What Happens If COVID-19 Vaccine Fails? Experts Emphasize Need For Backup Plans
Guneet Bhatia | Jul 27 2020,
The last couple of weeks have been a sort of good news for people battling COVID-19 pandemic. Many coronavirus vaccines, currently being tested in humans, showed positive outcomes in mid-stage clinical trials and some are even providing to be effective as indicated in early data from the last-stage clinical trials.
Even Americans received their fair share of good news last week as Dr. Anthony Fauci, one of the leading infectious diseases expert in the country, announced the promising early results from COVID-19 vaccine trial and the prospect of having a breakthrough soon.
However, some experts believe that Americans should not get used to the idea that a miracle vaccine or a drug is just around the corner to save them against the novel coronavirus. This would lead to complacency and further make it difficult to manage the pandemic that is already killing hundreds of people each day.
So far, the U.S. has failed at controlling the coronavirus outbreak. The positive news of promising testing results from COVID-19 vaccine clinical trials has increased hopes in people. But health experts have decided to remain skeptical and believe that there is a need to think about Plan B too, just in case Plan A does not work as anticipated.
“I think we absolutely have to have a backup plan in place,” said Carl Bergstrom, a biologist at the University of Washington. “It's something that’s not talked about enough.”
Bergstrom said that even in the best-case scenario, the scientific community and pharmaceutical companies are still six to eight months away from large-scale inoculations to be able to manufacture the COVID-19 vaccine for the general population. Therefore, this is the time for the public and policymakers to develop plans for the long-term.
“So far the story of the vaccine development seems to be that none of the things that could have gone wrong have gone wrong,” he said. “That doesn't mean we’re home free by any means.”
U.S. President Donald Trump has long claimed that American will have a cure “soon” or the novel coronavirus will disappear on its own. However, that does not seem likely and there is no timeline to “soon” as yet.
There is no clarity on an alternative plan available to consider just in case coronavirus vaccines fail for some reason or are deemed ineffective.
Ken Frazier, CEO of the pharmaceutical giant Merck recently warned that it is not practical and will indeed be harmful to be hoping for or creating hype for a medical breakthrough before 2021.
“The reality of the world is that this time next year very well may look like what we're experiencing now,” he said in an interview. "I think when we do tell people that a vaccine's coming right away, we allow politicians to tell the public not to do the things that the public needs to do, like wear the damn masks.”
Andressa Parreiras, Biomedic, and Larissa Vuitika, biologist, work in a laboratory during the extraction of the virus genetic material on March 24, 2020 in Belo Horizonte, Brazil. The Ministry of Health convened The Technological Vaccine Center of the Federal University of Minas Gerais laboratory to conduct research on the coronavirus (COVID-19) in order to diagnose, test and develop a vaccine. According to the Ministry of Health, as of Tuesday, March 24, Brazil has 1.891 confirmed cases of the coronavirus (COVID-19) and at least 34 recorded deceases. Pedro Vilela/Getty Images
Guneet Bhatia | Jul 27 2020,
The last couple of weeks have been a sort of good news for people battling COVID-19 pandemic. Many coronavirus vaccines, currently being tested in humans, showed positive outcomes in mid-stage clinical trials and some are even providing to be effective as indicated in early data from the last-stage clinical trials.
Even Americans received their fair share of good news last week as Dr. Anthony Fauci, one of the leading infectious diseases expert in the country, announced the promising early results from COVID-19 vaccine trial and the prospect of having a breakthrough soon.
However, some experts believe that Americans should not get used to the idea that a miracle vaccine or a drug is just around the corner to save them against the novel coronavirus. This would lead to complacency and further make it difficult to manage the pandemic that is already killing hundreds of people each day.
So far, the U.S. has failed at controlling the coronavirus outbreak. The positive news of promising testing results from COVID-19 vaccine clinical trials has increased hopes in people. But health experts have decided to remain skeptical and believe that there is a need to think about Plan B too, just in case Plan A does not work as anticipated.
“I think we absolutely have to have a backup plan in place,” said Carl Bergstrom, a biologist at the University of Washington. “It's something that’s not talked about enough.”
Bergstrom said that even in the best-case scenario, the scientific community and pharmaceutical companies are still six to eight months away from large-scale inoculations to be able to manufacture the COVID-19 vaccine for the general population. Therefore, this is the time for the public and policymakers to develop plans for the long-term.
“So far the story of the vaccine development seems to be that none of the things that could have gone wrong have gone wrong,” he said. “That doesn't mean we’re home free by any means.”
U.S. President Donald Trump has long claimed that American will have a cure “soon” or the novel coronavirus will disappear on its own. However, that does not seem likely and there is no timeline to “soon” as yet.
There is no clarity on an alternative plan available to consider just in case coronavirus vaccines fail for some reason or are deemed ineffective.
Ken Frazier, CEO of the pharmaceutical giant Merck recently warned that it is not practical and will indeed be harmful to be hoping for or creating hype for a medical breakthrough before 2021.
“The reality of the world is that this time next year very well may look like what we're experiencing now,” he said in an interview. "I think when we do tell people that a vaccine's coming right away, we allow politicians to tell the public not to do the things that the public needs to do, like wear the damn masks.”
Andressa Parreiras, Biomedic, and Larissa Vuitika, biologist, work in a laboratory during the extraction of the virus genetic material on March 24, 2020 in Belo Horizonte, Brazil. The Ministry of Health convened The Technological Vaccine Center of the Federal University of Minas Gerais laboratory to conduct research on the coronavirus (COVID-19) in order to diagnose, test and develop a vaccine. According to the Ministry of Health, as of Tuesday, March 24, Brazil has 1.891 confirmed cases of the coronavirus (COVID-19) and at least 34 recorded deceases. Pedro Vilela/Getty Images
No comments:
Post a Comment