Vietnam didnt just flatten its coronavirus curve, it crushed it. No deaths have been reported, official case numbers have plateaued at just 271, and no community transmissions of the virus have been reported in the last two weeks. On 23 April, the nation eased lockdowns in its major cities and life is gradually returning to normal. It is a stark contrast to many other nations including the US, where more Americans have died from Covid-19 than during the entire Vietnam war.
Kidong Park, the World Health Organisations representative to Vietnam, has praised the countrys response to the crisis.
Quarantining tens of thousands in military-style camps and vigorous contact tracing procedures have helped Vietnam to avoid the disasters unfolding in Europe and the US. After testing over 213,000 people, the nation has the highest test-per-confirmed-case ratio of any country in the world. A creative public information campaign featuring viral handwashing songs and propaganda-style art helped, but it was decisive early action hastened by a government praised for its response to Sars in 2003 that proved most effective.
Vietnams first two confirmed cases of Covid-19 appeared in late January. On 1 February, Vietnam Airlines ceased all flights to China, Taiwan and Hong Kong and the border with China was shut days later. After a fresh wave of new infections in March, all international flights were grounded and a nationwide lockdown commenced on 1 April. While other nations announced lockdowns to deal with existing crises, Vietnam enacted one to prevent one.
Second waves of the virus have, however, already hit Japan and Hong Kong. To mitigate the risk of a fresh outbreak occurring in Vietnam, wearing face masks in public remains mandatory and gatherings of more than 30 individuals are banned, as are festivals, religious ceremonies and sporting events.
Park stresses the importance of education about the virus at community level, along with strengthening preventative measures in health facilities, offices, schools and other places where it is essential for people to go regularly.
But he warned of the economic consequences and this likely influenced the governments decision to end the lockdown on 23 April.
Many non-essential services, such as bars and karaoke parlours, are still closed. Some will never recover. Constraints have been lifted for shops, hotels and restaurants, yet in a nation where tourism accounts for 6% of GDP, the future looks increasingly uncertain especially when nobody has a clear idea of when borders will reopen.
A report released by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) last month said at least 10 million Vietnamese could lose their jobs or face reduced income in the second quarter of 2020. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) predicts a growth rate of 2.7% for Vietnam in 2020, a drop from around 7% last year.
In early April, the government announced a $2.5bn support package for Vietnams poor, with the most vulnerable receiving $76 per week. Rice ATMs and zero dong stores have been set up in major cities to assist those hardest hit, yet even when combined with additional government funding, such support only goes so far.
A Hanoi-based economist, Nguyen Van Trang, says the path ahead looks ominous. Incredibly difficult decisions lie ahead on how and when to reopen the country, she says, but adds that despite external risks Vietnam has begun to restore manufacturing, services and retail sectors. The internal resilience is huge. A large part of the population survived through hardships during the war, so they will be able to bounce back very quickly.
For some of Vietnams most vulnerable, the situation looks bleak. With attention diverted towards the pandemic, NGOs have been hit hard. Blue Dragon Childrens Foundation, an organisation that works with street children in Hanoi and rescues victims of human trafficking from China, has seen donations plummet. Skye Maconachie, the organizations joint chief executive, says the crisis has already led to an increase in homelessness and hunger.
Many of the children and families we work with were already in poverty or in crisis, so now they are reaching a breaking point, Maconachie says. Traffickers prey on vulnerable people, so we expect to see an increase in human trafficking and labour exploitation over the coming months.
Whatever the future holds, Vietnam, a nation of 96 million, appears to have contained the virus. As of Wednesday, Singapore had 19,410 confirmed cases of Covid-19 the highest in south-east Asia and 18 deaths, while Indonesia has more than 12,000 cases and 872 deaths. As Vietnam emerges from lockdown, the eyes of the world will be watching.
The fight against Covid-19 is ongoing and the next wave is always possible as outbreaks are still reported globally. Vietnam, Park says, should not lose its grip.
Chris Humphrey is the Vietnam bureau chief for Deutsche Presse-Agentur and a freelance journalist.
CLEVELAND, Ohio The Ohio Department of Health notified Cleveland Wednesday that 13 more cases of the COVID-19 coronavirus had been confirmed in the city, Mayor Frank Jacksons administration announced. No new deaths were reported.
The new cases push the total number of Cleveland residents who have been infected to 838. Nearly 30% of those cases required hospitalization, according to the Cleveland Department of Public Health.
The breakdown by gender is 52% men, 48% women. Nearly 60% of those infected are black. Nearly 22% are white. Asian residents comprise less than 3% of the cases.
The new cases involved men and women ranging in age from their 20s to their 70s. Overall, the age range for those infected is from less than 1 year old into the 90s.
The Cleveland Department of Public Health will work to identify any people who were in close contact with the newly confirmed patients to determine who now would require testing or monitoring for symptoms of COVID-19.
Thirty-nine Clevelanders have died from coronavirus. They ranged in age from less than 1 year old to more than 90 years old.
Ohios 1,225 known coronavirus-related deaths are spread across 64 of the states 88 counties, with total cases now reaching 21,576, the Ohio Department of Health reported Wednesday. The death total increased 7.9% from 1,135 the day before, while the case total was up 2.9% from 20,969.
The 90 deaths added Wednesday were the second most reported in a single day, behind 138 on April 29. The 79 deaths reported Tuesday are the third most.
The state reported 2,542 cases in Cuyahoga County as of Tuesday. Those cases involved 659 hospitalizations. There were 132 deaths reported.
The Centers for Disease Control and Preventions updated tally on Wednesday reported there were 1,193,813 cases and 70,802 deaths in the United States. But those numbers tend to lag other reporting sites.
Worldometer, an online tracking site, estimated that as of Wednesday evening more than 1,258,050 people have become infected with the coronavirus in the U.S. It reported 74,200 people had died.
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A sad and tired healthcare worker is seen by the Brooklyn Hospital Center in New York, United States on April 1, 2020.
Tayfun Coskun | Anadolu Agency | Getty Images
The United States just had its deadliest day on record due to the coronavirus as states across the country begin to ease restrictions meant to curb the spread of the virus, according to data published by the World Health Organization.
The U.S. saw 2,909 people die of Covid-19 in 24 hours, according to the data, which was collected as of 4 a.m. ET on Friday. That's the highest daily Covid-19 death toll in the U.S. yet, based on a CNBC analysis of the WHO's daily Covid-19 situation reports.
Before May 1, the next highest U.S. daily death toll was 2,471 reported on April 23, according to the WHO. State officials have previously warned that data on Covid-19 deaths are difficult to analyze because they often represent patients who became ill and were hospitalized weeks ago.
Representatives of the WHO did not immediately respond to CNBC's request for comment.
The country's deadliest day comes as state officials weigh reopening parts of the economy and easing stay-at-home orders. Public health officials and epidemiologists have warned that as the public grows fatigued by restrictions and businesses reopen, the virus could spread rapidly throughout communities that have yet to experience a major epidemic.
Protesters in at least 10 states on Friday demanded that the government lift stay-at-home orders and other emergency measures put in place to slow the spread of the coronavirus. Among the states that saw protests are California, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Illinois, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Tennessee and Washington.
Dozens of states have unveiled reopening plans and several, including Georgia, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas, have already begun to allow nonessential retailers to reopen.
New York state, which has reported more than 27% of all confirmed cases in the U.S., according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University, has borne the brunt of the U.S. outbreak so far. The state has reported at least24,039 of the country's65,173 Covid-19 deaths, according to Hopkins.
The toll of the deadliest day of Covid-19 in the U.S. rivals that of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, which claimed the lives of 2,973 people in one day, according to a government commission.
The WHO data differs from data collected by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which does not report historical daily Covid-19 deaths. The CDC's site says that2,349 people died in the U.S. of Covid-19 on May 1.
However, the agency warns that its data might not be complete. CDC spokeswoman Kate Grusich told CNBC that the agency's data is "validated through a confirmation process with jurisdictions."
"CDC does not know the exact number of COVID-19 illnesses, hospitalizations, and deaths for a variety of reasons," the agency says, adding that asymptomatic patients, delays in reporting and limited testing make it difficult to accurately track the data.
Some cities, such as New York City, have struggled to gain a complete understanding of the Covid-19 death toll. Many patients die at home and others are attributed to heart attacks or other conditions that might have been exacerbated by Covid-19, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said last month.
Further complicating the system for reporting Covid-19 deaths is that the mortuary system in hard-hit cities like New York is overwhelmed by the surge of victims. Funeral homes, caught in the middle of the bottleneck, have had to store corpses in refrigerated trucks, or in some cases whatever storage unit they can find.
The CDC warns that all data right now is "provisional" and the agency might not have a more accurate count until December of next year.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration granted emergency use authorization forGileadSciences' remdesivir drug to treat Covid-19, President Donald Trump announced Friday.
The EUA means that remdesivir has not undergone the same level of review as an FDA-approved treatment, according toa fact sheetfrom the agency on the drug. However,doctors will be allowed to use the drug on patients hospitalized with the disease even though the drug has not been formally approved by the agency.
The intravenous drug has helped shorten the recovery time of some hospitalized Covid-19 patients, new clinical trial data suggests. Without other proven treatments, health-care workers will likely be considering its use.
The FDA previously authorized the emergency use of malaria drugs chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine to treat Covid-19. However, it laterissued a warning against takingthe drugs outside a hospital or formal clinical trial setting after it became aware of reports of "serious heart rhythm problems" in patients.
Under the EUA, the FDA will allow the drug to be administered for either a five-day or a 10-day dose. A 10-day treatment regimen is preferred for intubated patients.
"That's going to allow Gilead to effectively double the supply," former FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb said during an interview on CNBC's "Closing Bell."
The company said it will continue to support clinical trials and expand so-called compassionate use programs for remdesivir.
CNBC's Berkeley Lovelace, Yelena Dzhanova and Hannah Miller contributed to this report.
Vaccines to prevent Covid-19 infection are hurtling through development at speeds never before seen. But mounting promises that some vaccine may be available for emergency use as early as the autumn are fueling expectations that are simply unrealistic, experts warn.
Even if the stages of vaccine development could be compressed and supplies could be rapidly manufactured and deployed, it could take many more months or longer before most Americans would be able to roll up their sleeves. And in many countries around the world, the wait could be far longer still perpetuating the worldwide risk the new coronavirus poses for several years to come.
That reality is being obscured by reports that some of the earliest vaccine candidates including one from the biotechnology company Moderna and another from University of Oxford may within months have enough evidence behind them to be administered on an emergency use basis.
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Michael Osterholm, director of the University of Minnesotas Center for Infectious Diseases Research and Policy, is worried people arent preparing for the possibility of a fall wave of infections which some experts fear will be bigger than what weve seen so far because they expect a vaccine will be at hand.
Ive actually heard higher education experts say, Well, you know, were kind of counting on the vaccine maybe by September because we keep hearing about that. And of course, in their mind, theyre equating [that to mean] colleges and universities will have the vaccine, he told STAT.
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Osterholm and other experts make clear that there will not be enough vaccine for college-age students in that time frame, even in the best-case scenario. Its likely any supplies that will be available if any of the vaccines prove themselves to be protective by the fall will be designated for health care workers and others on the front line of the response effort.
I dont think were communicating very well at all with the public, because I keep having to tell these people, you know, even if we had a vaccine that showed some evidence of protection by September, we are so far from having a vaccine in peoples arms, Osterholm said.
Assuming a vaccine can be developed quickly, the issue of manufacturing is not a small one. Production of some vaccine candidates could be more easily ramped up than others, noted Emilio Emini, who is leading work at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation on the issue.
Should some of the more scalable vaccines prove to be protective, its conceivable that they could be made at existing plants, rather than require the construction of whole new facilities. Production of this type of candidate could reach hundreds of millions of doses within about a year, Emini said. But any vaccines that would require bricks-and-mortar construction is obviously going to take longer to reach those output levels.
The World Health Organization, which is closely monitoring the field of candidate Covid-19 vaccines, lists more than100 projects, though many are being designed in academic laboratories without commercial production capacity. Of the total, eight are already being tested in people, four of them in China.
Among the others is an RNA vaccine project being developed by Pfizer and partner BioNTech, which began testing four possible vaccines in a compressed Phase 1/2 trial in the U.S. on Tuesday. The companies estimate they will be able to produce millions of doses this year, in facilities in the United States and Europe; by 2021, production could reach hundreds of millions of doses though final figures will depend on how much vaccine it takes to protect each person, said Philip Dormitzer, Pfizers vice president and chief scientific officer.
Weve set a goal that were pursuing. And the data are going to tell us to what degree thats an easy goal or very difficult goal to meet but its not going to be very easy, Dormitzer said.
The WHO has called for equitable sharing of Covid-19 vaccines, insisting they should be seen as a global resource. But there have been concerns from the earliest days of this pandemic that countries that are home to vaccine production facilities will nationalize any output to ensure domestic needs are met before vaccine can be exported for use elsewhere.
Robin Robinson, who led the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority from 2008 to 2016, said the agency has spent billions of dollars building up vaccine production capacity in the United States based on that assumption.
A recent recipient of BARDA funding is Moderna, which is expanding production capacity at its Norwood, Mass., facility. Were going to be making millions of doses per month in 2020, ramped to tens of millions of doses a month in 2021, CEO Stphane Bancel said recently.
We are highly aware that given almost everybody on the planet needs to be vaccinated, were going to need a lot of capacity. And we are discussing with a lot of parties how to get there, Bancel said. Are we going to get to a place where we can do seven billion doses next year? The answer is clearly no. But are we in a place where we could be even doing another five-times, ten-times increase from the tens of millions of doses per month? Were working very hard and when we have a clear plan well communicate about it.
The Cambridge, Mass.-based company announced last week that it had signed a deal with Swiss pharmaceutical company Lonzo to help produce 1 billion doses of the vaccine in the U.S. and in Switzerland.
While China has extensive vaccine production capacity and several developing countries including India, Indonesia, and Brazil are among the worlds largest vaccine producers and exporters, a sizable amount of the manufacturing capacity belonging to pharmaceutical companies that sell vaccine in North America and Europe is based in the United States.
Marie-Paule Kieny, who formerly led the WHO group responsible for spurring development of epidemic and pandemic vaccines and drugs, said when the global health agency worked on pandemic planning in the lead-up to the 2009 H1N1 influenza pandemic, it was proposed that health care workers around the world have first access to vaccine. That group, she said, is estimated to be about 2% of the global population roughly 156 million people.
I think its reasonable to say that this should be the first target, because as weve seen everywhere, including in the U.S., when you have a health system which cannot accommodate sick people, then everybody suffers, said Kieny, who is now research director at Inserm, the French equivalent of the National Institutes of Health.
Health care workers would likely followed by people at the highest risk those 65 and older and people with chronic health conditions, like diabetes, that have been seen to increase the risk of dying from Covid-19, Robinson said.
I dont think that the general population will have vaccine probably until the second half of 2021. And thats if everything works OK, he said.
The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, an expert panel that makes recommendations to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on vaccine use, is typically tasked with drawing up the priority groups during pandemics.
Regardless of who gets vaccines when, its believed that most if not all of the new vaccines will require at least two doses to be effective, so any estimates of numbers of doses available in the autumn will need to be divided by two to find out how many people could expect to be vaccinated.
Osterholm said the public both here and abroad need clearer communications about realistic time lines to Covid-19 vaccine access. When vaccines do start to become available, demand will be enormous and supply will be minimal.
Its going to be like filling Lake Superior with a garden hose at first, he warned. Lets just be honest, whichever country gets the vaccine first is going to both be in the drivers seat and a very difficult spot.
Eight billion people are going to want this vaccine overnight when it becomes available.
In the race for a vaccine to end the global COVID-19 pandemic, eight contenders are at the front of the pack.
These eight vaccine candidates are undergoing human testing in clinics in China, the United States, Britain and Germany. Behind them are at least 94 others in various stages of development.
The Trump administration is pushing to have hundreds of millions of doses of a vaccine available by the end of the year. However, experts say the unprecedented speed risks taking shortcuts on safety, and there's no guarantee that any of the vaccine candidates will work.
"It worries me, actually, that we aren't going to know key issues about safety and effectiveness if we're planning on rolling it out that quickly," said Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia.
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Three ways
The eight vaccine candidates fall into three categories.
One category might be called the classical technique: triggering the patient's immune system to respond to the virus by injecting a killed version of it. Three separate groups of Chinese researchers are testing inactivated-virus vaccines.
A second method uses one virus to fight another.
Whether it causes COVID-19, Ebola disease or the common cold, a virus is basically just an envelope containing instructions to make more of the virus.
In this novel vaccine strategy, scientists strip out instructions from one virus and replace them with instructions to make just a piece of the coronavirus.
A shot of the modified virus does not cause illness. The virus infects some of the patient's cells, but instead of copies of infectious virus, those cells produce the piece of coronavirus. The patient's immune system responds to the coronavirus protein so it can fight off the invader later.
Two separate groups from China and Britain are pursuing this approach.
A third novel strategy cuts out the middleman. Rather than delivering instructions in a virus, researchers inject genetic code for a piece of the coronavirus directly into the patient in the form of DNA or RNA.
Two groups are working on RNA vaccines, and one on a DNA shot.
The newer methods are fast and flexible, according to Kimberly Taylor, head of the biodefense vaccine development section at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
"They are very good for pandemic platforms because they're typically plug-and-play very quick manufacturing, very quick to get into the clinic," she said.
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Pros and cons
Each technique has pros and cons.
"We're not going to put all our eggs in one basket," said Emory University Vaccine Center Associate Director Walter Orenstein. "Different groups are looking to see what will work and what might not work."
The killed-virus system is the most tried-and-true. But killing the virus can change its shape. The immune system might respond to the killed virus differently than the real thing.
Viral vectors are a new strategy, and it's not clear how well different carrier viruses will work. In some cases, people may have already been exposed to the carrier virus, which would reduce its effectiveness.
DNA vaccines require special equipment.
"It's not as simple as just using a needle and syringe. You have to have this whole other device," Taylor said.
And an RNA vaccine would need some additive to keep the active ingredient from breaking down.
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'You never know'
Experts are concerned that the extremely compressed timeline will not allow for definitive answers on whether a vaccine is safe and effective.
Developing a vaccine typically takes around 20 years. It's usually tested in tens of thousands of people before it's approved for wider distribution, because safety issues may not be immediately obvious.
For example, in a clinical trial of 35,000 patients, researchers discovered that a dengue vaccine did more harm than good for children under 9 years old who had not had a case of dengue before receiving the vaccine. They developed more serious cases of dengue than those who had not been vaccinated before their first dengue infection.
"You never know until you put things into large numbers of people," Offit said. "Then and only then do you find out what the story is."
People may lower their standards for a coronavirus vaccine, however.
"Because people are reasonably panicked by this virus, I think they're willing to accept a certain level of risk that they wouldn't normally accept," Offit added.
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Since speed is of the utmost importance, manufacturers need to ramp up production before they know if their vaccine works.
"If you're a manufacturer, what is your willingness to manufacture loads and loads of doses if it turns out your vaccine fails?" Orenstein asked.
"And how would we cushion the risk? Should there be a fund to say, 'If you develop that vaccine, we'll buy as many doses even if we have to flush them down the toilet because the vaccine didn't work or was unsafe?'"
The U.S. government has signed deals with two vaccine companies totaling nearly $1 billion that include scaling up production.
Vaccine test results are still several months away for all the candidates.
Donald Trump may be very confident we will have a vaccine for COVID-19 by the end of the year, but the rest of us should be more cautious. Billions of dollars are being spent trying to develop vaccines and treatments as a more permanent solution to the crisis than the lockdowns currently being enforced around the world.
As of May 2020 there are 182 treatments and 99 different vaccines being developed globally. But, based on recent history, only one or two are likely to be transformative, a couple may be partially helpful, some will be shown as downright dangerous, and the majority will have conflicting evidence as to their effectiveness.
This is because medical research is a slow and painstaking process. It is also very complicated and easy to come to the wrong conclusions.
One good thing to have come out of the coronavirus pandemic seems to be a renewed trust in experts. The routine presence of scientists at government briefings seems to recognise that rather than deserving our suspicion, we need these people to beat the virus.
But more trust in experts means more scrutiny of science as it happens the latest studies showing promising results are now headline news. This can be worrying because, while there is no doubt that treatments for COVID-19 will eventually be found, it is easy for enthusiasm to turn into cynicism if expectations are not met as quickly as the public and politicians may hope.
There seems to be little recognition that, while thousands of drugs have shown promise in early animal or clinical tests for example, the vaccine trials at the University of Oxford the vast majority that show early promise will never make it into routine clinical use. On average it takes 12 years and over US$1 billion (805 million) to get a drug to market.
I chair research ethics committees. Over the last few years I have reviewed thousands of research protocols representing the very best, and occasionally some quite poor, examples of medical research.
Good research is defined as rigorous and reliable, producing results that are not only interesting, but are practical, useful and in some cases transformative. They are also reported clearly, transparently and in the context of previous studies. This is precisely the type of research we need to address the COVID-19 crisis.
But such good research comes at a cost. Much of society thinks of cost in terms of dollars and pounds, and indeed mindful of our own survival, scientists and researchers are of course always going to lobby for more investment. While it is very helpful to have the funds to order any chemical that is needed, access highly specialised equipment, or pay others to conduct experiments and analyse results quickly, we must take care never to underestimate the importance of taking time to think carefully about what results actually mean.
It is only once researchers have taken the time to understand the context of results that they can start turning them into effective applications or treatments. The real cost of good research is therefore time.
The frustrating truth about medical research is that the majority of experiments appear not to work because the subject being studied is so horrendously complex. In fact, rather than not working, many experiments are simply inconclusive. To make progress you have to slow down, look at the evidence and take time to think very carefully about what the results might mean.
The thinking needed for this takes years. I was involved with one project that was delayed for almost ten years while the team tried to work out why a single animal showed cardiovascular complications. Another project I worked on showed promise reducing an Alzheimer-like pathology in mice, yet 18 years later similar effects have yet to be conclusively shown in humans. Commendably, the team is still working on it.
The reality is that the long road to a vaccine or drug for any disease is littered with trials that did not lead to expected results. Even when a study is successful, it takes a long time to go from the lab to the general public.
One worrying aspect of the current situation is the pressure on researchers to work quickly and come up with solutions for COVID-19 almost immediately. For perhaps the first time, financial resources are not a limiting factor, and so politicians and the public are expecting researchers to take the cash and provide the answers. This has been coupled with significant pressure on regulators to streamline or even suspend some of the normal processes so that treatments can get to the clinic as quickly as possible.
Lured by promises of unlimited funding, and perhaps fame should their chosen idea work, some researchers may be tempted to engage in questionable research practices. History shows that whenever a large amount of money is involved, the temptation to commit, fraud, misconduct or other questionable practices increase. The UK spent more than 400 million during the 2009 swine flu outbreak stockpiling a drug whose effectiveness had been inflated by the manufacturers due to publication bias where negative or inconclusive results from a trial are not published in scientific journals, but positive results are.
Without appropriate scrutiny there is a real risk that ineffective, or even harmful, treatments begin to get used. This may be considered an acceptable risk in the current crisis, but if so, it is important that any new treatments are monitored very closely and withdrawn without hesitation if the harms mount up.
Given time maybe two, three or perhaps even ten years researchers will be able to take stock of the evidence from experiments and trials, perform a meta-analysis and systematic review, hold international conferences, and then, following careful thought, tell the world what the best treatment for COVID-19 is.
The world clearly needs scientific and medical answers to the current pandemic as soon as possible, but we need to recognise that initially we may only find partial or tentative answers. Instead of a quick vaccine that completely prevents COVID-19, a variety of partial successes will be combined until eventually a full solution is found.
There may even be some blind alleys with promising, but ultimately futile, treatment ideas. This is not a failure of research, or misuse of resources. Above all, researchers need to be supported to work with integrity, and not be made scapegoats for the challenges that undoubtedly lie ahead.
Some scientists who believe theyre on the verge of a breakthrough begin testing at Children's Hospital on a COVID-19 vaccine being described as "revolutionary." Pfizer is working on a genetic vaccine that could be ready as early as September.Childrens Hospital, which has extensive experience in vaccine testing, is among a select few organizations conducting part of the study.The tests at Childrens begin on the Pfizer vaccine May 11.Its very interesting technology, very elegant technology, said Dr. Robert Frenck, who is heading up the research at Childrens. Its just going to simulate the infection then our body, when it sees the real infection, it already has some protection mounted to be able to fight the disease.The vaccine is different than others because it does not inject a patient with the virus. Instead, it uses a piece of the messenger RNA, which is part of the genetic code of the virus.The messenger RNA in the vaccine instructs the cells to make the proteins associated with the coronavirus, but without making someone sick.Through processes inside the body, the vaccine basically tricks the immune system into making COVID-19 antibodies to fight the virus.Thats really the main part of this study is to look and make sure theres not any significant side effects, Frenck said.Phase one of the tests at Childrens is expected to be complete by June, then phase two begins. If there are no issues, phase three is expected to begin in September and would include more widespread use of the vaccine.Although the tests are at Children's Hospital, the participants in phase one are between 18 and 55 years old.A total of 90 people will be tested in phase one. Childrens is still taking applications for those who want to participate in the testing. People can fill out a questionnaire at is.gdcovid19researchstudy.
Some scientists who believe theyre on the verge of a breakthrough begin testing at Children's Hospital on a COVID-19 vaccine being described as "revolutionary."
Pfizer is working on a genetic vaccine that could be ready as early as September.
Childrens Hospital, which has extensive experience in vaccine testing, is among a select few organizations conducting part of the study.
The tests at Childrens begin on the Pfizer vaccine May 11.
Its very interesting technology, very elegant technology, said Dr. Robert Frenck, who is heading up the research at Childrens. Its just going to simulate the infection then our body, when it sees the real infection, it already has some protection mounted to be able to fight the disease.
The vaccine is different than others because it does not inject a patient with the virus. Instead, it uses a piece of the messenger RNA, which is part of the genetic code of the virus.
The messenger RNA in the vaccine instructs the cells to make the proteins associated with the coronavirus, but without making someone sick.
Through processes inside the body, the vaccine basically tricks the immune system into making COVID-19 antibodies to fight the virus.
Thats really the main part of this study is to look and make sure theres not any significant side effects, Frenck said.
Phase one of the tests at Childrens is expected to be complete by June, then phase two begins. If there are no issues, phase three is expected to begin in September and would include more widespread use of the vaccine.
Although the tests are at Children's Hospital, the participants in phase one are between 18 and 55 years old.
A total of 90 people will be tested in phase one.
Childrens is still taking applications for those who want to participate in the testing. People can fill out a questionnaire at is.gdcovid19researchstudy.
The University of Washington Medical Center is quiet on April 1, 2020.
UW medical experts explained the current state of COVID-19 vaccine and treatment development and what it could mean for the course of the pandemic in a May 4 webinar hosted by the department of global health.
Deborah Fuller, a professor of microbiology, discussed how the fastest development of a vaccine to date is five years, meaning the timeline for rapid development of a COVID-19 vaccine looks very different.
The race for a COVID-19 vaccine follows an accelerated timeline with the three major phase trials condensed into an 18-month timeframe. Fuller said nucleic acid vaccines, like the DNA and RNA vaccines she is developing, are believed to be perhaps the most reliable candidate for a rapid response vaccine.
When a vaccine does become available, Fuller said distributing it to billions across the world will serve as a major hurdle, suggesting ring vaccination as a solution for stopping the pandemic without everyone needing to be vaccinated, though Fuller said the broader goal is still to vaccinate the majority of individuals.
Instead of having to vaccinate the entire 90% of the population, you would actually vaccinate all of the close contacts, forming a ring around that person so the virus really has nowhere to go, she said. The chain of transmission gets broken and thats going to be able to shut down the pandemic much quicker.
Christine Johnston, the associate director of UW Medicines Virology Research Clinic, explained how the nature of emergency response to the pandemic is also affecting treatment options, including the process of collecting evidence and utilizing pre-existing treatments for the virus.
Due to the long time frame for producing new medications, Johnston said the main focus has been to repurpose drugs to treat COVID-19. The drug hydroxychloroquine, for example, has been touted as a potential treatment with a reliable safety profile, though preliminary studies have been conflicted on its effectiveness and associated risks.
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The hydroxychloroquine is not what people would call a huge game changer in the hospitalized patient setting, but I still think it begs more clinical trials and more well conducted studies, Johnston said. I dont think Im ready to say that this medication is ineffective yet.
Johnston also said another potential treatment option known as remdesivir, which was previously developed as a treatment for Ebola, had promising in vitro data, animal model data, and preliminary clinical trial results. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration granted remdesivir Emergency Use Authorization and Johnston noted that remdesivirs manufacturer will be donating 1.5 million doses of the drug.
Responding to a student question on ensuring an equitable distribution of COVID-19 vaccines and treatment, Fuller said it was important to make the vaccines free to the public. She also explained there is likely to be numerous vaccines with different levels of effectiveness across demographic groups which will establish a cross fertilization of vaccines to accommodate the wider population.
Addressing the same question, Johnston voiced her concerns that the distribution of treatments will not be equitable in the United States and that this inequity will be magnified worldwide.
I think its very difficult for people to take equity into account even in the best cases of situations and so in a pandemic I think the equity issues are even more skewed, Johnston said. This is an opportunity for us to think about how to make equity front and center when were developing new treatments.
Reach reporter Jax Morgan at news@dailyuw.com. Twitter: @jaxbmorgan
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GREENVILLE, NC (WITN) - Many people question how long it will take for researchers to find a vaccine for COVID-19.
Dr. Rachel Roper with the Brody School of Medicine said, It depends on how urgently it's needed and you know, theyre moving this one along quite quickly."
About 60 different vaccines are racing to the finish line. Roper said this urgency comes with some risks though.
"A new vaccine has less safety data that's true, you have to compare that to the likelihood of being infected and dying from COVID-19, said Dr. Roper.
Some say getting the vaccination is a risk theyre willing to take for their health. "I think if you take a risk to help you potentially be healthy, I think its worth it," said Timothy Harris.
Roper explained some of the vaccinations have already been given to a few people, but to see if it works those people need to be exposed to the virus, an experiment that comes with some concerns. "So that's a very big ethical concern. I'm not sure if they will end up doing that or not." Roper said. While some folks may be hesitant to get a brand-new vaccination, Roper said you have to weigh it out. "You have to weigh it against the likelihood of people dying from the infection and how much the vaccine could save people from that, and that makes it worth doing and worth taking some risks."
Some say the future vaccination is an option they are willing to explore. "I think people should be open to it, but again look into your options, educate yourself before you just go in for a vaccination," said Steven Brauer. While Roper said, "I would certainly get the vaccine," She added its still important to maintain physical distancing and wearing masks.
The experimental vaccine developed by Pfizer and BioNtech is being used on patients who have the COVID-19 coronavirus.
WASHINGTON The very first patients in the state of Maryland got a COVID-19 vaccine injection at the University of Maryland School of Medicine.
The experimental vaccine developed by Pfizer and BioNtech is being used on patients who have the COVID-19 coronavirus. While it is still in the experimental stage, it is progress that health experts and government officials are looking for, as states look towards a path of reopening.
Gov. Larry Hogan broke the news about the vaccine testing during a press conference Wednesday afternoon.
Aside from his announcement about the vaccine testing, Hogan said that remdesivir doses have also been donated to Maryland. The doses are reportedly going to Prince George's County and Montgomery County, where the highest number of positive cases in the state have been seen.
Hogan said health officials are hoping that remdesivir will help with curbing the coronavirus in Maryland, along with residents continuing social distancing.
The announcement by Hogan about the vaccine being used in Maryland came as he also announced that he would be allowing certain outdoor activities to resume starting May 7. This includes golfing, fishing, camping and tennis, as well as the reopening of state parks and beaches.
While the announcement brought some hope for the opening up of Maryland, schools in the state are closed for the rest of the academic school year, State Superintendent Karen Salmon announced. Distance learning and online curriculum will continue for the remainder of the school year.
