I think that the only way you could have possibly saved lives in the US is if there were early and hard lockdowns, whether it could have been sustained or even possible is another matter. Pandemic isn't over.
agreed... if we also locked down the borders.... in theory... that was one option if we were locked down so tight the virus was essentially extinguished and we kept the borders closed until we had herd immunity through vaccination.
Yeah... Couldn't have done what NZ did anyway and many would have still been non-compliant, so in theory this could have been done, but practical side is flawed in the US.
The policies you promote along with your hailed leader, Trump, caused the deaths of over 500,000 Americans. You should hang your head in shame and seek penance.
Good news -- the devil didn't make 'em do it! https://www.usatoday.com/story/news...do-not-contain-luciferase-enzymes/7260660002/
CEO of Emergent raped the pooch just before the plant was shut down. He sold 10 million in stock right as they were ruining the vaccine. https://www.washingtonpost.com/inve...151434-a2b6-11eb-a7ee-949c574a09ac_story.html
As mentioned in the other thread... there a number of companies working on a "permanent" and "universal" COVID vaccines underway. There are some candidates in the research pipeline. This is one of them... Is a Cheap 'Universal' Coronavirus Vaccine on the Way? https://consumer.healthday.com/4-23...navirus-vaccine-be-on-the-way-2652633793.html An experimental COVID-19 vaccine could potentially provide universal protection against future COVID variants as well as other coronaviruses — maybe even the ones responsible for the common cold. And it's dirt cheap — less than $1 a dose, researchers say. The vaccine targets a part of the COVID virus' spike protein that appears to be highly resistant to mutation and is common across nearly all coronaviruses, said senior researcher Dr. Steven Zeichner. He is a professor of pediatric infectious disease with the University of Virginia, in Charlottesville. In animal studies, the COVID vaccine protected pigs against two separate diseases caused by two types of coronavirus, COVID-19 and porcine epidemic diarrhea virus (PEDV), according to results published online recently in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The two coronaviruses "are related, but they're distant cousins," Zeichner said. "The implication is if a COVID vaccine could protect a pig against PEDV, the likelihood is pretty good that it could provide broad protection against many different COVID variants." These results represent a "great opportunity to develop universal coronavirus vaccines," said Dr. Amesh Adalja, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, in Baltimore. "Other coronaviruses cause approximately 25% of our common colds, and are also major emerging infectious disease threats," Adalja said. "Being able to take coronaviruses off the table as a biological threat would be a major advantage, and a universal vaccine would be the best means to do so." Cost is another advantage of the new vaccine. The experimental vaccine is based on genetically modified bacteria, which can be mass-produced at a fraction of the cost of currently approved COVID-19 vaccines, Zeichner said. The mRNA COVID-19 vaccines now in use cost about $10 a dose, a price that could be prohibitive in developing countries, he noted. But bacteria-based vaccines for cholera and pertussis can be brewed in large quantities on the cheap. A South Korean company reportedly made 6 million doses of cholera vaccine in one year using a single 100-liter fermenter, at a cost of less than $1 a dose, Zeichner said. "A 100-liter fermenter is trivially small," he said. "That's the size of the gas tank in your car. It's the volume of a filing cabinet in your office." A 1,500-liter vat — the size of the one at your local brew pub — could exponentially scale up production and bring the per-dose cost even lower, Zeichner said. "If you have two or three or four, pretty soon you get enough vaccine to immunize everybody in the world," he added. Zeichner and his colleagues designed the vaccine to go after a portion of the COVID virus' spike protein called the "viral fusion peptide," which is essentially universal among coronaviruses. The spike protein is what the virus uses to invade human cells. "In all of the sequences that have been obtained so far for SARS-CoV-2 [the virus that causes COVID-19], that region of the spike protein doesn't show any changes at all," Zeichner said. "If it hasn't shown any changes so far, then it's unlikely to start showing changes in the future." If the new target proves effective in follow-up research, companies with COVID-19 vaccines already on the market might want to incorporate it into potential future "booster" doses, Zeichner said. Current vaccines work by tricking human cells into producing incomplete versions of the COVID spike protein, to which the immune system responds and builds a defense for future attack. The vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna do this by introducing genetic information directly into cells via messenger RNA, while the vaccines from Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca use a hollowed-out adenovirus to harmlessly infect the cells. Both types of vaccine "actually have to enter into cells and then instruct the cells to make the vaccine antigens," Zeichner explained. Taking a different approach This experimental vaccine takes another tack. Researchers genetically engineer E. coli bacteria, removing the parts that make people sick and adding the coronavirus spike protein target to the surface of the bacteria. The bacteria are then killed off and injected into the person or animal, where the immune system recognizes it as an invader and mounts a defense. The bacteria itself prompts the immune response, rather than something produced by human cells. "All that you need to do that is you take your bacteria, you grow it and then you inactivate it with a little bit of formaldehyde, and that's your vaccine," Zeichner said. Such bacteria-based vaccines — called killed whole-cell vaccines — have been around for a century and only require refrigeration, he noted, making them much easier to transport than the deep-frozen mRNA vaccines. While the early results are promising, Zeichner said that more work is needed on the experimental vaccine. The vaccine did not prevent infection, but it did protect the pigs from developing severe symptoms. It also primed the immune system of the pigs to mount a more vigorous response to future infection. Researchers now need to tune in the best dose, the best route for administering the vaccine and the best schedule, Zeichner said. They also want to experiment with other substances that could be added to further boost immune response. All that will be done in animal studies before the team moves on to humans, he said. Dr. William Schaffner is a professor of infectious diseases at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tenn. He said, "Long journeys begin with first steps, and these are first steps. That said, this is very innovative. We have no idea whether it will work, but those preliminary data are exciting. And the notion that you could create a vaccine that has the capacity to prevent a whole spectrum of variants is very exciting, of course." Schaffner noted that two decades of research has gone into the search for a universal flu vaccine, "and we're not there yet. But maybe it will work for COVID." More information The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has more about COVID-19 vaccines. SOURCES: Steven Zeichner, MD, PhD, professor, pediatric infectious disease, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Va.; Amesh Adalja, MD, senior scholar, Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, Baltimore; William Schaffner, MD, professor, infectious diseases, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, Tenn.; Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, April 15, 2021, online
World Health Organization to decide whether to approve Chinese Covid-19 vaccines for global use Giving the products from Sinovac and Sinopharm the green light could boost supplies to the world’s poorest countries The manufacturers have yet to publish the full data from their final trials but now the vaccines will be tested against a global standard https://www.scmp.com/news/china/dip...nization-decide-whether-approve-chinese-covid Two Chinese Covid-19 vaccines are to be reviewed by a global regulator for the first time, a decision that could have far-reaching implications for worldwide vaccine roll-outs. China’s pharmaceutical companies have faced intense scrutiny for not releasing detailed data about how well the vaccines work before they came into use, but now the World Health Organization will decide whether they can be licensed for emergency use - a globally recognised stamp of approval. A decision to authorise the products from Sinopharm and Sinovac Biotech would have far-reaching implications because shortages have crippled a WHO global vaccine distribution programme, prompting some countries to turn to China. Authorisation will also be necessary to supply the WHO’s Covax programme, which the world’s poorest countries are relying on for supplies. “Scarcity of supply is driving vaccine nationalism and vaccine diplomacy so [the WHO and its partners] are working on several options for accelerating production and supply,” WHO director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said earlier this month. He said the effort to tackle the problem included “expediting the review of more vaccines, including from Sinopharm and Sinovac”. If approved, the products would join a short list of Covid-19 jabs that have received the designation, which requires them to be safe, at least 50 per cent effective and meet manufacturing standards. “Any product that is aimed at a global market really needs to have approval from a globally recognised regulator,” said Naor Bar-Zeev, deputy director at the International Vaccine Access Centre at Johns Hopkins University in the US. “They’ll look at the best available evidence … [and] have to justify the decision on the basis of the science.” So far, the WHO has approved vaccines developed by Pfizer-BioNTech, Johnson and Johnson and versions of a product developed by AstraZeneca. The final reviews by a WHO technical advisory group expected for Sinopharm on Monday and Sinovac on May 3 come as the world sinks deeper into crisis with new weekly Covid-19 infections reaching a record high last week. Yanzhong Huang, a senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, said WHO backing of the Chinese vaccines could have a “significant impact” on their role in global vaccine supply. “Authorising the emergency use of the Chinese vaccine would legitimise the international marketing of the Chinese vaccine and facilitate vaccination drives in countries that have received the vaccine,” Huang said. Unlike most Covid-19 vaccines, results from the phase 3 clinical trials of the Chinese products have yet to be published in peer-reviewed journals. This has raised questions among the international medical community and in places already using the vaccines about how well they work and why the manufacturers have not been more transparent, even though more than 100 million doses have already been shipped to dozens of countries. The WHO’s approval “will also allow Covax to buy the Chinese vaccine for distribution”, Huang said. The programme aims to distribute 2 billion doses worldwide by the end of the year, including to countries that cannot afford to buy them directly, but it has struggled to access doses because wealthy countries have kept doses for their own people. Meanwhile, the crisis in India has hit exports from the country, a critical Covax producer. The Serum Institute of India had aimed to export 90 million doses via Covax in March and April. But so far the total number distributed via the programme from all producers has only reached 43 million and the institute has said it cannot increase production because of US export controls on the raw materials needed to make them. China’s foreign ministry has said Sinopharm and Sinovac have “submitted formal applications to join the initiative”, but experts question whether the two companies have the capacity to plug immediate gaps in the supply chain. The companies have signed deals to distribute millions of doses and bulk materials overseas while China faces a race against time to meet a target of inoculating 40 per cent of its population by the end of June. “The challenge for the Chinese pharmaceutical companies will be to meet the demands for Covax supplies and, at the same time, produce sufficient doses of the vaccines for China’s ambitious inoculation programme,” said global health security specialist Nicholas Thomas, an associate professor at City University of Hong Kong. Prashant Yadav, a senior fellow at the Centre for Global Development in Washington, said while Covax would be looking to add more vaccines to its portfolio, its operators would look carefully at the production capacities of any new suppliers. “They don’t want to hastily go and commit to adding another source of supply, raising expectations about what they can deliver, and then realise that the supply isn’t able to meet the commitment,” he said. Neither company replied to a request for comment about plans to supply the facility should they receive an emergency licence. The WHO’s Strategic Advisory Group of Experts, which makes usage recommendations, said late last month that both vaccines met WHO efficacy requirements. A vaccine from Sinopharm has reported an efficacy rate of 79 per cent, while clinical trials from Brazil, Turkey and Indonesia showed Sinovac’s product to have efficacy ratings of between 50.7 per cent and 83.5 per cent. Although it is difficult to compare between trials, the efficacy of the doses is lower than some of the alternatives. Vaccines made by Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech have an efficacy of more than 90 per cent, but the cutting-edge mRNA technology used to make them means that storage and supply is expensive and complicated. AstraZeneca recorded 79 per cent in a US trial, though the vaccine now faces restrictions in some places after being linked to a very rare blood clotting side effect. But if the Chinese vaccines do meet the WHO requirements and start supplying Covax, they should be welcomed as an important tool, according to Johns Hopkins University’s Bar-Zeev. “The point is that people should be vaccinated to achieve the best possible outcome with whatever is available, as quickly as it is available and with the most pragmatic choice that achieves the highest coverage,” he said. “If it works and it’s approved by the WHO, that’s a big green light.”
As I have said many times over, the US gave WHO 4 billion for covax vaccines and most of that money will go toward purchasing Chinese vaccines which they will then use as part of their colonizing and world image efforts. Not a a cloud in the sky anywhere for the Chinese these days - on all fronts- of which there are many.