There’s no reason to believe the vaccines can’t be quickly modified for immune-evasive strains.
Not really disagreeing, but if it was so easy, wouldn’t that have modified them for delta?
They did. There was some stuff that came out about that a while back. However the original vaccines are still so effective at protecting against Delta that it didn’t make sense for them to alter all their manufacturing over to the new vaccine formulation. It turns out Delta wasn’t really evading the vaccines, it’s just that they were waning.
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I actually read about this somewhere, the current vaccines still work well enough against delta that no one is rushing to make an updated recipe.
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They made updated recipes, they’re just not bothering to use them because, as you stated, they’re not needed:
If we ever got a true vaccine escape variant, this method could be used to update the mRNA vaccines fairly quickly.
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Guess that makes sense, I’m sure it’s really much harder than just adding an extra pinch of paprika or whatever, but man I better get some super delta juice for dose 4.
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Updating it isn’t the long/hard part. Testing it is what takes a while. It’s possible that if there was a vaccine evasive strain we would either need to lock down again (lol) or we’d have a decent amount of death waiting for vaccine efficacy and safety tests on the new recipe. That’s the only real thing to worry about at this point, not really that some vaccine resistant super covid will come along that we won’t be able to come up with a vaccine for at all.
Well yeah, but what’s the rollout time 6 months?
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I think it’s more expedited then that as it’s just a vaccine update. More like 4 the articles see to indicate. Of course part of the problem is first identifying that a new variant is spreading and that it is evading vaccines. That takes time too.
Right. 4-6 months back isolating from family would be super depressing.
Yes. But that’s the worst case scenario. It’s not inevitable at all.
Yeah phrased it poorly didn’t mean to say that it was. Don’t think mega unlikely either though.
And another record broken.
22,936 cases in a single day beats the record previously set Tuesday in the CR. Our 7dma on new cases has also reached its all-time high.
More record-breakers will come.
The true lesson here is the opposite of what you’re claiming. MRNA technology works fine, but this episode more or less proves that it won’t be effectively deployed if a variant that’s even worse comes along. The scientists will create the vaccine 3 days after the variant is identified as a danger, then the FDA will demand endless rounds of clinical trials and have a bunch of pointless meetings while we read soothing Voxsplainers about how there’s really no rush at all to get the new vaccines out, VE against hospitalization “remains high”, chocolate ration is doing great, etc.
The fact is, we know the effectiveness of the current formulation fades out to a meaningful extent in a shortish period of time. It’s fucking stupid to be giving people vaccines that aren’t tailored against the current threat when we know there’s a better vaccine. Our current regulatory system does not work, at all, for a world of pandemic COVID and mRNA vaccines, but we’re just going to rock on with business as usual and tell ourselves what a good job we’re doing (7,000 dead last week).
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I’m not defending the regulatory scheme. That needs to get faster. Waiting weeks so a bunch of scientists can all clear their calendars and meet at the same time to vote to approve is fucking stupid. Burning resources to switch to a delta-optimized vaccine (and potentially reducing output for a while as a result) does not seem to be the correct play however.
Agreed, but the process is not going to get faster if the Delta experience is not understood as a failure of the system. The technical problem of how to rapidly develop highly effective vaccines has been (miraculously) solved. The regulatory/organizational problem of how to deploy them across quickly across society is not solved at all, and there’s no evidence that any progress has been made. Arguably it’s getting worse! The lag from COVID being identified as a huge threat to vaccine approval was 10 months. Is a Delta vaccine going to beat that record? Unclear. How do FDA/CDC plan to do better? They don’t. We should all be very concerned.
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This is an area where the lack of political leadership and general dysfunction in government is a real problem. The Rs don’t believe in science and facts generally, so obviously they are no help. But even the Dems are way too comfortable and ready to fall back on platitudes about The Process. They just don’t have it in them to react with appropriate urgency. Instead of driving the FDA/CDC to outcomes, they ask for reporting from those agencies. It’s all very timid.
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You also have to factor in that nobody (outside a dozen of us nerds on a message board) cares about COVID or people dying of COVID any longer.
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I think this is the wrong way to look at it. I don’t know that there will ever be a “delta” vaccine. The speed at which it is coming out is due to the fact that it was deemed largely unnecessary and burning resources to change the factories over to producing the delta-specific vaccines means that many less doses produced at a time when the world is still starving for doses.
Also, any new vaccine still needs to be tested. It’s not all “regulatory bullshit.” I agree that there are a few weeks here and there of bullshit that can be shaved off (lol at waiting for the ACIP meeting for a few weeks after the vaccine companies have submitted their final data). However, we have not yet “solved” how to test safety and efficacy faster then the timespan of a few months. That’s not a regulatory thing.
This is definitely not true, even if you are exaggerating for effect. The entire health care sector, obviously, needs this shit to end or slow down. And I can assure you that large employers are definitely very much worried about COVID. They do not want the risks and costs that come with opening/reopening offices amidst repeating surges. I get that everyone had COVID fatigue but not everyone is at the “head in sand” stage. Lot’s of people are directly impacted by COVID outbreaks and have an intense vested interest in managing it.