Specifically, the blood test showed the covid specific IgG is through the roof after the shot, meaning it is both safe and effective. I guess the next step is verifying how long the immunity lasts for.
If the first vaccine is chinese, weird stuff is going to happen in politics and media
Edit: obviously, this is just a post on an internet forum, it's ok if you're skeptical about it, there's no reason you shouldn't be other than my word that it's true. They didn't publish it yet, but I'll let you know when they do. As I said, there are still other steps necessary going forward, people getting positive results in this one trial doesn't mean that a vaccine is coming next week or next month
It's good that the Chinese vaccine works, but there is no "first vaccine". Plenty of vaccines have already been "invented" they're just in various stages of testing right now. Every vaccine currently in phase III "works". The Sinovac vaccine is an inactivated virus vaccine, which is an old tehnology the Sinovac company has a lot of experience with. The viral vector and mRNA approaches taken by the western companies have never been used in an approved vaccine before. If anything it shows how much more practical Chinese industry and government is by choosing a proven approach instead of investing in a shiny new technology (though the technologies used by the Moderna and Oxford vaccines are very promising for future emerging viruses).
I didn't know that about the western vaccines. It's really weird that, when we need something quick, the west is betting on something this new instead of something tried and true. Why is that?
Thanks, Phimosis Jones
Well the idea is that mRNA vaccines are more effective and faster to manufacture. They also are not made with virus particles and are safer to handle during production. They aren't untested totally. There were mRNA vaccines for flu, zika, rabies, HIV and several others that were in the last phases of trials when covid hit. Both are being developed at the same time by different companies and government labs. The trials that SinoVac's CoronaVac is in right now is the same stage as several other vaccine candidates. Like the 50000 person trial in Brazil they ran for example, the Belgian (though owned by Johnson and Johnson) Janssen vaccine is doing a 60000 person one right now (the Janssen vaccine uses engineered adenovirus virus as a recombinant vector vaccine, its not an mRNA vaccine but similarly is a newer tech than inactive virus).
Now, is this a waste of resources that could be done more efficiently if the CDC just nationalized some pharma labs, yes.
Whichever one comes out more effective, at least two different ones will probably be produced. There's still the worry though that phase 3 trials normally last years. All of these the trials now are like 6 months maximum before the respective companies and govts want mass distribution. One original SARS vaccine for instance was rushed and made the disease worse when used in some people. The original polio vaccine, despite its safety, was rushed and many mistakes were made during production by one of the companies that Salk gave it to. That incident permanently weakened 70000 children, paralyzed 164, and killed 10. Both the Chinese and American/European vaccines are being rapidly developed, and the trials are not long enough in either to say for sure what long term effects are gonna be.
Honestly I'm just rooting for success of all of the vaccines at this point. They all offer pluses and minuses. The traditional ones like CoronaVac will probably be easier to distribute and manufacture in the global south where technology for making inactivated whole virus vaccines is already there. It takes longer to make them is the downside. mRNA has that cold chain requirement that would be hard to replicate in Africa for example, but they can be manufactured quickly. They also have that booster problem, I worry people will just forget to get their second shot. Janssen is really exciting since its storage requirements are traditional and they don't require a booster it looks like. The original SARS vaccine never made it into people I thought? Even in a phase 1? I think they saw that antibody enhancement problem in animal models when challenge, none of which we have seen with any of the vaccines in trial this time.
We should encourage rollout of any vaccine thats safe and effective. Vaccine nationalism is stupid.
agreed.
modeRNA was explicitly established to develop mRNA technology. They had developed mRNA vaccines that made it to clinical trials before. The only two inactivated virus vaccines are Chinese and that may just be because they already had companies producing them.
I'm pretty sure they're going with the new techniques for reasons related to the failures around vaccine development for SARS, but don't quote me on that.
Btw, are you a doctor? Can I ask you some stuff on dm? (It's not medical advice)
I'm not a doctor. I have a chemistry degree though and I've been following the academic research on COVID a little bit.