Thursday, November 26, 2020

AstraZeneca's data is not measuring up to reality.

If AstraZeneca has data that proves certain age groups and/or gender do exceptionally well with their form of vaccine; I would urge the company to redirect it's application to the FDA to specify the groups doing well on the vaccine. 

There is no catastrophe here so long as AstraZeneca can state the facts clearly prove effective in specific types of clients. With that, the company should restart it's investigation into a broadly effective vaccine that is proven for all people.

This is a highly dangerous virus and if AstraZeneca has a vaccine that is effective with specific populations it cannot simply disregard that as mistakes. It is okay to have specialized vaccines, especially at the beginning of the research which is only months old.

November 25, 2020
By Rebecca Robbins and Benjamin Mueller

...The regimen (click here) that appeared to be 90 percent effective was based on participants receiving a half dose of the vaccine followed a month later by a full dose; the less effective version involved a pair of full doses. AstraZeneca disclosed in its initial announcement that fewer than 2,800 participants received the smaller dosing regimen, compared with nearly 8,900 participants who received two full doses.

The biggest questions were, why was there such a large variation in the effectiveness of the vaccine at different doses, and why did a smaller dose appear to produce much better results? AstraZeneca and Oxford researchers said they did not know.

Crucial information was also missing. The company said that the early analysis was based on 131 symptomatic Covid-19 cases that had turned up in study participants. But it did not break down how many cases were found in each group of participants — those who received the half-strength initial dose, the regular-strength initial dose and the placebo....