Johnson and Johnson is currently mass producing an untested vaccine for Corona. This is surprising because, best case, it would be deep into 2021 until testing would be completed.
Prediction - Covid deaths hit 20k + and J&J will be given the green light and legal protection to roll out this untested vaccine to the public. May / June time frame.
Israel has already begun testing one.
Vaccines take on average 10-15 years and cost over 800 million dollars to develop them. If everything went perfectly (and they won't), a vaccine will be about 18 months away. And then you have the logistic challenge of creating 330 million doses and administering all of them. Think about how hard it is to produce Covid-19 tests, which are much simpler and to take them. They can only do about 100k a day right now and that number isn't going to rise that much any time soon, unless self-testing was possible, and it would still take months (mostly to produce the tests). Realistically, you won't be able to vaccinate a large number of the population in a very short time. Most widespread vaccinations are given to individual children/adults at doctor checkups and take years to vaccinate entire populations. The older and vulnerable will be prioritized when a vaccine ever does show up.
Someone in Seattle is already testing a vaccine on humans. But, they are only testing to make sure it's not harmful. They are not testing if it's effective. To test if it's effective, you have to expose the test subject to the virus AND have a control, vaccinated subject with the SAME EXPOSURE. Now, who the fuck is going to do that? Well, they use mice. Problem is, that there standard laboratory mice are IMMUNE!!! They can't infect a control group, or tell if the vaccination fails. So, someone found cryogenically frozen genetically modified sperm from someone trying to solve this problem during the SARS outbreak. And then did the test tube knock up of a bunch of mice. Who they then have to wait for to grow up. And then start breeding. So they can test IF they can infect these mutant rona mice. So that hopefully, they have mice to test a vaccine on.... Seriously, I'm not making this shit up. As fucked up as this sounds, it's true. bloomberg.com
Man I don't know. J&J said they are already mass producing in a time when the US could slide into mass deaths and a huge economic depression.
Perfect scenerio to try some long throws.
Lone Wolf - you make a reasonable point. To avoid a collapse of unseen proportions, it might make sense to try a Hail Mary.
Sadly, the medical establishment isn’t about to undertake such a risk. Rather than trying something that might help millions - they are offering social distancing - and shutting the economy - as solutions. They have developed a gigantic corporate bureaucracy that is scared of malpractice. So don’t expect them to move forward for years.
I think the quickest relief we'll get is from some drug cocktail or other, while we wait for the vaccines. A whole bunch of the anti-virals and monoclonal antibody drugs, and sure, hydroxychloroquine, are being tested; even if they just lower the death rate a bunch, and cure everyone else faster, I think we've got what we need to turn things around
With SARS, the disease simply disappeared on its own. The virus mutates, weakens, disappears in the summer, then never comes back.
I don’t think that will happen with CoVid. It has spread much farther than SARS ever did. But, it’s not impossible.
mark: there's been a few analyses and the virus seems to be mutating slowly (with one team in Europe having results that are an exception). Good and bad I guess, slow mutations means it might not be like flu where you need a new vaccine every year.
We really don't know. If this comes back annually like the flu, a vaccine could be a huge huge cash cow
What about those who tested positive, showed little or no symptoms, and then re-tested negative two weeks later? If you have had it and survived, have you build up the anti-bodies to avoid getting it again?
JA: plain and simple, we don't know. We think it's mutating slowly enough that you'll be immune (ala chickenpox), but it is NOT proven yet that it won't be more like flu, where it changes every year.
^ from what I've heard, the folks that got Covid-19 and recovered, will not get it again "for this season" - i.e. Corona can come back in the fall as a mutated strain then one could get reinfected w/ that muted-strain
I would try anything if I were critical or close to it. I wouldn't care if tested or not.
The tests outside the US are so inaccurate, false readings of 50%-80%, that I’m not convinced that people are getting re-infected.
I’ll take a piece of that action. The reason that vaccines go through months of testing Is because if there is something wrong with it, everyone could die. Unlike treatments that are only used on the ill, vaccines would be quickly given to 300 Million +. No do overs if they miss something.