Obviously they used a chimp adenovirus on the belief that few humans would have been exposed to it. The Astra Zeneca Oxford vaccine seems to be a lot cheaper than either Moderna's or Pfizer's version. The two-dose regimen is a definite drawback; humans are notoriously bad at coming back for the second dose. Ideally, a nasal spray would make it more palatable, as there's a lot of needle phobia out there, and some wacko conspiracy theories.
When I was a kid, vaccines were mandatory and administered in school. Unfortunately, that's no longer the case. It does seem like unless we get the entire world vaccinated over a month period this will be a chronic problem. Or maybe we'll get lucky and the virus will mutate into something more benign.
Yes; the rationale for choice of the chimpanzee vector background was discussed in previous issues. The objective was to avoid host reactions for certain. In fact, this "ChAdOx" design was made before the pandemic, to provide a ready-made vaccine design in the event of a pandemic involving a then-undiscovered pathogen.
All of the vaccines currently en route to approval use two doses, so there's no competitive advantage for anyone there.
For the AZ vaccine, an inhaled version is in development, but it's not the version that was reported on here. We'll have to wait for results on that at scale.
Right now the AZ vaccine is priced lower, yes. I'm curious to see how long that arrangement actually lasts, and whether it will apply to all countries. AZ has committed not to take profits on the vaccine during the pandemic, but I don't believe that's going to be sustained in the long run. Eventually I expect all of these products will settle at similar prices to one another.
It's doubtful that SARS-CoV-2 will mutate to become more benign. What is more likely is that it will become a common infection in childhood, and that experience will shape the immune system to respond to it in the future in a way that does not lead to severe disease. This is probably what happened when the current circulating human coronaviruses entered humans from their prior animal hosts.
Eradication of SARS-CoV-2 looked more possible some months ago, when it wasn't as clear how readily it adapts to jump back and forth from human-adjacent animals like cats and minks. Seeing documented evidence of a jump from humans to minks back to humans has convinced me that there's no way we'll ever eradicate this virus, not unless the vaccine is incredibly effective at limiting transmission. We still don't know if it even does that at all.
Getting people to actually take the vaccine is going to be a tricky policy problem. Thankfully, given its high efficacy, most people who do get the vaccine won't need to worry about the people who don't get it. Unfortunately, about 5-10% of people who get it, as well as whatever percentage of people aren't healthy enough to be vaccinated, will be vulnerable to transmission by the unvaccinated. That's going to be a major issue and I hope serious effort is made to encourage extremely high vaccine uptake.
Obviously they used a chimp adenovirus on the belief that few humans would have been exposed to it. The Astra Zeneca Oxford vaccine seems to be a lot cheaper than either Moderna's or Pfizer's version. The two-dose regimen is a definite drawback; humans are notoriously bad at coming back for the second dose. Ideally, a nasal spray would make it more palatable, as there's a lot of needle phobia out there, and some wacko conspiracy theories.
When I was a kid, vaccines were mandatory and administered in school. Unfortunately, that's no longer the case. It does seem like unless we get the entire world vaccinated over a month period this will be a chronic problem. Or maybe we'll get lucky and the virus will mutate into something more benign.
Yes; the rationale for choice of the chimpanzee vector background was discussed in previous issues. The objective was to avoid host reactions for certain. In fact, this "ChAdOx" design was made before the pandemic, to provide a ready-made vaccine design in the event of a pandemic involving a then-undiscovered pathogen.
All of the vaccines currently en route to approval use two doses, so there's no competitive advantage for anyone there.
For the AZ vaccine, an inhaled version is in development, but it's not the version that was reported on here. We'll have to wait for results on that at scale.
Right now the AZ vaccine is priced lower, yes. I'm curious to see how long that arrangement actually lasts, and whether it will apply to all countries. AZ has committed not to take profits on the vaccine during the pandemic, but I don't believe that's going to be sustained in the long run. Eventually I expect all of these products will settle at similar prices to one another.
It's doubtful that SARS-CoV-2 will mutate to become more benign. What is more likely is that it will become a common infection in childhood, and that experience will shape the immune system to respond to it in the future in a way that does not lead to severe disease. This is probably what happened when the current circulating human coronaviruses entered humans from their prior animal hosts.
Eradication of SARS-CoV-2 looked more possible some months ago, when it wasn't as clear how readily it adapts to jump back and forth from human-adjacent animals like cats and minks. Seeing documented evidence of a jump from humans to minks back to humans has convinced me that there's no way we'll ever eradicate this virus, not unless the vaccine is incredibly effective at limiting transmission. We still don't know if it even does that at all.
Getting people to actually take the vaccine is going to be a tricky policy problem. Thankfully, given its high efficacy, most people who do get the vaccine won't need to worry about the people who don't get it. Unfortunately, about 5-10% of people who get it, as well as whatever percentage of people aren't healthy enough to be vaccinated, will be vulnerable to transmission by the unvaccinated. That's going to be a major issue and I hope serious effort is made to encourage extremely high vaccine uptake.