[Petrochemicals (OP)]

Well, if this was the very start of the virus then quarantine could work but the virus is everywhere already so its just too late    This virus is just a nasty flu and will fade away once the vaccine starts building up our herd immunity.
Follow Tony Blair's advice quickly before it mutates again.

Follow Tony Blair's advice? Invade Iraq?  Or build a massive dome with nothing inside it?

Lie and decieve Alan.

[alancalverd]

No, he never deceived me. I resigned from life membership of the Labour Party when he became PM.

[Bored chemist]

He's often wrong of course.

Like when?

Also, to be fair, I have to admit that it's easy to look clever if you are posting a reply to Acsinuk...

[acsinuk]

I  do not mind clever replies, as long as they agree to get a move on and vaccinate as many people as possible as quickly as possible.
Thank goodness the Oxford Zeneca vaccine is now approved, so we can speed up the roll out. 
Feels like it will be a Happy New Year after all.

[Bored chemist]

vaccinate as many people as possible as quickly as possible.

How did you come to the conclusion that they ever had any other plan?

[acsinuk]

Oxford, if my memory is correct had developed a vaccine for testing on some volunteers by May.  Why the 6 month delay??  This is a national emergency BC isn't it?

[Bored chemist]

Oxford, if my memory is correct had developed a vaccine for testing on some volunteers by May.  Why the 6 month delay??  This is a national emergency BC isn't it?

Just a guess here but maybe two things.
They needed to check if it worked and they needed to find out if it was safe.

I realise from your past posts that you do not consider these to be important, but most people do.

[evan_au]

Well, if this was the very start of the virus then quarantine could work but the virus is everywhere already so its just too late

I heard some measurements that a lockdown reduced transmission by 98%.
- This is a lot more effective than masks, at perhaps 60% if the talker wears one, and perhaps 80% if everyone wears one
- So in fact, if infection rates are really bad, a lockdown is the best solution to get it under control.
- Of course there are degrees of lockdown, and not all of them will have similar effectiveness...

Listen (20 minutes): https://play.acast.com/s/nature/audiolong-read-controllingcovidwithscience-icelandsstory

[alancalverd]

Why the 6 month delay??

Because that's how long it takes to

1. Demonstrate safety and tolerability
2. Optimise dose
3. Demonstrate efficacy
4. Design a manufacturing and quality control process
5. Source the capital and labor to manufacture
6. Test the process against raw material variability
7. Demonstrate product shelf life and ambient tolerance
8. Demonstrate medium-term efficacy (stuff that gives 100% immunity for 2 weeks isn't a lot of use, but is 80% for a year good enough?)
9. Assess longterm side-effects
10. Ramp up production and distribution
11. Actually sell and deliver the product

Ethical review and product licensing were done in a matter of days because the paperwork was as brilliant as the concept.

[alancalverd]

This is a national emergency BC isn't it?

It needn't have been, but Downing Street turned it into one.

[acsinuk]

Take a look at this report     https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/11/global-push-covid-19-vaccines-china-aims-win-friends-and-cut-deals       
It shows that by May 2019 China had already developed a vaccine based on a mod to normal flu vaccine that worked but no-one believed them and WHO just panicked everyone. 
Last May was the time to Emergency Use Authorise any or possible all the different types of vaccine to be used in clinical trials  on middle aged volunteers and larger groups of over 80's to prove which is the best vaccine to use.  Thus by June we would have known which vaccine to mass produce thus avoiding the second peak.

[acsinuk]

Take a look at this report     https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/11/global-push-covid-19-vaccines-china-aims-win-friends-and-cut-deals       
It shows that by May 2019 China had already developed a vaccine based on a mod to normal flu vaccine that worked but no-one believed them and WHO just panicked everyone.
Last May was the time to Emergency Use Authorise any or possible all the different types of vaccine to be used in clinical trials  on middle aged volunteers and larger groups of over 80's to prove which is the best vaccine to use.  Thus by June we would have known which vaccine to mass produce thus avoiding the second peak.

[Bored chemist]

Thus by June we would have known which vaccine to mass produce thus avoiding the second peak.

We do know that answer to that.
We should mass produce all of the safe ones.
Some will work better in some circumstances than others. Some may, for example, do a better job on whatever the next  strain of the virus is like.

[Bored chemist]

Take a look at this report

I did
It says
" in China. CanSino and two other Chinese companies—one owned by the government, the other working closely with its regulatory agency—are investing substantial resources, testing  four candidates in tens of thousands of volunteers around the world, and are likely only days or weeks away from announcing the outcomes of efficacy trials, just behind the encouraging early results announced over the past month by Pfizer and BioNTech, Moderna, AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford, and Russia’s Gamaleya Research Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology."
So, the Chinese have made roughly the same progress as the other teams.

Nobody had a trustworthy vaccine in May, did they?
So what, exactly, are you talking about?
Yes, some people in China were getting injected with something*- in the hope that it would work.
At about the same time, people in America were dying from chloroquine poisoning. That didn't work.

Speculation is easy and quick.
Testing isn't.

*"Hou Li-Hua, a researcher at the academy who works on the vaccine project, says it was “true news”—an attempt to protect the scientists in the hard-hit city."

Don't you know what the word "attempt" means?

[alancalverd]

It shows that by May 2019 China had already developed a vaccine

There's a significant difference between May 2019 and May 2020. In the interim, COVID became a pandemic in the West whilst the Chinese crushed the epidemic and developed and tested a vaccine.

If we stick to what the article actually said:

And China’s vaccine effort is cursed by its dramatic success with aggressive public health measures to stop the spread of the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, including forced isolation of cases and testing of entire cities. Whereas the raging pandemic in the United States has enabled trials there to quickly deliver signals of efficacy, “China crushed the coronavirus epidemic early, so they lost the opportunity to test the efficacy of their vaccines there,”

How sad, that the Chinese government attacked and solved the problem (only 3 reported deaths since June) instead of ignoring it until they had a "proper" solution and an uncontrollable epidemic. Will those dreadful communists never learn to sacrifice people and destroy economies for political popularity?

[evan_au]

I understand that the Chinese vaccine is also being trialed in Brazil.
Unlike China, the Brazilian President Bolsinaro followed Trump's pro-virus policy, so Brazil has plenty of victims to test the effectiveness of the vaccine.

Still waiting for detailed results, but early hints are that it appears less effective than some of the other vaccine candidates.
See, for example: https://www.voanews.com/covid-19-pandemic/brazilian-researchers-say-chinese-made-covid-19-vaccine-effective

[Bored chemist]

the Chinese vaccine is also being trialed in Brazil.

No point trialling it in New Zealand...

[Petrochemicals (OP)]

I understand that the Chinese vaccine is also being trialed in Brazil.
Unlike China, the Brazilian President Bolsinaro followed Trump's pro-virus policy, so Brazil has plenty of victims to test the effectiveness of the vaccine.

Still waiting for detailed results, but early hints are that it appears less effective than some of the other vaccine candidates.
See, for example: https://www.voanews.com/covid-19-pandemic/brazilian-researchers-say-chinese-made-covid-19-vaccine-effective

An inactive corona was worth attempting Alan, simple and proven safe in other viruses, not always effective.

USA is not as bad as the UK funnily enough in regards corona.

[alancalverd]

USA is not as bad as the UK funnily enough in regards corona.

So 4.8% of the population infected is "not as bad" as 3.7%?
Your interpretation of statistics seems idiosyncratic, to say the least.

[Petrochemicals (OP)]

USA is not as bad as the UK funnily enough in regards corona.

So 4.8% of the population infected is "not as bad" as 3.7%?
Your interpretation of statistics seems idiosyncratic, to say the least.

Yes Alan it has more reported cases, better reporting, as can be seen in the mortality rate being lower than the UK. Goodness knows what our true figures are, but the USA has certainly been more vigilant.