COVID-19: A growing list of new vaccines and therapies in development

I am talking about people expecting it to be released in the short term, not holding out hope for the long term. We will eventually have a vaccine for SARS-CoV-2. That's for certain. However, there are many people on social media saying everything is being overblown because they read an article that X company is testing out a vaccine now. Some people are using that as evidence that they don't need to take it as seriously, because they think a vaccine is right around the corner. That's BAD for everyone. It's going to tear through the entire planet before we are anywhere close to a production vaccine getting to market. Even some governments around the world have admitted they are going to rely on herd immunity getting it under control. Some have walked back on that, but everyone is admitting that we need to get it under control long before a workable vaccine will be able to get to market.

It's true we haven't developed a proper vaccine for coronavirus. There are many factors to consider. After SARS was contained, there was no need to develop a vaccine. Many companies no longer saw this as profitable and shelved their research.

Sure, there are valid reasons for why funding dried up. I am not sure how that makes the statement that we have never successfully made a coronavirus vaccine misleading. That's meant to put it into perspective for people. It's not easy. It's not quick. It's not just the flu.

That being said, just because it hasn't been done, doesn't mean it can't be done. I'm referring to the development of a vaccine specifically, as the logistics of rolling out vaccines for everyone any time soon is what really makes this unrealistic.

Nobody is saying it can't be done, the least of all me. I think you are putting words in my mouth. We will have a SARS-CoV-2 vaccine at some point. That's almost a certainty at this point. It just ain't happening anytime "soon" like people are hoping for. I really hope I am wrong, but you forget how serious SARS-CoV-1 was, and how it was treated. We threw a ton of money at it at first, since SARS-CoV-1 was much more deadly than SARS-CoV-2, due to the cytokine storms. However, it still took too long for a vaccine to be made and put into use. Then it burnt itself out before it could be done, so the funding dropped out. I don't think that will happen this time, but we are not getting a SARS-CoV-2 vaccine in 3-6 months like some people online are expecting.

Every relevant biotech company, a handful of pharma companies and academics all over the world are working on this right now (another post on this subreddit shows at least 57 companies working on a vaccine). It is a global problem and it has everyone's attention.

SARS-CoV-1 had everyone's attention, too. Yes, SARS-CoV-2 has spread much further. However, you can throw all the money you want at a problem. Sometimes things just take time. You can shorten that time, but you can't speed up the impossible. Vaccine development and approval usually takes 10-15 years. The most optimistic of people are estimating a SARS-CoV-2 vaccine can be pushed to 1.5 years at a minimum. Again, I hope everyone is wrong, and throwing money and people at it will make it quicker. I am just not expecting it.

All the research poured into SARS and MERS is being used as a head start on Covid-19. This is why some steps can be skipped. You say this is bad but Covid-19 is also bad... Do you have a reason to believe that skipping animal trials is bad for this vaccine? What happens?

Exactly! WHAT HAPPENS? How the fuck am I supposed to know? We have never skipped animal trials for a vaccine before! What happens when we do?!? I sure as shit ain't signing up for a vaccine trial before it has gone through animal trials. Will you? Will you tell your family it's safe to? Remember, these are actual people going to be in these studies. Real people. We can talk about statistics and numbers all we like, and make it very clinical in tone. However, it all ultimately comes down to real people. If the vaccine fucks up, and people die, is that just an acceptable loss so that we can speed up development of a vaccine? Me urging caution on this is being hysterical? I am not the only one...

Don’t rush to deploy COVID-19 vaccines and drugs without sufficient safety guarantees

The Risky Race for a Quick Coronavirus Vaccine

Admittedly I only skimmed, where does it say this in the paper?

Sorry, wrong paper.

Animal models for SARS and MERS coronaviruses

Several SARS vaccine candidates elicited neutralizing antibodies and were effective in protecting young mice or hamsters from challenge [48,57–63]. However, reports of immunopathologic reactions in older mice and in non-human primates vaccinated with SARS-CoV vaccines that were subsequently challenged with SARS-CoV [57,59,62,64] have revealed two concerns about proceeding to clinical trials with SARS-CoV vaccines. First, there is a precedent for coronavirus-vaccine associated disease enhancement; kittens immunized with a vaccinia virus vectored feline infectious peritonitis virus vaccines developed severe disease when they were subsequently infected with FIPV [65]. In these kittens, non-neutralizing or sub-neutralizing antibodies facilitated viral entry into macrophages. The concern that is extrapolated from the FIPV vaccine experience to human SARS-CoV vaccines is whether vaccine recipients will develop more severe disease if they are exposed to or infected with SARS-CoV after neutralizing antibody titers decline. The second concern is whether recipients of a SARSCoV vaccine would be at risk of developing pulmonary immunopathology following infection with an unrelated human coronavirus e.g. 229E, OC43, HKU1 or NL63 that usually causes mild, self limited disease. Although findings from preclinical evaluation have revealed these concerns, studies in animal models may not be able to provide data to confirm or allay these concerns.

Vaccine efficacy in senescent mice challenged with recombinant SARS-CoV bearing epidemic and zoonotic spike variants.

Although VRP-S vaccines provided complete short-term protection against heterologous icGD03-S challenge in young mice, only limited protection was seen in vaccinated senescent animals. VRP-N vaccines not only failed to protect from homologous or heterologous challenge, but resulted in enhanced immunopathology with eosinophilic infiltrates within the lungs of SARS-CoV-challenged mice. VRP-N-induced pathology presented at day 4, peaked around day 7, and persisted through day 14, and was likely mediated by cellular immune responses.

Immunization with SARS coronavirus vaccines leads to pulmonary immunopathology on challenge with the SARS virus.

These SARS-CoV vaccines all induced antibody and protection against infection with SARS-CoV. However, challenge of mice given any of the vaccines led to occurrence of Th2-type immunopathology suggesting hypersensitivity to SARS-CoV components was induced. Caution in proceeding to application of a SARS-CoV vaccine in humans is indicated.

After reading those, do you still think we should jump right into human trials for a SARS-CoV-2 vaccine without animal trials? There's a reason we do animal trials. Rushing science never leads to good results, and in this specific case can lead to the death or injury of study participants.

This is how a lot of vaccines work... It's not new or surprising. You introduce a partial, weakened or deactivated virus. The body releases antibodies and gains immunological memory. On rare occasions, the virus may regain virulence and infect the host. Often to a much less degree as being infected by the virus itself

Yes, I know that. Ever wonder why it only happens "on rare occasions?" Because we run animal studies on them first! Rushing through that opens up the opportunity for it to not be a rare occurrence. I don't think urging caution in the development of a vaccine for a novel virus is hysterical. I also don't think we should be sugar-coating this shit for people. People should be informed about the facts of the situation. Nobody needs to panic. I think we should give everyone a chance to remain level-headed when presented with the facts of the situation. Keeping people in the dark to keep hope up is a losing strategy in my opinion. We don't need hope. We need level-headed action. A vaccine is not going to come save us from COVID-19. We need to social distance and treat the recommendations of the WHO and CDC seriously. I think using too much blind hope will be counterproductive to the steps that will actually help us get this pandemic under control. It certainly looks that way to me with what I am seeing on Facebook, that's for sure. There's too much: "Ohh look, China's new case rate is dropping! We have nothing to worry about" and "Look, this company is already testing a vaccine! We should be good in a few months!" when the facts surrounding the situation are painting a very different picture. This is not a time to freak out, but it is also not a time for us to rely on hope and let Jesus take the wheel. It's a time for everyone to be adults and take this seriously.