The Covid-19 Info thread (keep politics out please)

[Joebob]

The Moderna vaccine is showing some real promise isn't it? Saw on Twitter just a little bit ago where they gave it to 45 patients in March and they got results back today that showed that the vaccine "revved up" the patients' immune systems.

Supposed to begin the key final testing on July 27th and are giving it to 30,000 people I believe. Can anyone comment any further if you know about this and what it means?

I know a lot of people are skeptical of Moderna and are questioning whether their early data was real. This is going to be a very closely watched vaccine. Hopefully everything is on the up and up and the vaccine works out.

By the way, just a reminder that there's still considerable doubt about how long Covid antibodies will provide immunity. Some studies have shown they drop rapidly from their initial levels. Just more reasons why I'm doubtful they're going to know anytime soon as to how effective any vaccines are.

[Johnson85]

I know a lot of people are skeptical of Moderna and are questioning whether their early data was real. This is going to be a very closely watched vaccine. Hopefully everything is on the up and up and the vaccine works out.

By the way, just a reminder that there's still considerable doubt about how long Covid antibodies will provide immunity. Some studies have shown they drop rapidly from their initial levels. Just more reasons why I'm doubtful they're going to know anytime soon as to how effective any vaccines are.

I'm thinking the more we learn, the vaccine seems like a long shot, unless we just completely ignore how we normally do approvals. You're talking about a virus where 40% of the people infected don't have any symptoms, something like 90% have flu like symptoms and don't require hospitalization, and something like .3% of infected die from. That would have to be an incredibly safe vaccine with more or less non-existent side effects. Maybe you could just give it to the vulnerable, but a lot of the vulnerable tend to not respond as well to vaccines.

If we find out that we get the infection a second time and it tends to be worse, then that would help. But I assume that would mean developing an effective vaccine will be even harder.

[Liverpooldawg]

I'm thinking the more we learn, the vaccine seems like a long shot, unless we just completely ignore how we normally do approvals. You're talking about a virus where 40% of the people infected don't have any symptoms, something like 90% have flu like symptoms and don't require hospitalization, and something like .3% of infected die from. That would have to be an incredibly safe vaccine with more or less non-existent side effects. Maybe you could just give it to the vulnerable, but a lot of the vulnerable tend to not respond as well to vaccines.

If we find out that we get the infection a second time and it tends to be worse, then that would help. But I assume that would mean developing an effective vaccine will be even harder.

The antibody response is sounding a lot like the flu. It doesn't last forever. That's one of the reasons you have to get a new flu shot every year. The other is mutations and we don't know about those with this one yet.