Interesting. Call lt serendipity or 'optimal sloppiness,' or whatever you want, I guess. I worry that it will make getting an Emergency Use Authorization difficult.
As for why the difference in efficacy, if it is real, my guess would be simply that priming with the larger dose may have led to at least a degree of immune tolerance, whereas priming with the smaller dose got the cells ready to be boosted properly. I highly doubt it has to do with an overly anxious immune response to the adenovirus vector. The vector virus isn't even replication competent, sp the amount of that antigen presented to the immune system would be comparatively small.
All speculation on my part, though.
In addition to potentially compromising the ability of the company to get an EUA, I worry that this may also tend to undermine confidence in vaccines, which ls already pretty low amongst the general public. I hope that this mistake by Pfizer won't spill over and end up compromising confidence in vaccines by other manufacturers. There is a pressing need to get as many people as possible vaccinated in the midst of a fair bit if mistrust. If the fact that it was an error that produced the two different dosing schedules becomes widely known, it will not aid those efforts.
Hey, COVID numbers are down today.
Oops, at least a dozen states are not reporting today.
(found out today a high school friend lost his mom to COVID...among those who have been directly affected, there is a lot of red-hot anger...and yet 50% of the country appears to have no empathy)
Sad story in the Washington Post about how athletes are being tested like crazy, but not nurses.
“These athletes and teams have a stockpile of covid testing, enough to test them at will,” says Michelle Gutierrez Vo, another registered nurse and sports fan in California. “And it’s painful to watch. It seemed like nobody else mattered or their lives are more important than ours.”
Months into the pandemic, and with vaccines nearing distribution, testing in the United States remains something of a luxury. Testing sites are crowded, and some patients still report waiting days for results. Sandoval said nurses who suspect they’ve been exposed are expected to seek out a testing site on their own, at their expense, and take unpaid time while they wait for results — in effect choosing between their paycheck and their health and potentially that of others.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/sport...navirus-tests/
good article on the challenges of ramping up vaccine production, especially for new technologies:https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/17/h...p_id=816220355
I still like to think that the US is one of the greatest countries in the world but I am starting to question myself and I am thinking that in fact we might be one of the stupidest. How we have allowed a public health crisis to polarize and politicize us is beyond stupid.
Kyle gets BUCKETS!
https://youtu.be/NJWPASQZqLc
Sage Grouse
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'When I got on the bus for my first road game at Duke, I saw that every player was carrying textbooks or laptops. I coached in the SEC for 25 years, and I had never seen that before, not even once.' - David Cutcliffe to Duke alumni in Washington, DC, June 2013
We are fighting two pandemics: COVID and selfishness (with a helping of ignorance, fear, delusion, and NIMBY). I can not image what would happen if the country were asked to make the sacrifices required during WWI and WWII.
The US added million new cases in six days (13m to 12m). How long until it's a million a day? Christmas? New Years Day? We are failing into heard infection with the only silver lining of potential heard immunity.
Schools up here will be interesting on Monday morning. Each kid will be asked if they had any multi household get togethers over the Thanksgiving break, and if they did, they have to quarantine for seven days.
I'm sure quite a few parents aren't paying close attention to this, they'll be surprised when junior comes home Monday morning...I expect a bit of turmoil.