Has there been any price attached too the coronavirus vaccine, when and if it becomes available?

Scientists study whether immune response wards off or worsens Covid
Research into antibodies could explain children’s protection against disease, or why virus causes life-threatening effects
Robin McKie
Sun 4 Oct 2020 06.50 BST
British scientists have launched a major study aimed at uncovering the critical role that human antibodies and other immune defences play in the severity of Covid-19 cases.

Results could support some scientists’ belief that antibodies triggered by common colds could be protecting children against the disease. Alternatively, the study could confirm other researchers’ fears that some immune responses to the virus may trigger deadly inflammatory reactions that could bedevil attempts to create anti-Covid vaccines.

“This study could go in two very different directions,” said Michael Levin, professor of paediatrics at Imperial College London. “It could reveal that cross-reacting antibodies explain why children are less likely to suffer from severe Covid-19, or it might show patients’ own immune responses cause life-threatening effects.”

The study is being carried out by Levin’s group, a team led by Professor George Kassiotis at London’s Francis Crick Institute, and scientists led by Dan Davis, University College London. They will use thousands of samples which have been collected as part of existing studies funded by the EU and Wellcome.

Much of the groups’ work will focus on antibodies, key immune defence proteins that bind on to viruses to block their activity. When Covid-19 first appeared, scientists began searching for antibodies against the virus in patients and healthy individuals and to their surprise found them not just in samples taken from recently infected people but in specimens that had been collected before the pandemic began.

“We discovered a small group – about 6% of the UK population – already had antibodies that could recognise the new virus, although they’ve never been exposed to it,” said Kassiotis. “We realised there must be cross reactivity occurring between common cold coronaviruses and the new pandemic strain. Both are coronaviruses, after all.”

Coronaviruses cause about a fifth of UK common colds and antibodies triggered by them latch on to the Covid-19 virus. But could they actually be blocking Covid activity? “Our laboratory experiments suggest this may be the case,” Kassiotis said. “These antibodies may actually protect against Covid-19.”

Adults get common colds caused by coronaviruses once every two or three years. In contrast children get them five or six times a year because they constantly reinfect each other at school, said Kassiotis. As a result about 60% of them have coronavirus antibodies, 10 times the adult level.

“Children do not generally get severe Covid-19 and I believe that protection is provided by cross-reacting antibodies triggered by repeating coronavirus colds,” said Kassiotis.

Crucially, it appears coronavirus antibody levels drop steeply when children leave school and that raises a worry: UK children may have lost immunity during the lockdown. “The next coronavirus to spread among them could be the pandemic strain, not the seasonal cold variety,” said Kassiotis. “That does not seem to be happening but it is a concern.”
https://www.theguardian.com/science/202 ... sens-covid

Could a Covid vaccine bring back normality?
Is there a better strategy than an on-off lockdown?
With test and trace a shambles, many are pinning their hopes on a jab. But experts warn more measures will be needed to vanquish the coronavirus
Debora MacKenzie
Sat 7 Nov 2020 17.00
England is back in lockdown. It happened not a moment too soon. As of 2 November almost three-quarters of a million new cases have been officially counted since 21 September, when the government’s scientific advisory committee Sage advised lockdown. On that day, Britain had only had about 360,000 cases since Covid arrived. Now the figure is three times that. So many more cases mean it will take longer, and possibly require tougher social restrictions, to get numbers down by imposing lockdown than it would have in September, says James Naismith, head of the Rosalind Franklin Institute in Oxford.

Naismith calculates that we will have 500 deaths per day in two to three weeks because of the cases that occurred over the past week, compared with an average of 144 in the week ending 2 November. But it could be far worse. If we had done nothing for another two weeks, he says, we’d be looking at 1,000 deaths a day by Christmas – and more, if hospitals fill up and not everyone can get optimal treatment.

“No one is saying lockdowns are not harmful, they will cause misery and death,” says Naismith. “Being poorer as a country means we will be unhealthier. We know despair and isolation take lives. We know delays in treating some (non-Covid) diseases will increase deaths.” It is clear, however, that Covid-19 is far deadlier, he says.

But beating it back means people must follow the lockdown rules, and more closely than many did in spring. And that will be easier if there is a light at the end of this tunnel.

The brutal truth is that Boris Johnson’s pledge in July that Covid would be “over by Christmas” is as illusory as that promise proved back in the first world war. But we know that places that acted fast and forcefully enough to get infection down to low levels early on, then kept it there, with some distancing but also effective testing, tracing and quarantine, have been able to return to a degree of normality. Life is largely normal in New Zealand; the South Korean test and trace response is widely regarded as the benchmark; Taiwan recently celebrated 200 days without a case; Vietnam hasn’t added to its death count of 35 since 5 September, and China, source of the virus, has so far avoided a second wave.

But given that the UK’s test and trace system is so shambolic, we appear to be relying on a vaccine to bail us out. Sadly, it’s more complicated than that. Even once discovered, manufactured and distributed, it won’t banish the virus immediately, says Prof David Salisbury of Imperial College London, a former director of immunisation at the Department of Health. We will still need some distancing, and testing and quarantine to keep outbreaks under control. But we may not be condemned to the life we’re living now.
Full article: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/ ... -normality

Doc67 wrote: ↑Sun Nov 08, 2020 11:24 am If a vaccine came out, I would move heaven and earth to get a shot. I respect the fact that some people won't trust it and all the anti-vaccers will have they time in the sun.

If 60% get the vaccine then herd immunity will be well on the way.

However, the remaining 40% must be given a stark warning. If you present with Covid-19, and have previously refused a vaccination, you go to the isolation hospitals treating Covid-19 and get some oxygen and whatever else they can give you. That's it. No ICU or ventilators and no entry into general hospitals. You go to the modern day leper colonies.

It will take governments will balls, and that's where the problem will be.

Not disagreeing with you Doc, but what makes such a vaccine any better than the flu vaccine- i.e. utterly useless once a new strain mutates. I had flu shots when I was in England, every time I got a bloody awful cold/flu. Took it maybe three years I think before I decided to sod it- and I’ve not had a cold/flu since.

I tend to think this virus, like SARS (for which a vaccine was never finished), will disappear- rending any vaccine useless, just like the flu jab.

Unless it’s a life changer like measles vaccine, etc. I won’t be in the queue - and I would take your “stiff shit for you” no treatment route also. We all have it coming.