CoronaVirus - Possible Vaccines and Treatments

Could be a dud - may not work!! Gotta do some live tests!

Seriously though - better to give it to people that are in dire straits - the reality is, along with Taiwan, SG (I think), and NZ, we are one of the few places on this planet that have this thing quasi-under control, and are not in a rush for vax and DYI test kits.

The Y-man

 

Given the increased discussion about vaccination now that it has started rolling out in other countries - I thought I would point out a couple of stark realities about what they do and do not do.

1. The vaccine is designed to stop you from getting sick from the virus
2. The vaccine is NOT designed to stop you from transmitting the virus to other people
3. It is possible that a vaccinated person could still be an asymptomatic carrier and thus infect other non-vaccinated people
4. There are a significant number of people who will not be able to take the vaccine because of other illnesses (eg anyone who is immunocompromised).
5. We simply do not know enough yet about how the vaccines will work in the general population to know exactly what protection they will offer in the long term

Some recent comments from our (Acting) Chief Medical Officer Paul Kelly:

Didn't catch the national coronavirus update? Here's what you missed

What about Aussies vaccinated abroad?

Professor Kelly was asked whether Aussies who were vaccinated overseas would be able to skip quarantine when they return home.

He said the Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation (ATAGI) was looking at modelling to help answer the question.

He said the medical advice would lead any decision-making, but "we will look at that amongst many other things over the coming month or so".

So we may not know an answer to this question until at least January.

"It sounds simple, but it's not simple," Professor Kelly said.

"I think it will rely very much on where people have come from; what vaccine they've had; whether they've had the two doses; when they had those two doses; what is the situation here in Australia…

"Because at the moment, unfortunately, the vaccines that we know most about don't appear to demonstrate any protection from transmission of the virus.

"They are very effective at stopping disease from the virus in an individual person, but it may well be that that transmission might continue.

"So we need to really think that through very carefully."

Vaccines probably won't stop you transmitting COVID

"AstraZeneca... has already looked at whether that vaccine protects against asymptomatic illness," Professor Kelly said.

"At the moment, from the interim analysis that was published in The Lancet journal last week, it demonstrates it probably doesn't.

"So it could be that people may have asymptomatic disease after having the vaccine and not know it.

"And that, as we know, can transmit to others.

"It's less likely than if you have symptomatic disease

"The AstraZeneca and the Pfizer vaccine, and we've only seen very minimal results so far from Moderna, but all of those show very strong effectiveness against severe illness or illness at all.

"And so, that is an issue, yes, absolutely, we need to consider that as we go forward.​

So while the availability of the vaccines is a huge step forward in minimising deaths and serious illness in the general population - it's not a quick fix as there will be ongoing issues we need to deal with until enough people are vaccinated for the disease to be considered no longer a serious threat.

 

...and it won't work for everyone!
Alaskan health care worker suffers anaphylactic reaction after getting Pfizer vaccine shot

The Y-man

 

Along with 20 million to 50 million deaths.


As far as the vaccine - it hasn't yet been tested in children under 16, and is not authorised for use in the US for them. Testing is taking place for people aged 12-16 at this stage.

 

Australia is not first in line for the Pfizer vaccine — and that might be a good thing

It's good to wait to see what the vax actually does.....

The Y-man

 

It wasn't eliminated.

Herd immunity plus natural mutation stopped it from being deadly to most people by the early 1920's, but it never disappeared.

It is in a virus's best interest to not be so deadly that it kills all of its hosts - dead people don't spread disease. So naturally, the less deadly strains of the virus survive while the more deadly kill themselves off.

We're still seeing descendants of the 1918 H1N1 virus today - we have a seasonal flu vaccination available to combat this and other strains of the flu.

Interestingly, in 2009, Anthony Fauci was one of several people who authored a paper about the legacy of the 1918 virus - https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/nejmp0904819

In 2009, David Morens and Jeffery Taubenberger — two influenza experts at the National Institutes of Health — co-authored an article with Anthony S. Fauci explaining how the descendants of the 1918 influenza virus have contributed to a “pandemic era” that has lasted the past hundred years. At the time the article was published, the H1N1 influenza virus in public circulation was a fourth-generation descendant of the novel virus from 1918.

“All those pandemics that have happened since — 1957, 1968, 2009 — all those pandemics are derivatives of the 1918 flu,” Taubenberger told The Post. “The flu viruses that people get this year, or last year, are all still directly related to the 1918 ancestor.”

... (from https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2020/09/01/1918-flu-pandemic-end/)​

 

mRNA vaccines like Pfizer's aren't actually a "weak version of the virus" - they work completely differently, in this case by teaching our cells how to make a protein that triggers an immune response inside our bodies.

COVID-19 and Your Health

A Closer Look at How COVID-19 mRNA Vaccines Work

COVID-19 mRNA vaccines give instructions for our cells to make a harmless piece of what is called the “spike protein.” The spike protein is found on the surface of the virus that causes COVID-19.

COVID-19 mRNA vaccines are given in the upper arm muscle. Once the instructions (mRNA) are inside the immune cells, the cells use them to make the protein piece. After the protein piece is made, the cell breaks down the instructions and gets rid of them.

Next, the cell displays the protein piece on its surface. Our immune systems recognize that the protein doesn’t belong there and begin building an immune response and making antibodies, like what happens in natural infection against COVID-19.

At the end of the process, our bodies have learned how to protect against future infection. The benefit of mRNA vaccines, like all vaccines, is those vaccinated gain this protection without ever having to risk the serious consequences of getting sick with COVID-19.

...

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The Moderna vaccine is also a mRNA vaccine.

However, the AstraZeneca vaccine is different again - it contains a modified virus which causes the common cold in chimpanzees!

Oxford AstraZeneca Covid vaccine: everything we know so far

How does it work?

At the heart of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine is a virus that causes the common cold in chimpanzees. The chimp virus is modified so it cannot multiply and cause disease in the body. It is then loaded up with the gene for the coronavirus spike protein, the club-shaped part that dots the surface of the virus and is used to penetrate human cells.

When the vaccine is injected, the chimp virus delivers the coronavirus gene to human cells which start to churn out the spike protein. These are detected by the immune system which produces antibodies and other responses that can attack the real coronavirus should the person become infected in the future.
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