Perhaps that is why the Pfizer vaccine has stricter temperature requirements than the Moderna vaccine, which has about three times as much mRNA per dose. In other words, it could be that the Pfizer vaccine has much less room for degradation loss due to sloppy handling than the Moderna vaccine has.
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There’s an indicator on the packaging that shows if the vaccine has gotten too warm. So unless someone purposely ignores that, no shot should be given that has degraded.
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Here are the handling instructions for the Pfizer vaccine, including thawing, preparation (including mixing with the dilutant), and administration:
https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/covid-19/info-by-product/pfizer/index.html
It is likely that handling errors are more common after the vaccine is removed from the super-freezer for thawing and preparation.
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another israeli study
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc2101951
What does the link say? When I click on it I get “Your IP address is blocked.”
the technology on that is fascinating since its a really good use of Blockchain, which I first heard about a few years ago
Article on the J&J vaccine. Although the top line numbers look worse than for the mRNA vaccines, there are some important details.
Some of the details:
- J&J vaccine is one dose due to earlier phase trials showing strong immune responses after one dose, while the mRNA vaccines showed weaker immune responses after one dose.
- Against COVID-19 severe enough to require hospitalization or cause death, the J&J vaccine had 100% efficacy compared to the placebo.
- For severe disease requiring medical intervention but not hospitalization, the J&J vaccine had 85% efficacy.
- For mild and moderate disease, the J&J vaccine had 66% efficacy, 72% in the US.
- J&J trials included South Africa and Brazil, where new variants of the virus are circulating. The mRNA vaccine trials were not done in the presence of high levels of variants.
- The J&J trials included asymptomatic PCR testing and antibody testing. The J&J vaccine was found to be 74% effective against asymptomatic infection. The mRNA vaccine trials did not check this, although some recent data is now showing that the mRNA vaccines are reducing asymptomatic infection.
- The J&J vaccine trial included more Hispanic/Latino (45.1%), Black/African American (17.2%), age 60+ (34.6%), and comorbidity-affected (39.9%) people than the mRNA vaccine trials.
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This is excellent news! Does it make the J&J look worse though since these results were from when variants were circulating?
The study suggested that even the first dose of Pfizer and Moderna vaccine was 80% effective at preventing infection, starting from two weeks after receipt of that dose.
A new study suggests the messenger RNA vaccines produced by Moderna and the Pfizer-BioNTech partnership appeared to be 90% effective in preventing Covid-19 infection in a real-world setting.
What do people know about the rapid PCR tests that were approved in Feb
My understanding is that the PCR tests are among the most accurate. That’s what we had my S get in conjunction with his travel.
Interestingly, that STAT article has a comment at the bottom referencing this study in Denmark (of LTCF residents (long term care facility residents, median age 84) and HCWs (health care workers, median age 47)):
That study found that the Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine was not that effective after first dose + two weeks (0% in LTCF residents and 17% in HCWs). After two doses + one week, effectiveness was 90% in the HCWs but only 64% in the LTCF residents.
The lower effectiveness in the LTCF residents is not a big surprise (older age and general poor health tend to correlate with worse immune system functioning – it also means that vaccinating the staff and visitors is also important), but the one dose low effectiveness in HCWs seems contradictory to the study finding 80% effectiveness after one dose.
but was it the rapid PCR?
Interesting…
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More detailed article:
Sadly, just heard that two of or more of our very small number of pulmonologists in our state are retiring! It’s a scary small group that practice here to begin with and the group not expanding but shrinking as the number of patients continues to grow is super scary!