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Medicine

Coronavirus Vaccine Developed By University of Oxford Appears Safe and Trains the Immune System, Trials Involving More Than 1000 People Showed (bloomberg.com) 229

A coronavirus vaccine the University of Oxford is developing with AstraZeneca showed promising results in early human testing, a sign of progress in the high-stakes pursuit of a shot to defeat the pathogen. From a report: The vaccine increased levels of both protective neutralizing antibodies and immune T-cells that target the virus, according to the study organizers. The results were published Monday in The Lancet medical journal. BBC adds: Trials involving around 1,077 people showed the injection led to them making antibodies and white blood cells that can fight coronavirus. The findings are hugely promising, but it is still too soon to know if this is enough to offer protection and larger trials are under way. The UK has already ordered 100 million doses of the vaccine.
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Coronavirus Vaccine Developed By University of Oxford Appears Safe and Trains the Immune System, Trials Involving More Than 1000

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  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      Some will be wasted, and protection may not last forever so they will be expecting to give individuals more than one dose over time.

      Also if you are 100,000,000 doses you get free shipping.

    • I know that the Moderna vaccine requires two doses, separated by a few months. This article doesn't specify if that's the case for this vaccine candidate, but I suspect it is the case, as well.
    • by Xest ( 935314 )

      The article about this on the BBC stated only 90% of people developed an immune response after 1 dose. To reach 100% they had to give two doses.

      I suspect the UK will give 2 doses as standard if the subsequent trial phases succeed and this ends up being used.

  • We don’t need total protection to be successful

    If a vaccine could convert it to being the nuisance of a 24 hour virus or a head cold for most people we could declare victory and roll on.
    • by raymorris ( 2726007 ) on Monday July 20, 2020 @10:55AM (#60310655) Journal

      Also, suppose a vaccine only decreased the rate of transmission by 50%.

      Currently, infection rates are roughly staying steady, depending on location. Cutting the rate of transmission in half would mean that the number of new cases is halved every two weeks, until there are no cases.

      Face covering + 6 foot distance + weak vaccine = virus eridicated

      • We could stop the transmission almost entirely without the vaccine if people put their social responsibilities before their personal rights. When the lock downs started in many places there were groups of people who didn't bother following the rules. They were the ones that didn't want to wear masks because they were "free" people.

        Just look at how the people of New Zealand behaved and came together. They realized that they each had a responsibility to protect the others in society and followed the rules of

        • Not that I fundamentally disagree with you, but in fairness they were told masks aren't needed. Later, they were told masks don't provide you with VERY MUCH protection.

          If you don't understand R, depending on which echo chamber you live, their position could be somewhat reasonable given the information they had.

    • Absolutely. I am certain if you said hey I have this vaccine that doesnt actually 100% cure you, but youll never die or get hospitalized, everyone would be just find. Esp since AstraZennica says they wont charge more than a few dollars. So for $10 what have you got to lose? At worst you catch the chimpanzee adenovirus for a few days.

  • Just curious, why would anyone place such a huge order on a yet unproven (larger scale) vaccine? Funding perhaps?
    • by Gilesx ( 525831 )
      Well.... this particular vaccine has actually been under development for several years. I lack full understanding (as 99.9% of ./ commenters) but I understand it's quite a novel approach for a vaccine and is essentially using a well tested delivery mechanism that is slightly modified to hunt a particular virus.

      So in short, they've been creating the vaccine to target an infectious disease ahead of time, but without targeting a specific infectious disease. They therefore had an 80% or so confidence it would w
    • by Strider- ( 39683 )

      It's a matter of confidence. The researchers are reasonably confident in this candidate, so far it's looked good through phase 1 and phase 2 trials, so they're ramping up the manufacturing in anticipation of phase 3 being successful. If phase 3 fails, they'll have to throw away what has already been produced, but it's not a total loss as they'll have the manufacturing capability in place for whatever replaces this candidate.

      But the main reason for ordering now is that they have sufficient quantities on hand

      • Yep, not a time for "penny wise, pound foolish."

        Spending a billion now on say... a 90% chance of success (pulled out of my ass) to move vaccine availability up 6 months and save 100 billion is just good sense.

        Even if it were a 50% chance they would be able to use this vaccine, that would be a good bet as long as it was the best candidate.

    • Read the Bloomberg article from last week. Its a good 15-20min read. This started as a MERS vaccine several years ago. MERS as you know is also a coronavirus. The results have been amazing so far. The doctors 22yr old triplets were all volunteers during the first human trial, if that tells you anything. And time is of the essence. They need to work in parallel otherwise ramping up after a test is approved will add another 9mos to the time people get it, esp if they run into issues scaling up production.

      Seri

    • by dmpot ( 1708950 )

      Production of vaccine requires significant funding. If you wait for all trials to be complete, it would delay availability of the vaccine for half a year or more. IIRC, negotiations about its production started in May, and if everything goes well, it will be available only in the beginning of the next year.

      This vaccine may not be panacea, because even if it works as expected, it may not provide sterilizing immunity, in other words, vaccinated people will not fall seriously ill, but they can spread the virus

    • You also have to validate the manufacturing process, this is a time saving measure hoping that the vaccine turns out to work, in which case it will be ready for shipment far sooner than otherwise.
  • by cellocgw ( 617879 ) <cellocgw@gmail . c om> on Monday July 20, 2020 @12:18PM (#60310987) Journal

    You youngsters just plain don't remember.

    The first polio vaccine had to be administered annually. You choose: a shot once a year, or paralysis?

    For that matter, DTP and other fully-validated vaccines require updating now & then. If the initial COVID vaccines have to be given 4X per year, so what? Again, you prefer death?

    • Cake, please. [youtube.com]

    • The first polio vaccine had to be administered annually. You choose: a shot once a year, or paralysis?

      That's how we quickly eliminated polio. Wait, we didn't. [who.int]

      Highly developed countries will be able to administer multiple vaccines, but much of the world cannot.

    • The first polio vaccine had to be administered annually. You choose: a shot once a year, or paralysis?

      Sounds like a pretty grim time. I wonder what the modern: Facemasks are against muh freedoms crowd would think of that.

      • by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

        Sounds like a pretty grim time. I wonder what the modern: Facemasks are against muh freedoms crowd would think of that.

        They're anti-vaxxers. You see it when they don't take their MMR and Polic vaccinations.

        The complications of both polio and measles is not pretty. It's just that modern medicine is able to help avoid most of them. Polio used to cause uneven leg growth so one leg was shorter than the other, requiring the use of crutches permanently or hobbling about (Think Tiny Tim of the Christmas Carol stor

  • Based on a previous trial in rhesus macaques, this vaccine has one serious limitation -- vaccinated animals did not develop sterilizing immunity. Though all six vaccinated animals developed antibodies to SARS-CoV-2, which prevented virus replication in the lungs, "reduction in viral shedding from the nose was not observed."
    https://www.biorxiv.org/conten... [biorxiv.org]

    So if the vaccine works in the same way in humans as in rhesus macaques, then vaccinated individuals can be asymptomatic spreaders of the virus.

    • Ok 2 things. You missed where they said that test could easily been explained by the MASSIVE amounts of virus they squirted in the noses, repeatedly. Massive.

      Second, for $10 who the fuck wont get the vaccine? And isnt that their problem?

      • by dmpot ( 1708950 )

        Second, for $10 who the fuck wont get the vaccine? And isnt that their problem?

        Some people are immunocompromised due to different medical conditions (organ transplant surgery, cancer treatment, etc), so even if they are vaccinated, they may not develop enough antibodies to prevent serious infection. Also, there is age-associated decline in immune function known as immunosenescence. Usually those vulnerable categories rely on herd immunity to avoid infection, but that requires sterilizing immunity among other people.

  • by CohibaVancouver ( 864662 ) on Monday July 20, 2020 @12:38PM (#60311049)
    I'm hoping someone can remind me - Do the Bill-Gates-funded 5G RF/ID trackers go into the vaccine before or after initial human trials?
    • Neither. They're added to the drinking water directly and called "fluoride." The actual vaccine shot is just misdirection.

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • How is it that for half a century we were not able to create a vaccine for corona viruses (common cold, SARS, MERS, etc.) but now we can roll one out in under a year?
    • by MikeKD ( 549924 )

      How is it that for half a century we were not able to create a vaccine for corona viruses (common cold, SARS, MERS, etc.) but now we can roll one out in under a year?

      <sigh> Ok, number one:

      Your "half a century" is bullshit:

      For the Big Baddies we're only known for 17-18 years: SARS-CoV [wikipedia.org] was unknown before 2003; MERS-CoV [wikipedia.org] not before 2012; and SARS-Cov-2 not before December 27, 2019 [wikipedia.org].

      The discovery of the other human coronaviruses [wikipedia.org]:

      Human coronavirus OC43 [wikipedia.org]: unable to find a specific date. Based on this paper [nih.gov] ("Before the SARS epidemic in 2003, there were only 19 known coronaviruses, including 2 human...") and deduction, this is the other coronavirus known before 2000.

      Hu [wikipedia.org]

    • They've been working on these since SARS1, exactly for this reason.
  • I thought not. Watch the administration refuse to order the UK stuff just because our drug companies won't get a say in the pricing, a slice of the pie.

    Think I'm kidding? It's happened before.

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