Posted on 05/24/2020 8:21:54 AM PDT by billorites
Hopes that a vaccine for the coronavirus could be ready by September are hanging in the balance, as the scientists developing it are concerned that a slowdown in the rate of infection in the general population could invalidate the human trials currently taking place. Prof. Adrian Hill, Director of the Oxford University’s Jenner Institute, has told The Telegraph that there is only a 50-50 chance that the vaccine his team has been developing can be successfully tested.
The team has recruited 10,000 people to test the vaccine, some of whom will be given the vaccine and others a placebo. But as it is unethical to purposely infect people in the trial with COVID-19, participants will be asked to go about their normal routine in the expectation that some will be exposed to it naturally. However, that is unlikely to happen if the virus is not spreading, meaning that no conclusions can be drawn one way or the other about the vaccine's efficacy.
Hill expects that fewer than 50 people in the test population will catch the virus, but if less than 20 test positive the results may be useless. “It is a race, yes. But it's not a race against the other guys," he said. "It's a race against the virus disappearing – and against time. We said earlier in the year that there was an 80% chance of developing an effective vaccine by September. But at the moment, there’s a 50% chance that we get no result at all. "We’re in the bizarre position of wanting COVID to stay, at least for a little while. But cases are declining."
The Oxford team is not the only one facing this predicament. So far, eight potential vaccines have reached the stage of human trials: four in China, two in the US, one in Germany and the one of the Oxford team. With cases dwindling, all of the teams are looking for hotspots globally where they can conduct their trials. “You think we've got a problem?" Hill asked. "What would you do if you were in China? There are three Chinese companies looking for Phase Three and there’s no COVID in China. So what do they do?"
Much is riding on a successful outcome for Hills' team, as they have already joined forces with AstraZeneca to develop the vaccine. The US has already laid claim to almost a third of the one billion doses the company is planning to manufacture, while the British government has already agreed to foot the bill for 100 million doses, of which it was hoped that 30 million would be ready for UK citizens by September. However, the professor told the Telegraph that Oxford University had secured "hardwired" assurances against what he called "vaccine nationalism."
“The reputational damage to the university would be enormous if we provided the vaccine only for the UK and US and not for the rest of those countries of the world where it's very likely the pandemic would still be raging,” he said.
Darn!! This disease has practically disappeared! How can we have a crisis if we don’t have a disease?
This means we need to wait 3 years before enough subjects are recruited for the vaccine trial and then we can open up the economy. /src
But they did a study in Sweden that only 7% of their population have the antibodies.
Fauci said it will be back with a vengeance. It would make him sooooo happy.
Kind of an amazing dilemma, if you think about it.
What if nature solves this disease before man can intervene?
The moving of the goal posts proves this is political.
Just stay home two weeks to flatten the curve. A month or two, so there are almost no new cases. You have to stay home until there is a vaccine, though there may never be one.
And then there’s the fact that a vaccine may not matter. For example, many of us get flu shots every year with multiple strains (what went viral in Asia 6 months ago). Yet tens of thousands still die of the flu, because there are multiple strains circulating at any time and the shot isn’t always effective. Hence, a vaccine may not STOP the current strain.
“Fauci said it will be back with a vengeance.”
That was not a gambling statement. We still have outbreaks of the plague in the US each year. None of this goes away, it just goes underground until it pops back up for what appears to be an unexplained disorder.
So ponder this, if it has no host except what has been physically transmitted from person to person here in the US, how can it remain on earth if it can’t self sustain when the “so called” curve goes completely flat? Simple, it’s in a test tube somewhere. And everyone has it by now. But the new and improved version next year, or the year after, will be even better at scaring the he(( out of the people until they can be muzzled by the politicians. Remember how many people died in 2020? Don’t try to remember, you won’t have to The media alone will not let you forget it even though the numbers will be inflated then as they are now. And after the last election, it is safe to say more people in the country at this time will be dead than were alive. Hey it worked for the vote counts.
Unless a liberal is in office. At which case the economy blamed on the last conservative president will need to be repaired with more money for the Kennedy Foundation for the Arts or the Foundation for the Humanities. (Obvious infrastructure requirements)
rwood
Test it in Brazil.
Oxford.
Nuff said.
Nice architecture, though.
this is exactly why a successful vaccine against SARS and MERS was never developed ...
According to MSN, it was locking down Shulan just this past week.
Anyway, couldn't they test these trial subjects for antibodies as was done in the Moderna trial?
Who says it’s unethical to infect volunteers with a cold? Happens all the time. You don’t infect people with really nasty stuff, but part of drug trials when the illness is mild is deliberate infection. That’s why they are paid volunteers.
Yes, prairie dogs still carry the bubonic plague across the West. I hope no one starts shipping them to China to eat.
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