Covid vaccines: facts and announcements (fake)
Facts, scenarios and auspices about Covid-19 vaccines. Start Magazine conversation with Roberta Villa, journalist with a degree in medicine and surgery, research fellow for the Ca 'Foscari University of Venice
The race for the anti Covid vaccine has its own times and rules. The pandemic, the number of infected people and deaths in the world has forced pharmaceutical companies to speed up research, development and testing. Ten months into the pandemic, where are we with vaccines? And what should we expect from the first doses that will be placed on the market?
The vaccine will not mark the "stop transmission of the disease," he says to Start Magazine Roberta Villa , journalist graduated in medicine and surgery, has worked among others for over 20 years under the "Health" pages of the Corriere della Sera and is currently Fellow of research for the Ca 'Foscari University of Venice, where he collaborates in the European QUEST project for the communication of science in Europe, together with the group of Fabiana Zollo and Walter Quattrociocchi.
Let's go step by step.
ANTI COVID VACCINES: WHERE WE ARE
Vaccine research has paid off. “We have over 10 vaccines in phase 3, which is being tested on thousands of people. In this phase, the effectiveness of the vaccine is evaluated in large numbers: how many vaccinated people are less likely to get sick than those who received a placebo ”, Villa explains to Start Magazine.
EXPERIMENTATION HAS ITS TIMES
“The statistics to establish the efficacy of the drug – adds the expert – require a long time that cannot be shortened. We cannot assess whether the vaccine works only in a few days or weeks ”.
INNOVATIVE ANTI COVID VACCINES
However, it is not just about technical times. “This first wave of anti Covid vaccines is innovative, that is, it is produced in a different way from the previous ones. More checks are needed ”, says Villa:“ We have to wait, then ”.
VACCINE POLITICAL WEAPON?
"Those who promised the vaccine in the fall did the math without the host," adds Villa. “The vaccine was used as a political weapon. I think of Trump who used it in view of the elections or who instead used it to give an optimistic vision to citizens. No expert could have thought that the vaccine would arrive in a few months ", says Villa, adding:" It is one thing that I do not agree with the fact that we have promised the vaccine in a short time because it means treating the population like children to whom to tell a story and not as adults who can deal with situations ”.
THE ASTRAZENECA VACCINE
Among the vaccines that will soon end the trial is that of Astrazeneca, which already has millions of doses booked from Europe. “Phase 3 will end in November”. Astrazeneca experiments outside Italy, despite the link with our country through Irbm, “because, most likely, when phase three was launched in Italy we had few infections, it was summer. Vaccines are tested where the disease circulates, where there is the possibility to really evaluate ”.
WHAT EFFECTIVENESS AND EXPECTATIONS OF THE COVID VACCINE?
And to be considered effective the anti Covid vaccine, what requirements must it meet? "This vaccine must be 50% effective, very low, meaning only half of the people it has been given will need to be protected," explains Villa.
WHAT SHOULD WE EXPECT
Once tested, validated and placed on the market, the vaccine does not promise miracles. “This first degree vaccine will not be able to stop the infection. It can help citizens not to get seriously ill, but not to transmit the disease. The infections will continue, therefore, "explains Villa, adding that" the vaccine will not allow us to let our guard down on all those measures that are not pharmacological. Perhaps we will be able to do it with future generation anti Covid vaccines ”.
IMMUNITY AT RISK
“At the moment – continues Villa – we have no evidence that the disease or the vaccine guarantee immunity, that is, perennial protection. Maybe it will be like a cold, we can catch it several times. There have been sporadic reports of people having relapses. We hope that this is not the case ”.
THE HAPPENS
So what to really wish us? That “the authorities, such as the EMA and the FDA, are very demanding and do not validate vaccines against external pressures, which are inevitable given the situation. The more demanding we are with the first vaccine, the more effective it will be and the more the vaccines that will arrive later ”, concludes Roberta Villa.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/sanita/vaccini-anti-covid-fatti-e-annunci-farlocchi/ on Sat, 24 Oct 2020 15:40:48 +0000.