Could a vaccine really be ready in September?

[Iamclearlyamug]

I really hope it's possible, though it would take many months longer to have them delivered and co-ordinate vaccinating many millions of people

news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-vaccine-could-be-ready-as-early-as-september-according-to-scientist-11971804

If it really is, then I'd be happy to stay in a lockdown situation until then. I would feel safer. And I'm no economist or vaccine expert so please don't anyone flame me!

"It's not just a hunch and as every week goes by we have more data to look at. I would go for 80%, that's my personal view."

I’m no scientist, but the above statement doesn’t sound very scientific

Highly unlikely.

There have been a lot of these articles about different scientific teams from all around the world, all with claims of "imminent" vaccines. It's no different to the competitive posturing seen in sport and not necessarily realistic.

I wonder if its more likely to be the anti body test ready than the vaccine by then, but its nice to have hope

No, in my totally unqualified and unscientific opinion.

Struggling to see it, there still isnt a vaccine for MERS or SARS and they have been around way longer.

Well, if you read the article, it's one of the several vaccines being worked on is showing promise, and the head of that study is 80% confident it will work.

Also the 'by September' needs to be looked at sceptically:

"""It's not just a hunch and as every week goes by we have more data to look at. I would go for 80%, that's my personal view.""

"She added that having something ready by the autumn is "just about possible if everything goes perfectly", but warned that "nobody can promise it's going to work"."

Also the 'by September' needs to be looked at sceptically

Quite, it sounds like she's been put on the spot for a positive soundbite and has given them the most positive soundbite possible - which reading between the lines still says "unlikely"

I'm about 80% confident of winning the lottery "if everything goes perfectly".

Yay let's believe so. We ALL need hope right now!

However, let's be realistic. Even the pneoumonia vaccine is only 60-70% effective. We ALL know people who have the annual flu jab and still get flu. IF it comes it will be a protective factor but it won't be the whole answer.

IMHO the answer lies between vaccines, the test to know if you have had it AND absolutely CRUCIALLY community testing centres in highly deprived areas. Areas with high BME populations, poverty where obesity rates are higher. So they can get tested immediately and issued with support packs for self-isolation.

^Obviously everyone needs access to testing but there will be much more reluctance to be tested if you are on a zero hours contract.

No. It's impossible to have a safe vaccine in less than a year and it'll have to be mass produced afterwards.

Earliest we can all expect to be vaccinated will be middle next year.

It’s worth bearing in mind that the international effort to find a vaccine for this is enormous as opposed to other less contagious illnesses - both SARS and MERS have had minute numbers in comparison to covid. I can’t think of a time when there has been such a massive combined global effort within the scientific community. With that in mind, I’d be surprised if they don’t find a vaccine soon - but by September? Sceptical!

Hmm, the professor is pushing for production to start before testing is finished. That's a risk even if her 80% claim holds up. I am concerned about a product that normally takes a decade to get right being ready in a few months. I don't know anything about medical research or vaccines, so my fears may be unfounded, but how do we know it's safe?

5 months to finish the research, carry out some human trials, look at generated data, and make 6billion doses???? Not a chance.

Actually, Id be interested in the stats about how you set about vaccinating a whole country! I'm not sure about what % of the UK get the flu vaccination, but that is spread out over months, and it is far from the whole country receiving it. Even once we have a (tested!) vaccine in sufficient quantities, it needs to be administered.

@wonderstuff you would presumably know that there aren't immediate effects created by the vaccine, but there would be zero data about longer term side effects.

I’m not buying this either. I have no scientific knowledge at all so just an opinion. I thought Coronaviruses were notoriously hard to vaccinate against (such as the common cold)? In addition, isn’t there a number of strains of COVID19 going around and if so are they going to vaccinate against them all? Won’t they mutate more by then? Are we really happy to have a vaccination that’s not undergone proper clinical trials? I’m not sure I am.

You don’t aim to vaccinate everyone at once, you start with people who come into contact with lots of others at a higher infection risk-so HCP, teachers, supermarkets, etc.
It’d be great if we had Smithfield by September but quite... surprising.

Not a chance. They can cut all the red tape for trial approval, filing and submission but they cant speed up the time to inject and then follow the thousands of patients needed to establish efficacy and more importantly, safety.

Depending on waiting for a vaccine seems a bit mad considering one may never be found. They still havent got one for HIV, despite looking for one for 30 years (it appears to evolve too quickly).

There is also the fear and scaremongering that seems to go along with vaccines. They are given to healthy people so people can be much slower to trust that they wont introduce harm. Look up LYMErix to see how damaging this fear can be - vaccine for lyme disease was withdrawn despite efficacy of 96% and zero evidence of the side effects claimed by media.

Here's the Times report on this:

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/coronavirus-vaccine-could-be-ready-by-september-flmwl257x?shareToken=8432c3194cc0c1a78c1ff7d6d57ceba3

And an interview with the lead researcher

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/many-of-us-have-been-saying-for-years-that-we-need-more-vaccines-snczprdrn?shareToken=eb95fb2247480ce942727bcb64a2bfa3

This is being done seriously, with massive effort. Whether it will work, obviously we can't yet know - But I'll give a heck of a lot more weight to experts' views on this (informed by their understanding of the data) than opinions on social media.

Various vaccine options have been found but then they have to be tested for a long period of time to ensure safety - at least a year I think, then extra time to build stocks of the confirmed safe vaccine, and then a long time to roll it out to everyone

Struggling to see it, there still isnt a vaccine for MERS or SARS and they have been around way longer.

Ah, but like the magical money tree miraculously being found by the Tories, when the Western economy is at threat, all of a sudden we find resources that we didn’t know we had. Strange, isn’t it ?

That said I can’t see it, if only because the actual production and roll out would take us longer even if a safe vaccine was found and signed off on today.

No, once a vaccine us actually developed it needs serious testing, and no amount of money can speed up certain parts of the process; time is needed to monitor for side effects. I think a year could be realistic with a huge amount of money involved, but that is presuming we have everything in place in the next few weeks.

The plan - bankrolled by Bill Gates - seems to be to get some of the likely candidates into production before the testing is complete. He's willing to 'waste' a few billion dollars if they don't work, in the hope that if one passes its trials there are stocks immediately available.

Frankly I'd be astonished too if a vaccine is available by September but it's this sort of totally unprecedented investment of effort and money which may significantly shorten the usual timeframes.

But I'll give a heck of a lot more weight to experts' views on this (informed by their understanding of the data) than opinions on social media.

I’ll have you know I have spent at LEAST a week reading about this on Twitter and therefore I’m VERY qualified to say that this research team at Oxford don’t know what they’re talking about

Let’s hope it happens. Seems very optimistic by the general timeframes given elsewhere but it looks like this team have always been looking at a faster timeframe with this one.

@Alondra - It isn’t impossible. A vaccine for swine flu was found, mass produced and administered within a few months.

It worked and it eradicated the disease.

I’m not sure why this fact is continually ignored by both the media and the end of world doom mongers on here. It is a fact though, revisionism or not.