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There is now a CONTENT FREEZE for Mercury while we switch to a new platform. It began on Friday, March 10 at 6pm and will end on Wednesday, March 15 at noon. No new content can be created during this time, but all material in the system as of the beginning of the freeze will be migrated to the new platform, including users and groups. Functionally the new site is identical to the old one. webteam@gatech.edu
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Scott GanzScott Ganz, assistant professor in the School of Public Policy, co-authored the article “Is the U.S. Holdup of the Oxford/AstraZeneca Vaccine Justified?” for The Dispatch on Jan. 25, 2021.
Ganz and co-author James Capretta explored the factors guiding the approval process of the Covid-19 vaccine developed by AstraZeneca and researchers at the University of Oxford, which could be approved for use in the United States soon but has faced more difficulties in the process than the vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna.
Excerpt:
The Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine has advantages that make it an attractive possibility. It can be stored at normal refrigeration temperatures, and its price is low relative to its competitors. Public health experts have long targeted it as ideal for use in lower and moderate-income countries because of these features.
The problem is that its U.S. Phase III trial was delayed because of an adverse event investigation in the fall, and the data from the international trials used by the U.K. government are difficult to interpret due to unplanned modifications to dosing levels. The sponsoring organizations have explained that the clinical trial sites accidentally gave a half dose as a first shot to a portion of the trial participants, followed by a full dose at a longer-than-planned interval. All other trial participants in the vaccine arm received two full doses of the vaccine. Unexpectedly, the trial data showed the half-dose/full-dose combination was more efficacious (90 percent) than giving two full doses spaced a month apart (62 percent). The combined efficacy of the two dosing regimens was 70.4 percent – well below the documented efficacy of the mRNA vaccines.
