Fundamentally, an effective vaccine is a faithful representation of a part or all of the natural virus. It is administered by an injection, for example, and is absorbed by immune cells, which transport it to lymph nodes around the body. Here, little bits of the absorbed vaccine are shown to many immune cells, such as T-cells and B-cells, and some of these will be activated (if they match those bits of absorbed virus carefully). These cells will quickly multiply, producing antibodies and “memory cells” that can linger in the body for many years.
Later on, if the person is infected by the natural virus, a similar procedure occurs. The virus is absorbed by immune cells and transported to the lymph nodes, where the old memory cells are reactivated. These can quickly multiply and produce antibodies again, to fight off the virus before it can cause disease. Effective vaccines typically do not stop a recipient from being infected altogether, but they prevent a recipient from developing the disease caused by the virus.
Understanding the immune response to a virus can help direct development of the vaccine. In the case of Covid-19, there are several pieces of information we can make use of.
First, the way the virus mutates can tell us whether a vaccine will activate the same memory cells that can destroy the natural virus. If there are many strains of the natural virus, which appear very different to the immune system, the possibility that memory cells from the vaccine can recognise and destroy the virus becomes less likely. Effective vaccines for the coronavirus may be easier to develop than vaccines for many other viruses, because its mutation rate is fairly slow – thanks to special enzymes in coronaviruses (called exoribonucleases), which most viruses don’t have, and which proofread new mutations and fix most of them.
Second, the way the immune system usually responds to the virus can tell us whether the virus can be cleared from the body at all. A pessimistic scenario is one where the virus infects humans, finds cells to target quickly, and uses them to multiply very rapidly in the body, accumulating countless new mutations before immune cells can absorb it and take it to the lymph nodes. That is the case for HIV, which patients cannot clear from their own bodies, and for which a safe and effective vaccine has eluded scientists for decades. Even though there is still a great deal we are learning about the disease, this pessimistic scenario is less likely for Covid-19 because most patients do seem to be able to clear the virus from their body and recover from the disease.
These factors bode well for the prospects of an effective vaccine, but they are not all. We knew much of this in March, so why was it that even in late April, forecasters said there was only a 5% probability that a vaccine would be approved in the US before April 2021, with enough doses to vaccinate 25 million people, but they now believe that probability is 49%?
The fact that forecasts can shift so much so soon is more of a feature of forecasting than a bug. Many events that we forecast depend on whether other events happen, so just as my chances of being hospitalised are far greater if I’ve just fallen off a tree than if it was any random day, the approval of a vaccine becomes more and more likely if the vaccine succeeds in each phase of trials. When unlikely events come true, they make other events that are tied to them more likely.
Happily, the events of the last few months mean we can predict with some more confidence whether the trials will pan out as planned, and if the vaccines will be effective and safe.
Often, large obstacles in vaccine development have come during the undertaking of trials. During phase III trials, participants are randomly given a vaccine or placebo, and researchers note the difference in the chances of disease between the two groups. But that difference would be undetectable if the outbreak was contained or sporadic, because few participants would be exposed to the virus at all.
We now know that is unlikely to be a problem for Covid-19, since the pandemic is still pervasive and participants are being recruited in hotspots around the world as they develop. Many thousands of people have already joined for the phase III trials of many frontrunning vaccines and recruitment is almost complete for Astrazeneca’s trial.
Even if a trial were feasible, though, it’s not guaranteed that a vaccine candidate would be effective or safe. It will be months until we know if the frontrunner vaccines will actually prevent the disease, when results from phase III trials become available. So far, we can only base our predictions on the data that is available from animal research and some phase I and II trials, which tell us whether the vaccines have triggered some immune response and what their side effects were, for a limited demographic.
When it comes to Covid-19 vaccines, some reviewers and experts (such as Hilda Bastian, Florian Krammer and Derek Lowe) have written detailed summaries of the data from phase I and II trials so far, and the results are broadly encouraging. The frontrunner vaccines trigger an immune response, people produce working antibodies and T-cells to them, and don’t exhibit major side effects.
But there are still caveats: these trials were very small, most vaccines required boosters, and mild side effects were common. Since the participants were mostly young and healthy, that could become a problem when the vaccine is then tested in a wider demographic. Fortunately, some vaccines, such as by Pfizer and Moderna, have been tested in elderly people, and they did not show significant side effects. Still, it is difficult to compare the results of phase I and II trials between different vaccines, because the numbers of participants were low and the doses of each vaccine varied in each trial.
But, judging from the results so far, we can rule out some worst-case scenarios: that vaccines wouldn’t trigger any immune response at all, or that they would frequently cause serious side effects. The results so far provide some cautious optimism about the prospects of these vaccines; but squeezing much further interpretation out of this data, which is limited and preliminary, is probably premature.
Having examined all this evidence, how do we put it together to answer the original question: how long will it be until there are enough doses of an approved vaccine for Covid-19 for 25 million people (in the US)?
Useful forecasts tend to not give single specific estimates of when events might occur (such as simply saying they will happen in December), but give a series of predictions. Even though some time periods will be most likely, we would also want to find out when things will occur if not then. So a useful exercise may be to imagine three forecasts – an optimistic timeline, a pessimistic timeline, and in-between “Goldilocks” timeline.
Here’s how those might play out.
In an optimistic timeline, a majority (say 60%) of the early vaccine candidates are on track to succeed. Even though this likelihood is far higher than the average proportion of all trialled drugs that are approved over all phases of trials (around 10%), the biology of the virus and promising results so far suggest that this anchor should be updated. Moreover, the pandemic continues to be pervasive, so a smaller number of participants need to be recruited to detect the effect of a vaccine, and phase III trials take much less time than usual.
So perhaps one or two of the vaccines that started phase III trials very early (Astrazeneca, Pfizer or Moderna) are demonstrated to be safe and effective in key arms of the trials. And owing to demand and perhaps political pressure, they are authorised for emergency use soon after the companies stated they would submit applications (between September and December). Vaccine manufacturers quickly manage to produce tens to hundreds of millions of doses of these vaccines as they have claimed they will have by the end of the year. And the approvals process takes only weeks to a couple of months, because of rolling reviews.
This would place the date that 25 million doses of approved vaccines are available in the US sometime around January 2021. Although not everything went perfectly in this timeline and lots of vaccines failed, most things went well for at least one or two early vaccines. What would happen if they didn’t?
In a pessimistic timeline, only a minority (say 10%) of early vaccine candidates will succeed. It turns out that several of the vaccine candidates show severe side effects in the elderly in phase III trials. A few of the vaccines, alarmingly, also cause rare side effects (in trials or after emergency use authorisation). Pharmaceutical companies and regulators decide to scrutinise vaccine applications for much longer than in the optimistic timeline, and err far more on the side of caution until they are unequivocally shown to be safe.
Simultaneously, there are geopolitical setbacks or disasters that affect manufacturing and transport, or perhaps far larger doses are required than anticipated. Even more unluckily, the vaccines that do eventually get approved turn out to be the ones that are more difficult to manufacture at scale.
This would place the 25 million doses date sometime around June 2021, if not later. Distressingly, lots of things went wrong in this timeline, but they were still somewhat realistic. Fortunately, because so many vaccines were in trials and vaccine funding was at its highest level ever, at least some vaccines succeeded less than two years after the disease was identified, but this was still much later than people had hoped.
Now we should synthesise the two scenarios, but striking a balance between them could be difficult. Perhaps we can pick apart the chances of each of the events in both scenarios to try to figure out the most likely timeline. Here is my thinking:
So far, the speed of trials and dose manufacturing has been much faster than anticipated, the preliminary results are quite promising, there are very many different types of vaccines in trials, and the ongoing pandemic means it will be unusually easy to recruit enough participants into trials. The biology suggests that an effective vaccine is very achievable, the worst-case side effects are likely to be rare, and the urgency has already sped up the approvals procedure. At the same time, low efficacy and mild-to-moderate side effects could be a problem for several of the vaccines in trials, and unforeseen setbacks in manufacturing or approvals will probably occur for some of the vaccines.
My view, then, is somewhere between these scenarios, with the most likely outcome being that vaccines will be approved and available in that quantity around February 2021, given what we know or can estimate so far.
Note that this doesn’t mean it would take until then for the public to receive Covid-19 vaccines. If a vaccine is cleared for emergency use authorisation, it could be prescribed to treat or prevent infections as a sort of experimental drug, before it might be approved.
The chances that no vaccine is approved before 2022 is probably fairly low, given the large number of vaccines in trials, but it also includes scenarios where vaccines would take many years to be approved, because of unforeseen or rare events. All in all, these are the chances that I would place on vaccines becoming approved and available in those large quantities in each time period: before 1 October 2020 (1%), between 1 October 2020 and 31 March 2021 (58%), between 1 April 2021 and 30 September 2021 (32%), between 1 October 2021 and 31 March 2022 (6%), not before 1 April 2022 (3%).
With a concrete set of predictions, then, this finally brings us to the end of the forecast, for the time-being. Events of the coming months, including results from phase III trials, will mean we can revise and refine our predictions; but many questions will remain.
How many vaccines will be approved? How effective will the first-approved vaccines be? Will people need to take boosters or combinations of vaccines? How will the vaccines be distributed? How long will it take to achieve herd immunity with vaccination? How long will it take for the disease to be eradicated globally; and is that even possible in our lifetimes?
The momentous day a vaccine arrives will feel revolutionary – a triumph of modern science over suffering. But with all the questions that remain and all that remains to be done, history suggests that it will be just one more hard-won battle in humanity’s long war against infectious disease.
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SubscribeVaccines have a particularly sensitive role to play – they are not given as a cure where drug side-effects have to be balanced against the disease prognosis, but rather as a preventative and so healthy people are protected.
In CV-19 it becomes even more complex as the age mortality profile is such that a young, healthy person could be more at risk from the vaccine than the disease itself.
Vaccines, as in this case, are often for societal protection reasons and to suppress the virus to protect the vulnerable rather than necessarily protect the person being vaccinated.
Vaccination as a whole has been a great tool in the fight against infectious diseases but, like all pharmaceutical interventions, there is an associated risk and the risk can only be determined on good data and information – any shortcuts that circumvent this will increase the risk
As someone who is well-versed in risk analysis I would in all likelihood take a vaccine but then again I also think the perception of risk associated to Covid based on our current data to be over-estimated.
However, I am not unaware that some people may see the risks of taking a new vaccine being unacceptable whereas some other people see the risk of catching the disease as being unacceptable
Personally, I see the vaccine as being a potential way to help mitigate this virus but in some ways I see it being more of a placebo than actually driving a change to the pandemic itself. Availability, uptake, natural viral immunity etc will possibly mean the direction is already set before it has any great impact on the progress of the disease.
The biggest impact would be if it can be used to protect the ‘at risk’ group as a priority so that they can operate as normally but I would suggest that the people mot clamouring fo it will be those who see it as the ‘passport’ to a more normal life.
Psychologists will be writing books on this whole sorry episode for decades and I am pretty sure that the responses we have seen (once the shock of March/April was over) will not be looked on favourably. A lesson on ‘how not to manage things’……only hope there are any funds left for doing this because I cannot see a way out of this panic any time soon – perhaps we need that placebo just for that!
This is a very astute point, and is really the only justification for the vaccine being given to healthy people. A placebo that could calm down the mass hysteria to the point where we can start dealing with the horrendous recession that hysteria has inflicted on us would be a useful placebo indeed. Although I worry that even that could backfire, by reïnforcing the hysterics’ belief that this must have been a serious threat.
It depends what you mean by ‘serious threat’. My view is that in the UK without lockdown we would have had excess mortality of about 200,000 people this spring and summer (i.e. perhaps 3x what we saw). This would have been an increase of about +30% on the usual annual death rate but many of those affected would have been elderly so the impact statistically on the health of the nation would not have been threatening. We would have been more of an outlier versus the rest of the world (which has taken a different path) but our economy would presumably have been much less drastically impacted. Is that what you mean? Or do you believe that my 200,000 guess is absurdly wrong?
No evidence for excess deaths of that order in countries which did not lockdown – what evidence are you citing? Ferguson has been universally mocked. We have massive excess death becaus non-COVID patients were dumped and ignored.
I’m not sure where your view comes from that the lockdown was so effective. All the data I am seeing shows that the death rates seem to be quite similar in lockdown vs non-lockdown countries. At a broad look, it appears countries will have to continue heavy mitigation efforts until their death rates hit about 500-600 per million. At that point, it seems there is enough herd immunity to break the transmission chain, and slow deaths dramatically. It should also allay all fears of overwhelming hospitals.
I believe your excess deaths guess is absurdly wrong. There is plenty of evidence the virus had peaked in the U.K. a few days BEFORE lockdown. We are on the downward slope now. Hence as we open up most of society the Covid symptom study App is showing continuous daily reductions in users reporting symptoms. This would seem to strongly indicate that case numbers are also dropping by a similar proportion, despite testing saying otherwise. Perhaps as some media are reporting the testing is being more accurately targeted into certain areas.
Regardless there can only be one reason why deaths in both the U.K. and Sweden are now down to single figures or low teens. The reason is we are near achieving herd immunity and a vaccine will be too late to be required. Although I have no doubt various sources will attempt to persuade you otherwise.
Anyone who says , in circumstances like these where there is little certain information , that “there can only be one reason” is an entirely unreliable source.
Agree completely. Those sceptical might wish to example the shape of the daily deaths vs time curves in all heavily infected countries: they’re remarkably similar. This is because this is a natural process of a new infectious agent approaching equilibrium with its human host. The curves expressed as % total deaths vs time take the form of what are called Gompertz type equations, which to biological scientists (I’m one) scream ‘natural process’. They is no sign in any of these curves of human intervention- which would show up as a discontinuity or a kink – in any of them. I am of the view that none of the non pharmacological interventions was particularly effective.
In view of the herd immunity being the only explanation that fits all the data then I believe it’s unlikely we’ll see substantial additional outbreaks in U.K.. I can see that if winter cold weather was to increase R0, we could see more infections & (a few) more deaths before reaching an elevated herd immunity threshold. Obviously I and others could be wrong about all this. Lots more research will prob inform us, but much later.
Wow. Japan or Sweden?
“Or do you believe that my 200,000 guess is absurdly wrong?” Yes, and absurdly stupid. Try looking at the data before posting such unintelligent dross.
Why so brusque? He is giving us his pov. It has created some interesting responses.
Yes, there is literally no reason to believe it given what we know of other countries that did not implement a UK-style lockdown. You are also presumably using the nonsense official figures as a baseline, even though they include anyone who got Covid in February then got knocked over by a car in June.
I personally do not believe your excess death figure would be absurdly wrong if made around February time. I guessed anywhere between 16000 and 120000, but would not have been surprised at 4000 to 200000.
I think, in retrospect it is demonstrably wrong though. Check out San Marino which got hit before they had time to react, and is small enough to assume to have been overwhelmed. Roughly 1200 deaths per million, and hasn’t shifted for many months now. We’d have to assume almost treble that (3333/million) to reach a figure of 200,000 confirmed deaths. No-one has got anywhere near that figure, not even New Jersey (1600/million), and they were overwhelmed. If 200,000 excess deaths is 150,000 confirmed deaths we are still looking at doubling the maximum.
I don’t think double the worst case is absurd, but I don’t think it’s reasonable either.
I suspect, if we had done nothing we’d have reached 100,000 deaths, but that simple handwashing and voluntary working from home may have brought us very little higher than the figure we are at today. Remember the real breakthrough (dexamethasone) didn’t arrive until June.
By the way, I don’t see any necessity for people marking down people’s cogent, and polite replies in a forum, just because they dislike them. Especially replies like yours which are clearly open for debate. So I marked you up, even though I disagree with your analysis. You made an analysis, it stimulated debate, and that’s good enough for me.
Absurdly, wildly, wrong. Perhaps you should apply for a job with Professor, Neil Ferguson, (remember that guy who was instrumental in getting us all locked down, while humping his friends wife on the side? The guy who’s idea of “social distancing” seemed to be about 4 inches.)
That 4 inches would be negative distancing I guess 🙂
Comparative studies of places that didn’t have strict lockdowns, or any at all (eg. Sweden) simply don’t justify your belief that lockdowns actually were the cause of hundreds of thousands of saved lives in any sense (even if it lessened Covid deaths by a small margin, other deaths from neglected other illnesses were greater). Such projections as we had at the start of all this based on flawed mathematical modelling, were grossly overstated to begin with. Mathematical models predicted deaths by now in Sweden of about 50 times or so higher than they are in reality. Great models eh?
Thank you everybody for your comments and I am not in the least bit offended. People are welcome to mark my comment down or disparage my unintelligent dross. It is going to be fascinating to figure out over the next few years what happened and I am sure we will get to a good understanding eventually. In the meantime, I think we are all getting used to listening respectfully to each others’ ideas in this new goldfish bowl we live in now.
People gave me many different reasons here (for which thank you) why a 200,000 figure is absurdly wrong. Probably the single loudest argument is that no other country fared much worse than the UK, so it is unlikely that the UK could have fared any worse than it did.
This seems to be a cogent but depressing argument as it suggests we held on from doing anything useful too late to prevent a large number of deaths and then trashed our economy to no purpose. A classic case of shutting the stable door long after the horse had bolted.
My personal guess is still that there was a little way to go before lockdown was a waste of time – about 3x which by my reckoning is equivalent to another 5 days delay (let’s say a lockdown on the 30th March) – but as other people argue here that could easily be wrong and we had already saturated our country with the virus.
Either way, I think we are all agreed that we delayed until we were either close to the point or had reached the point where lockdown was a waste of time.
Yours in among the most graceful of responses as well as a good read. Thank you.
I’m stealing this quote, as it really is telling: ” Probably the single loudest argument is that no other country fared much worse than the UK, so it is unlikely that the UK could have fared any worse than it did”.
Furthermore, I do not believe the U.K. population could support an expanding outbreak of covid19 now, for the same reason it has waned & pretty much vanished.
So why is there ‘a race for a vaccine’?
1. The race began before it was possible to see the finishing line.
2. Many people don’t accept what I’ve deduced.
I don’t blame them. It’s pieces together from disparate sets of information. While to me it’s obvious now where we stand I’m humble enough to appreciate that I might be completely wrong. It’s common even for complex outcomes to have multiple plausible paths. That I can’t find a different one than that we’ve arrived at a herd immunity threshold doesn’t mean there isn’t another.
Flowing from 2, lots of people assume that we remain at exactly the same population risk as we were in during 1Q2020.
There is no evidence for that whatsoever. Countries and States that did not lock down have not suffered higher mortality rates. However, if 200,000 did suffer fataly, that still is not sufficient reason to smash the economy and trample upon peoples human,civil or religeous rights. The suffering to come from the depressed economy will cause far higher mortality rates than from Covid.
Philip, thank you for your comment. I agree that the UK managed to suffer roughly the highest mortality rate in the world and to trash its economy. In short, the government’s strategy went badly wrong. Personally, I think there were two viable strategies: (i) “herd immunity” – manage the outbreak with moderate social distancing measures and accept the resulting morbidity and mortality (a.k.a. the Swedish model); or (ii) “trace-and-eliminate” – use aggressive isolation measures early to eliminate the virus (a.k.a. the New Zealand model). Either strategy was viable. The UK government stumbled into a disastrous mix of the less appealing features of the two approaches. This is one of those cases where you had to go one way or another – trying to navigate between the two extremes (partly in order to appease advocates on each side) led to a worse outcome than either end.
I agree those were the theoretical alternatives (& all variants between).
In practise, any shot at (ii) would have required a NZ type border closure which started in early Feb at the latest. I believe we suffered so badly because we were very heavily infected long before we seriously thought of border closures. I don’t think we could ever have dodged this bullet.
Jeremy, it is interesting to read your suggestions why the UK suffered so badly in spite of lockdown. Why do you think the US has suffered as badly and continues to have increasing numbers?
“My view is that in the UK without lockdown we would have had excess mortality of about 200,000”
Well my view is that lockdown was pointless. Sensible social distancing, handwashing, keeping the elderly and vulnerable safe would have been enough.
In turn, I believe that the number of deaths we’ve had in U.K. is the number required (by infection of between 10 & 20 million) to reduce the size of the remaining susceptible population to a level insufficient to maintain an epidemic. Evidence for that comes from comparisons of population fatality, which at approx 0.05%, is similar to a number of other, heavily infected countries.
Put another way, it couldn’t have been significantly more.
Lockdown has been shown not to have played any role in turning a rapidly expanding infection into one in steady decline. The described event happened entirely before lockdown commenced. Prof Whitty accepts that peak infection rate was behind us by lockdown, as his recorded testimony to the select committee.
Nobody talks about Uruguay, never in lockdown, dry border with brasil, 13 Deaths/1M pop.
Simple because it doesn’t much the official narrative and proves that the governments were embarrassingly wrong.
Lockdown does NOT make the difference
If there are any vaccine side effects, they could set off a counter hysteria and discourage vaccine take-up. We could end up with a war of the hysteria narratives.
I see. So parents should refuse the MMR jab.
Clot
Point me to where I said that and I’ll give you a hundred pounds.
You said that vaccination was only justified as a placebo to calm hysteria.
Double clot.
No, I said the coronavirus vaccine, that is, the vaccine under discussion, was only justified as a placebo. I didn’t even mention other vaccines, which are generally well-researched, only allowed into circulation after extensive testing, and targeted at serious diseases that merit vaccination.
I repeat, show me where I criticised the MMR vaccine”hell, show me where I had even *mentioned* the MMR vaccine in this thread”and I will give you a hundred pounds. HINT: You’re not going to find such a reference, because you invented it.
There is no covid vaccine yet, so you cannot know anything about it, and I don’t believe you know anything about vaccines at all.
Triple clot.
Excellent post. Absolutely spot on with the observation that people (including, it seems, the author) view a vaccine as a ‘passport to normal life’.
According to Euromomo the deaths across 25 European countries in weeks 1-18 of 2020 was 185k. In the 2018 flu season it was 110k. There was a flu vaccine in 2018.
Nb. Deaths have been in normal ranges since the end of week 18 this year
Indeed, and they still are, everywhere in EuroMOMO.
>> but in some ways I see it being more of a placebo than actually driving a change to the pandemic itself
Nice observation. The most scared people, “control freaks”, if you like will welcome the vaccination, and start behaving normally again. Maybe next time the authorities could rush out a batch of saline after 3 months and vaccinate with that.
Unfortunately you can’t patent a saline solution.
Interesting points. Perhaps the main difference between a working vaccine and a placebo is that it will hopefully also limit and eventually prevent transmission of covid-19 in the community. People will not only feel safer (as people going on holiday reportedly have done even when going to hotspot locations) but the elderly and others susceptible to the virus will also be safer.
I know the difference between a placebo and a pharmaceutically active material
The concept though of a placebo is that it has a psychological impact rather than a direct physical one.
Yes, the vaccine will play a role (if it works and is safe) in minimising the risk to vulnerable people – similar to how the flu one works at the moment
The challenge I see though is if the vaccine really going to be a game changer in the near future in minimising the risks posed by the virus and consequent disease
There is the timing of release, availability of the vaccine, the uptake etc may mean that it comes (like the 68 flu pandemic flu) too late to make a material difference as the virus will already have been through the population. Then there will be the clamour of those who want to have it but who should not be a prioirty
CV-19 is probably here to stay for the next years and so those of us <50 years old with no co-morbidities should not expect to be in the 1st wave of vaccinations – the focus should be on the vulnerable
In fact what would in reality happen is that most people would remain unvaccinated for a pretty long time and would we still continue the lockdown mania until all are vaccinated
We need to stop seeing the vaccine as an end in its own right – it is a means to an end but it is nothing to solve all the problems.
The biggest problem now is fear but no-one seems to be trying to cure that aspect
A problem with ‘a focus on the vulnerable’ is that ‘the vulnerable’ mostly means ‘the elderly’. But since most vaccines — and all the covid-19 ones I have read about — work by stimulating the immune system of the vaccinated people to produce antibodies, you need a working immune system for the vaccination to produce an effect. Unfortunately, your immune system is one of the things that declines with age, which is why the seasonal flu vaccine is less effective for the elderly — many elderly people get vaccinated and get the flu anyway, because the antibody production just isn’t there. This will lead to demands that we vaccinate the grandchildren to protect grandmama
yes I have seen that argument made before and it is a difficult one – I would still maintain that a universal vaccination with a fast-tracked vaccine is unwise and targeted makes more sense.
I can see this being the argument of 2021 and it will not be pleasant
I was just warning you that this was a likely future argument, not arguing that universal vaccination with a fast tracked vaccine is a good idea. I’m in the ‘but we made that mistake with Pandemrix over swine flu in 2010, haven’t we learned from that mistake’ cohort, myself.
You raise a good point. It worried me a little so I tried to find out a bit more a few weeks ago. All I could glean was that vaccines can be live or not. The former are stronger but might create the sort of thing you are referring to in say older people. The not-live ones don’t do this but you need booster jabs. Most flu jabs for over 65s are of this variety which might be partly the reason you need one every year?
I’m just assuming the clever scientists are all aware of this and working accordingly.
The reason you need flu jabs every year is that the flu virus mutates quickly enough that the flu you get this year is not recognised by the shot you got last year. So, twice a year — in February for the selection of the upcoming Northern Hemisphere’s seasonal
influenza vaccine and in September for the Southern Hemisphere’s vaccine — the WHO meets, and decides based on what is circulating at the time, which viruses are likely to be the flu for the coming year. Then they make a vaccine effective for them. If they get it wrong, and this has happened, the flu shot doesn’t work and lots of people get sick because the viruses they catch aren’t the ones being targeted.
The old people have a different problem. There are many cells that people have to fight infections, and one of them is known as ‘the B cell’. B cells get blunted over time. Between the age of 50-70 your B cell response declines and after age 70 it tends to fall right off the cliff.
see: “Influenza Virus Vaccination Elicits Poorly Adapted B Cell Responses in Elderly Individuals” in the scientific publication Cell Host and Microbe March 2019.
Sounds knowledgable. Are the experts betting on B cell response being the main response to Coronavirus? Or has that theory been shot down, or don’t we have much informaton on that?
I don’t know all the vaccine candidates and how they all are supposed to work, but some of them, at any rate are absolutely trying for a great B cell response. And maybe the Moderna one got it, which would be great. Of course, that’s only the first part. ‘This vaccine causes you to make a ton of B cells …. none of which recognise the real virus when it meets it’ is a problem other vaccine candidates for other diseases have had in the past. It’s part of why the making of vaccines that work is so difficult.
Thanks! The more general knowledge that the public has about vaccines and vaccine development the better.
The evidence such as exists suggests, to me anyway, that T cell memory responses are pivotal in immune recognition of coronaviruses. In the case of SARS (2003) those who survived it still have vigorous T cell responses.
Moderna just published data showing good immune responses for their vaccine candidate in their elderly cohorts so keeping fingers crossed on this one.
Good news indeed!
Good point Laura
Agreed.
Yes, fear, but that’s a result of hysterical & downright incorrect reporting. Listening to folk like Fergus Walsh, one is forgiven for thinking there haven’t been hundreds of really good scientific papers published & the Internet to bring them to the prepared mind. He certainly hasn’t read any of them.
Problem is, we appear to have decided that it’s wholly unnecessary to have any science training into order to hold the role of science or medical correspondent. Well, this is what flows from that decision. Cheers, BBC.
Good news.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/…
Fergus Walsh has repeated Carl Heneghan’s assessment. This is a huge change in tack. He’s still being cautious (he’s not going to risk his career) but even asking the question “Is this all over” is huge.
He has even posed some evidence that it might be all over. That’s really big, even if he is sitting on the fence.
If he says “It seems to be over but we can’t be sure” for 6 more months people will wake up.
This is a very stupid reason for giving a vaccine – having scared people that they can’t manage without (and dishonest). These vaccines will carry huge risk given minimal development time, and none actually will be tested against genuine placebo.
calm down – it is very unlikely that this is the reason for the response to this; the idea that this is all a conspiracy to force vaccines is pretty far-fetched
The efficacy and focus on a vaccine on the management of the pandemic is questionable to say the least, although it may have a role to play in the management of a future endemic disease or, depending on the virus, local eliminations
Incredible sums of money have, of course, changed hands. The British government is committed to the purchase of 100s of millions of rounds of the front runners should they make it to the market, and who is going to pay, will it be Bill Gates, will it be Boris Johnson – no, it will be the already broken taxpayers. Oddly enough with the swine flu it was the British public who got it right: the DH ordered 132m rounds (2 goes for everyone) and only managed to foist 6m off (presumably mostly on people who were in some way captive).
I agree. Unfortunately, the reason that a vaccine is so popular, is that politicians are seeing it as a way of throwing money at the problem. Since good fiscal policy became unfashionable some time in 2007, they are substituting money for tough sensibleness in the face of an unknown threat.
I suspect Boris might change tack after the kids are back at school for a month and no disaster was forthcoming. Without the fear of a battle with the unions over “Kid’s safety” hanging over him, he maybe, just maybe, will argue that it is time for normality to resume.
Unfortunately I suspect that this episode is allowing him to negotiate Brexit with no-one looking over his shoulder, which suits him nicely. The media aren’t going to change tack on this one until maybe Christmas, starting with Piers Morgan, because he was so pro-lockdown at the start, and has no shame at a volte-face if it gets him viewers.
So although it is the government’s job to point out to the graph-illiterate public what is plain to anyone who reads the ONS figures, I suspect they aren’t going to do it, certainly until their hand is forced by the media.
Absurd. The nightmare will NEVER end if the goal is vaccination. There will be more viruses, and this one in particular has provided a wake up call for us to regain our health to bolster our natural immune system.
The nightmare is only prolonged by such inane thinking that the nightmare is the virus”it’s the fear that has gripped the world and that much of the world has not yet escaped.
“Psychologists will be writing books on this whole sorry episode for decades and I am pretty sure that the responses we have seen (once the shock of March/April was over) will not be looked on favourably. A lesson on ‘how not to manage things’……only hope there are any funds left for doing this because I cannot see a way out of this panic any time soon – perhaps we need that placebo just for that!”
Sage words, and this perfectly mirrors what I think, for what it’s worth. I strongly suspect that historians writing about the “COVID days” will invariably ask, “How did so much go into so little?” or “Why did they do all that?”
Societies succumbed to a herd mentality – in my view, a result of “social network thinking” (mob thinking, really) spilling over into real life.
Maybe I am missing something, but it’s hard for me to see why exposure to an attenuated virus or virus fragment is a greater risk to anyone than exposure, with a naive immune system, to the virus itself.
The only difference would seem to be that the vaccine guarantees exposure but one might by chance avoid exposure to the virus itself. As time goes go, I suppose this is possible, but only by virtue of vaccine stimulated herd immunity, which is rather selfish.
As regards young people, I find it unlikely that a vaccine would be recommended for them by approval agencies in the various countries which on a risk-adjusted basis is more dangerous for them than their chances when catching the disease. Theoretically, it’s a reasonable point tomake, but practically, it’s not likely to be relevant. Genuine vaccine adverse events (as opposed to made-up ones of the Wakefield variety) are very rare, of the order of the occurrence of Kawasaki syndrome.
Andrew you don’t know what it’s like to watch your child vaccine injured and collapse in front your your eyes. Many people are impaired by vaccine which only show up much later in life after additional viral ad pathological assaults. Until they understand individual genetics and the response to a particular vaccine they are playing with fire. One size does not fit all.
The reason it takes a very long time to develop vaccines is primarily because of rigorous safety testing, not the technical difficulties.
What’s missing from this article is a critical look at why suddenly testing for long term side effects are deemed not necessary this time (yet producers demand indemnification because they simply cannot take the risk of adverse effects). Here is an actual quote from an Astra Zenica rep. (Source: Reuters)
“This is a unique situation where we as a company simply cannot take the risk if in … four years the vaccine is showing side effects,” Ruud Dobber, a member of Astra’s senior executive team, told Reuters.
Does this make you feel very confident about the vaccine safety? would you give it to your kids?
Besides, an article about COV SARS2 vaccine without a mention of the words “mRNA” or “adenoviral vectors” is not really taking a critical look at how these vaccines are different – and to be sure, the leading candidates like Moderna’s are experimental, make no mistake about that fact.
Put it another way: COV SARS2 has consistently proven to be less deadly than assumed (the conservative CDC operates with an IFR of around 0.26%, many independent studies less, particularly for lower age-bands), so please convince me why I, as a health individual, should accept the risk of taking a highly experimental, basically untested (in terms of long-term side effects) vaccine for a disease that is essentially somewhat more serious than influenza – but not really that much and certainly not for young people like myself? I also don’t understand why it’s suddenly OK to roll out a type of immunization technology which has never before been commercialized for human use, with all the implications about safety this implies.
I’m personally going to treat this with even more healthy skepticism than the annual flu shot – I don’t need it, and i am more than happy to pass my dose on to the frail and elderly who might need it and where the benefits clearly outweigh the considerable risks.
Bob, you say “i am more than happy to pass my dose on to the frail and elderly who might need it”. But they’re already admitting a “Covid-19 vaccine may not work for at-risk older people”, look up the Guardian article with that title.
So they’re planning to vaccinate others around the older people, such as children, and I dare say medical staff too. In fact, Bill Gates, who is unaccountably leading the ‘race for coronavirus vaccines’, wants to vaccinate the global population.
And it also came out in the Guardian article that they’re already vaccinating children against flu to protect the elderly.
It’s appalling to consider the vaccine load that children are already carrying now, it’s grown out of sight since I was a kid (born 1959), have a look at the schedule and see the array of shots, including multiple vaccines in the 6 in 1, and all the others.
Problem is, vaccination policy has been colonised by the vaccine industry, and would it surprise you to discover that the lead investigator on the Oxford coronavirus vaccine, Andrew Pollard, is also the Chair of the UK Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation, which recommends what goes on the schedule.
Vaccination policy is a conflicted mess, including in Australia where I live, and where early childhood vaccination is mandatory to access benefits and childcare. Many would support children’s vaccination of course, but they don’t know how many vaccines and revaccinations children are receiving now, and emerging problems.
FYI, also see my rapid response published on The BMJ: Is it ethical to vaccinate children to protect the elderly? 5 August 2020
Excellent summary of the situation. Japan does not begin vaccination of children until they are at leat 2 years old. And they have the lowest incidence of Sudden Infant Death syndrome in the world. And during lockdown worldwide, the incidence of Sudden Infant Death Sydrome fell off a cliff, falling by around 90%. Why? One possible reason, mothers could not get to clinics to have their infants vaccinated.
Have you got a reference for that? Would be interesting. Couldn’t find anything on the internet.
https://childrenshealthdefe…
It probably doesn’t exist. Same with problems relating to “vaccine load”. The existence of this “problem” is a common misconception regarding immunisation – it is top of the WHO’s list of common misconceptions. Concern over this illusory problem is a classic anti-vaxxer badge.
Off the top of your head Andrew M, can you name all the vaccinations, including vaccine combinations, and revaccinations on your country’s vaccine schedule? Have you had all these vaccines?
Of course I can’t – what a ridiculous question. However, I could look it up on the internet. From memory – diptheria, polio, tetanus, not MMR (too old), smallpox (I’m old enough). I’ve actually had measles – it was horrible. As to being up to date, yes, I’ve had all the ones recommended, plus some voluntary ones such as Hep A, typhoid fever and influenza. As I get older, I shall make a point of getting the pneumonia and shingles jabs.
Why is it a ridiculous question?
It’s more ridiculous you’re discounting possible negative consequences from the vaccine load, when you haven’t even bothered to check the composition of the vaccine load.
Andrew you need to wake up.
What a ridiculous comment. You think I type in my sleep?
It’s not outrageous to vaccinate kids against flu. This is because flu kills a score of kids each week across Europe in the winter flu season.
This argument cannot be made for covid19.
Michael, have you read my BMJ rapid response, which I mentioned in my response to Bob? It can be found on the internet via this title – Is it ethical to vaccinate children to protect the elderly?
No, it isn’t. But I would see it as mainly to protect children from rare serious illness & rarer deaths. It’s uncommon but protecting kids from a low but real risk of death seems not unreasonable. Now, if we should learn that the risk/benefit is way off, we should not do this.
My kids are young adults with preschool kids themselves.
I would advocate they diligence the choices before making that choice. It’s not legally required in U.K., long may that remain.
> COV SARS2 has consistently proven to be less deadly than assumed (the conservative CDC operates with an IFR of around 0.26%, many independent studies less, particularly for lower age-bands)
https://www.cdc.gov/coronav… does not mention 0.26% anywhere, what is your source for this? Their current best estimate (scenario 5) is 0.0065 i.e. 0.65%.
>>> I also don’t understand why it’s suddenly OK to roll out a type of
immunization technology which has never before been commercialized for
human use…
It’s not right, its opportunistic.
The nightmare will end when people, politicians, and media wake up. The virus itself is already fading, deaths are in steep decline, as are hospitalizations, and herd immunity is approaching, if not already achieved, in most places. The obsessive focus on the “need” for a vaccine for a rather mundane respiratory virus with an IFR in the range of flu is grossly misplaced, and is basically part of a Big Pharma con job (with the connivance of media and politicians). Most vaccines take at least 5 to 15 years to produce, yet we’re supposed to believe that a reliable and safe vaccine for this can be ready in a 12-18 months? And people want to still put all life on hold until then and act like zombies running around in face diapers out of paranoia over a virus barely worse than flu?
Especially insidious is the idea many are pushing of forcing people to take a vaccine that has been rushed to market without proper safety testing, long term effects studies, etc., while governments around the world are indemnifying Big Pharma against any lawsuits for illness or side effects from their rushed drug cocktails. By the time any such vaccine gets to market anyway, herd immunity will have been achieved for this virus, and it will be no more serious than annual flu or cold season.
This whole thing has been, and still is, driven by politics and media fear-mongering. Wake up people!!
Spot on
Worldometer shows the reality. The deaths are falling everywhere as a percentage of confirmed cases. It seems to have peaked in Europe in April .
And Karl Friston’s paper https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv… has an interesting theory.
Second waves with very low deaths are caused by a gradual loss of immunity leading to second infections. This conclusion also implies he was right inferring that we had reached herd-immunity after the first wave, and I imagine that this implies that deaths will never reach the peaks we have seen before in countries which have had first waves.
Let’s reconsider this in 4 weeks when the accuracy of his prediction for the France second wave (a prediction made in June!) comes to pass. He predicts peak deaths at 28th of September and 74 deaths/day. That means the case spike should have peaked around a fortnight earlier.
From my own understanding of the maths, only second infections can explain a long tail of cases, whilst simultaneously deaths are falling. I didn’t believe that second infections would happen, but I seem to have been wrong.
I’m very impressed that K. Friston nails his colours to the mast with his predictions. I suspect he is angling for his models to be used for the next epidemic, and is wisely biding his time.
I agree Dennis – except that this virus is highly contagious and depending on one’s individual resilience and genetics it can be more fatal than seasonal flu.
I suspect that Boris is trying to fight his battles one-by-one. He has to get the kids back to school first.
He probably thought that masks would help the economy (a mistake – see Amsterdam) or that if he became embroiled in an argument about masks people might assume he was an idealist, and not a pragmatist, and wouldn’t trust his judgement on schools.
The end of September will be a very interesting time, we’ll be able to assess whether sending children back to school caused a spike in cases. In all likelihood it won’t. We’ll also be at peak deaths for France’s second wave, with cases having fallen for two weeks.
Now is the time for the internet to be preparing the public for the idea “assess at the end of September”, people have to be prepared to accept new ideas. Even the idea of reassessment is alien to most people, who believe that an idea once right is right.
Should we have a long hard look at the end of September? Who could argue with that? Ranting about the evidence, no matter how good, on the first of October will be too late. In my experience people will only hit the snooze button if you try to wake them up to fast.
France doesn’t have even the slightest hint of a second wave of deaths. Lots of “cases”, all without symptoms. Even young people often get some symptoms. Not this time. That’s because the test positives are false positives.
Examine http://www.EuroMOMO.eu and find France. Deaths are lower than usual, at all age bands.
Stop saying this as if it’s a good thing. This is not a breezy cutting-through of unnecessary red tape. It is not “anti-vaxx” to have a healthy respect for the rigorous trial and safety procedures that have been put in place to protect patients from unsafe and ineffective medical interventions. Releasing unsafe medical treatments into the world is a matter of life and death. It has happened countless times before (I myself worked on patient research relating to a killer medicine) and it will happen again.
But this would be worse than any before because so many governments and so-called philanthropists are lining up to enforce compulsory injections of these insufficiently tested vaccines. It’s the world’s biggest ever class action lawsuit waiting to happen.
Maybe you could point me to some good evidence on the numbers of people killed or whose health has been seriously affected by inadequately tested or regulated vaccines? Or the ‘killer medicine’ you mention? I ask with some scepticism, but I am willing to have my mind changed.
thalidomide
That was a terrible thing. However thalidomide wasn’t a vaccine and the testing of it took place rather poorly in the 1950s.
In Sweden and Finland parents were told to vaccinate their children with the a new Swine Flu vaccine — Pandemrix, an adjuvanted influenza A (H1N1) 2009 monovalent vaccine manufactured by GlaxoSmithKline — in 2010. It caused narcolepsy in some children. I have had problems linking reports to unherd — apparently some software treats links as advertising spam or some sort. But google up “Statement on narcolepsy and vaccination” from the WHO.
After looking I see that the UK got some of this vaccine, too, after minimal testing, and GSK were indemnified by the UK government. I just knew about the Swedish problem, because that is where I live.
The British government got off lightly in 2009 because almost no one wanted to have anything to do with the vaccine. Only 6m rounds were used when the government ordered 132m. The big error of Gates and the industry is that when they do this they expose what a racket vaccines are.
The medicine that I personally had professional involvement with was natalizumab, which causes progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy.
It’s not a vaccine. Also , it doesn’t “cause” that condition; a tiny number of people have sufered it compared to a large number who have benefited from receiving the drug. If we required drugs to show zero side effects before they were allowed to be marketed, we would have none, not even basic antibiotics and anasthetices.
You know it is remarkable how often in the vaccine debate the programme advocates when pressed on details fall back to the position of net rather than overwhelming benefit: the work of Aaby and Benn is particularly instructive.
I never said I worked on a vaccine, did I? It would be an astonishingly naïve and negligent abdication of rationality to think that vaccines are sui generis within healthcare, that pharma industry practices that apply to every other branch of medicine are somehow exempted for vaccines.
As for natalizumab, it really does cause PML. It’s primarily a result of an interaction with residual levels of interferon beta (probably only 1a, i.e. Avonex and Rebif). The company withdrew it, then relaunched it under a different brand name to side-step the bad publicity. And PML isn’t just some minor side effect like a headache or a runny nose. It literally dissolves your brain.
Look, if you’re going to suddenly announce that you coincidentally happened to also work on the same drug as I did, fine, but otherwise I suggest you accept that I know more about this drug than your hasty Googling will come up with.
Then if you’re so smart, please quantify the benefits of the drug as against the side effects.
But really, what has it do to with vaccines anyway?
How much money would you accept as compensation for you or your child to be harmed so that others might benefit?
the 2009 swine flu is an example but you also have to say that most vaccines go through a full testing programme prior to use and we don’t have many that have been approved in a year or so
in this case we would look to vaccinate (if the claims are not massively overblown) prettifying much the whole world population over the next few years…..over 7 billion people
Doesn’t take much of an adverse rate to make a big impact, much worse than CV-19 would have
The decisions will need to be made in the full light of scrutiny but this may not make such great reading, especially seeing one of the lessons of Covid is that the general population as well as many politicians and scientists have very little understanding of risk
No it takes a huge adverse rate. A vaccine would not be approved
if a small fraction of a per cent of recipients were harmed. SARS-COV-2 is estimated to kill (by the WHO) 0.68% of sufferers and do long term damage to many more. The 0.68% will come down as treatments and therapeutics improve, but this is many times the potential damage from an approved vaccine.
How about Bexsero Men B Vaccine? The PIL which few parents see mentions a huge range of unpleasant side effects including Kawasaki Disease in one in one thousand doses (a British infant gets three).
You are misconstruing. PIL’s give side-effects in occurrence categories. The lowest is “rare” meaning “up to 1 in 1000”. This does not mean that 1 in 1000 siffer the side effect. It could be 1 in 10,000, or 1 in 1,000.000. Suggest you get some real data on this if it concerns you.
The assumption is that 0.68% is all people exposed to Covid but it is an estimate (probably a poor one knowing WHO) of the IFR but is probably more related to the CFR. The IFR is really difficult to estimate as we don’t know the denominator. The initial models assumed high susceptibility in the population which do not seem to be backed up in the subsequent data
You have no data on the ‘long-term damage’ either I bet – just anecdote and small studies. This is the last resort argument and shows someone is losing when you have to resort to ill-defined and unquantifiable anecdote
For a vaccine you are looking to compare with the Population Fatality Rate as you would, I assume, intend to vaccinate whole populations (for me vaccinating the vulnerable would be a better bet but cannot see that happening in the current climate)
If that is the case then the adverse impact from a vaccine can be at a low level but affect a lot of people.
With most vaccines there has been extensive safety testing and data built up over many years – he we are talking about a rushed vaccine and one that may be based on brand-new technology – even the companies making it seem to be protecting themselves from adverse reactions similar to the 2009 swine flu example
Not saying vaccines do not have a role to play but we should not hide away from the potential risks of widespread, population vaccination too
Losing? What am I losing? You think I’m in some competition here? No-one has any clear idea of long term damage – don’t be ridiculous. Until there has actually been a long-term, how would we? What is crystal clear though is that death is not the only negative effect – survivors can have some issues too.
I’m not clear what your point is tbh.
The point is that you have to have more than an assertion that it does ‘long-term damage to many more’ without any quantification of many…..the metrics used to determine the overall outcomes of this virus are changing regularly and lack consistency
We had the Kawasaki Syndrome assertions early on, and now it is the ‘ground glass’ and ME-type effects that are also known for serious cases of other viral diseases
Sridhar asserted in her interview ‘100s of young people having cardiac arrests’ again with no evidence
This is not benign, these arguments are being used to close down whole areas of our society
We are no longer fighting the viral pandemic of March/April, it has moved on but our thinking hasn’t – case numbers (actually infections and possibly not even active ones) compared to a time where only people who were actually ill could get tests – and not even all them – to a point now where we are into mass testing of asymptomatics
The whole management of this is becoming farcical – and yes we need to monitor the effects on people who have been seriously affected by this virus to understand it more but we should have some quantification of that now surely but I have seen none.
Is it ridiculous to ask you to back up your claims with anything resembling solid, scaleable data?
“It’s the world’s biggest ever class action lawsuit waiting to happen.”
It should be, except governments everywhere are rushing to indemnify Big Pharma from any harm caused by such rushed and unsafe products (they’ve don this in the past for some drugs too, dancing to the tune of Big Pharma lobbyists). You won’t be able to sue, and millions will suffer lasting side effects or death for years as a result, while Big Pharma rakes in tens of billions of dollars.
I’m not against all vaccinations, especially those that basically mimic natural immune processes and for certain childhood diseases, but this proposed Covid vaccine, and many others in the modern vax regimes of the last 20-30 years, are a con job designed only to enrich Big Pharma.
I did read somewhere AstraZeneca saying they would not be profiting from the covid vaccine. They will merely seek to cover their costs.
Where I believe they will benefit is by the creation of processes to enable rapid manufacture and distribution of the vaccine. This has all been funded by governments. This capability will be extremely useful in manufacture and distribution of new drugs … which in a way will benefit us all. AstraZeneca has a number of very interesting cancer drugs in the pipeline.
I’m no expert, but because I own AZ shares (as well as some GSK) I keep my eyes peeled for any news items and am merely relaying what I have read.
Do we really need a vaccine?
Ditto, see my response below to Nathan Coombs.
Absolutely not
The evidence clearly suggests not.
That is a good question but why not concentrate on treating people that have early signs of the virus as soon as they are admitted to Hospital. The Gold standard UK trials conducted here in the UK were an absolute disgrace. There are major new treatments out there and trials have been very positive with people recovering and leaving Hospital on average~ 6 days. Perhaps our Medical establishment should do some research . BTW these treatments are already safety approved for Humans.
At any inquiry that looks halfway independent this should be a key question. Why did the NHS fail to treat people early on?
No way on gods earth do we – the whole debacle just continues to appear more and more sinister.
As others have said, why oh why does our media class not do it’s job and ask the questions that desperately need to be asked? The answer must be vested interests, whether that’s political or financial
Why is no one mentioning the benefits of a healthy immune system and a healthy body to fight the virus. Zinc, Vitamin C, Vitamin D, etc.
All during the ‘pandemic’, I still see people at the grocery store that were overweight to start with, loading their carts high with chips, Cokes, sweets, and processed food. It’s a recipe to get any type of illness, not just CV19.
Because that would be “ableist” or “body shaming” or “racist” or some such to dare criticize people’s lifestyle choices and diets!
And Big Pharma can’t patent Zinc, Vitamin C, & D, etc.!
Exactly. This is the solution rarely discussed in the media. We are all assumed to be unwilling or unable to follow a healthy lifestyle, and therefore, require pharmaceutical interventions, which usually cause more problems than they solve. And let’s not forget, the next pandemic could arrive at any time, and make this one look trivial by comparison. If I ever take a Covid 19 vaccine, I will be one of the last in line.
I found out very early on that Quercetin plus zinc plus vitamin D and C might be a good idea and not do me any harm . Bought it all and cut out sugar and made sure i was outside most of the time and regular exercise. . No heating for us much this winter unless it really gets cold and keep the windows open as much as we can. This virus goes for our weak spots so just try to make it difficult for it.
Don’t underestimate the importance of not getting cold with infections.
I swear to God, that the average journalist has all the cognitive abilities of a barnacle. Why on earth are you praying for someone to pump a multitude of dubious (untested) chemicals into your veins, just in order to be free? What we have, is NOT a pandemic, just a nothing-burger virus. It’s not even as lethal as the H1N flu of 2015. In fact we should rename it the 99.98% flu, because that is the survival rate of all those who catch it. All the evidence is there in plain site, but these journo’s just parrot the CDC and government narrative, without ever analyzing the statistics, and then asking probing questions. (which any good journalist would do.) The world is being held to ransom by a medical mafia, who have made 194 governments sign up to their “big pharma” scam to make billions from enforced, mandatory vaccines, (that’s what’s coming folks) So, this author just pumps out the WHO propaganda, whilst never questioning the need for a vaccine. We now see that both HCQ and Ivermectin stop this virus in its tracks without anyone ever needing hospital treatment, but still the media steer a comatosed public into taking Mr Gates and Mr Fauci’s patented vaccine. I sometimes wonder if the modern student is only taught “what” to think, instead of “how” to think.
Great post, I feel your anger
“When will the Covid-19 vaccine arrive?”
I don’t know and I don’t care – people will resume most of their normal lives long before we are even close to a vaccine.
What we’re seeing now in Europe is reality – you can’t prevent this virus spreading, it has its own dynamic. People need to be encouraged to behave sensibly, social distancing, handwashing, protecting the old and sick, but otherwise get on with their lives.
You can only tell healthy people of working age that they need to lock down to prevent the deaths of people over 80 only for so long. Young people are not particularly selfish or absent-minded – they’re just behaving logically: the virus is no threat to them, why should they forego their whole futures to prevent transmission to other people until a vaccine arrive, if it ever does?
Spot on.
What an absurd idea. The nightmare will NEVER end if the goal is vaccination. There will be more viruses, and this one in particular has provided a wake up call for us to regain our health to bolster our natural immune system.
The nightmare is only prolonged by such inane thinking that the nightmare is the virus”it’s the fear that has gripped the world and that much of the world has not yet escaped.
I’d just add that the nightmare won’t end if the goal is vaccination and/or a zero-cases policy, which seems to be the current objective, given that a vaccine is absent.
The fear is the biggest nightmare, and it’s become impossible to talk to many people.
We don’t need a vaccine – stop hyping up the dangers of the virus. The lockdown has killed more people than the virus and is continuing to ruin people’s lives. It’s all been horribly exaggerated. Now the government are proposing to change the law so they can used unlicensed vaccines. It is scandalous and you are adding to the misinformation.
Stop buying the stupid narrative.
Press release
PM call with Bill and Melinda Gates: 19 May 2020
Prime Minister Boris Johnson spoke to Bill and Melinda Gates today via video call.
Published 19 May 2020
From:
Prime Minister’s Office, 10 Downing Street and The Rt Hon Boris Johnson MP
The Prime Minister spoke to Bill and Melinda Gates today via video call. He was joined by Kate Bingham, Chair of the UK’s Vaccine Taskforce.
They discussed the UK’s contribution to helping countries around the world tackle coronavirus and the important work of the Gates Foundation in this area.
Both parties expressed their hope that a viable vaccine will be found as soon as possible.
They also shared their commitment to the vital work of Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, and looked forward to the upcoming UK-hosted Global Vaccine Summit on June 4th
As soon as I read Fauci in the first paragraph I was expecting nonsense and that is essentially what this is. We have known about coronaviruses for years. The common cold is one. The SARS virus is SARS-CoV-1, Covid19 is SARS-CoV-2. There is no vaccine for the original SARS virus.
All we are seeing is taxpayers money flooding into pharmaceutical companies and universities, probably with little coordination of the total effort. They have to hold out the carrot of a vaccine to keep the money flowing.
More concerning is that view, certainly from Trump, that a vaccine should be fast tracked, which should ring alarm bells.
We have a vaccine for the flu but it is not a cure and the flu has not been eliminated.
Reality left the room when this article was written.
Yep. Fraudci is 95% politician and about 5% scientist/doctor, and anyone listening to him should have his head examined. Look up Fauci’s history in AIDS/HIV research and his role in the disastrous AZT scandal.
The author has gone to a lot of trouble to write a very clear and detailed article.
Unfortunately, she overlooks the fact that we don’t need a vaccine against what, for 99% of the population, amounts to another pathogen that our T-cells clear without most of us even been aware of it.
I find her enthusiasm very worrying and her academic disciplne even more so.
I wonder what she knows about chromosome 8!
The vaccines are so safe it seems that the government want to suspend every single regulatory and statutory safeguard in order to launch them.
My letter earlier this week in on-line BMJ:-
‘Less haste, more safety, certainly, but we could do with an end to the vaccine rescue narrative as well’
Re: Covid-19: Less haste, more safety Fiona Godlee
Dear Editor
Who could argue with ‘less haste, more safety’ as a proposition [1], particularly with children who as a target population are not generally at risk from the COVID-19. But even a little less haste might not solve the problem and a licensing schedule of two or three years for a vaccine of novel design would still be unprecedented.
The fact that we are also now rather optimistically talking about 50% efficacy from any of these new COVID-19 products is also a cause for bewilderement. If the purpose is the resumption of normal civil life then 50% surely cannot do it, and we might do better to look for hope in the sharp decline in hospitilisations and deaths (even though we may be able to generate an idenfinite number of new cases as an artefact of testing) [2-4]. To limp along like this in the hope that we will all be rescued by a vaccine (supposing we any longer need rescuing) is not realistic, and not the basis on which policy should be directed – quite apart from the harm that it is doing to every other aspect of civil life and of health policy itself.
[1] Fiona Godlee, ‘ Covid-19: Less haste, more safety’,
[2] Tom Jefferson, Carl Heneghan, Elizabeth Spencer, Jon Brassey, ‘Are you infectious if you have a positive PCR test result for COVID-19?’,
[3] Carl Heneghan, Jason Oke, ‘Why Oldham sshouldn’t be going into lockdown’, CEBM 19 August 2020,
[4] Daniel Howdon, Carl Heneghan, ‘The Declining Case Fatality Ratio in England’, CEBM 19 August 2020,
I suspect there will never be a vaccine for COVID19. There is still no vaccine for the SARS or MERS virus. Herd immunity seems the only passage back to the light.
For SARS and MERS, there was no need to put major resources in continuing to develop one. Considerable resources are being put behind the vaccines for SARS-COV-2. Plus all the science points towards a likelihood of success. Thus my belief that there will be such vaccines goes well beyond suspicion.
I think a vaccine will be approved but I don’t expect widespread uptake. The pandemic will probably have finished elsewhere than Europe & points east by then.
I’m in my mid-50s, I’m fit and healthy and I don’t get colds and flu bugs. I wouldn’t touch a vaccine that had been developed in under a year. Not for a disease where the average age of those it kills is over 80.
If Covid was highly infectious AND as deadly as, say, Ebola, then yes, give me any kind of vaccine. But as things stand, I’d far rather take my chances with the disease than be injected with something that has completely skipped key CT stages. The way people are risk assessing this virus is moronic.
I have done all the vaccines and so have my kids (including flu), but this one does have me think…
What are you going to to when your government forces you to use it or you will be banned from everywhere? That is the big problem
I think about this a lot. I hope I have the courage of my convictions should that day come.
Well, I will be patiently campaigning for such a regulation not to be introduced. I’m pro-vaccine. I’m even pro-this one, used judiciously.
What I’m against is any legal obligation, any mandate of compulsion. I am prepared to suffer restrictions in order to show my rational objection to such a thing.
The postwar consensus includes prohibition against requiring people to accept medical interventions from which they don’t benefit. Recall why we agreed that, internationally? I call it the Anti-Mengele Law. It’s important. Breach this once & there are no limits to the Greater Good argument.
Not sure what you mean by “I am prepared to suffer restrictions in order to show my rational objection to such a thing.”
As for mandated vaccination, in Australia, under an emergency called via the Biosecurity Act 2015, the Chief Medical Officer has the power to demand someone be vaccinated, eg for coronavirus. The penalty for refusal is five years imprisonment and/or a $63,000 fine. People could probably appeal, but I think you’ll agree there’s not much in the way of ‘informed consent’ under this draconian act.
I appreciate the author’s detailed and optimistic analysis but she fails to countenance the possibility that a significant number of people simply won’t want to take the vaccine. After all, we now know that Covid’s fatality rate is low and it disproportionately affects the old. Many younger and healthier citizens might feel that a fast tracked vaccine is more of a health risk than the relatively benign disease that is being vaccinated against.
Would targeted vaccinations of at risk groups work rather than striving for herd immunity? Or could herd immunity be achieved through a combination of natural infection and vaccination?
Personally, I’m opposed to coronavirus vaccination being implemented at all.
What are they messing with here?
Consider this statement for example: “We’ve shifted the human population…to dependency on vaccine-induced immunity…We’re in a very fragile state now. We have developed a world that is dependent on vaccinations.”
This startling admission was made by Heidi Larson, Director of The Vaccine Confidence Project, in her plenary lecture during the WHO Global Vaccine Safety Summit, 2-3 December 2019.
At the moment most people don’t seem to be troubled by SARS-CoV-2, particularly children and young people. If a vaccine is put in place, this will disrupt the natural progression of this virus. And the entire global population will be subject to this highly experimental medical intervention.
This is really serious, people have to think about what is going on here, i.e. what looks like shifting the human population to dependency on vaccine-induced immunity, developing a world that is dependent on vaccinations. And this might go awry…
It’s way past time we thought about this…
You could say that all forms of medical intervention, that keep children alive long enough to procreate, are messing with our evolutionary future. Whether it’s antibiotics, organ transplants, blood transfusions, anti-virals and stem-cell treatments for cancer etc.., not just vaccines. There are two questions (at least) that arise here: (1) does “survival of the fittest” now mean “survival of the human race, on it’s current trajectory of ever-increasing safety, security and comfort” (regardless of the planet! – that’s another problem of course), and (2) which gov, or politician, or campaign group will stand up and say “stop keeping children alive; let them die, and their dodgy genes will not be inherited by your grandchildren”. It’s a subject for an ethics & morality class. Invoking grandchildren is an obvious parallel to global-warming debate.
I don’t think any politician would get very far with your option 2, nor would I want them to do. Your definition of ‘dodgy genes’ seems absurdly wide and rather suggests it is the personal responsibility of the child or adult for their genes – so they have to live, or die, with them. There are some ethical debates to be had about the reach of medicine, but I doubt you will get many people agreeing we should dispose of antibiotics, vaccines, blood transfusions, transplants etc.
Michael, do you think the vaccine industry, the medical establishment and governments shouldn’t have to be accountable for vaccination policy and practice?
I assume the question is rhetorical, as no sane person would say ‘no, I’m happy for them to get on with it and nobody can or should ask any questions at all’. But I do think this site is over-populated by nutters when it comes to the vaccine. I am not saying you are one of them, but when I read stuff about a pro-vaccine conspiracy led by Bill Gates, as posted by several people here, I do lose patience.
Um, it’s not a conspiracy Michael, it’s out in plain sight… Didn’t you know Bill Gates is leading the ‘race for a coronavirus vaccine’?
Quoting Bill Gates himself:
“One of the questions I get asked the most these days is when the world will be able to go back to the way things were in December before the coronavirus pandemic. My answer is always the same: when we have an almost perfect drug to treat COVID-19, or when almost every person on the planet has been vaccinated against coronavirus.
The former is unlikely to happen anytime soon. We’d need a miracle treatment that was at least 95 percent effective to stop the outbreak. Most of the drug candidates right now are nowhere near that powerful. They could save a lot of lives, but they aren’t enough to get us back to normal.
Which leaves us with a vaccine.
Humankind has never had a more urgent task than creating broad immunity for coronavirus. Realistically, if we’re going to return to normal, we need to develop a safe, effective vaccine. We need to make billions of doses, we need to get them out to every part of the world, and we need all of this to happen as quickly as possible.”
Reference: THE VACCINE RACE, EXPLAINED – What you need to know about the COVID-19 vaccine. Bill Gates, GatesNotes, 30 April 2020.
Dont be lazy, stop consuming your information from the compromised media outlets of your choice, do some research and use your brain a little. You will get there I promise, it’s not that hard I know you can!
True, but a courageous politician could look at ways to encourage public health and resilience to illness, rather than simply promising to throw yet more billions at the NHS, pharma research, and other aspects of the sickness mitigation industry.
“I don’t think any politician would get very far with your option 2, nor would I want them to do.”
There’s the rub. No debate along the lines suggested by Steve could realistically be held, any more than debating the wisdom of our endless quest for ever-longer lifespans. The climate crisis is, at the very least, exacerbated by our increasing longevity, but no politician could ever argue that point. Boris Johnson actually raised it early in his career, but swiftly retreated into a deafening silence on the subject.
Those who are sceptical of the sceptics might be interested in this:
https://respectfulinsolence…
Gorski is very good at heaping hate on to people, that’s true, but it is not necessarily a scientific method.
Crikey, what to make of David Gorski… He’s taken it upon himself to defend vaccine products to the death. It’s bizarre. I have concerns about various vaccine products and revaccinations for which I would like some acknowledgement and consideration. But it’s like a religion, no questioning or dissent allowed. These are medical interventions, how did discussion on this topic become a blood sport, with name calling (anti-vaxxer) and vitriol. It is so unprofessional and dangerous.
In regards to Gorski, read his blog post ‘Should we bypass phase 3 trials of a COVID-19 vaccine?’ which is written in a less hyperbolic style than his usual rantings.
His answer: no. And the original piece linked: a good summary of some anti-vax arguments and a good explanation of their worth. Far more worth a read than the comments on this Unherd article.
So, why are we not eradicating all diseases from the face of the earth if it is so easy to develop a vaccine?
And what would happen to the vaccination programs worldwide if an unforeseen and serious side effect appears just down the line? That would have devastating effects on, say, MMR or polio uptake.
Do we REALLY want to run this risk?
There are times when I think that the biggest fans of a new Covid-19 vaccine being produced PDQ are actually anti-Vaxx.
The contra arguments would be, why did we just not bother to try eradicating any diseases (smallpox, polio), even when vaccine development technology was much less advanced and why did we just not bother to hold other diseases at bay (measles, mumps etc) with vaccination. And then, why did we run the risk of introducing new vaccines to combat eg cervical cancer, when side effects would put previous vaccination programs at risk?
It’s all to do with understanding the science. A coronavirus vaccine these days is no big thing. We have one for dogs.
No, that is not to do with understanding science, it is to do with manipulating hyperbole – anyone can see that there is no easy route to a corona virus vaccine. The WHO are telling us not to expect more than 50% efficacy despite all the gigantic projects.
Re canine coronavirus vaccination (CCV). According to guidelines: “Not recommended. CCV infections are usually subclinical or cause mild clinical signs. Prevalence of confirmed CCV disease does not justify use of currently-available vaccines. There is no evidence that existing vaccines would protect against patho- genic variants of CCV (Buonavoglia et al. 2009, Decaro et al. 2009) [EB1]. Although CCV can be isolated commonly, the VGG remains unconvinced that CCV is a significant primary enteric pathogen in the adult dog. No studies have satisfied Koch’s postulates for this infectious agent.”
Reference: World Small Animal Veterinary Association Guidelines for the Vaccination of Dogs and Cats. Journal of Small Animal Practice. Vol. 57, January 2016.
Interesting info, thanks.
Whatever – the point was as to the ease of developing a coronavirus vaccine. it’s no big deal – we’ve done it for dogs. Whether it’s worth using it is a side issue.
The time scale is at least one order of magnitude different. Given enough time, no probs, but this quickly? Then we should be eradicating everything.
(BTW, my understanding is that we have no vaccine against any of the coronavirus that we currently have, including the cold)-
The fundamental point is that it is a charade: the only possibility was that we would get to herd immunity in some more or less managed way, or as with NZ or Australia you might succeed in battening down the hatches so much you still have it all ahead, but the government scenario became the Gates scenario that we would all have to be rescued with vaccines = immediate destruction of the global economy, huge sums paid over to Gates backed enterprises as foreshadowed in Event201. The basic lesson for dealing with a pandemic is that you need suitable excess hospital capacity as described by Tom Jefferson.
If it is a new disease then obviously you should not expect a vaccine for years with any expectation that it will be safe and effective. In fact, we have every expectation that they will be neither: they come to the market at warp speed with wholly new technologies and we are even being told to lower our expectations for efficacy. If the WHO says 50% then they are preparing us for less. But having weathered the original storm, do we need them?
The other problem is that we cannot even talk about “a vaccine” because there are a multiplicity of products all being developed using new technologies which should require years of caution. Responsible journalism would simply warn of the risks.
That Event 201 hasn’t received more scrutiny and coverage in the mainstream in baffling. Then again, since the media is basically following the script, perhaps we know the reason they are not covering it or scrutinizing Gates and Gates-backed entities (the extent to which the Gates Foundation has its hand in every entity, public and private, involved in any major way with health policy, vaccines, etc., is staggering. And when one knows Gates’s family’s history of obsession with population control and population reduction, one has to wonder what his real motives are for suddenly becoming so interested in health policy and vaccines c. 2000).
Indeed. See for example Event 201 video Segment 4 – Communications Discussion and Epilogue.
An important article Columbia Journalism Review, Tim Schwab, ‘Journalism’s Gate’s Keepers’: excellent article with an awkward title showing how the Gates money has flooded virtually every mainstream outlet across the globe.
It is remarkable how with only a tiny part of his fortune Gates can buy the entire journalistic class, the entire political class globally. His fortune against all the world trade he has destroyed is probably minuscule.
… In the meantime there is an old anti-viral drug that has helped enormous numbers of people through the covid confection, and the politicians and permanent state has decided that despite over 70 years of effective use as an anti-viral, that it MUST NOT be used.
Perhaps because the leader of the western world thinks that it is worth deploying, since as your piece says, there is no effective vaccine, even if there are many predictions.
Remember folks, even during this pandemic, Orange man bad.
So that’s all the doctors, governments etc around the world? none of them are using the miracle cure? really?
Our governments were also unenthusiastic about boosting supplements like Vitamin D, zinc, Vitamin C which would have been a sensible way to boost immunity against all infectious diseases but they can’t be patented.
Government nowadays dance to the tune of Big Pharma. If they can’t patent it and make billions, it gets dismissed by media, and even some supposedly respectable academic journals, as “fake medicine,” voodoo, etc. (just as homeopathy in general is often treated by the mainstream).
No-one stands to make $billions from the safe treatment.
Many are, but if you talk about it, you come under suspicion by all the usual suspects.
And of course in places where the government controls treatment and medicines, it isn’t allowed at all.
They already are.
The time to develop a vaccine has nothing to do with technology it’s simply that time is required to test it. That time cannot be shrunk without compromising safety.
I saw an interesting video of someone (I have no note of the name right now) who presented findings about Coronovirus vaccines to a senate committee. Basically they have already developed vaccines to Coronavirus’ decades ago and for SARS but had to abandon them. They used mice to test the vaccine, everything went perfectly, antibodies were produced, no dead mice…..until they exposed the mice to the original virus then the mice reacted. It would seem that having anti bodies to a coronovirus “primes” your immune system so that it over reacts and a cytokine storm kicks in.
This probably explains why 60-80% of the population is already immune to Coronavirus via T-cell immunity not anti body. Good old evolution favouring the T-cell humans over the anti-body humans.
Of course this means that a vaccination program will have no deaths at first but over time as people are exposed to any coronavirus, oh dear! 15% of common colds are coronavirus.
Could this be why I’ve heard, anecdotally of course, that those who had the flu jab were seriously ill if/ when they caught CV19? And were also in the older/ more vulnerable category, I should add.
Well older and more vulnerable says it all in their case. Many die because of normal flu or respiratory infections.
However, I have wondered if the flu jab was responsible for the more serious cases among the less-obviously vunerable. I doubt we’ll be allowed to find out!
It’s not just anecdotal: there is research showing that flu shots increased fivefold the risk of acute respiratory infections caused by noninfluenza viruses, including coronaviruses: https://www.bmj.com/content…
This was admittedly in children, but the effects might be even more severe in the elderly.
Covid 19 will have burnt itself out or settled into something we learn to live with long before a vaccine becomes available – even at the quick rates predicted here.
My kids and their friends – initially very compliant re lockdown – are much less bothered about this virus now they know it’s no threat to them. They’re very careful around older people, in shops etc. but they’re meeting each other in their homes, going to the pub etc. This is now happening all over Europe – the spike is almost exclusively among the young.
The ‘spike’ is actually a fraud. All western countries involved in this stupidity have done nothing more than hugely to have increased testing. The PCR has a false positive rate somewhere just under 1%. When virus prevalence is as low as it is (approx 0.05% in U.K.) it ought to be obvious that almost all that’s found when testing 160,000 completely well people per day, as we’re doing now in U.K., are FALSE POSITIVES. That’s why they’re not ill.
What do you think about testing in Australia Michael? 6,168,229 tests conducted, 0.4% positive.
Reference: Coronavirus (COVID-19) current situation and case numbers Australian Government Department of Health
I’d heard of the Common Cold Unit being in existence way back in 1964 from a guy ( Our headmaster ex RAF ) who had had a fortnights holiday therein the research unit. I think it was at Harnham near Salisbury and had been going since 1949 finally closing in 1979 IIRC.
Guess what ? They didn’t manage to find a cure for the human corona virus . For that reason I won’t be holding my breath or buy any shares in such a research company ..
I’m thinking that if we can slow the spread so the health services are not over whelmed we will simply get it & in most cases recover with better care and accept that for some groups the after effects of it will be a death sentence ,
Give it 10 to 15 years time it will be the norm like seasonal flu most likely being superceeded by some new pandemic of similar virulence.
The “Common Cold” is not “the human corona virus”. It’s c. 200 different pathogens, each of which would require its own vaccine component. Nor in 1979 were vaccine development capabilities at all comparable with those available today.
Though you are right about the likely situation in 10-15 years’ time. SARS-Cov-2 is likely to be widespread. Many people will have partial immunity through childhood exposure and contracting the disease in late adulthood will thus be less dangerous. This partial immunity in the population will be supplemented by vaccines. Pretty much like flu today.
Good heavens! According to the author, there’s a 41% chance that no vaccine will be found before April of next year. Given that most governments have embraced a policy that precludes the return to normality until we hit zero cases or a vaccine is found, this means there’s a 41% chance that we’ll have to deal with localized lockdowns, masks, and other such bluntly applied dirigisme for at least 8 more months. This is the best-case scenario, of course. This is assuming that people can get vaccinated quickly and efficiently, that there are no side effects, etc.
The 1968 Pandemic killed an estimated 1-4 million people worldwide, and no one even bothered cancelling Woodstock. How is this any different? I haven’t heard a single convincing explanation yet.
Of course, all forecasts are highly conjectural. For that reason, I will dare to present my own: in 5-10 years, there’s a good chance people will look back and say, as the French do, “Tout ça pour ça !”.
That’s the whole problem – this idea that nothing can return to normal until “zero cases”. It’s insane. A bait-and-switch con job from the beginning, where it swiftly went from “flatten the curve” (to prevent hospitals being overwhelmed, which we know now was never a real danger), to “we can’t have any kind of normal life any more until there is no one anywhere at risk from ever getting this routine flu-like virus, and even one case is a national calamity.” Sickening, and all part of the Plandemic/Event201 scenario.
A bait-and-switch con job from the beginning, where it swiftly went from “flatten the curve” (to prevent hospitals being overwhelmed, which we know now was never a real danger), to “we can’t have any kind of normal life any more until there is no one anywhere at risk from ever getting this routine flu-like virus, and even one case is a national calamity.”
I like to call this mission creep.
Note how most media outlets have stopped talking about Sweden, just as the rate of hospitalizations and deaths has dropped to an insignificant trickle. And remember the 20,000 anti-lockdown protestors that descended on Berlin around 1 August, flagrantly flouting social distancing rules? How many explosive covid outbreaks have been sourced by that? Approximately…none? Too many people out there cherry picking the data and evidence that feed their deep-seated fears.
“Mild” side effects were common in young healthy volunteers who would rarely show any symptoms of the disease.
Another example of the cure being worse than the disease.
My question: what if the best vaccine turns out to be the Russian one? I guarantee that especially here in New Zealand, we will not be allowed to have it, instead our government will choose the most Democrat friendly American one.
Can’t be the Russian vaccine for the same reason HCQ can’t work.
Politics
I for one am extremely interested in the progress of the vaccines.
I won’t be having it, and I suspect that there is a strong current of apprehension in the general population about a “rushed” vaccine.
However, if a vaccine gets approved next week (before kids are back at school, Boris’ biggest battle), before Christmas (with deaths likely to be rising, and panic with it) or February 2021 (when the media will be bored of Covid, and will have finally noticed that deaths are around the 5 a week mark), the public’s reaction, and therefore the politicians response will be very different.
Give the author a break. She’s a PhD student, having a go at journalism, and whatever her views on the utility of the vaccine, her reasoning about the timing doesn’t seem under-analysed.
Boris is already saying the children are safe from COVID so what happens when he wants to give them warp speed developed vaccines. I am not sure people are so stupid.
I suspect he won’t be up for vaccinating all children, unless of course, Nicola Sturgeon does it first.
That doesn’t mean there won’t be loud voices calling for compulsory child vaccination in England. However, the doctors I’ve spoken to, who absolutely won’t rock the boat on lockdown (why would they?), would be very much against forced treatment of any kind, and are deeply wary of knee-jerk politics intruding so deeply into their realm.
I suspect that the BMA will come out against compulsory vaccination, there will be a 10% UK take-up of the vaccine, deaths will fall from 4 per month to 3 per month, and the vaccine strategy will be declared an all out success, sparing everyone’s blushes, and a huge ding-dong about the advisedness of a rushed vaccine which both doctors and politicians will want to avoid.
On the other hand Boris has not committed us to getting a vaccine (unlike NZ have done). I suspect there will be less pressure on him to push through a dangerous vaccine, and he will definitely shy away from a vaccine that has been outed as unsafe, because he’s very much a path of least resistance man I believe.
There will be countries where vaccines are compulsory, but I don’t believe we’ll ever see any true safety figures from these countries, except possibly from e.g. dissident Hong Kong doctors. Some countries will get lucky. With 10 or more different vaccines being rushed through, some will not.
I’m not anti-vaccination myself, but I know a rush-job when I see one.
Just to say there was already a quiet ministerial statement about three weeks ago that the vaccines won’t be compulsory (which the mainstream media somehow forgot to report). Big defeat for Hancock and Simon Stevens, CEO of the NHS (who has barely been heard from during this episode).
Your comment about Nicola Sturgeon may be a bit tongue-in-cheek, but she has been rather canny at playing the whole situation to her advantage by being seen as more responsible than Boris in her approach, however pointless her more stringent measures may be.
If my grandchildren and their parents and friends are any guide there will be a resounding no to this rushed vaccine. .The mistrust now runs deep and not the usual suspect anti vaxxers. There has never been a corona vaccine. We know this so are suspicious. It will be down to whether the government has the nerve or the guts to force it on us. It could be a breaking point for the citizen and the state. A parent’s child is not something the state can play games with ever.It will lose. The problem is the vaccine makers and the money behind them is out in the open. Gates is just not coming across well. Toxic i would say.
Being ancient I will not bother but if my children are against I will back them to the end.
They are going to try and overwhelm us with psychological pressure but at last gasp they are not making it compulsory.
I wonder how many of the predictions made by scientists and “experts” about climate change over the last 40 to 50 years and reported by the media have been anywhere near accurate. I’m guessing none otherwise I’m sure these scientists, experts and especially the media would have a field day ramming “we told you so” down our throats. Too many headlines these days include the words “could”, “should” or “may”. Fewer predictions and more honest, unbiased reporting of actual events and facts would be far more interesting but no doubt more taxing for our journalists!
Excellent article. Thank you. I can’t help thinking that the part where the author says that we have now recognised that unlike HIV our bodies can clear the virus is the main point here. It is the reason big Pharma will likely be able to create a vaccine that works. But it is also why we should never have acted so drastically to this virus in the first place. We have vandalised life as we know it and indebted our children for a virus which healthy bodies can clear themselves. This beautifully designed virus spares our children, is cleared by the healthy and takes the old and sick. Isn’t that what nature is all about? At what point will we stop trying to prolong the lives of human beings indefinitely? Why are we so afraid of allowing old and sick people to die?
A long article that never answers the title question, “When will COVID-19 vaccine arrive?” A better question is “How long will it take to achieve herd immunity?”
Several Big Pharma corporations racing to get a vaccine on the “market”. The vaccine is a profit center for Big Pharma and part of the development is a risk to profit analysis measured in dollars. We can anticipate there will be some who will not do well because of the vaccine. Taking a vaccine is not a guarantee. There can be issues caused by the adjuvant added to stimulate the immune response, side effects caused by biological debris and other virus DNA from the host tissue that is left in the marketed vaccine. I would not want to be among those who receive the first offering of the vaccine. Wait until the second or third offering after they “adjust” it based on the new data available after the vaccine goes to market.
In the meantime-let us accept that this disease is still incurable and that the vast majority of its victims don’t die. We’ll just have to be sensible and live with it.
>>> “We’ll just have to be sensible”
I take it you are recently arrived on this planet?
I’m afraid to have to let you down here. We earthlings are not that way inclined.
Q: “When will the Covid-19 vaccine arrive?”
After reading this I see the answer is basically that you don’t know.
25 million doses is precisely nothing in the scheme of things – it wouldn’t even be enough for the multi-millionaires who would be bidding for it.
Nobody is going to start building vaccine production facilities on the off-chance so make sure that you add in the construction time to your estimates and the distribution network needed to actually get the vaccine to where it needs to be.
Come back with a time frame for billions of doses and then it would be impressive.
They are already building vaccine production facilities in the US – that is an aspect of Operation Warp Speed. Build up the production facilities even before you know whether or not the vaccine will be successful and deployed.
Astra Zeneca were already in mass production with the Oxford vaccine two months ago “speculatively”. The money – our money – has already been committed by our governments, particularly the British and American governments. This was already the plan at Event201: the billionaires were never going to pay for it, we were.
I don’t believe the headline of this article is justified by its content. As it points out, there are likely to be several vaccines but we have only the sketchiest idea of how effective they are likely to be. Whenever you put dare to put forward the idea that covid-19 might never go away so we need to adapt and build up resilience, the typical response is, “They’re working on a vaccine! They say it could be here by Christmas!” There is a widespread perception of a silver bullet hurtling towards covid.
My letter earlier this week in on-line BMJ:-
Less haste, more safety, certainly, but we could do with an end to the vaccine rescue narrative as well
Re: Covid-19: Less haste, more safety Fiona Godlee. 370:doi 10.1136/bmj.m3258
Dear Editor
Who could argue with ‘less haste, more safety’ as a proposition [1], particularly with children who as a target population are not generally at risk from the COVID-19. But even a little less haste might not solve the problem and a licensing schedule of two or three years for a vaccine of novel design would still be unprecedented.
The fact that we are also now rather optimistically talking about 50% efficacy from any of these new COVID-19 products is also a cause for bewilderement. If the purpose is the resumption of normal civil life then 50% surely cannot do it, and we might do better to look for hope in the sharp decline in hospitilisations and deaths (even though we may be able to generate an idenfinite number of new cases as an artefact of testing) [2-4]. To limp along like this in the hope that we will all be rescued by a vaccine (supposing we any longer need rescuing) is not realistic, and not the basis on which policy should be directed – quite apart from the harm that it is doing to every other aspect of civil life and of health policy itself.
[1] Fiona Godlee, ‘ Covid-19: Less haste, more safety’, BMJ 2020; 370 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj… (Published 20 August 2020)
[2] Tom Jefferson, Carl Heneghan, Elizabeth Spencer, Jon Brassey, ‘Are you infectious if you have a positive PCR test result for COVID-19?’, CEBM 5 August 2020
[3] Carl Heneghan, Jason Oke, ‘Why Oldham sshouldn’t be going into lockdown’, CEBM 19 August 2020
[4] Daniel Howdon, Carl Heneghan, ‘The Declining Case Fatality Ratio in England’, CEBM 19 August 2020, https://www.cebm.net/covid-…
This piece reads like the build up in ‘I Am Legend’.
This whole WEF/Gates/Johns Hopkins is a satanic power grab leading toward mass depopulation.
Anyone who takes it is insane.
My letter earlier this week in on-line BMJ:-
‘Less haste, more safety, certainly, but we could do with an end to the vaccine rescue narrative as well’
Re: Covid-19: Less haste, more safety Fiona Godlee. 370:doi 10.1136/bmj.m3258
Dear Editor
Who could argue with ‘less haste, more safety’ as a proposition [1], particularly with children who as a target population are not generally at risk from the COVID-19. But even a little less haste might not solve the problem and a licensing schedule of two or three years for a vaccine of novel design would still be unprecedented.
The fact that we are also now rather optimistically talking about 50% efficacy from any of these new COVID-19 products is also a cause for bewilderement. If the purpose is the resumption of normal civil life then 50% surely cannot do it, and we might do better to look for hope in the sharp decline in hospitilisations and deaths (even though we may be able to generate an idenfinite number of new cases as an artefact of testing) [2-4]. To limp along like this in the hope that we will all be rescued by a vaccine (supposing we any longer need rescuing) is not realistic, and not the basis on which policy should be directed – quite apart from the harm that it is doing to every other aspect of civil life and of health policy itself.
[1] Fiona Godlee, ‘ Covid-19: Less haste, more safety’, BMJ 2020; 370 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj… (Published 20 August 2020)
[2] Tom Jefferson, Carl Heneghan, Elizabeth Spencer, Jon Brassey, ‘Are you infectious if you have a positive PCR test result for COVID-19?’, CEBM 5 August 2020
[3] Carl Heneghan, Jason Oke, ‘Why Oldham sshouldn’t be going into lockdown’, CEBM 19 August 2020
[4] Daniel Howdon, Carl Heneghan, ‘The Declining Case Fatality Ratio in England’, CEBM 19 August 2020
Hmm. The pessimistic scenario ii not that 10% of the 8 advanced vaccine candidates succeed (and what use is 0.8 of a vaccine anyway). It is that all 8 fail. Though thankfully, I believe that to be unlikely.
So Andrew, you are hopeful for a vaccine – why?
Emergency use approval of one or more vaccines by the end of October 2020, billions of doses by the end of 2021.
Take it to the bank.
If Covid was actually a terrible threat to the general population I would agree that a vacinne is imperative. However, unless one is elderly with co-morbidities and they generally stay at home in bed, the virus appears to be innocuous.The majority of positive tests determine asymptomatic or insignificant symptoms; less than a common cold in fact. All the other fatal symptoms are caused by pre existing illness’. The Covid 19 virus is a politically charged virus that has become out of control. Governments and the MSM have behaved in the most irresponsible manner which without doubt will cause enormous ramifications. Here is a revealing link https://www.youtube.com/wat…
I believe it is likely that more than one of the vaccines in, or entering Phase III trials will be found to be safe and effective on roughly the same time scale. Since they use rather different techniques, with likely somewhat different outcomes, I wonder how they will be distributed. Who would get which vaccine? Happenstance, or based on your demographic?
Of course there will be a vaccine soon enough. Why? Because the vaccine doesn’t really need to be clinically effective. The bright scientists that invent this vaccine do not get paid to really care about its effectiveness. After all they are no independent doctors. To summarize it: they get paid to measure if antibodies are caused by the vaccine and they get paid to make sure that people don’t have serious side effects. That’s just enough to sell it to the world.
Of course the presence of antibodies by itself doesn’t proof anything about the effectiveness, no need explaining this I hope. Because what really matters is how much antibodies and how long antibodies can be produced by your immune system. The answer for the vulnerable group we all say we want to protect is: not enough antibodies to survive. With the influenza vaccine, which many people believe to ‘work’, it’s exactly the same. It doesn’t do much or almost nothing in a clinical sense. The elderly people who take it will die anyway and when they don’t the vaccine has not much to do with it. Old people simply can not produce sufficient antibodies, no matter what they inject. But still people believe it works when they don’t get the flu and that is fine with Big Pharma. Only issue of real concern are the side effects.
Well the thing is, if the WHO are to be believed, they have confirm a Kung Flu reinfection. Therefore a Vaccine is of no use! Just saying.
Given the unreliability of the PCR test, it’s basically impossible to “confirm” this and one case is anecdotal at best. It will probably be used as an argument the other way: you need the vaccine or you will be sick all the time!
But the most important notion is this: the possibility of reinfection is totally irrelevant here. I mean…..old people get reinfected all the time with all kinds of coronaviruses and also with the flu and etc, etc
It’s just a feature of old age that the immune system declines, nothing special at all and there is nothing you can do about it. At some point you die of old age. If this crisis learns anything at all it’s that old people have the wrong idea about what it means to get old. It means that you will die pretty soon. No vaccine will ever change that.
I disagree. The fact that only a tiny number can even be infected twice – and do note, he’s not ill on 2nd infection, – indicates how unusual it is. He may have a rare immuno-insufficiency.
A placebo that won’t work on many mutations to come, a placebo given to the ignorant to placate them, a vaccine now said to be inappropriate for the frail & elderly -the only ones dying in any appreciable numbers- how useless is this?? If I have a Mensa membership card, can I be exempt from any requirement to take the vaccine?
-MOST OF US-
THIS PATHOGEN HAS DAMAGED LUNG CAPACITY, HEART TISSUE, AND CEREBRAL MATTER all without being fatal. Where are these figures? Turning 30 year-olds into for-life invalids? A 27 year old here has to rest after walking to his living room. MOST MOST MOST as useless a term. As can be found.
I can’t make out a bit of what this incoherent jumble is supposed to be trying to say. Why do people incapable of writing a coherent, grammatical sentence even bother posting gibberish?
It is true that some people are injured even though they survive.
What’s NOT true is to claim that the incidence or severity of post viral deficits are worse than for other unpleasant respiratory viruses, such as flu.
I’m a lifelong R&D biologist who’s read a great deal of the literature over the last six months.
Hmm, usual anti vaxers going into apoplexy – definitely bad for their health. Meanwhile, I’m sure I’ve seen plenty of news about China launching a vaccine before Christmas – and releasing it to Asia and Africa first, leaving western countries struggling with lockdowns and weakened economies while China increases its world domination.
“I’m sure I’ve seen plenty of news about China launching a vaccine before Christmas.”
Oh, I’m sure that’s safe and reliable, with no risk of side effects far outweighing the .02% risk from Covid. Please, where do I sign up to have this CCP cocktail (probably funded by Gates & Co.) injected into me?
No surprise either that China will use Africans and other Asians as their Guinea Pigs.
Maybe Africa will not be a pushover.
No, it won’t – they are really fed up there. I wrote an article ‘Never mind Cecil Rhodes, What about Bill Gates?’
All you have to do is use the term “anti-vaxxer” and stop thinking. Vaccinating 7.8b people with a variety of rushed, entirely new products? What could possibly go wrong?
A Chinese vaccine. Yum, book me in. Anything from Russia, while we’re at it?