cure

Wednesday December 9, 2020

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Wednesday December 9, 2020

Fauci Calls Coronavirus Vaccine a Game Changer, Decries Misinformation

Anthony Fauci said a vaccine could diminish coronavirus as successfully as the polio vaccine did for polio, enabling workers to return to offices and restaurants in the second half of 2021.

December 1, 2020

But hurdles exist, the U.S. government’s top infectious-disease expert said. They include people’s hesitancy to get vaccinated, a successful and swift vaccination program, and getting through a rise in Covid-19 cases that is now being fueled in part by misinformation about the virus, Dr. Fauci said at The Wall Street Journal’s CEO Council Summit on Tuesday.

“There are a substantial proportion of people who do think this is not real, that it’s fake news, or it’s a hoax. This is extraordinary. I’ve never seen this before,” he said. Dr. Fauci added that he will convey the following to President-elect Joe Biden’s administration: “We have all got to be on the same page telling the American public we have to pull together. That, to me, is the most important thing.”

Dr. Fauci and Deborah Birx, the White House coronavirus-response coordinator, who also spoke Tuesday at the summit, both reiterated their calls for people to adopt public-health measures to combat the spread of the virus.

August 7, 2020

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently said the virus infected people in the U.S. in mid-December 2019, a few weeks before it was officially identified in China and about a month earlier than public-health authorities found the first U.S. case. It has since caused almost 15 million diagnosed cases and more than 283,000 deaths. Cases have surged since the fall, with more than 2,000 daily deaths being reported. It is too early to know whether the Thanksgiving holiday will add an additional spurt of cases.

The death toll could surpass 430,000 by March 1, according to the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation. The Trump administration is aiming to have enough coronavirus vaccine for everyone in the U.S. who wants to take it by the second quarter of 2021.

“We have to go head-to-head with the misunderstandings people have with this virus,” said Dr. Birx, who added that she doesn’t know what role she will have in the president-elect’s administration but will remain in federal government.

Dr. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, was upbeat about the promise of a vaccine to bring coronavirus to heel.

June 17, 2020

Health-care workers and people in nursing homes and extended-care facilities will get the vaccine first, he said, followed by various prioritization levels that are likely to include seniors, people with underlying health conditions and workers with critical jobs, such as teachers.

Dr. Birx also said vaccines need to be prioritized for communities of color that have been hit hard by Covid-19.

Younger people and people with no underlying conditions will likely be able to get the vaccine by the end of March or beginning of April if the vaccination program runs efficiently and the majority of people take the vaccine, Dr. Fauci said. With about 75% of the public inoculated, there should be low levels of circulating virus and a return to workplaces.

The stringency of public-health measures will gradually diminish, he said, and chief executives should use surveillance testing once workers return to quickly identify any potential outbreaks.

“I don’t think we’re going to eradicate [Covid-19] the way we did with smallpox, but I think we can do what we did with polio,” Dr. Fauci said. (Wall Street Journal) 

 

Saturday November 21, 2020

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday November 21, 2020

Why Trump’s Operation Warp Speed is credited with helping race for COVID-19 vaccine

Operation Warp Speed, a Trump administration initiative to manufacture COVID-19 vaccines as fast as possible, should be lauded as a successful endeavour in what has otherwise been a poor effort to deal with the coronavirus, experts say.

September 10, 2020

“No doubt, Operation Warp Speed is a huge success,” said Tinglong Dai, associate professor of Operations Management and Business Analytics at Johns Hopkins University Carey Business School in Baltimore.

“You can like or hate the Trump administration, but no doubt, it’s a huge success — unprecedented success.”

Jesse Goodman, the former chief scientist of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, agreed that the U.S. government deserves credit for the high priority placed on Operation Warp Speed.

“This is a bright spot in the pandemic response. I mean, the rest of it has been dismal,” said Goodman, who is also director of Georgetown University’s Center on Medical Product Access, Safety and Stewardship.

Anthony Fauci, director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, also lauded Operation Warp Speed for being a “success — certainly in the arena of vaccines, it’s been a success” in his remarks at a recent virtual summit organized by the medical news site Stat.

November 14, 2020

Launched in May, Operation Warp Speed (OWS) is a government initiated private/public $10 billion US program to help provide support to companies in the development, manufacturing and distribution of 300 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine, with the aim of having initial doses ready by January 2021. 

Allison Winnike, president of the Texas-based Immunization Partnership, an organization providing advocacy and information about immunization initiatives, said that Moderna benefited tremendously from Operation Warp Speed, in part, by receiving close to $1 billion to support its vaccine development and clinical trials.

As for the role the funding played in the development of Pfizer’s vaccine, that’s a bit fuzzier. Last week, when the company announced it had developed a vaccine that was more than 90 per cent effective, U.S. President Donald Trump said that Pfizer was suggesting “it wasn’t part of Warp Speed, but that turned out to be an unfortunate misrepresentation.” (CBC News) 

 

Thursday September 10, 2020

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday September 10, 2020

Speed of coronavirus vaccine race ‘crazy’ and unsafe, scientists warn

Leading scientists across the world say rushing the development of a coronavirus vaccine to bring it to the public before the end of this year is unrealistic, unsafe, and even “crazy”. 

February 28, 2020

Despite reports from across the world suggesting a vaccine could be ready in weeks – particularly from the United States, where “Operation Warp Speed” reportedly has officials on standby to distribute the vaccine by October, ahead of the presidential election –  experts are increasingly concerned that the rhetoric is in no way matched by the data. 

None of the leading vaccine candidates have yet completed clinical trials, the regulatory bodies who licence vaccines are already struggling to cope with coronavirus demands, and questions over manufacture and distribution haven’t been considered, experts say. 

Professor Beate Kampmann, director of the Vaccine Centre at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, told The Telegraph: “This timeline is neither realistic, nor is it sensible to put this kind of pressure on the analysis of important trials. It is highly politicised, and I am not a fan of this approach.”   

April 11, 2019

She said that it was essential for all new vaccines to go through comprehensive clinical trials. 

In normal times, a vaccine takes up to ten years to develop, including several years of testing. Under the current plans outlined by politicians in the UK, Russia, and the United States, this has been crunched to less than 12 months. 

“It is extremely unwise to proceed with licensing any vaccine without a proven track record for safety and efficacy, in any country,” Professor Kampmann said.

Life in a Pandemic

“If they are found to be useless or even dangerous, you might jeopardise the entire vaccine programme. The more this moves from science into politics, the more it becomes a little crazy.”     

The World Health Organization said on Friday it does not expect to see a vaccine until mid-2021, and it is working with experts to define the criteria for declaring a vaccine successful.  On the same day, US newspapers also carried reports of a planned joint statement from some of the big pharmaceutical companies, pledging that they will not release a coronavirus vaccine until its usefulness and safety are proven. 

At the same time, the head of ‘Operation Warp Speed’ in the US, Dr Moncef Slaoui, hit back at accusations of political influence, telling Science Magazine he would resign if there was “undue interference”. (The Telegraph)