TheDataVille
You may have seen the flurry of proMedia reports earlier this week with titles like 'Researchers urge delaying Pfizer vaccine's second dose as first highly effective'.
...With such a highly protective first dose, the benefits derived from a scarce supply of vaccine could be maximized by deferring second doses until all priority group members are offered at least one dose...
Here is that particular story's lede, which was published in Reuters:
The second dose of Pfizer Inc’s COVID-19 vaccine could be delayed in order to cover all priority groups as the first one is highly protective, two Canada-based researchers said in a letter published in the New England Journal of Medicine.
The vaccine had an efficacy of 92.6% after the first dose, Danuta Skowronski and Gaston De Serres said, based on an analysis of the documents submitted by the drugmaker to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)...
So.
The second dose of Pfizer Inc’s COVID-19 vaccine could be delayed in order to cover all priority groups as the first one is highly protective, two Canada-based researchers said in a letter published in the New England Journal of Medicine.
The vaccine had an efficacy of 92.6% after the first dose, Danuta Skowronski and Gaston De Serres said, based on an analysis of the documents submitted by the drugmaker to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)...
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Well, in it Drs. Skowronski and De Serres had a 2nd look at previously published clinical trial data as well as data submitted to the US Food and Drug Administration and came to the conclusion that the first shot of the Pfizer mRNA vaccine gave 90%, plus, protection two weeks after it was administered:
...We used documents submitted to the Food and Drug Administration to derive the vaccine efficacy beginning from 2 weeks after the first dose to before the second dose (Table 1). Even before the second dose, BNT162b2 was highly efficacious, with a vaccine efficacy of 92.6%...
Editorializing a little Skowronski and De Serres went on to say the following:
...We used documents submitted to the Food and Drug Administration to derive the vaccine efficacy beginning from 2 weeks after the first dose to before the second dose (Table 1). Even before the second dose, BNT162b2 was highly efficacious, with a vaccine efficacy of 92.6%...
Editorializing a little Skowronski and De Serres went on to say the following:
...With such a highly protective first dose, the benefits derived from a scarce supply of vaccine could be maximized by deferring second doses until all priority group members are offered at least one dose...
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Importantly, Dr. Skowronski has now generated real world data that the single shot is working in British Columbia's long term care facilities based on a statement from the BC CDC released yesterday:
Early vaccine effectiveness results from British Columbia (B.C.) show the first dose of COVID-19 vaccine reduced the risk of COVID-19 in long term care residents and health care workers by 80 per cent within two to three weeks of receiving the vaccine.
“These findings, based on surveillance data, are very promising and reinforce the substantial benefit provided by the first dose of the mRNA COVID-19 vaccine in these priority populations,” said Dr. Danuta Skowronski, lead for the Influenza and Emerging Respiratory Pathogens Team at the BC Centre for Disease Control (BCCDC). “They also help to answer one of the important unanswered questions after the clinical trials about the effectiveness of the vaccines in the elderly and notably those within long term care.”...
Early vaccine effectiveness results from British Columbia (B.C.) show the first dose of COVID-19 vaccine reduced the risk of COVID-19 in long term care residents and health care workers by 80 per cent within two to three weeks of receiving the vaccine.
“These findings, based on surveillance data, are very promising and reinforce the substantial benefit provided by the first dose of the mRNA COVID-19 vaccine in these priority populations,” said Dr. Danuta Skowronski, lead for the Influenza and Emerging Respiratory Pathogens Team at the BC Centre for Disease Control (BCCDC). “They also help to answer one of the important unanswered questions after the clinical trials about the effectiveness of the vaccines in the elderly and notably those within long term care.”...
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Now, all of this is very good news and it helps justify B.C.'s single shot strategy, especially given the current vaccine shortage.
However, there are (at least) a couple of caveats to consider.
The first comes from the original NEJM letter by Drs. Skowronski and De Serres:
...There may be uncertainty about the duration of protection with a single dose...
The second comes from Dr. Anthony Fauci, speaking to the NY Times, and it involves a subject that we have raised here before:
..(Fauci)...said it was possible that a less-than-optimal (mRNA vaccine) dose might not kill the most powerful variants of the virus, theoretically allowing them to spread more quickly in the population...
Now, I reckon that last bit is the very best reason for us to not relax at this late date. Instead, we should do our best to double down (or mask-up as the case may be) in an effort to ward off the variants by decreasing their community-based transmission to a minimum.
...There may be uncertainty about the duration of protection with a single dose...
The second comes from Dr. Anthony Fauci, speaking to the NY Times, and it involves a subject that we have raised here before:
..(Fauci)...said it was possible that a less-than-optimal (mRNA vaccine) dose might not kill the most powerful variants of the virus, theoretically allowing them to spread more quickly in the population...
Now, I reckon that last bit is the very best reason for us to not relax at this late date. Instead, we should do our best to double down (or mask-up as the case may be) in an effort to ward off the variants by decreasing their community-based transmission to a minimum.
OK?
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The sub-header to this post is a phrase we bandy about in the lab quite often...Every once in awhile it is used to back a good news story, backed with an Elaine Benes-like exclamation point, as is certainly the case here....However, in the experimental, discovery-based world we work in it is a phrase we most often use when the results are telling us that it is time to abandon, or at least seriously revise, an hypothesis we have fallen in love with...This kind of thing can be really tough on gradual students but it is an important lesson to learn.
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5 comments:
With all these anti-maskers and social media photos of 'them' breaking Dr. Bonnie's orders, perhaps they should be the last to get the 'shot', or never.
I hear you NVG, but...
Unfortunately, it has to be everybody all in for it to really work.
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Yeah, but they could volunteer, insist, to be the last ones in the lifeboats, or on the raft or clinging to the log.
Yep, masks are the solution right now. It's too bad our PHO didn't glom on to that fact til very late in the game. Oh well, better late than never as they say...
Over the last several years (more than 5) if you ever went out to YVR to pick up someone flying in to Vancouver (and noticed the huge number of flight arriving for various parts of Asia (China in particular) you will have seen all sorts of people (mostly young) coming into the 'receiving area' many still wearing masks but many with them still hanging around the necks.
There was a reason: YES, it was because the extreme pollution they were experiencing, but the primary purpose was STILL to prevent inhaling something that could be harmful!
For heaven's sakes, people, pay attention. They were concerned about pollution but is not what we should be concerned about? except this time it is a virulent pandemic! Do not the same principles apply??
Altho I grew up further out into the Valley and have moved all over the province during my work career, I as a retiree, am now living in the Coquitlam area and am so grateful that we now have a large Asian population who ALL wear their masks - as do I - and I thank everyone of them for their lead. They already know the value of a mask - but it seems we are still learning (any many are still denying).
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