Astra-Zeneca Oxford Covid-19 Vaccine Study Determines the Product is Ineffective on South African Variant.

https://www.ft.com/content/e9bbd4fe-e6bf-4383-bfd3-be64140a3f36?shareType=nongift

The drill-down is worse than the top-line news. With an average age of 31 for the test pool; just how many at age 31 wind up hospitalized as a result of Covid-19 contraction (yes, blah, blah, blah, there is always a cousin, of somebody, who heard of a friend, who was at a party, who overheard of such a person being hospitalized)?

This makes a poor vaccine on normal Covid-19 strains appear to be an utter failure against variants.

Continued outright failures and relative disappointments (marketing hype and excuses are disregarded on this blog) from traditional viral vector DNA vaccines continue to be the norm, rather than the exception. The few vaccines that have been reported as holding high efficacy rates, in the face of the challenges, will maintain monopoly or oligopoly pricing power for extended durations, so long as the failures of mainline pharmaceutical producers persist.

The disappointing news from Astra Zeneca Oxford may be of particular benefit for Novavax, who is directly competing against AZN for second tier markets on a price basis. The runway for NVAX lengthens.

South Africa halts rollout of AstraZeneca’s Covid-19 vaccine after shot falters against variant