Genuine question about vaccines

[Goldendaffodils]

Sorry if this has been covered elsewhere and I’ve missed it, but is anyone working on a vaccine that actually blocks transmission? Is that something that’s in progress, and we’re not hearing about it, or is it off the table, for whatever scientific reason?!

Tonight’s briefing seemed to focus on vaccines and antivirals as our way forward - but the current vaccines definitely aren’t stopping it being transmitted - anecdotally I know of lots of people catching Covid several times within the space of a few months. Are we holding out for ‘better’ vaccines, so that there isn’t so much Covid circulating? Or are we going to have to accept it at such high levels for years?

Great question, I wonder if some of the pros on here can shed some light.

I do think anti virals will dramatically change things, much more than the vaccines have. It's a blessing they could develop vaccines and roll them out to so many of us, but without sounding ungrateful, it would be reassuring to know what are the plans to further combat Covid that will be more effective that what we've done so far.

Here is a list of vaccines under development

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

Yes, everyone hopes that their vaccine will be better than its predecessors, whether that's more effective, lower side effects, cheaper or as yiubsay, greater prevention of transmission

I don't think many vaccines prevent transmission, they just stop people getting so sick & spreading it around so much. I think there has been disappointment over these ones reducing the spread though, particularly with omicron. Hopefully some of the newer ones will contain the spread better.

I’d imagine it’s being worked on somewhere. The vaccines did do a good job at preventing transmission from wild type/alpha from what I remember at the time. It’s just that they are less effective at preventing transmission than delta and omicron.

I’d assume that means it is possible to develop one that is more effective against omicron. How effective that would be given we are still in the middle of a pandemic and significant new variants are developing every few months I don’t know.

You may find this article interesting:
www.theguardian.com/society/2022/feb/26/will-we-get-a-single-variant-proof-vaccine-for-covid?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

I do think anti virals will dramatically change things

Hmmm, maybe, though they aren't risk-free any more than the current vaccines are. For example, one of the underlying health conditions which make people CEV is kidney disease. Turns out, the intravenous anti-viral treatment hasn't actually been tested on people with severe kidney disease at all – it's been tested on those with mild to moderate kidney disease and the results extrapolated from that. There are sound ethical reasons for this, nevertheless the fact is that there is zero data available for anti-viral use in patients with serious kidney disease.

There are oral antivirals too. Anyone over 50 can sign up for the panoramic trial.

People with severe kidney disease are advised not to take the oral option as they pass through the kidneys.

So, if the intravenous ones don't pass through the kidneys?

The intravenous ones might be absolutely fine, there's no reason to assume they won't be. But they don't actually know because they haven't been tested. I'm not personally a huge fan of being the guinea pig in that situation.

I thought anti-virals were only helpful if taken very early on in the infection. With testing being quickly phased out, how will vulnerable people know when they're infected in time? Are they going to continue to provide unlimited free testing for the vulnerable?

The original recommendation was to take anti-virals within 5 days of a positive PCR but this is now being pushed out to 7.

We have been sent a home PCR kit free of charge – only 1 but if we use it, a request is automatically triggered for us to be sent another, which came within 24 hours.

DH has a testing kit - he used it last week & they sent him another one very quickly. He was actually able to get the antivirals without a positive PCR, they went on his LFT (but he had already sent off the PCR swab).
I didn't realise they were pushing it out to 7 days. Certainly the panormaic trial is 3-5 days.

I don't know if that's a uniform policy @Cookerhood, but the large teaching hospital near us is saying that. Possibly hospitals/health care trusts are allowed to decide for themselves?

Glad to hear your DH got sent another PCR testing kit very quickly, so did mine. Sounds like that part of the system is working well at any rate. Did your DH feel they helped (it's hard to say for sure, I know)? Hope he is doing OK now.

The goal with any vaccine would be to completely stop people getting it.

But many of the vaccines we have which do that, like measles, are illnesses where it is already the case that if you are infected once you become immune.

Even after years of flu vaccines, even if you happen to get the exact strain your vaccine is targeted to, you can still get it. It's not that they don't care to make it more effective, it's that they haven't figured out how to do it.

He's fine thanks @thing47. Got off very lightly. Managed to get the antivirals on day 2 so it was all very efficient.