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Medicine United States

Fauci 'Cautiously Optimistic' Vaccine Could Be Available by End of 2020 or Early 2021 (bostonglobe.com) 165

Posted by msmash from the up-next dept.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the government's top infectious disease expert, told a House committee on Tuesday he believes "it will be when and not if" there will be a COVID-19 vaccine and that he remains "cautiously optimistic" that some will be ready at the end of the year. From a report: Fauci has returned to Capitol Hill at a fraught moment in the nation's pandemic response, with coronavirus cases rising in about half the states and political polarization competing for attention with public health recommendations. Fauci testified in his opening statement that a vaccine candidate for the coronavirus will enter Phase 3 of study in July. "This is one that has already shown in preliminary studies some very favorable response in the animal models that we've developed," Fauci said. Earlier this month, Cambridge-based Moderna announced the experimental COVID-19 vaccine it is developing with the US National Institutes of Health was on track to be tested in 30,000 volunteers -- some given the real shot and some a dummy shot.

Fauci was testifying along with the heads of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Food and Drug Administration, and a top official at the Department of Health and Human Services. Since Fauci's last appearance at a high-profile hearing more than a month ago, the US has been emerging from weeks of stay-at-home orders and business shutdowns. But it's being done in an uneven way, with some states far less cautious than others. A trio of states with Republican governors who are bullish on reopening -- Arizona, Florida and Texas -- are among those seeing worrisome increases in cases. Last week, Vice President Mike Pence published an opinion article in The Wall Street Journal saying the administration's efforts have strengthened the nation's ability to counter the virus and should be "a cause for celebration." Dr. Fauci also told lawmakers Tuesday that the US will be increasing coronavirus testing, saying, "we're going to be doing more testing, not less," in response to President Donald Trump's recent claim that he asked to slow down testing during the pandemic.
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Fauci 'Cautiously Optimistic' Vaccine Could Be Available by End of 2020 or Early 2021 More

Fauci 'Cautiously Optimistic' Vaccine Could Be Available by End of 2020 or Early 2021

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  • A *Working* Vaccine? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by dgatwood ( 11270 ) on Tuesday June 23, 2020 @12:31PM (#60217940) Homepage Journal

    Let's not get ahead of ourselves.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by OffTheLip ( 636691 )
      Right. One that does more good than harm. Rushing this out doesn't inspire confidence for me but likely does for the "economy".

      • The challenge of doing more good than harm is so high because you want to vaccinate billions of people, the majority of which would not even suffer if they attact Covid. If you would target the high risk population the calculus would already change.

        A while back I read about a chines candidate for a vaccine. Many of the testpersons became ill, fever, all kinds of symptoms. Nobody got seriously ill and nobody died but scale this up and one can imagine some people dying.
        The effectiveness of the vaccine candid

      • Right. One that does more good than harm. Rushing this out doesn't inspire confidence for me but likely does for the "economy".

        Before you shit all over concern for the economy, and I will grant certain factions want it better, but also certain factions want it worse (I hear AOC has a tweet for you) and also heavily rely on class warfare, insensate rhetoric: "Economy worth one death? Ptui!" keep in mind our slowed economy may be putting us months behind where our R&D and general economic progress might might have placed us, and people will die because treatments for all ailments are somewhat delayed.

        How many? Remember the shif

    • A working vaccine by then could well be doable if the trials continue to go well; I would not think manufacturing it at scale for the whole world will happen by the end of the year, even if it is great.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by dgatwood ( 11270 )

        IMO, the biggest risk with a COVID-19 vaccine is that it could cause CRS (Cytokine Release Syndrome) in the same patients who would have died from the actual disease. After all, what kills you isn't the virus; it's your immune system's overreaction to it. I'd feel a LOT more comfortable if the first vaccine out of the gate were the one delivered by microneedles (PittCoVacc), which seems more likely to ensure that any reaction remains confined to your skin, rather than possibly getting into your bloodstre

        • After all, what kills you isn't the virus; it's your immune system's overreaction to it.

          You sure it's never the lung damage?

          • Is give you massive numbers of blood clots in your body including your lungs which seems to be what kills a lot of people. I know one line of research is to see if blood thinners might result in a better outcome. (But of course those drugs come with their own risks.)
            • I didn't say it didn't cause other things as well, but I don't see how you can have a virus multiplying in your lung cells and blowing them up with no repercussions unless you have an infinite number of lung cells. Most people don't.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by dgatwood ( 11270 )

            After all, what kills you isn't the virus; it's your immune system's overreaction to it.

            You sure it's never the lung damage?

            I'm pretty sure that it's the inflammation that causes the worst of the lung damage. I mean, there's some direct damage from cells getting infected, too, but my gut says that it is a rare cause of death, percentage-wise.

        • If the vaccine has a strong neutralizing effect directly to the virions it should prevent a CRS. It isn't clear to me why microneedles would confine adverse reactions to the site of vaccine delivery but I'll have to look into it.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by dgatwood ( 11270 )

            I'm not sure it would confine it, per se, but my thinking is that the more direct the interaction with your bloodstream, the more likely that the epithelial cells in your blood vessels are to react like they do to the virus. An injection results in bleeding, so it seems likely to me that more of the vaccine would actually get into your bloodstream than with a microneedle array, which is superficial.

  • If it takes 6 months to scale up and produce hundreds of millions of doses.... then where is the PROVEN vaccine.... because it is almost July

    Nothing that this administration says adds up

    • You'd still have the small scale, but yeah... Santa won't be getting everyone a dose in their stocking.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by motd2k ( 1675286 )
      AstraZeneca are already manufacturing AZD1222. Admittedly first doses unlikely to be given until towards the end of the year, but planned target was 400m doses. I think that vaccine candidate is already in phase 3 testing.
    • Parallel processing.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Octorian ( 14086 )

      That's why we're probably not going to wait before a vaccine is proven before scaling up manufacturing. Enough is at stake that its worth wasting the money on mass production even for candidates that don't pan out.
      I recall the Bill Gates going on record saying that his foundation is funding factories for at least 7 of the vaccine candidates for exactly this reason.

    • Couple things. $250,000 "wasted" (Score:5, Informative)

      by raymorris ( 2726007 ) on Tuesday June 23, 2020 @01:41PM (#60218258) Journal

      First, Fauci didn't say everyone would be immunized by the end of the year. That's something you completely made up in order to poke at it. That's called a straw man and here on Slashdot we recognize that for what it is. Try Facebook for that crap, where there are more people who don't engage their brains.

      Second, you might remember that while universities ans government labs in two dozen countries were testing Remdesivir and hydroxychloroquine because they seemed to be our best shot, Fauci said if either drug made it as far as phase 3 testing, we should go ahead and start making "a couple million doses" of hcq so that if the stage 3 trials confirm they should be used, we'd have the medication mostly ready. Rather than sitting in our hands doing nothing and waiting, as you seem to suggest is the only course one can take.

      You might recall you had a good laugh last week because now we have three million doses of hydroxychloroquine we don't need, which cost $250,000 to make. (Hydroxychloroquine is really cheap to make).

      Phase 3 of the vaccine should start in about a week or two, so he might well recommend we start production at around the same time, so it'll be ready if and when we know it should be widely administered. If the phase 3 goes poorly, then we spent a few million dollars producing a vaccine that we don't end up using. Oh fucking well. They are already spending the $500 million to reset and develop the vaccine. Another $20 million to produce a bunch of it really isn't a big deal.

      • "That's called a straw man and here on Slashdot we recognize that for what it is"

        Eh, I've been on Slashdot for 20 years and we totally wallow in strawmen here.

        • "That's called a straw man and here on Slashdot we recognize that for what it is"

          Eh, I've been on Slashdot for 20 years and we totally wallow in strawmen here.

          Actually, scarecrows are in use all around the world and have been for more than a millennia. I don't know why you'd fallaciously suggest that we have any sort of basis for an exclusive claim to them on Slashdot.

      • Not Fauci, his boss... you know Mr I say a lot of shit but never really deliver...

        Trump sets goal of hundreds of millions of coronavirus vaccine doses by January, but scientists doubt it [washingtonpost.com]

        So, maybe Trump totally made it up, but I am just pointing to the impossibility of delivering on his promises regardless of what you apologist shills want to spew

        I'll not wait on your apology

        • > Not Fauci, his boss ...
          > Trump sets goal of hundreds of millions of coronavirus vaccine doses by January, but scientists doubt it

          So this little mark thing " is called a quotation mark.
          When someone says Fauci once recommended making "a few million doses" of hydroxychloroquine (which costs about $250,000, the part within the quotation marks is his exact words.

          Which has approximately nothing whatsoever to do with a few months later somebody said he hopes something about a completely different category

          • There are none so blind as those who will not see

            I will designate you as blind, since you refuse to see the the failing of this administration

            The President (head of the administration) said that there will be hundreds of millions of doses of VACCINE ready by next January, Fauci, who is able to recognize the impossibility of that statement then slowly walks it back to something that is remotely feasible

            And YOU just want us to forget what your Dear Leader said in the first place

            There is a little place call No

            • Garyisatdsguy said:
              > Trump sets goal of hundreds of millions of coronavirus vaccine doses by January

              In fact his actual words were:
              -- ... development of effective treatments and vaccines as quickly as possible. Want to see if we can do that very quickly. Weâ(TM)re looking to â" when I say "quickly," weâ(TM)re looking to get it by the end of the year, if we can. Maybe
              --

              I guess that qualifies as "sets a goal", though personal development people will tell you goals don't come with "if we ca

              • lol, what the fuck are you on buddy? Get some sleep, then come back read the article and see what a fool you have been

                Just to summarize, my original post:

                >Riddle me this... (Score:2)
                >by garyisabusyguy ( 732330 ) on Tuesday June 23, 2020 @11:41AM (#60217974)
                >If it takes 6 months to scale up and produce hundreds of millions of doses.... then where is the PROVEN vaccine.... because it is almost July
                >
                >Nothing that this administration says adds up

                Just in case you have a comprehension problem...
                1.

    • The administration has its issues with communication however Dr. Fauci did not guarantee that hundreds of millions of people will be vaccinated by the end of 2020. He said he was "cautiously optimistic" that there would be a vaccine by the end of 2020. You didn’t have to read the article to spot this difference. Just read the summary. If all goes well, he hopes they will be making vaccines by the end of 2020.

      This is the same difference between "my package is expected to be delivered Thursday" and "my

    • Yes they have to scale up long before they know it will work and not kill more than it saves. But that is accounted for and government should eat the cost if it fails. Why?

      Government (just the US) is on target to borrow an extra $6 trillion this year alone. On top of the normal one trillion.

      Eating a few hundred billion is nothing. Moonshot prices are worth it to get the economy open one month early.

  • "Available" doesn't mean you can get it (Score:5, Informative)

    by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Tuesday June 23, 2020 @01:02PM (#60218076)
    it will go to healthcare workers first and as it becomes more available high risk populations and then finally low risk ones. So figure March, maybe April or May for it to get everywhere and that's if it works.

    On the plus side the healthcare workers will test it for you.

    • I don't want to be first in line anyways!
      I'm not anti-vax, but the rush to get these vaccines out scares me.

      • Warning! The initial vaccines have a common (5-10% chance) side-effect of causing you to grow a tail. Tell everyone you know!

        • Well that's good since it also causes Autism. This way when people see you walking down the street with a tail, they know you have Autism, and their expectations are properly set. (Lets see how long until somebody with no sense of humor mods this as Troll. Its okay I have lots of karma)
        • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • "Vaccine" and "Available" are yet to be Defined (Score:4, Insightful)

    by eepok ( 545733 ) on Tuesday June 23, 2020 @01:08PM (#60218114) Homepage

    All medicines have fail rates. I'm sure many vaccines are being tested right now, but how effective the vaccine is will determine whether it's accepted as "the" vaccine. My guess is that, given its spread, this will need to be like the flu vaccine with multiple flavors and annually updated.

    Additionally, "available" is a funny word. You can have a single vial of "the" vaccine, but then need to begin mass production. And for whom? The US? The World? Those who can afford it? Then there's bureaucracy of distribution and injection.

    So, I'll be cautiously optimistic, too. But I'm thinking that 1 or 2 potential candidates for "the" vaccine will be available by December and they'll be seeking contracts so they can begin mass production.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by kenh ( 9056 )

      Additionally, "available" is a funny word. You can have a single vial of "the" vaccine, but then need to begin mass production.

      The vaccines being tested are already being produced "speculatively" so that if the vaccine is found useful, we will have a ready supply to distribute.

      And for whom? The US? The World? Those who can afford it?

      The Trump administration has committed to ensuring every American can get the vaccine, whatever it is, at no cost. Other countries will have to figure out what they will do.

      Then there's bureaucracy of distribution and injection.

      Which we do year after year for countless medicines, and the US Military has stepped forward to lend it's logistical expertise to distributing the vaccine wherever it is needed.

      It kind s

      • The Trump administration has committed to ensuring every American can get the vaccine, whatever it is, at no cost. Other countries will have to figure out what they will do.

        Is this the same administration who claimed on March 6th that, "Anybody who wants a test gets a test," but by June 1st that was still nowhere close to true [cnet.com]? Why should we believe their statements about availability of a vaccine?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by eepok ( 545733 )

        "It kind seems like you just decided it was a big problem (which it is) and assumed everyone involved was somehow less aware of the issues than you are, so it was important for you to point out the issues no one else thought of."

        Nope, I'm not talking about peoples' capabilities to plan. I'm talking about them mincing words so that grander expectations can be made for political benefits instead of managing likelihoods that the vaccine will be accessible to Bill the plumber in December 2020.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by kenh ( 9056 )

      But I'm thinking that 1 or 2 potential candidates for "the" vaccine will be available by December and they'll be seeking contracts so they can begin mass production.

      Production is being done now, during the clinical trials - there will be millions of doses available by the time the clinical trials are completed. Haven't you heard this in the media? It was widely discussed after Dr. Fauci described the massively parallel effort the administration is using to have vaccines available as soon as possible.

    • My guess is that, given its spread, this will need to be like the flu vaccine with multiple flavors and annually updated.

      Not sure if you don't understand the flu vaccine or COVID-19. The reason the flu vaccine comes in multiple flavours that are *bi-annually* updated is due to the different strains of the flu we treat against and absolutely nothing to do with the spread of any given flu.

      COVID-19 doesn't have multiple strains of viruses to chase around the world with vaccines. It has one virus, SARS-CoV-2. We need one flavour to kill that specific corona virus. Just like you only need one specific vaccine to to prevent someone

  • I'm "cautiously optimistic" that I'm going to win the lottery by the end of the year too.

  • The same people who said the virus is a hoax and then refused to social distance or stay home and are now refusing to wear masks will also refuse to be vaccinated.

  • I'm sure the vaccine will be ready after the mail-in-voting scheme is implemented.

    Then comes the "papers please" phase where people will be denied service or admittance if they cannot show proof of COVID vaccination.

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