Speaker 1: It's Wednesday, March. I'm Oscar Ramirez from the Daily Dive
Speaker 1: podcast in Los Angeles, and this is reopening America from
Speaker 1: good news to questions and concerns. Astra Zeneca released details
Speaker 1: from its US trials that they're vaccine is seventy effective
Speaker 1: against COVID nineteen. Then hours later, federal officials said that
Speaker 1: they might have used outdated information and was missing a
Speaker 1: month's worth of data, another misstep in the rollout. Karen Wine,
Speaker 1: trial health reporter at USA Today, joins us for the latest.
Speaker 1: Thanks for joining us, Karen Sure, Karen, I'm glad we
Speaker 1: can get you back on so we can follow this
Speaker 1: story of astra Zeneca. So we spoke on Monday about
Speaker 1: the good news from aster Zeneca. Their news out of
Speaker 1: their clinical trials in the US said that their vaccine
Speaker 1: was seventy nine effective against symptomatic cases of COVID, a
Speaker 1: hundred percent effective against severe cases, and prevented hospitalization. So
Speaker 1: it's all very good news. And then very early Tuesday
Speaker 1: a morning, we got some new news that they might
Speaker 1: have been using outdated information, and this kind of called
Speaker 1: into question what the true efficacy is. I know astra
Speaker 1: Zeneca has had some other problems in the past a
Speaker 1: little bit, so now there's a lot more questions than
Speaker 1: we had before. So Karen, help us walk through what
Speaker 1: the update is. I wish I could tell you more about.
Speaker 1: We actually don't know what the new data is. They've
Speaker 1: promised it within the next forty eight hours. That was
Speaker 1: this morning, so maybe we will talk again on another
Speaker 1: day or two. But it has raised questions about that
Speaker 1: efficacy figure. And the issue is in the last month
Speaker 1: there have likely been more people in the trial infected.
Speaker 1: We don't know how many were in the vaccine arm
Speaker 1: versus the placebo arm, and therefore how effective the vaccine
Speaker 1: has been at preventing any symptomatic COVID disease or severe
Speaker 1: disease people hospitalize, that sort of thing. This is coming
Speaker 1: from the Data Safety Monitoring Board, so they look they're
Speaker 1: an independent group, you know. They said that they were
Speaker 1: concerned about that outdated data. Dr Anthony Fauci weighed in
Speaker 1: on all of this and said, it's kind of a
Speaker 1: shame that that happened, but this is also one of
Speaker 1: those safeguards. This is why we have all these independent boards,
Speaker 1: and this kind of shows that the system is working.
Speaker 1: People should feel better about the vaccine, I guess, but
Speaker 1: it does raise questions about why they released the information
Speaker 1: they did. Obviously, the more up to date information will becoming.
Speaker 1: They did qualify it as interim data, but they didn't
Speaker 1: specify that it was as of February seventeenth and not
Speaker 1: the current data. So it raises questions that didn't need
Speaker 1: to be raised. I guess is the best way to
Speaker 1: put it, and that's the discussion now right. So Dr
Speaker 1: Anthony Fauci put it as a safeguard, UH saying that
Speaker 1: this was a safeguard. There's a lot of other experts saying, well,
Speaker 1: you know, this raises all those unwanted questions. Could it
Speaker 1: undermine the vaccine? Could it pose more hesitancy to the vaccine.
Speaker 1: Astra Zeneca, for their part, already had a few missteps
Speaker 1: throughout their whole process. A lot of this happening in Europe.
Speaker 1: You know, we talked about the blood clots yesterday. France
Speaker 1: is another example when they said it's not effective for
Speaker 1: older people. Backtrack then the blood clout thing, and you know,
Speaker 1: so that they've had all these missteps throughout the way,
Speaker 1: you could look at it as a sign that all
Speaker 1: the other companies are doing incredibly well that they have
Speaker 1: not made these kinds of missteps. But yes, it does
Speaker 1: seem like there's a cloud over this particular vaccine with
Speaker 1: a number of problems even dating back to September. And
Speaker 1: then tell me a little bit about you know, the
Speaker 1: promise or astros nic. They were it was going to
Speaker 1: be one of the cheapest and easiest to distribute, So
Speaker 1: a lot of developing countries were looking at this vaccine
Speaker 1: as something that they could be using. Just tell me
Speaker 1: a little bit about how that figured into the whole
Speaker 1: picture of vaccine distribution. Sure, well, this one was considered
Speaker 1: the front runner. Last year. The US government bought three
Speaker 1: hundred million doses of this vaccine while it bought a
Speaker 1: hundred million of others, because it saw it as the
Speaker 1: most promising vaccine. And again, it's easier to distribute, It
Speaker 1: doesn't need to be kept in a freezer. It can
Speaker 1: be distributed along the normal chain of vaccine distribution, and
Speaker 1: it's relatively inexpensive. So it was thought that this would
Speaker 1: be the answer for rural areas, for countries that don't
Speaker 1: have a strong infrastructure of freezers and that sort of thing.
Speaker 1: So it really has had been seen as the potential
Speaker 1: savior of the developing world in terms of vaccination, and
Speaker 1: hopefully it still will be. This is not as Dr
Speaker 1: Fauci said this morning, this is probably still this is
Speaker 1: still a very good vaccine. We haven't seen all the
Speaker 1: data yet, but hopefully it will confirm it. In terms
Speaker 1: of older people the UK or in Europe, there were
Speaker 1: questions raised about whether the vaccine would be effective in
Speaker 1: older people because it wasn't tested very much in older
Speaker 1: people there. It was included. Older people were included in
Speaker 1: the study in the US and again according to data
Speaker 1: they released yesterday, so we don't know if this needs
Speaker 1: to be updated, but it was effective among those over
Speaker 1: sixty five, so it appeared to be extremely effective even
Speaker 1: in older people. I mean, we'll have to wait for
Speaker 1: that data obviously. My sense is that it will still
Speaker 1: come back safe and effective at a pretty decent number.
Speaker 1: But you know where that number lies is what's going
Speaker 1: to be the interesting part. And just talking about those
Speaker 1: misteps that have happened so far across the pond, you know,
Speaker 1: in Europe, in Norway, in places like Romania, they're saying
Speaker 1: that people are rejecting it. They had all these sites
Speaker 1: set up and appointments that got canceled. People just flat
Speaker 1: out saying they don't want it. So, you know, I
Speaker 1: hope it doesn't really bog them down too much, you know,
Speaker 1: this kind of reporting error, you know, failing to disclose
Speaker 1: all of the information. That way, it's probably still going
Speaker 1: to be safe, but we'll have to see what happens there.
Speaker 1: As someone told me off the record this morning, it's
Speaker 1: still probably a very good vaccine. The problem maybe at
Speaker 1: the management level. The jury is still out. Karen Wintrild,
Speaker 1: health reporter at USA Today, Thank you very much for
Speaker 1: joining us. Thanks so much for having me. I'm Oscar
Speaker 1: Ramirez and this has been reopening America. Don't forget the effort.
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