3 ms·
The mRNA covid vaccines were essentially chosen directly, not tested against other proteins on the virus. It took a few hours once the virus was sequenced, I gu
by maxerickson 3y ago
The mRNA covid vaccines were essentially chosen directly, not tested against other proteins on the virus. It took a few hours once the virus was sequenced, I guess based on experience with other coronaviruses.
- ben_w 3y agoThat's just the first stage of testing; you also need in vivo and human safety trials. Which we did do, it's just there's normally a bigger gap while we think about the results, go looking for funding for the next stage. With covid (based on reporting at the time, Gell-Mann Amnesia applies), we were building the factories to make the vaccines before we knew which vaccine would be made in that factory.
- maxerickson 3y agoI think it was more like ensuring the capacity to do it was in place. Things like bioreactors aren't overly specialized. As well as it went, it wasn't overly ambitious. A few billions of dollars probably could have accelerated widespread availability by months (I'm thinking mostly about producing earlier, with the risk that the production would end up as waste if the vaccine didn't prove out).