Ed Belongia MD Profile picture
Infectious disease epidemiologist @MCResearchInst. Flu, COVID-19 and vaccine safety/effectiveness research with CDC. Adjunct prof @uwsmph. All views mine alone.
Nov 24, 2020 6 tweets 2 min read
CDC ACIP met today on Covid-19 vaccines. They will not vote on a specific product recommendation until after FDA issues EUA. Here are a few takeaways from today's session on phased vaccine allocation when supply is limited. 1/ Phase 1 will include healthcare personnel (HCP), other essential workers, high risk adults, and adults over 65. Phase 1 has 3 tiers: 1a (highest priority), 1b and 1c.
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Oct 30, 2020 10 tweets 4 min read
The CDC Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) met today on Covid-19 vaccines. Here are a few highlights. 1/ FDA summarized recent VRBPAC meeting. VRBPAC members agreed that current FDA guidance is the absolute minimum to issue EUA. Some members recommended longer safety follow-up, and continuation of trials with placebo group as long as feasible. 2/
Sep 22, 2020 9 tweets 3 min read
The CDC Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) met today on Covid-19 vaccines. The morning session focused on vaccine safety and implementation. The afternoon session addressed equity and prioritization. Here are a few highlights. 1/9 Process overview: the Covid-19 Work Group will review phase 3 efficacy/safety data and present policy options to ACIP. An emergency meeting will occur when FDA authorizes a vaccine, and ACIP will vote on recommendation. It could be more targeted than FDA indication. 2/9
Aug 26, 2020 6 tweets 3 min read
CDC Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) met today on Covid-19 vaccines. Here are a few takeaways from 3 sessions:
➡️RNA vaccine development (Moderna, Pfizer/BioNTech)
➡️Post-approval safety monitoring
➡️Initial vaccine priority groups
1/6 Image 👉Moderna reviewed published phase 1 results. Their phase 3 has enrolled 13K (18% nonwhite).
👉Pfizer phase 1 trial: strong neutralizing Ab response after dose 2 of full spike (b2 candidate). Strong T cell response with Th1 bias--may reduce risk of vaccine enhanced disease.
2/6 Image
Jun 24, 2020 5 tweets 2 min read
1/5 The CDC Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) met today and had an excellent session on #COVID19 vax development and prioritization. ACIP makes evidence-based recommendations on vaccine policy. Here are a few highlights and screen shots from the presentations. 2/5 The normal clinical development path will be accelerated without compromising standards. Operation Warp Speed supports rapid development of a few products, early scale-up of manufacturing, and harmonizing phase 3 trials. OWS needs to work closely with ACIP in coming months. Image
Mar 7, 2020 5 tweets 2 min read
1/n Extreme social distancing (SD) causes social and economic disruption. It is difficult to sustain and should be as brief as possible. In this preprint, #Seattleflustudy took a clever approach and modeled the effect of SD during an extreme weather event. medrxiv.org/content/10.110… 2/n They used data from pts tested for respiratory virus before and after heavy Seattle snowfall event Feb 2019. They estimated infections averted by simulating transmission of 9 viruses with/without reduced weather-related contact rates.
Feb 27, 2020 8 tweets 3 min read
1/Epi studies show striking age differences in #COVID19 cases. In China, only 2% are <20 yrs old (Wu, JAMA). Relative risk is much higher above 30 (Sun, LancetDigHealth). It's likely kids are infected but have mild or no symptoms. We need more data from outside China to confirm. 2/Why are #COVID cases detected more often in adults? Older adults have higher risk due to frailty and aging immune system. But this does not explain increased risk across all adult age groups vs children. One possible explanation might be antibody dependent enhancement (ADE).