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Yes, coming soon to newsfeed near you, is news of a vaccine being available very soon and lots of happy talk about early trial results.

Here's a first offering.

Moderna Coronavirus Vaccine Trial Shows Promising Early Results

The company said a test in 8 healthy volunteers found its experimental vaccine was safe and provoked a strong immune response. It is on an accelerated timetable to begin larger human trials soon.

The first coronavirus vaccine to be tested in people appears to be safe and able to stimulate an immune response against the infection, the manufacturer, Moderna, announced on Monday, offering a glint of hope to a world desperate for ways to stop the pandemic.

The preliminary findings, in the first eight people who each received two doses of the experimental vaccine, must now be repeated in far larger tests in hundreds and then thousands of people, to find out if the vaccine can work in the real world. Moderna’s technology, involving genetic material from the virus called mRNA, is relatively new and has yet to produce any approved vaccine.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/18/heal ... derna.html

[Mod edit: off topic]

Yeah, I've been getting these type of breakthrough vaccine near completion posts for weeks on end in my newsfeed. What happened with the one the tobacco company were going to do? It brought the most laughing emojis

Global report: don't count on vaccine, US scientist warns, as cases pass 5m
Alison Rourke
Thu 21 May 2020 07.07 BST

A top US scientist has said that people should not count on a Covid-19 vaccine being developed any time soon, as global infections passed 5 million after surges in Latin America, including Brazil, which has recorded nearly 20,000 new cases.

William Haseltine, the groundbreaking cancer, HIV/AIDS and human genome projects researcher, has said the best approach to the pandemic is to manage the disease through careful tracing of infections and strict isolation measures whenever it starts spreading.

He said that while a vaccine could be developed, “I wouldn’t count on it”, and urged people to wear masks, wash hands, clean surfaces and keep a distance.

“Do not listen to the politicians who say we’re going to have one by the time my re election comes around,” he said. “Maybe we will (but) I’m just saying it’s not a slam-dunk case by any means ... because every time people have tried to make a vaccine – for Sars or Mers – it hasn’t actually protected.”

Vaccines developed previously for other types of coronavirus had failed to protect mucous membranes in the nose where the virus typically enters the body, he said.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/ ... -5-million

so tired of newsfeeds featuring bill gates on this topic

he's not even an md, let alone a virus or vaccine specialist

fazur wrote: ↑Fri May 22, 2020 10:59 am he's not even an md, let alone a virus or vaccine specialist

Bill Gates, selling virus prone operating systems since the 1980s. How's that for his resume?

Why we might not get a coronavirus vaccine

Not a good one anyway...

Vaccines are simple in principle but complex in practice. The ideal vaccine protects against infection, prevents its spread, and does so safely.

But none of this is easily achieved, as vaccine timelines show.

More than 30 years after scientists isolated HIV, the virus that causes Aids, we have no vaccine. The dengue fever virus was identified in 1943, but the first vaccine was approved only last year, and even then amid concerns it made the infection worse in some people. The fastest vaccine ever developed was for mumps. It took four years.

A chief concern is that coronaviruses do not tend to trigger long-lasting immunity. About a quarter of common colds are caused by human coronaviruses, but the immune response fades so rapidly that people can become reinfected the next year.

Researchers at Oxford University recently analysed blood from recovered Covid-19 patients and found that levels of IgG antibodies – those responsible for longer-lasting immunity – rose steeply in the first month of infection but then began to fall again.

Last week, scientists at Rockefeller University in New York found that most people who recovered from Covid-19 without going into hospital did not make many killer antibodies against the virus.

“That’s what is particularly challenging,” says Stanley Perlman, a veteran coronavirus researcher at the University of Iowa. “If the natural infection doesn’t give you that much immunity except when it’s a severe infection, what will a vaccine do? It could be better, but we don’t know.” If a vaccine only protects for a year, the virus will be with us for some time.

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/coronavi ... spartandhp

and this is worth a read too

https://www.sciencetimes.com/articles/2 ... llance.htm

Coronavirus vaccine tracker: How close are we to a vaccine?

Worth a read, it seems it is still a long way off.

More than 140 teams of researchers are racing to develop a safe and effective coronavirus vaccine

Researchers around the world are racing to develop a vaccine against Covid-19, with more than 140 candidate vaccines now tracked by the World Health Organization (WHO).

Vaccines normally require years of testing and additional time to produce at scale, but scientists are hoping to develop a coronavirus vaccine within 12 to 18 months.

Vaccines mimic the virus - or part of the virus - they protect against, stimulating the immune system to develop antibodies. They must follow higher safety standards than other drugs because they are given to millions of healthy people.



https://www.theguardian.com/world/ng-in ... -a-vaccine

'I'm cautiously optimistic': Imperial's Robin Shattock on his coronavirus vaccine

Team is using new approach that could be cheap and scalable and become the norm within five years

Prof Robin Shattock would have liked slightly longer to develop the revolutionary approach to vaccines that he is pretty sure will not only save lives in the Covid-19 pandemic but become the norm for vaccine development within five years.

The Imperial vaccine is based on bits of genetic code, rather than bits of the virus itself. The code is inserted in fat droplets into the muscle of the arm, which then makes the spike protein for which the Sars-CoV-2 virus is famous. This induces the immune system to go into action, producing antibodies to fight it and hopefully creating a memory of the virus as an enemy invader to be repelled in case of genuine infection.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/202 ... us-vaccine

UK has opted out of EU coronavirus vaccine programme, sources say
EU to invest €2bn on vaccines now being tested but UK officials say scheme benefits are ‘limited’
10 July 2020

The UK government has rejected the chance to join the European Union’s coronavirus vaccine programme due to concerns over “costly delays”, according to sources.

The EU is planning to spend around €2bn (£1.8bn) on the advance purchase of vaccines that are undergoing testing on behalf of the 27 member states.

Negotiations with Brussels have been ongoing but Alok Sharma, the business secretary, is believed to have opted out of the opportunity, according to The Daily Telegraph. The European commission is expected to be notified of on Friday.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/ ... ources-say