rickair7777

Pharma group expects ten viable vaccines by mid-2021.

Some debate over intellectual property and compulsory licensing.

https://www.reuters.com/article/heal...-idUSKBN2871UV

rickair7777

Blowback over AZ's messaging on efficacy...

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-h...-idUSKBN28714L

Excargodog

Touting 90% efficacy when the stats showed 63% will attract attention, SEC attention if a single insider sold any shares during the subsequent price bump.

rickair7777

Maybe. They did legitimately have a subset of the data that showed 90%, probably enough reasonable doubt to stay out of jail.

rickair7777

Indian vaccine producer endorses AZ vaccine trial results, plans to seek approval in India. States no cases severe enough for hospitalization. Also states those trial participant who did get covid were not infectious to others (not sure how they assessed that).


https://www.reuters.com/article/us-h...-idUSKBN2880H9

BoilerUP

Moderna to request COVID vaccine EUA from FDA today; revised Phase 3 trial data shows 94.1% efficacy.

Pfizer's EUA application will be reviewed 10 Dec, Moderna's EUA application one week later on 17 Dec.

rickair7777

Another article about Moderna. Official trial data confirms 94% efficacy, and 100% efficacy against severe cases.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-h...-idUSKBN28A1IU

Excargodog

if they’ve got anything like 94% efficacy for prevention they have WAY TOO FEW actual cases - at least this early - among the immunized to go touting “100% efficacy against severe cases.” They only HAD 11 cases among the immunized and the statistical expectation is that even if these were all in 65+ age group you would have only had about one serious case.

At best they can say “we haven’t had a single severe case among the immunized so far.” The confidence interval would be WAY TOO broad to say 100%. Expecting one and getting none is not a statistically unlikely event in this context.

Not saying it isn’t good news though, just that getting to 100% of anything in population statistics is tough.

rickair7777

They know what they're doing, statistically speaking. The trail result was 100% prevention of severe cases.

IIRC in statistics extreme results are much more likely to have a tight margin of error, than middle of the road results.

Also your "11 cases" logic is a complete falacy... what they ACTUALLY had was 15,000 vaccine recipients, NONE of who got severe covid. For the severe covid metric it's statistically irrelevant how many got mild covid. I'm assuming but don't know that the study group was split 50/50 between vaccine and placebo, if not I'm sure it was fairly close.

Excargodog

I’m not sure I agree 100% with your statistical work there, Rick. Yes, they had 15000 vaccine recipients none of whom got severe COVID, but the statistical EXPECTATION wasn’t for 15,000 vaccine recipients to get severe covid because the control group ALSO had 15,000 placebo recipients of which over 14,805 didn’t get COVID AT ALL.

So based upon the control, the statistical expectation is that only about 180 people would have been sufficiently exposed to get COVID, versus the 11 people who actually got it. And that is admittedly pretty good efficacy.

now of the 180 controls (placebo group) who actually got the disease, only 30 met the prechosen criteria for ‘serious’ cases - approx 17% including one fatality. So given that the immunized group only HAD 11 infected, the expectation based upon the control group is that they would have had 17% x 11 or roughly two serious cases.

The fact that they “should” have had 2 and only had zero is all well and good, but it has about the same statistical likelihood as flipping a coin and getting heads twice in a row, and certainly doesn’t justify a claim of 100% effective without at least the qualifier “so far.”

I would personally be delighted if - as a larger ‘n’ is gathered - this continues to be the case and the confidence interval continues to be narrowed, but right now claiming 100% protection against serious cases is truly prognosticating in advance of the data, IMHO.

You are of course entitled to your differing opinion.