Coronavirus 2019-2020 thread (no unsubstantiated rumours!)

[localizer]

In Europe, all vaccines that are available will be used. I think Chinese vaccines will be given in Europe, European vaccines in China.

Will the USA take part? I don't know, I don't care either. The US is moving further and further away from the rest of the world. Americans should stop doing this. But it is their free choice.

China was a big funder of the pfizer vaccine and Fosun has sole rights to the Chinese market.

 

[localizer]

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@vesicles now it’s clear how it all transpired

“Don’t link yourself to Bannon, don’t link yourself to Guo Wengui,” Mr. Guo on his own show recounted telling Dr. Yan. “Once you mention us, those American extreme leftists will attack and say you have a political agenda.”

He said that Dr. Yan appeared to genuinely believe that the virus had been weaponized but struggled to explain why.

At the end, the associate asked Dr. Lucey if he thought Dr. Yan had a “smoking gun.” When Dr. Lucey said no, the meeting quickly ended.

Days later, Dr. Yan released a 26-page research paper that she said proved the virus was manufactured. It spread rapidly online.

The three other co-authors on the paper were pseudonyms for safety reasons, according to Mr. Bannon.

But when The Times reached Dr. Yan’s mother on her cellphone in October, she said that she had never been arrested and was desperate to connect with her daughter, whom she had not spoken to in months.

“They are blocking our daughter from talking to us,” her mother said, referring to Mr. Guo and Mr. Wang. “We want our daughter to know that she can video-chat with us at any time.”

These people need to be executed.

 

[solarz]

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@vesicles now it’s clear how it all transpired

These people need to be executed.

NYT isn't any better. China released the entire genome of the virus within days of its discovery, but the article still claims that China resisted releasing information about the virus.

They are all lying sacks of excrement.

 

[localizer]

NYT isn't any better. China released the entire genome of the virus within days of its discovery, but the article still claims that China resisted releasing information about the virus.

They are all lying sacks of excrement.

Yeah they also don’t mention the Guo/Bannon link to Hongkong n Jimmy Lai n shitz

 

[vesicles]

But I can claim chinese COVID-19 vaccines are superior to western vaccines, and not because of any particular national reason but because of SCIENCE.

China was the only country in the world to pursue an inactive whole virus vaccine (sinovac and sinopharm). Astrazeneca, J&J, Sputnik V and even Cansino bio are going for protein subunit viral vector, while the US has gone whole into the deep-end with mRNA. I don't care even if the US wins the vaccine race, because as someone also coming from a scientific background it was shocking that the western nations were the ones that put all their bags into one basket with unproven mRNA and no fall back. The US could have used a plan B development model where they also had an inactivated vaccine in the background in case mRNA turned out to be a bust. And before we say china isn't advanced enough for mRNA, that is also false because china has also been testing mRNA under walvax biotech as of June. They could have probably have gone to trials in May (going neck-to-neck with Pfizer and Moderna) had there been real impetus but lets be honest, they are currently in 6th! place among chinese vaccines so it doesn't make sense to fast track them.

My concern is that western hubris has actually left them selves at risk, in case either protein subunit or mRNA didn't pan out. Whether or not they succeed does not change the fact that western countries made an incredibly stupid choice going with unproven technology. As much as we shit on India in this forum, at least they are also pursuing 2 in Phase III testing that are of different technologies, being inactive, and protein subunit.

And of course the US was going to win the vaccine race under trump. Remember the way you "win" is that you have 30,000 trial volunteers, of whom 50% get liquid salt and 50% get a vaccine, and you basically wait until at least 170 people get infected and then you unbox the results and see the ratio of COVID in the liquid salt category against the vaccine. China and US vaccines all started within a week of each other in late July, but brazils cases (sinovac) had already peaked since it was winter in the south while US cases are peaking now because of winter in the north. For sinopharm, they chose a gamble on Dubai and UAE, which did a reasonable job of pandemic control so for their trials to hit 170 covid cases (and get the big reveal) is going to be long and slow.

Firstly, please let me correct you on something. Yes, the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines are based on mRNA. However, vaccines by Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca are actually based on modified adenovirus. In fact, a Chinese vaccine (Ad5-nCoV by CanSinoBIO) also uses adenovirus Ad5. Other American companies also use more traditional technologies, like inactivated viruses and viral fragments, etc. It just so happened that the two mRNA vaccines by Moderna and Pfizer pulled ahead of everyone else in the US. That's why you are suddenly seeing mRNA everywhere. No one cherry-picked them. They just happened to pull ahead.

If you have a science background, you should know that vaccine/drug development does not work top-down. No one can pre-determine which technology or which strategy to use before hand. We simply don't know enough about biology to make such decisions. Virtually every development starts with a massive screening process, with as many targets and as many strategies as you can afford. We are talking about millions of target molecules and dozens of different strategies/technologies to start out with. This is also why usually big companies can do this kind of vaccine/drug development because they have so much more money as their disposal. Even within a single company, they usually try as many technologies as they can afford, money-wise and time-wise. I can bet my bottom dollar that Moderna and Pfizer started with all the different vaccine technologies (new and traditional) that they knew of and had access to. After a massive screening, they came up with a few hundred encouraging targets. Then they further narrowed down their targets to a few dozen, then down to a handful. Then they would focus all their resources on these few candidates for potential clinical trials. These mRNA vaccines just so happened to be the top candidates from their screening. I can also bet my bottom dollar that the Chinese companies also tested mRNA technology heavily in their screening. It's just that, in their hands, the inactivated viral vectors worked the best. Simple as that.

If you have worked with big pharma, you should know that these big pharma are only hubris about one thing: their ability to make money. You should also know that these people tend to be very conservative and only want to use the most mature technologies. The reason is simple: money! Any unproven tech has a higher risk of failure. That's your investors' money down the drain. That's your bottom line and your profit down the drain. With big pharma, we are talking about billions of dollars. No one is that stupid and reckless to risk like that.

Secondly, you cannot judge the quality of a vaccine based on its technology. So far, no one has any evidence that vaccines developed by certain technology is categorically better than others. It all has to come down to effectiveness and safety of each individual vaccine, case by case. That's why we are looking at such massive clinical trials all over the places in the world. No one can pre-determine the superiority of anything. Like I've said many many times before, we simply don't understand biology enough to be that confident of anything. We need to humble and respect the one thing that we can be confident, the data!

 

[Phead128]

Pfizer and Moderna vaccines enrolled 30-40,000 patients in RCT, but did analysis only 100-ish cases, or 160-ish cases. As a person with epidemiology background, I don't understand how that small of sample size can be regarded as conclusive?

 

[vesicles]

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@vesicles now it’s clear how it all transpired








These people need to be executed.

The so-called "Yan report" is so poorly written. It took me several tries just to figure out what she's trying to say in the Abstract. As I've said before, it is plainly clear she has little experience in writing scientific manuscripts. In her "report", she flips the strongest evidence for natural evolution of the virus, somehow turns it into evidence of man-made manipulation. This is the most intolerable to me. She's playing everyone for a fool. I was more insulted than anything else after reading her "report".

I also don't buy the pseudonym thing. What's the purpose? You put your name on a manuscript to be recognized. Using a fake name won't help you there. If you are afraid of retribution, just don't put your name there. If you want to support Yan, then support her with your true credentials and reputation. Isn't the whole purpose of this "report" to heroically stand up to the Chinese govn't and review their dark secrets? Why so cowardly using a fake name? It makes no sense.

 

[KYli]

China was a big funder of the pfizer vaccine and Fosun has sole rights to the Chinese market.

It is actually Germany company BioNTech vaccine and Fosun was the first funder even before the Germany government but somehow we think it is Pfizer. The power of the media I guess.

 

[localizer]

It is actually Germany company BioNTech vaccine and Fosun was the first funder even before the Germany government but somehow we think it is Pfizer. The power of the media I guess.

Yeh I know, but I don't like typing BioNTech. Makes the company sound like some Ebay store.

Trump trying to take credit for it though.

 

[AndrewS]

If you have worked with big pharma, you should know that these big pharma are only hubris about one thing: their ability to make money. You should also know that these people tend to be very conservative and only want to use the most mature technologies. The reason is simple: money! Any unproven tech has a higher risk of failure. That's your investors' money down the drain. That's your bottom line and your profit down the drain. With big pharma, we are talking about billions of dollars. No one is that stupid and reckless to risk like that.

Your analysis is not accurate.

If Moderna and Pfizer had developed adenovirus based vaccines, they would be competing with the Oxford/AstraZeneca and Chinese vaccines.

The Oxford/Astrazeneca adenovirus vaccine is being sold AT COST with ZERO profit. The touted figure is $3-$4 per dose.
The Chinese adenovirus is also likely to be low cost.

So there's no profit to be had with competing head to head with these low-cost vaccines based on existing proven tech.

But if Moderna and Pfizer have a fancy new mRNA vaccine, they can market it as a revolutionary technology and charge more.

Figures of $20, $32, $37 per dose has been mentioned, which is many times more expensive (and presumably profitable) than the Adenovirus vaccines.

For that sort of profit, it's worth going with a riskier vaccine, particularly since governments have already said the companies are not liable for long-term side effects.