A few things to the positive.

[Workingman]

A useful resource for vaccene and treatment related info.

It's just a round-up of the 'what ifs' and 'maybes'. We need a vaccine and there are plenty of candidates out there.

My son is working alongside the Oxford team, though not directly involved, and says that they are still confident of success before the year's end. It is likely that a lot of normal protocols will be out of the window due to the desperate need, as was the case with the Ebola vaccines. Two of those are now being used in the field whilst still proceeding through the regulatory process. Sometimes "needs must" takes precedence.

[Suff]

True WM, but it is the first consolidated set of articles I have seen and I don't need to store the links.

[Suff]

On reading your link, I found it rather difficult to correlate what was going on. I'm sure it makes a lot of sense to people who work in immunology.

The most advanced are not Covid-19, but tests to see if BCG really does limit the worst effects of Covid-19. It will not stop people getting it, nor them spreading it.

The Chinese moderna vaccene may have passed phase 1 testing, but they are having issues getting into phase 2 because of a lack of Chinese infections.

The other Chinese vaccene only reached phase 1/2 approval at the end of April, but is listed as phase 2.

The third Chinese vaccene is registered for trial but no approval date.

The Oxford vaccene has started a phase 1/2 trial and has half the number of phase 2 tests than the Chinese vaccene, but one assumes 5 times the phase 1. Immediately after the article states that they have started testing on 1,100 people. Which is twice the number stated further up the paragraph. Perhaps that is the 1/2 split.


Invio, Pfizer and sinovac vaccene are just beginning to start testing. They are phase 1, with some faster phase 1/2 trials just ramping up. None of these tests are of the size of the more advanced tests.

The rest are pre clinical so of little interest until they get approval for testing.

What does that mean for the layman?

They are still looking at using bcg to save lives and might get there first, if proven. However there are three vaccene which may come to rapid approval for delivery by year end. However the Oxford one is the most likely to be able to produce rapid valid results due to the ongoing volume of cases in the UK. China will need to find a partner country to test. If they are clever they will approach Russia.

[Workingman]

Suff, I think that for the moment who is doing what and where and all the phase things can go out the window. If you read between the lines different labs, pharmas and countries are sharing a lot of info to get on top of this.

They did it to some extent with SARS, MERS and Ebola, but this looks to be at a different level. Covid is more contagious but not as deadly, apparently, and if it had happened 50 years ago we would be in it up to our necks. Thankfully we are now much further on and our knowledge grows by the day, but there is still a long way to go.

The WHO says that we might have to live with this as we have done with HIV / AIDS. I will try to remain a bit more optimistic and positive.

[Suff]

For the vaccene's I'll wait and see. As for WHO, they have done a wonderful job of casting doubt on any hope, any efforts and any chance that it will be anything other than a world wide catastrophe. This, of course, comes hard on the heels of casting doubt on whether Covid-19 was even a pandemic or that China was ever doing anything but the best.

The one organisation which has proved itself totally worthless, during this crisis, is WHO.