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.
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).]
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.
"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.
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.
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).]
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).]
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
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.
"Coronavirus may never go away, even with a vaccine"
quote
Embracing that reality is crucial to the next phase of America’s pandemic response, experts say.
William Wan and Carolyn Y. Johnson are credited as the reporters for this new article in one of President Trump's favorite newspapers. the Washington Post.
These three paragraphs in particular are what caught my eye:
quote
America’s yearning for a quick fix has turned in recent days toward a vaccine, now being portrayed as a solution that will quash the virus once and for all.
But the world has achieved that only once, with smallpox — a measure of just how difficult it is for vaccines to wipe out diseases. And it took nearly two centuries after the discovery of a vaccine — and an unprecedented international effort — to vanquish smallpox, which stole hundreds of millions of lives.
Eventually, many experts believe this coronavirus could become relatively benign, causing milder infections as our immune systems develop a memory of responses to it through previous infection or vaccination. But that process could take years, said Andrew Noymer, a University of California at Irvine epidemiologist.
If you're "into" viruses, what that would mean--if the expectation of "many experts" in this new reportage in WaPo becomes reality--is that the SARS-CoV-2 virus of the current pandemic would eventually become no more malignant than the four other coronaviruses that are considered to be behind the "common cold." https://www.cdc.gov/coronav...ral-information.html
Seasonal flu or influenza--that's something else, and it comes in a few different models--but I do not see any reference to "coronavirus" on this impressive looking page from the CDC. I am under the impression that these are not coronaviruses. https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/viruses/index.htm
As I'm already here, I will add this for your consideration. Whatever floats your boat.
"New research rewrites history of when Covid-19 took off in the U.S. — and points to missed chances to stop it" Helen Branswell for STAT; May 26, 2020. https://www.statnews.com/20...-chances-to-stop-it/
[This message has been edited by rinselberg (edited 05-29-2020).]
Eli Lilly begins first human tests of an antibody drug against Covid-19 Matthew Herper for STAT; June 1, 2020.
quote
The medicine, a human-made antibody against the coronavirus that causes the disease, was discovered by a Vancouver company, AbCellera, and is being developed by Eli Lilly, the Indianapolis-based drug giant. Two other efforts, one from the biotechnology firm Regeneron and another from the partnership of Vir Biotechnology and GlaxoSmithKline, are expected to begin testing of their own antibody drugs soon. Lilly’s current study will only test the drug for obvious side effects, giving it to 32 people at various doses.
quote
The timeline for each drug could vary depending on exactly what steps each company takes, but the medicines are important because if one works it might provide a way to treat infection with the coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, or to prevent infection before the end of the year. Skovronsky said that depending on the characteristics of each antibody drug, it might be possible for companies to produce hundreds of thousands or millions of doses by the end of the year.
quote
Vaccines work by teaching the body to make its own antibodies, which prevent infection. Researchers are also experimenting with giving patients blood from those who have recovered, called convalescent plasma, so that sick people can benefit from the antibodies in that blood. But this will never be a large-scale treatment. The advantage of an antibody drug [like this drug] is that researchers could select a particularly effective antibody out of the thousands of different SARS-CoV-2 antibodies that might exist in even one patient, and then manufacture it at scale.
