First human trial for coronavirus vaccine begins

Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2020/03/16/first-human-trial-for-coronavi.html

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So far, tests show that revenue is maximized at about the $30,000 level.

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Stalling testing drives the human desperation, thusly the price of the vaccine will be astronomically priced.

I have spoken.

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I think the word “spike” and some of the descriptions of what it does can be confusing. Having prepped a couple of papers for an HIV researcher, I -believe- the spike possesses a combination that triggers receptors on the cell to open the cell wall and let the virus inside. It’s not a knife going into a basketball. Here’s an abstract on coronavirus cell entry in case someone can translate it better than I just did (or correct me if I’m wrong).

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This kind of impossible acceleration has trumps fingerprints all over it for being able to claim “vax is around the corner” for reelection

I wonder what the anti-vax people are going to do.

Oh wow imagine if people die from the vax because it’s not well tested/developed and the anti-vax nutters get to use that claim forever

BTW what do we do when it changes like the flu every year? Because isn’t that likely to happen now? You are never going to get to everyone so it will come back around every year?

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giphy (65)

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Google “how does Corona virus end”, your answer and others are explained. Choose your fave!

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Moderna has been just around the corner with mRNA-based therapies for about 5 years now. Hmm…

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HIV’s spike gets accepted among membrane proteins but -reels out the phage through the spike- which is definitely canon spike stuff. Here the spike may be permitted in the membrane but trigger endocytosis without a lot of extra micelle coating…coz then it’s just a bag full o’ suspicion and would get pretty nice passage to lysosometown. I squinted at that paper [neti-neti seh: SARS coronavirus entry into host cells through a novel clathrin- and caveolae-independent endocytic pathway] but haven’t found the bit of images where suspicious siRNA pulls out a knife and sneakers and heads toward legit-town.

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You are now in charge of explaining science to our reluctant post apocalyptic hero, so he can break into the citadel and steal the genetic chalice

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Nobody is stalling anything in this. There’s just no way around all the approvals that are needed to get to a point where a novel vaccine can be injected into a healthy volunteer human being for the first time.

And what happened with this vaccine before, when it took too long to get to the market? This vaccine was previously the SARS vaccine, which is a closely related virus. By the time the vaccine was nearly ready, SARS was over and they made nothing from it. Everyone understands that corona is likely to have a short life, just like SARS, and that any normal vaccine timeline is too slow to help anyone, or make any money. This particular virus has already peaked in China and Korea. It may already have peaked in Italy and the US might put up enough controls quickly enough that it fizzles out here.

No one is trying to slow down this vaccine for any reason, especially not for making money, because that’s ludicrous.

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That is a very optimistic assessment. This virus may be related to SARS, but the 2003 SARS outbreak did not spread nearly as easily. The majority of human-to-human transmissions in that outbreak were confined to healthcare settings, not spread through casual community transmission.

This isn’t going to be a pandemic that goes away just by sterilizing the hospitals and putting masks on all the healthcare workers (and we haven’t even done THAT yet).

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That’s because our hospitals practice the awesome powerful profitable “just in time” supply chain that works well for people who build things like cars, but not so well when your supply use isn’t stritcly predictable. We don’t have stockpiles of PPE, bc that cuts into corporate profit. Instead, hospitals have all assumed that if there is a big outbreak of something evil, a) they’ll have time to order stuff and/or b) the government and their soooper secret stockpiles will come to the rescue. Of course, PPE is almost all made in China, so we see how well that’s worked out. And the governemnt is being run by an idiot who doesn’t care.

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Some of the lack of precautions go beyond supply issues into criminal negligence. My sister is a doctor at a hospital that is currently directing its staff not to wear the N95 masks even though she has her own private supply of masks she could be wearing.

This is in a part of San Diego where even a lot of the doctors are Trump supporters so the denialism runs deep.

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This is the nightmare. Trump bullies the ‘people who work for him’ into accelerating the vaccine release and it either doesn’t work or hurts people or both. If there is a chance it could help the economy why would Trump do anything else?

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Didn’t you see my President declare the National Emergency?

US citizens are referred to as consumers not patients or clients. It’s all about the money @Fabio.

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Immunology Noir is the new genre. You saw it here first.

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My wife bought a tub toy this weekend. I think her timing was off by a wide margin.

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FTFY. HTH. HAND.

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Not to make assumptions about how toy time in the tub goes, but that OpenBSD fugu is funny and not at all suited to sticking in epithelial lung cells.

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