COVID-19 Vaccine by a Company Publishes ‘Promising’ Results & Expects to Deliver Doses from 2021

By
George Yang
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If you’re already buying air tickets to Japan after reading the headline, hold your horses.

You must’ve not downloaded our app and read our previous article. If so, download it here.

So why should we stay pessimistic even after the headline sounds so hopeful?

Well, because of the word “company” there.

COVID-19 Vaccine by a Company Publishes ‘Promising’ Results

Moderna is an American biotech company that focuses on drug discovery and drug development based exclusively on messenger RNA (mRNA). If you’ve been paying attention during your science lessons, you’d know that viruses can be either RNA or DNA—think of RNA as a phone with only 32GB storage space while DNA as one with 64GB storage space.

The coronavirus that caused COVID-19 is an RNA virus, so that means Moderna has been on overdrive since the outbreak occurred.

Obviously, they’re not the only company developing a vaccine for COVID-19; there are at least a hundred more, but Moderna’s progress has been impressive so far.

Other than starting work since January 2020, they released a partial and non-peer reviewed results for only 8 of 45 candidates in a preliminary pre-Phase 1 stage human trial.

So simi is non-peer reviewed?

Basically, when you want to say an important thing like “10 bubble teas a day causes laosai”, you can do so if you’re Ah Hock drinking coffee in a kopitiam and only Ah Lians would believe him.

But if you’re a respected scientist with “Dr” in front of your surname, you need to publish a paper so that people can make important decisions based on that published paper, which is known as a scholarly article.

For it to be published, you need to do the study (feed 10,000 people with 10 bubble teas a day) and let other people with “Dr” in their surname to read through and confirm—the process is called peer review (your peers review your work, get it?).

If that’s confirmed, then it’s published in a “journal”.

Everything we study in school is based on journals and not based on what Ah Hock said.

So, back then, the results from Moderna were promising, but just like how Singapore reopens, the development of a vaccine, which usually takes more than 10 years. has to go through stages as well:

  • Phase 1 is when most people can go back to work but dine-in is still ban—

Reader Bao: Wrong lah

Eh, sorry.

  • Phase 1 is for a very small group of people to see if the vaccine does create an immune response or not, and whether it’s safe
  • Phase 2 is to give the vaccine to a larger group (usually hundreds) of people who’re at high risk to contract the disease
  • Phase 3 is to like Phase 2, but it’ll involve tens of thousands of people

Of course, every phase is important.

Nevertheless, that initial announcement led to a rise in their stock prices.

Then some executives in the company were spotted selling their stocks shortly after the announcement, but when watch groups complained, the company said it was a pre-planned sale.

This is why you’d have to take every announcement with a pinch of salt.

So, what’s being announced?

According to them, the first clinical trial of 45 people has shown that the vaccine has developed an immune response that creates the antibodies to kill the virus. In fact, the number of antibodies even exceeded those who had recovered from COVID-19 organically.

Confused?

To put it simply, a vaccine is like an empty virus that can’t cause harm: when you, say, take the COVID-19 vaccine (when it’s available), a weak and empty coronavirus would be inserted into your body. Because it’s “empty”, it can’t cause COVID-19.

Your immune system would then spot the virus and thought that it’s going to cause COVID-19, so they’ll create antibodies to destroy it. After that, your immune system would “remember” the coronavirus and let those antibodies linger in your body, lest a real coronavirus finds its way into your body after a Sovereign sneezed in your face. With the antibodies, the virus will be destroyed even before it can affect you.

This is why the antibodies matter.

With this, they’re now moving to Phase 3 of the trial, which, based on the wall of text above, means it’ll comprise tens of thousands of people.

They’re now targeting to start Phase 3 on 27 July 2020, which will involve 30,000 people.

As based on the tl;dr text again, you’d know that it’s supposedly the last phase if it works.

According to the company, they’ve selected a perfect dose (100mg) so if the stars align and mother nature isn’t pissed off, the company can come out with up to 1 billion doses per year from 2021 through its own manufacturing site and a collaboration with another drugmaker.

Another Company Not Happy

While you cheer at the results and go back to booking the air ticket to Japan, the CEO of a pharmaceutical company has come out to tell you not to book the ticket yet.

Okay, maybe he didn’t but you get the gist.

Chief Executive of  Merck & Co, Kenneth Frazier, said that people who claimed a vaccine can be expected by the end of the year are doing “grave disservice to the public”, stating that it might not have the qualities needed to be rapidly deployed in large numbers of people.

He said, “If you’re going to use a vaccine on billions of people, you better know what that vaccine does.”

He didn’t specifically mention Moderna, but based on the timing, you buy 4D also not so accurate.

Whichever side you’re on, just remember: don’t book your air ticket yet.

In the meantime, the best you can do is to stop the transmission. Do your part by downloading the TraceTogether app; if you’re worried about privacy, watch this video:

Here’s a simplified summary of the South Korea martial law that even a 5-year-old would understand:

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George Yang
Email: [email protected]