[quote duffeldaisy]@GalesThisMorning I read this thread this morning and am absolutely furious with what Climbdad wrote. I think it's deeply irresponsible. A friend of mine who's been struggling a lot with all this was feeling quite desperate last night on social media, and going from that to this post made me angry.
Please don't let it get you down. I don't know why Climbdad is writing what they are - but seeing some others' responses, I was reassured that others aren't taking their words seriously. They're either doing it to cause panic for fun, or despair - or perhaps hoping that people will then say 'oh well, I may as well not be careful then'.
If you read the actual updates direct from the universities involved (Oxford have a page on news and updates, and there are other trials going on too in lots of other countries, and one or more is bound to be successful) then the research does look really promising. Look up The World Health Organisation Covax Facility - there are 150 countries all working together to try "to guarantee rapid, fair and equitable access to COVID-19 vaccines for every country in the world, rich and poor, to make rapid progress towards slowing the pandemic".
If Climbdad is really working in vaccine research, perhaps they're working on one of the failing ones, but there are plenty of other tests going on, and I trust the word of actual, published scientists rather than someone on Mumsnet.[/quote]
But what he said isn't really related to what you are saying.
You're saying that many countries are working together with multiple projects researching, developing and testing potential vaccines - that's all true and he hasn't contradicted that.
What he was explaining was the difference between what mainstream media are reporting around the Oxford vaccine in particular (ready by Christmas) and the reality as reported by the scientific community.
If you read the report issued by the researchers it lists the next steps and the research that still needs to be completed. Anyone who reads that and thinks that it can be completed and evaluated in time for vaccines at Christmas is deluded. He isn't saying that there never will be a vaccine (although that remains a possibility) but that there are hurdles that still need to be overcome including side effects which might include ADE, efficacy and a potential for short lived immunity requiring multiple boosters which could cause its own problems. All of this needs more research.
Telling people that a vaccine will be ready by September or Christmas (which plenty of people are confidently saying on MN) is dangerous. I've got a work colleague who is taking six months unpaid leave (which she can't afford) off work because, as she told me, "there will be a vaccine ready by Christmas". So this person has taken a major life choice based on inaccurate stories printed in the mainstream media.
But calling for accuracy when talking about vaccines and explaining the processes of vaccine research are not the same as saying "it will never happen". He also said he was involved in treatment research, I believe, so your catty remark about him being involved in a failed vaccine was wrong too.