Post by Gort on Mar 1, 2021 23:15:54 GMT 10
Yes ... it's another gotcha moment.
You tend to spray around plenty of material for gotchas.
Here 'tis:
I posted this:
A vaccine with 90% effectiveness could be on the way fairly soon.
November 10, 2020, 10:29:43 am
So, it seems that there is light at the end of the tunnel.
A vaccine with 90% effectiveness could be on the way "fairly soon".
This is good news. 8)
You replied with this:
November 10, 2020, 11:28:54 am
Whatever the fuck “fairly soon” means. Sounds like the sort of blather Scotty from Marketing would utter. Trump would utter that sort of snake oil as well ... for all the good it’s done him.
“90% effectiveness” sounds like more Scotty from Marketing spin and blather. I can’t swear he actually uttered those words but it’s the sort of “happy talk” bullshit he likes to smother an issue with. Consider this: the demographic that is most vulnerable to the coronavirus is the baby boomers, especially the 65+ cohort. Whenever my GP gives me my annual flu jab he’s told me that I should expect around 50% immunity “at your age”. Which cuts the risk of getting the flu in half and I’ll take those odds. I’ve never heard of “90% immunity” and that figures because vaccination has always been and will always be about herd immunity - you get the whole population vaccinated and even with an immunity factor that’s much less than 90% the virus finds not just the individual host but the whole host environment - the herd - to be a lot less congenial. It either mutates to avoid the vaccine or it adapts to a new an different host. We’ve seen that in Denmark with the minks. What’s diabolical about the Danish mink situation is that the virus, having adapted to the mink population, then re-adapts to infect humans in a different form.
The research into a vaccine is important but even if the nerds and geeks in white lab coats perfect a magic vaccine under lab conditions (and more power to their microscopes and test tubes) that passes muster and gets the seal of approval for general distribution, how long will it take to vaccinate the whole human race? Because nobody in the developed world of Europe and the Americas plus first world outliers like Australia and NZ will be OK until everyone is OK. That means Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Chad, Burkina Faso and places you’ve never heard of.
So stop peddling snake oil and spamming two discussion boards with your Scotty from Marketing happy talk. And don’t throw your unused face masks in the bin!
Then I replied with this:
November 10, 2020, 11:35:16 am
Not up with today's news eh Pim?
It's a little more sophisticated than snake oil ... it's genetically engineered vaccine. ;D
Pfizer says COVID-19 vaccine could be 90 per cent effective
The shots made by Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech are among 10 possible vaccine candidates in late-stage testing around the world.(Pexels: Polina Tankilevitch)
A COVID-19 vaccine being produced by Pfizer may be 90 per cent effective in stopping the transmission of the deadly virus.
Early, but incomplete, test results from the drug manufacturer have showed promising results in 94 infections being treated in the trial.
The news has brought a burst of optimism to a world desperate to bring the catastrophic outbreak under control.
The Pfizer trial is one of four potential vaccines the Australian Government has signed an agreement to purchase if it is successful.
Federal Health Minister Greg Hunt said the Government would continue to monitor further results as they are made available.
"The data on our vaccine candidates continues to be positive. We will examine the evidence carefully but the latest results are heartening news," he said.
Pfizer, which is developing the vaccine with its German partner BioNTech, is on track to apply for emergency use approval from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
Even if all goes well, authorities have stressed it is unlikely any vaccine will arrive before the end of the year.
Pfizer's senior vice-president of clinical development, Bill Gruber, told the Associated Press the company was "very encouraged" by the early results.
Results are promising but more needs to be done
The announcement doesn't mean for certain that a vaccine is imminent.
This interim analysis, from an independent data monitoring board, looked at 94 infections recorded so far in a study that has enrolled nearly 44,000 people in six countries.
Some participants got the vaccine, while others received placebos.
Pfizer have not released specific breakdowns for the results.
The study is continuing and Pfizer cautioned that the protection rate might change as more COVID-19 cases are added to the calculations.
Participants were tested only if they developed symptoms, leaving unanswered whether vaccinated people could get infected but show no symptoms and unknowingly spread the virus.
The FDA has required US vaccine candidates be studied in at least 30,000 people.
The study must include an adequate numbers of older adults, and people from high risk groups including minorities and people with chronic health problems.
Pfizer doesn't plan to stop its study until it records 164 infections among all the volunteers, a number that the FDA has agreed is enough to tell how well the vaccine is working.
The agency has made clear any vaccine must be at least 50 per cent effective.
Vaccine optimism boosted by early results
Dr Anthony Fauci, the US Government's top infectious disease expert, said the results suggesting 90 per cent effectiveness were "just extraordinary".
"Not very many people expected it would be as high as that," he said.
"It's going to have a major impact on everything we do with respect to COVID."
Dr Bruce Aylward, the World Health Organization's senior adviser, said Pfizer's vaccine could "fundamentally change the direction of this crisis" by March, when the UN agency hopes to start vaccinating high risk groups.
Global markets, already buoyed by the victory of president-elect Joe Biden, rocketed on the news from Pfizer.
The S&P 500 was up 3.3 per cent in afternoon trading, while the Dow Jones gained more than 1,300 points.
Pfizer jumped more than 11 percent and other vaccine stocks were up as well.
Pfizer has estimated it could have 50 million doses — enough for 25 million people — available globally by the end of 2020.
www.abc.net.au/news/2020-11-10/pfizer-says-vaccine-data-suggests-may-be-90-per-cent-effective/12865626
Followed by this:
November 10, 2020, 11:42:32 am
Hopes rise for end of pandemic as Pfizer says vaccine is 90% effective
Global stocks surge and experts optimistic as Covid vaccine exceeds expectations
Hopes are soaring that a Covid vaccine is within reach, following news that an interim analysis has shown Pfizer/BioNTech’s candidate was 90% effective in protecting people from transmission of the virus in global trials.
The vaccine performed much better than most experts had hoped for, according to the companies’ analysis, and brings into view a potential end to a pandemic that has killed more than a million people, battered economies and upended daily life worldwide.
The data is from an interim analysis and the trial continues into December but the headline results were emphatic. Regulators will be looking to process an emergency licence application at record speed.
Global stocks surged to record highs on the news, while companies that have become synonymous with lockdowns in the west, including Zoom’s video conferencing and food delivery firms, saw falls in their value.
John Bell, Regius professor of medicine at Oxford University, who is involved with the Oxford vaccine, said that the Pfizer team had shown “an amazing level of efficacy” and it could mean a return to normality by spring. “I’m the first guy to say that but I will say it with some confidence,” he told the BBC.
Manufacturing is already under way. Pfizer said they expect to supply globally up to 50m vaccine doses in 2020 and up to 1.3bn doses in 2021. Countries will decide who they prioritise for vaccination. In the UK, the joint committee on vaccination and immunisation has recommended that – presuming the vaccines work well enough in elderly people – the first vaccines go to care home workers and residents, followed by anybody over 80 and other health and social care workers. After that, people are expected to get them in decreasing age order.
The news comes too late to help Donald Trump’s re-election campaign in the US, but the vice-president, Mike Pence, tried to claim their administration’s Operation Warp Speed programme had helped the vaccine’s development. Pfizer denied the suggestion.
“We were never part of the Warp Speed,” Kathrin Jansen, a senior vice-president and the head of vaccine research and development at Pfizer, said in an interview. “We have never taken any money from the US government, or from anyone.”
BioNTech, the small biotechnology company that is the originator of the vaccine, was founded by two married German scientists, Uğur Şahin and Özlem Türeci, both born to Turkish immigrant parents, and the Austrian oncologist Christopher Huber. It originally set out to develop new types of immunotherapy for cancer, but has concentrated its capacities on the race for a Covid-19 vaccine.
There are so far no safety concerns around the vaccine, with the two companies reporting no serious side-effects. The high percentage of those protected makes it especially compelling. Regulators have previously said they would approve a vaccine that has just a 50% effectiveness rate – protecting half of those who get vaccinated.
“Today is a great day for science and humanity. The first set of results from our phase 3 Covid-19 vaccine trial provides the initial evidence of our vaccine’s ability to prevent Covid-19,” said Dr Albert Bourla, the Pfizer chairman and chief executive.
“We are reaching this critical milestone in our vaccine development programme at a time when the world needs it most with infection rates setting new records, hospitals nearing over-capacity and economies struggling to reopen.”
Other scientists tried to marry caution with their obvious excitement at the early results, warning that the full data was not yet available and that the trial was continuing.
“In the absence of any data from Pfizer and BioNTech, we have to take these very exciting claims at face value,” said Dr Simon Clarke, an associate professor of cellular microbiology at the University of Reading. “It seems highly unlikely that a major pharmaceutical company would get such eagerly awaited news wrong.”
Prof Peter Horby of Oxford University, who runs the Recovery Covid drug trial, said it seemed like an important moment.
“This news made me smile from ear to ear,” he said. “It is a relief to see such positive results on this vaccine and bodes well for Covid-19 vaccines in general. Of course we need to see more detail and await the final results, and there is a long, long way to go before vaccines will start to make a real difference, but this feels to me like a watershed moment.”
Pfizer/BioNTech’s mRNA vaccine, which uses the genetic code rather than any part of the virus itself, has been one of the leaders in the global vaccine race. Interim results are also expected this month or in early December from trials for the Oxford University/AstraZeneca vaccine, which is based on a different technology.
The phase 3 trials have involved more than 43,000 people and are intended to establish whether the vaccine works. Volunteers are given either the Covid vaccine, which was administered in two shots about three weeks apart, or a placebo alternative such as the meningitis vaccine, and neither they nor their doctors know which they have had.
There have been concerns that black and minority ethnic populations are particularly vulnerable to Covid. Approximately 42% of global participants and 30% of US participants in the trials have racially and ethnically diverse backgrounds and appear to have been as well-protected as everyone else, the company says. But one important unanswered question is how long the vaccine will last.
The US and UK both welcomed the development but urged patience.
“I congratulate the brilliant women and men who helped produce this breakthrough and to give us so much cause for hope,” the US president-elect, Joe Biden, said. “It is also important to understand that the end of the battle against Covid-19 is still months away … a mask remains a more potent weapon against the virus than a vaccine. Today’s news does not change this urgent reality.”
The UK’s prime minister and deputy medical adviser warned that nobody should assume the pandemic was over and let down their guard. “We can’t let our enthusiasm run away with us,” said Boris Johnson, adding that the public must continue to observe the lockdown restrictions. Prof Jonathan Van-Tam said the results showed the vaccine prevented disease, but “we don’t know what this means yet for when we can get life back to normal … please don’t relax.”
Many countries already have orders for the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine. The UK has bought 40m doses – enough for 20 million people because two doses are required. The EU has secured 200m doses, which it will distribute. The companies have a $1.95bn (£1.5bn) contract with the US government to deliver 100m vaccine doses beginning this year.
www.theguardian.com/world/2020/nov/09/covid-19-vaccine-candidate-effective-pfizer-biontech
Here are some more gotchas ...
Ah yes ... the "pearls" from Pimbotomy ...
On Bill Shorten :
"Bill Shorten will be PM, and will be PM for a long time."
On Sam Dastyari :
"Not the end for Sam. He's only sin binned himself for the duration of this parliament. The dogs are barking but the caravan will move on."
On Human impact on Earth :
"The planet isn't at risk from humans."
On the dual citizenship issue :
"If Turnbull goes ahead and presses the button marked "nuclear option" he'll unleash a political holocaust that will bury ... Malcolm Turnbull. Meanwhile, Turnbull faces a horror scenario in Bennelong."
On the SSM plebiscite :
"Personally I'm opposed to the plebiscite but then I'm not a member of the federal Labor Caucus. You may still get your plebiscite although I doubt it."
"The plebiscite is dead. We're not gonna hold a plebiscite on same sex marriage in this country."
On the Labor Party :
"The Labor Party is not a Democratic Socialist party."
You tend to spray around plenty of material for gotchas.
Here 'tis:
I posted this:
A vaccine with 90% effectiveness could be on the way fairly soon.
Captain said:
November 10, 2020, 10:29:43 am
So, it seems that there is light at the end of the tunnel.
A vaccine with 90% effectiveness could be on the way "fairly soon".
This is good news. 8)
You replied with this:
Pim said:
November 10, 2020, 11:28:54 am
Whatever the fuck “fairly soon” means. Sounds like the sort of blather Scotty from Marketing would utter. Trump would utter that sort of snake oil as well ... for all the good it’s done him.
“90% effectiveness” sounds like more Scotty from Marketing spin and blather. I can’t swear he actually uttered those words but it’s the sort of “happy talk” bullshit he likes to smother an issue with. Consider this: the demographic that is most vulnerable to the coronavirus is the baby boomers, especially the 65+ cohort. Whenever my GP gives me my annual flu jab he’s told me that I should expect around 50% immunity “at your age”. Which cuts the risk of getting the flu in half and I’ll take those odds. I’ve never heard of “90% immunity” and that figures because vaccination has always been and will always be about herd immunity - you get the whole population vaccinated and even with an immunity factor that’s much less than 90% the virus finds not just the individual host but the whole host environment - the herd - to be a lot less congenial. It either mutates to avoid the vaccine or it adapts to a new an different host. We’ve seen that in Denmark with the minks. What’s diabolical about the Danish mink situation is that the virus, having adapted to the mink population, then re-adapts to infect humans in a different form.
The research into a vaccine is important but even if the nerds and geeks in white lab coats perfect a magic vaccine under lab conditions (and more power to their microscopes and test tubes) that passes muster and gets the seal of approval for general distribution, how long will it take to vaccinate the whole human race? Because nobody in the developed world of Europe and the Americas plus first world outliers like Australia and NZ will be OK until everyone is OK. That means Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Chad, Burkina Faso and places you’ve never heard of.
So stop peddling snake oil and spamming two discussion boards with your Scotty from Marketing happy talk. And don’t throw your unused face masks in the bin!
Then I replied with this:
Captain said:
November 10, 2020, 11:35:16 am
Not up with today's news eh Pim?
It's a little more sophisticated than snake oil ... it's genetically engineered vaccine. ;D
Pfizer says COVID-19 vaccine could be 90 per cent effective
The shots made by Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech are among 10 possible vaccine candidates in late-stage testing around the world.(Pexels: Polina Tankilevitch)
A COVID-19 vaccine being produced by Pfizer may be 90 per cent effective in stopping the transmission of the deadly virus.
Early, but incomplete, test results from the drug manufacturer have showed promising results in 94 infections being treated in the trial.
The news has brought a burst of optimism to a world desperate to bring the catastrophic outbreak under control.
The Pfizer trial is one of four potential vaccines the Australian Government has signed an agreement to purchase if it is successful.
Federal Health Minister Greg Hunt said the Government would continue to monitor further results as they are made available.
"The data on our vaccine candidates continues to be positive. We will examine the evidence carefully but the latest results are heartening news," he said.
Pfizer, which is developing the vaccine with its German partner BioNTech, is on track to apply for emergency use approval from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
Even if all goes well, authorities have stressed it is unlikely any vaccine will arrive before the end of the year.
Pfizer's senior vice-president of clinical development, Bill Gruber, told the Associated Press the company was "very encouraged" by the early results.
Results are promising but more needs to be done
The announcement doesn't mean for certain that a vaccine is imminent.
This interim analysis, from an independent data monitoring board, looked at 94 infections recorded so far in a study that has enrolled nearly 44,000 people in six countries.
Some participants got the vaccine, while others received placebos.
Pfizer have not released specific breakdowns for the results.
The study is continuing and Pfizer cautioned that the protection rate might change as more COVID-19 cases are added to the calculations.
Participants were tested only if they developed symptoms, leaving unanswered whether vaccinated people could get infected but show no symptoms and unknowingly spread the virus.
The FDA has required US vaccine candidates be studied in at least 30,000 people.
The study must include an adequate numbers of older adults, and people from high risk groups including minorities and people with chronic health problems.
Pfizer doesn't plan to stop its study until it records 164 infections among all the volunteers, a number that the FDA has agreed is enough to tell how well the vaccine is working.
The agency has made clear any vaccine must be at least 50 per cent effective.
Vaccine optimism boosted by early results
Dr Anthony Fauci, the US Government's top infectious disease expert, said the results suggesting 90 per cent effectiveness were "just extraordinary".
"Not very many people expected it would be as high as that," he said.
"It's going to have a major impact on everything we do with respect to COVID."
Dr Bruce Aylward, the World Health Organization's senior adviser, said Pfizer's vaccine could "fundamentally change the direction of this crisis" by March, when the UN agency hopes to start vaccinating high risk groups.
Global markets, already buoyed by the victory of president-elect Joe Biden, rocketed on the news from Pfizer.
The S&P 500 was up 3.3 per cent in afternoon trading, while the Dow Jones gained more than 1,300 points.
Pfizer jumped more than 11 percent and other vaccine stocks were up as well.
Pfizer has estimated it could have 50 million doses — enough for 25 million people — available globally by the end of 2020.
www.abc.net.au/news/2020-11-10/pfizer-says-vaccine-data-suggests-may-be-90-per-cent-effective/12865626
Followed by this:
Captain said:
November 10, 2020, 11:42:32 am
Hopes rise for end of pandemic as Pfizer says vaccine is 90% effective
Global stocks surge and experts optimistic as Covid vaccine exceeds expectations
Hopes are soaring that a Covid vaccine is within reach, following news that an interim analysis has shown Pfizer/BioNTech’s candidate was 90% effective in protecting people from transmission of the virus in global trials.
The vaccine performed much better than most experts had hoped for, according to the companies’ analysis, and brings into view a potential end to a pandemic that has killed more than a million people, battered economies and upended daily life worldwide.
The data is from an interim analysis and the trial continues into December but the headline results were emphatic. Regulators will be looking to process an emergency licence application at record speed.
Global stocks surged to record highs on the news, while companies that have become synonymous with lockdowns in the west, including Zoom’s video conferencing and food delivery firms, saw falls in their value.
John Bell, Regius professor of medicine at Oxford University, who is involved with the Oxford vaccine, said that the Pfizer team had shown “an amazing level of efficacy” and it could mean a return to normality by spring. “I’m the first guy to say that but I will say it with some confidence,” he told the BBC.
Manufacturing is already under way. Pfizer said they expect to supply globally up to 50m vaccine doses in 2020 and up to 1.3bn doses in 2021. Countries will decide who they prioritise for vaccination. In the UK, the joint committee on vaccination and immunisation has recommended that – presuming the vaccines work well enough in elderly people – the first vaccines go to care home workers and residents, followed by anybody over 80 and other health and social care workers. After that, people are expected to get them in decreasing age order.
The news comes too late to help Donald Trump’s re-election campaign in the US, but the vice-president, Mike Pence, tried to claim their administration’s Operation Warp Speed programme had helped the vaccine’s development. Pfizer denied the suggestion.
“We were never part of the Warp Speed,” Kathrin Jansen, a senior vice-president and the head of vaccine research and development at Pfizer, said in an interview. “We have never taken any money from the US government, or from anyone.”
BioNTech, the small biotechnology company that is the originator of the vaccine, was founded by two married German scientists, Uğur Şahin and Özlem Türeci, both born to Turkish immigrant parents, and the Austrian oncologist Christopher Huber. It originally set out to develop new types of immunotherapy for cancer, but has concentrated its capacities on the race for a Covid-19 vaccine.
There are so far no safety concerns around the vaccine, with the two companies reporting no serious side-effects. The high percentage of those protected makes it especially compelling. Regulators have previously said they would approve a vaccine that has just a 50% effectiveness rate – protecting half of those who get vaccinated.
“Today is a great day for science and humanity. The first set of results from our phase 3 Covid-19 vaccine trial provides the initial evidence of our vaccine’s ability to prevent Covid-19,” said Dr Albert Bourla, the Pfizer chairman and chief executive.
“We are reaching this critical milestone in our vaccine development programme at a time when the world needs it most with infection rates setting new records, hospitals nearing over-capacity and economies struggling to reopen.”
Other scientists tried to marry caution with their obvious excitement at the early results, warning that the full data was not yet available and that the trial was continuing.
“In the absence of any data from Pfizer and BioNTech, we have to take these very exciting claims at face value,” said Dr Simon Clarke, an associate professor of cellular microbiology at the University of Reading. “It seems highly unlikely that a major pharmaceutical company would get such eagerly awaited news wrong.”
Prof Peter Horby of Oxford University, who runs the Recovery Covid drug trial, said it seemed like an important moment.
“This news made me smile from ear to ear,” he said. “It is a relief to see such positive results on this vaccine and bodes well for Covid-19 vaccines in general. Of course we need to see more detail and await the final results, and there is a long, long way to go before vaccines will start to make a real difference, but this feels to me like a watershed moment.”
Pfizer/BioNTech’s mRNA vaccine, which uses the genetic code rather than any part of the virus itself, has been one of the leaders in the global vaccine race. Interim results are also expected this month or in early December from trials for the Oxford University/AstraZeneca vaccine, which is based on a different technology.
The phase 3 trials have involved more than 43,000 people and are intended to establish whether the vaccine works. Volunteers are given either the Covid vaccine, which was administered in two shots about three weeks apart, or a placebo alternative such as the meningitis vaccine, and neither they nor their doctors know which they have had.
There have been concerns that black and minority ethnic populations are particularly vulnerable to Covid. Approximately 42% of global participants and 30% of US participants in the trials have racially and ethnically diverse backgrounds and appear to have been as well-protected as everyone else, the company says. But one important unanswered question is how long the vaccine will last.
The US and UK both welcomed the development but urged patience.
“I congratulate the brilliant women and men who helped produce this breakthrough and to give us so much cause for hope,” the US president-elect, Joe Biden, said. “It is also important to understand that the end of the battle against Covid-19 is still months away … a mask remains a more potent weapon against the virus than a vaccine. Today’s news does not change this urgent reality.”
The UK’s prime minister and deputy medical adviser warned that nobody should assume the pandemic was over and let down their guard. “We can’t let our enthusiasm run away with us,” said Boris Johnson, adding that the public must continue to observe the lockdown restrictions. Prof Jonathan Van-Tam said the results showed the vaccine prevented disease, but “we don’t know what this means yet for when we can get life back to normal … please don’t relax.”
Many countries already have orders for the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine. The UK has bought 40m doses – enough for 20 million people because two doses are required. The EU has secured 200m doses, which it will distribute. The companies have a $1.95bn (£1.5bn) contract with the US government to deliver 100m vaccine doses beginning this year.
www.theguardian.com/world/2020/nov/09/covid-19-vaccine-candidate-effective-pfizer-biontech
Here are some more gotchas ...
Ah yes ... the "pearls" from Pimbotomy ...
On Bill Shorten :
"Bill Shorten will be PM, and will be PM for a long time."
On Sam Dastyari :
"Not the end for Sam. He's only sin binned himself for the duration of this parliament. The dogs are barking but the caravan will move on."
On Human impact on Earth :
"The planet isn't at risk from humans."
On the dual citizenship issue :
"If Turnbull goes ahead and presses the button marked "nuclear option" he'll unleash a political holocaust that will bury ... Malcolm Turnbull. Meanwhile, Turnbull faces a horror scenario in Bennelong."
On the SSM plebiscite :
"Personally I'm opposed to the plebiscite but then I'm not a member of the federal Labor Caucus. You may still get your plebiscite although I doubt it."
"The plebiscite is dead. We're not gonna hold a plebiscite on same sex marriage in this country."
On the Labor Party :
"The Labor Party is not a Democratic Socialist party."