[News] The Coronavirus Good News thread

[n1 gull]

Genuine question.
Thalidomide was tested and considered to be safe in the 1950s.
That was tragically found to not be the case after a 9 month gestation period.
These new covid vaccines can only have been developed and tested for a max of 5/6 months as of today.

Could any covid vaccine rolled out in 2020 confidently be deemed 100% safe (due to more rigorous and complete testing) or is there the chance we could be rushing things and unleashing something terrible?

I don't think this is for this thread as it will probably lead into a debate about vaccines, conspiracies etc..

 

[highflyer]

I don't think this is for this thread as it will probably lead into a debate about vaccines, conspiracies etc..

True, and that debate is to be avoided here.

However, worth saying that my (very amateur) understanding is that all the vaccines in development that I have read about are based on well established and well understood technologies. So very different from the kind of cases I hear talked about when scare stories are being stirred up. In the case of the Oxford vaccine for instance, they were able to use a technology that had been developed and tested for other similar virus's, so any long term problems would almost certainly have shown up by now (whch is why they were able to move so much quicker than others). So it's very unlikely that there would be the kind of effects you raise in the longer term. Shorter term these vaccines are beng thoroughly and widely tested, so again risks will be extremely low once they are approved. Personally I'd be entirely comfortable getting the vaccination already on safety basis (and people I trust and who know a lot more than me say the same). But I also know that it needs to be proved to be sufficiently effective otherwise it could do more harm than good (if people think they are protected when they aren't).

Of course nothing is ever 100%. Its' a case of balancing risks. As long as everything has been done properly, and established protocols have been followed, then there will come a point when the risks of vaccinating become much lower than not vaccinating. That balance of course may be affected not just by the (very low) health risk of vaccinations, but by how much risk there is in not vaccinating (eg how well the pandemic is being contained without vaccination). Currently, although infections are rising, the risks to individual health are still extremely low as those infections seem to be largely contained amongst the very low risk elements of the population.

 

[Notters]

Genuine question.
Thalidomide was tested and considered to be safe in the 1950s.
That was tragically found to not be the case after a 9 month gestation period.
These new covid vaccines can only have been developed and tested for a max of 5/6 months as of today.

Could any covid vaccine rolled out in 2020 confidently be deemed 100% safe (due to more rigorous and complete testing) or is there the chance we could be rushing things and unleashing something terrible?

I'm no expert but I think the development of a new vaccine (which in most ways will be very similar to existing vaccines) is very different to the development of a new drug (chemical compound) which will have completely unknown effects on the body.

 

[Chicken Run]

A friend of ours is a pharmacist and apparently they are already being trained to administer the vaccine

I can also add to this that my mothers ex colleague a Pharmacist said similar to me on Friday!

 

[Billy the Fish]

Think we need the main Covid thread back on the Big Board. Its dead in the sub forum now, just keep two threads: this one for good news and three main one for debate.

 

[Birdie Boy]

I can also add to this that my mothers ex colleague a Pharmacist said similar to me on Friday!

A needle in the vein? I thought they already knew how to do this, my local one does the flu jab every year... Or is there something new and amazing?

 

[LamieRobertson]

A needle in the vein? I thought they already knew how to do this, my local one does the flu jab every year... Or is there something new and amazing?

Ten foot needle apparently.....bend over

 

[MTSeagulls]

Ten foot needle apparently.....bend over

Just a little prick

 

[Uter]

Genuine question.
Thalidomide was tested and considered to be safe in the 1950s.
That was tragically found to not be the case after a 9 month gestation period.
These new covid vaccines can only have been developed and tested for a max of 5/6 months as of today.

Could any covid vaccine rolled out in 2020 confidently be deemed 100% safe (due to more rigorous and complete testing) or is there the chance we could be rushing things and unleashing something terrible?

I realise that you are using Thalidomide as an example and are not solely focused on the effects on the unborn, but I doubt any vaccine would initially be made available to anyone pregnant or breastfeeding. These are pretty standard exclusion criteria for clinical trials, so without any data to assess the safety profile for pregnant women it's unlikely that they will be able to receive a vaccine initially IMO.

Any adverse effects from vaccines tend to be fairly immediate, mild and short-lived; muscle aches, skin reactions, headache, temperature etc. Sometimes you get rarer and more serious problems, but these still tend to occur within a short time frame. The clinical trials are recruiting tens of thousands subjects which should be enough to detect anything but the most incredibly rare reactions.

 

[LamieRobertson]

.......back on track but related

[tweet]1302892671858606080[/tweet]

 

[Chicken Run]

A needle in the vein? I thought they already knew how to do this, my local one does the flu jab every year... Or is there something new and amazing?

I think you’re being facetious but if not then I imagine the logistics, planning and implementation that they were being trained on [emoji3][emoji106]

 

[Guinness Boy]

Think we need the main Covid thread back on the Big Board. Its dead in the sub forum now, just keep two threads: this one for good news and three main one for debate.

Firstly, can people please keep this thread to its original purpose? Thanks.

Secondly I hear where you are coming from. There's a lot of interesting stuff on the Covid sub-forum from knowledgable posters and a lot of the polar opposite to that. With the season starting it may be the majority want to focus on football? Tell you what, I'll pop a poll out there but the end decision is firmly down to [MENTION=6886]Bozza[/MENTION]

 

[LamieRobertson]

Firstly, can people please keep this thread to its original purpose? Thanks.

Secondly I hear where you are coming from. There's a lot of interesting stuff on the Covid sub-forum from knowledgable posters and a lot of the polar opposite to that. With the season starting it may be the majority want to focus on football? Tell you what, I'll pop a poll out there but the end decision is firmly down to [MENTION=6886]Bozza[/MENTION]

Hi GB we had a poll just a couple of weeks ago

 

[Guinness Boy]

Hi GB we had a poll just a couple of weeks ago

So we did. I'm not sure if the question was exactly the same but I do take your point.

I don't think there's a great desire to see it back TBH. However, people are free to go debate in the sub-forum as much as possible. It may be that this thread and a load of football discussion are what people need for a bit of positivity and escape.

And, with that, ladies and gents, your GOOD news please..........

 

[LamieRobertson]

As of Friday 4 September, there were 454 COVID-19 patients in English hospitals - At the peak (12 April) there were 17,172.

This chart for England shows confirmed cases (people positive) by specimen date vs. patients in hospital.

https://twitter.com/ukcovid19stats/status/1302913537904386048?s=21

 

[macbeth]

As of Friday 4 September, there were 454 COVID-19 patients in English hospitals - At the peak (12 April) there were 17,172.

This chart for England shows confirmed cases (people positive) by specimen date vs. patients in hospital.

https://twitter.com/ukcovid19stats/status/1302913537904386048?s=21

what's most reassuring is looking at that graph and seeing where hospital numbers were during the first peak when case numbers were the same as they are now. the difference between hospital cases now and then is night and day

 

[Green Cross Code Man]

what's most reassuring is looking at that graph and seeing where hospital numbers were during the first peak when case numbers were the same as they are now. the difference between hospital cases now and then is night and day

I will answer that on the main thread.

 

[Bodian]

what's most reassuring is looking at that graph and seeing where hospital numbers were during the first peak when case numbers were the same as they are now. the difference between hospital cases now and then is night and day

And also, bearing in mind that it's generally accepted that we were not picking up the vast majority of cases through testing in the the first peak, whereas we are now - it's even more positive.

 

[Mellotron]

Gov planning to launch "Seat Out to Help Out" (yes, really...) scheme in October/November to enable theatres/sports stadiums to open at much higher capacities, based on mass testing.

We'll see how well it works but it sounds promising.

 

[Mellotron]

Snippet from Yahoo article implying we could be seeing initial efficacy data from Oxford vaccine within the next 1-2 weeks.

In the race to produce a vaccine for the novel coronavirus, drugmakers are at present engrossed in determining the effectiveness of the vaccine based on its early data, and at the same time, meet the target set by the sovereign governments in their respective nations.

According to Airfinity Ltd., an analytics company that tracks drug trials, the first results to determine the effectiveness of a COVID-19 vaccine could come by mid-September from AstraZeneca Plc, which has promised to supply 30 million doses to the United Kingdom by the end of the month.

On the other hand, the United State’s Moderna Inc. and the US-German partnership of Pfizer Inc. and BioNTech SE may also come up with their research data ahead of an important Food and Drug Administration meeting on vaccines scheduled for October 22, Airfinity said. Meanwhile, China’s Sinovac Biotech Ltd., could have initial results shortly after the meeting, the Livemint reported.

The preliminary results are known as interim readouts, which are snapshots taken before the completion of the study with only a fraction of the data. Earlier, the World Health Organization warned countries against approving a vaccine in a hurry before gaining clarity on its full risks and benefits.

With the relentless spread of the coronavirus in Europe, India and the US, the preliminary numbers may act as an early indicator.

“The first results should be enough to give us a very good idea of where we’re heading. They are moving faster than one could have anticipated," Airfinity Chief Executive Officer Rasmus Bech Hansen told Livemint.

Unlike drugs, vaccines are administered on relatively healthy people and so far, each of these experimental vaccines has shown promise in smaller trials designed to flag any serious safety concerns and show whether candidates can spur some response from the immune system. The report said.

However, to establish degree of certainty of the vaccine’s effectiveness in the real world, an experiment requires tens of thousands of participants against the few hundred people needed in early-stage trials.

The Airfinity projection said that drugmakers usually request regulatory approval after the arrival of the final results of the trials. “Overwhelmingly positive interim results could lead to studies being stopped early and the vaccines being rushed to the public,” Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told the Los Angeles Times earlier this week.

https://sg.news.yahoo.com/covid-19-...f-at5JZA08iosqrI&_guc_consent_skip=1599483091