Excargodog

Quote: Originally Posted by Excargodog [img]/images/buttons/viewpost.gif[/img]
once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, ...


let’s see. 15,000 in the treated group (they don’t stop the train for anything in the placebo group) if they had the entire group immunized which they say they don’t, mean duration since immunization is about two months, so we are really only talking about perhaps 1000 person-years exposure, and the US incidence rate for MS is 78 Cases per 100,000 per year. That would give an expectation of 0.78 cases per thousand per year.

Nothing about that inconsistent with once is happenstance, twice is coincidence....

TOGALOCK

AstraZeneca-Oxford back in the race.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cnb...-concerns.html

TransWorld

Your article shows the areas are mostly sub Saharan Africa. Same areas it has been hard to get vaccinations for yellow fever, etc.

How long did it take to get coverage in the US and other first world countries? Not that long.

Excargodog

Last case of US polio was 1979. That was twenty-six years after Salk vaccine was FDA approved.

And in 1955, a bad batch of Salk vaccine given to 200,000 school kids CAUSED 40,000 cases of polio leaving 200 kids paralyzed and ten dead.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1383764/

Anybody that thinks mass immunization programs are easy hasn’t done any research.

TransWorld

How many new cases in the US occurred after the vaccination started? In a year or so, cases dropped by 90%.

How many lives have been saved and permanent paralysis avoided because of rapid deployment of the Salk vaccine. I was around in the 1950s. I was grateful for it.

Excargodog

I am NOT b|tching about the Salk vaccine, or Sabin either. Nor am I claiming that it’s impossible for a vaccine to be developed and approved in less than four years (although if it happens it’ll be a first). What I AM saying is that everybody who expects a coronavirus vaccine to be an developed quickly and broadly fielded in only a year or two is likely to be disappointed. Don’t get me wrong, I HOPE they can do it, but if they do it will be a first - EVER - because no mass immunization program in all recorded history has ever been like that.

TransWorld

A drop of 90% in the first year or two is exactly what the Salk vaccine showed. Go look up a graph for the US.

In this case, there are multiple independent developers. They are already mass producing (combined, hundreds of millions approaching billions of) vaccine doses, at risk, before the trials are complete.

Neither of these occurred with either the Salk nor the Sabin vaccine. Never before have either of these beneficial actions taken place.

Excargodog

No one said polio cases didn’t go down after mass immunizations were started. What is your point?

Although in fairness, 53 and 54 were epidemic years, much higher than the average for the century. And there were LOTS of researchers trying to develop polio vaccines. Sabin came out with the oral live attenuated vaccine in 1963, which was actually the vaccine that was most commonly used worldwide.

rickair7777

As I keep saying, that was then, this is now.

1) There has never before in history been this much of an incentive to solve a medical problem (past pandemics of this scope occurred before medical technology existed for effective vaccination/treatment).
2) There has never before been this level of technology applied to vaccine development.
3) There has never before, not even remotely, been this level of resources applied to solve a medical problem.

Past history is mostly irrelevant, except as examples of what not to do (ie rush vaccine approval or do other things to erode public confidence in institutions such as fibbing about mask utility).

I keep pushing this point because the alternative is a right-sized airline industry which has about 50-60% of us unemployed, many likely permanently, I really don't believe that's the most likely outcome, and I don't think folks need to lose any more sleep than necessary. It matters because you have to decide whether to sell the McMansion, rent a double-wide, and get on the wait list for a plumbing apprenticeship vs. draw from retirement savings and drive uber to make the mortgage for a year or three.

There's lots of uncertainty in this mess, but I think I'm reasonably assessing the left and right lateral limits of that uncertainty. The hard right lateral limit looks like vaccine deployment gaining traction and starting to make a dent in the problem by year-end 2021. The hard-left (ie best case) is deployment late 2020, with associated positive economic impact around Spring Break... actually might see a big uptick driven by optimism as soon as a vaccine hits the street, seems like the markets are already there.

Excargodog

My, I’m far more optimistic than you. And that’s because I DON’T think past history is irrelevant.

Even the Spanish Flu, which was far worse than this, was largely over in two years WITHOUT a vaccine. And even though it killed 20-40% of the population of Constantinople - 10,000 or more a day - the Plague of Justinian only lasted a couple of years in the city.

But anticipating a result because:

It sounds almost like magical thinking. Seriously, we’ve never done this before so we KNOW it is going to work? That’s just...wrong.

Similarly:

is just wrong too. Outcomes are unlikely to be affected by how much we do or don’t want them to occur.

But past experience is informative. Even if we don’t make any vaccine breakthroughs, this pandemic will ultimately burn itself out. They always have. That may be little consolation to those airline pilots already creeping up on 65, but the vast majority of us are going to see a return to status quo ante.

“Those who fail to learn from the past are doomed to repeat it.”

― George Santana