https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-00502-w A SARS-CoV-2 variant called B.1.351 (also known as 501Y.V2), which was first identified in South Africa in late 2020, has been linked to reduced efficacy for vaccines developed by Novavax and Johnson & Johnson. Now, in another unintentional test of the variantâs effects, Shabir Madhi at the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa, and his colleagues conducted a South Africa-based trial of the vaccine developed by the University of Oxford, UK, and AstraZeneca (S. A. Madhi et al. N. Engl. J. Med. https://doi.org/f2rd; 2021). The trial involved around 2,000 people aged 18â64, who had tested negative for HIV and were randomly assigned to receive either the jab or a placebo. The vaccine seemed to offer only 21.9% protection overall against the development of mild or moderate COVID-19, and just 10.4% against those cases caused by the B.1.351 variant. There were no cases of severe COVID-19 or hospitalization in either group, and the small size of the trial means the researchers can conclude only that the vaccine did not have an efficacy above 60% against B.1.351.
Yay wfh for life
Feel free to do so, the rest of us are moving on with our lives this summer.
Who told you that WFH means staying at home 100%? it actually gives you flexibility to travel anywhere anytime. So while you are moving to the office, I continue to travel all around US, which I started last May
Need the whole story. The article only mentions J&J and AstrZeneca, which have a lower efficacy rate to begin with against the normal strain . What about against the moderna and Pfizer vaccines?
Moderna's vaccine candidate was found to be 12.4 times less effective against the South African variant, and Pfizer's was found to have a reduced effectiveness by about 10.3 times. https://www.google.com/amp/s/thehill.com/changing-america/well-being/prevention-cures/542182-new-study-warns-pfizer-and-moderna-covid-19%3Famp
This one needs to be interpreted with caution. They only analyzed antibody levels in blood samples, which fell at the rate described above. This doesn't necessarily make them ineffective, the antibody levels could still be sufficient to prevent disease
Why is this not the main news rn??? Either itâs grossly misreporting the study or the world is actually screwed
Because it doesnât tell the whole story? We need results for ALL the vaccines
No vaccine = no return to office
This is slightly misleading. Yes efficiency is lower but 1. All vaccines are close to 100% effective in severe disease against hospitalizations and deaths against all variants 2. The only metric that matters is severe symptoms 3. Efficiency is of two type- one which protects infection( protection against the virus) and another which protects against disease( symptoms) Efficiency against severe disease is the only metric that matters in the long run. It says in the article you posted itself âNo severe hospitalizations and deathsâ
That data isn't against this variant as those studies were done before it was identified. This study wasn't large enough to draw conclusions about severe cases. It's early data on this new variant. Certainly very limited data, but concerning.
FYI cases and hospitalizations have plummeted in South Africa where there is the dominant variant
> There were no cases of severe COVID-19 or hospitalization in either group So whatâs the problem here? This is the goal of the vaccines.
The goal is for media outlets to stoke fear by click bait headlines. This âvaccines donât work against variantsâ propaganda is becoming close to anti vax propaganda and very frustrating to see
"either group" includes the placebo. The implication is the study was too small to draw any conclusion about severe cases or deaths. @halifax, you might need to look up some of these words, like "placebo", from your posts I can see you haven't learned very much about how research is done
We should lock down indefinitely and wear double masks even at home for the rest of our lives
Purpose of vaccine is not to prevent COVID, but to prevent hospitalization and death.
Shit. That's very bad news đ