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I doubt it. It is more that before the trials mRNA vaccine candidates so far had low immunogenicity and it the approach was considered to have a low success rate. The technology was around for some time, but it was not considered to be that competitive to traditional approaches. That is also why the drugs were developed by somewhat smaller companies, which have been working on drugs since 2005/2013, respectively, rather than being adopted by the big pharmas. Especially in the middle of an outbreak you would want a vaccine that creates strong immediate responses rather than multiple dosages, which is likely another incentive to go the traditional route. Considering that up until now no mRNA vaccines had been approved it is a high-risk scenario where the vaccine might have failed for a number of reasons. On top, there is still the issue that we won't have any long-term data on mRNA vaccines. It is really because out of despair and necessity where mRNA vaccines have been propelled to prominence. And in the end, it is crucial to have a range of methods available as we won't have the time to gather sufficient data. Despite promising phase 3 results, we have no guarantee that it will play out the same way in the broader population.

It is actually still in a trial with around 60k people. I do not think that they have released results yet. One interesting bit about this one is that it is developed using traditional approaches and looking at the paper it also seems to have a faster immune response.

They still need to go phase III, though.

It depends on at least two things. First, the endpoint measurement. I.e. how did you determine a positive event. If a trial consists of regular testing of even asymptomatic folks your final infected cohort will contain cryptic infections. If you only measure symptomatic cases, your study will ignore those. I do think that the trials are likely only focusing on symptomatic events and are therefore comparable (but I could be wrong). The second issue is that the number may be derived from a differently sized infection cohort. If you only have very few infected folks the numbers you get can be highly biased. Therefore any efficacy measurement with a small cohort is unreliable. There are therefore target numbers that the study has to hit, which given infection rates turn out not to be a problem. For rarer diseases this can lead to very long trials. Yes that is the basic idea. You create two cohorts that typically are similar in composition (to avoid bias) and then let them out in the wild and see what happens. The Null hypothesis is that after some time both groups should have similar infection rates if the vaccine does not do anything. What folks hope to see is that among the (much smaller) infected group, we see disparity between treatment and control. The big challenge is to get enough folks infected and there is a risk of confounding factors leading to who gets infected in the first place. The idea is then that both (control and vaccinated group) are similar enough to each other to cancel that out. That is potentially not always the case. Just as a random example, it is possible that the vaccine does not work for elderly female Asian folks (for some reasons). But since so few are in either group we have no information about that.

It would fall until the emergency approval pipeline. Herd immunity would take at least another year according to projections, assuming there are no further restrictions.

One would need to look at the full report to see what kind of measure was used. A typical design would involve self-monitoring for symptoms and participants will be regularly called to see how they are doing. So unless they specifically monitored for asymptomatic cases (which would increase complexity of the trial and I suspect is somewhat unlikely), it is more likely the reported cases are symptomatic ones. In other words, among the whole cohort we find 5% of folks having symptoms (and then tested) despite being vaccinated and the remaining infected folks only had the placebo. The overall cohort was only 30k people and while they try to be representative of the population, it also means that we will only have limited data regarding who has been infected and why. There are also other considerations, e.g. whether folks getting sick while vaccinated may have a much higher exposure than the rest. Also, one thing to consider is that, assuming the vaccine acts as promised, it basically means they do not get sick. However, it does not mean that they may not get infected and perhaps even spread the disease. I suspect that many folks will believe that once vaccinated they are immune and can get everywhere, but I hope it will be communicated that they still need to keep their distance from unvaccinated folks. Often, vaccinations will reduce the viral titer sufficiently to only pose a problem in rare cases. However, with this disease we simply do not know.

I think Pfizer submitted their report for approval, which is a good sign. I think Sputnik V is not a contender yet as they only reported 20 cases. And perhaps just as some additional info, the vaccine from Pfizer was developed by a small German company (BioNTech). Pfizer has taken over the costly bits (including manufacturing and distribution). Also perhaps as a sidenote, one of the reasons why they managed to hit their milestone is because so many people are getting infected...

I do not recall that the press release covered that. Most likely one would need for the full report to see more. At max of course the time frame covered is from the start of phase 3 (I think end of July for the Moderna vaccine) until now. So we only have at most dat for 4 months (but not everyone in the trial was vaccinated at the same time, of course).

Exactly. Also while the folks tried to have a somewhat diverse patient pool, the small numbers make it a bit difficult to assess overall efficacy in, say, elderly. There are also other challenges- mRNA are quite fragile so the logistics of storing and distributing them is going to be more finicky than most traditional vaccines. It also increases the risk of mishandling and resulting lack of protection.

Of course, it is clearly a PR/financial decision. However, we are also in a public health crisis so that mix is a bit hard to digest, so to speak.

I wished the companies would release reports rather than providing press releases (I know, it is all for their shareholders, but still). As a whole the the reports are very encouraging. The major issues are basically the relatively low infections. In both reported about 95 folks were infected with around 5-10 people in the treatment group. While the data looks great, one should be careful not to take the numbers at face value, the numbers are likely to shift once more people are inoculated and exposed to the virus. Considering the surges we have, it may not take long. Another thing to note is that mRNA vaccines have not been as rigorously tested as the other forms. While all existing data indicate that it is likely to be safe, there is simply not as much history behind them as for other forms.

On a different note, Sweden was doing a soft lockdown, but without the additional measures as found in a number of Asian countries. There was a bit of a controversy whether they actually tried to go for herd immunity (it was officially denied, though internal memos hinted at that). There were semi-official estimates that a good proportion of Stockholm might already have been infected a while back, though a subsequent antibody study indicated that it is not the case. Overall Sweden had a much higher number of deaths than their neighbours (600 deaths per mio vs 140 in Denmark). And now the numbers are climbing as in other European countries, indicating that clearly there is no sign of herd immunity to be found. Using current data, on a global scale the Americas are leading in deaths. Africa as a whole is doing much better, with the exception of North and South Africa. Australia and most of East Asia is also way better off. As a whole the overall trends have not shifted that much from the start.

Not to mention that the 2016 electorate has been dissected to death. More likely folks disliking Clinton were simply not turning up. There is a reason why folks voted for Trump in 2016 and that reason is not pretty. I doubt it has changed much this time around, but studies will tell. What is worrying is the strong support even after demonstrating that level of overall stupidity and incompetence. Just imagine what would have happened if Trump was a more capable autocrat and undermined democracy more effectively. Rather obviously a large swathe of the population as well as the political establishment is rather fine with subverting democratic procedures. So if an actual capable autocrat came along, things might look rather dire. After all, it does not seem that the mechanisms are that resilient in the US, as one might have hoped.

It shows that he takes the pandemic seriously (as he should). Unfortunately I a significant proportion of the US population (and unfortunately also elsewhere) do not. And since the measures in place in most of the countries rely on community-level behaviour, things are likely to be rather dire for a while longer. Just look at Canada, they had the right central messaging, but even ignoring policy failures there are too many people not taking the risks seriously. Especially among young folks there is the assumption that they are not going to be impacted, but apparently the spread is also not well contained in age groups above 40. Folks are tired of isolation and cases are rising everywhere. I also worry that the successes of potential vaccines may lead to more irresponsible behaviour fueling more deaths and long-term harm than necessary.

The only think I am wondering about is how many infections they managed to observe. I mean, given the surges now it should not be that hard to hit the numbers, but still... Edit: have not found a full report, but some articles reference 94 infections in total.

I think it depends a lot on framing as well as whether folks think that they (or someone like them) could eventually benefit from it. For example in a study there was significant support for housing supplements when a white family was on a brochure, but that support dropped when a black family was depicted. Similarly, (white) parents support ethnicity as part of admissions if they are shown images of Asian students, but are for race-free admission process if Asians are not mentioned. I.e. folks are not fundamentally against policies that are generally considered progressive, but they need it to be couched differently, especially if folks do not see a benefit for themselves.

I rest my case. In an Interview McConnell basically said that they will only consider things that are in their interest and have declared anything else a leftist agenda which will be fought. Actually I was just looking for them (because I am reading a thesis and got headaches and need a laugh) and apparently a number of key Reps, including McConnell declined to comment on Trump's illegal claim to power. Others, (Cruz, Graham, McCarthy) actually added fuel to the fire (by at least suggesting that there might have been fraud). So yeah, there is not even that.

I think these are more symptoms of knowing when they have lost and going hard in that direction at this point would not benefit them (different matter if Trump was likely to be still in power, I suspect). But that does not make me hopeful that they will shift the party. The overton window has shifted to saying the quiet things loud (e.g. when it came to refugees and immigrants). And it has been a quite successful strategy (it will be interesting to see whether the same themes were the drivers as 2016). Also I find it funny how dominating US-politics is. It is really built for soap opera. look at us, we talk more about American politics than any other country. I suspect part of it is that in other countries things are not that open. Aside from the recent wave of populists, most politicians are not that openly moronic (if they can help it) and many are forgettable, dropping in and out due to some byzantine party politics. US is just so in your face that I find it hard to ignore.

I do not think that will happen. While Trump subverted the GOP to some degree, he did it by leveraging voters. Those are still firmly on brand as we saw in the election. And I think it will further shape the GOP in the years to come. It is like teaparty but on steroids. Can't see that happening, either. For the GOP no-compromise has been a working strategy, why start now. For the Dems compromise was one of the reason why Obama was considered ineffectual to a large degree. So there is a strong sense that falling for that again won't work. If anything, folks are more polarized than before. The election was seen as a referendum on Trump and while again, Dems got more votes, it is not the referendum either side hoped for.

Seems like it. Strangely it feels that this election may have disappointed basically all US-Americans.

In that context, I have heard a few interviews from Trump supporters, and it basically sounded that they were actually quite happy with all the policies (even when questioned about the more cruel policies). The main criticism they have is basically his Twitter. I.e. you can be mysoginistic, xenophobic, incompetent etc. as long as you are at least somewhat polite about it. It is not new (anywhere, really, not just in the US). But for some reasons I do find it more disconcerting.

The fact that it did not eliminate him outright is a bit of scary thing, isn't it? Actually on reflection, one viable strategy is probably to do as much economic harm as possible and blame it on the dems. If Fox plays ball it should work quite well.

I do the usual cloning sacrifices to Damballa and more rarely Papa Legba, when the former does not respond. Also the mass spec demands blood on a semi-regular basis to the heavenly engineer of "Who-the F-puts sharp-edges-in-here?" as part of the blood ritual called pump maintenance.

Which is a huge issue. Don't know or don't care. For many, democracy is just a slogan. It is 11 electoral votes. More than e.g. Nevada, similar to Wisconsin, but only about half of PA (and less than either NC or Georgia). Politically I suspect it has much to do with how popular McCain was.

As a serial immi(or emi-)grant, I can tell you that it is not exlusively Americans. It is just more visible due to confluence of factors.