Daviewolf83 said:
Vaccine update today. AztraZeneca is expected to apply for FDA approval of their vaccine very soon. They have concluded the Phase 3 trial for the US and are reporting good results. The trial involved 32,449 adult participants, each receiving 2 doses, spaced 4 weeks apart. For those involved in the trial, there were 5 cases of severe COVID-19 illness and all of these cases occurred in the placebo group. The results of the study indicate an efficacy of 79% and an efficacy of 80% for those aged 65+. There were also no reports of blood clots. This was something that recently lead to a brief halt in the use of the vaccine in Europe.
If the FDA does not approve the vaccine for use, they should definitely donate the stockpiled doses to other nations. They did release a few million already, since the trail was still on-going in the US.
Vaccine Update - Significant and Disappointing News:In an update to an earlier post from yesterday, late last night the NIH raised a concern about the AstraZeneca vaccine results reported yesterday. They believe the results reported include "outdated" information and they have instructed AstraZeneca to update their data before submitting it for FDA approval. The updates could lower the reported efficacy for the vaccine.
As I mentioned before, I do believe the AZ vaccine will face more scrutiny than the previous vaccine submittals. Given the bad news regarding the J&J manufacturing issues (thanks Runswithwolves for the update), we will need a third vaccine to achieve the goal of providing a vaccine dose to anyone who wants one by May. Reportedly, J&J has only shipped 4.3M doses this month, but they had promised to supply 20M by the end of the month.
Further complicating this news are reports that vaccination administration has slowed in some areas and there is a believe some of the slowing is due to people waiting for the J&J vaccine to become available before being vaccinated. Just yesterday, it was reported that some counties and health systems in NC had turned down an offer of additional doses, since they are having trouble filling slots with people in the approved vaccination groups.
There is a fourth vaccine from Novavax that is close to completing the Phase 3 trials and they are expected to submit results in early April. Given the latest news on AZ and J&J, we may need the fourth vaccine candidate to reach the vaccination goals.