Plan B Forum

The race for a vaccine: how Trump's 'America First' approach slows the global search

Scientists around the world believe that humanity will achieve multiple effective Covid-19 vaccines in record time. In the wake of multinational fights against Ebola, Zika, HIV and other killers, the global infrastructure for taking on complicated immunization and vaccination projects has never been more robust, and American expertise plays an essential role.

But even as research labs based in the United States move candidate vaccines into clinical trials and pharmaceutical companies reorganize US factories to prepare for large-scale production, the US government has turned its back on the global coalition fighting the disease.

Unlike Britain, China, Canada, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Japan, numerous African countries, the World Health Organization (WHO), the Gates Foundation and the European commission, the United States did not send representation last week to a virtual global summit that raised more than $8bn for the coronavirus vaccine.

Instead, Trump – who for years has spread dangerous lies about vaccination – has tapped his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and others to lead what looks like a unilateral push for a vaccine that the administration has dubbed “Operation Warp Speed”.

The details of Operation Warp Speed have not been announced, but the White House has set a target of having 100m vaccine doses by autumn, a goal a Republican senator called “amazingly ambitious” and that scientists decline to credit.[


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Darren wrote: ↑

Fri May 15, 2020 6:15 pm

If COVID-19 is a corona virus like the common cold, why don't we have a vaccine for the common cold?

Darren wrote: ↑

Fri May 15, 2020 6:15 pm

What's the difference between flu vaccines which are on average up to 20% effective and corona viruses?

Darren wrote: ↑

Fri May 15, 2020 6:15 pm

If COVID-19 is a corona virus like the common cold, why don't we have a vaccine for the common cold?

What's the difference between flu vaccines which are on average up to 20% effective and corona viruses?

datsunaholic wrote: ↑

Fri May 15, 2020 8:31 pm

Common cold viruses mutate rapidly- sometimes so quickly that if person A gives the cold to person B, the virus in person B has mutated enough to re-infect person A. The antibodies only work for a specific genetic code of a virus, although if it's close enough the immune system will produce new antibodies much faster than a completely unknown virus. Still doesn't prevent you getting sick, but it's rarely severe.

The big issue is almost every known coronavirus has the same quick-mutation. COVID-19 hasn't mutated much, but it has mutated on occasion (hence the documented cases of reinfection). Obviously it mutated to become human-infecting and then human-transmissible. Hence why it is a "novel" virus, as it wasn't initially human-infecting.

I read at the beginning of this pandemic that there has never been a vaccine for a coronavirus, and that makes sense since they mutate so rapidly.

Influenza viruses are different- they mutate slowly, with the same strain circulating for years which is why flu vaccines are effective against the strains they are developed for (occasionally the vaccine makers guess wrong, though, and the strain that hits hardest didn't have a vaccine made for it). Other viruses almost never mutate- Measles, Mumps, Rubella, Poliovirus, Yellow Fever, Smallpox... these viruses mutate so slowly or not at all that the vaccines developed for them 50, 60, 70 years ago are still effective.

Darren wrote: ↑

Fri May 15, 2020 9:15 pm

Hold the presses! Dr. Fauci found an acorn. Say hallelujah!

"Fauci tells Congress: ‘There’s no guarantee that the vaccine is actually going to be effective’

"Even once a vaccine to fight the coronavirus is developed, White House health advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci told Congress Tuesday, “There’s no guarantee that the vaccine is actually going to be effective.”

Fauci testified in front of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions about the road to reopening businesses in the U.S. He also warned there’s a potential for a vaccine to make the course of the disease even stronger."

RayThom wrote: ↑

Fri May 15, 2020 8:02 pm

Ah, found it.

That's Darren on the left and his brothers, Daryl and Daryl, center and right.

RayThom wrote: ↑

Fri May 15, 2020 10:48 pm

Darren wrote: ↑

Fri May 15, 2020 9:15 pm

Hold the presses! Dr. Fauci found an acorn. Say hallelujah!

"Fauci tells Congress: ‘There’s no guarantee that the vaccine is actually going to be effective’

"Even once a vaccine to fight the coronavirus is developed, White House health advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci told Congress Tuesday, “There’s no guarantee that the vaccine is actually going to be effective.”

Fauci testified in front of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions about the road to reopening businesses in the U.S. He also warned there’s a potential for a vaccine to make the course of the disease even stronger."

Yet there's nothing saying a vaccine won't be effective.

Doctors are ethically bound not to give false hope. Fauci is merely living up to the oath he swore to when he graduated from medical school.

I do, however, trust the science and feel confident that an effective virus will be developed.