Generic Virus Thread

[VILLAMARV]

Somebody said to me over the weekend that people should stop saying it's basically like the flu and start thinking more along the lines of it being like aids only airborne. 

Still haven't worked out how much I agree with or like that statement tbh but it's stuck in my head. 

[bannedfromHandV]

How can the government say 'demand is low' for testing...........I think the entire nation would like a test surely?!

[wazzap24]

18 minutes ago, Chindie said:

I'm increasingly of the mindset that there isn't going to be a vaccine for this thing and the current situation is mostly about trying to control the impact until we can work out longer term mitigation strategies and try to get ahead of it as best we can.

But going forwards we'll have a new disease that takes out significant numbers of people, particularly so for those middle age and up. And potentially has impact long term on even those that survive 

The teams working on them here in the UK seem quite confident? 
 

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/health/coronavirus-vaccine-latest-london-trial-a4420941.html

Quote

Very high chance of successful coronavirus vaccine, says London trial lead.......

Professor Shattock told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “I think we are very confident that some vaccines will come through and work.

"There are so many groups [worldwide] working on different approaches and this virus is not as difficult a target as some of the things we have seen before.

“I think scientifically there is a very high chance of success of getting a vaccine, and we hope one of these might be one of the two approaches developed in the UK.

“The main issue is that it doesn’t seem to be changing very much. It’s a target that we have in our sights. It’s very different to influenza, which changes every year.”

 

 

There was also an interview with a professor from Oxford on the BBC the other night too and she was ‘80% confident’ that the initial vaccine they are working on will work and be ready for September. 

[Awol]

7 minutes ago, wazzap24 said:

The teams working on them here in the UK seem quite confident? 
 

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/health/coronavirus-vaccine-latest-london-trial-a4420941.html

There was also an interview with a professor from Oxford on the BBC the other night too and she was ‘80% confident’ that the initial vaccine they are working on will work and be ready for September. 

When pitching for a £20 million research grant I reckon I’d be quite upbeat too! 

Edit: Oxford were the team working on a MERS vaccine and so have good experience of Coronavirus’ research under their belts. Hopefully that will give them a better chance of nailing this one. 

Edited April 22, 2020 by Awol

[snowychap]

10 minutes ago, wazzap24 said:

The teams working on them here in the UK seem quite confident?

To paraphrase Rice-Davies, they would say that, wouldn't they?

I mean they're unlikely to send one of their bods out to the press (having just secured/applied for funding from the Gov and elsewhere?) and say that it's a longshot and they're just taking a big old punt.

Edited April 22, 2020 by snowychap

[wazzap24]

@snowychap @Awol

In fairness, if you read the quotes from Professor Shattock, he’s talking generally about the world wide effort  to find one and that the virus ‘isn’t changing much’ - he only ‘hoped’ that it might be one of the two being worked in here. 

The Oxford professor was different, she was talking specifically about their vaccine, so yes I can understand why she’d be positive about it.  They already had the funding by then though, so no need for a further sales pitch. 

[LondonLax]

49 minutes ago, Chindie said:

I'm increasingly of the mindset that there isn't going to be a vaccine for this thing and the current situation is mostly about trying to control the impact until we can work out longer term mitigation strategies and try to get ahead of it as best we can.

But going forwards we'll have a new disease that takes out significant numbers of people, particularly so for those middle age and up. And potentially has impact long term on even those that survive 

This is where I’ve been for a while as well. We’re not going to find a cure any time soon but societies can’t stay ‘locked down’ for ever or whole supply chains will start collapsing so we’re going to have to find a path that opens things up a bit whilst managing the risks. 

[Stevo985]

1 hour ago, Lichfield Dean said:

 

The EU have said we’re not part of this after all. 
 

We were a signatory in agreeing to the scheme but haven’t taken part in any of the procurement drives. 

[Morley_crosses_to_Withe]

Jacob Glanville and his team are the dark horses in all this. He/They don’t seem to get much press exposure over here, but they’re quietly going about their work and hopefully will achieve the desired results. It’s his team who are also close (apparently) to finding a universal flu vaccine. I hope he doesn’t turn out to be a snake oil salesman. 

Edited April 22, 2020 by Morley_crosses_to_Withe

[HanoiVillan]

I can't see why we wouldn't end up with a vaccine, unless the virus mutates a lot, which as I understand it scientists are not expecting.

The reason we have never had a coronavirus vaccine before is that it hasn't made commercial sense to develop one, rather than that the science is too difficult.

EDIT: Obviously that doesn't mean that the timeline will be quick, or that there won't be false starts or whatever. Just that I don't see why it wouldn't be possible.

Edited April 22, 2020 by HanoiVillan

[wazzap24]

35 minutes ago, Morley_crosses_to_Withe said:

Jacob Glanville and his team are the dark horses in all this. He/They don’t seem to get much press exposure over here, but they’re quietly going about their work and hopefully will achieve the desired results. It’s his team who are also close (apparently) to finding a universal flu vaccine. I hope he doesn’t turn out to be a snake oil salesman. 

One positive I can see about that guy is, of the 3 Dr’s/scientists I’ve heard tout their wares on Tucker Carlson  - Glanville looks least like a low level Bond villain! 
 

That’s not to say there isn’t something in it, his firm have been given funding from Bill Gates Foundation for their universal flu vaccine: 

https://gcgh.grandchallenges.org/grant/centivax-universal-influenza-vaccine

Quote

Jacob Glanville of Distributed Bio in the U.S. will complete the pre-clinical development of Centivax Flu, a universal vaccine to protect humans and livestock against all forms of seasonal and pandemic influenza, in order to begin first-in-human studies in 2021

He appears to be crowdfunding his ‘Covid cure’ though, which is a bit weird? You’d think he wouldn’t have much trouble getting full funding if there was something in it? 

https://www.centivax.com/

Quote

At Centivax, we apply our computational immunoengineering expertise to develop superior therapeutic monoclonal antibodies against the most challenging targets. On March 30th, we completed optimization of a panel of ultra-potent neutralizing antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19). Actively looking for support to move them through GMP and clinical development.

 

[Genie]

I guess there is a global race to develop and patent protect a vaccine (if that’s allowed?).

I imagine the likes of China won’t give a shit about IP and will just copy whoever gets the first approved product out.

[chrisp65]

1 minute ago, Genie said:

I guess there is a global race to develop and patent protect a vaccine (if that’s allowed?).

I imagine the likes of China won’t give a shit about IP and will just copy whoever gets the first approved product out.

We actually have an opportunity here to do something about that.

We won’t take it, obviously. But it is a window of opportunity.

 

[Genie]

3 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

We actually have an opportunity here to do something about that.

We won’t take it, obviously. But it is a window of opportunity.

 

It’s what I thought last night when I saw the news about the start of testing from the Oxford firm. We could strike gold and make billions selling it around the world*
 

*waits to see how it goes tits up for the UK but a few selected members of the cabinet’s families seemed to be in the right place at the right time to make a quick fortune from shares in certain businesses. 

Edited April 22, 2020 by Genie

[Wainy316]

I live near Oxford so signed up to participate in the trials.  They followed up but the wife said I’m not allowed

[Genie]

Just now, Wainy316 said:

I live near Oxford so signed up to participate in the trials.  They followed up but the wife said I’m not allowed

Were they offering money to do them? Completely unrelated to Covid19 a colleague of mine was going to do a drug trial for 2 weeks this year and get paid £4K. She’s gutted it was cancelled as they money was already spent.

[Wainy316]

Just now, Genie said:

Were they offering money to do them? Completely unrelated to Covid19 a colleague of mine was going to do a drug trial for 2 weeks this year and get paid £4K. She’s gutted it was cancelled as they money was already spent.

Yeah it was up to £700 depending on required number of visits.

Sign me up for that £4k one though.  They can pump me full of whatever they want and I’ll placate the wife with a bracelet or something.

[bannedfromHandV]

1 hour ago, HanoiVillan said:

I can't see why we wouldn't end up with a vaccine, unless the virus mutates a lot, which as I understand it scientists are not expecting.

The reason we have never had a coronavirus vaccine before is that it hasn't made commercial sense to develop one, rather than that the science is too difficult.

EDIT: Obviously that doesn't mean that the timeline will be quick, or that there won't be false starts or whatever. Just that I don't see why it wouldn't be possible.

Didn’t the Chinese say yesterday they’ve seen 30+ different strains already? 
 

a) yes it’s China so take with a heavy pinch of salt

b) I may not understand the difference between strains and mutations 

[bannedfromHandV]

12 minutes ago, Genie said:

Were they offering money to do them? Completely unrelated to Covid19 a colleague of mine was going to do a drug trial for 2 weeks this year and get paid £4K. She’s gutted it was cancelled as they money was already spent.

I had a former acquaintance (wouldn’t go so far as calling them a friend) who did a lot of the medical trials and he ended up pretty messed up, he wasn’t overly ‘normal’ beforehand mind you.

[HanoiVillan]

5 minutes ago, bannedfromHandV said:

Didn’t the Chinese say yesterday they’ve seen 30+ different strains already? 
 

a) yes it’s China so take with a heavy pinch of salt

b) I may not understand the difference between strains and mutations 

To be honest mate, I'm in danger of getting out over my skis as well. However, my understanding is that viruses mutate all the time (and my previous post was poorly-worded in suggesting that doesn't happen), but that those mutations mostly do not make viruses vaccine-resistant (because a mutation can be tiny compared to the length of the virus), at least in the short term. A couple of links:

'Still, a common perception is that the continuous acquisition of mutations will cause our future coronavirus vaccines to be ineffective. While virus evolution may confer vaccine resistance, this process often takes many years for the right mutations to accumulate. Many vaccines to RNA viruses, such as yellow fever, measles, and mumps, were developed throughout the 1930s-70s and are all still highly effective. And those viruses mutate at rates as fast or faster than coronaviruses. In fact, the two proposed "S" and "L" coronavirus strains only differ by two mutations and are 99.993% identical. It's extremely likely that any vaccine designed for one coronavirus will be protective against the other. The reason we need an annual influenza vaccine has more to do with how that virus reshuffles its genome than how it mutates.'

(from: https://edition.cnn.com/2020/03/07/health/coronavirus-mutations-analysis/index.html)

On the speed of mutation:

'Like all viruses, SARS-CoV-2 evolves over time through random mutations, only some of which are caught and corrected by the virus’s error correction machinery. Over the length of its 30,000-base-pair genome, SARS-CoV-2 accumulates an average of about one to two mutations per month, Rambaut says. “It’s about two to four times slower than the flu,” he says. Using these little changes, researchers can draw up phylogenetic trees, much like family trees. They can also make connections between different cases of COVID-19 and gauge whether there might be undetected spread of the virus.'

(from: https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/03/mutations-can-reveal-how-coronavirus-moves-they-re-easy-overinterpret)