
What you need to know about the Covid-19 vaccine - misiti3780
https://www.gatesnotes.com/Health/What-you-need-to-know-about-the-COVID-19-vaccine?WT.mc_id=20200430100000_COVID-19-vaccine_BG-EM_&WT.tsrc=BGEM
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cats_pajamas
All very promising but I am simply not interested in a brand new vaccine that
has been minimally tested. Especially an mRNA vaccine, a technology which is
only a few years old now and comes with side effects like inducing
autoimmunity. We're talking about altering your genome, permanently.

The Gates article mentions the mRNA solution needs to be kept at -80C up until
delivery. In a controlled environment, a test lab in a first world country
this is completely feasible. However the logistical challenges that presents
seem impossible when you consider the infrastructure (or lack thereof) of a
continent like Africa.

The normal development cycle of a vaccine is 5 years and we're shortening that
to 18 months? By having years less human testing? And side stepping government
regulators? No thank you.

And really all I get out of it is short term immunity which requires boosters
or worse a yearly shot like the flu shot? Honestly it sounds worse and worse
the more I research it.

~~~
lbeltrame
IIRC, while Moderna's solution is RNA based, Inovio's should be DNA based,
which means -20C instead of -80C, a definite improvement.

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Leary
Does anyone have a list of the 8-10 vaccines Bill Gates think are especially
promising?

~~~
brianyu8
This resource[1] linked by Gates in the article says

> "Most of the active projects are in exploratory or preclinical stages.
> However, 5 candidates have recently moved into clinical development,
> including mRNA-1273 (Moderna), Ad5-nCoV (CanSino Biologicals), INO-4800
> (Inovio), LV-SMENP-DC and pathogen-specific aAPC (Shenzhen Geno-Immune
> Medical Institute). Notably, Moderna was able to start clinical testing of
> its mRNA-based vaccine just 63 days after sequence identification."

Presumably, those are 5 out of the 8-10 that Gates thinks is promising

[1]: [https://cepi.net/news_cepi/cepi-publishes-analysis-of-
covid-...](https://cepi.net/news_cepi/cepi-publishes-analysis-of-
covid-19-vaccine-development-landscape/)

~~~
lbeltrame
I'm surprised the one from Oxford isn't mentioned.

~~~
rowanG077
Why are you surprised?

~~~
lbeltrame
Because it's one that's been aggressively pushed by the institution itself and
the only one that I know of that seeks partnerships with many companies /
institutions without any royalty involved (that I know of, at least).

Also because they were quickly able to get 1000+ people for the Phase 1 study,
and they're starting the Phase 2/3 study next month (objective: 6000 people
recruited).

They want ( _assuming that it is effective_ , of course, which is absolutely
not guaranteed) to have something ready for emergency use by early autumn.

Perhaps it's just better communication on their part, mind you.

~~~
benchaney
I'm curious about this. Could you please point me towards more information?

~~~
lbeltrame
Here are some resources:

\- [http://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2020-04-23-oxford-
covid-19-vaccine-...](http://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2020-04-23-oxford-
covid-19-vaccine-begins-human-trial-stage)

\- [https://covid19vaccinetrial.co.uk/](https://covid19vaccinetrial.co.uk/)

\-
[https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/27/world/europe/coronavirus-...](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/27/world/europe/coronavirus-
vaccine-update-oxford.html)

\-
[https://www.biocentury.com/article/305063/](https://www.biocentury.com/article/305063/)

The NY Times story is a bit of storytelling but it's kind of fascinating how
they got there.

For now I'm placing my bets on this one because they do not want royalties out
of it and they're seeking deals with many companies to manufacture as much as
possible (at risk, because at this point it is not known if it works).

~~~
jjeaff
The other promising factor is that their work is a continuation of a 10 year
project to develop a coronavirus vaccine. They are just modifying it to work
with sars-cov2. So it already had a lot of work out into it.

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GoToRO
Well, you can start mixing the concrete for the factories before the vaccine
is ready if you want to save time.

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randyrand
Given how quickly the virus is spreading in NYC will the vaccine be ready
before most people have already gotten it?

~~~
entropicdrifter
It's kind of irrelevant, timing-wise. If other varieties of coronavirus are
anything to go by, it's likely that people's immunity will fade in something
like 12-18 months and we'll get another round of this (albeit more localized
based on where the cases peaked 12-18 months before) if a vaccine isn't
available yet.

~~~
ksk
Well, if fighting off the disease doesn't produce long term immunity, then
neither will a vaccine. I guess we'll either have to keep-up with booster
doses, and hope for the best that the the virus doesn't mutate enough to not
be neutralized by the given vaccine.

~~~
FuckButtons
I feel reasonably confident about vaccine efficacy, I suspect the reason this
thing is so bad is because of the binding affinity of its spike protein. If
that mutates, it will become less lethal so waning vaccine efficacy becomes
less of an issue.

~~~
ksk
Well, even if it mutates in a way that is beneficial (to us), you still have
the original strain which will continue to spread unabated without a vaccine.
It was just a handful of people who were infective initially, and now the
diseases has spread everywhere. It can still happen again.

Also, for diseases that are considered "eradicated" because we now have a
vaccine, if you are one of the insane anti-vax people and stop giving vaccines
to your kids you can still have outbreaks because of natural reservoirs for
the disease. (For e.g. measles outbreak in the state of Washington).
Infectious diseases rarely just go away completely.

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oblongx
As long as it doesn't come mandatory with the mark of the beast...

