4 ms·

Why do they keep saying 'until vaccines are ready' as though it's a foregone conclusion that we can make a vaccine for this? Is this type of virus always a goo

Why do they keep saying 'until vaccines are ready' as though it's a foregone conclusion that we can make a vaccine for this? Is this type of virus always a good one to make vaccines for? There are tons of viruses we have failed to vaccinate for, despite trying for 30 or 40 years. People seem to be universally saying a vaccine is '12-18 months away'. Is this just misinformation? I would love to hear from an expert about this.

dmarchand90 7y ago
Not an expert. It's not guaranteed but it seems like covid19 has a lowish mutation rate, similar or perhaps lower than the flu. So it would seem reasonable that this a vaccine-amenable virus. But there are no guarantees.
funcDropShadow 7y ago
Because, there are multiple teams of companies and scientists around the globe, that all report that they'll have candidates ready in the very near future, i.e. 3-4 weeks. Which means they are convinced the vaccines work. But since vaccines are given to a large number of people, you have to make sure that there is a very low number of adverse effects. And that takes most of the time. But the vaccine candidates are almost ready.
oli5679 7y ago
This thread is quite encouraging. Argues that reason why we don't have one for other coronaviruses is because of cost-benefit not high enough, rather than technical hurdles. 20% colds caused by 4 different Coronaviruses, so hard to justify making a vaccine that reduces cold risk by a few %. Agree that there is uncertainty though. "Covid is so technically doable we already have vaccines for dog & cow coronaviruses. We’ll definitely make one for covid, trials will be simple since we’ll be specifically trying to prevent Covid, which is only caused by SARS-CoV-2 (not by dozen different viruses)" https://twitter.com/PeterKolchinsky/status/1240498037958545410 https://twitter.com/PeterKolchinsky/status/12404980379585454...

dmarchand90 7y ago

Not an expert. It's not guaranteed but it seems like covid19 has a lowish mutation rate, similar or perhaps lower than the flu. So it would seem reasonable that this a vaccine-amenable virus. But there are no guarantees.

funcDropShadow 7y ago

Because, there are multiple teams of companies and scientists around the globe, that all report that they'll have candidates ready in the very near future, i.e. 3-4 weeks. Which means they are convinced the vaccines work. But since vaccines are given to a large number of people, you have to make sure that there is a very low number of adverse effects. And that takes most of the time. But the vaccine candidates are almost ready.

oli5679 7y ago

This thread is quite encouraging. Argues that reason why we don't have one for other coronaviruses is because of cost-benefit not high enough, rather than technical hurdles. 20% colds caused by 4 different Coronaviruses, so hard to justify making a vaccine that reduces cold risk by a few %. Agree that there is uncertainty though. "Covid is so technically doable we already have vaccines for dog & cow coronaviruses. We’ll definitely make one for covid, trials will be simple since we’ll be specifically trying to prevent Covid, which is only caused by SARS-CoV-2 (not by dozen different viruses)" https://twitter.com/PeterKolchinsky/status/1240498037958545410 https://twitter.com/PeterKolchinsky/status/12404980379585454...