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It took two days to develop Moderna’s vaccine

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Re: It took two days to develop Moderna’s vaccine

#81
post #76

I wonder if any, or if many, Moderna employees have been walking around off-the-books immunized since January. I know I would've been tempted.

What’s the death rate of COVID-19 compared to for example common flu for working age people (30s, 40s)?

everyone talks about the death rate, but for survivors there's evidence of severe permanent damage in some cases.

Re: It took two days to develop Moderna’s vaccine

#82
post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What a weirdly accusatory tone. For the record, I’m staying at home and I wear a mask. Save your accusations for those who actually advocate for behavior you disagree with. My point is entirely that the perception of risk has had a huge impact on compliance for social distancing and mask wearing. The fact that 99% of those infected survive (age dependent) has had a negative impact on compliance. If this had been a pa…

1% is a huge amount of people dying. Death rate doesn't matter so much as the number of people getting it, why is why SARS with a much high death rate killed far fewer people than Covid-19.

Read what I said more carefully before replying. You’re largely reiterating what I’ve already said.

Yes, 1% CFR is a lot of deaths, which is why ~3k Americans are dying per day. But 1% of personal risk is perceived as a low risk thing, hence the low compliance.

Transmissibility is also a factor, of course.

Re: It took two days to develop Moderna’s vaccine

#84

There are these 2 quotes from the article that I think are a little too "handwavy" over potential real problems for the future: > Since the platform itself is pre-tested, we won’t need to do months of testing before distribution. Still, we may need to do some testing on the specific vaccine. Perhaps much of this testing can be done with computer modeling, and some with animal testing. and > The question ultimately co…

and yet we're already seeing people who've gotten this vaccine who had allergic reactions, enough to need epinephrine. A member of the medical staff in a hospital in Tennessee fainted on camera after getting the vaccine.

60 Minutes did a segment in 1979 on the failed Swing Flu vaccine that didn't build protection for most, and that left many with long term paralysis. Some of them went back to normal after a few months, both there were enough that lost motor control that they had a class action lawsuit.

The fact that all the pharma companies in this release are immune from civil liability, and the FDA is also immune from civil liability, does not bode well for confidence.

Re: It took two days to develop Moderna’s vaccine

#86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, and that website I made in 24 hours was only possible because of DARPA's funding of the first Internet and decades of efforts into programming languages, etc. The point being, if a novel deadly virus was discovered tomorrow, how fast could Moderna develop a potential vaccine?

It depends complete on what kind of virus it is. All of the interesting research required to hit "print" on mRNA-1273 was already done in MERS. It would have been surprising if the vaccine didn't work. If a new pandemic emerges from a less well understood family of viruses for which we don't have any good preclinical vaccines, it could still take decades. Sticking the genome into synthetic mRNA isn't the rate limitin…

Not to mention politics, if the disease wasn’t as big as COVID they’d have to wait for years for approval.

Re: It took two days to develop Moderna’s vaccine

#87
post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1% is a huge amount of people dying. Death rate doesn't matter so much as the number of people getting it, why is why SARS with a much high death rate killed far fewer people than Covid-19.

Read what I said more carefully before replying. You’re largely reiterating what I’ve already said. Yes, 1% CFR is a lot of deaths, which is why ~3k Americans are dying per day. But 1% of personal risk is perceived as a low risk thing, hence the low compliance. Transmissibility is also a factor, of course.

I don't think Americans would align more to stop it if it were deadlier is my point. There would be the same stupid outcry. Look at the history of the Spanish flu. It's the same crap.

Re: It took two days to develop Moderna’s vaccine

#89
post #59
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The internet? :-)

You are more correct than you probably realize. As http://cis471.blogspot.com/2012/08/seeding-internet-cost-gov... lays out, the government spent $25 million on ARPAnet, the first packet switched network and the granddaddy of our current Internet. So it was actually the same figure as this grant. (There were followup investments from the government, but the whole thing was around $125 million.)

So $25 million on a decentralized system to spread the idea not to wear a mask or social distance during a pandemic, and another $25 million on a vaccine.

Re: It took two days to develop Moderna’s vaccine

#90
post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe a new test would look like this: 1. Vaccinate humans and animals and see if they create antibodies and test if they can neutralize the virus. 2. Infect animals on placebo and vaccine on purpose. 3. If it improves outcome, infect humans on the vaccine. The old system could be run in parallel

Don't you need a control group for stage 3 (no vaccine)? If so, that might be highly problematic/unethical.

No, you don't, because you're infecting them on purpose. It's safe to assume that an extraordinarily high percentage of them would be infected if they were on a placebo leg of the trial.
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