I missed this from months ago, very good.
https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/statistics_2x.png
And todays is very good too but doesn't embed well on the site: https://xkcd.com/2425/
Printable View
I missed this from months ago, very good.
https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/statistics_2x.png
And todays is very good too but doesn't embed well on the site: https://xkcd.com/2425/
Twitter Link
Dimestore Trump at it again.
My (much, much) younger brother is getting his vaccine next week.
He had major heart surgery two or three years ago at the age of 19. Has had the all clear last year so I was surprised he's still on the Group 6 priority list, I'm guessing they're not taking their chances.
My kid got sent home today. Quarantined due to a classmate.
Oh dear, hope everyone's OK.
Circling back on this, things look better both on the level of my state and the country as a whole. The US is dosing about 0.5/100 a day, which is a substantial improvement from two weeks back. They also have about 16 million doses 'distributed to states', working out to 9-10 days of buffer. They also have about 25 million pending second doses (or about 15 days worth of current consumption), so I'm not shocked that they are keeping some buffer to account for lumpy supply. I obviously don't have detailed data on expected supplies, but it certainly looks like they're getting closer to hitting their supply limitations.Quote:
Originally Posted by wiggin
My state (MA) has also substantially improved. There's still all sorts of problems with the appointment system, but shots in arms have gone up substantially, from ~0.35/100 to over 0.6/100 in just two weeks. This has gone from being a below average performer to being near the top per capita. If I do my math right, they have about 8 days slack right now, and about a 15 day backlog of second doses. This is a huge improvement and I'm hopeful they continue to push against supply limitations.
Currently demand for vaccinations is very high among the groups who can access it, which probably helps with the rollout. I look forward to seeing how their rollout plans evolve as they move to populations that are less flexible (e.g. working age) and may have lower demand for a vaccine (due to lower perceived risk, vaccine hesitancy, etc.). Our state just opened up for 65+ and they don't expect to open it to more people for 3-4 weeks. Once it gets to healthy adults in March/April, I hope they can keep up (or even accelerate) this pace.
https://www.cnn.com/2021/02/18/polit...ine/index.html
Florida prioritizing the rich for vaccination, because.. well, because it's Florida I suppose.
Why would you not prioritise locations with low risk and low rates of death?
That is incredibly corrupt. Totally unfit for her role.Quote:
Originally Posted by Flixy
More pseudoscience/evidence:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-h...test-uk-cases/ @ 9:44am
Pfizer jab 85pc effective after single dose, Israeli data reveal
The Pfizer vaccine is 85 per cent effective after a single dose, an Israeli study has found as the country's top scientists endorsed the UK approach of giving out the jabs up to 12 weeks apart.
Researchers at Sheba Medical Centre gave one dose to 7,000 healthcare workers in January and found there was an 85 per cent reduction rate in Covid symptoms after 15-28 days, while overall infections - including asymptomatic cases - fell by 75 per cent.
Prof Arnon Afek, the deputy director general at Sheba, said the studies vindicated the UK's approach where there is a significant time delay between the first and second dose, as it shows that the first dose offers strong protection.
"This ground-breaking research supports the British government’s decision to begin inoculating its citizens with a single dose of the vaccine," he said.
Prof Eyal Leshem, Director of Sheba's Institute for Travel & Tropical Medicine added: "This is the first study assessing effectiveness of a single vaccine dose in real life conditions and shows early effectiveness, even before the second dose was administered."
No, just very poor reporting.Quote:
Originally Posted by RandBlade
This is the paper:
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/l...7/fulltext#%20
Participants were young or middle-aged HCWs, 9/10 of whom were vaccinated on schedule. The 85% figure concerns days 15-28 after the first dose. The same caveats and objections that have been previously raised still apply, and anyone pretending this somehow "vindicates" the UK strategy wrt the Pfizer vaccine is misleading their audience.
The days 15-28 are what matter and do vindicate it.
The objections are garbage primarily, especially those that rely upon averaging days 1 to 28 in order to pretend or claim that one dose alone only gives an ~50 level of protection.
If you're claiming that the days 15-28 claims shouldn't have been made or weren't accurate then anything that vindicates that, vindicates the strategy which is based upon that hypothesis.
This is what you had to say last time we discussed this:If you're claiming that there is not sufficient data to say that, then this is further data to reconfirm it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Aimless
Objections about what happens if immunity is lost are a different topic to whether we can confirm that immunity is gained. This is further evidence showing one dose does indeed give immunity claimed. Whether that immunity lasts 12 weeks is another topic of conversation and don't conflate the two issues.
In a debate about a 12 week interval? No, not in the least.Quote:
Originally Posted by RandBlade
It sucks that I keep having to say this, but you really should read posts carefully so that you don't misrepresent them. The objections concern problems with extrapolating and generalizing from a very short observation period that doesn't even correspond to the question being asked.Quote:
The objections are garbage primarily, especially those that rely upon averaging days 1 to 28 in order to pretend or claim that one dose alone only gives an ~50 level of protection.
Do you... do you know many days there are in a week? :bulb:Quote:
If you're claiming that the days 15-28 claims shouldn't have been made or weren't accurate then anything that vindicates that, vindicates the strategy which is based upon that hypothesis.
Wow, mate, it's just one paragraph... if you're gonna quote it and use it as an argument, the very least you can do is read it.Quote:
This is what you had to say last time we discussed this: If you're claiming that there is not sufficient data to say that, then this is further data to reconfirm it.
Let me help you:
Quote:
He's not really misrepresenting it; it's the overall efficacy for the interval between first and second dose, as reported in their December paper on Comirnaty's safety & efficacy. Almost all cases in the treatment group occurred within first couple of weeks. Problem is, the data is not sufficient to state that efficacy of a single dose is extremely high (from a couple of weeks onward) based on observations over the course of a week and change. Few observations, extremely broad confidence interval, and not necessarily generalizable to present circumstances.
Hey, maybe you should read the article you posted:Quote:
Objections about what happens if immunity is lost are a different topic to whether we can confirm that immunity is gained. This is further evidence showing one dose does indeed give immunity claimed. Whether that immunity lasts 12 weeks is another topic of conversation and don't conflate the two issues.
The article—and, indeed, one of the scientists—misleadingly portrays the study's findings as supporting the UK's 12 week interval for the Pfizer vaccine; the study does no such thing. Nobody has disputed that the first dose offers some protection; it is the level and duration of that protection that remains uncertain. In this example, among a cohort of young and healthy subjects, researchers estimated the vaccine's efficacy to be between 71-92% in a two-week period, while noting that 90% of subjects received their second dose in the first half of that period—on schedule. This has no relevance to a discussion about whether or not it's better to wait 12 weeks after the first dose—rather than 3 weeks—when vaccinating very old institutionalized people. The study attempts to answer a completely different question, for a different population.Quote:
Pfizer jab 85pc effective after single dose, Israeli data reveal
The Pfizer vaccine is 85 per cent effective after a single dose, an Israeli study has found as the country's top scientists endorsed the UK approach of giving out the jabs up to 12 weeks apart.
[...] said the studies vindicated the UK's approach [...]
"This ground-breaking research supports the British government’s decision [...]
Yes absolutely in a debate about a 12 week interval. The debate about the 12 week interval is whether 1 dose gives protection or not, how many times do you need this explaining to you? :rolleyes:Quote:
Originally Posted by Aimless
There is no evidence that once gained protection will be lost within 12 weeks so the question to address is whether protection is gained in the first place or not?
But this is about the question asked. The question being asked is does 1 dose alone provide protection? Answer: Yes.Quote:
It sucks that I keep having to say this, but you really should read posts carefully so that you don't misrepresent them. The objections concern problems with extrapolating and generalizing from a very short observation period that doesn't even correspond to the question being asked.
Yes, why?Quote:
Do you... do you know many days there are in a week? :bulb:
Yes I read it. This is even more data to show that the efficacy of a single dose is extremely high (from a couple of weeks onwards) based on observations of thousands of people over the course of a fortnight. More observations, narrowing confidence interval and entirely generalisable to present circumstances.Quote:
Wow, mate, it's just one paragraph... if you're gonna quote it and use it as an argument, the very least you can do is read it.
Let me help you:
It absolutely and entirely does support the 12 week interval. The premise of the 12 week interval is that dose one gives protection - all evidence that dose one gives protection is evidence for the interval, any evidence that dose one alone does not give protection is evidence against the hypothesis. All evidence points to the former, there is no evidence yet for the latter.Quote:
Hey, maybe you should read the article you posted:
The article—and, indeed, one of the scientists—misleadingly portrays the study's findings as supporting the UK's 12 week interval for the Pfizer vaccine; the study does no such thing. Nobody has disputed that the first dose offers some protection; it is the level and duration of that protection that remains uncertain. In this example, among a cohort of young and healthy subjects, researchers estimated the vaccine's efficacy to be between 71-92% in a two-week period, while noting that 90% of subjects received their second dose in the first half of that period—on schedule. This has no relevance to a discussion about whether or not it's better to wait 12 weeks after the first dose—rather than 3 weeks—when vaccinating very old institutionalized people. The study attempts to answer a completely different question, for a different population.
Your whinging about duration is ridiculous straw grasping bullshit. Thankfully Prof Arnon Afek actually understands what question needs answering unlike you.
That's not how science works, especially when you know that survivors of natural transmissions do have a limited window of protection.Quote:
Originally Posted by RandBlade
Yes it is. There is an abundance of evidence that protection from viruses almost always lasts longer than 12 weeks. Limited yes, but less than three months there's no evidence for.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ominous Gamer
Indeed my wife works in a care home and everyone gets tested three times a week to prevent cases and outbreaks. The exception is anyone who has recently been positive, for 90 days (>12 weeks) anyone who has recently been positive is excluded from testing as they're presumed to be immune and any PCR test showing them to be positive is presumed to be a false positive catching lingering dead infection.
Only after 90 days is lapsed does someone resume testing and the vaccine is shown to give better immunity than an actual infection does.
If protection is valid in weeks 3 and 4 then you're querying whether in an 8 rather than 12 week window that protection would be lost and that's an unnaturally short window to lose protection in.
Whether protection is gained is more at stake than whether it's lost in those 8 weeks.
Again, that's for natural transmissions. You can't carry that over to new vaccines, you can't just make that jump in logic with science.
Yes you can. We make assumptions all the time, not everything gets tested. It is a reasonable scientific assumption based upon evidence.
Is there any scientific evidence that the protection gained in weeks three and four would be lost within the next eight weeks?
RB, I find it puzzling that you reported this particular study result. The study size is quite small, the studied cohort is irrelevant to a high risk population, and the results don't tell us anything we didn't already know (that Pfizer's efficacy within a few weeks of the first dose appears to be pretty good). Moreover, there are much larger and more relevant Israeli studies that have looked at higher risk populations and shown broadly similar early efficacy.Quote:
Originally Posted by RandBlade
In fact, the only reason I can think that you reported this as somehow being new data that might strengthen your argument is because there's a single doctor quoted in the news piece who agrees with you.
Because of the quote in part yes but also because it's more evidence for the very high efficiency before second dose claim.
Can I ask you a few questions please?
1. Last time we discussed this you used the 52% figure rather than higher as efficacy which I said was because of averaging the first fortnight with the latter period. That there was no efficacy in week one, low in week two and high by week three, which averages to the 52%. Do you accept that now?
2. Do you accept that there is now significant evidence that a single dose gives very high levels of protection by the third or fourth week without a booster jab yet?
3. Do you think that if a single dose does give very high levels of protection by the third and fourth weeks that it's a reasonable assumption to believe that would last the following eight weeks? Like how people who've been infected in the past 90 days aren't being asked to take tests at least here?
4. Edit oh and finally we know for a fact don't we that someone not getting their first dose due to limited supply and it's gone to someone else getting their booster instead will have no protection don't we?
Twitter Link
Wow! :up:
My point is that there are much better datasets to support the narrow contention that you have reasonably good efficacy in weeks 3 and 4 - something that I should mention there's little debate about.Quote:
Originally Posted by RandBlade
I was quoting numbers on unpublished data from Israeli studies that were in weeks 3 and 4, here: http://theworldforgotten.com/showthr...l=1#post223314Quote:
Can I ask you a few questions please?
1. Last time we discussed this you used the 52% figure rather than higher as efficacy which I said was because of averaging the first fortnight with the latter period. That there was no efficacy in week one, low in week two and high by week three, which averages to the 52%. Do you accept that now?
The 52% number you're talking about was mentioned by LF, and he was corrected by you and others. I do agree that including the first couple of weeks can confound the data.
There is growing evidence of reasonably high levels of efficacy for most segments of the adult population in weeks 3 and 4 following the first dose of the Pfizer vaccine. I have never disputed this, though I did suggest that real life efficacy would likely not be 90+% for all patient groups; the data seem to bear this out, though the confusion of studies with differing endpoints and variable controls makes determining a really tight estimate challenging.Quote:
2. Do you accept that there is now significant evidence that a single dose gives very high levels of protection by the third or fourth week without a booster jab yet?
The data for the Moderna vaccine is looking to be similar, though because of the slower approval/rollout in the most heavily studied population (Israel) the data quality isn't quite as high. The data for AZN is much thinner, both because it hasn't been approved in many places and because the original trial data was muddled and too narrow for generalizing the results.
I do not think this is a reasonable assumption, no. I also do not think that there is sufficient evidence for the additional implicit assumption that you'll have similar long term efficacy post second dose between a 'as studied and authorized' dosing regime and an untested delayed second dose regime.Quote:
3. Do you think that if a single dose does give very high levels of protection by the third and fourth weeks that it's a reasonable assumption to believe that would last the following eight weeks? Like how people who've been infected in the past 90 days aren't being asked to take tests at least here?
Indeed, this is a difficult public health problem. If only we had a rigorous scientific debate on different quantitative models to better estimate and understand the dynamics of how morbidity might be affected by different strategies. Better yet, if only we had good prospective trials looking at a single dose vs. double dose regime, or a delayed double dose regimen. Oh, wait! That's exactly what Janssen did, and that's why if/when they get authorization for a single dose regimen there will be ample scientific evidence to estimate the effect.Quote:
4. Edit oh and finally we know for a fact don't we that someone not getting their first dose due to limited supply and it's gone to someone else getting their booster instead will have no protection don't we?
Not even you are stupid or dishonest enough to believe this.Quote:
Originally Posted by RandBlade
Let's say we have a global pandemic with a viral illness for which age is a strong risk factor for death, such that, at your age, the risk of death upon being infected is 100%. And let's say your pioneering company RB Pharma has developed a vaccine for which you've been able to demonstrate 1% efficacy between 15-28 days after a single dose and 99% after a second dose administered after 3 weeks, among healthy subjects half your age. The logical implication of the reasoning you're pretending to endorse is that, because you have demonstrated that your vaccine protects against the viral illness, we should not even bother with the second dose, because you have already shown that the vaccine confers protection. Do you believe any policymakers or scientists will accept that reasoning? No. In reality, they will want—and need—to know the level and duration of protection in specific clinically distinct subgroups, and determine an appropriate interval between the first and second dose based on those—and other—parameters. The objections that have been raised in response to your previous asinine comments on this subject concern what we can say about those parameters on the basis of existing evidence; they are objections to your interpretation of that evidence. You seem to have taken this to be some sort of political conflict, but it isn't.
The clinical and policy question being asked is what level of protection is conferred, by a single dose of Comirnaty, among very elderly frail people, over an 84 (or 98) day period. The study in question attempts to answer a different question: what level of protection might be conferred, by a single dose of Comirnaty, among young and comparatively healthy people, 15-28 days after vaccination.Quote:
But this is about the question asked. The question being asked is does 1 dose alone provide protection? Answer: Yes.
Except that it isn't. 1. It is a completely different kind of population—young and healthy healthcare-workers, rather than frail, very old and often institutionalized people. 2. The reported confidence interval for symptomatic illness in that specific period remains wide—71-92%—and the period is much shorter than the 12 week interval being debated. 3. The vast majority of participants in this study received their second dose on day 21 or 22; only a small number are included in the calculation of efficacy outside the regular schedule. 4. this study involved a far smaller and even less representative population than the original Pfizer phase 3 trial.Quote:
Yes I read it. This is even more data to show that the efficacy of a single dose is extremely high (from a couple of weeks onwards) based on observations of thousands of people over the course of a fortnight. More observations, narrowing confidence interval and entirely generalisable to present circumstances.
https://i.imgur.com/Sm7Dirf.jpgQuote:
Your whinging about duration is ridiculous straw grasping bullshit. Thankfully Prof Arnon Afek actually understands what question needs answering unlike you.
What the hell are you blathering about now?Quote:
Originally Posted by Aimless
If it's 1% from one dose and 99% from 2 doses then the only solution is to give 2 doses to as many as you can.
If it's 90% from 1 dose but 99% from 2 then the solution is to give 1 dose to as many as you can then the second to as many as you can after the first has been given to those that need it.
As it happens we don't know duration of protection for certain for one dose. We don't know it for certain for two doses either.
Yes. These questions are not in a vacuum.Quote:
The clinical and policy question being asked is what level of protection is conferred, by a single dose of Comirnaty, among very elderly frail people, over an 84 (or 98) day period. The study in question attempts to answer a different question: what level of protection might be conferred, by a single dose of Comirnaty, among young and comparatively healthy people, 15-28 days after vaccination.
Based on the evidence before us there is a comparable level of protection between healthy people and the vulnerable.
Also based on the evidence before us protection in weeks 5 to 12 are not likely to drop to 0, but will 100% definitely be 0 for anyone left unvaccinated.
1. Yes but the evidence before us is they get a similar immune response.Quote:
Except that it isn't. 1. It is a completely different kind of population—young and healthy healthcare-workers, rather than frail, very old and often institutionalized people. 2. The reported confidence interval for symptomatic illness in that specific period remains wide—71-92%—and the period is much shorter than the 12 week interval being debated. 3. The vast majority of participants in this study received their second dose on day 21 or 22; only a small number are included in the calculation of efficacy outside the regular schedule. 4. this study involved a far smaller and even less representative population than the original Pfizer phase 3 trial. [/IMG]
2. Even the bottom threshold of your "wide" confidence interval is well, well, well above 50%. The period doesn't matter.
3. Yes and the immune response was again demonstrated before day 21.
4. The Pfizer trial was good enough by itself. This is confirmatory evidence.
Twitter Link
76% for three months. Happy now?
OH MY GOD IT'S A DIFFERENT VACCINE WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU :bulb:Quote:
Originally Posted by RandBlade
I addressed this analysis in a recent post ffs.
Nothing wrong unless you have a legitimate reason to expect that the Pfizer vaccine despite all available evidence would suddenly be magically much worse than the AZ one.
Is that what you're saying?
A massive body of evidence shows treatment with hydroxychloroquine doesn't offer any significant benefit, for covid patients. Do you have a reason to believe Nescafe is magically better than remdesivir?Quote:
Originally Posted by RandBlade
Is that what you're saying?
No.
I'm saying.
We know Pfizer works, is safe and efficacious by week 3 and 4.
We know AZN works, is safe and efficacious by weeks 3 and 4.
We know that protection almost always lasts at least 90 days.
We know natural immunity lasts at least 90 days.
We know AZN immunity DOES last 90 days.
So do you have any reason to believe that Pfizer, pretty uniquely, does not last 90 days.
A booster will be needed and will be given within 12 weeks.
Wow one third of UK adults have now received a vaccine! :up:
Good thread. The science has been there for months but nice to see the penny dropping with some.
Twitter Link
Government judged to have acted unlawfully over contracts to manufacture PPE.
Quote:
Matt Hancock acted unlawfully by failing to publish Covid contracts
High court judge rules failure to publish details of contracts within 30 days was transparency breach
The health secretary, Matt Hancock, acted unlawfully by failing to publish multibillion-pound Covid-19 government contracts within the 30-day period required by law, a high court judge has ruled.
The judge, Mr Justice Chamberlain, ruled the failure to do so breached the “vital public function” of transparency over how “vast quantities” of taxpayers’ money was spent.
The judgment is a victory for the Good Law Project (GLP), a crowdfunded not-for-profit organisation that is making a series of legal challenges related to the government’s procurement of protective personal equipment (PPE) and other services during the pandemic.
Research by the procurement consultancy Tussell had found Hancock’s Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) had spent about £15bn buying PPE from different companies by the beginning of October, but that only £2.68bn worth of contracts had been published.
Government regulations require all contracts with a value of more than £10,000 to be published, and to be sent for publication within 30 days of being awarded.
The GLP highlighted three PPE contracts to illustrate their case: a £252m contract for the supply of face masks with a finance company, Ayanda Capital; a £108m contract with Clandeboye Agencies, which had previously supplied only confectionery products, and PPE contracts worth £345m with a company trading as Pestfix.
None of the contracts was published within the required 30-day period. Tussell found that the average time for publication of Covid-19 related contracts was 47 days, which meant the government’s own 30-day deadline was likely to have been breached “in a substantial number of cases”, Chamberlain said.
Hancock and the DHSC had fully opposed and defended the challenge, including by arguing that the GLP had no legal standing to bring a case. The DHSC’s head of procurement had explained the challenges of procuring PPE rapidly during the pandemic and ensuring that contracts were published, and the department denied it had any intention not to publish them.
Chamberlain ruled: “The secretary of state’s evidence provides a cogent explanation of his historic failure to comply … but this explanation amounts to an excuse, not a justification. It follows that, in my judgment, the secretary of state acted unlawfully by failing to comply with the transparency policy.”
The obligation to publish contracts within 30 days “serve a vital public function and that function was no less important during a pandemic”, he said. “The secretary of state spent vast quantities of public money on pandemic-related procurements during 2020. The public were entitled to see who this money was going to, what it was being spent on and how the relevant contracts were awarded.”
Jolyon Maugham QC, the GLP’s director, welcomed the judgment and said it was significant for the organisation’s other legal challenges, which include one related to the Cabinet Office’s contract with the research company Public First, which was heard on Monday. The government argues in those cases too that the GLP has no legal standing.
The GLP has written to Hancock asking him to publish all outstanding contracts, and the names of companies whose offers to supply PPE were processed through the “VIP lane”, a high-priority route given to referrals by MPs, peers and others with political connections. The government has refused repeated requests to publish the list of companies.
Maugham said: “I’d rather that there was no need for organisations like ours to have to sue government to get it to come clean. The public is plainly entitled to know how and with whom and at what prices government spends public money.
“Anything else is a recipe for corruption. But until government understands and respects that there is a genuine public interest in how they are awarding Covid contracts, including through the VIP lane, we have little choice.”
...
Glad that during a fucking pandemic Jolyon Maugham has nothing better to do. The Health Secretary has quite a few things on his plate. :rolleyes:
I think it's clear by now that you do not understand the science—which, combined with your inability to read (see your recent triumphant presentation of a paper that had already been addressed, as if it were new information) has ensured that you do not understand the points of contention, which may be why you keep approaching a scientific discussion as if it were a political dick-measuring contest in the English tabloid press. I don't simply mean that you lack knowledge of the evidence, or that you don't know how to interpret it; I think it's clear you lack the basic capacity for logic required to even approach this discussion.Quote:
Originally Posted by RandBlade
Why, if all you're interested in is whether or not it "works"? The answer is that your characterization of the problem was deceptive/stupid; the level and duration of protection—along with other parameters—are necessary to consider when determining which policy is best in any given situation.Quote:
Originally Posted by RandBlade
For Comirnaty, we know much more about the latter than about the former; the evidence base is not equivalent, between these two alternatives.Quote:
As it happens we don't know duration of protection for certain for one dose. We don't know it for certain for two doses either.
We don't know this with any degree of certainty, for AZN's vaccine (although they're trying to fill that knowledge gap); we know this with somewhat greater certainty for its competitors' offerings, given adherence to the tested protocol. We don't know what level of protection is conferred to frail elderly by a single dose of Comirnaty, nor how long that protection lasts.Quote:
Based on the evidence before us there is a comparable level of protection between healthy people and the vulnerable.
That is a different issue. You keep conflating the issue of assessing risk & safety aspects of public health policy on the basis of incomplete information with the issue of trying to determine what we do or do not know.Quote:
Also based on the evidence before us protection in weeks 5 to 12 are not likely to drop to 0, but will 100% definitely be 0 for anyone left unvaccinated.
That is exactly what the evidence does not yet show. We don't yet have any idea of the level and duration of protection conferred to very old frail people by a single dose of Comirnaty. This population differs in several important respects from young and healthy people, when it comes to susceptibility to infections, and the ability to mount an appropriate immune response—which is reflected by their extremely disproportionate risk of developing severe illness or dying, when infected by SARS-CoV-2.Quote:
1. Yes but the evidence before us is they get a similar immune response.
The period does in fact matter, both clinically and for policy purposes, as well as for assessing the reliability of the information. 50% is not some sort of magic threshold here; the question is what the efficacy is, and for how long it is at that level. Your attitude isn't going to differ between 49% and 51%, but the level of protection is crucial to determining the soundness of a breadth-first policy in a particular setting. You can model different scenarios with different values for the efficacy.Quote:
2. Even the bottom threshold of your "wide" confidence interval is well, well, well above 50%. The period doesn't matter.
I think you may have lost track of your own thoughts here; you've certainly lost track of what others have said to you.Quote:
3. Yes and the immune response was again demonstrated before day 21.
This is simply untrue—both the claim about Pfizer's trial and the claim about this trial. I understand you lack the capacity to understand that it is untrue, given that you still believe it after several people have patiently explained to why—and how—this belief of yours is wrong, so I'll just file this as "confirmatory evidence" of your lack of understanding.Quote:
4. The Pfizer trial was good enough by itself. This is confirmatory evidence.
The argument you are—perhaps unintentionally—trying to present is nonsensical. The logical implication of your argument that evidence for completely different classes of substances can be used interchangeably is that we no longer need any trials, at all, for anything. We know Pfizer's vaccine "works", so there was and is no need to test Moderna's, Curevac's, AZN's, Novavax's, Sinovac's, Janssen's or Gamaleya's or any other companies' candidates—we can simply infer their relevant properties by looking at Pfizer's Phase 3 data. We could've authorized all of them at the same time as Comirnaty, because we know Comirnaty "works". This would've been great for Merck, who wouldn't have had to scrap their candidates, as well as for Sanofi & GSK, who would've been able to just push on without any concerns. Conversely, because we know that 9/10 vaccine candidates fail, we could've just scrapped all other vaccine trials—because they're all going to fail. What you're arguing is logically and scientifically silly.Quote:
Originally Posted by RandBlade
We don't know this at all. We have good reason to believe that symptomatic illness—if you survive it—confers a very high level of protection, lasting at least for the duration of the pandemic; confirmed reinfections among people who've had symptomatic illness appear to be extremely rare, and most of them appear to have high titers of neutralizing antibodies for months at least, similar to people who had SARS. We don't know to what extent people with asymptomatic illness are protected—however, we have some evidence that many people with asymptomatic illness are likely to not have measurable levels of neutralizing antibodies after a few months. We know that young people with mild covid are more likely to not have measurable levels of neutralizing antibodies a few months after recovering from covid. We cannot infer what level of protection a very old and frail person will get from a single dose of Comirnaty, or how long that protection will last, from the evidence available to us.Quote:
We know that protection almost always lasts at least 90 days.
We know natural immunity lasts at least 90 days.
Why? The logical implication of your reasoning is that no boosters will be needed—after all, we "know" that a single dose "works", and that's all we need to know. A single dose for everyone who hasn't had covid—they don't need any vaccines at all.Quote:
A booster will be needed and will be given within 12 weeks.
Pretty sure that's not why Hancock keeps cocking things up.Quote:
Originally Posted by RandBlade
He's not cocking things up, he's doing an absolutely fantastic job which is why we have a third of all adults vaccinated now.Quote:
Originally Posted by Aimless
Well done Hancock, what a legend. :up:
Hey Rand, are you going to keep this up for as long as Lewk kept up his similar behavior with comparing infection rates and then death rates?Quote:
Originally Posted by RandBlade
Weird comparison. Lewk was making apples and oranges absurd comparisons, I posted something domestic with no comparison whatsoever to anyone else just giving a thumbs up to a landmark reached.
Am I supposed to not thumbs up that a quarter of the population have been vaccinated just because other countries I distinctly didn't mention fucked up royally?
I'll probably keep it going for less time than Aimless has spent trawling the internet for anything he can snipe at Britain over.
You don't actually need to trawl the internet to find examples of the English fucking up—examples are plentiful and pervasive. You do, however, need to trawl the internet—like a desperate idiot—to find the asinine arguments you've been posting over the past few months/years.
How many times have you done a thumbs up on your progress vaccinating people so far? How many times do you think you need to do a thumbs up for everyone on the board to get the message? Is there anything the least bit notable about going from 16 million vaccinated to 17-something, besides the fact that using a different metric (switching to adult population rather than general) let you present it as another nice looking whole number? Has there been any qualitative change or is it just a quantitative number going up as time goes on, the way an increasing number tends to do? Appearing to get herd immunity would seem to be a nice thumbs up point. The fact that it's a new day* and you've found a way to repackage it that makes it look like a nice round number doesn't. It just demonstrates that you are spamming the forum. I'm getting tired of the spam, Rand. I'm asking you to stop.Quote:
Originally Posted by RandBlade
*You didn't even let 24 whole hours pass between posting the last two, though with the time zone difference I suppose one was probably an evening and the other a mid-morning for you, so at least there was an intervening sunrise for the European side of the board
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...-investigation
According to Ron Kim, an assemblyman from Queens, New York City, the call began with silence before Cuomo said: “Mr Kim, are you an honorable man?” He then proceeded to yell down the phone at Kim for 10 minutes, shouting: “You will be destroyed” and “You will be finished”.
When the Post’s report came out, Cuomo responded by devoting a large chunk of his press briefing to an all-barrels attack on Kim, accusing him of a slew of unethical practices.
The contrast between the untethered attack-machine of this week’s Cuomo, and the teary-eyed empathist he projected last March is so startling it has left many outside observers bemused. But to New York politicians who have for years been in the Cuomo orbit, it was as surprising as the spaghetti and meatballs the governor likes to cook his family every Sunday dinner.
“Meet the Governor Cuomo we’ve known all along, beneath the Emmy-winning performance he put on for months,” was how Jumaane Williams, the New York City public advocate, put it on Twitter this week.
The Guardian asked Williams, who acts as official watchdog for New Yorkers, to elucidate. “The pandemic has exposed many things, and this is one of them,” he said. “It’s been like a secret that up to now Cuomo’s got away with – his lack of accountability, the way he responds to political winds only when forced to.”
Ironically, the area that has landed Cuomo in such hot water is precisely the same as the one that inspired his tear-laden announcement named after his mother – caring for older and vulnerable New Yorkers through the pandemic. Three days after he executed Matilda’s Law, he created a new provision shielding hospital and nursing home executives from potential liability for decisions that might lead to people’s deaths from Covid.
As the journalist David Sirota has noted in the Guardian, Cuomo had received more than $2m from the Greater New York Hospital Association and its associated executives and lobbying firms – the very healthcare industry group that claims to have “drafted” the immunity clause.
The immunity provision has had a detrimental impact on the ongoing investigation into Covid deaths in New York nursing homes which accounted for almost a third of the total death toll of about 46,000. In a withering report released by the state’s attorney general, Letitia James, last month, she says that it has led to confusion about whether homes that failed to meet health standards for containing the pandemic could ever be held accountable.
James has demanded that the new immunity rules be scrapped.
That wasn’t the end of it. Two days after creating the immunity provision – five days after announcing Matilda’s Law – Cuomo released an advisory notice. It directed nursing homes to accept patients back from hospital who were infected or might be infected with coronavirus.
The homes had to admit anyone who was “medically stable” – no resident was to be denied readmission “solely based on a confirmed or suspected diagnosis of Covid-19”.
The motivation behind the notice was clear – there was an “urgent need” to expand hospital capacity in order to meet the surge in Covid cases. In other words, free up hospital beds by getting older patients back to their nursing homes.
The rest is history. A report by the New York department of health found that between the issuing of the advisory on 25 March and 8 May more than 6,000 Covid-positive residents were allowed back into nursing homes and long-term care facilities.
There has been a great deal of debate about the extent to which the governor’s March advisory was to blame for large numbers of nursing home deaths from Covid. When the Poynter Institute’s factchecking arm, Politifact, reviewed the question it concluded that Cuomo had not forced nursing homes to take in sick patients as his Republican detractors had claimed.
But Politifact did conclude that the notice give care managers the distinct impression that they had no other option than to take the residents back in.
As with so many other political scandals before it, the real trouble with “Cuomo-gate” was not the arguable errors that were made but the lack of transparency about what happened next. That’s what really bugs the public advocate.
“My problem with Cuomo’s leadership is not that mistakes were made – mistakes are always made. But if you can’t take accountability for them and debrief what went wrong, then mistakes get made over and over again and people are dying for it,” Williams said.
The unravelling began with the attorney general’s report last month which revealed that deaths of New York nursing home residents were substantially higher than had been recorded by the Cuomo administration. Residents who had fallen sick and died after they were transferred to hospital were mysteriously left off the official count.
Then the New York Post dropped a bombshell. The paper reported that Cuomo’s top aide, Melissa DeRosa, had admitted to Democratic leaders in a conference call that the administration had withheld the true nursing home death toll from state lawmakers.
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Cuomo being revealed as an incompetent and dangerous executive is freaking great.