Quote:
Originally Posted by Sephiroth
OB is absolutely right in his explanation of the early days.
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No he isn’t. Scientists have not been working on a vaccine for Covid-19 for “decades”. It’s a novel virus first described in 2019. The clue’s in the name. A great many people with relevant expertise stated early on that if a viable candidate could be prepared, changing the usual testing and approval regimes could significantly accelerate its availability. Some of those working on the cutting edge of vaccine design were confident that they could produce candidate vaccines quickly. Oxford university had its candidate ready for human trials on 23 April 2020, having received a complete copy of the virus genome on 11 January. This is because scientists learned how to combat coronaviruses during the earlier SARS and Mers outbreaks.
There was no point, at the outset of the first lockdown, when it was reasonable to assume a decade-long wait for a vaccine, quite regardless of how long any other vaccine in history has taken to design.
If you want to know how the Oxford-AsraZeneca vaccine was made and just how it was able to be formulated so quickly, read here:
https://www.bmj.com/content/372/bmj.n86
Or here:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-55041371