What’s the latest re a vaccine?

[Freetodowhatiwant]

Anyone know? I know they had injected a few people (maybe several hundred by now?) but it’s all gone quite quiet. Is this because they are waiting to see whether they will be infected? Do they deliberately try to infect them with the virus? Do they have to wait a while to see what reaction antibodies have in the body? Would love to know more about the steps being taken right now. Was just reading a rather despairing thread on the new normal and decided it would make me feel better if I knew more about the vaccine process.

[Laniakea]

There isn’t enough coronavirus in the community to get results quickly - they warned that would be an effect of lockdown reducing transmission - so they are looking at finding higher prevalence populations to test it in (hospitals probably) but haven’t started yet.

[Laniakea]

And no they can’t infect people with the virus, with low levels in the community I’m nit holding my breath for results.

[Laniakea]

More than a thousand people have been vaccinated now

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/05/14/oxford-vaccine-trial-moves-hospitals-covid-19-prevalent-scientist/

[PuzzledObserver]

They are not currently deliberately infecting people (a “challenge trial”) although I saw an article discussing the ethical issues around doing so.

I assumed they were going to test the volunteers for antibodies as well as waiting to see if they got infected. Early results due in June, so about a month after they were injected.

There are two questions they need to answer about effectiveness, apart from the safety questions:

1. what proportion of people who receive the vaccine develop antibodies?
   
2. what proportion of people with antibodies can still become infected?
   
   They can answer the first question a lot sooner than the second.

[attackedbycritters]

They won't have an update till mid June according to today's guardian

[Reallybadidea]

According to a colleague they will be looking for 500 volunteers at the hospital where I work (major covid centre) because the level of infection in the community is too low to get quick enough results. So I doubt we will be hearing much about how effective it is any time soon, unfortunately. It appears that I won't be eligible for trial inclusion as I'm high risk, because otherwise I would definitely volunteer.

[Freetodowhatiwant]

Thank you for the clarification so far. I really want to be optimistic about a vaccine. What are the ethics in terms of infecting people directly? Is this something that is ever done with previous vaccine development?

That’s really interesting about recruiting for volunteers from a hospital @reallybadidea. Makes sense to recruit from people who have more exposure.

Can you tell me your reasons that you would jump at the chance to have it if you could? I would probably have it too but I do like to hear about other people’s reasons for being sure it was safe.

[Reallybadidea]

I would volunteer partly for selfish reasons (in the hope that I got the trial vaccine rather than placebo) but also because I think it's just the right thing to do. I see at first hand the misery that this disease is causing and I want to help prevent it, not just treat it. Sorry if that sounds priggish I just feel strongly that society functions best when we do what we can for other people. Although I won't judge my colleagues who choose not to take part.

[Reallybadidea]

Sorry, in terms of why I think it's safe - similar vaccine candidates have been tried in humans and are thought so far to be safe. For the reasons above, I'm prepared to accept that there may be a risk to my health - there's a risk to me and lots of others that I work with every time we enter the hospital at the moment. We still do it.

[SunInTheSkyYouKnowHowIFeel]

Interesting artical here from the Indian press re the vaccine from the UK and how they are doing trials and producing it there. I guess this will also feed into the UK research:

www.google.com/amp/s/m.timesofindia.com/india/covid-19-pune-co-plans-to-start-vaccine-production-next-month/amp_articleshow/75396697.cms