The best approach for protecting everyone’s health will require us to provide different vaccines to different people according to need and availability.
With vaccine shortages looming, experts are debating whether it is important to receive two doses or whether it’s better to give one dose to more people and give a second when the supply is better.
Before the U.S. can return to some form of normal, a lot of people need to be vaccinated.
AP Photo/Paul Sancya, Pool
Researchers say around 70% of the US needs to get the coronavirus vaccine to stop the pandemic. But questions around the vaccines and regional differences add some uncertainty to that estimate.
Experts from across The Conversation assess the work that’s helped us reach vaccine roll-out, how this could play out, and the risk of vaccine hesitancy.
The number one scientific breakthrough for 2020: multiple vaccines to prevent COVID-19.
Philippe Raimbault/Photodisc via Getty Images
The development of multiple vaccines against the virus that causes COVID-19 has been hailed as the breakthrough of 2020. But there were many more supporting discoveries that made this possible.
The pharmaceutical industry opposes the suspension of intellectual property rights on COVID-19 vaccines and treatments, and no pharma companies have yet contributed to the COVID-19 Technology Access Pool.
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We should applaud drug companies for developing COVID-19 vaccines in record time, but let’s not be under any illusion about the profits that are motivating them.
We need more data on the low-dose, high-dose regimen used in one arm of the trial, which may make the vaccine more effective.
Tony Potts, a 69-year-old retiree, removes his face mask for a temperature check just before receiving his first injection in a phase 3 COVID-19 vaccine clinical trial sponsored by Moderna. Potts is one of 30,000 participants in the Moderna trial.
Paul Hennessy/NurPhoto via Getty ImageS
The vaccines that will first be used to prevent the spread of COVID-19 will have gone through a special approval process with the FDA. but just what is this expedited process?
A nurse prepares a shot for a clinical trial of a COVID-19 vaccine candidate developed by the National Institutes of Health and Moderna Inc., on July 27, 2020 in Binghamton, N.Y.
(AP Photo/Hans Pennink, File)
With COVID-19 vaccine announcements making headlines, non-scientists need to know what clinical trial results mean. Here are some key points to look for in vaccine trial reports.
Now there is a third possible vaccine for fighting the COVID-19 pandemic.
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There is now a third vaccine that prevents COVID-19 infections. It isn’t quite as effective as the other two vaccines but it has advantages that may make it the frontrunner.
Data coming through from phase 3 trials are encouraging. But participants don’t represent the whole community — so we can’t be sure these vaccines will work as well in everyone.
A woman walks by graffiti reading ‘No vaccine, No tracking, No COVID’, in Montréal on Aug. 16, 2020.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Graham Hughes
COVID-19 vaccines are at risk of being undermined by vaccine hesitancy. Pharma must take steps to ensure transparency in data monitoring committees and trial data to build public trust in vaccines.