Coronavirus good news thread

October is the estimate now isn't it for the Oxford vaccine. That could be a massive game changer even if we have to boost every 4 months or annually.
 
Yes, they have actually never moved off target from when they first pitched the idea of being ready for autumn. The latest this week is autumn.
 
They raised the funding months ago and worked at a different approach all the way through. They were always confident as long as it worked.
 
But it’s untrialed, right?
No, it's been through lab trials, animal trials, human trials phases 1 and 2 and is currently undergoing phase 3 trials in 4 different countries on 3 different continents involving around 60,000 volunteers. An additional phase 3 trial had just been announced for India, though it hasn't actually started yet and I don't know how many people would be involved.

Having said that, I'm not aware of any projected October rollout of the vaccine, at least not to the general public. At one time, they were projecting that if everything as well as it possibly could, they might be able to start giving it to certain high risk groups (such as front line health care workers) with an emergency use authorisation, sometime in the Autumn.

However the last "official" word I heard from anyone in the development team was an interview with Professor Andrew Pollard in late July, where they were looking at a date towards the end of the year for "registration" of the vaccine, as the following extract from a National Geographic article shows:
Preliminary results from all these [phase 3] trials will be collected through November, and if they confirm that the vaccine is effective, the Oxford team will submit it for an initial registration with MHRA by the end of the year.

As I understand it, registration would be only the first step in the final approval process so even that would not mean the vaccine would be available to the general public at that point.
 
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No, it's been through lab trials, animal trials, human trials phases 1 and 2 and is currently undergoing phase 3 trials in 4 different countries on 3 different continents involving around 60,000 volunteers. An additional phase 3 trial had just been announced for India, though it hasn't actually started yet and I don't know how many people would be involved.

Having said that, I'm not aware of any projected October rollout of the vaccine, at least not to the general public. At one time, they were projecting that if everything as well as it possibly could, they might be able to start giving it to certain high risk groups (such as front line health care workers) with an emergency use authorisation, sometime in the Autumn.

However the last "official" word I heard from anyone in the development team was an interview with Professor Andrew Pollard in late July, where they were looking at a date towards the end of the year for "registration" of the vaccine, as the following extract from a National Geographic article shows:


As I understand it, registration would be only the first step in the final approval process so even that would not mean the vaccine would be available to the general public at that point.
Thanks, that makes more sense. It also means the autumn date is incorrect.

I was begining to wonder if I'd missed something then!
 
The NHS is gearing up for phaseII/III national vaccination research trials currently from a vaccination point of view, as well as the annual flu vaccinations.

There will be multiple vaccination opportunities coming up if you want to be part of the research. I do not think a vaccine will be ready to roll out on the general population any time soon although all NHS staff will likely be eligible to participate in the vaccine research due to being in higher risk roles.
 
The NHS is gearing up for phaseII/III national vaccination research trials currently from a vaccination point of view, as well as the annual flu vaccinations.

There will be multiple vaccination opportunities coming up if you want to be part of the research. I do not think a vaccine will be ready to roll out on the general population any time soon although all NHS staff will likely be eligible to participate in the vaccine research due to being in higher risk roles.
It won't as I keep explaining, Phase 3 trials last at minimum a year. Not sure why people aren't actually taking this in.
 
It won't as I keep explaining, Phase 3 trials last at minimum a year. Not sure why people aren't actually taking this in.

Possibly because you might not be right (in this case). I'm not saying that you're not right BTW. It's not completely cast in stone.

I was chatting with a mate who also works in the industry (like you do) and is high up in QA. He was saying that things CAN get rushed through. It sounded a bit like a risk/reward basis, whereby if the known or expected or so far discovered side effects were outweighed by the general perceived benefit.

In other words, a vaccine could get released to market a bit sooner than you might think.
 
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Possibly because you might not be right (in this case). I'm not saying that you're not right BTW. It's not completely cast in stone.

I was chatting with a mate who also works in the industry (like you do) and is high up in QA. He was saying that things CAN get rushed through. It sounded a bit like a risk/reward basis, whereby if the known or expected or so far discovered side effects were outweighed by the general perceived benefit.

In other words, a vaccine could get released to market a bit sooner than you might think.
I certainly wouldn't touch it if it did. "`speeding up" phase 3 trials just doesn't make any sense. This is the bit no one has been able to explain to me. I'd love to be wrong, and have a vaccine ready tomorrow, but I don't see how. You can't speed up the human metabolism (well, you can but that would skew the results) so I don't see how it's biologically possible to speed up the trials.
 
I read something that talked about this and said that one of the reasons it usually takes so long to bring a vaccine to market is a funding and resource issue - they don't have that issue this time around obviously as they have all the money and resources they could need. They are also getting priority access to all regulatory boards and so on, effectively meaning the (presumably) slow administration process for something like this has been significantly reduced.

That might explain why phases of development which usually take longer are not going to take as long, as part of the time frame is not necessarily the results of effectiveness and safety of the vaccine
 
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