Coronavirus 2019-2020 thread (no unsubstantiated rumours!)

[AndrewS]

China building secure facilities to fast track coronavirus vaccine production

• Four of the five Chinese candidates are inactivated vaccines – a technique that involves killing the virus so that it cannot cause a serious infection but does stimulate an immune response and requires secure facilities.
• The other Chinese vaccine, and five developed in other countries, are using genetic techniques that need lower levels of biosecurity because the actual Sars-CoV-2 virus is not used in the production process.
• Two CNBG subsidiaries – the Beijing Institute of Biological Products and Wuhan Institute of Biological Products – have designed inactivated vaccines that are undergoing phase 2 trials.
• “The facility in Beijing has been completed and is in the process of qualifying for certification. The annual production capacity will be 100 million doses. The workshop in Wuhan has finished building the main structure … Its annual production capacity will be 80 million doses,” Yu said.
• The facilities will have a biosecurity rating of 3, the second highest level, because Sars-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19, is highly pathogenic and will need a secure environment if it used to make the vaccine.

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Despite the title of the article below, it mentions that production for the front-running vaccine has already started.

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[Intrepid]

A first flight from Frankfurt as a return campaign for managers, technicians and other representatives of the German economy and their family members working in China landed in the Chinese city of Tianjin yesterday. More flights will follow in the next few days.

It is possible that a passenger carried the virus with him despite tests before departure. It was noticed during the test after arrival. The case is being investigated further. A 14-day quarantine must be observed anyway and such results were expected.

This is the new caution that will accompany us until a vaccine is available worldwide.

 

[Hendrik_2000]

China speed
A facility to cater for the mass production of

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-19

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has been completed in Beijing. Construction started in the middle of April. A similar facility is being built in

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and expected to be finished in early July.

 

[hullopilllw]

This vaccine race is probably one that US cannot lose, at all cost. How is the Moderna mRNA vaccine holding up ?

 

[AndrewS]

This vaccine race is probably one that US cannot lose, at all cost. How is the Moderna mRNA vaccine holding up ?

It'll be slow in my opinion.

It's a brand new type of vaccine and the first of its kind. The people using that vaccine really will be guinea pigs, so they're going to have to take it slow.

The inactivated vaccines which China is developing will likely be the first to pass Phase 3 trials.
And these are all derivatives of existing vaccines, so everyone knows what happened when previous versions were developed.

 

[AndrewS]

Well, whether inactivated or attenuated, it’s a case-by-case thing. Some of most effective vaccines are derived from attenuated viruses. Measles and chickenpox vaccines are good examples.

Inactivated viruses are dead viruses, thus generating weaker immune responses in people (even if you use the whole virus). You might have to inject multiple doses to get your body to generate enough antibodies.

Attenuated viruses are actually more preferable in many cases because they are live viruses. Most of the times, a single dose is enough for healthy people to generate enough immune responses. Of course, the drawback would be that the live virus might be too strong for some people with immune issues and they might suffer some side effects.

We had a discussion a few months back about vaccine developers running Clinical Trial Phases in parallel, skipping phases and deliberately infecting volunteers with challenge testing.

Given the cost-benefit calculation of developing a vaccine faster, I saw this as the logical (and inevitable) outcome
Yet you became very offended at such an approach.

So what is your opinion now that this is happening in China and Europe?
A few articles below.

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[vesicles]

We had a discussion a few months back about vaccine developers running Clinical Trial Phases in parallel, skipping phases and deliberately infecting volunteers during challenge testing.

Given the cost-benefit calculation of developing a vaccine faster, I saw this as the logical (and inevitable) outcome
Yet you became very offended at such an approach.

So what is your opinion now that this is happening in China and Europe?
A few articles below.

I am still 120% opposed to such idea. There is something science/medicine should not do. The purpose of medicine is to save lives, not to purposefully get people sick. That’s against the very Hippocratic oath.

If some volunteers die, how do we treat such loss of life? The death is directly caused by a human act, I.e. purposefully getting people sick. Is this a murder? Is this an assisted suicide? Even with full consent, what do we tell the family of the volunteers? If we set a precedence of getting healthy people sick, where do we stop?

 

[supercat]

China to Supply Virus Test Kits, Masks to Africa, Ramaphosa Says

China will supply millions of coronavirus test kits and masks to Africa to help the continent deal with the pandemic, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said.

African nations have 142,289 cases of Covid-19, with 4,084 deaths from the disease, according to data from the Africa Centre for Disease Control & Prevention. The continent has experienced shortages of diagnostic equipment and therapeutic medical supplies.

China will ship as many as 30 million test kits, 10,000 ventilators and 80 million masks a month to Africa, Ramaphosa said in a briefing to reporters broadcast on online Sunday. Ramaphosa held talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping about securing the supplies earlier in the week, he said.

“What we are now doing, is to set up a procurement platform, which we are going to launch next week, which will allow every country on the continent to be able to procure from a central place and benefit” from the Chinese shipments, Ramaphosa said.

State-owned carriers South African Airways, Ethiopian Airlines Group and Kenya Airways Plc will deliver the shipments.

“This is going to give a great boost to South African Airways, because this process will be going on for many months,” Ramaphosa said.

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Situation in the U.S. on May 31:

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Situation in China on May 31, excluding HK, Macau, and TW:

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[Mr T]

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"Throughout January, the World Health Organization publicly praised China for what it called a speedy response to the new coronavirus. It repeatedly thanked the Chinese government for sharing the genetic map of the virus “immediately,” and said its work and commitment to transparency were “very impressive, and beyond words.”

But behind the scenes, it was a much different story, one of significant delays by China and considerable frustration among WHO officials over not getting the information they needed to fight the spread of the deadly virus, The Associated Press has found.

Despite the plaudits, China in fact sat on releasing the genetic map, or genome, of the virus for more than a week after three different government labs had fully decoded the information. Tight controls on information and competition within the Chinese public health system were to blame, according to dozens of interviews and internal documents."

 

[Hendrik_2000]

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"Throughout January, the World Health Organization publicly praised China for what it called a speedy response to the new coronavirus. It repeatedly thanked the Chinese government for sharing the genetic map of the virus “immediately,” and said its work and commitment to transparency were “very impressive, and beyond words.”

But behind the scenes, it was a much different story, one of significant delays by China and considerable frustration among WHO officials over not getting the information they needed to fight the spread of the deadly virus, The Associated Press has found.

Despite the plaudits, China in fact sat on releasing the genetic map, or genome, of the virus for more than a week after three different government labs had fully decoded the information. Tight controls on information and competition within the Chinese public health system were to blame, according to dozens of interviews and internal documents."

You really nitpicking here and Come on you are going to far now. Does a week late in releasing genome sequence make any difference? No of course not, the MSM is hanging on straw man here and you are quoting it?