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

CelticRambler, could you please link to the treatments you mentioned there? I'm perosnally not aware of any mABs currently in production, let alone in use, that would work against SARS-cov-2.

While Remdesivir showed some good indications, it has a very inconclusive effect on death rate and it requires hospitalisation.
Tocilizumab looked like it should help at later stages, in practice it's less than stellar and causes complications with secondary infections.

Interferon looks good in trials, but needs to be given early to have an effect. This requires very rapid testing available to the masses and people injecting themselves with it.

Existing antivirals have a somewhat meager effect for some reason. Favipiravir should have worked better, the Russians are using it, but their death rates are still very high. Japan is using it as well, their numbers look better though.

The best results so far have been from improvements in standard care. Less preassure on vents, not putting on vents in the first place, prone position, CPAP, higher O2 concentrations etc. All of that requires ICU capacity though and smart experienced doctors, both of which are in short supply, hence the severe restrictions on society. This has brought the ICU survival rate from 20% to almost 80%.

With all the above the IFR is still at best 8-10x worse than for any flu out there.

So it's either, or a combination of:

Effective prophylactics (none on the horizon)
Vaccines (in human trials, mixed results for some)
Actually effective treatments (apart from stadard care, not much available, lot of promises though)

To get back to normality without allowing the virus to cull a non-trivial amount of our population.

Hmmzis wrote: »

CelticRambler, could you please link to the treatments you mentioned there? I'm perosnally not aware of any mABs currently in production, let alone in use, that would work against SARS-cov-2.

Will do, later/tonight, when I have time to dig through my references!

In the meantime, you've highlighted an important point in that the very best results (so far) have been achieved by nursing, not medication. This corresponds also to the best control of the outbreak, which is considerably better in "deprived" economies where they had/have very poor access to ICU facilities and millions of individual tests. Greece remains the shining example in Europe of how to manage an epidemic through movement restrictions; and several African nations have shown how testing should be done when you're short of reagents: en masse, not case-by-case for the sake of political gain.

One interview that was posted here the other day made the point that vaccines will be manufactured (with completely independent supply chains) such that different parts of the world (the US being one unit for example) will get it at the same time.

stephenjmcd wrote: »

Another vaccine gone into trial in Australia this time from Novavax. Not sure what they'll learn bar how safe it is seeing as the virus doesn't appear to be prevalent in the country

https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexknapp/2020/05/25/novavax-is-beginning-clinical-trials-of-its-coronavirus-vaccine/

They can do Phase 1 and 2 quite happily in their own country. Phase 3 is the difficult one that really requires active virus circulation.

Novavax got $384m from CEPI, this is another one of the leading candidates. There's apparently 10 vaccines already in human trials, after this the main realistic contenders are probably J&J and Merck. CEPI have funded 9 per this report: https://www.technologynetworks.com/biopharma/product-news/cepi-announces-a-ninth-covid-19-vaccine-development-partnership-334379

"To date, CEPI has provided initial support and funding to Curevac, Inc., Inovio Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Moderna, Inc., Novavax, Inc., The University of Hong Kong, The University of Oxford, The University of Queensland and a consortium led by Institut Pasteur to develop COVID-19 vaccine candidates."

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32412891/

Very small N, could do with a larger trial.

Another interesting study on antibody levels, specifically in mild cases.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/27/french-team-finds-mild-coronavirus-infection-does-lead-to-antibodies

Hmmzis wrote: »

Move over mRNA, repRNA has entered the ring.

Even if this is a pretty awful situation, it's great to see the huge acceleration in medical technologies this is causing - some of these small companies are getting hundreds of millions flung at them. The US Department of Defence were already taking an interest in companies like Moderna in case we ever faced a biological attack, who could create a new vaccine in days if needs be (in theory, if the technology works - and looks like we are about to find out).

I heard an interview with Larry Summers yesterday (famous US economist for those who don't know), and he said that he estimates the US economy is losing 10 billion a day. His argument was that the governments should be funnelling billions into vaccines, testing and treatments, even though most will fail, because saving even a few days of development time would generate such an enormous return.

Is this vaccine in September going to happen?

hmmm wrote: »

I thought the Chinese were testing a monoclonal already? Anyway, in human testing now and Eli are going straight into manufacturing.

https://www.biopharma-reporter.com/Article/2020/06/02/Eli-Lilly-s-COVID-19-antibody-begins-trials

This is good news for a change. All the best to them, hope the results bring a resounding success. We so damn need it.

Another trial looking at repurposing something in common use - Ibuprofen

https://www.bbc.com/news/health-52894638

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/05/27/scott-gottlieb-widespread-coronavirus-vaccinations-in-2020-unlikely.html

"Dr. Scott Gottlieb told CNBC on Wednesday that it is unlikely there will be widespread deployment of a coronavirus vaccine this year.
“I think we’ll have to have one more cycle of this virus in the fall, heading into the winter, before we get to a vaccine,” the former FDA chief said on “Squawk Box.”
“I really think a vaccine is probably a 2021 event, in terms of having wide availability of a vaccine for the general population,” Gottlieb added."

“It’s reasonable to have confidence that we’re going to get a vaccine for this in the foreseeable future,” Gottlieb said, noting some of the positive signs from early trials and that “all the major pharmaceutical companies that can develop vaccines are now in this race.”

ShineOn7 wrote: »

This craic just goes round in more circles every day

ShineOn7 wrote: »

Vid not working

Fixed now thanks.

I cant say I like the arrogance of the we know best brigade ,its not like the so called experts have been batting a 100

https://twitter.com/FatEmperor/status/1268324065187704833

A somewhat limited study but drawing some interesting conclusions on when people test positive.

People with COVID-19 are unlikely to spread the new coronavirus if more than eight days have passed since their symptoms began, according to experiments in monkey cells.

http://doi.org/dw8z

https://www.statnews.com/2020/06/04/astrazeneca-lays-out-plan-for-producing-2-billion-doses-of-covid-19-vaccine-if-it-works/

"The drug giant AstraZeneca said Thursday that it has found partners to manufacture and distribute 2 billion doses of the experimental Covid-19 vaccine created by Oxford University, inking a series of deals with non-government organizations and another manufacturer."

I'm just speculating, but they must be seeing something in the current trial data to give them confidence to start manufacturing in such a large scale.

hmmm wrote: »

Chinese inactivated vaccine showing good results in animal studies
https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(20)30695-4

"Two-dose immunizations using 2 μg/dose of BBIBP-CorV provided highly efficient protection against SARS-CoV-2 intratracheal challenge in rhesus macaques, without detectable antibody-dependent enhancement of infection. In addition, BBIBP-CorV exhibits efficient productivity and good genetic stability for vaccine manufacture. "

Holy antibody titres, those are HIGH for this one! Even the 2ųg dose produced 5x higher titres than ChAdOx. The high dose is 10x that. Full serocoversion after 7 days, that's 2x faster than anything else in trials at this point. If this proves out tolerable in humans, it's a very good oldscool vaccine that's easy to mass produce.