Now tracking the new emerging South Africa Omicron Variant |
J&J Vaccine |
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AndyPOW
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Posted: January 31 2021 at 8:48pm |
This from Flutrackers today, the last sentence was sobering: COVID-19: New variant blamed for surge in coronavirus cases in Los Angeles - CAL.20C |
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"Every thing looks great, until you think." Dr. Al Bartlett
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Technophobe
Assistant Admin Joined: January 16 2014 Location: Scotland Status: Offline Points: 88450 |
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I can't see any other countries adopting that, it's way too simple, straightforward and sensible! We don't all have Jacindas you know. |
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How do you tell if a politician is lying?
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KiwiMum
Moderator Joined: May 29 2013 Status: Offline Points: 29640 |
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Well NZ is stepping up and has bought enough vaccine doses for all the Pacific islanders. Perhaps each first world country could adopt a couple of third world ones. |
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Those who got it wrong, for whatever reason, may feel defensive and retrench into a position that doesn’t accord with the facts.
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Technophobe
Assistant Admin Joined: January 16 2014 Location: Scotland Status: Offline Points: 88450 |
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At the moment the vaccines cover all the strains and the RNA ones are designed to allow for some mutations and still work. But you are still right, if we fail GLOBALLY to suppress this, then it is only a matter of time before a resistant strain appears. That is the way life works. So I get countries vaccinating their own people first, but once done, they MUST vaccinate the poorer countries too. The WHO was not joking when they said: "No one is safe until everyone is safe." That was not hyperbole, that was simple science. |
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How do you tell if a politician is lying?
His lips or pen are moving. |
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Dutch Josh
Adviser Group Joined: May 01 2013 Location: Arnhem-Netherla Status: Offline Points: 94057 |
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I think vaccine immunity comes next to natural immunity. The J&J vaccine does score much better in some groups. Dr.John Campbell was discussing vaccines in one of his last updates. I think he mentioned J&J had 49% effectivity in (SA) HIV+ groups-so there could be a problem there. Southern Africa has about 20% HIV+ in the adult population. Just like NPI is a lot of things (from social distancing, masks, to closing shops, restaurants and travelrestrictions, ventilation) vaccines are part of a number of things to do to get a grip on this pandemic. Boosting immunity, better treatments may limit pressure on healthcare. To beat this pandemic we do need to get the R0 long term <1-vaccines are just part of that strategy-not all of the strategy... On variants one has to look at where they are causing the problems. In Brazil and South Africa healthcare is not the same as in the EU or US. The total lack of any strategy would even make a milder virus a major problem...In part in Brazil bolsenaro is the problem-more then the virus itself...Without proper testing it may be not fully clear how many reinfections there realy are.. New variants means bigger problems-so we may have to do all we can to stop (creating) them. (By NPI) |
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We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.
~Albert Einstein |
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KiwiMum
Moderator Joined: May 29 2013 Status: Offline Points: 29640 |
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It's the reports of reinfection with the Brazilian variant in Brazil at the moment that are worrying me. I can't see how herd immunity can be achieved if a new variant comes along and infects people who've previously had one of the earlier variants. |
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Those who got it wrong, for whatever reason, may feel defensive and retrench into a position that doesn’t accord with the facts.
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KiwiMum
Moderator Joined: May 29 2013 Status: Offline Points: 29640 |
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I feel the same about NZ right now. Ha ha. We've got all we need right here, just as Australia does. I mean compared to all the other countries in the world, AUS and NZ are right up there at the top of tree for dream holiday destinations. We don't need to travel overseas to have a great holiday. In my family we're busy rewatching the Lord of the Rings trilogy and the Hobbit trilogy and as we're watching it we're saying Oh we've been there, Oh that's at Castle Rock etc etc. We're making a little note of some of the locations we haven't been to and we'll make a point of going sometime soon. I'm so glad we went to Hobbiton a couple of years ago because we've walked down the lanes and footpaths and stood outside those very hobbit holes. We were planning an extended trip to look around Italy soon but it can wait. Pompeii will still be there when we finally get there again. |
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Those who got it wrong, for whatever reason, may feel defensive and retrench into a position that doesn’t accord with the facts.
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AndyPOW
V.I.P. Member Joined: December 31 2020 Status: Offline Points: 675 |
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All we are getting regarding vaccine efficacy vis-a-vis the Brazilian P.1 and P.2 variants are crickets. |
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"Every thing looks great, until you think." Dr. Al Bartlett
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carbon20
Moderator Joined: April 08 2006 Location: West Australia Status: Offline Points: 65816 |
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BBC News - Coronavirus: WHO criticises EU over vaccine export controls |
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Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth.🖖
Marcus Aurelius |
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carbon20
Moderator Joined: April 08 2006 Location: West Australia Status: Offline Points: 65816 |
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I'm watching this "hold onto the vaccine" That the EC seems to be promoting, On a way I understand it , Take Australia and New Zealand, We are all safe and secure on our island, Do we do the philanthropic Christian thing and say Give those in REAL NEED the vaccine 1st...... I would hope it will be that way, So what if I can't fly off to somewhere..... I won't be going outside Australia for a long long time..... Take care all 😷😉 |
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Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth.🖖
Marcus Aurelius |
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Technophobe
Assistant Admin Joined: January 16 2014 Location: Scotland Status: Offline Points: 88450 |
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I do believe that herd immunity is possible, but not with that vaccine. As Andy points out, the numbers don't match up. We could do it with all the others, or a mixture thereof, but just not this one. Were I offered this vaccine, I would take it (anything is better than nothing) but would immediately start lobying to get one of the others as well. There is no way I would come out of isolation with that little protection either. |
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How do you tell if a politician is lying?
His lips or pen are moving. |
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carbon20
Moderator Joined: April 08 2006 Location: West Australia Status: Offline Points: 65816 |
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Have we ever had "herd immunity" From the cold or flu .....? Err.....no...... I'm amazed at the lack of edukation.....lmao Out there...... Take care all 😷😉 |
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Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth.🖖
Marcus Aurelius |
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ViQueen24
Adviser Group Joined: May 14 2013 Location: Verona, PA Status: Offline Points: 12270 |
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I agree, Andy. |
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AndyPOW
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So if a vaccine is only 66%, or less, effective, that makes the goal of 75-80% herd immunity a non-starter. The vaccination effort will never get ahead of the curve. Just sayin. |
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"Every thing looks great, until you think." Dr. Al Bartlett
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Dutch Josh
Adviser Group Joined: May 01 2013 Location: Arnhem-Netherla Status: Offline Points: 94057 |
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I (DJ) think vaccines may keep healthcare able to function, NPI/travel restrictions, masks, ventilation,social distancing etc... have to stop variants and virus-spread...So far the weakest spot has been human (in)action-reopening much to fast... We have to get the R0 as good as to zero to deal with (new) variants...The lower the number of new infections the lower the risk for further variants... Reopening society shortly after large scale vaccination still may face problems because the vaccines protect against illness, may NOT protect against infection and spreading the virus... It is good people get vaccinated to protect them-and healthcare-from severe cases. But to stop new variants vaccines may not be that effective... |
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We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.
~Albert Einstein |
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carbon20
Moderator Joined: April 08 2006 Location: West Australia Status: Offline Points: 65816 |
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I said on another thread The one to watch for is the South African/Brazilian recombination variant...... I bet...... It's already here.... Take care all 😷😉 |
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Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth.🖖
Marcus Aurelius |
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KiwiMum
Moderator Joined: May 29 2013 Status: Offline Points: 29640 |
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Here's the article I was referring to. I found it via a different source. I've pasted the contents below the link. New coronavirus variants seem to be cropping up everywhere. There's one from the U.K., which is more contagious and already circulating in the United States. There's one from South Africa, which is forcing Moderna and Pfizer to reformulate their COVID-19 vaccines and create "booster" shots, just to make sure the vaccines maintain their efficacies. But for some scientists, the most worrying variant might be the newest one. A variant called P.1, which emerged in early December in Manaus, Brazil, and by mid-January had already caused a massive resurgence in cases across the city of 2 million people. On Monday, officials detected the first confirmed case of P.1 in the U.S., specifically in Minnesota. The state Department of Health picked up the case by randomly sequencing 50 nasal swabs from positive patients each week. The person infected with P.1. had previously traveled to Brazil. "If you were to ask me right now, what's most concerning of all the things that I've heard so far, it's the fact that they are reporting a sudden increase in cases in Manaus, Brazil," virus expert Jeremy Luban at the University of Massachusetts told NPR two weeks ago before the variant arrived in the United States. "Manaus already had 75% of people infected [in the spring of last year]." The concern with P.1 is twofold: Scientists don't understand why the variant has spread so explosively in Brazil, and the variant carries a particularly dangerous set of mutations. While the variant from the U.K. took about three months to dominate the outbreak in England, P.1 took only about a month to dominate the outbreak in Manaus. In addition, Manaus had already been hit extremely hard by the virus in April. One study estimated that the population should have reached herd immunity and the virus shouldn't be able to spread easily in the community. So why would the city see an even bigger surge 10 months later? Could P.1 be evading the antibodies made against the previous version of the virus, making reinfections easier? Could it just be significantly more contagious? Could both be true? "While we don't *know* exactly why this variant has been so apparently successful in Brazil, none of the explanations on the table are good," epidemiologist Bill Hanage at Harvard University wrote on Twitter. Reinfections are a serious concern for several reasons. First off, like the variant from South Africa, P.1 carries a cluster of mutations along the surface of the virus where antibodies — especially the potent antibodies — like to bind. "They are kind of the major targets of the immune system," said virus expert Penny Moore at the National Institute for Communicable Diseases in South Africa and the University of KwaZulu-Natal. "So when we see a whole lot of mutations in [those surfaces], it raises the possibility that the mutations might be conferring immune escape." That is, the mutations are helping the virus evade antibodies or escape recognition by them. In essence, the mutations are providing the virus with a type of invisibility cloak. To test out this hypothesis, Moore and her colleagues took blood serum from 44 people infected with the previous version of the virus and checked to see if the antibodies in that serum still worked against the new variant from South Africa. Or did the antibodies lose their sensitivity? "Indeed that's what we saw," she said. "In fact, it was really quite a dramatic drop-off in sensitivity. We saw that in half of the serum, the antibodies were significantly less effective against the new variant [from South Africa]." So far, scientists haven't tested out P.1 in similar neutralization experiments, but P.1 has two mutations that scientists have already shown reduce antibody binding. And thus, now we have a game of "cat and mouse," said virus expert Ravi Gupta, between the virus and the vaccine. The virus finds ways around the vaccine (and our immune system), said Gupta, and so the manufacturers have to reformulate the vaccines (or else we run the risk of getting infected twice). "We've been here before with the flu. We're having to live with influenza and figure out a way of staying ahead of the virus by making vaccines on a yearly basis," said Gupta at the University of Cambridge. "So I can imagine that we'll be doing something similar with [the] coronavirus. Eventually we'll need to design different vaccines that are targeting different parts of the virus — ones that the virus finds harder to change." This process is going to cost the world a great deal of money — and take time, Gupta added. "I don't think there's going to be a single solution that just comes along in 2021 that says, 'That's it, we're done.' "The coronavirus is going to cause a long-term disruption." |
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Those who got it wrong, for whatever reason, may feel defensive and retrench into a position that doesn’t accord with the facts.
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ksc
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AndyPOW
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^^^^^^This^^^^^^^ |
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"Every thing looks great, until you think." Dr. Al Bartlett
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AndyPOW
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Except there won't be enough people vaccinated quickly enough to make a difference before the next handful of variants come along. |
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"Every thing looks great, until you think." Dr. Al Bartlett
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KiwiMum
Moderator Joined: May 29 2013 Status: Offline Points: 29640 |
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The Brazilian strain is the one to watch in my opinion. I read a very interesting article about it yesterday that unfortunately I can't cut and paste. But to summarize: Brazil got hammered by the original strain in May last year and epidemiologists estimated that 75% of the population had it and so scientists have been watching Brazil to see if herd immunity was reached. However this Brazilian strain appeared and it is more infectious than the UK one (which took 3 months to dominate the UK covid cases), whereas the Brazilian strain took only a month to become the dominant strain in Brazil. In addition to this, they've discovered that even people who've had the original covid and are known to have developed a strong antibody response after recovery have been found to be reinfected with the new strain and their antibodies are not reacting to it. In other words, any immunity built up from the original strain is useless against the new Brazilian strain. Scientists are therefore becoming very worried about it because the vaccines circulating are all based on the original strain of Covid and there are growing concerns that they will be useless against this new strain. So will this mean that all those vaccine shots have already become obsolete? Will a new vaccine have to be developed every few months? Who knows? |
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Those who got it wrong, for whatever reason, may feel defensive and retrench into a position that doesn’t accord with the facts.
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WitchMisspelled
Adviser Group Joined: January 20 2020 Status: Offline Points: 17170 |
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Considering the 2019 flu vax, at best, had 50% efficacy. And that was a high efficacy rate for the last decade or so as flu vax goes. I think 69% in a bad situation isn't so bad. At least it would keep hospitals from being overwhelmed so medical workers can focus on those that do get sick. |
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carbon20
Moderator Joined: April 08 2006 Location: West Australia Status: Offline Points: 65816 |
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I do think the JJ vaccine will be ok ,looks like you might need a booster though, The mRNA vaccine can be tweaked quite easy to combat variations , Having said that it would take months for it to get into arms , And as AndyPOW says virus will have changed again , All to little to late...... So glad I'm here... . Take care all 😷😉 |
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Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth.🖖
Marcus Aurelius |
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AndyPOW
V.I.P. Member Joined: December 31 2020 Status: Offline Points: 675 |
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I'm starting to understand that despite the soothing words from Fauci, Gottlieb, heads of .gov throughout the western hemisphere, that vaccines will always be playing catch up to the mutations. The J&J vaccine will be close to useless by the time it is approved (which undoubtedly will be) since it is based on the original strain. Notice how nobody is mentioning a word about current vaccine efficacy against the Brazilian strains (P.1 and P.2). This virus is becoming (is?) a hydra. Cut one head off and two more takes it place. I hope a year from now you all can point out that I was straight up wrong about it. Dr. Frank Baric (UNC-Chapel Hill) et al have been publishing about their gain of function research with coronaviruses since 2005. The experts like Fauci know exactly what we are dealing with. That being the case, why the statements like the one below from earlier today? " Update (1145ET): With even the President of France questioning whether vaccines from AstraZeneca (and other western vaccine makers) are even worth taking now, Dr. Anthony Fauci has once again stepped in to give the American public a lecture in epidemiology, per the AP. Today's subject: Viral mutations. So long as the virus keeps spreading, there will continue to be mutations, Dr. Fauci said. Still, after insisting the mutations wouldn't cause any problems with the first round of vaccines, Fauci said during a White House briefing that vaccine-makers were already hard at work making new versions of the vaccines that are effective against the mutated COVID strains. "This was a wake up call for all of us," Dr. Fauci said.
Really? Fauci needs a wake-up call about the mutation of coronaviruses? How a vaccine has never been developed for coronaviruses before? Really? The experts "talk" to us as if they have no more understanding than we do. The public is being played. The frog is being boiled. |
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"Every thing looks great, until you think." Dr. Al Bartlett
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KiwiMum
Moderator Joined: May 29 2013 Status: Offline Points: 29640 |
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Here's a quote from todays Telegraph in the UK about it. Although the jab showed just 66 per cent efficacy – far lower than other vaccines – nobody who was immunised ended up in hospital or died during the 28-day follow up. In Britain, people who die after 28 days of being diagnosed with coronavirus do not count in official death tolls. The UK has ordered 30 million doses of Janssen’s vaccine which will be far quicker and easier to roll out because it requires just one dose, so is the equivalent of having double the supply of the other vaccines. |
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Those who got it wrong, for whatever reason, may feel defensive and retrench into a position that doesn’t accord with the facts.
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ViQueen24
Adviser Group Joined: May 14 2013 Location: Verona, PA Status: Offline Points: 12270 |
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What do we expect from J&J, the cancer purveyors? Back when many pharma companies got into vaccines and treatments for Covid, I would buy those companies' stocks. Not J&J. Their karma is bad. |
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AndyPOW
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Johnson & Johnson, the biggest pharmaceutical company in the world, has just released the first round of results from its Phase 3 COVID-19 vaccine trials, and they are disappointing. They showed that the vaccine is only 66% effective at preventing moderate and severe COVID-19 (and that's excluding mild cases of the virus), which is less than Moderna, Pfizer, AstraZeneca and others in the west. JNJ's results follow Novavax's and Moderna's announced plans for trials of vaccines designed to tackle the 501. V2 "variant" - ie the mutation first isolated in South Africa - after data showed that both vaccines weren't as effective against the variant (remember all those scientists including Dr. Anthony Fauci and top officials at the WHO who insisted mutations wouldn't be a problem?) https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/jnj-shares-tumble-after-reporting-vaccine-effectiveness |
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"Every thing looks great, until you think." Dr. Al Bartlett
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