Via the AFR:
Questions over clinical trial data for AstraZeneca’s coronavirus vaccine have not derailed plans to begin immunising Australians from March, Health Minister Greg Hunt says.
Mr Hunt downplayed concerns over the vaccine may be less effective than initially reported, as AstraZeneca announced it would conduct a further trial.
“Our vaccine timeframe is unchanged,” Mr Hunt said.
When in doubt, lie, at the FT:
Disquiet is growing over the way that Oxford university and AstraZeneca have handled the early readout from trials of their coronavirus vaccine, which much of the developing world may rely on to emerge from the pandemic.
The results were hailed a success for showing an average efficacy of 70 per cent — a figure reached by pooling the results from cohorts on two different dosing regimens.
One set of participants received two identical doses a month apart, while the other group received a half-dose, and then a full dose. The efficacy for the first, larger group was 62 per cent. In the second subgroup, it was 90 per cent.
It has emerged that administration of the half-dose started with a mistake. It was then given to a smaller number of participants than those who received two full doses, making the discovery of its greater effectiveness look like a lucky break.
Yet on Tuesday, Moncef Slaoui, the head of Operation Warp Speed, the US government’s funding programme for vaccine development, disclosed that second subgroup was also limited to people aged 55 or below, a demographic with lower risk of developing severe Covid-19.
Oxford and AstraZeneca did not disclose the age breakdown on Monday, when results were released.
“There are a number of variables that we need to understand,” Mr Slaoui said. It is still possible the difference in efficacy was “random”, he added.
And then there was this:
Goodness.
The Director of Government Affairs at Scott Morrison’s suddenly favourite new drug company AstraZeneca is former federal govt lobbyist Kieran Schneemann.
He’s also a former Chief of Staff in the Liberal party.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that at all.
— RonniSalt (@RonniSalt) August 19, 2020
I’m sure Scott Morrison forgot to mention it today.
It seems AstraZeneca have an interesting history in government contracting related offences
Since 2000, they’ve paid out over USD $543 million in fines.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
(thx @FutureGhost14 for tip) pic.twitter.com/GP4Jw91nD4
— RonniSalt (@RonniSalt) August 19, 2020
It seems Scott Morrison forgot to mention AstraZeneca’s vast corporate rap sheet when his government recently exempted them from covid-19 vaccine liability
From illegal marketing to product safety, tax avoidance & price gouging – it seems AstraZeneca has been there & done that
. pic.twitter.com/30HXJnO9Ou— RonniSalt (@RonniSalt) August 19, 2020
Morrison has ballsed this right up.
- CCP instructs media on how to report Aussie trade war on itself - January 15, 2021
- US politics is setting course for better not worse - January 15, 2021
- Ghost Melbourne permanent - January 15, 2021
He balls everything up, it’s the media giving him a free pass that lets him get away for it.
They’ll be forcing us to inject a toxic dose into our arms before next winter, and not one journo will say a word.
scummo and his family first in line.
I thought he just had to pray
Amen to the media giving #ScottyFromMarketing a free pass.
Friendlyjordies latest retort to the SMH smear piece on him, albeit long is really showing up the bias towards the Liberals by the MSM.
“Morrison has ballsed this right up.”
Yes well he got (extra) greedy. Thought he could kill two birds with one stone, both helping out a corporate mate with all kinds of sweet prepaid agreements (despite the idea of a safe vaccine for something like c19 being churned out this quickly being a joke) while also opening the floodgates to ‘students’, ‘skilled workers’ and ‘tourists’ (aka recon work for a later PR bid and/or property purchase) and pleasing another set of corporate mates. Heck, might even have killed three birds by giving himself kudos for getting Australian citizens back to the country, once the floodgates to non-citizens were well and truly open.
Medical professionals are aware that COVID has been significantly over-hyped. The coming full-year annual deaths in Europe will show this, where annual deaths will be little different from prior years and probably a bit worse for countries with stricter lockdowns, due to disruptions to aged care (Eastern European nurses fled Western Europe to get back home before borders closed), regular medical treatment, and from destitution.
absolute nonsense.
Indeed.
Sweden is 7× worse off from covid 91.7 vs. 650 deaths per mil and it is not yet a full year of covid
https://www.worldlifeexpectancy.com/world-coronavirus-report
https://www.worldlifeexpectancy.com/cause-of-death/influenza-pneumonia/by-country/
Not to mention that early feedback from test patients say that they get fevers, headaches and nausea.
There are concerns at AZ and oxford that the strong side effects could make people not return for a second dose and also that it might require 1-2 days off from work.
Any sacrifice the average Australian can make to ensure the elite remain in clover for the rest of their days (and so the floodgates on cheap labour can be reopened) must surely be worth it. OK so we can’t buy a house, get a hospital bed or find a seat on public transport in our own country, but the least we can do is get potentially life altering illnesses (or at minimum, be sick and probably unpaid off work for a few days) from taking an untested vaccine for others benefit. Where’s your Anzac spirit?
As soon as this version of the Vaccine is release i will be first in line demanding everyone else take it to protect me.
Love your comment
Nice thing about being in Australia right now with very low numbers and in our summer is that we can afford to wait maybe a month to get an early read on how the vaccines are tolerated across a broad range of people in real life.
Also very interested in the progress of the UQ vaccine. Our usual flu vaccine season is Q2 as the weather cools through late April / May. Not sure if UQ will be ready that early.
I watched Dr John Campbell dissect a covid study of MMR vaccine. There appeared to be only upsides to getting a shot so we did the following day.
All of the big pharmaceutical companies are convicted felons that have paid out billions of dollars in civil and criminal penalties.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_pharmaceutical_settlements
Who could’ve thought that there will be so many Russian and Chinese Pharma on the list!!!
No wonder no one trusts them thinking they cut corners and all are looking up to Pfizer and AZ
Are you looking at a different list?
Nope, same data.
You can see that here is exactly 0 not-Western pharma on the list!
Enough for those that think with their own head
Northern Australia had less cases because of warmer weather not because of any measures taken.
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/goldman-pinpoints-temperature-below-which-covid-19-outbreaks-start-accelerate
Ahem. Vitamin D.
Let me shut up lest I get banned again.
Logical fallacy. Lessening of cv in warmer weather has nothing to do with vit D, and everything to do with people not closed up inside.
Make sure you and your family get vaccinated. maybe a double dose, just to be sure.
Singapore has had 60k+ cases and it is stinking hot all year round.
Which means people live inside, close together under air con. It’s not that difficult.
Looks like we are stuffed this Aussie summer then.
Well it’s a completely different scenario.
Population Density:
Singapore 8358 per Km2
Sydney: 430 per Km2 (1,171 per Km2 Urban area)
Singapore ranks 173rd with 5 dths/million so thanks for providing more evidence.
Isn’t the Astrazeneca vaccine going to be supplied at cost?
For the few people here having difficulty with unthinking obedience, this may help:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RG2j8P_4EKE
It could be a clayton’s vaccine and scumo wouldn’t care, as long as it gives an excuse to open up.