I cannot find any interviews between Axios representatives and senior White House officials.
I find it a bit surprising that the White House would be talking about a Mayo Clinic preprint to an on-line website.
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Re the article Pathfinder linked to above.
The data is weak to support the July drop which the unnamed senior Biden official highlights. The research is thorough and the methods are good but the picked highlight comes from this data table.
Table A shows Pfizer (blue) following a steady drop over time up until June which would hit 75% if it continued into July. The brown Modern line had its wobble in June and miraculously returned to track in July. The other point to note is the shading which marks the 95% confidence limits which are enormous.
Table B shows no matching pattern, in fact Modern's poor June showing in table A coincides with its best month in table B
Graph C shows Delta and Alpha switching in June.
To assume that the switch in variants caused wobbles in table A makes little sense particularly as the both vaccines contained identical S gene RNA sequences and they only varied in their lipid capsule. If the delivery vehicle was going to make a difference it would be in vaccine uptake not longevity or ability to deal with variants, which is why I bothered to go back to the data and methods. The paper is sound the 42% is an over interpretation of the data. Had the study been stopped in June the headline would be Modern is only 62% effective while Pfizer is 80%.
Full paper link https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1...07v1.full-textLeave a comment:
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11 hours ago - Health
New data on coronavirus vaccine effectiveness may be "a wakeup call"
Caitlin Owens
A new preprint study that raises concerns about the mRNA vaccines' effectiveness against Delta — particularly Pfizer's — has already grabbed the attention of top Biden administration officials.
What they're saying: The study found the Pfizer vaccine was only 42% effective against infection in July, when the Delta variant was dominant. "If that's not a wakeup call, I don't know what is," a senior Biden official told Axios.
Driving the news: The study, conducted by nference and the Mayo Clinic, compared the effectiveness of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines in the Mayo Clinic Health System over time from January to July.- Overall, it found that the Moderna vaccine was 86% effective against infection over the study period, and Pfizer's was 76%. Moderna's vaccine was 92% effective against hospitalization and Pfizer's was 85%.
- But the vaccines' effectiveness against infection dropped sharply in July, when the Delta variant's prevalence in Minnesota had risen to over 70%.
- Moderna was 76% effective against infection, and Pfizer was only 42% effective.
- The study found similar results in other states. For example, in Florida, the risk of infection in July for people fully vaccinated with Moderna was about 60% lower than for people fully vaccinated with Pfizer.
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gs the vaccine is very effective and I am not sure we can improve it by much. While there are better vaccines I do not know of any as good as these are for a respiratory disease. Those that do give long lasting high levels of steralising immunity tend to be for viremic conditions where antibodies can intercept the virus in the blood. What we can do is cut the number of hospitalisations by getting more people vaccinated. Tinkering with vaccine formulation to better target the current top variant will make little difference as it will just promote a different vaccine escape strain and we will be forever chasing our tail. -
Emily posted this link to a short news interview which is much the best explanation of our current situation I have seen. I would highly recommend it.
"Herd immunity is not a possibility" because the Delta variant "still infects vaccinated individuals". Professor Sir Andrew Pollard, director of the Oxford Vaccine Group.
I think this could be interpreted as a peculiar to the Delta variant but I think, hope, he just meant that is currently the case because that is the dominant UK strain at present. All the strains can cause infections in those who have been previously vaccinated or infected. Even if they reduce infection by 50%, due to the much higher R(0) of SARS-CoV-2, that still leaves it more contagious than seasonal flu.Leave a comment:
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for delta : VE , LA-County=54% , St.Louis=79?% , FL=75?%, LA=77?% good reporting in OK,VE=90%
Israel VE<0 , Iceland <50% ,, England 59% ,Singapore <70% , but GER,FRA,VA,OK, etc. VE>90%
how many are trying to hide and obfuscate {and underreport ?} data on BT cases in USA :
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for delta : VE , LA-County=54% , St.Louis=79?% , FL=75?%, LA=77?% good reporting in OK,VE=90%
Israel VE<0 , Iceland <50% ,, England 59% ,Singapore <70% , but GER,FRA,VA,OK, etc. VE>90%
how many are trying to hide and obfuscate {and underreport ?} data on BT cases in USA :
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yes, but when ... They are testing it ... 4th quarter ...mass production in 2022 , I assume
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I might be able to see the 5 week cycle locally soon. A month ago I was in a clinic waiting area and there were several people there coughing and sneezing. (This clinic has nothing to do with respiratory disease.) I'm in a high COVID area, but also I read RSV was circulating then. Our state is now down to only 8 ICU beds left.
However, today I was in the same waiting room and no signs of respiratory illness at all. I'm hoping that is a sign of the downside of the cycle. -
I think one of the articles I read in the Israeli press said that Pfizer is coming up with a booster with updated genetics for the new strains. -
Fauci hopeful COVID vaccines get full OK by FDA within weeks
By AAMER MADHANI
yesterday
WILMINGTON, Del. (AP) — The U.S. government’s top infectious disease expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci, said Sunday that he was hopeful the Food and Drug Administration will give full approval to the coronavirus vaccine by month’s end and predicted the potential move will spur a wave of vaccine mandates in the private sector as well as schools and universities.
The FDA has only granted emergency-use approval of the Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson vaccines, but the agency is expected to soon give full approval to Pfizer.
...
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Iceland -
Translation Google
Herd immunity must be achieved by transmitting the virus
Árni Sæberg writes August 8, 2021 12:13 PM
Þórólfur Guðnason is the epidemiologist of Iceland
The epidemiologist believes that it is now necessary to try to achieve herd immunity to the coronary virus by letting it continue, but to try to prevent serious illness by protecting vulnerable groups. He says the goal at this point cannot be to eradicate the virus from society.
One and a half months after the abolition of all domestic operations, a record number have been diagnosed infected in recent weeks, despite the fact that the majority of the population has been vaccinated.
Þórólfur Guðnason said in Sprengisandur in Bylgjan this morning that it is disappointing that herd immunity has not been achieved with vaccination. He says there is only one other way to achieve herd immunity, to allow the virus to spread throughout the community.
Þórólfur says that he has talked about it since the beginning of the epidemic that the crown virus mutated. This has now happened with the arrival of the Delta variant across the border.
He says, however, that the vaccination was not in vain. "The vaccination has prevented a serious illness, there is no question about that," says Þórólfur.
Þórólfur says that it is necessary to respond to how many people become infected after vaccination. "We just need to shuffle the cards and come up with new plans," he said.
"We really can not do anything else," says Þórólfur when asked whether the nation of seventy to eighty must be allowed to become infected in order to achieve herd immunity.
Some need to be revaccinated
Þórólfur says that the priority now is to give booster doses to those who have responded poorly to vaccination. "We need to try to vaccinate and better protect those who are vulnerable, but let us tolerate the infection," he said.
"I think it is quite clear that Janssen's defense is weaker than that of other vaccines," says Þórólfur. He says it is a priority to give those who received the Jansen vaccine a booster dose. Then, for example, teachers and the elderly need to be given a booster dose as soon as possible.
"It is not a priority now to vaccinate everyone with the third dose, as we also need to think: Maybe we should get a new variant? Do we need to be vaccinated with another vaccine? ”He says. Þórólfur says that the fight against the virus will be characterized by such uncertainty.
Will not propose hard action
"We need to somehow navigate this way, and we are now in this, not to get too many serious illnesses so that the hospital system does not collapse, but still try to achieve this herd immunity by letting the virus somehow run."
Þórólfur believes that the most important action now is to strengthen the hospital system and enable Landspítali to accept more people who need hospitalization.
He says the situation at Landspítali is not good, even though no emergency call has been received from there. "I do not think we have reached the point where we need to take tough action," he said.
However, he says we need to be ready to take action if we are to see a lot of seriously infected people.
Þórólfur says that there will be discussions with specialists and those who work at Landspítali about improvements at the hospital. He does not intend to comment in detail on what needs to be done for the hospital to meet other demand.
Offer parents a vaccine for their children
It has been decided to invite parents to vaccinate children as new research has indicated that the side effects of vaccinating children are not serious. However, children can become seriously ill if they become infected with the Delta variant.
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Emily Stat does get more granular if the data is collected in that way so if you look at the US you can then select California which in turn has graphs for over 60 individual counties. As you get into smaller and smaller units there are not enough data points to make a reasonably smooth curve and it breaks down into a jagged mess. It also shows deaths as the red line but to see these on a reasonable scale you need to click on the blue 'new cases' button (top right ) to get a readable scale. Changing the period to one month averages shows peaks more clearly. If you look at enough country epi-curves you can get to a point where you can make a fairly accurate guess as to what part of the world you are looking at without actually reading the name of the country.
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