Cruise without a vaccine

[cruisemom42]

3 minutes ago, Hlitner said:

So hear is the dilemma for the FDA's COVID Panel and Director.  If having already approved 2 vaccines with about a 95% efficacy rate can they morally approve other vaccines with significantly lower efficacy rates?  I would love to be a fly on the wall when that issue is discussed.

 

Indeed, that seems like a true public health dilemma:  Is it better to wait for the vaccines with (likely) higher efficacy to be available, or to reach more people more quickly with vaccines that (likely) have a lower efficacy?

 

I'm glad that decision is not mine to make!

[bbangel74]

In some cases it may be do you approve a vaccine that can be more easily transported and administered to particular populations (like the many remote northern communities in Canada and I assume parts of the developing world). Already the Pfizer vaccine is not going to the Territories in Canada (at their request) as the Moderna vaccine likely to be approved this week is easier to transport. I think the decision would be easier if we had answers about infection and transmission rates for the vaccines as opposed to just symptoms/illness rates

[Hlitner]

Just now, KnowTheScore said:

 

Surely that would depend on the validity of the manufacturer's claims of 95% and the like.

 

Personally I can't see the issue because the reality is that this "95%" was NOT based on many 1000s of people being vaccinated and subsequently being exposed to Covid to see if the vaccine did its job.  Those members of the public who swallowed the media sound bites hook line and sinker might think this but it's not what happened in the trial.

 

Some 22,000 people in the trial were vaccinated certainly.  But then all they could do was hang around to see how many people (if any) actually came into contact with Covid and in the event it turned out to be just 170 people out of that huge sample of 22,000.

 

So all this posturing and sales pitch of "95%" effectiveness is simply based on a mere 170 cases of Covid of which 162 were in the placebo group and 8 in the vaccinated group.

 

Call me Mr Picky but for me, a test involving just 170 cases of Covid for a vaccine that is to be administered to many millions of people is pretty farcical. 

 

That's why people like the chap in this article recommended caution and demanded that the trial data was made public for scruitiny:

 

Pfizer and Moderna’s “95% effective” vaccines—let’s be cautious and first see the full data

 

https://blogs.bmj.com/bmj/2020/11/26/peter-doshi-pfizer-and-modernas-95-effective-vaccines-lets-be-cautious-and-first-see-the-full-data/

 

From the article:

 

"The topline efficacy results from their experimental covid-19 vaccine trials are astounding at first glance. Pfizer says it recorded 170 covid-19 cases (in 44,000 volunteers), with a remarkable split: 162 in the placebo group versus 8 in the vaccine group. Meanwhile Moderna says 95 of 30,000 volunteers in its ongoing trial got covid-19: 90 on placebo versus 5 receiving the vaccine, leading both companies to claim around 95% efficacy."

 

"Let’s put this in perspective. First, a relative risk reduction is being reported, not absolute risk reduction, which appears to be less than 1%. Second, these results refer to the trials’ primary endpoint of covid-19 of essentially any severity, and importantly not the vaccine’s ability to save lives, nor the ability to prevent infection, nor the efficacy in important subgroups (e.g. frail elderly). Those still remain unknown. Third, these results reflect a time point relatively soon after vaccination, and we know nothing about vaccine performance at 3, 6, or 12 months, so cannot compare these efficacy numbers against other vaccines like influenza vaccines (which are judged over a season). Fourth, children, adolescents, and immunocompromised individuals were largely excluded from the trials, so we still lack any data on these important populations."

 

"I previously argued that the trials are studying the wrong endpoint, and for an urgent need to correct course and study more important endpoints like prevention of severe disease and transmission in high risk people. Yet, despite the existence of regulatory mechanisms for ensuring vaccine access while keeping the authorization bar high (which would allow placebo-controlled trials to continue long enough to answer the important question), it’s hard to avoid the impression that sponsors are claiming victory and wrapping up their trials (Pfizer has already sent trial participants a letter discussing “crossing over” from placebo to vaccine), and the FDA will now be under enormous pressure to rapidly authorize the vaccines."

 

 

You are obviously one of those folks who if were pouring down rain would say "prove it."  So, I give up, you win, whatever you say is true, etc etc.  Enjoy.

 

Hank

[clo]

11 hours ago, 2wheelin said:

Again—the two current vaccines are based on mRNA technology and mutations are a moot point.

Influenza vaccines are not as effective and need revaccination because they do not recognize the mutations and are manufactured by previous methods which allow for short life immunity.

Just an fyi:

 

https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/british-officials-monitor-threat-from-mutations/?utm_source=marketingcloud&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Morning+Brief+12-16-2020_12_16_2020&utm_term=

[broberts]

@KnowTheScore, we get it. Only you know the truth and anyone presenting a contrary set of facts, (like the 40,000 participant double blind study results of the Pfizer trial), must be lying.

 

[Toofarfromthesea]

20 hours ago, KnowTheScore said:

Here's a smattering of the 1000s of extremely qualified experts who support the GBD.   Are you really trying to suggest to people that their views are somehow nullified because someone signed the petition with the name Dr Johnny bananas????   That's really poor.

 

Dr. Lisa White, professor of modelling and epidemiology, Oxford University, England
Dr. Karol Sikora, physician, oncologist, and professor of medicine at the University of Buckingham, England
Dr. Sunetra Gupta, professor at Oxford University, an epidemiologist with expertise in immunology, vaccine development
Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, professor at Stanford University Medical School, a physician, epidemiologist, health economist, and public health policy expert
Dr. Michael Levitt, biophysicist and professor of structural biology, Stanford University, USA. Recipient of the 2013 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
Dr. Angus Dalgleish, oncologist, infectious disease expert and professor, St. George’s Hospital Medical School, University of London, England
Dr. Anthony J Brookes, professor of genetics, University of Leicester, England
Dr. David Livermore, microbiologist, infectious disease epidemiologist and professor, University of East Anglia, England
Dr. Helen Colhoun, professor of medical informatics and epidemiology, and public health physician, University of Edinburgh, Scotland
Dr. David Katz, physician and president, True Health Initiative, and founder of the Yale University Prevention Research Center, USA
Dr. Mario Recker, malaria researcher and associate professor, University of Exeter, England
Dr. Matthew Ratcliffe, professor of philosophy, specializing in philosophy of mental health, University of York, England
Dr. Matthew Strauss, critical care physician and assistant professor of medicine, Queen’s University, Canada
Dr. Annie Janvier, professor of pediatrics and clinical ethics, Université de Montréal and Sainte-Justine University Medical Centre, Canada
Dr. Laura Lazzeroni, professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences and of biomedical data science, Stanford University Medical School, USA
Dr. Michael Jackson, research fellow, School of Biological Sciences, University of Canterbury, New Zealand
Dr. Mike Hulme, professor of human geography, University of Cambridge, England
Dr. Alexander Walker, principal at World Health Information Science Consultants, former Chair of Epidemiology, Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health, USA
Dr. Andrius Kavaliunas, epidemiologist and assistant professor at Karolinska Institute, Sweden
Dr. Ariel Munitz, professor of clinical microbiology and immunology, Tel Aviv University, Israel
Dr. Cody Meissner, professor of pediatrics, expert on vaccine development, efficacy, and safety. Tufts University School of Medicine, USA
Dr. Jonas Ludvigsson, pediatrician, epidemiologist and professor at Karolinska Institute and senior physician at Örebro University Hospital, Sweden
Dr. Motti Gerlic, professor of clinical microbiology and immunology, Tel Aviv University, Israel
Dr. Boris Kotchoubey, Institute for Medical Psychology, University of Tübingen, Germany
Dr. Florian Limbourg, physician and hypertension researcher, professor at Hannover Medical School, Germany
Dr. Gerhard Krönke, physician and professor of translational immunology, University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Germany
Dr. Gesine Weckmann, professor of health education and prevention, Europäische Fachhochschule, Rostock, Germany
Dr. Günter Kampf, associate professor, Institute for Hygiene and Environmental Medicine, Greifswald University, Germany
Dr. Ulrike Kämmerer, professor and expert in virology, immunology and cell biology, University of Würzburg, Germany

 

 

These are all immaterial and ignored, because a publicly available statement has been signed by some other, silly people.

[navybankerteacher]

20 minutes ago, KnowTheScore said:

...  It's high time this whole charade was ended and the full figures were given to the public imho.   They are simply doing more and more damage to public confidence by just presenting the bits they want us to see.

..

 

Yes, it is time for this "charade" to end. 

 

Those pig-headed, unthinking 506 people in the UK who died of COVID yesterday and the 612 (so far) today are contributing to (or at least were contributing until they lost interest in the proceedings) have, by their compliance with "this whole charade", assisted the government by misleading their fellow citizens.

 

SHAME ON THEM.

[SelectSys]

2 hours ago, Hlitner said:

favorite healthcare quotes which is "we don't know what we don't know." 

 

This quote is true in any domain, but also is certainly true with respect to COVID.  I still believe this is the case.  The behavior of all the experts has been to assume that the current disease is like the past diseases in terms of control.  Unfortunately politics got mixed in at least in the US which has hampered and is likely still hampering the response.

 

2 hours ago, Hlitner said:

Pushing the "vaccine mantra" as you put it, is how this will play out around the world.  There will be many critics of the mandatory vaccine policies that will soon spread around the world but I think the critics will be largely ignored

 

I totally agree with you.  I think it goes back to a few central ideas - 1) do what has worked in the past, 2) demonstrate to the public you are doing all you can to protect them, 3) provide a liability management approach for business to avoid excessive damage claims.

 

1 hour ago, KnowTheScore said:

So all this posturing and sales pitch of "95%" effectiveness is simply based on a mere 170 cases of Covid of which 162 were in the placebo group and 8 in the vaccinated group

 

As a profit making entities, I am sure the drug companies are presenting the data as best they can.  However, I do think the numbers will be refined over time and the general effectiveness won't vary too much.  Lot's of information exists on how to determine a sufficient sample set to produce a particular level of statistical confidence in a result.  

 

44 minutes ago, KnowTheScore said:

The fact is that the number of actual cases is between 10 times and 20 times the number of "Confirmed Cases" which means some 20 million to 40 million people in the UK will have now had Covid

 

 I agree that the data gets portrayed in different ways at different times depending on the usage.  I would love to see the antibody tests given to the younger people to see what the real story is regarding infection rates.  While just an anecdotal story, I know two sets of parents who all had COVID while their kids never had any issue/symptom.

[2wheelin]

12 minutes ago, KnowTheScore said:

This is such a silly and unnecessary comment.

 

No-one disputes the 44,000 double blind study.  I simply highlighted the fact that despite such large numbers of people being involved and 22,000 of them being vaccinated, they nevertheless couldn't and didn't deliberately infect them with Covid to see if the vaccine worked.   As a result they just had to sit and wait to see how many people actually caught Covid by random happenstance and it turned out to be just 170 people.   Bear in mind that all the trial participants would likely have been following national lockdown measures and other precautionary measures like social distancing, mask wearing and so on.

 

No-one is lying as you put it.

 

The facts are the facts.

 

The trial only saw a total of 170 cases of Covid of which 162 people were in the placebo group.  On the basis of that they are stating a 95% effectiveness rate.

 

Here's what the figures actually mean.

 

There were 22,000 people in the placebo group and out of those just 162 caught Covid.

 

That speaks absolute volumes in itself about what our chances are of getting Covid.

 

The placebo group saw 0.74% of people get Covid (162/22000 * 100)

 

The vaccinated group saw 0.04% of people get Covid (8/22,000 * 100)

 

The difference then between those vaccinated and those not was thus just 0.7%

 

Hardly an earth shattering figure !

 

This has been highlighted and discussed by scientists and medial experts across the world

 

 

Do I want to get myself vaccinated to reduce my chances of getting Covid by 0.7%?

 

Me personally, no

 

But each to their own.  It's a personal decision for everyone. 

 

Statistics can be presented in multiple ways to achieve an end and obviously Pfizer and the media are choosing to present this as a 95% effectiveness as that makes for a sensational headline.

 

 

As usual you make the math complicated and just not relevant. Simply, of 170 cases, 95% of those were in people not vaccinated. 5% occurred in vaccinated people. Sounds pretty convincing to most of us.

As to your comments about low number of cases because people used mitigating practices, would you have all the trial participants put in an enclosed space with positive patients to make sure they were exposed?

You have also stated:   “Of course what you completely neglect to highlight there is that the vaccines have only just begun rolling out so no-one yet knows how strong or long lasting any vaccine-derived immunity is.”  They are just rolling out but people in the trials were vaccinated months ago and I suspect have certainly been antibody tested.

Where are your facts that support 10 or 20 times more cases than confirmed? Confirmed cases are fact. Everything else is speculation. Certainly we know there are probably a lot of untested positives but really, 20 times more?

You may choose to not get vaccinated and go anywhere it is not mandated. But I am not going to advocate for everyone else either getting the virus or getting vaccinated to protect me. I am not that selfish. 

[Toofarfromthesea]

 

A number of Southern California healthcare workers have reservations about the COVID-19 vaccine authorized for emergency use, according to a new survey from the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health.

“Two-thirds of the health workers that we surveyed wished to delay vaccination or not get vaccinated,” Dr. Anne Rimoin, the senior author of the study, said Monday.

She said the survey collected data from about 600 workers between mid-September and the end of October.

The union that represents UCLA nurses, along with many others, said its members were not against vaccinations on the whole, with more than 90% getting annual flu shots.

https://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2020/12/14/ucla-survey-nurses-delay-covid-19-vaccine/

Wow, people who have above average medical knowledge and experience, who are hesitant on being early adopters of a COVID vaccine.  And they aren't even 'anti-vaxxers'.

[broberts]

2 hours ago, Toofarfromthesea said:

 

A number of Southern California healthcare workers have reservations about the COVID-19 vaccine authorized for emergency use, according to a new survey from the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health.

“Two-thirds of the health workers that we surveyed wished to delay vaccination or not get vaccinated,” Dr. Anne Rimoin, the senior author of the study, said Monday.

She said the survey collected data from about 600 workers between mid-September and the end of October.

The union that represents UCLA nurses, along with many others, said its members were not against vaccinations on the whole, with more than 90% getting annual flu shots.

https://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2020/12/14/ucla-survey-nurses-delay-covid-19-vaccine/

Wow, people who have above average medical knowledge and experience, who are hesitant on being early adopters of a COVID vaccine.  And they aren't even 'anti-vaxxers'.

 

The cited survey collected data before the middle of October. If that population follows the general trend on the subject the number wanting to delay vaccination would be substantially lower today.

 

 

[LGW59]

5 hours ago, KnowTheScore said:

 

I disagree.  I think it's highly relevant to understand what the Pfizer trial results mean.

 

 

It might sound convincing to you but to many others it isn't remotely convincing.  For me personally it's a complete sleight of hand.   It's like me saying that I will increase your chances of winning the lottery by 100%.   It sounds fantastic.   What it simply means is I buy you an additional lottery ticket.  Your chances of winning were astronomically small to begin with.  To win the jackpot it's a 1 in 45 million chance.  Buy buying you another ticket I have literally doubled your chances of winning but now you still only have a 2 in 45 million chance, which is still ridiculously small.   We can present this sensationally as a 100% increase in your chances or we can say it like it is, which is a very tiny increase in your actual chances.

 

The vaccine study showed that the placebo group experienced just a 0.74% rate of getting Covid

 

It showed that the vaccinated group experienced a 0.04% rate of getting Covid.

 

The difference the vaccine made was therefore just 0.7%

 

How well it then protected the mere 8 people who got Covid in the vaccinated group is also interesting.  This is after all a virus for which vast numbers of people have no symptoms at all from the outset.

 

How can 8 cases of Covid possibly be of any meaningful relevance for such an important vaccine trial?   A trial for a vaccine that they intend to give to millions (if not billions) of people?

 

 

 

Given in post #361 above

[navybankerteacher]

6 hours ago, Toofarfromthesea said:

 

A number of Southern California healthcare workers have reservations about the COVID-19 vaccine authorized for emergency use, according to a new survey from the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health.

“Two-thirds of the health workers that we surveyed wished to delay vaccination or not get vaccinated,” Dr. Anne Rimoin, the senior author of the study, said Monday.

She said the survey collected data from about 600 workers between mid-September and the end of October.

The union that represents UCLA nurses, along with many others, said its members were not against vaccinations on the whole, with more than 90% getting annual flu shots.

https://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2020/12/14/ucla-survey-nurses-delay-covid-19-vaccine/

Wow, people who have above average medical knowledge and experience, who are hesitant on being early adopters of a COVID vaccine.  And they aren't even 'anti-vaxxers'.

How does a recent news story discussing stale data gathered months ago make that stale data any less stale?  Are you going to keep bringing this up, as though it were new, every time someone mentions it in the press or on TV?

[ALWAYS CRUZIN]

16 hours ago, navybankerteacher said:

How does a recent news story discussing stale data gathered months ago make that stale data any less stale?  Are you going to keep bringing this up, as though it were new, every time someone mentions it in the press or on TV?

Agree. Health care workers have no idea what the results will be. There will always be those skeptics. Same with any vaccine that there ever was and is. Don't want to get it. Your choice, Don't. Remember the Covid19 is like the house. It always has the upper hand and wins. I will certainly get it. I get the flu vaccine every year and this year I got the new shingles one. Got the old one at 51. I am 75 so I am in the 3rd set, 75 and up. My wife wants to wait. She will no matter. She is 73 and in the 4th set to receive the vaccine. They are to issue a card indicating you have received the vaccine. I hope we are both able to receive the 2 shots before our cruises start. Considering Disney now has cancelled their March cruises, our March cruise with Carnival will probably be cancelled also. We have a 10 day in April with Royal. They will either cancel it or change it to a 7 day. No news about it at this time either.