Oxford vaccine?

[FlorentineAz]

When can we expect to hear anything about the vaccine? I know it needs to be safe and effective but it just feels like a long time since there’s been any positive news about it.

Does anyone know anything? Thanks in advance.

I believe theyre doing some challenge trials vurrenrly where they will deliberately give peoole covid-19 once they've had the vaccine, to see how effective it is. Currently it is looking like (from primate studies) that the vaccine may not be all that effective - the primate studies showed it did not stop someone catching covid-19 and did not stop them spreading covid-19, but did seem to stop covid-19 from developing i to a severe systemic illness.

God that sounds shite, I thought it was better than that.

Currently it is looking like (from primate studies) that the vaccine may not be all that effective - the primate studies showed it did not stop someone catching covid-19 and did not stop them spreading covid-19, but did seem to stop covid-19 from developing i to a severe systemic illness.

If that is the final outcome, we should all start an Oxford worshipping religion. It’ll do for me.

What’s the problem with it basically stopping us from dying? That’s surely a good thing no? Or were people hoping a vaccine would prevent everyone from catching it at all?

My understanding also was that it stopped it developing but not that you couldn’t catch it or spread it. I’m also not sure what the issue with that is if it basically just makes it like th common cold.

When and where did you get that info Nootkah?
The primate stuff was months ago and the Oxford researchers were confident it was because of the way they had flooded the monkeys’ nostrils with covid, not because the vaccine was ineffective. Van Dam was quoted in the Times this weekend saying it stops virus shedding in the young which would suggest the poor monkey outcome is definitely not the whole story.
Challenge trials were discussed in the summer but I thought they decided against it and set up studies in places where the disease was still rife instead. Could be wrong about that though.

@Nootkah

I believe theyre doing some challenge trials vurrenrly where they will deliberately give peoole covid-19 once they've had the vaccine, to see how effective it is. Currently it is looking like (from primate studies) that the vaccine may not be all that effective - the primate studies showed it did not stop someone catching covid-19 and did not stop them spreading covid-19, but did seem to stop covid-19 from developing i to a severe systemic illness.

I'm not sure if your post is accurate - the primate studies took place months ago - but even if it is, if the vaccine succeeds in making Covid just another mild illness like any number of others, that sounds pretty effective to me, at least for the time being.

@justanotherneighinparadise

What’s the problem with it basically stopping us from dying? That’s surely a good thing no? Or were people hoping a vaccine would prevent everyone from catching it at all?

Yes I was hoping this. Stupid me.

Not that it is going to be a magic bullet, as JVT and Vallance keep stressing, but it does look like there will be some impact on spread.

(Damn you autocorrect for changing Van Tam to Van Dam! )

Who is JVT

Here you go, OP
www.thetimes.co.uk/article/hope-for-covid-vaccine-at-new-year-25b52b86s
Why not just google instead of asking on here? Mumsnet is not a great source of scientific knowledge.

JVT = Jonathan Van Tam.

@TheCountessofFitzdotterel the news about the challlenge studies being approved was released yesterday.

Yes, it is possible that the primate study results were due to a confounding factor such as you mention, but until there is further evidence, that is the only information available. Van Dam may well be right but it is conjecture not backed up by evidence at the moment. Hopefully the human challenge studies will give clarity on that aspect.

There is a vaccine (novavax) in stage 1 clinical trials that seems to be more effective, nut obvuously thats early doors yet.

@IcedPurple whats inaccurate? Have there been other studies since that have found something different? Im pretty obsessive about this whole situation and have a scientific background so would be really surprised if Id missed an announcement about a study that found something different.

Thank you Nootkah.
I have found this Washington Post article about the challenge trials. That’s great to hear but it’s not the Oxford vaccine, the WaPo article says it will be useful to speed up vaccines that are in early to mid stage development and do head to head trials to see what works best.

The deputy chief medical officer’s statements are not conjecture! He will have seen interim results from the incomplete trials.

Whixh vaccine are they using for the challenge trials, countess?

Perhaps conjecture was too strong a word... But im sure even the CMO woukd agree that without pubkished evidence, assumptions (even if derived from early access to incomplete data) are different from fact.

I think the Oxford team haven't given a date for when phase III will complete. All they ever said was hopefully before the end of the year, I think.

Washington Post says they haven’t decided yet which vaccines. I expect it will depend on where things stand with the various different ones by January when they are due to start. What a pity they couldn’t have started back when the Oxford one went into phase 3!

Here are all the current vaccine candidates (the oxford vaccine is just one of many, even in the U.K.).

www.raps.org/news-and-articles/news-articles/2020/3/covid-19-vaccine-tracker

[quote Nootkah]@IcedPurple whats inaccurate? Have there been other studies since that have found something different? Im pretty obsessive about this whole situation and have a scientific background so would be really surprised if Id missed an announcement about a study that found something different.[/quote]
If you're all that 'obsessive' and have such a rigorous 'scientific background' then you will surely know, as @TheCountessofFitzdotterel pointed out above, that the primate study didn't reflect how Covid would normally be contracted in a real-life setting, as the monkeys were basically flooded with the virus. So the results do not mean that the vaccine will not be very effective, as you claim.

@Nootkah

I believe theyre doing some challenge trials vurrenrly where they will deliberately give peoole covid-19 once they've had the vaccine, to see how effective it is. Currently it is looking like (from primate studies) that the vaccine may not be all that effective - the primate studies showed it did not stop someone catching covid-19 and did not stop them spreading covid-19, but did seem to stop covid-19 from developing i to a severe systemic illness.

The challenge trials have not started and these trials will not include the Oxford Vaccine.

I would say a vaccine that stopped severe Covid illness is an effective vaccine. It may not stop people catching/spreading Covid but if it stops people ending up in hospital and stops people dying I will take that.

@notevenat20

I think the Oxford team haven't given a date for when phase III will complete. All they ever said was hopefully before the end of the year, I think.

Some reports are that they will have enough data for analysis by the end of November.

[quote Nootkah]@TheCountessofFitzdotterel the news about the challlenge studies being approved was released yesterday.

Yes, it is possible that the primate study results were due to a confounding factor such as you mention, but until there is further evidence, that is the only information available. Van Dam may well be right but it is conjecture not backed up by evidence at the moment. Hopefully the human challenge studies will give clarity on that aspect.

There is a vaccine (novavax) in stage 1 clinical trials that seems to be more effective, nut obvuously thats early doors yet.[/quote]
The primate study results you're talking about weren't done to determine whether or not vaccinated people could still spread the virus if they caught it. They were done to check whether there was a risk of a particularly unpleasant effect where getting the vaccine actually made the disease worse. So the monkeys were given absolutely massive amounts of virus, far far more than anyone would be exposed to naturally - the researchers were not trying to model natural infection.

It's possible that people who get vaccinated will still have some virus replicating in their noses when they're exposed to it, like the monkeys did. Or it's possible that they won't at all, or they will but a bit and be very low risk for infecting others, or anywhere in between. We don't know and we can't say "this macaque study tells us how effective the vaccine will be at preventing any infection", because it can't tell us that and wasn't aiming to tell us that.

Of course, we might also end up with an inhaled nasal spray version of one of the vaccine candidates: www.imperial.ac.uk/news/203653/landmark-coronavirus-study-trial-inhaled-imperial/

@IcedPurple well aren't you a ray of sunshine just spoiling for a fight! I dont mind being called out on things I have actually said, but please dont make things up just so you can take offence at them.

a) Ill grant you that I'm obsessive about this 😁

b) never claimed to have a rigorous background in anything

c) of course Im aware the studies werent set up to mimic real life

d) didn't claim that anything meant the vaccines wouldn't be effective, just that preliminary results indicated that it may not be all that effective

Have a nice day, stay safe!