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What If The Vaccine Doesn’t Work ?
We are pinning all our hopes on the vaccines getting us out of this pandemic - what if it doesn’t?
The 2018 Flu Vaccine was only 29% effective. That was because by the time the vaccine had been manufactured a new strain had become dominant on which the vaccine didn’t work.
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None of the current vaccines have been tested on the new mutant strain of covid. They are hoping the vaccines will still work, but they don’t know, they are just hoping.
A very depressing thought, but one we should not dismiss. Boris says 13 million vaccinations in the next 6 weeks. I guess we will know after that
The 2018 Flu Vaccine was only 29% effective. That was because by the time the vaccine had been manufactured a new strain had become dominant on which the vaccine didn’t work.
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None of the current vaccines have been tested on the new mutant strain of covid. They are hoping the vaccines will still work, but they don’t know, they are just hoping.
A very depressing thought, but one we should not dismiss. Boris says 13 million vaccinations in the next 6 weeks. I guess we will know after that
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It is of course the South African one you are talking about and as we blah on they are working on it to see. R4 had an article on yesterday that this sort of mutation will carry on and we have to be sharp-witted to analyse them and tweak accordingly. It's a way of life for the future....The positives are that at least we have core vaccines now, we can tackle this current surge and that our social distancing behaviours have dramatically lowered the incidence of other covids and influenzas.
Your idea relies on a false premise that the virus changes but the vaccines dont.
They don't need to test in the same way because this vaccine is something totally different, it simply means adjusting small pieces of genetic code to update it The science bods have explained revisions can be done in weeks not months.. As things stand the current new variant is not so different that the vaccine can't attach. monitoring and development is continuing to ensure we keep a best match. The current minimum estimate is around 65% with the poorest projected take up in the vulnerable population. Most likely we will hit nearer 70%. Bear in mind there is no intention at the moment to vaccinate young fit people who are unlikely to be seriously affected by catching the virus. If the virus mutates to an extent where people become more seriously affected in those groups this plan will be revised
It was explained very well by a virologist last night. Covid will now always exist within the population, eventually it will only be able spread to those people who won't be vaccinated and fall into low risk groups. We will learn to live with it booster jabs if drastically different strains emerge. We may have to continue with extra hand hygiene maybe even choosing face coverings as some do in the far East
especially if it shows seasonal peaks but because the vulnerable will be protected by vaccines we can return to near, or rather new normal
They don't need to test in the same way because this vaccine is something totally different, it simply means adjusting small pieces of genetic code to update it The science bods have explained revisions can be done in weeks not months.. As things stand the current new variant is not so different that the vaccine can't attach. monitoring and development is continuing to ensure we keep a best match. The current minimum estimate is around 65% with the poorest projected take up in the vulnerable population. Most likely we will hit nearer 70%. Bear in mind there is no intention at the moment to vaccinate young fit people who are unlikely to be seriously affected by catching the virus. If the virus mutates to an extent where people become more seriously affected in those groups this plan will be revised
It was explained very well by a virologist last night. Covid will now always exist within the population, eventually it will only be able spread to those people who won't be vaccinated and fall into low risk groups. We will learn to live with it booster jabs if drastically different strains emerge. We may have to continue with extra hand hygiene maybe even choosing face coverings as some do in the far East
especially if it shows seasonal peaks but because the vulnerable will be protected by vaccines we can return to near, or rather new normal
// Your idea relies on a false premise that the virus changes but the vaccines don't. //
No it doesn’t. I compared it to the 2018 flu vaccine where the new vaccine was only 29% effective against the new flu variant.
Also, tweaking the to make a new vaccine to counter a new variant might take little time (we do that every year with a new flu vaccine) but manufacturing, distributing and administering it will take many months.
The current covid vaccination programme in the UK is planned to take until October.
No it doesn’t. I compared it to the 2018 flu vaccine where the new vaccine was only 29% effective against the new flu variant.
Also, tweaking the to make a new vaccine to counter a new variant might take little time (we do that every year with a new flu vaccine) but manufacturing, distributing and administering it will take many months.
The current covid vaccination programme in the UK is planned to take until October.
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Like wars, one of the things that modern pandemics do is greatly accelerate R and D in the necessary areas. Because its known what has changed in the new variant and how the vaccines work, its much easier to work out what to change and how to change it. Compare this with small pox vaccine which developed from an observation that people who had had cowpox didn't get smallpox. They didn't know why or how.
The covid vaccine is not quite the same as the flu vaccine. To create the flu vaccine, scientists have to predict what the most prevalent strains will be in the coming season and make up a cocktail accordingly. Usually the prediction is a good one, sometimes they miss by a mile. For the current covid vaccine there is no need of prediction. Even if the vaccine becomes less effective, there will be plenty of samples available to work on modifications and people will know what to do.
Human testing, apart from seeing if the existing vaccine volunteers, catch new variant, won't have happened yet. but I bet (and JVT) that in vitro and animal testing is happening now.
I am not saying "hurrah for science it will all be fine now"
The covid vaccine is not quite the same as the flu vaccine. To create the flu vaccine, scientists have to predict what the most prevalent strains will be in the coming season and make up a cocktail accordingly. Usually the prediction is a good one, sometimes they miss by a mile. For the current covid vaccine there is no need of prediction. Even if the vaccine becomes less effective, there will be plenty of samples available to work on modifications and people will know what to do.
Human testing, apart from seeing if the existing vaccine volunteers, catch new variant, won't have happened yet. but I bet (and JVT) that in vitro and animal testing is happening now.
I am not saying "hurrah for science it will all be fine now"
BioNTech are testing IF their vaccine works on the UK variant, but they are very optimistic it will.
// BioNTech CEO Uğur Şahin pointed out that the U.K. variant differed in only nine out of more than 1270 amino acids of the spike protein encoded by the messenger RNA in the very effective COVID-19 vaccine his company developed together with Pfizer. “Scientifically it is highly likely that the immune response by this vaccine also can deal with the new virus,” he said. Experiments are underway that should confirm that in the first week of 2021, Şahin added. //
// BioNTech CEO Uğur Şahin pointed out that the U.K. variant differed in only nine out of more than 1270 amino acids of the spike protein encoded by the messenger RNA in the very effective COVID-19 vaccine his company developed together with Pfizer. “Scientifically it is highly likely that the immune response by this vaccine also can deal with the new virus,” he said. Experiments are underway that should confirm that in the first week of 2021, Şahin added. //
How the UK variant was first spotted...
// Ravindra Gupta, a virologist at the University of Cambridge, heard about a patient who had come into a local hospital the month before with COVID-19. The patient, died in August, 101 days after his COVID-19 diagnosis, despite being given the antiviral drug remdesivir and two rounds of plasma from recovered patients, which contained antibodies against the virus. When Gupta studied genome sequences from the coronavirus that infected the patient, he discovered that SARS-CoV-2 had acquired several mutations that might have allowed it to elude the antibodies. //
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// Ravindra Gupta, a virologist at the University of Cambridge, heard about a patient who had come into a local hospital the month before with COVID-19. The patient, died in August, 101 days after his COVID-19 diagnosis, despite being given the antiviral drug remdesivir and two rounds of plasma from recovered patients, which contained antibodies against the virus. When Gupta studied genome sequences from the coronavirus that infected the patient, he discovered that SARS-CoV-2 had acquired several mutations that might have allowed it to elude the antibodies. //
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