If you’re an average healthy adult, you’ll likely be last in line.
Imagine the day when we can turn back the clock — and rediscover a life of random hugs, music festivals, busy streets, crowded campuses and a powerful economy.
This past week’s vaccine news gives us reason to hope. Scientists are increasingly optimistic that COVID-19 will someday join the ranks of smallpox, yellow fever, polio, mumps, measles and other near-vanquished diseases.
What will it take to get there? The challenges — in science, manufacturing, distribution and citizen participation — are formidable. Vaccines, alone, don’t save people; vaccinations do. To make this nightmare truly go away, forever, we need to inoculate nearly 330 million Americans and, ultimately, all 7.6 billion people on the planet.
“This is an unprecedented time in the history of vaccines,” said Bali Pulendran, professor of pathology and of microbiology and immunology at Stanford University. “There is no textbook solution.”
There’s a lot that can go wrong. The early vaccines are unlikely to provide full protection, so many of us may continue to be at risk. Because of limited supplies, there will be a phased rollout; not everyone who needs one will get one. Distrustful, some people may refuse to take them. And who’s in charge of our critical allocation decisions? There’s confusion – worrisome news, given the bungled distribution of tests, protective equipment and remdesivir, one the most-coveted COVID-19 drugs.
Despite all that, experts are beginning to chart a path to the post-coronavirus world. Here are their insights.
What was the big takeaway this past week?
The latest data on so-called “vaccine candidates” from the four top companies – Moderna, AstraZeneca/Oxford, CanSino and Pfizer – show that, so far, their products are safe. Johnson & Johnson and Merck candidates also look promising, but they’re a little further behind.
We also learned a little bit about the kind of immunity they trigger.
That’s just the start. A total of 23 vaccines have entered human trials and another 100 or so are still being designed.
So far, which one is best?
It’s hard to tell. The best vaccine is the one that produces the most vigorous and longest-lasting immune response. But here’s the challenge: Currently, trials aren’t measuring this response in an identical way. While we can get a rough sense of how they’re doing, we can’t make strict comparisons, said Pulendran. Efforts are now underway to standardize things.
“I think we’ll have a multi-way tie,” said Dr. Joel Ernst, chief of UCSF’s Division of Experimental Medicine. Over the next year or so, he said, we’ll likely see multiple vaccines that are safe, affordable and can be mass-produced. “But there is not enough data to pick a winning horse yet.… I don’t think we’re going to know that for quite a while.”
What still needs to happen?
We need data that show they actually protect people from infection. Those studies are starting now. The closest trial is located in the Sacramento offices of Benchmark Research.
Sometime this fall and winter, we’ll start to get research data about efficacy – that is, what fraction of people are protected by the vaccine, as compared to a control group.
