One reason it takes so long to conduct drug–and presumably vaccine–trials is that they spend a lot of time finding the sweet spot between effective action of the drug and side effects. The whole odd business about the Astro-Zeneca vaccine, that using half dose for the first shot appears to work better than using a full dose (which was discovered only through an accidental error in dosing–yet another red flag) makes me think that not a lot of time has gone into finding the best dosing protocol.
I would like to hear thoughts on this from people who know more about this subject than me.
The disease spreads easily and fast and has killed 1.49 million already.
Side effects are extremely unlikely to be worse than that.
The world economy is effectively under siege at the same time.
Of course it’s too fast for proper safety evaluation. That’s why we don’t do it except for emergencies. In other emergencies the risk was a bit lesser because the numbers involved were lower.
I’m sorry, WhatExit, but it wouldn’t take much of a problem for the vaccine to be worse than the disease for a lot of the younger cohorts. Normal medical ethics don’t allow much for “the greater good”. So we can agree it’s worth it but must also agree we’re about to break modern safety and ethical standards to some degree.
True, but handily the first 100 million of so to get the vaccine will be those at highest risk. Patient care and the elderly. Effectively an additional and huge testing phase.
The young are going to be among the last to get it from what I’ve seen it. Even I a middle age guy won’t get it for quite a while.
What’s better? Being 97% sure the vaccine will have no major long term consequences in any significant numbers and saving a million people from COVID deaths, or being 99.9% sure the vaccine will have no major long term consequences and letting a million more people die of COVID? (as well as other non-death but still life impacting complications).
According to what I understand, Warp Speed did not involve actually removing any of the parts that need to be long. It just sped up the parts in the middle, and allowed for things to be done in parallel instead of sequentially. It’s not like what China or Russia did, skipping trial levels.
Unfortunately, I’m having trouble finding the source I got that from. I was pretty sure it was a Scishow video. Regardless, I know I’ve avoided anything but trustworthy sources on this sort of thing. But it would be nice to be able to back it up.
Oh, and @Chronos, while I think I understand what you mean, I think you might want to make your assumptions explicit. I presume you are taking being 97% sure that the vaccine as safe and treating it like 3% of people would die, and 3% of the 300 million population of the U is 9 million, and that’s much more than 1 million.
Even if there’s a downside to the vaccine, it’s extremely unlikely to affect everyone. It’s not like we’re talking about the possibility of everyone who takes the vaccine to explode after a year, and we didn’t find out because we didn’t test it for a year. We’re talking most likely about a small number of side effects that affect a small number of people.
Ok, think about this: what if a vaccine killed one child (under 14) in a million by some rare complication. What do you think about giving it to every child in the world?
That would be about 1900 dead kids, versus probably over a million saved. Even if you adjust for life-years (a dead kid had more years ahead of them than a dead elderly person) you still come out way ahead.
Has there ever been a case where a vaccine had side effects/health complications that weren’t known until far into the deployment? Some people have bad reactions to vaccines, I know, but that’s almost always immediately and we’ve already got a sense of how many people would have that sort of reaction. What are the odds that we only test it for about 9 months, release it, and then find out that something goes horribly wrong 3+ years down the line?
So far in the U.S. , a little less than a hundred children under 14 have died. This hypothetical vaccine would kill about 60-70. I don’t think it’s a cut and dried case.
60-70 children’s lives are worth more than what will likely amount to several hundred thousand more dead, and millions more with lingering health issues from this?
It’s a gamble to make a vaccine fast, but what’s the alternative? I see posts from some nurses saying they’re not going to get the first version of it, and I’m like okay, kinda get out of my way then - cause I want that vaccine.
There’s no question we will learn a lot within the next 6-9 months. I suspect that the efficacy rate might be overblown - I personally don’t trust that it’s 90% effective; it’s probably more like 60-75%. I think the drug companies are probably spinning the results and cutting corners to get their product on the market. This was inevitable, IMO.
That is why I will continue to wear masks and play it very safe even after getting vaccinated. I won’t change my behavior until transmission rates decrease dramatically. But a vaccine is a much-needed layer of protection in case you end up in a situation where you have to take risks (i.e. a dental emergency and need to sit in a waiting room full of patients).
I have no doubt that the 2021 and 2022 vaccines will be an improvement, but anyone who doesn’t get vaccinated is frankly foolish (and I’m being nice here).