Anyone else feeling optimistic about the recent vaccine headlines?

[Newgirlint0wn]

Just that really, a few different news articles suggesting a vaccine could be available by early 2021.

Anyone else feel optimistic this could be true?
I know it doesn’t mean back to normality, but surely a successful vaccine this soon could be the path back to normal life?

They’re talking about mobilising all student nurses, midwives, paramedics, doctors, vets, etc to give the vaccine so I’m optimistic that the vaccine programme can be rolled out. People will happily queue all day for it if need be....well a lot of people anyway. So there won’t be the issue of chasing people for it.

I teach students how to give injections. It’s not rocket science. To be honest you don’t need to be a nursing student. I could teach anyone how to give the vaccine within minutes. So a mass training programme could be rolled out as well although I don’t think it’ll come to that.

I don't understand why posters always like to come up with the line of it will take a long time to vaccinate everyone etc.

Surely not everyone needs to be vaccinated to start going back to some sort of normal. Why does everyone need to have it at all? If I was to be offered it, I'd take it, but being a 41 year old who has fairly high levels of fitness (was training for my 3rd marathon before lockdown and ran a half marathon distance the other day) I'm very far down the line. I would like to think that once the vulnerable are vaccinated we can start lifting some of the restrictions.

@LaurieFairyCake

Even if we get a safe, efficacious vaccine (not a given)

It will take literally years to get to the whole population

It wouldn’t, necessarily. We’re testing what, 200,000 people a day at the moment? If you vaccinated people at that rate you’d have half the U.K. done in 6 months.

Obviously there are oh so many ways for the government to bugger this up, but they’ve been working on mass vaccination plans for a while now.

I’ve heard via work that NHS trusts have been told to prepare for initial distribution at the end of November.. which I’m taking as one of the final stage vaccines is giving positive results. I’m not directly on these calls but have colleagues who are. No mention of which vaccine it might be. & certainly, it could just be a please be ready just in case scenario. But it fits with recent news that possibly we’ll start vaccinating by the end of the year.

I agree with PP’s. It’s not a magic bullet, it’ll take some time but if protects the vulnerable, the rest of us can continue to take reasonable precautions such as masks but hopefully we at least stop the need for these god awful lockdowns!

@LaurieFairyCake up and down the country schools from infants to year 7 this year have had the flu vaccine, in their school hall. Many more, like my DS who is 12, had it at the GP. He was one of many waiting this afternoon, the nurse said she had a full day of doing them.
It will take time but I think a national program after NHS staff and elderly and vulnerable will hopefully be a case of, postcode by postcode, School by School. Discounting those who exercise their right to say no.
They will hopefully utilize church halls, school halls, even hotel business suites. Walk in clinics and gp surgeries. DS will probably have it in paediatric outpatients due to his allergies.
DDs entire year group had the HPV vaccine in a day.
It can be done so long as Hancock doesn't cock it up, so personally I hope he resigns before then.

No,I’m not hopeful that any vaccine will solve the COVID19 issue any time soon. I think it’ll be like the flu vaccine which has variable efficacy from year to year. It will not be the panacea everyone is wanting imo. Hope to be wrong though!!

There is already a vaccine, the Chinese are using it in the general population, so why aren't we looking at theirs?

Whats the point of reinventing the wheel over and over again?

China has been studying CV for decades, so their vaccine might be the best and quickest.

There is a summary of the protocols for Pfizer, Astrazeneca and Moderna vaccines here: mobile.twitter.com/EricTopol/status/1307415684431765504

I've read somewhere that actually like flu vaccine it will be easy to tweak any covid strain or that, forgive the base language... The base line of the virus can be tackled

"There is already a vaccine, the Chinese are using it in the general population, so why aren't we looking at theirs?"

They haven't completed phase 3 trials yet.
mobile.reuters.com/article/amp/idUSKBN2710UQ

Yes, I'm very optimistic, and have been all along. I have every faith in these brilliant scientists, especially our Oxford team.

China's trials dwarf anything in the west.

My point is that we should all be sharing vaccine knowledge and not competing & i suspect China is ahead of the west.

@Mum2jenny

No,I’m not hopeful that any vaccine will solve the COVID19 issue any time soon. I think it’ll be like the flu vaccine which has variable efficacy from year to year. It will not be the panacea everyone is wanting imo. Hope to be wrong though!!

What situation do you think we’d be in if we didn’t have a flu vaccine?

Even if we get a Covid vaccine that’s the same efficiency as the Flu vaccine then surely that’s something to be happy about.

That gives us hope that we can return to something of a normal life, see our families again, properly.

I’m with you OP! Fingers crossed and all that.

@jasjas1973

China's trials dwarf anything in the west.

My point is that we should all be sharing vaccine knowledge and not competing & i suspect China is ahead of the west.

Scientists are pooling knowledge.

‘It can be done so long as Hancock doesn't cock it up, so personally I hope he resigns before then.‘

As long as they don’t put Dido Harding in charge of it.

@Mum2jenny

I think it’ll be like the flu vaccine which has variable efficacy from year to year.

Why do you think this? What leads you to this conclusion?

The reason the flu vaccine varies from year to year is because flu is a fast-evolving virus. Every year, “they” have to make a guess about which strains of flu will be a circulation and prepare a vaccine to counter the predominant strains. Sometimes they guess wrong. But coronaviruses mutate much, much more slowly.

I’m not particularly optimistic as people don’t seem to keep antibodies for long with covid. If the vaccine only lasts a few months it will be useless.

@Mum2jenny The flu vaccine is variably efficacious because there are many different strains of flu, and they have to make a guess at which will be most prevelent in any given year. That is understandably quite tricky, and sometimes they get it wrong.

There are different strains of Covid, but they don't differ enough that a different vaccine is necessary (yet, at least). They may not be 100% effective and we will likely have to have yearly vaccinations (like flu) but they should give good protection to reduce the severity of illness and reduce the spread throughout the population. As time goes on better and more effective vaccines will probably be developed.

@stairway

I’m not particularly optimistic as people don’t seem to keep antibodies for long with covid. If the vaccine only lasts a few months it will be useless.

No, it won't be useless. It just means that boosters will be needed.

@stairway

I’m not particularly optimistic as people don’t seem to keep antibodies for long with covid. If the vaccine only lasts a few months it will be useless.

For reasons I don’t understand, not knowing anything about immunology, vaccines can give a longer lasting immunity than natural infections.

It is also the case that even a short term vaccine could be used to squash outbreaks, by vaccinating everybody in the vicinity, so the R falls below one and the outbreak peters out.

@feelingverylazytoday So chinese scientists are pooling knowledge with western ones? got any evidence for that?

"Even if we get a Covid vaccine that’s the same efficiency as the Flu vaccine then surely that’s something to be happy about."

It is for the 50-70 age group and the younger vulnerable population. Sarah Gilbert has stayed that the Covid vaccine, like the flu vaccine won't work as well in the over 65's and it will be a sliding scale, going down as the age goes up. So for 80+ year olds to be safe, we need herd immunity.

There's a backlash against this vaccine, as well as many still thinking that it's a hoax. So sections of the population will still have to careful, because the uptake might not be there. Covid is more contagious than flu and causes more health issues.

They have said that it makes more sense to vaccinate those around the very elderly, rather than the elderly.

@stairway, the vaccine works differently than our natural immune response. The ingredients are used in the Elboa vaccine and they give a super boost to our defence systems. So when the vaccine starts to wear off, we still protect ourselves, so we get a dose of Covid of the level that won't make us seriously ill.

@jasjas1973, since the start there's been a global collaboration. In terms of fully working together, China's methods break Europe's ethical standards. So that makes it difficult. They plow ahead with untested vaccination programmes, even on their military. They break human rights.

We need our own research because it will build knowledge for the next disease outbreak. As the work being done on the other coronaviruses has helped with Covid.

<a class="break-all" href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/who-china-joint-mission-on-covid-19-final-report.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwjjrbiB2MHsAhX4TxUIHQPMA8UQFjAFegQICxAC&usg=AOvVaw1gO_RTfaIWQuEkjdvq_O7i" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/who-china-joint-mission-on-covid-19-final-report.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwjjrbiB2MHsAhX4TxUIHQPMA8UQFjAFegQICxAC&usg=AOvVaw1gO_RTfaIWQuEkjdvq_O7i

[quote Newgirlint0wn]@Mum2jenny

No,I’m not hopeful that any vaccine will solve the COVID19 issue any time soon. I think it’ll be like the flu vaccine which has variable efficacy from year to year. It will not be the panacea everyone is wanting imo. Hope to be wrong though!!

What situation do you think we’d be in if we didn’t have a flu vaccine?

Even if we get a Covid vaccine that’s the same efficiency as the Flu vaccine then surely that’s something to be happy about.

That gives us hope that we can return to something of a normal life, see our families again, properly.[/quote]
This 👍🏽