Looking for 'best' Covid-19 VACCINE reporting? Get yo' reads here, get yo' reads here (Page 1/2)
rinselberg MAY 20, 02:02 PM
"Move over MODERNA: Why PFIZER may be the better bet to deliver a vaccine [before 2021]"
Nathan Vardi for Forbes; May 20, 2020.
https://www.forbes.com/site...s-fall/#565a1e62382e

Patrons have the option of listening to the report, instead of (or in addition to) reading it. A 19-minute podcast.

Suggestion: Scroll down the article until you see a virus'y-looking photo image overlaid with the large text "How mRNA Vaccines Work" and that puts you face-to-face with six "bullet points" about the new and still unproven mRNA (messenger RNA) vaccine technology.


"Hunt for a coronavirus vaccine heats up, but there’s no guarantee of success"
AP, in the Los Angeles Times; May 5, 2020.
https://www.latimes.com/sci...guarantee-of-success


quote
Depending how you count them, there are between eight and 11 vaccine candidates in early stages of testing in the U.S., China, Britain and Germany; Pfizer Inc. and BioNTech began a study last week that’s simultaneously testing four somewhat different shots. More study sites are about to open in other countries, and by July, another handful of vaccines is set to begin first-in-human testing.

. . .

The initial vaccine candidates work in a variety of ways. Each type of vaccine works better in some virus families than in others. But for coronaviruses, there’s no blueprint.

Back in 2003, when scientists attempted to create vaccines against SARS, the outbreak ended before a shot was developed. Vaccine funding dried up, and work stopped. Vaccines against MERS have only reached first-step safety testing. Both diseases are caused by coronaviruses.

“In 20/20 hindsight, we should have worked harder on coronavirus vaccines back then,” said Dr. Sten Vermund, dean of the Yale School of Public Health. Now, “we’re obligated to try a variety of strategies if we want fast results.”

. . .

Still more methods are next in line, including a vaccine made of spike protein nanoparticles, and a nasal spray alternative to shots.

[This message has been edited by rinselberg (edited 05-20-2020).]

rinselberg MAY 22, 05:39 PM
Brief vaccine development updates. Moderna, Oxford, Inovio and the Beijing Institute of Biotechnology.
Denise Chow for NBC News; May 22, 2020.
https://www.nbcnews.com/sci...inovio-more-n1213291


Vaccine testing blockbuster from U.S. Operation Warp Speed

quote
The United States plans a massive testing effort involving more than 100,000 volunteers and a half dozen or so of the most promising vaccine candidates in an effort to deliver a safe and effective [vaccine] by the end of 2020, scientists leading the program told Reuters.

The project will compress what is typically 10 years of vaccine development and testing into a matter of months, testimony to the urgency to halt a pandemic that has infected more than 5 million people, killed over 335,000 and battered economies worldwide.

To get there, leading vaccine makers have agreed to share data and lend the use of their clinical trial networks to competitors should their own candidate fail, the scientists said.

Candidates that demonstrate safety in small early studies will be tested in huge trials of 20,000 to 30,000 subjects for each vaccine, slated to start in July.

<SNIP>


Reuters; republished by NBC News; May 22, 2020.
https://www.nbcnews.com/hea...ed-u-s-meet-n1213256

[This message has been edited by rinselberg (edited 05-22-2020).]

rinselberg MAY 27, 08:13 AM
"One and Done"..? Vaccine-savvy reporter says "not so much." Evidence suggests a new Covid-19 vaccine will be more like an annual influenza vaccination. Many people who are vaccinated will still get the infection, but the vaccine will boost the odds that if they do suffer respiratory problems, it won't get into their lungs.

"The world needs Covid-19 vaccines. It may also be overestimating their power."
Helen Branswell for STAT; May 22, 2020.
https://www.statnews.com/20...imating-their-power/


It's the background you're going to need to participate in vaccine-savvy cocktail party banter--if there could be actual cocktail party-like gatherings again.
olejoedad MAY 27, 10:49 AM
If you can still be infected, it's not a vaccine.

Definitions matter, dumbazz....
rinselberg MAY 27, 11:57 AM
Are you calling me a "dumbazz"... or is that for Helen Branswell, who is behind the report?


quote
Ideally, vaccines would prevent infection entirely, inducing what’s known as “sterilizing immunity.” But early work on some of the [Covid-19] vaccine candidates suggests they may not stop infection in the upper respiratory tract — and they may not stop an infected person from spreading virus by coughing or speaking.


quote
Vincent Munster [no relation to "Herman Munster" of the eponymous 1960s TV sitcom "The Munsters"] ... leads the team that conducted that study, [and] said a vaccine that could mitigate the severity of the Covid-19 pandemic would still be a significant contribution in a world struggling to co-exist with a dangerous new virus.

“If we push the disease from pneumonia to a common cold, then I think that’s a huge step forward,” said Munster, chief of the virus ecology unit at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases’ Rocky Mountain Laboratories in Hamilton [Montana.]

[This message has been edited by rinselberg (edited 05-27-2020).]

olejoedad MAY 27, 01:18 PM
Does the shoe fit you?
rinselberg MAY 27, 01:40 PM
I'm not going there--to Shoe Fits City--but I have submitted expert testimony that I wasn't being a "dumbazz" with my remarks about the possibility--likelihood, in reporter Helen Branswell's estimation--of seeing a Covid-19 vaccine that would mitigate the effects of the infection for a vaccinated person, but not provide the sterilizing immunity that would prevent a vaccinated person from being infected by the virus.

[This message has been edited by rinselberg (edited 05-27-2020).]

IMSA GT MAY 27, 08:24 PM
I'll stick with Sylvia Brown's prediction from her 2008 book and just hope it goes away.
randye MAY 27, 09:26 PM
"Covid 19 Vaccine" huh?

That's a noble goal and lets pray it is achieved.

We also need to look at some reality:

STILL waiting on a SARS vaccine
STILL waiting on a MERS vaccine
STILL waiting on a HIV / AIDS vaccine
STILL waiting on a Dengue vaccine
STILL waiting on a Chikungunya vaccine
STILL waiting on a Cytomegalovirus vaccine
STILL waiting on a Hookworm infection vaccine
STILL waiting on a Leishmaniosis vaccine
STILL waiting on a Malaria vaccine
STILL waiting on a Respiratory Syncytial Virus vaccine
STILL waiting on a Schistosomiasis vaccine
STILL waiting on a Ross River Virus vaccine
STILL waiting on a Ebola virus vaccine
STILL waiting on a Lassa virus vaccine
STILL waiting on a Epstein-Barr vaccine
STILL waiting on a Zika virus vaccine
STILL waiting on a West Nile virus vaccine

....and more
olejoedad MAY 27, 10:00 PM
I wonder where all these COVID-19 experts came from, since the virus was only identified a short six months ago. They know more about it than I do certainly, but expert? I suspect expert is a word that's losing its meaning.