25 Jul The Atlantic: “A Vaccine Reality Check”
We curated this recently published, just-the-facts-ma’am, (ergo sobering), article titled “A Vaccine Reality Check” written by Sarah Zhang for The Atlantic. Subtitle: “So much hope is riding on a breakthrough, but a vaccine is only the beginning of the end.” Bottom line: Zhang’s clear and concise narrative underlines the wisdom of Daniel Patrick Moynihan who famously said: “Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, just not to his own facts.” Like it or not, Zhang’s take looks and feels like a much-needed, fact-based wrap-up of the Holy Grail of the corona pandemic.
Image courtesy The Atlantic.
Nearly five months into the pandemic, all hopes of extinguishing COVID-19 are riding on a still-hypothetical vaccine. And so a refrain has caught on: We might have to stay home—until we have a vaccine. Close schools—until we have a vaccine. Wear masks—but only until we have a vaccine. During these months of misery, this mantra has offered a small glimmer of hope. Normal life is on the other side, and we just have to wait—until we have a vaccine.
Feeding these hopes are the Trump administration’s exceedingly rosy projections of a vaccine as early as October, as well as the media’s blow-by-blow coverage of vaccine trials. Each week brings news of “early success,” “promising initial results,” and stocks rising because of “vaccine optimism.” But a COVID-19 vaccine is unlikely to meet all of these high expectations. The vaccine probably won’t make the disease disappear. It certainly will not immediately return life to normal.
Biologically, a vaccine against the COVID-19 virus is unlikely to offer complete protection. Logistically, manufacturers will have to make hundreds of millions of doses while relying, perhaps, on technology never before used in vaccines and competing for basic supplies such as glass vials. Then the federal government will have to allocate doses, perhaps through a patchwork of state and local health departments with no existing infrastructure for vaccinating adults at scale. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which has led vaccine distribution efforts in the past, has been strikingly absent in discussions so far—a worrying sign that the leadership failures that have characterized the American pandemic could also hamper this process. To complicate it all, 20 percent of Americans already say they will refuse to get a COVID-19 vaccine, and with another 31 percent unsure, reaching herd immunity could be that much more difficult.
The good news, because it is worth saying, is that experts think there will be a COVID-19 vaccine. The virus that causes COVID-19 does not seem to be an outlier like HIV. Scientists have gone from discovery of the virus to more than 165 candidate vaccines in record time, with 27 vaccines already in human trials. Human trials consist of at least three phases: Phase 1 for safety, Phase 2 for efficacy and dosing, and Phase 3 for efficacy in a huge group of tens of thousands of people. At least six COVID-19 vaccines are in or about to enter Phase 3 trials, which will take several more months.
We are almost five months into the pandemic and probably another five from a safe and effective vaccine—assuming the clinical trials work out perfectly. “Even when a vaccine is introduced,” says Jesse Goodman, the former chief scientist at the Food and Drug Administration, “I think we will have several months of significant infection or at least risk of infection to look forward to.”
All of this means that we may have to endure more months under the threat of the coronavirus than we have already survived…
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