https://www.forbes.com/sites/williamhaseltine/2020/05/16/did-the-oxford-covid-vaccine-work-in-monkeys-not-really/
While Hancock is celebrating MHRA’s questionable decision to give an emergency use authorisation to the Oxford/AZ vaccine, scientists continue to examine what we really know about it’s efficacy & safety.

Preclinical studies weren’t encouraging: it didn’t prevent monkeys from becoming infected with SARS-CoV-2, and some degree of protection from lung injury (based on histopathology scores: I recall a senior clin dev leader, who’d taken two drugs to FDA approval, saying that...

“Histopathology alone isn’t sufficient to define an endpoint, otherwise it’s a sort of glorified art criticism!”).
More worrisome, the amount of antibody capable of neutralising the virus was distinctly low. They progressed to full clinical development anyway (why conduct...

...preclinical studies at all, if they’re not decision making?).
This is when our difficulties arise. The endpoints used in humans weren’t real disease, but “any symptom consistent with Covid19”. So the declaration that the vaccine works is based on not only very thin evidence...

...but that evidence isn’t even of symptoms specific to infection with SARS-CoV-2, symptoms caused by any of forty or so respiratory viruses & other illnesses. So go ahead and accept vaccination with this material if you want. But the claim that “it’s over 90% effective” is a...

...huge stretch & distortion of language. Finally, on safety. These vaccines use entirely new biotechnology. There’s no similar product in widespread use, so it’s literally anyone’s guess what the nature, frequency & severity what the unwanted effects will be some months out...

...after dosing. The trial results from this interim read-out are ok as far as we can see in the short term. But for long term safety, there’s no data at all. Weighing the potential for significant long term harm (I’m simply making a statement of fact, that the absence of a...

...sizeable, long term, safety database means we’re not able to make any statement about this aspect), with water thin evidence for efficacy means that, were I to be the prescribing physician, I’d be very circumspect about administering it to anyone who was not in a clearly...

...high risk group. I would be willing to administer it to those at markedly elevated risk of severe outcomes if infected by SAR-CoV-2. Not anyone else.
Given that, why has HMG reportedly purchased sufficient to vaccinate 50,000,000 people? Who are all these high risk people?