings associations of polonium tea, novichok, people impaled on fences, mysterious hangings, etc. so whatever their motives i can’t really blame them.

the markets also didn’t react to the russian claims of a vaccine as they did with the news of pfizer then moderna.

it’s a widespread thing i’m afraid. brands matter.

eta: eg see: https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2018 ... ationally/

eta2: https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/11931570/ ... terrorism/

[jacob]

And just as I was trying to estimate the over-under date for when the entire map would turn red, https://covidactnow.org/?s=1368354 expanded their scale

[classical_Liberal]

...

[Ego]

At some point soon we will be back to work and those with vaccination immunity will be walking around asymptomatically spewing coronaviruses all over everyone.

Well, my friend, I think you and I are just reading different tea leaves.

Moderna chief medical officer: Vaccinated adults could still infect the unvaccinated with COVID-19

https://www.fastcompany.com/90579773/mo ... with-covid

For obvious reasons the vaccine trials used relatively healthy, relatively young volunteers to measure vaccine effectiveness. The people who are dying from Covid are, for the most part, neither young nor healthy. They are dying because their immune systems are not up to the task of fighting off the virus. What will happen when those who are immuno-compromised or those who are just plain old get the vaccination? How well does the flu vaccine work for various age cohorts?

Meanwhile, the unprofitable ivermectin has shows great promise at all stages, from prophylactic to treatment. So much so that cities are distributing it in Brazil. One recent study.
https://www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-109670/v1

Indian physicians in particular have been extremely resourceful at finding novel solutions.

ETA, if you don't yet own a pulse oximeter, wtf are you waiting for?

[jacob]

The people who are dying from Covid are, for the most part, neither young nor healthy. They are dying because their immune systems are not up to the task of fighting off the virus. What will happen when those who are immuno-compromised or those who are just plain old get the vaccination? How well does the flu vaccine work for various age cohorts?

That's the same as the standard "anti-vaxxer" problem for e.g. measles. If vaccination rates are not high enough to create herd-immunity, there will be outbreak-pockets where the virus will still run loose. This in turn will hit those [~5%] where the vaccine didn't take, those who for some medical reason could not be vaccinated (immuno-compromised cancer patients for example), and of course those who chose not to.

These pockets will be much smaller though---instead of dominating the ICU systems, they will small in numbers, like the flu usually is.

The prevailing attitude in the US for this seems to be "just too bad"/"collateral damage", that is, public health is seen as "the aggregate of individual health" [mostly ignoring systems effects].

Effectively, there will be probably some measures. Similar to how it's illegal to send an unvaccinated child to school in some places [but not all places], it's conceivable that people will be strongly encouraged to work from home (you can phrase this positively or negatively---discouraged from working at the office) if they aren't vaccinated//conversely people refusing to go or quitting insofar their coworkers aren't vaccinated. I expect lawsuits and general protests about personal freedoms to follow. Also that this will vary from state to state.

[classical_Liberal]

...

[Alphaville]

i got my 3m respirator and p100 cartridges (opted for a brand i trust—there’ that theme again. i like 3m products.)

they’re brilliant, the whole setup works great, but i still need to filter the exhaust valve for the sake of others. i.e. it’s not a pandemic mask in itself.

[Ego]

@Jacob, I am not antivax. I am pointing out that we caused unimaginable harm under the guise that we would protect the most vulnerable in order to buy time to get a vaccine. A vaccine that likely will not work well for the most vulnerable but will further protect those who are not vulnerable so that they are able to go out and shed covid everywhere, making the world more dangerous for those who are vulnerable. Had we just..... Ah, nevermind

[George the original one]

And just as I was trying to estimate the over-under date for when the entire map would turn red, https://covidactnow.org/?s=1368354 expanded their scale

On Monday, Oregon will be switching to a system that looks very similar with restrictions on a per county basis. The restrictions are listed in https://sharedsystems.dhsoha.state.or.u ... le3461.pdf, but I haven't yet found a link for the new dashboard. It looks something like https://katu.com/resources/media/5ff6bc ... 6339621475

[CS]

Holy crap.

[Ego]

Holy crap.

I jumped the gun. Probably shouldn't have posted it before doing a little more research. I have edited my post above to remove it.

[CS]

Ok, then I'll edit mine. It was just my gut reaction and I hadn't (yet) done any checking.

[ZAFCorrection]

Given how far this has spread in the US, and how it will continue to do so over the winter months, I think one of the biggest social issues will be titers vs vaccination. Statistically we are looking at 10-50% of the population (depending on many variables) having exposure by spring. Will vaccines be "forced" (in the form of the pos/neg reinforcements) on those with proof of positive titers?

This is my big question as well. My strong suspicion is that the serious person response to this is significantly driven by the impulse towards technocratic intervention and #IFuckingLoveScience tribalism. The charitable interpretation of the questionable logic displayed up to now is epidemiologists/medical-y people are doing the best they can given limited scope of expertise and a huge number of cats to herd. Immunity and vaccinations do fall under their area of expertise so I would expect them to judge equal levels of immunity as being the same, regardless of origin, if they are acting according to the charitable model. Under my model, the story next year will be that only the vaccine is legit and you are an idiotic anti-vaxxer if you don't get it. Full stop.

[UK-with-kids]

ETA, if you don't yet own a pulse oximeter, wtf are you waiting for?

This seems a really sensible thing to do, especially for the elderly and at risk groups. I can only assume that governments haven't recommended people buy them for the same reason they initially claimed masks weren't effective - they don't want to trigger shortages that impact the health service. But I've read a few stories now where people were apparently fine but they had dangerously low oxygen levels, and so they ended up in hospital in a much worse state than they would have been if they'd gone in sooner.

Does anyone know what to look for in these products? There are a lot of different types for sale at various prices and I have no idea about the important features or reliable brands. I don't really want to use price as a proxy for quality. Many of the customer reviews say they aren't particularly accurate as they give wildly different results each time you use them. And obviously you can't trust reviews anyway due to the various shenanigans that go on when new products are listed on Amazon for example.

[7Wannabe5]

I bought the ZacURate model online for around $20. As far as I can tell it is as accurate as the model used at the hospital. My results based on perceived difficulty in breathing are the same.

It basically just measures relative pink or blue cast of your flesh due to capillary action. So, it seems like personal results might vary with skin type or tone? Dunno. I have a very pale tending towards pink skin tone, and the pulse ox devices I have used all read 99% when I am breathing freely. The worst I read was 84% while forced to walk around my room in the hospital while I was in bad shape. Typically, I start feeling short of breath at around 94% or vice versa.

[Lemon]

@7w5 The main issue is how clean nails are/ they need to not be painted. Or a weak pulse/user error. Your experiences wrt %ages it pretty much what you expect given the O2 dissociation curve.

In terms of brand we use all sorts of types, but get them annually calibrated which is the main thing. We also run a monitoring service for at risk people where if positive we courier equipment and teach them how to use it.

I suspect the government hasn't recommended not because of shortages - as a multi use, multi patient item really not so much of an issue. But, they are more expensive and incorrect usage can result in either people being false reassured or unnecessary healthcare contact depending on the direction of error.