Covid vaccine ready by September

From Futurism.

As various teams race to develop a vaccine for the coronavirus, one group at Oxford University says that — if everything goes perfectly — theirs could be available as soon as September.

The vaccine was demonstrated to be effective in macaques, primates often used in biomedical research because they’re similar to humans, but has yet to be tested in people, The New York Times reports. But with scheduled clinical trials involving 6,000 participants, it will soon become clear whether the vaccine is actually as promising as it currently seems.

The scientists at Oxford’s Jenner Institute for vaccine research had a bit of a head start, the NYT reports. They’re working on an accelerated timeline because they had previously shown that a vaccine similar to the one they’re now developing that inoculated against a different coronavirus was safe for use in humans.

That’s the first crucial benchmark for regulatory approval, but not by any means a guarantee that the new vaccine will work.

“It is a very, very fast clinical program,” Emilio Emini, a vaccine program director at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, told the NYT.

Even on top of accelerated testing, the group would need to get an emergency approval from the U.K. government if it wants to hit that September target.

Meanwhile, other researchers are also hot on the trail of a coronavirus vaccine.  From UQ (University of Queensland):

The University of Queensland’s COVID-19 vaccine has passed another important milestone, showing the ability to raise high levels of antibodies that can neutralise the virus in early pre-clinical testing.

UQ was tasked by the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovation (CEPI) to use its vaccine technology to develop a coronavirus vaccine, and has collaborated with the Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity (Doherty Institute) to demonstrate and understand its immune response.

UQ project co-leader Professor Paul Young said the results were an excellent indication that the vaccine worked as expected.

“We were particularly pleased that the strength of the antibody response was even better than those observed in samples from COVID-19 recovered patients.”

University of Melbourne Professor Kanta Subbarao, from the Doherty Institute, tested samples provided by the UQ team and found high levels of antibodies capable of neutralizing infection by the live virus in cell culture.

“This is a very important finding because similar immune responses with SARS vaccines in animal models were shown to lead to protection from infection,” Professor Subbarao said.

And in China:

China may have a vaccine against the deadly Covid-19 for emergency use by September and for the general public early next year, a top Chinese public health expert has said.

This is the first time a Chinese official has put an estimate on the timescale for development of a coronavirus vaccine, believed to be the key to containing the global pandemic. The US Food and Drug Administration believes a vaccine in the United States could be at least a year away, and the World Health Organisation (WHO) has said that it could take 12 to 18 months.

Gao Fu, head of the Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, on Thursday told China Global Television Network, the overseas arm of the state broadcaster, that vaccines currently at phase two or three of clinical trials could be available by the time of a potential second wave of outbreaks. Three Chinese vaccines have completed the first phase of trials.

Isn't it amazing that the people who are going to save the world are not some drongo tweeting about the deep state conspiracy from his lazee-boy armchair but scientists.   Not some hot-under-the collar tin-foil hat-wearer, but people who are intelligent and have studied and worked hard applying logic.  Miraculous, really.