Version 1.0 Vaccine or Version 1.1?

So my career is in IT. One of the unwritten rules you often go by is that you dont use a particular new technology when it is Version 1.0. You wait until version 1.1 when the product is more stable and the early adopters have had a chance to shake out the bugs. Thank God for early adopters!

So how are you guys feeling about a version 1.0 Covid vaccine? The worldwide pressure to deliver must be immense. Today comes word that the USA entered into an agreement with Pfizer and BioNTech for 100,000,000 doses, in a 2 billion dollar deal....before the pivotal trials are complete.

Do you trust Version 1.0?

FYI I am not an anti vaccination kind of person. The vast majority of us should get the vaccine....but version 1.0?

Dr. Fauci addressed this exact question in an interview yesterday. He said the answer is clear: you don't want to wait. Any approved vaccine will be safe and effective. Whether it's x% or %y better than another vaccine is something that will be worked out in time, but in the meantime you don't want to wait.
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This is what our leader couldn't understand: phase III trials take time and are conducted with tens of thousands of people to ensure efficacy and safety across various cohorts.

It may be hard to compare vaccines, with different combinations of initial antibody titers versus T-cell activation over time. Perhaps type A gives a higher antibody titer, but type B gives your T cells better "recall" ability to make antibodies anew and quickly when challenged. Or comparing a lower, longer-lasting titer to a higher, shorter-lasting one.

I would add that it's also possible we'll need boosters anyway, giving the best vaccines time to rise to the top. Given the demand and probability there will be more than one type/brand of vaccine, perhaps your healthcare system has just one type. It may be take it or leave it and hunt for another.

Djin

I'm getting the vaccine as soon as it becomes available.

Unless there was plea for people from my demographic to test the vaccine, I think I would wait for 1.1, maybe 1.2.

>>Dr. Fauci addressed this exact question in an interview yesterday. He said the answer is clear: you don't want to wait.<<

right there. not taking the vaccination is like not wearing a mask.

I'm going to check with some old high school buddies to see what they are going to do. I know at least 2 or 3 took a science class.

Has Elon Musk got that Mars rocket ready yet? What's keeping him!

But in the meantime yeah, will likely roll up the arm.

david

DjinTonic said...
I worry that Covid-19 will be a gift that keeps on giving. Either in the form of long-term lung alterations that are conditions/syndromes in themselves, or, making us more susceptible to other diseases. Could it go dormant and then reactivate and target another organ, similar to the chicken pox virus rearing its head decades later as shingles?

Djin

I fear you are correct, Djin. i I think its aready known that the virus can cause permanent or long term lung damage and attack other organs.

Back to the question, my nephew is a reporter for Crains NY Business and he covers the Healthcare Industry. about a month ago he interviewed an infectious disease expert, live streamed on Facebook. One of the questions he asked was, how will it be decided who gets to be vaccinated first, once we haave a vaccine approved. Among his comments was that senior citizens will probably get access LAST, because vaccines are less likely to protect older people, due to immune response typically being lower than the general population.

So lets hope he's wrong and we can have a choice to take Vaccine 1.0 if we want to.

In the interview in NYT, Fauci is asked when "families" will get the vaccine, and he said he thought it would be first quarter or first half of 2021. I continue to think we're in for a very rough winter, but things will start looking up next spring. We're in the third inning of a baseball game.

<<I have the highest regard for Dr. Fauci, but I am skeptical of the best science - based predictions. I just don't think they really know.>>

His exact quote was: "I think it’s going to be sometime in 2021. I don’t know whether that’s going to be the first quarter of 2021, the first half — it’s difficult to say." So, you're right, he doesn't really know. But given that I need something to hang my hat on lest I get too depressed, I'm trying to go with some sort of optimism. I'll stick with the third inning timeframe, but I also know baseball games can go into extra innings.

mattam said...
<< We're in the third inning of a baseball game. >>

I have the highest regard for Dr. Fauci, but I am skeptical of the best science - based predictions. I just don't think they really know.

I hope my lousy non-science gut feeling that we're at the bottom of the 1st inning is wrong.

It's the nature of predictions that they aren't knowledge. In today's news, the U,S. Government has ordered up to 600 million doses of vaccine from several companies including Pfizer -- assuming they will have them available. Immune responses from three candidate vaccines are good. First quarter or half of next year seems, let's say, possible.

Another article said they will essentially be free, but there may be administration/administering fees.

Djin

I'll probably jump on early because I like to be the guy who jumps on early but whether or not I will recommend that others do the same remains to be seen once the specs for the new vaccine(s) are available. One problem is that the bar for safety is pretty high because COVID-19 isn't that virulent a disease. It seems to be on track to kill two or three million people worldwide. With a world population of 7.8 billion you need to vaccinate something like 3 billion individuals to reach reliable herd immunity. If you do the math a vaccine with a rate of fatal complication of less than 1 in 1000 would appear to do more good than harm until you factor in the ages. COVID-19 kills a lot of infirm elderly people -- the average age of a COVID-19 victim is around 80. The people you would need to vaccinate to stop the virus are much, much younger and just doing math -- giving the same weight to a high school senior killed by a bad reaction to a vaccine as to a senior citizen with Alzheimer's and congestive heart failure who catches the virus -- is foolish. It's going to take a lot of testing to be sure a vaccine is safe enough and the approval processes are under a lot of pressure. I wouldn't be surprised if I find myself a bit iffy about vaccine 1.0.

My wife and I will take the vaccine as soon as it’s available. We expect to have to take newer versions or several boosters as the vaccine is improved

Most of you remember lining up for the polio shot as kids. A year or so later, we lined up for the oral version, a better vaccine

Later, many of us lined up for the multi vaccine shots given by an air gun in Basic Training. We had at least three guys pass out getting their shots in our company. I wonder if they still use those things?

Unless someone has a definite medical reason, everyone needs to line up and take the shots. We might need a few Drill Sergeants organizing the lines