A covid-19 vaccine?

The Moderna vaccine will have to pass through several more rounds of studies in order to be proven safe and effective for the general public. CREDIT:AP

From The Age:

The first coronavirus vaccine tested on humans appears to be safe and able to stimulate an immune response against the virus, the American biotechnology company Moderna has announced.

The results sent the US stock market soaring despite the small and early nature of the study.

The findings were based on results from eight people who each received two doses of the experimental vaccine starting in March.  The participants - all healthy volunteers aged 18 to 55 - produced antibodies that were later shown to stop the virus from replicating in infected cells in a laboratory, the key requirement for an effective vaccine.

The levels of "neutralising antibodies" were similar to the levels found in patients who had recovered after contracting the virus in the community.

The Food and Drug Administration has awarded Moderna a "fast track" designation for the experimental vaccine, a move that speeds up the regulatory review process.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P 500 both enjoyed their biggest one-day gains since early April, thanks largely to optimism about the hope of developing a vaccine.  The Dow Jones rose by 3.9 per cent on Monday (Tuesday AEST) while the S&P 500 gained 3.2 per cent.

It's a long and uncertain road from preliminary trials with just a few participants to regulatory acceptance and mass production.  The next step will be to test the virus on a couple of hundred volunteers.  That will take a couple of months.  Them if it's still effective, the test will be extended to 10,000 participants, and again, this will take a few months.  With a larger test base, side-effects will show up better.  We will be able to see if it's really safe.  For example, some vaccines have serious effects on just 1% of the sample.  That might be enough to make the regulators refuse permission, or give it with restrictions.    Many vaccines pass early testing but fail larger tests.  We also don't know how long the antibodies will last.   And even if the vaccine does work, it's prolly not going to be approved before the end of the year, and may not go into mass production a few months into the new year.

Meanwhile, although China has recovered from the downturn caused by their lockdowns, most other countries are still slowing.  Removing lockdowns in countries where the virus has spread widely into the population may not expand economic activity much.  In Sweden, which enforced no lockdown, economic activity has nevertheless plunged, because there has been an "unofficial lockdown".  If tens of thousands keep on dying, people are not going to enthusiastically embrace flying again, for example.  Locked into a sealed cylinder with re-cycled air, queuing cheek-by-jowl with hundreds of others?  And until a vaccine, most countries are going to maintain quarantine for international travellers.  Ending compulsory lockdowns won't  end cautious behaviour by most people.

It's too early to rejoice about a successful vaccine.  If it passes the next stage of tests, the likelihood that it will be effective and accepted by regulators rises sharply.  Even if it still has some risks, it could be given to at-risk sections of the population, such as people with diabetes (a disproportionate share of those who have died from the coronavirus have had diabetes), or the elderly, , allowing a more relaxed approach to the virus in the rest of the population.