I will note that there are other groups that come before me in the U.S. distribution plan; healthcare workers, the elderly, etc. I will be happy to be the first in my group for any COVID vaccine that properly completed the FDA Phase 3 safety and efficacy testing.
As I have explained earlier Pfizer has pre-standing purchase orders for their COVID vaccine from nearly all the wealthy nations on the face of the earth. The purchase order from the U.S. is just one of many. Acting as if the Pfizer was dependent on the U.S. for the financial backing or success of this vaccine is laughable. More than 80% of Pfizer's vaccine doses have already been bought by world's richest "You couldn't get a clearer example of how unequal the pharmaceutical system is" https://www.salon.com/2020/11/14/mo...lready-been-bought-by-worlds-richest_partner/ Campaigners in the United Kingdom on Wednesday warned that just two days after pharmaceutical giant Pfizer shared positive early results of its coronavirus vaccine trial, mass purchases of the vaccine by the world's richest countries have left more than 85% of the global population—namely, the world's poorest—without any way to access it. Pfizer says it can produce 1.35 billion doses of the vaccine, which was shown according to Pfizer's first formal review to be 90% effective at preventing coronavirus infection in patients who have never had the virus, by the end of 2021. More than one billion of those doses—82% of the supply—have already been purchased by wealthy countries. The U.S. has purchased 100 million doses with an option to buy 500 million, enough to potentially immunize its entire population against the coronavirus with hundreds of millions of doses left over. Since Monday Pfizer has also sold 40 million doses to the U.K. and 200 million doses to the E.U., with an option to buy 100 million more. In a statement, the British campaign group Global Justice Now noted that Pfizer's partner in the development of the vaccine, German manufacturer BioNTech, has received financing of €375 million ($441 million) from the German government and €100 million ($117 million) from the European Investment Bank. "Pfizer claims not to have had any state support, but the advance purchase of a billion doses of an unproven drug, not to mention the tax breaks and direct public funding of Pfizer's partner suggests their claim is misleading at best," said Global Justice Now director Nick Dearden. "Unless we break the stranglehold of these massive corporations over our medicines, the injustice will continue." Global Justice Now noted that Pfizer is likely to give some doses to developing countries through the World Health Organization's Covid-19 Vaccines Global Access Facility (COVAX). However, those doses are expected to make up a small fraction of those produced by Pfizer, leaving billions of people without access to the vaccine. COVAX has been undermined by the refusal of some wealthy countries, including the U.S., to take part in the global effort to ensure vaccine access, and now by mass purchases by some of those same countries. "You couldn't get a clearer example of how unequal the pharmaceutical system is—some make billions of pounds, while many others die because they cannot afford treatments or there are no more left for them to buy," Dearden said. "It's got to change." Global Justice Now repeated its call from earlier this week for the suspension of global patent rules to make it possible for poor countries to develop generic versions of Pfizer's vaccine. South Africa and India last month proposed that the World Trade Organization suspend the rules on intellectual property for vaccines and treatments related to Covid-19. "It is imperative that we end the vaccine nationalism and that sufficient supply is made available to all, on a fair basis, as a matter of urgency," said Dearden. "That can be helped by supporting governments like South Africa and India who are trying to suspend intellectual property rules at the WTO during this global emergency."
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8949605/Arthritis-drug-cuts-elderly-Covid-19-dea Arthritis drug 'cuts elderly Covid-19 deaths by two-thirds', say researchers - raising hopes that it will save the most vulnerable Daily drug reduces deaths by 71 per cent in those with moderate or severe illness Drug baricitinib, marketed as Olumiant, has only been available for three years Medics hope the arthritis drug could help save most vulnerable to coronavirus https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-11-baricitinib-treatment-linked-mortality-covid-.html "We are pleased to report a 71 percent reduction in mortality for the group receiving baricitinib in addition to standard care," says Volker Lauschke, corresponding author and associate professor of personalized medicine and drug development at the Department of Physiology and Pharmacology, Karolinska Institutet. "These results are especially encouraging seeing as the study included a large cohort of elderly patients, a group that is often excluded in other trials." In the study, 83 patients hospitalized with COVID-19 pneumonia in Italy and Spain were treated with baricitinib in addition to standard care. Of these, 17 percent suffered an adverse outcome that resulted in death or invasive mechanical ventilation. This compared to 35 percent in the matched control group of 83 patients who received standard care only. The patients had a median age of 81 years.
This is hopeful. The reason I have doubts is that we keep seeing claims pop up about the latest "miracle drug" to treat COVID. These articles are usually a plant in the press by the manufacturer of the drug -- which many times are small pharma firms. Many are penny stocks. Usually after a few weeks -- -after the stock is pumped and dumped -- the claim evaporates.
We can stop COVID-19: Moderna vaccine success gives world more hope https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-vaccines-moderna-idUSKBN27W1E6 Moderna Inc’s experimental vaccine was 94.5% effective in preventing COVID-19 based on interim data from a late-stage trial, the company said on Monday, becoming the second U.S. drugmaker to report results that far exceed expectations. Together with Pfizer Inc’s vaccine, which is also more than 90% effective, and pending more safety data and regulatory review, the United States could have two vaccines authorized for emergency use in December with as many as 60 million doses of vaccine available this year. Next year, the U.S. government could have access to more than 1 billion doses just from the two vaccine makers, more than needed for the country’s 330 million residents. The vaccines, both developed with new technology known as messenger RNA (mRNA), represent powerful tools to fight a pandemic that has infected 54 million people worldwide and killed 1.3 million. The news also comes at a time when COVID-19 cases are soaring, hitting new records in the United States and pushing some European countries back into lockdowns. “We are going to have a vaccine that can stop COVID-19,” Moderna President Stephen Hoge said in a telephone interview. Moderna’s interim analysis was based on 95 infections among trial participants who received either a placebo or the vaccine. Of those, only five infections occurred in those who received the vaccine, which is administered in two shots 28 days apart. “Having more than one source of an effective vaccine will increase the global supply and, with luck, help us all to get back to something like normal sometime in 2021,” said Eleanor Riley, professor of immunology and infectious disease at the University of Edinburgh. Moderna expects to have enough safety data required for U.S. authorization in the next week or so and the company expects to file for emergency use authorization (EUA) in the coming weeks. The company’s shares, which have more than quadrupled this year, rose 15% in premarket trading while European stocks and Wall Street stock futures jumped on the vaccine update. The benchmark S&P 500 futures rose 1.3%, stopping just short of a new record high, while the pan-European STOXX 600 hit late-February highs. [MKTS/GLOB] Shares in Pfizer were down 1.7% in premarket trading while Britain’s AstraZeneca, which has yet to release any results from its late-stage vaccine trials, were 0.7% weaker. SEVERE CASES A key advantage of Moderna’s vaccine is that it does not need ultra-cold storage like Pfizer’s, making it easier to distribute. Moderna expects it to be stable at normal fridge temperatures of 2 to 8 degrees Celsius (36 to 48°F) for 30 days and it can be stored for up to 6 months at -20C. Pfizer’s vaccine must be shipped and stored at -70C, the sort of temperature typical of an Antarctic winter. It can be stored for up to five days at standard refrigerator temperatures or for up to 15 days in a thermal shipping box. The data from Moderna’s trial involving 30,000 volunteers also showed the vaccine prevented cases of severe COVID-19, a question that still remains with the Pfizer vaccine. Of the 95 cases in Moderna’s trial, 11 were severe and all 11 occurred among volunteers who got the placebo. Moderna, part of the U.S. government’s Operation Warp Speed program, expects to produce about 20 million doses for the United States this year, millions of which the company has already made and is ready to ship if it gets FDA authorization. “Assuming we get an emergency use authorization, we’ll be ready to ship through Warp Speed almost in hours,” Hoge said. “So it could start being distributed instantly.” The 95 cases of COVID-19 included several key groups who are at increased risk for severe disease, including 15 cases in adults aged 65 and older and 20 in participants from racially diverse groups. “We will need much more data and a full report or publication to see if the benefit is consistent across all groups, notably the elderly, but this is definitely encouraging progress, said Stephen Evans, professor of pharmacoepidemiology, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. One unknown with this vaccine, and all the others currently being tested, is whether they will stop COVID-19 spreading. “It is likely that vaccines that prevent symptomatic disease will reduce the duration and level of infectiousness, and thus reduce transmission, but we don’t yet know if this effect will be large enough to make any meaningful difference to the spread of the virus within communities,” said Riley at Edinburgh University. ROLLING REVIEW Most side effects were mild to moderate. A significant proportion of volunteers, however, experienced more severe aches and pains after taking the second dose, including about 10% who had fatigue severe enough to interfere with daily activities while another 9% had severe body aches. Most of these complaints were generally short-lived, Moderna said. “These effects are what we would expect with a vaccine that is working and inducing a good immune response,” said Peter Openshaw, professor of experimental medicine at Imperial College London Moderna’s data provide further validation of the promising but previously unproven mRNA platform, which turns the human body into a vaccine factory by coaxing cells to make certain virus proteins that the immune system sees as a threat and mounts a response against. The United States has the world’s highest known number of COVID-19 cases and deaths with more than 11 million infections and nearly 250,000 deaths. The Trump Administration has primarily relied on the development of vaccines and treatments as its response to the pandemic. Moderna has received nearly $1 billion in research and development funding from the U.S. government and has a $1.5 billion deal for 100 million doses. The U.S. government also has an option for another 400 million doses. The company hopes to produce between 500 million and 1 billion doses in 2021, split between its U.S. and international manufacturing sites, dependent in part on demand. Moderna also said it would use its data to seek authorization in Europe and other regions. Europe’s health regulator said on Monday it had launched a real-time “rolling review” of Moderna’s vaccine, following similar reviews of vaccines from Pfizer and AstraZeneca. Other countries such as China and Russia have already begun vaccinations. Russia licensed its Sputnik-V COVID-19 vaccine for domestic use in August before it released data from large-scale trials. It said on Nov. 11 that its vaccine was 92% effective based on 20 infections in its large trial.
Quite so. As I said last week, Pfizer's vaccine may not be for everyone or every country due to the refrigeration requirements, and some countries will hopefully just be able to choose another vaccine. So let it help where it can and let other vaccines do the same. Not necessarily going to be a one-size-fits-all solution. Also, even though I have not seen any headline reporting on it, I did see a couple reports that said that Pfizer is in the process of developing a powder (to be mixed) injectable version to get around the refrigeration issue- by avoiding refrigeration altogether. So there is that. Ya nevah know.