The top infectious disease experts in the United States seem to be confident that we will prepare a coronavirus vaccine in early 2021, but is this too ambitious? Experts hope that the vaccine against the SARS-CoV-2 virus will be available soon.
Lockdowns, social alienation, and masks are politically polarized. Until we have no vaccine for coronavirus, these measures designed to curb the spread of COVID-19 will not disappear.
Even when the school began to open and try to resume sports, large-scale events such as music festivals, technical conferences, and the Olympic Games were still held. So, how long do we have to wait?
Vaccines are developed, approved, manufactured, and distributed globally. It usually takes years (sometimes even decades) of vaccines, but doctors and scientists like now have never worked hard for this.
The series of abnormal pneumonia cases reported on December 29, 2019, first alerted the world to a new disease, now known as COVID-19. After about five months, at least six vaccine development projects have reported encouraging progress, and more are under development.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said he expects to be prepared to deploy “billions of doses” of the vaccine in early 2021 in an interview with the editor of the Journal of the American Medical Association. Chief Howard Bauchner.
Fauci said he is currently working with four or five different vaccine projects that are in human trials or are about to be conducted. According to Fauci, one of the projects was led by Moderna, a Massachusetts-based biotechnology company, and it is scheduled to enter an extensive Phase 3 clinical trial in July this year, which will include up to 30,000 people.
Other vaccine candidates, including those from Oxford University and AstraZeneca, Pfizer, and Chinese vaccine developer Sinovac, also followed.
As new information emerges, this article will be updated frequently and is intended as a general overview, not as a source of medical advice. If you are looking for more information about coronavirus testing, please follow these methods to find a test site near you. This is how to know if you meet the test conditions and how to conduct a home coronavirus test.
Moderna has been the headlines of its coronavirus vaccine development, including positive and negative. Earlier reports said Moderna’s first trial showed hope for immunity, which caused Moderna’s stock to soar. However, not long after, scientists became suspicious of the company’s data, causing the same stock to falter.
Moderna is a beneficiary of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s rapid vaccine program. The fast track process allows selected laboratories to submit their review process in stages instead of submitting all parts of the application at once, which is the usual way to speed up approval.
The company conducted a phase 1 clinical trial and reported preliminary data, saying the company supports the shift to a larger phase 2 clinical trial that is underway. According to reports, the third phase is scheduled for July. You can learn more about Moderna candidate vaccine mRNA-1273.
Oxford University is developing another vaccine. Scientists there said that the vaccine may be ready by autumn 2020. Oxford is collaborating with pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca. Their vaccine candidates are scheduled to begin Phase 2 and Phase 3 trials simultaneously this month.
Will everyone have only one vaccine?
We will not know for a long time, but Fauci suggested that it may be necessary to take several different vaccines produced and distributed by different laboratories to effectively remove COVID-19 from the earth. Fauci co-authored a paper on vaccines, which was published in the journal Science on May 11.
A vaccine is a medical treatment that protects you from diseases such as coronavirus. The vaccine usually takes about 10 to 15 years to develop. This is partly because any new medical method must undergo thorough safety testing before it can be distributed to millions or billions of people.
The mumps vaccine took four years, which is considered the fastest vaccine approval in the history of infectious diseases. The journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), that the US government supports efforts to begin dose production while clinical trials are still ongoing. This means that if these vaccines are indeed approved, then the vaccines that are already in stock are ready to be distributed nationwide.
Most health experts predict that the virus will not stop spreading until 60% to 70% of people worldwide are immunized. They say that the only way to achieve this level of immunity without causing major deaths is through vaccines.
This is the case in the joint editorial published in the New York Times by Carl T. Bergstrom, a professor of biology at the University of Washington and Natalie Dean, an assistant professor of biostatistics at the University of Florida.
What will happen to coronavirus vaccine development?
According to reports, more than 100 vaccines are currently being developed in countries around the world (including the United States, Britain, Germany, Japan, and China), and as of last month, 13 have been reported in clinical trials.
This means that in the history of a pandemic, more scientists are working harder than ever to find vaccines faster. However, even if one or more vaccines currently under study are effective, the FDA approval process usually takes a year or more.
Bloomberg said that in April of this year, the White House began to organize “action distorted speed”, this is a coronavirus vaccine task force, has identified 14 vaccine projects that will focus on rapid tracking.
The White House acknowledged the “Warp Speed” project itself at its April press conference, and its stated goal is to prepare 300 million doses of vaccine by January 2021, which is in line with Fauci’s estimate.
According to a special report from Reuters, statistically speaking, only about 6% of candidate vaccines can enter the market, not just because they are not working. Many problems can even cancel promising candidates.
For example, what happened when scientists tried to develop a vaccine for SARS? It is counterproductive and makes people more susceptible to the disease. The same thing happened with the dengue vaccine. To make matters worse, coronaviruses are a large class of viruses, and so far, there is no vaccine against them.
However, this particular coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 has some unique characteristics that may help researchers study vaccines. For example, certain viruses (such as influenza viruses) mutate quickly and frequently, which is why there are new influenza vaccines every year. Early evidence suggests that coronavirus does not seem to be able to do this.
What if we never found a coronavirus vaccine?
The longer we don’t have a vaccine, the more likely we are to shift our focus to treatment, such as the re-delivery of experimental antiviral drugs, and this method has reportedly shown encouraging results.
Through effective treatments, many once deadly viruses are no longer the death penalty. For example, due to tremendous advances in treatment, HIV patients can now expect the same life expectancy as non-HIV positive patients.
Without the coronavirus vaccine, the path back to “normal life” may be more difficult and longer, but it is not necessarily impossible. Experts say that coronavirus testing, including antibody testing, and contact tracking will need to be strengthened.
Lockdown measures have been implemented worldwide, although it may cause a second wave of coronavirus infections in cities and may bring back some isolation measures, including the requirement to wear masks and stay away from society.
Eventually, the global population may reach a rate of 60% to 70% required for cattle immunization to protect those who are not immune.