Thread by @jonworth

Damn I'm annoyed at vaccine supply pieces like this one on Novavax
bbc.com/news/uk-englan…

I'm going to take this one apart piece by piece...

"A factory on Teesside making the new Novavax Covid-19 vaccine is on target to make the 60 million doses ordered by the UK, bosses have confirmed."

60m doses, sure, but *by when*? Without that answer on the schedule the number has little meaning

"Fujifilm Diosynth Biotechnologies in Billingham began production in February ahead of approval for its use, which is expected within weeks."

OK, good. But without any number of numbers per week, or numbers so far this also means rather little

(Aside: we have been here before, with Halix - we've heard over and over in the media that it's producing AZ vaccine but we've seen no evidence of any doses for regular use)

"The firm's CEO Martin Meeson said the vaccine would be ready by the summer, adding he was "proud" of his team."

What does this mean? First doses ready to ship?

"I was born on Teesside and now I'm able to direct the manufacture of this vaccine across the world from Teesside."

Oh come on. Given the active ingredients are imported, you work for Fuji which is a sub contractor, and there's a plant doing the same in the USA...

"The jab, which is given in two doses, was shown to be 89.3% effective at preventing Covid-19 in participants in its Phase 3 clinical trial in the UK, and about 86% effective at protecting against the UK variant."

Correct. Good.

"Prof Adam Finn, a member of JCVI, who is based at Bristol University, said the vaccine was a "vital tool" in the fight against the pandemic."

Perhaps. And perhaps Prof Finn also knows the delivery schedule, but we don't know if he does.

"Prof Finn said information about how effective the vaccine was against new variants of the virus would "come with time"."

Right. But given we don't know how many doses will be available when, we don't know how significant this will be.

So when you read that piece you conclude as a reader that UK will get 60m doses of an effective vaccine that will be approved soon, and doses will come in the summer

But actually the story that weaves is based on a piece of information - the delivery schedule - that is not known

There's also a crucial part missing from the story: Matrix-M, one crucial ingredient, is imported from Denmark... and there's the EU export transparency mechanism... what's the solution there?

If you want more about Novavax then try these two pieces instead:
theatlantic.com/science/archiv…

endpts.com/as-fears-mount…

And don't get me wrong: the Novavax vaccine looks really promising, and how it's made is brilliant and extraordinary. I really hope it works.

But hoping it works does not mean puff journalism is justified.

/ends