With a large part of the world, either locked in or considering an impending return to it, it can be forgiven for its delayed breath as it awaits news updates on any small advances that may have been made towards developing a vaccine for Covid-19. A process that typically takes many years seems to have been paired into a fight in a matter of months, and approx. 240 potential vaccines are currently under development at various locations around the globe, including forty in clinical trials and nine in the final stages of การติดเชื้อโควิดในสนาม.
For governments and their scientific advisers, all carrying a weary aura of people who have run out of ideas, a vaccine is undoubtedly the holy grail of the fight against Covid. New restrictions are always initiated with the words “until we have a vaccine”. Of course, new vaccines do not always work, and it is therefore necessary to give the mandatory warning. But assuming at least one does, what is realistically the best we can expect from it?
Do we expect too much of a vaccine?
Assumptions are often made that a vaccine is a panacea that will finally transmit the ubiquitous SARS-CoV-2 to history. But are we possibly expecting too much of it, at least in the early stages?
In medicine, there is a concept called “sterilizing immunity” where a vaccinated individual can expect total protection against a virus. But coronavirus is rarely the cooperative. Instead, it is much more likely that inoculation will provide efficiency by e.g. 50%, which means the vaccine will be a big step forward, but it will not make the virus go away, at least not overnight.
Possibly the most advanced of the Covid-19 vaccine projects underway is the one being developed by Oxford University and AstraZeneca. Experiments performed in macaques as part of this project showed that the vaccine protected the primates from developing pneumonia, but virus levels remained in the upper respiratory tract.
Graduate vaccines are a potential game changer
Despite their likely imperfect performance, the candidate vaccines, if successful, promise, even up to a point, to be a game-changer. This is because they both minimize the odds of the recipient becoming infected, and if infection occurs, they greatly reduce the severity of the condition that will develop. Thus, it offers benefits on two fronts.
According to Vincent Munster, head of the viral ecology unit at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases’ Rocky Mountain Laboratories, who led the research: “If we push the disease from pneumonia to colds, then I think it’s a huge step forward.”
Referring Covid-19 to a tireless state will end the need to impose restrictions to protect health services and pave the way for a return to normal life and a rejuvenated economy.