It's past infections. Humanity and the virus are assumed not to have evolved very much in the past year.
You give fifty thousand people injections, 25k get the vaccine and 25k get placebo, but noone knows, because there are two layers of indirection between the person's name and the actual content of the vial. Then you wait until 250 people have fallen ill. If 247 of the 250 were people who got the placebo and 3 got the vaccine, then you assume that actually 247 vaccine recipients would have fallen ill, but only three did, therefore the vaccine protected 244, for an efficiency of 244/247 = 98.7%.
Take whatever vaccine you can, but I’d personally hold out for either of the mRNA flavors. Oxford/AZ have played too many games (cohorts and PR) for my taste.
I agree the Oxford/AZ vaccine seems a bit rushed and promoted.
It also seems to be less novel than the mRNA vaccines, but I’m no expert. Can someone confirm the Oxford/AZ vaccine is using well established techniques?
I believe the oxford/az vaccine is using more traditional methods. It uses a modified virus that is only able to infect monkeys, so it is not harmful to humans.
I don't think that novel is necessarily what you want when it comes to a vaccine. Kind of like saying that x software is better because they used all the very newest tech that just came out. I would prefer something tried and tested.
However, the data and results for the mrna vaccines seem very positive so I would still be fine taking it.
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[ 3.3 ms ] story [ 32.8 ms ] threadYou give fifty thousand people injections, 25k get the vaccine and 25k get placebo, but noone knows, because there are two layers of indirection between the person's name and the actual content of the vial. Then you wait until 250 people have fallen ill. If 247 of the 250 were people who got the placebo and 3 got the vaccine, then you assume that actually 247 vaccine recipients would have fallen ill, but only three did, therefore the vaccine protected 244, for an efficiency of 244/247 = 98.7%.
All numbers pulled from a virtual hat, of course.
It also seems to be less novel than the mRNA vaccines, but I’m no expert. Can someone confirm the Oxford/AZ vaccine is using well established techniques?
I don't think that novel is necessarily what you want when it comes to a vaccine. Kind of like saying that x software is better because they used all the very newest tech that just came out. I would prefer something tried and tested.
However, the data and results for the mrna vaccines seem very positive so I would still be fine taking it.