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COVID-19: Vaccine/antidote and testing procedures Megathread [Mod Warning - Post #1]

Masala

Today being Paddy Day 2020... when do you think we will have a ‘flu jab’ / pill / syrup that we can take to make us immune/ les likely to catch this 19 virus?.

Mod: The purpose of this thread is baked into the title - COVID-19: Vaccine/antidote and testing procedures - it's not a platform to push an anti vaccination agenda. If posters wish to discuss the perceived cons of vaccinations, or push various theories regarding 'the agenda' (whatever that is supposed to mean), open a thread elsewhere on it.

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Le Bruise

XsApollo wrote: »

I’m not a doom merchant , but they are right.
It is if a Vaccine will be successful .
It usually does take years.
And the fact remains until there is a proven vaccine then there is no vaccine.
Even the best minds in the world will not tell you 100% that any of the vaccines in trials at the moment will work.

I have high hopes we will have one but we don’t and until we have one we don’t have one, and that is a fact.

I think it's more that the statements are reeled off without any buts!

Yes, IF a vaccine is successful.....BUT the signs are good and there are many options in phase 3

It usually does take years......BUT all the stops are being pulled out for this and many stages are running concurrently, with many available candidates to test it on with the virus still at large.

And the fact remains until there is a proven vaccine then there is no vaccine.....BUT the same can be said for every vaccine that's ever been created.

astrofool

XsApollo wrote: »

I’m not a doom merchant , but they are right.
It is if a Vaccine will be successful .
It usually does take years.
And the fact remains until there is a proven vaccine then there is no vaccine.
Even the best minds in the world will not tell you 100% that any of the vaccines in trials at the moment will work.

I have high hopes we will have one but we don’t and until we have one we don’t have one, and that is a fact.

If you want to be pedantic, there are at least 2 vaccines already, 1 in use by China, and 1 in use by Russia, both appear to work, if there was a higher % of people dying from COVID19, then we'd already be getting vaccinated, the level is low enough that we can take the time to have an extended testing period (in the west anyway).

Cordell

both appear to work

No, they are only rubberstamped by their governments, which proved multiple times that they cannot be trusted. There is no data to show that they "appear to work" other than official claims that they work.

is_that_so

astrofool wrote: »

If you want to be pedantic, there are at least 2 vaccines already, 1 in use by China, and 1 in use by Russia, both appear to work, if there was a higher % of people dying from COVID19, then we'd already be getting vaccinated, the level is low enough that we can take the time to have an extended testing period (in the west anyway).

To be equally pedantic they are not vaccines as we understand them, i.e. have passed through all phases safely on their way to approval. They are both at Phase III. There's geopolitics and propaganda at work here. One would hope they work as advertised but many people will be waiting and looking elsewhere as things stand.

Hmmzis

Some data for EIDD-2801, an antiviral being studied by Merck:

https://www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-80404/v1

The mice data (with human lungs) looks promising when the drug is given as prophylaxis. It's orally bioavailable, so can be made into pills.
It's in phase 2 human trials at the moment.

[Deleted User]

funnydoggy wrote: »

So many people are unbelievably pessimistic about a vaccine.

"IF a vaccine is made"

"Takes years"

"We've never had one for a coronavirus"

Why don't they spend 5 minutes reading about it instead of repeating the same tropes constantly?

I'd be relatively optimistic about a vaccine prospect but this should be tempered by realism.

The current policy in most countries to get through this (outside a few notable exceptions) is dependent on a widespread availability of a vaccine next year. This is not guaranteed and is probably not realistic.

It will take years to distribute a vaccine, it may require boosters and annual adjustment. Manufacturing capacity is limited (the vaccine that seems to have the largest capacity Astra Zeneca, up to 2 billion doses by end 2021, will be in trouble if another serious adverse event arises, if that occurs I'd expect a lengthy suspension of the trial and if 2 or more new adverse events occur it may be dead in the water in its present form, hopefully not).

We know nothing about efficacy yet, we should hopefully see results for 3 candidates by the end of this year but even with positive results there will still be a long way to go. It is also imperative that a vaccine is effective for risk groups, as we know Covid is not a big risk to younger healthy individuals so we need a vaccine that protects those that don't fall into that group, this is another hurdle to overcome.

Vaccine take up will also be an issue, in the event that an approved vaccine is only partially effective having a limited number of people taking it probably won't do much to ease the pandemic.

I realise this all sounds negative but being excessively hopeful and optimistic does not make for good policy decisions and I fear that is a trap most countries are falling into.

Gael23

The Spanish flu pandemic ended in 18 months with a hell of a lot less medical technology than we have now

Le Bruise

Gael23 wrote: »

The Spanish flu pandemic ended in 18 months with a hell of a lot less medical technology than we have now

Think it was more like two years for Spanish Flu?

MerlinSouthDub

Le Bruise wrote: »

Think it was more like two years for Spanish Flu?

And a lot of people died....

Duke of Url

Gael23 wrote: »

The Spanish flu pandemic ended in 18 months with a hell of a lot less medical technology than we have now

Yeah and only an average 2.7 million people died a month with a World population of 1.8 Billion

Hmmzis

Speaking of vaccines, here is some very preliminary data on the J&J phase 1/2 trial:

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.09.23.20199604v1.full.pdf+html

The older hypertensive folks might have a bit of trouble with it, it's a few cases but still, those people will have to be monitored very closely in phase 3. The other adverse events seem to be in line with what Oxford reported from their phase 1/2 and a bit milder than Moderna's.

On the antibody and T cell front it looks quite good, in or about the same league as ChAdOx1 and BioNTech/Pfizer (assays can vary so comparisons can be wildly inaccurate). Both Th1(CD4+) and cytotoxic (CD8+) T cells were found in almost all of the participants.

Just looking at the data presented there it looks to me that if J&J got near sterilizing protection in macaques with this it wouldn't surprise me if the other front runners could get that as well. The differences being more the vaccine doses and challenge viral doses chosen for each NHP trial (with Oxford maybe going overboard there just a bit with the challenge doses). With that said, phase 3 data will tell us how that correlates to humans and real life situations.

Here is a good summary of most of them:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2798-3

is_that_so

Again not vaccine related but maybe better in this thread than the main one. Proper research into the virus "hanging" in the air and how different environments can affect it.

It is the question scientists around the world are trying to answer: how long can the coronavirus survive in the tiny aerosol particles we exhale? In a high-security lab near Bristol, entered through a series of airlock doors, scientists may be weeks from finding out.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/sep/25/uk-scientists-begin-study-of-how-long-covid-can-survive-in-the-air

mandrake04

Duke of Url wrote: »

Yeah and only an average 2.7 million people died a month with a World population of 1.8 Billion

Different time, majority of deaths were caused more by secondary bacterial pneumonia and this was 10 years before Penicillin. Probably wouldn't be as deadly today.

astrofool

Cordell wrote: »

No, they are only rubberstamped by their governments, which proved multiple times that they cannot be trusted. There is no data to show that they "appear to work" other than official claims that they work.

If the disease had a higher fatality rate, we'd all be taking them already, the (relatively) low fatality rate buys us the time to test properly.

ACitizenErased

Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine produces strong immune response in early trial
https://www.reuters.com/article/health-coronavirus-johnson-johnson-vacci-idUSKCN26G2YC

TonyMaloney

ACitizenErased wrote: »

Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine produces strong immune response in early trial
https://www.reuters.com/article/health-coronavirus-johnson-johnson-vacci-idUSKCN26G2YC

No more tears

ACitizenErased

FINALLY an observational study about Vitamin D.

Vitamin D reduces infection and impact of COVID-19, studies find
https://news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-vitamin-d-reduces-infection-and-impact-of-covid-19-studies-find-12081132

Study link: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0239799

sideswipe

TonyMaloney wrote: »

No more tears

Yourdeadwright....... no more beers;)

ZX7R

Biomed Lublin company have developed a tablet based on the plasma of people recoverd from the virus.
The medicine is too go to full trials in hospitals in Lublin,bytom,bialstok and warsaw at the end of the month.
The effectiveness of the medicine under laboratory tests under taken by professor
Krzysztof pirc from the malopolska center for bio technology in Krakow.
Results were total eradication of the virus

is_that_so

Some research into possible genetic issues and severity of COVID-19. It may have implications for treatments.

Two new studies offer an explanation for why COVID-19 cases can be so variable. A subset of patients has mutations in key immunity genes; other patients have auto-antibodies that target the same components of the immune system. Both circumstances could contribute to severe forms of the disease.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/09/200924141529.htm

CruelSummer

https://news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-half-a-million-sharks-could-be-killed-for-vaccine-experts-warn-12083167

hmmm

CruelSummer wrote: »

https://news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-half-a-million-sharks-could-be-killed-for-vaccine-experts-warn-12083167

Sounds like good news for vaccines - thanks for posting!

"To avoid threatening shark populations, scientists are testing an alternative to squalene - a synthetic version made from fermented sugar cane."

astrofool

CruelSummer wrote: »

https://news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-half-a-million-sharks-could-be-killed-for-vaccine-experts-warn-12083167

Hidden down the bottom is that we harvest 3m sharks a year already, which is something I didn't know (I'm guessing we have shark farms somewhere).

charlie14

astrofool wrote: »

Hidden down the bottom is that we harvest 3m sharks a year already, which is something I didn't know (I'm guessing we have shark farms somewhere).

Dogfish may be included in that 3m ?

is_that_so

astrofool wrote: »

Hidden down the bottom is that we harvest 3m sharks a year already, which is something I didn't know (I'm guessing we have shark farms somewhere).

2017 article from SA about it - actually backing it.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/harvesting-sharks-could-be-key-to-saving-them

4068ac1elhodqr

astrofool wrote: »

Hidden down the bottom is that we harvest 3m sharks a year already, which is something I didn't know (I'm guessing we have shark farms somewhere).

We?
Not sure about that number outside of Iceland {traditional} Japan {cultural or a side effect of whale hunting, mass fishing} and China (mostly medicinal folklore as lucky dried sprinkles), it would be a rare novelty item anywhere else.

Shark meat while tastey once in a blue moon, and has a higher Mercury content than the average cod n' chips, thanks to bioaccumulation. Other toxins may be present e.g. arsenic and lead.

Squalene (used in vaccines, as adjuvants) is commercially extracted shark-liver oil. There is some mixed opinion on it's effectiveness and longer term effects.

hmmm

This thread is super:
https://twitter.com/florian_krammer/status/1310372301314101250

Pauliedragon

I have what seems to be a cold. My GP says I've no need for a covid test as my symtoms aren't enough but my boss says he wants to see a negative test to let me back. How do you go about a private test? How much do they cost? I'm in Cork by the way.

User1998

Tell your GP your symptoms have worsened and have become more covid-like and you’ll get tested

NegativeCreep

https://m.independent.ie/world-news/coronavirus/nasal-spray-could-give-96pc-protection-from-coronavirus-39567304.html

Might’ve already been posted but this would be great!