Oxford vaccine may not be effective against South African variant

[Ninbus]

This is awful news. I really hope the government take this news seriously and does everything to keep this variant from spreading here. Sadly I don’t have much confidence they will have learnt this lesson

Given that SA is unlikely to actually get the vaccine before mid-2021, it's kind of academic at this point!

The biggest issues are actually getting the vaccine in sufficient quantities and convincing people to take it (just over half of the population are willing to be vaccinated, a situation not helped by the top judge in the country making allusions to the vaccine being Satanic.)

If people would stop fucking off everywhere on holidays it'd be a help for not bringing anything back because they aren't quarantining.

Oh ffs, so much for don’t shoot the messenger.

I’m also interested to know what those saying “it will only need a tweak” actually know about the process of making, testing and distributing vaccines

I think there was more, at one point. From memory that was one of the things the MN Saint Peston was arguing with an expert or two about. He at least seems to have backed off the science for some time,.well, I say backed off I mean learned to only quite the well simplified bits.

There have been some weird arguments too about the language used - take transmissibility for one example. So I don't think it's easy to explain the broad approach being taken, let alone why some of the work is startlingly new.

I have a science based Master's degree and find myself quickly baffled by a friend's daughter when she tries to explain.im simple terms - she's working in a lab, analysing samples, measuring responses etc.

I believe her when she delivers an opinion and she is optimistic that the current vaccines will be used, modified for variants and that there will be long lasting, new medicine to come out of this.

@lightand if you compare the vaccine to the flu vaccine, I know that the final product each year is a mix of whichever strains revealed themselves as prominent in the previous season.

I expect the Covid-19 vaccine will be similar.

I understand this virus is new and is now mutating, which is normal for viruses. But, based on the flu vaccine that uses the previously years strain, the current vaccine should offer some protection.

We have some of the best scientists in the world working on this. If they need to taylor the vaccine towards more than one variant this won't stop the roll out of the current vaccine, this is likely to offer protection.

I expect as an educated guess that maybe the second booster might be the modified version.

Hopefully a modified vaccine will include the two new strains, just as the flu vaccine combines several strains.

@MarmiteyCrumpets Why do you say that SA are unlikely to get the vaccine? That is not likely at all, if you know the Oxford group, and their ties with Africa and global health outlook!

@whereismormonjesus The ‘tweak’ is adding in or substituting a section of code to the vaccine ‘cassette’ - in ridiculously basic terms - to reflect a new or significantly different viral antigen target. Basic molecular biology - can be done very quickly. I’m not certain what the clinical trial implications would be, exactly. The slow bit is manufacture to meaningful scale.

Fuck twitter!

@MarmiteyCrumpets Sorry - I didn’t read your post properly. Please ignore me