Two good questions:
Jujupilote wrote:
1) When the vaccines will be certified by the normal process and the non-experimental product injected to people ?
First of all – despite other opinions – it is absolutely true that all currently available Covid vaccines are not “fully” licensed yet. In the US they run under an “Emergency Use Authorization” (EUA) and in Europe under a “Conditional Marketing Authorization” (CMA).
It is, however, also important to understand that this does not mean, that these products are “experimental”. They are as thoroughly tested as products which are authorized in the “full” process. The biggest differences in the licensing path are process accelerators, e.g.:
- In the EU that you do not need to produce a full dossier with all the test results before the EMA will even look at the title page but the results will be digested by EMA as they come in from the studies. That doesn’t change the fact that finally you need to provide the same information
- In the US the biggest difference is that you do not have to apply for a BLA (biologics license application) before you can start manufacturing. For the normal licensing process (of vaccines) you need to get approval first and then you can apply for the license to manufacture and start manufacturing. With an emergency approval you don’t have to wait before you can start manufacturing. That doesn’t change the fact that you need the authorization before you can ship the drugs (and have the risk that you throw away the manufactured batch if you don’t get it) and it doesn’t change the safety requirements.
Jujupilote wrote:
2) How do you explain the beginning of the 4th wave coming in the most vaccinated countries ?
First of all we do not know for sure if the 4th wave is really coming in all of these countries. But it is likely.
The explanation is quite simple: Even in Israel (the best vaccinated country) only less than 60% of the population is vaccinated yet. It has always been said that you need more than 80% of a population vaccinated to generate something like herd immunity. So even Israel is substantially away from that.
. This kind of breeds a bit of resentment.
Somebody should explain to the young that it will be they who will be paying off the extra national debt resulting from blocking the old from spending their money.
It won’t be the oldies paying it off because they will be retired (and thus a further drain on public finances) and pretty soon they will be dead.
And so is the chance of dying from Covid 19. In Norway 53 persons under 60 have died from Covid. That is 53 of 5.5M which is 9.6 PPM
Below 40 it is 6 persons, which is 1.1 PPM
That is probably a great illustration of how isolated Norway is as a country 
You probably don’t need to vaccinate at all…
That’s tongue in cheek; geographical isolation and lack of tourism is just a part of the story. Huge per capita wealth, low population density, a lack of poor (and isolated) communities are bigger things. The virus density correlates heavily with the latter, in every country.
There will be a 4th wave either in fall or even earlier
There will be in terms of positive tests, but look at the UK hospital data. It is right on the noise floor. When you get down to 10/day, you probably get 10/day dying of ingrowing toenails.
Peter wrote:
Here in the UK, a young person has little incentive to get vaccinated, because they don’t get any travel etc benefits.
alioth wrote:
Ireland is making it so only fully vaxxed people can go to sit down restaurants or pubs.
alioth wrote:
This kind of breeds a bit of resentment.
It also breeds incentive to get it over with. It is really a rock and a hard place: due to civil liberties we are not allowed to force people to take a vaccine, but we CAN and SHOULD restrict those who are not vaccined and particularly those who refuse. This would get the 80% quota fulfilled quite fast with the die-hards still shouting and complaining but other than now, they would not be a similar danger to the public.
It works to an extent in Austria and some other countries, also here privileges for those with the certificate are significant vs those who do not have it.
All this blabber for “fairness” disregards one massive thing: The virus per se is not fair. It is a plague if left to roam free will cause a Darwinian selection of those who live and who die or get handicaped. It is a naive perception that such things can be fought with “fairness” and “civil rights”, it is in fact a biological war situation which would need corresponding response.
Peter wrote:
The “scientists” are of course mostly advising a total lockdown for ever, more or less
Not the ones I talk to. They are all for opening up but cautiously and with due diligence. Again, it is typical for the way mankind has responded to this disease that people deal with a deadly virus with a non-chalance most of them would not show in any aspect of life. They are Cassandras in a way, but well, anyone who knows the Troy story knows that Cassandra was the only one who could see clearly what was to happen and she was proven right in the end, but how many of those sitting in that citiy before it got destroyed just wanted her to shut up?
Scientists right now appear to lean into the direction that we need to massively increase the vaccination effort while keeping the dangerous variants in check. Clearly they are not very happy about opening certain aspects (and I think so as well, there was no need to re-open mass gatherings in the was it is done, to abolish masks and other stuff) but they also know that the longer people are subjected to restrictions, the less they will be followed. Hence many are of the educated opinion that Covid is there to stay and will cause endemic waves of new infestations, particularly with new mutations which may outfox the vaccinations.
Personally I see a repetition of last summer, where figures were low and people got careless. There will be a 4th wave either in fall or even earlier and then we will see the next lock downs and travel restrictions. If I had a choice, I’d stay very much at home.
It has been possible to have your jabs at 2 different places for a long time in France. As is having 2 different types of vaccine if wanted.
In the early days when supplies were limited people made the appointments for the jabs at the same time and that unusually meant it was in the same place.
Mooney_Driver wrote:
There will be a 4th wave either in fall or even earlier and then we will see the next lock downs and travel restrictions.
The big difference is that people aren’t dying anymore. Lots of people will test positive, but as long as they are alive and happy, what’s the big deal?
Thanks you Malibu for your precise answer.
I am an engineer, and can’t believe what we are told : " these vaccines are the fastest-designed, safest, most-effective vaccines ever produced".
To me it looks like a fairy tale.
The example Lesving gave is a deep shame.
Mooney_Driver wrote:
it is in fact a biological war situation which would need corresponding response.
I shiver thinking of what our governments would do if we were facing a real war 
Jujupilote wrote:
I am an engineer, and can’t believe what we are told : " these vaccines are the fastest-designed, safest, most-effective vaccines ever produced".
To me it looks like a fairy tale.
Don’t know who is saying that, but it is actually a fairy tale.
But let’s go into that claim word by word:
“fastest-designed”: Depends!
It is true that the time from “need for vaccination identified” to “product available outside of clinical trials” has been most likely shorter than with any other vaccine (needed to check with Ebola vaccines).
But, there are two facts one needs to consider: First, a lot of the time saving has been administrative. Second, there was a significant share of luck involved as both BionTec as well asl Oxford University happened to be extremely advanced in researching a technology that proved to be exactly the one you need for this vaccine.
“safest”: not compared to recent vaccines
It is as safe as many other current vaccines but not safer. If you compare it to some older vaccines, it actually has a better safety profile because it avoids some adjuvants which have been used in the past and therefore avoids some potential allergies
“most-effective”: no
Data for Covid vaccines is still a bit shaky, but everything looks like it is not quite as effective as e.g. MMR vaccine. It might be better, though, than some flu vaccines.
Therefore one can say it is as effective as other vaccines but not more
LeSving wrote:
Z side effects (death) is in the order of at least 5 per 130k,
This number is wrong by orders of magnitude!
Latest numbers I’ve seen from the UK is a total of 32 deaths from such side effects at more than 20 mio. patients I would estimate being vaccinated with AZ. That is 0,2 per 130k not 5 per 130k!
This Bloomberg article (accessible for free if you have a trial sub) presents countries in order of how fast they will recover from CV19.
Unsurprisingly the US is at the top of the table.
Covid_Resilience_Ranking_The_Best_and_Worst_Places_to_Be_in_2021_pdf
Peter wrote:
Unsurprisingly the US is at the top of the table.
Not sure about this. Very early in the pandemic we were also told that the US and UK were the best prepared countries for a pandemic, but the casualty numbers in these countries have proven that to be wrong. They may even have had the best preparation institutionally, on paper, but the societies were too uncompliant and their leaders were too populist.
