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DIFFERENCE A VARIANT CAN MAKE: Early in the Oxford-AstraZeneca’s South Africa 
trial, before #B1351 variant became dominant, the AZ vaccine had a great efficacy of 75% risk reduction of #COVID19 after a single dose! But all that disappeared once B1351 variant showed up... 
trial, before #B1351 variant became dominant, the AZ vaccine had a great efficacy of 75% risk reduction of #COVID19 after a single dose! But all that disappeared once B1351 variant showed up...
2) Notably, #B1351 variant showed up midway through the trial and soon became the dominant strain after early November. And because it had the worrisome E484K “Eeek” mutation that could evade neutralizing antibodies, it then completely flipped the AZ vaccine results...
3) Notably, notice how the early 75% early efficacy seen by the vaccine completely got flipped around and was no longer any better late in the trial! Resulting in a crap 22% non-significant efficacy.
Late trial, 95% of infections sequences were #B1351 according to other data.
Late trial, 95% of infections sequences were #B1351 according to other data.
4) We are awaiting more data on AZ and severe disease for #B1352. Meantime, we need to stop these mutations. And the only way is to mass vaccinate now & mitigate as much as we can with #ZeroCovid strategy. Here is breakdown of the vaccines. https://twitter.com/drericding/status/1358757953772355585
5) @DrZoeHyde has a good rundown of more AstraZeneca vaccine efficacy drama in South Africa. It’s a doozy. But I’m hopeful for severe disease still. They just have limited data so far on that. https://twitter.com/drzoehyde/status/1358749325610737665
6) The E484K mutation is currently in the #B1351 and #P1 variants — mainly. But it has also emerged in a sublineage of the #B117 variant in the UK — emerging twice in UK alone - once in Wales and once in England. We have got to stop this pandemic before more of the Eeek arises. https://twitter.com/drericding/status/1356365178330378251
7) Because it not only threatens vaccines if Eeek mutation spreads further, but it also threatens reinfections. People in SA previously infected and had antibodies to old strain has ZERO protection against #B1351–not even for severe #COVID19! This is bad. https://twitter.com/drericding/status/1358065355785134083
8) And then there is the rising surge of #B117 worldwide and in the US.... I’ll just leave this here... read this please... https://twitter.com/drericding/status/1358468446548357123
please... https://twitter.com/drericding/status/1358468446548357123
