Stocks Surge on Vaccine Trials and Biden Win
The DOW hit an Intraday High on Vaccine Results, Biden Win
The Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed almost 1200 points, or 4.2%, in midday trading. The blue-chip index set its first intraday record since February and came within about 70 points of the 30000 mark before paring some gains. The S&P 500 surged 2.9%, also putting it in record territory.
90% Effective in Latest Trials
Pfizer reports its Covid-19 Vaccine is 90% Effective in Latest Trials
A vaccine developed by Pfizer Inc. (PFE) and partner BioNTech SE (BNTX) proved better than expected at protecting people from Covid-19 in a pivotal study, a milestone in the hunt for shots that can stop the global pandemic.
Pfizer said it remained on track to collect at least two months of safety data during the third week of November and could file for an emergency authorization shortly thereafter.
Pfizer and BioNTech’s vaccine uses a new and unproven technology, known as mRNA, short for the molecular couriers called messenger RNA that carry genetic instructions to cells.
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As of now, storage is the main concern. “Their vax is going to be the hardest to use — must be shipped/stored at -70C, which limits where it can be used.”
I suggest any storage-related problems will easily be solved.
This is extremely welcome news.
Congratulations to Pfizer (PFE) and partner BioNTech SE (BNTX).
Mish
News said 90% effective result came from around 90 patients. That’s a too small sample size to conclude. Wonder if they just push out the news to make stocks up.
“They had 43,538 participants. Some received the vaccine, others placebo. Of the 94 who were later infected by SARS-CoV-2 most were among those who received placebo. The 90% endpoint here is 100*(1-IRR) where IRR is the incidence ratio among vax/plac. A hopeful interim result” – John Hussman
Not all participants encountered virus. It’s a joke to say based on 94 to say it is 90% effective.
At Zion NP all day.
Gorgeous fall colors and snow in the mountains
Barr breaks precedent with new election investigation powers for federal prosecutors….
…“It would be problematic enough if Barr were reversing longstanding Justice Department guidance because of significant, substantiated claims of misconduct — that could presumably be handled at the local and state level,” said Stephen I. Vladeck, a professor at the University of Texas School of Law.
“But to do so when there is no such evidence — and when the president’s clear strategy is to delegitimize the results of a proper election — is one of the more problematic acts of any attorney general in my lifetime,” Mr. Vladeck added.
Mr. Pilger, a career prosecutor in the department’s Public Integrity Section who oversaw voting-fraud-related investigations, told colleagues he would move to a nonsupervisory role working on corruption prosecutions.
“Having familiarized myself with the new policy and its ramifications,” he wrote, “I must regretfully resign from my role as director of the Election Crimes Branch.” A Justice Department spokeswoman did not immediately respond to a request for comment about Mr. Pilger’s message…..
But, NASDAQ off. A lot.
We lost money in our retirement accounts today.
Bonds down.
NASDAQ down.
S&P up.
Spotlight: The Turkish-German ‘dream team’ couple behind Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine https://www.dailysabah.com/life/science/spotlight-the-turkish-german-dream-team-couple-behind-pfizers-covid-19-vaccine
The 2000 mink farmers must be saved!!! (they’re not anything like the pangolin selling wet-market stall keepers)
…The Danish government has dropped an attempt to pass emergency legislation allowing it to cull all mink in the country.
Last Wednesday the Danish prime minister, Mette Frederiksen, said all the country’s mink would be culled due to fears that a Covid-19 mutation moving from mink to humans could jeopardise future vaccines.
But opposition to the move swiftly emerged. “Massive doubts [by the mink farmers!] over whether this cull is properly scientifically based [have] come to light now,” said Jakob Ellemann-Jensen, the leader of Denmark’s largest opposition party, Venstre. “At the same time the government is taking away the livelihood of a large number of people without actually having the legal rights to do so.”
Frederik Waage, law professor at the University of Southern Denmark, told Danish national paper Berlingske the cull order was “illegal”….
I prefer to conclude this was a rally driven in part if not whole by Trump’s election loss
The past 3 days my 2 brother in laws and their Dad tested positive. Only one is showing any symptoms which are mild. Sore throat and chills but not bad. My nephew lives with my brother in laws but tested negative. The Dad is a 52 year old overweight and way out of shape diabetic with high blood pressure. He Feels nothing Which begs the question how many asymptomatic cases are walking around. This thing is stealth but seems not nearly as deadly as advertised by the media.
Infection rate likely a multiple of the positive test rate. Death rate dropping due to better treatment and relatively low, as long as hospitals not overwhelmed . But up to 50% of those hospitalised have ongoing health impacts. Potentially millions on permanent disability.
We will have a better idea of the number of people who either had the case and were undetected, or who otherwise were already immune soon enough. North Dakota now has 7 positive results per 100 people. If the theory is correct that there are 10 people who have had it for every one that is detected is correct, or the theory that half the people are already immune, their cases should soon peak and drop, and never rise again. South Dakota is not far behind them, with another set of data.
Personally, I’ve been watching a small county in Nebraska. As of 2 weeks ago, their positive tests were 20% of their population. So, did cases fall after reaching 20%? Hardly. They accelerated, actually. Two weeks later their positives test results now equal 35% of their population. With only 654 people in Clay County, it’s a very small sample (though larger than the sample used for the Pfizer results announced today). Still, it is causing me to doubt the theory that we cases will simply stop once we get to, say 8% of the population, will not turn out to be what happens. I will be watching North and South Dakota, though, closely. Those are much bigger samples.
In most places “the case” as you call it drops off after about 2% of the population has tested positive (which is not the same as a 2% positive test rate!). This might shift as a higher percentage of the population is being tested.
Depends on which mutation you contract, IMO.
We (wife, 2 kids) were positive in April. That was more of an upper respiratory scare, I was 5 min. away from calling 911 with breathing issues.
Now we’re positive again. This round is no respiratory issues but inflamed spleen & intestines. Same fever spike, lethargy, headaches.
It would be nice to have the capacity to determine strains rapidly
There are zero asymptomatic ‘cases’. You cannot have a case of something without symptoms. Tests only confirm the doctor’s suspicion of what you have. If you have asymptomatic cancer or an asymptomatic staph infection it means you don’t have it.
I have a fortune stashed at the bank: Thing is, according to my bank account statements, it is asymptomatic, so I cannot use it for cashing cheques.
Uhhhh.
Is it purely by coincidence that Pfizer comes up with a miracle solution days after the election, with Trump supposedly out of the way…..or is it all part of the well planned big collusion by the enlightened establishment ? I seem to remember that Trump wanted Big Pharma to sell its products cheaper in the US….
God what a dimwit.
ouch….you again….oK,ok, fffffine, have it your wwway …..it IS all purely by coincidence !…. Please don’t start calling me names or offending me again….
When you talk conspiracy, those who object to the implications conspire against you.
Deep state huh?
Derp State
I suppose you also expect us to believe that the airing of the 60 Minutes segment on Operation Warp Speed was purposely delayed until after the election even though it was taped several weeks ago.
Even if all that’s true, so what? If trump didn’t go around pissing people off, they wouldn’t take revenge. The conservative tears over this are embarrassing.
How do you sleep at night ?
What a bunch of gullible fools in the echo chamber, brainwashed by bribed msm….. I hope that at least deep inside, you know that I might be right, otherwise you are all ‘feeble minded’ beyond proportion, in a world where you can simply NOT afford to suffer a similar condition…
90% efficient !!!
90% efficient at what ???
90% efficient at preventing moderate symptoms for a certain predetermined ratio of vaccinated infections compared to unvaccinated infections.
NOTE
The endpoint is less moderately severe cold symptoms in a proportion of the infected. Mild symptoms are required to count as a case of infection.
Read an article recently (forget where so unfortunately can’t cite it) that said that while it’s true that no trial at present will be able to tell us the effect on mortality or hospitalizations ahead of time (would require way more time and larger scales), that we’ve also never had a vaccine that prevented symptoms that did not also accomplish those two goals.
Yes. May well be. But it may not actually dent the effect on the infirm, which is responsible for almost all the alleged ‘death’. It may suffer from ADE (which happened with SARS formulations) which typically does not become evident until 3-5 years hence. And you would at least think people are interested in studying and researching (testing!) other endpoints.
I really do not want to get Covid, but then I also believe I had it in March, and revisited it in May. But, I am not sure I will get the vaccine for a simple reason, I had the Flu jab October 3 and for 30 solid days I was sick and miserable. Yes the vaccine does not give you the flu itself, but it triggers your immune system to react as if you did have a live strain of the flu and that is safer than flu, but not a whole lot more pleasant.
Also this is a two jab vaccine, so however unpleasant it is you get to go through it twice.
I will probably cave and get it but I am not looking forward to it.
What is an mRNA Vaccine?
more herehttps://www.phgfoundation.org/briefing/rna-vaccines
My concern is some people may not have the “switches” or protein producing capabilities for mRNA to work, so such an approach may have only a marginal success rate vs people who have strong protein producing capabilities. It is known the genetics of some people don’t allow the processing of alcohol, and that’s just a sugar!
“The more it (vaccination) is supported by public authorities, the more will its dangers and disadvantages be concealed or denied.”
― M. Beddow Bayly
Thanks for the blast from the past…
Maurice Beddow Bayly MRCS LRCP (26 March 1887 – 22 June 1961) was an English physician, anti-vivisection activist, and anti-vaccination campaigner.
Bayly was born in Woolwich. He was educated at St Dunstan’s College, London University and Charing Cross Hospital.[1] He was one of the few prominent doctors advocating anti-vivisection in the post-war period.[2]
He was a member of the National Anti-Vaccination League, the Animal Defence and Anti-Vivisection Society, and the English section of the Theosophical Society.[3]
Polio vaccine? Smallpox vaccine? HELL YA Covid 19 vaccine? not so fast
which vaccine should i take if any decisions decisions
At least 5 of them to ensure getting the most protection.
I hope you step up and take it first.
Doesn’t it take years for even fast-tracked drugs to hit the market? I looked up a bit of info and indication are that the fastest to market has averaged 4.8yrs.
You normally have several phases for drug development. They compress them in only 1. From https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04368728?term=bnt162b2&draw=2&rank=3
“A PHASE 1/2/3, PLACEBO-CONTROLLED, RANDOMIZED, OBSERVER-BLIND, DOSE-FINDING STUDY TO EVALUATE THE SAFETY, TOLERABILITY, IMMUNOGENICITY, AND EFFICACY OF SARS-COV-2 RNA VACCINE CANDIDATES AGAINST COVID-19 IN HEALTHY INDIVIDUALS”
So on the really warp speed they are looking at basically two things: adverse effects and immune response (T-cell, antibodies)
The assumption is that if it is safe and there is a robust response provided by the vaccine that lasts then you have a go. In reality if you follow the normal path you would have to wait longer to really figure out efficacy. Personally I like this particular vaccine. Having said that I prefer if they find therapies for the infection that prevent the damage (cytokine storms and such)
Defense secretary fired. Looks like Trump is not going to leave quietly or find someone to keep him in office.
I hope we get to see one of the total trumpletantrums before this is over… with Melaina off to the side rolling her eyes.
….Dubbed “Yesper” by his critics, including the president, he takes umbrage with the idea that he has been anyone’s “yes man.”
“My frustration is I sit here and say, ‘Hm, 18 Cabinet members. Who’s pushed back more than anybody?’ Name another Cabinet secretary that’s pushed back,” he said. “Have you seen me on a stage saying, ‘Under the exceptional leadership of blah-blah-blah, we have blah-blah-blah-blah?’ “…
You can’t inject a -70c liquid into someone without causing tissue damage. I assume it has to warm up, but, it’s going to require training and seems likely to lead to a handful of dangerous vaccinations.
Now that Trump is not going to be president for much longer, the chances we would inject the vaccine at -70c have fallen to near zero. You might have missed what it said, it didn’t say it needs to be injected at -70c but: “must be shipped/stored at -70C” Hope that helps.
The free market and American entrepreneurs and the scientists they promote are in need for congratulations in this. Tying this to a political party, office, or agenda is insane.
Sorry Biontex is German not American. Also, this is what Trump (according to Germany newspaper) try to do:
“US President Trump is attempting to entice a German lab to develop a vaccine exclusively for the US, a German newspaper reported. “
Also Biontex got funding from Germany not the USA..
just saying
I think that the efficacy is a little overblown. Read the following article to see how “effective” is defined in the test protocol. It actually means that it reduces symptoms compared to the placebo.
They haven’t proven much by my reading. Unless one of the groups agreed to be exposed to the virus, this test proves nothing.
One group got the vaccine, one didn’t. Then both groups went about their lives. Maybe some ran into the virus in different strengths, maybe others didn’t. Maybe nobody did.
As I have posted previously, in my network of 200+ people, many connected loosely, there has not been even ONE person acknowledging having gotten infected by Covid-19.
If the actual vaccine takers don’t run into the virus, what is being proven? How nebulous the virus actually is in the real environment?
Some caveats…based on 94 infections
….Pfizer and BioNtech said that they had identified 94 cases of COVID-19 among 43,538 trial participants. The companies did not indicate how many of those cases were in the placebo group or among those that got the vaccine. But they said that the split of cases between the groups suggested that the vaccine was more than 90% effective at preventing disease, when measured at least one week after trial participants had received a second vaccine dose, three weeks after the first. The trial will continue until a total of 164 COVID-19 cases are detected, so initial estimates of the vaccines’ effectiveness could change.
Although the vaccine may not turn out to be as effective once the trial is complete and all the data has been analysed, its effectiveness is likely to stay well above 50%, says Eric Topol, a cardiologist and director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute in La Jolla, California. This is the threshold that the US Food and Drug Administration says that it would require for a coronavirus vaccine to be approved for emergency use. “I think this is an extraordinary achievement, even without many details, because there was no assurance of vaccine efficacy before we got the first readout from a trial,” Topol says.
Topol and other scientists, are details about the nature of the infections the vaccine can protect against — whether they are mostly mild cases of COVID-19 or also include significant numbers of moderate and severe cases. “I want to know the spectrum of disease that the vaccine prevents,” says Paul Offit, a vaccine scientist at the University of Pennsylvania who sits on a US Food and Drug Administration advisory committee that is set to evaluate the vaccine next month. “You’d like to see at least a handful of cases of severe disease in the placebo group,” he adds, because it would suggest that the vaccine has the potential to prevent such cases.
It’s also unclear whether the vaccine can prevent people who show no or only very mild symptoms of COVID-19 from spreading the coronavirus. A transmission-blocking vaccine could accelerate the end of the pandemic. But it will be difficult to determine if the Pfizer vaccine, or others in late-stage trials, can achieve this, says Krammer, because it would involve routinely testing trial participants. “You can’t do that with 45,000 people,” he says.
Another missing detail is how well the vaccine works in different groups of trial participants. “We don’t know yet if it works in the population that needs it most which are elderly,” says Krammer. Because of the small number of cases it will accrue before ending, the Pfizer trial is unlikely to determine conclusively the vaccine’s efficacy in subgroups such as over-65s or African Americans, says Offit. But he adds that if the trial enrolled enough participants from such groups, it may be possible to generalize the vaccines’ likely effectiveness in these groups from its overall efficacy. In the press release, Pfizer and bioNtech reported that 42% of participants had “racially and ethnically diverse backgrounds”.
One key unanswered question is how long the vaccines’ effectiveness will last. Based on when the trial started and previously published data on immune responses in early-stage trials, many trial participants are likely to still have high levels of protective antibodies in their blood, says Rafi Ahmed, an immunologist at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. “To me, the main question is what about six months later, or even three months later,” he says.
There will be a chance to answer that question if the trial continues for several more months, says Ahmed. Answers could also come from analysing the immune responses of people who took part in early-stage trials of the Pfizer vaccine, some of whom may have been given the vaccine up to 6 months ago. And although little is known about the vaccine’s long-term effectiveness, that is unlikely to hold up its use, says Ahmed. “I don’t think we should say, ‘Well, I’ll only take a vaccine that protects me for five years.’ I mean, that could be crazy.”
Thanks for that. I still don’t see how a 90% number was arrived at out of 44k participants. 90% of what?
There are some serious worries that it’s a bit overblown.
Oh goodies. Now the Fed can reverse all it’s QE and ZIRP policies because they are not longer needed. I’m sure the Fed is happy about that and move to this pronto.
We have no distribution network at all for vaccines than need this kind of storage. I’ve read that it might take until 2023 to get all the infrastructure in place to handle it, Just sayin’.
The cows are leaving the barn. I does not matter what happens next year if we don’t control the virus now. If we do, then yeah, a great thing. But I really doubt that will happen.
Quantum Joe will figure out a way.
What does this do for Biden’s Covid plan?
Imagine adding an effective vaccine where there was not one before.
Are you saying that this one is not effective or that Joe has another vaccine up his sleeve? Are you saying that what was done before is worthless?
Depends. If his plan was to put central planning in place, then he can still continue. If his plan was to find a vaccine, too late.
And, for nerd stuff, here’s some really techie details including secondary effects https://mandtsystems.com/documents/ASHRAE_R02_39SI.pdf
Not the easiest vaccine to store and distribute.
What does this do for Biden’s Covid plan?
The billions put into the research since this began has , as expected, borne fruit. It was just a matter of time. It reminds of the polio epidemic of the early 50’s.
this vaccine effort had the advantage. Much of the ground work was done earlier. It just needed to be adapted for Covid-19
We stand on the shoulders of giants.
Covid-19 is not polio.
Take it from someone who had both the Salk and Sabin vaccines.
I was too young to really remember all the comic books being burned.
This is clearly good news. It will still be Spring before vaccines are distributed and possibly end of 21 when it becomes universally available. I assume the FDA and local hospitals will want to verify the data.
Interestingly Mike Pence is taking credit for the Pfizer knews despite the fact that Pfizer turne down government funding.
By spring we will be beyond the critical time period for preventing infection as the worst will be between now and Feb. But it is a good thing going forward if it is effective for genetic variants.
if the rate of daily infections keeps going up it will be difficult to see how it gets better by March.
It will burn through the tinder unless we change behavior now. By March it will be all over. Unfortunately many people do not understand exponential growth.
Good to see Mike Pence is his normal self, what with his dutifully taking credit for other people’s work to obfuscate people’s understanding of the Trump administration’s embarrassing incompetence.
https://www.genengnews.com/news/pfizer-biontech-win-1-95b-warp-speed-order-for-covid-19-vaccine/#:~:text=BioNTech%5D-,The%20U.S.%20Department%20of%20Health%20and%20Human%20Services%20(HHS)%20and,purchase%20500%20million%20additional%20doses.
They didn’t turn down any money. Pfizer backtracked it I believe.