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23 minutes ago, Tony125 said:
1.4 billion doses later, China is realizing it may need mRNA COVID vaccines
https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/1-4-billion-doses-later-003055601.html
Actually on Friday I replied to a member who consistently defends the Chinese for sticking with inactivated virus vaccines on account of safety and denigrates the mRNA vaccine. Here is what I replied to him:
"This is such utter BS. Right now there are Chinese companies working on creating mRNA vaccines.
Revolutionary mRNA vaccines made by Chinese firms will be ready to hit market by end of year, says industry chief
Made in China jabs using genetic technology could soon be available, while BioNTech’s Chinese partner is seeking approval to use the vaccine on the mainland
The drugs that use messenger RNA to stimulate the immune system reported high efficacy rates following clinical trials
And didn't Fosun just place an order for 100 million doses of mRNA vaccines from Biontech?. So, are they planning to let them age like fine wines for 20 years until they see what the consequences of vaccination with them are in in the West?"
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Just now, GrandPapillon said:
not poor in absolute economic conditions, but poor in economic and political influence, so they will get the only deal they are given
What does that even mean? Is there some orchestrated Mafia like system for distribution of antibiotics? There are several vendors now and we can expect a lot more shortly. Invoking fuzzy phrases like economic and political influence is just a way to justify an assertion without having to provide evidence.
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1 minute ago, GrandPapillon said:The world is not going to be fully vaccinated before the end of 2022
it is taking 9 to 12 months for the rich countries to be fully vaccinated,
there is currently 5 billion doses in production, we need 14 billions doses
this is just the beginning, and SE Asia will get the end of the deal like most poor countries, so 2022 is more likely the year when Thailand will start a full vaccination program
that means Thailand should expect about 150K deaths from covid in the next 12 to 18 months
like I said, this is just the beginning
Thailand is hardly a poor country. According to the World Bank classification system, Thailand is an upper middle income nation. It can easily afford to purchase all the vaccines it needs. It need not depend on charity. It's the will that's been lacking, not the cash.
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36 minutes ago, rabas said:
Nice find except you can't disprove a general rule with a specific case. You need to show that levels in the Sinovac study do not continue to decay after the observed half-life. Your quoted study did not involve a vaccine. Prolonged responses have been shown for mRNA type vaccines, but mRNA vaccines work differently from Sinovac types. Here is a 209 day study of responses from Moderna. You can still see the half-life trend.
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/nejmc2103916
So again, the Sinovac antibodies were said to decline rapidity to 50%, this is not the case in your study or the Moderna study. I would not assume it suddenly stops without strong reasoning.
"Biology isn't physics."
Most science disciplines are multilayer. This is why a Hungarian biochemist will probably get a Nobel prize for mRNA vaccines. Chemical physics[1] is paramount to the understanding of molecular biology and biochemistry.
Even in the study you cited there's this:
The estimated half-life of binding antibodies after day 43 for all the participants was 52 days (95% CI, 46 to 58) calculated with the use of an exponential decay model, which assumes a steady decay rate over time, and 109 days (95% CI, 92 to 136) calculated with the use of a power-law model (at day 119), which assumes that decay rates decrease over time.
And here's another study
Antibody Persistence through 6 Months after the Second Dose of mRNA-1273 Vaccine for Covid-19
The estimated half-life of binding antibodies after day 43 for all the participants was 52 days (95% CI, 46 to 58) calculated with the use of an exponential decay model, which assumes a steady decay rate over time, and 109 days (95% CI, 92 to 136) calculated with the use of a power-law model (at day 119), which assumes that decay rates decrease over time.
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/nejmc2103916
As for physics informing biology, it's obvious in the case of half lives it's just a matter of words not science.. Just because both disciplines use "half-life" as a term doesn't mean that they have any scientific relation to each other. In physics half life refers to how long it takes one half of a quantity of one element to decay into another element. Thanks to quantum mechanics we know that this is an inflexible rule and a process that takes place on the subatomic level. Biological processes are complicated and occur in context.. No relation at all to quantum mechanics. If you can show me where it's specified that biological half life of antibodies are constant over larger stretches of time share it with us.
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I expect they'll track how people inoculated with AZ + mRNA will do compared to cohorts that were vaccinated with just one vaccine. Outcomes should be interesting.
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3 minutes ago, rabas said:
Except that a huge number of biologically active compounds, including antibodies are subject to half-life decay. Half-lives vary but half-life means they continue to decay 50% on fixed half-life time intervals. That's probably why the study quotes a 50% decay time, that is how half lives are reported.
"Depending on the class of antibody, as dictated by the identity of the Fc region, the antibody half-life and distribution throughout the body varies. "
So the continued decline in this case might be considered obvious. Stating otherwise would require strong evidence that it does not in this particular case.
Even if it is true, stating the obvious as something worthy of a headline is clearly misleading. That said, it is far from a universal rule that antibody levels decline in accordance with some half-life algorithm.
SARS-CoV-2 infection induces sustained humoral immune responses in convalescent patients following symptomatic COVID-19
"Although specific IgM-S/N become undetectable 12 weeks after disease onset in most patients, IgG-S/N titers have an intermediate contraction phase, but stabilize at relatively high levels over the 6 month observation period. At late time points, the positivity rates for binding and neutralizing SARS-CoV-2-specific antibodies are still >70%. These data indicate sustained humoral immunity in recovered patients who had symptomatic COVID-19, suggesting prolonged immunity."
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-22034-1
Biology isn't physics.
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45 minutes ago, placeholder said:
If you read that article carefully, you'll see that it was badly botched. The study actually lasted 60 days. And antibody level testing was started on the 21st day and went on for another 40 days. So there is no basis for construing that every 40 days the antibody level drops by half. This report came via thethaiger.com. There's a reason that large media organizations hire people with a background in science to report on issues like this. Clearly, not the case here.
Small error in my post. I should have written that the study went on for another 39 days.
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41 minutes ago, Bluespunk said:
It is being done based upon studies and is happening elsewhere as well.
There is nothing in the article to indicate it will “obviously” change over time. Please provide link to credible evidence that this will be the case.
How about this?
Germany to donate all remaining AstraZeneca vaccines in Aug
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25 minutes ago, Tony125 said:
Study shows antibodies drop by 50% every 40 days after 2 doses of Sinovac
If you read that article carefully, you'll see that it was badly botched. The study actually lasted 60 days. And antibody level testing was started on the 21st day and went on for another 40 days. So there is no basis for construing that every 40 days the antibody level drops by half. This report came via thethaiger.com. There's a reason that large media organizations hire people with a background in science to report on issues like this. Clearly, not the case here.
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18 minutes ago, Bluespunk said:
To be precise…
From the linked article
“Germany is offering a similar combination – AstraZeneca followed by Pfizer or Moderna vaccine for higher efficacy. German Chancellor Angela Merkel received an AstraZeneca shot in April followed by a Moderna shot in June. Vietnam now plans to follow in Germany’s footsteps.”
But they're not doing it because of its benefits. In fact, the reason it's being done is that otherwise people who had already been vaccinated with one dose of AZ would be left stranded. And the number of people who will be doing this is obviously going to sharply decline over time.
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44 minutes ago, Bluespunk said:
Germany is now mixing az and Pfizer /Moderna as policy.
Well, to be more precise, they're allowing people who were first inoculated with a dose of AZ to be inoculated a 2nd time with the mRNA vaccines. That's because of the blood clot issue with the AZ vaccine.
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On 7/16/2021 at 6:09 PM, PeeJayEm said:
Because what you have just described means it is selective racsism. another example is that I spent an hour in BNH being told that any vaccine they get will be only for Thais even though I've always used that hospital. So yes - it is constitutionally racist
Because non-Thai is a race?
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25 minutes ago, connda said:The level of fear in this forum is spiking exponential.
It makes me wonder how a country like Sweden can manage to live day-to-day without the entire population wetting themselves in fear. Yet they do.
Just watching this process is an education in human psychology and it's practical applications. Never in my life had I expected to see anything like this. But here it is.
24 minutes ago, connda said:I have family in the US who live in urban areas who are literally housebound in fear. Although most of my family who live in rural areas of the US and here in Thailand seem to be rather unaffected by it all. My wife and I are hardly affected by any of the craziness other than being force to wear masks in large stores. So I don't get it. I don't understand the almost irrational fear that I see all around.
Maybe not enough people have had the chance to live through at least one fire-fight in their lives. Or to be so close to explosions that you feel the ground lift. That's scary. It puts life in perspective. But This? <sigh; head-shake>
So much trolling in so little space. And essentially the same post over and over again. How many threads have you littered it with? Being prudent is not the same thing as being fearful. Understanding that covid can quickly overwhelm a medical system and looking ways to stop it happening doesn't mean that someone is fearful. Understanding that long-term covid is a real thing doesn't mean someone is panicking. You actually have no idea how the people who post here feel. Stop pretending that you do.
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7 minutes ago, nauseus said:
Sweden manages partly better because, while it is only little smaller than Thailand, its total population is similar to that of greater Bangkok. The national population density is 1:7 vv Thailand.
Swedes have more space, one kind of national immunity if you will?
Not just that. Sweden has the highest percentage in the world of people who live alone. As I recall it's 38%. So a lot less opportunities for transmission.
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8 minutes ago, treetops said:
There is a 2 week period post 2nd vaccine. I'm not sure how they count it but you might want to make it Aug 16th from your example to make sure there's 14 full days.
I think you'll need the insurance to get a COE for your return. Check on your home embassy site as they'll issue the COE.
No need to fly out of Phuket. Book an open jaw flight out of BKK and returning to Phuket.
Thanks for the info.
Aren't open jaw flights usually a lot more expensive than a round trip?
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Just now, Bkk Brian said:Did you not notice I said against Delta? Please link up to that study?
I sensed that strike 3 was coming. As you'll see, I noted that none of the studies were for Delta. Still, my bad. You were correct. There are no studies re Delta. Still, it is now in Chile which has the 2 other varieties which may even be more virulent. Peru has been afflicted with them and mortality there is about 8 times the rate elsewhere. Of course, the public health service is not great, large groups of people live together, and obesity is prevalent. I read somewhere that 52% of the population is obese.
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6 minutes ago, Bkk Brian said:
There is no real life study with delta and Sinovac regards mortality effectiveness.
There is with AZ & Pfizer and both perform about the same at avoiding serious hospital admissions. Pfizer 96% effective, AZ 92%.
I believe there is also one on Moderna however I've not read it yet.
Of course there are real life studies of the Sinovac vaccine. Brazil, Turkey, Uruguay, Chile, and Indonesia have all done real life studies. In Brazil there was even a special study in which most of the adults in the town of Serrana were vaccinated with Coronavac. While all those studies showed it to be highly effective in reducing hospitalization and deaths, it was less effective in preventing transmission. It barely scraped by in Brazil. Of course, this was before the advent of the Delta variant. And the Gamma and Lambda variant may be troublesome too. They're strongly present in Chile now. Mortality is on the rise there where most of the people are vaccinated with Sinovac's vaccine.
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1 hour ago, GrandPapillon said:
COVID is really like a bad horror movie, when you think things are improving, boom a new variant and a new twist that put us all back 6 months ago
the UK and Israel are back into local lockdowns despite their 80% coverage,
Really? "put us all back 6 months ago"? Did you bother to check how many hospitalizations and deaths there were in Israel and the UK 6 months ago as compared to now? Such nonsense.
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2 hours ago, TallGuyJohninBKK said:It's about 5% for two shots, and 13%+ for at least one shot:
https://ourworldindata.org/covid-vaccinations
I'm wrong again. 2 in a row. Strike 3 is almost certainly lurking out there somewhere.
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3 minutes ago, Sunderland said:
Those figures for vaccinations are for Thailand in one day, aren't they? I think most of Phuket that wanted to be vaccinated - apart from some foreigners - have done so already.
You're absolutely right and I was absolutely wrong. Thanks for the correction.
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1 hour ago, soalbundy said:Well Influenza and the common cold are still with us. I place more hope on future medication reducing the symptoms so that death is a very rare outcome, remember around 35,000 people die of influenza each year in the USA alone.
But not this year they don't. Flu is way down and not, as denialists claim, because flu deaths are being misdiagnosed as covid. The CDC keeps track via samples taken from patients with respiratory illness. In fact, all over the world, flu deaths have been way, way down.
And over 600,000 deaths this year from Covid in the USA.
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5 hours ago, rabas said:
The venerable anti-inflammatory drug aspirin shows a similar 50% decrease of dying, ICU admission, and intubation.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/10/201022195637.htm
A few years ago I went looking for aspirin here and the young pharmacists at the first 2 pharmacies I went to had never even heard of it. I'm so ancient.
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9 hours ago, wasabi said:
The problem is not the rising numbers the problem is no end in sight and no hope since the virus keeps mutating and reinfecting the same people like a convection oven keeps on cooking. The best Prime minister Pinocchio can do is spray down streets and bark at people to wash their hands. Will he cling to his precious Sinovac brown envelopes until Thailand becomes a 4th world country? He cannot swallow his pride and admit the dirty Farang mRNA vaccines made in filthy Farang land are the answer.
So, if he did admit that the "dirty Farang mRNA vaccines" are the answer, they would be immediately forthcoming? All that's holding up their delivery is a failure to concede superiority to them? How does that work? By magic?
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18 minutes ago, mrfill said:
I added the UK to the chart and was surprised.
If the rises in Thailand and Indonesia are a disaster then what is the UK? And yet most restrictions there are being lifted in 2 days time. And yet the rate is 5 times greater.
Sometimes the story the data is trying to tell is not so predictable.
Just to expand on James105's reply. About half of the UK's population is fully vaccinated. Among the elderly it's much higher. So deaths and hospitalizations are way down. I think about 5% of Thailands people have received at least 1 job. Ya think that difference might be significant?
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Red Cross confirms 1 million Moderna jabs arriving Q4
in Thailand News
Posted
But that article did not at all refer to Thailand being poor at all in any way as the reason Thailand isn't getting vaccines. There are other factors in play.
The fact is that the Thai government had no wish to buy other vaccines for reasons best not gone into here.