On 03/02/2021 22:05, Tim Streater wrote:
On 03 Feb 2021 at 19:47:47 GMT, GB wrote:

On 03/02/2021 18:54, Tim Streater wrote:
On 03 Feb 2021 at 17:56:30 GMT, Michael Chare
wrote:

On 03/02/2021 17:17, Lawrence Milbourn wrote:

How do we know that we are not some of the 15% for whom it doesn't work. The antibody test isn't being offered is it?

The efficacy depends on which vaccine you are given and how old you are.
The Government clearly does not care about the overs 80s who have only
had one dose. There is also the problem of different mutations.

In the case of the Russian Sputnik V vaccine, the two doses are
different to overcome the problem of the 1st dose in your body attacking
the 2nd dose as it appears. (AIUI the Russian on Radio 4 yesterday)

Why would the first dose attack the second dose?


I don't know anything about Sputnik. The Oxford vaccine is carried into
the body by a harmless virus. Harmless or not, the body recognises that
virus and organises the usual defences. What you don't want is for the
virus carrying the vaccine in the second dose to be killed before it can
do its job.

The de-activated virus

I don't think that deactivated is correct.

Maybe this link would help, so we're both singing from the same hymn sheet.

https://www.research.ox.ac.uk/Articl...vid-19-vaccine


is carrying DNA to cause the cells it infects to make
the covid spike protein. That is presumably thus made in large enough
quantities to wake up the immune system to make antibodies to the spike
protein, thus when the covid virus arrives, the immune system is ready. The
de-activated virus does not cause itself to be replicated.

Yes, I think that's right. It's a virus that infects chimpanzees with
the common cold, but it doesn't seem to cause us any trouble.


Perhaps the deal is that the quantity of the de-activated virus is nicely
calculated not to be enough in itself to wake up the immune system.

I think that's exactly the point, although it's not calculated! They
tried different dosing regimes in the trials, to see what works best.

When the adenovirus infects our cells, it doesn't get the cell to
reproduce the virus itself, as a virus normally would. Instead, it's
been genetically engineered to get the cell to produce the spike
proteins on the surface of the covid virus.

Anyway, that's my understanding.