It's okay for americans fellows, only 1 month to wait before first vaccinations



Lol sounds bad

they deserve it

Oxford - AstraZeneca vaccine has 70% protection at one dose and 90% at one and a half doses

Can be stored at chilled (fridge) temperature unlike other vaccines

Is far cheaper than Pfizer and Moderna vaccines

Overall this is very good news in particular for poorer countries that will be using this vaccine en-masse

This post was edited by dro94 on Nov 23 2020 12:05pm

I'm not really concerned about the storage concerns. Dry ice is mass producible and easily attainable, so storage and shipment isn't really an issue even if it's at -80. You can buy the stuff at walmart and every biological research or storage institution orders the stuff basically by the ton.

However, it being cheaper to make is great news. We've got 3 vaccines that are all going to compete for government contracts, which will hopefully drive down the price.

However, I'm sure the United States will still get screwed on price.

Trump will probably order 330m of each vaccine so everybody can take 3 and become 265% immune

Only if states voters elect him.

First vaccinations != everything is well and dandy again.

It will take several months before the vaccinations have reached a sufficient share of the population to have an effect on the spread of the virus.


This might be true for NA and EU, but you're not gonna get very far in the Amazon basin or rural India/Africa on just dry ice. And even if you were able to ship the vaccines to some town in rural India with dry ice (which is a big if), you'd still need facilities which can store the vaccines at -80 for several days - and these facilities simply do not exist in the third world.

Thus, dro94 is right: being able to ship and store the Oxford vaccine at fridge temperature is huge because it makes their vaccine viable for most of the poorer countries.

Vaccinating the 5-10% of very vulnerable ones has a considerable impact on death rate IMO.
Probably reducing it by like 70-80%.

correct, spread of the virus and concern for the most vulnerable arent the same.

Not everyone from the high risk groups (old + underlying conditions, say immunocompromised) will be able to get vaccinated; or the efficiency will be lower for them. Many of them can only be protected if everyone else is vaccinated and doesnt spread the virus to them. I dont think that we'll be out of the woods before most of the elderly plus all of the healthcare workers and caregivers have been vaccinated. Given how geriatric our societies are, we're talking about at least 25% of the overall population.