I sorry to hear about your brother's Mother-in-Law.
I just wanted to concur for anyone who is not yet aware: all the data so far (from multiple studies) shows that there is zero or near zero protection for the first two weeks after the first dose. It's not until the third/fourth weeks after the dose that you start to see substantial protection, with higher protection the fourth week.
So sorry to hear this. My mother also died of covid, and I also feel there's a warning in her story for everyone.
She'd been sad for several months from my father dying, so during the summer she went to visit her sister abroad. Until then she'd been shielding at home. They both knew about the virus but thought it wouldn't happen to them, arranging group meals with old friends.
Three of them went to ICU, and everyone tested positive.
It's of course up to people themselves what risk they want to take, but with this disease in particular the numbers are deceiving. The general figures seem so low but are actually a heck of a lot higher than flu. They're also markedly higher if you're in a risk group.
It's also terrible because as family you think the odds are okay, most people at every stage (cough, hospital, icu) survive, until the doctor calls you and says it's tonight.
Yeah....I can only imagine what they are going through. That was why I posted that comment, I can't do anything for her, but I can hope that others will see that and take heed.
Do you remember what studies this data was from? I'd be curious to look at it.
The fda filing [0] for Moderna seemed to indicate a decent uptick in protection > 14 days after dose 1 (which seems to mirror the studies you are referencing). I see a "Vaccine Efficacy" of 92.1% for > 14 days after dose 1, which seems to be fairly close to the ~95% efficacy I've seen described for 14 days after dose 2.
We should note that the >14-day efficacy is presumed to decay fairly rapidly, thus the need for the 2nd dose to cement the response long-term, as well as eke out the last few percent of efficacy.
But that does seem to imply that 2 weeks post the first shot (assuming the second shot will be given soon after), folks are pretty much at maximum immunity.
The idea behind the second dose being delayed in the UK was it was better to give 24 million and 80% coverage to the most vulnerable people with 1 dose over 12 weeks (assuming 2 million per week), then to give 2 doses to 9 million and 1 dose to 3 million over 12 weeks
.8 * 24 = 19.2m covered in scenario 1
.959 + .83 = 10.95m covered in scenario 2
Even if it were 60% with 1 dose and 95% with 2 it would be
I imagine "fairly rapidly" means a few months rather than a few weeks, in which case delaying the second dose from 4 weeks to 8 weeks won't cause any dramatic dips (this is all conjecture though).
Presumed by whom? AFAICT there is no reason to presume the protection decays rapidly or even at all (on short timescales). There isn’t a biomechanism that would cause that. It’s a conservative operating assumption just in case, but actually not likely.
I just wanted to concur for anyone who is not yet aware: all the data so far (from multiple studies) shows that there is zero or near zero protection for the first two weeks after the first dose. It's not until the third/fourth weeks after the dose that you start to see substantial protection, with higher protection the fourth week.