Covid vaccine available this year?

[Saracen999]

An announcement by Pfizer certainly looks promising. Initial analysis suggests about 90% protection, and provided subsequent results support their preliminary results, initial vaccinations could even happen by Christmas.

But this IS preliminary. It looks very promising, but the challenges are not yet over.

If all goes well, the first few million of the 50m doses the government has on order will possibly be available before Christmas, with frontline NHS and care home workers, and the very vulnerable, at the front of the queue.

As each person requires two doses, that 50m order is enough for some 25m people, and of course, other vaccines are still hopefully on the way. What isn't clear yet is that even if this does offer effective 90% protection, how long does it protect for?

But all said, it's a VERY promising development, if indeed it does work out as it appears, and could be the start of turning the whole Covid mess around, and ending all the lockdown stuff right around the world. Over time, of course.

[Zhaoman]

It's very promising and finally a ray of light after this mess of a year but I would caution not to get hopes too high. Vaccines typically take 10-20 years to develop because wide ranging controls and field trials need to be verified across demographics and over long timespans. Any statement that a vaccine has been tested after only 9 months is basically referring to the very first preliminary trials. Efficacy and potential side effects will take years and many more trials to be proven beyond doubt. In effect, anybody who gets this vaccine at this point in time will effectively be participating in the first field trials no matter what the government might hope to spin it as. Verifying results take time and there is no way to get around this. Same can be said of the Russian 'vaccine' announcement earlier in the year.

So no matter how much you try to 'fast-track' development of a vaccine, you cannot fast-track side-effects that may turn up 10 years later. So yes this is promising, but realistically I would not be lining up for it myself (at least initially) and would not expect this to be a panacea for coronavirus or lockdowns anytime soon.

[Terbinator]

Obviously a new announcement but how have Pfizer managed to have such success (seemingly) in a relatively short R&D window?

Hopefully them F@H cycles chipped in ������

[Saracen999]

It's very promising and finally a ray of light after this mess of a year but I would caution not to get hopes too high. Vaccines typically take 10-20 years to develop because wide ranging controls and field trials need to be verified across demographics and over long timespans. Any statement that a vaccine has been tested after only 9 months is basically referring to the very first preliminary trials. Efficacy and potential side effects will take years and many more trials to be proven beyond doubt. In effect, anybody who gets this vaccine at this point in time will effectively be participating in the first field trials no matter what the government might hope to spin it as. Verifying results take time and there is no way to get around this. Same can be said of the Russian 'vaccine' announcement earlier in the year.

So no matter how much you try to 'fast-track' development of a vaccine, you cannot fast-track side-effects that may turn up 10 years later. So yes this is promising, but realistically I would not be lining up for it myself (at least initially) and would not expect this to be a panacea for coronavirus or lockdowns anytime soon.

Very much agree.

Up to a point, the cycle can be reduced by throwing resources at it. For example, multiple teams all working independently. Also, by the scale of testing. But only up to a point, and completely agree, it's not a panacea. I've been listening carefully to what the PM and scientific advisors are saying in the briefing, and they have stressed that this IS good news, but it's not yet a done deal. They haven't yet had the safety data even from the testing (of some 44,000 volunteers, half of whom had a placebo), though it should be in "a few days". But even then, it's a "significant hurdle" cleared, but there are still many to go.

It is, if you like, first signs of a light at the end of the tunnel but even assuming it works out, there's still a lot of tunnel to go.

[badass]

Vaccines typically take 10-20 years to develop because wide ranging controls and field trials need to be verified across demographics and over long timespans.

It depends on the vaccine. The flu vaccine changes annually for the current strains in circulation.

[kalniel]

Obviously a new announcement but how have Pfizer managed to have such success (seemingly) in a relatively short R&D window?

They didn't do it from scratch. They (BioNTech) had the general methodology already. Once the spike protein's sequence was released they were pretty quickly ready to go, it's the clinical trials that take the rest of the time - and these are just preliminary trial results, they've not been reviewed yet.

See: https://www.phgfoundation.org/briefing/rna-vaccines for a summary of the approach. In this case the antigen is the spike protein.

[Ttaskmaster]

Remember the lessons learned from the tech world...
Early adopters usually pay the heaviest prices.

Also, didn't Pfizer have a big hand in a medication shortage crisis not so long ago?

[Hasnain]

Not too sure how i feel about Pfizer tbh, have heard they have a few stains in their track record.

[dannywaugh1]

Not sure either how I feel but this is good news