We're still in the midst of the Coronavirus pandemic, and one of the things many of us are hoping for every day is more good news about a vaccine. What does the Coronavirus vaccine effort look like? How does that compare to the usual way vaccines are pursued and developed? How many are in process, what stage are they at, what approach do they take, and which ones look promising? What's "good enough" for a Cornoavirus vaccine when it comes to efficacy and safety? How quickly can we roll one out when we decide one works well enough to start using in earnest? And what are the ethical implications and impacts on the wider vaccine effort of fast-tracking the first vaccine to hit the magic "ready" mark?
We deep dive these questions and the vaccine effort with chemist Derek Lowe, who has been following the vaccine effort closely and blogging about it since it began on his blog In The Pipeline.
Related links:
- Coronavirus Vaccine Roundup, Early September
- Cold Chain (And Colder Chain) Distribution
- The Vaccine Tightrope
- Vaccine Efficacy Data an update on 9 Nov of controlled efficacy data for the Pfizer and BioNTech vaccine, not discussed in the interview which was recorded earlier in the week