COVID-19 Vaccine-The Good and Bad

A mixture of good and bad news came out recently from the COVID-19 vaccine development. US Moderna Inc came up with positive news that its vaccine during the phase 1 trial is producing neutralizing antibodies to the virus and appears safe with the exception of a few volunteers displaying side effect of flu symptoms after vaccination. Phase 2 trial will also try to find the best dosage for administration and will start soon in May'20 and Phase 3 trial on efficacy and safety using larger sample population will commence in July'20. This is good news for all, in particularly, the battered travel and hospitality sector. 

However, the Oxford vaccine in development in UK seems to have hit a wall. From the animal testing, all the monkeys vaccinated were eventually infected despite developing some antibodies to the virus. The slightly positive news is that it appears that vaccinated monkeys do not develop severe pneumonia as compared to the other control group without vaccination. So we have a partially effective (half-baked) vaccine that does help to reduce the severity of the virus but may not stop infection in human beings. Despite this, the UK human trial is still proceeding with 1,100 people with double the dosage compared to the vaccination given to the monkeys.  Hopefully, the higher dosage will work out to stop the virus from replicating.

Summarising, the US Moderna Inc vaccine seems to show great promise. Saying that, the human trials for Moderna may turned the other way in terms of whether it really works well. Phase 2 and Phase 3 clinical trials will be the real deciding point on whether the pandemic can be ended. This will the key determinant on real economic recovery else we will have to go through more devastating circuit breakers akin lock-downs imposed by governments to prevent the healthcare system from being overwhelmed by COVID-19.