Naked Science Forum
Life Sciences => Physiology & Medicine => COVID-19 => Topic started by: set fair on 06/08/2020 05:09:40
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There are proteins in the mainly lipid mabrane for which the RNA has been stable for decades which could be attacked. Such antibodies would have the advantage that they rupture the virus membrane (lysis).
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I'm of the opinion that at least 3 different vaccines should be adminstered to ensure that the virus populations do not evolve to counter the vaccines.
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I'm of the opinion that at least 3 different vaccines should be adminstered to ensure that the virus populations do not evolve to counter the vaccines.
Well, we don't have 1 vaccine yet, and it would seem unwise to wait for development of 2 more which may never exist.
We didn't need to do it with polio or smallpox.
And there's no direct interaction between the virus and the vaccine, so "resistance" of the sort that applies to bacteria isn't an issue.
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I'm of the opinion that at least 3 different vaccines should be adminstered to ensure that the virus populations do not evolve to counter the vaccines.
Well, we don't have 1 vaccine yet, and it would seem unwise to wait for development of 2 more which may never exist.
We didn't need to do it with polio or smallpox.
And there's no direct interaction between the virus and the vaccine, so "resistance" of the sort that applies to bacteria isn't an issue.
At the moment, the expectation of efficacy is very low. Something like 50% effective rather than 98% effective.
By combining different vaccines, I expect the mixed vaccine would be more effective, as well as making adaptive evolution against the vaccines far more difficult for the virus.
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Do you realise that the virus wouldn't be evolving to evade the vaccine- because that would(normally) have been and gone long before the virus arrived?
It would be evolving to evade the human immune system.
And it is already under the greatest possible evolutionary pressure to do that.
So a vaccine doesn't really drive viral evolution in the way that, say, penicillin drives bacterial evolution.
While it would obviously be better to have a vaccine with 98% efficacy than 50%, it rather depends on the timing.
Considerable effort has been put into a vaccine for HIV, so far there isn't one.
Do you think we should risk having to wait 40 years for a second vaccine before using the first covid vaccine on the market in order to avoid a practically non existent problem?
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Do you realise that the virus wouldn't be evolving to evade the vaccine- because that would(normally) have been and gone long before the virus arrived?
Actually, the existence of a vaccine will place the virus under selective pressure and potentially force its evolution in a direction favoured by mutants that can transmit despite the barricade erected by vaccines. This happens with the flu jab: we are driving the evolution of the virus by anticipating its next move and creating a roadblock with the seasonal vaccine.
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China's Sinovac vaccine uses a brute force approach instead of targetting the spikes.
According to an interview I saw, the advantage is that live vaccines work better than those designer ones based on assessing its previous vaccines against SARS. Also, it can be stored for 3 years. Whereas the designer vaccines need refrigerated storage and lasted 1 -3 months.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-08-24/coronavirus-vaccine-china-s-covid-front-runner-uses-brute-force-approach
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Thaks for that Edwina. I get a little annoyed by articles callig Jenner the father of immuology vaccination, when doctors had been immunising against smallpox for centuaries in China, India and Africa.