With a number of big pharma companies announcing efforts and partnerships to rapidly develop vaccines, hopes of an effective one emerging within the year is running high.
GlobalData, a data analytics company, conducted a poll asking its healthcare readership the likelihood of a vaccine being developed in the next 12 months, with 52% being very confident and a further 28% being somewhat confident.
With 80% of respondents optimistic about the potential for the successful development of a vaccine in the next year, Michael Breen, associate director of infectious diseases at GlobalData, moved to calm such expectations.
Part of the reason for such confidence is the number of developments that have moved rapidly into the clinic, he suggested.
For example, Moderna became the first company to administer a vaccine to a person, after only 63 days.
It was not long before Moderna was followed by the University of Oxford, which then saw AstraZeneca quickly move to partner on the vaccine.
Moving slightly slower, with a Phase I study slated for September 2020, was Johnson & Johnson however, the pharma giant subsequently backed its vaccine by announcing a number of partnerships to bolster vaccine capacity to ready it for commercialization, ahead of any in-human readouts.
Though these efforts are reasons for hope, Breen noted that they were running at substantially shorter R&D timespans than usual and have utilized new vaccine technology.
As a result, Breen cautioned that this technology is still in its infancy: No vaccine using these technologies has ever been commercialized and data supporting their efficacy is thin, thus enthusiasm surrounding their likelihood of success may be met with disappointment.
Further than this, there is still the issue of manufacturing at scale and then the difficulty in distributing the vaccine hurdles that Breen suggested could add further delays.
Ultimately, while it is technically possible for a COVID-19 vaccine to be available in 12 months, several factors portend this to be closer to wishful thinking than anything remotely certain, Breen concluded.
Donald Trump has said he is very confident there will be a vaccine for coronavirus by the end of the year, revising up his estimate of the final US death toll as several European countries prepare for a cautious easing of lockdowns.
The president used a Fox News virtual town hall on Sunday night to repeat his regular virus talking points, including that a vaccine was not far away, Covid-19 was Chinas fault and the economy would not only recover but grow like crazy.
We are very confident we are going to have a vaccine by the end of the year, Trump said. Scientists have repeatedly warned that a vaccine may take 12-18 months or longer.
Trump in April predicted 60,000 American lives would be lost but on Sunday said: Were going to lose anywhere from 75, 80 to 100,000 people. Thats a horrible thing.
Trump indicated that intelligence agencies would release further information on Monday about the virus but failed to give details. Asked why he didnt act earlier on the epidemic, the president said that on 23 January he was in told in briefings there could be a virus coming, but it was of no real import.
In other words, it wasnt: Oh, weve got to do something, weve got to do something. It was a brief conversation.
His comments came amid reports that US officials believed China intentionally covered up the extent and severity of the virus while increasing its imports and decreasing exports of medical supplies.
The Associated Press said a four-page Department of Homeland Security intelligence report dated 1 May found China held off informing the World Health Organization (WHO) that the coronavirus was a contagion for much of January so it could order medical supplies from abroad, and that its imports of face masks and surgical gowns and gloves increased sharply.
Those conclusions were based on the 95% probability that Chinas changes in import and export behaviour were not within normal range, the report said.
Asked about the the viruss origins, Trump again suggested it came from a Wuhan lab. I think they made a horrible mistake and they didnt want to admit it, he said.
On Sunday the US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, said there was enormous evidence the coronavirus outbreak originated in a laboratory in Wuhan, China, but did not provide evidence for his statement.
The presidents appearance came as several European nations cautiously prepared to ease lockdown restrictions. Italy, which reported its lowest daily toll since stay-at-home orders were imposed on 10 March, is set to follow Spain in allowing people outside. From Monday Italians will be permitted to go to parks and visit relatives. Restaurants can open for takeaways and some shops will be able to resume business, but there has been confusion over the rules.
On the one hand were super excited for the reopening, were already organising various activities the kids will be able to do with their grandparents outdoors, said Rome resident Marghe Lodoli, who has three children. On the other hand its disorientating. The rules are not clear and were not sure if just using common sense will do.
Italian authorities have said some preventative measures are still needed in a country that has the second-highest number of virus deaths.
Germany will continue its easing on Monday while Slovenia, Poland and Hungary will allow public spaces and businesses to partially reopen. In another sign of life returning, an influential German minister said on Sunday that he supported a resumption of the countrys football season this month as long as teams respected hygiene conditions.
Officials in Moscow, however, urged residents to stay home. With cases increasing by several thousand each day, Russia is now the European country registering the most new infections, with Moscow at the centre of the contagion.
The British government said the easing of coronavirus lockdown measures was likely to be gradual. The UK death toll had reached 28,446 according to the Johns Hopkins tracker, putting the UK just behind Italy on 28,884 and the US with 67,680 deaths.
In other developments:
Global coronavirus cases have surpassed 3.5 million with more than 247,000 deaths.
In New York, the centre of the US outbreak, an emergency field hospital erected in Central Park is set to close. Dozens of New Yorkers were fined for violating social distancing guidelines as they flocked to beaches and parks in balmy weekend weather.
China reported three new coronavirus cases, versus two the day before.
Japans state of emergency is expected to be extended until the end of the month.
France will not quarantine anyone arriving from the EU, the Schengen area or Britain due to the coronavirus.
New Zealand has reported no new coronavirus cases for the first time.
South Korea plans to ease a ban on some gatherings and events as long as they follow disinfection measures.
Brazil has become the first country in Latin America to report more than 100,000 cases.
The Iranian president, Hassan Rouhani, announced mosques will reopen across large parts of the Islamic republic after they were closed in early March.
The institute is known as the "Birthplace of Medical Biodefense Research." Scientists and service-members there do research and work to protect the American soldier.
FREDERICK, Md. Just outside of Frederick, Maryland, is Fort Detrick the home of the U.S. military lab where researchers are working on COVID-19 treaments, and even possible vaccines.
Welcome to the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases usually shortened to USAMRIID. It's a place where lab coats and camouflage go hand-in-hand, where microscopes and test tubes replace guns and where HAZMAT suits protect government scientists from the danger of biological threats and infectious diseases.
It's known as the "Birthplace of Medical Biodefense Research." That means the scientists and service members there do research and help develop treatments and vaccines to protect the U.S. soldier around the world.
But if you think the work done there is just to help the military, Chief of Viral Immunology Dr. John Dye has an eye-opener about their mission.
"[It's] also, to help protect the globe, in that what we develop will eventually be mainstreamed into normal society, he said.
USAMRIID said their new building is the largest and most complex bio-containment facility ever designed.
These guys know what they're doing. They've played crucial roles with research on the Ebola, SARS and MERS outbreaks. Right now, they're focused on COVID-19.
Just the significant impact it's having not only on the United States but across the world, right, USAMRIID Commander Col. Darrin Cox said. And so, there's a sense of urgency.
In particular, USAMRIID is trying to find a vaccine for the novel coronavirus that has, as of May 4, killed nearly 70,000 Americans.
We are currently working with multiple entities in academia, industry and U.S. government where those vaccines can be provided to USAMRIID for us to assess in animal models, Dye said. The gold standard that most people use are monkeys or non-human primates.
Theyre collaborating on treatments, as well.
Right now, our institute and many other institutes are currently testing, in culture or in flasks, different small molecules and drugs that are currently on the market and also in development, Dye said.
Multiple options are also going into clinical trials to figure out how the drugs and vaccines will work in the human body not just in the lab. Dye thinks that data will start coming in over the next couple months.
In this situation, Cox explains the collaboration is critical.
Often in science you sort of do some discovery on your own, then you publish it, then you talk to others about it, he expanded. This is more sort of a parallel process amongst a lot of collaborators because of the sense of urgency that we have right now.
We asked Dye what kind of pressure scientists feel when they see just how contagious COVID-19 is.
We know that for every day we take longer, we're allowing this virus to take a greater hold on the world and on our country, he said.
We also wanted to know how it feels to know the work theyre doing inside the lab could help their neighbors, family members, friends and people they might pass on the street.
It's very emotional, Dye said. This disease is in our own backyard. It reminds us why we keep coming into work every day, why we keep doing this, that we're doing it for the greater good and for a global effort.
We also asked Dye when a treatment or vaccine would be available to the general public. He said the time frame they're talking about is six months to a year. While that might seem like a long time off, its important to have some perspective. Normally, this kind of work takes two-to-five years.
Last summer, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shut down the lab at Fort Detrick because structural defects led to some violations. Brig. Gen. Michael J. Talley, commander of U.S. Army Medical Research and Development Command and Fort Detrick, said there was never any danger to the community, but changes had to be made. The lab was restored in February.
Learn more about Dr. John M. Dye and Col. E Darrin Cox below:
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By mid-April, the U.S. saw many Americans' frustrations with lockdown measures boil over. Protests popped up around the country and some Americans let their feelings over quarantine be known.
But among those protesting lock downs were some people who showed up for different reasons; those protesting vaccines. People who are skeptical or opposed to vaccines have been using these protests to voice their opinions.
The most recent data suggests that as many as 1 in 3 parents are intentionally skipping some vaccines or dont have their kids fully vaccinated on the schedule recommended by public agencies, said Jennifer Reich, a professor of sociology at the University of Colorado, Denver.
For the last 10 years, Reich has been studying why parents may reject vaccines.
Weve convinced parents they're entirely responsible for everything that happens to their own children, and at the exact same time, we have messaged to everybody that you are personally responsible for their own health," she explained. "And if you take these two ideologies and you put them together, I think its pretty logical that parents now see vaccines as a kind of personal choice and not part of a broader campaign for public health."
Some people like Del Bigtree have serious concerns over a potential COVID-19 vaccine.
Rushing science, historically, is one of the stupidest things mankind has ever done, he said.
Bigtree is outspoken in his criticism of vaccines and says he questions if there is a connection between multiple vaccines and autism. The CDC, and numerous other scientific studies, refute those claims.
However, Bigtree says he has several concerns over a coronavirus vaccine, and not all those concerns are related to health.
I have this belief that where theres hundreds of billions of dollars to be made, there tends to be people who are willing to try and cut some corners to try and get that money in their pockets, said Bigtree.
However, if a safe and effective vaccine for COVID-19 is developed, it could help us achieve what doctors call herd immunity.
Herd immunity means that most of the people in the population are immune to a particular pathogen, and so that really slows down the spread of that pathogen within the community," said Dr. Heather Young, an infectious disease expert with Denver Health.
For diseases like polio, the percentage of people with immunity needed to achieve herd immunity is between 80 to 85 percent. For more contagious viruses like measles, we need 90 to 95 percent.
We dont know yet what percentage is needed to achieve herd immunity for COVID-19. Until we develop herd immunity, many of us will be at-risk.
If more people end up developing the infection, they can then spread it to people who either are also not immune or whos immunity has weened and really put the whole community at risk, said Dr. Young.
"I would never take a coronavirus vaccine, because there is no reason for me to," argued Bigtree. "All of science show us, to date, that getting a natural virus is far more a much stronger and thorough immunity than a vaccine has ever been able to create. I say that the natural immunity is the Ferrari of immunity and vaccines give you the Pinto of immunity."
If we develop a vaccine for this coronavirus, Reich says the whole process will be scrutinized.
We have a vaccine that will likely be eligible for expedited review and will move through the review and testing process faster, and so thats going to raise questions about what was skipped, what kind of safety measures do we have, and are we trusting that it went through a rigorous review process that can make people feel really safe," Reich said. "And if that process looks corrupt, if that process is not transparent, we run the risk of increasing all vaccine access, all vaccine testing, and all vaccine safety, and I think that could be more detrimental for all of us than we can even imagine."
Reich says creating trust in any potential vaccine may be as important as the vaccine itself.
A new strain of Coronavirus, COVID 19, is spreading around the world, causing deaths and major disruption to the global economy.
Responding to this crisis requires global cooperation among governments, international organizations and the business community, which is at the centre of the World Economic Forums mission as the International Organization for Public-Private Cooperation.
The Forum has created the COVID Action Platform, a global platform to convene the business community for collective action, protect peoples livelihoods and facilitate business continuity, and mobilize support for the COVID-19 response. The platform is created with the support of the World Health Organization and is open to all businesses and industry groups, as well as other stakeholders, aiming to integrate and inform joint action.
As an organization, the Forum has a track record of supporting efforts to contain epidemics. In 2017, at our Annual Meeting, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) was launched bringing together experts from government, business, health, academia and civil society to accelerate the development of vaccines. CEPI is currently supporting the race to develop a vaccine against this strand of the coronavirus.
1. How COVID-19 is impacting the globe
2. Global vaccine pledging conference
World leaders will hold an international pledging marathon on Monday with the goal of raising at least 7.5 billion euros ($8.2 billion) for research into a possible COVID-19 vaccine and treatments.
Organised by the European Union, along with Britain, Norway, Japan, Canada and Saudi Arabia, leaders aim to raise funds over several weeks or months, building on efforts by the World Bank, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and wealthy individuals.
3. US death estimate revised up
U.S. President Donald Trump said on Sunday he now believes as many as 100,000 Americans could die in the coronavirus pandemic, after the death toll passed his earlier estimates, but said he was confident a vaccine would be developed by the years end.
Average number of COVID-19 deaths in last 7 days in select countries, Mar. 1-Apr. 22 Published by John Elflein, Apr 23, 2020 The average number of deaths from COVID-19 in the United States over the last seven days as of April 22, 2020 was around 2,715. This statistic shows the average number of deaths from COVID-19 over the last seven days in select countries worldwide from March 1 to April 22, 2020. Average number of deaths from COVID-19 over the last seven days in select countries worldwide from March 1 to April 22, 2020
Image: Statista
4. Italy eases long lockdown, but fears resurgence of coronavirus
Italy starts to unwind Europes longest coronavirus lockdown, letting some 4.5 million people return to work on Monday after nearly two months at home, while finally allowing families to reunite.
However, friends have been told to keep apart and most shops must stay shut until 18 May. Restaurants and bars can only offer takeaway, while schools, cinemas and theatres will remain shut for the indefinite future.
With almost 29,000 deaths from COVID-19 since, Italy has the worlds second highest toll after the United States.
5. Australia and New Zealand discuss possible trans-Tasman "travel bubble"
New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said she has accepted an invite from Australian Premier Scott Morrison to take part in a meeting of Australias emergency coronavirus cabinet on Tuesday, stoking anticipation of a travel deal.
Ardern said more health measures needed to be put in place, adding: I wouldnt say it would be in the very, very near short term.
License and Republishing
World Economic Forum articles may be republished in accordance with our Terms of Use.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and not the World Economic Forum.
ST. LOUIS - People are heading outdoors, now that the spring is here and the stay-at-home orders are being lifted. But, we have to think about how to protect our skin from the sun.
Tiphanie Shy from "Shimmer by Shy" celebrates the sun and Tiphanie Tuesdays. She has more sun-protection tips on Instagram and Facebook@ShimmerByShy.
Experts are hopeful that a vaccine against the SARS-CoV-2 virus will become available sooner rather than later.
Doctors and scientists are scrambling to develop avaccine to stop the coronavirus, which is now responsible forover 250,000 deaths worldwide. It's estimated that the COVID-19 pandemic is expected to ravage society until between 60% and 70% of the world'spopulation is immune.
There are currently more than95 coronavirus vaccines being tested, withseven reportedly already in clinical trials, which means there aremore scientists working harder and faster on finding a vaccine than ever before in the history of pandemics. But even if one of the vaccines now under development turns out to be effective,the FDA approval process typically takes a year or longer.
Keep track of the coronavirus pandemic.
It's still too early to make predictions, but here's what we know so far about the race to develop a coronavirus vaccine that may help usher in an end to the current pandemic.
One more note before we get underway. This article is intended to be a resource to help you understand current coronavirus vaccine research. It isn't intended to serve as medical advice. If you're seeking more information about coronavirus testing,here's how to find a testing sitenear you (and here'sanother way for Apple Mapsusers). Here'show to know if you qualify for a testandwhy there aren't any coronavirus at-home test kitsyet. This story is updated frequently as new information comes to light.
Read more:What it will take for life to return to normal after lockdown ends
A vaccine is a medical treatment that protects you against a disease like the coronavirus. For a deeper dive into how vaccines work, check outthis in-depth coronavirus treatment explainer by CNET's Science Editor Jackson Ryan. But the short and sweet of it is that a vaccine tricks your body into thinking it's already had the disease, so your body's natural defense -- the immune system --builds antibodies against it. Then, if you were to become infected, your body would call upon the antibodies to fight the virus before you feel sick.
Vaccines typically take about10 to 15 years to develop. That's in part because any new medical treatment needs to be thoroughly tested for safety before it can be distributed to millions or billions of people. Themumps vaccine took four years, which is widely considered the fastest vaccine approval in the history of infectious disease.
Read more:Need a pulse oximeter? These models are in stock starting at $24
Now playing: Watch this: Vaccines, antibody tests, treatments: The science of...
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Last week, the White House announced "Operation Warp Speed," a sort of coronavirus vaccine task force that has identified14 vaccine projects it says it will focus on fast-tracking. The project's stated goal is to have300 million doses of vaccineavailable by January 2021. That's a bit faster than the12- to 18-month estimated timeline proposed by the US' top infectious disease expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci.
As of this writing there are97 vaccine projects underway in countries around the world, including the US, UK, Germany, Japan and China. Twelve are either already in clinical trials or starting in the next few months. Out of those 12, Oxford University seems to be leading the pack with a vaccine that researchers saycould be ready by the fall of 2020.
Scientists from around the world are working toward developing a vaccine. So far 12 projects have either started or will soon start clinical trials.
Not great. Only about6% of vaccine candidates ever make it through to market, and not just because they don't work. There's a whole litany of problems that could cancel even a promising candidate. Take, for example, what happened when scientists tried to develop a vaccine for SARS --it backfired and actually made people more susceptible to the disease. Same thing happened with avaccine for Dengue fever. To make matters worse, coronaviruses are a large class of viruses andso far there are no vaccines for any of them.
However, this particular coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, has some unique traits that may help researchers working on a vaccine. For example, some viruses, like the flu, mutate quickly and often, which is why there's a new flu vaccine every year.This coronavirus doesn't seem to do that. Although it's still too early to be completely certain what will happen by the time a vaccine is ready, it's thought that the virus has not yet mutated significantly enough to disrupt vaccine development, nor is it expected to.
Rules and regulations vary by country, but, generally speaking, most industrialized nations have similar protocols for approving a vaccine. The following path is how vaccines are approved in the US under the Food and Drug Administration:
Until there's a vaccine, expect safety precautions like face masks and social distancing to be a part of everyday life.
The longer we go without a vaccine, the more likely focus will shift toward treatments, such as theexperimental antiviral drug remdesivir, which has been showing promising results. Many viruses that used to be fatal are no longer death sentences. Patients with HIV, for example, now can expect to enjoythe same life expectancyas non-HIV-positive individuals, thanks to tremendous advances in treatment.
Without a coronavirus vaccine, the road back to normal may be harder and longer, but not necessarily impossible.Coronavirus testing, includingantibody testing, andcontact tracingefforts would probably need to intensify. Lockdown measures wouldprobably lift slowly, althoughdepending on how people handle itcities and states may bring them back, including requiringface masksandsocial distancing. Eventually, the global population may reach the 60% to 70% rate required forherd immunityto protect those who aren't immune.
With top White House officials indicating a coronavirus vaccine may be available by January 2021, scientists and vaccine experts outside the Trump administration are cautious but optimistic that a vaccine could be delivered on such an accelerated timeline.
Experts interviewed by ABC warned that developing a vaccine within a 12-month time frame could mean throwing normal scientific standards out the window, but added that a vaccine could be available by the new year if everything goes perfectly.
While President Donald Trump has been bullish in his promise to have a "vaccine by the end of the year," his top advisors have taken a more measured approach, saying a January deadline is a best-case scenario. Last week, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation's top infectious disease doctor, said, "we want to go quickly, but we want to make sure it's safe and it's effective."
Since the start of the U.S. epidemic, Fauci has been estimating a vaccine is 12 to 18 months away. But the prior record for vaccine development -- the mumps vaccine -- took four years, meaning Fauci's early estimates drew skepticism among many vaccine experts.
But with the growing sense of urgency as the death toll mounted dramatically in March and April, vaccine developers collapsed the normal development timelines by running concurrent studies that would normally be conducted in a stepwise approach. Meanwhile, drug companies are already scaling up production without even knowing which vaccine is likely to work.
"It is not impossible," said Paul Duprex, PhD, Director of the Center for Vaccine Research and professor of microbiology and molecular genetics at the University of Pittsburgh. "It's of course very aggressive -- but it is possible."
"You'd have to be lucky," said Dr. Paul Offit, co-inventor of the rotavirus vaccine, who sits on the Food and Drug Administration's vaccine advisory committee. "It would be remarkable, but not completely ridiculous."
The first box of the vaccine candidate to be used in Phase I / II trial, at the Clinical Biomanufacturing Facility (CBF) in Oxford, Britain, April 2, 2020.
Dr. Paul Goepfert, professor of medicine at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) and an expert in vaccine design, said a vaccine by January would only be possible "if everything works out perfectly."
To have a new vaccine by January, experts said a study would need to be conducted in parts of the world where the pandemic is still raging. This would help ensure a big enough group of patients were exposed, and then protected, from the virus.
Then, one of the vaccines currently being developed would have to show positive results, which isn't a guarantee. That vaccine would also have to prove safe, without any dangerous side effects. Finally, vaccine makers would have to be ready with hundreds of millions of doses as soon as data is in hand.
"It is possible but not likely," Goepfert said.
Right now there are more than 100 vaccines being studied, and at least eight of those have already progressed outside the laboratory and into human studies, according to the World Health Organization. The furthest along include candidates from the University of Oxford, Pfizer, Moderna Therapeutics, Inovio Pharmaceuticals and China's CanSino Biologics.
Many of these vaccines use different technology -- some brand-new to vaccine science -- and experts still don't know which is the most likely to work.
Meanwhile, the White House's Operation Warp Speed has resulted in a handful of vaccine candidates that might work against the novel coronavirus -- although those will also need further study.
Right now, many of the vaccines already tested in people have been accelerated far beyond the normal, methodical timelines. Instead of moving from animal studies in a laboratory to a carefully tiered Phase I, II and III system of in-human study, some of these studies are being conducted simultaneously -- with some even skipping normal animal studies.
Under normal circumstances, it would be too expensive for drug developers and too risky for human volunteers to run these types of studies concurrently. But vaccine developers are deviating from the normal rule book because of the sheer devastation of the global pandemic.
A researcher works on coronavirus vaccine development at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research in Silver Spring, Md., April 28, 2020.
"We as scientists are rather linear individuals," said Duprex. "There are huge financial reasons for that." Now, he said, "there are people taking risks, doing something that might not lead to fruition."
The scientific challenges are unprecedented, considering how little is known about the novel coronavirus that has killed more than 250,000 people across the globe.
For example, said Offit, most vaccines work by triggering an immune response inside the body without making a person sick. But for this novel coronavirus, scientists still haven't had time to adequately study the body's immune response to infection -- meaning we don't know whether an immune system response necessarily protects against a future infection.
And rushing development could mean that important safety issues are missed.
"Most vaccines have been pretty safe, but there have been problems in the past," said Goepfert.
And the downside of immunizing millions of people with a rushed, unsafe vaccine could have long-ranging consequences.
"Vaccines are so, so important for public health," Duprex said. If something goes wrong the general public will extrapolate that vaccines are unsafe."
"Time is critical, of course, but safety is critical," said Duprex. "In the middle of this fast approach, we absolutely cannot compromise on safety."
Tune into ABC at 1 p.m. ET and ABC News Live at 4 p.m. ET every weekday for special coverage of the novel coronavirus with the full ABC News team, including the latest news, context and analysis.
