Convince me that the delay of 10 months in vaccine release (first cluster recognised on 1 Jan 2020) is not caused by arse-covering, incompetence and competitor nobbling.

For the 1968 Hong Kong Flu epidemic, the vaccine was being delivered to the public in the USA three months after first detection in Hong Kong. Biotech has improved enormously since then.

To convince me, you need to specify actual durations and add them up to get at least 10 months. Durations such as the doubling time of the virus, the doubling time of the cell culture on which the virus feeds, etc.

In any large group of people, there are those who are enthusiastic, competent and honest. Those are the people who do all the work. Even in such fields as medical science, these are not necessarily the majority.

mollwollfumble said:

Convince me that the delay of 10 months in vaccine release (first cluster recognised on 1 Jan 2020) is not caused by arse-covering, incompetence and competitor nobbling.

For the 1968 Hong Kong Flu epidemic, the vaccine was being delivered to the public in the USA three months after first detection in Hong Kong. Biotech has improved enormously since then.

To convince me, you need to specify actual durations and add them up to get at least 10 months. Durations such as the doubling time of the virus, the doubling time of the cell culture on which the virus feeds, etc.

In any large group of people, there are those who are enthusiastic, competent and honest. Those are the people who do all the work. Even in such fields as medical science, these are not necessarily the majority.

The difference in making an influenza vaccine vs making a coronavirus vaccine.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hong_Kong_flu
just read that^, partly because lady told me a story of when she was a young kid her M&D were so very ill flat on their backs with what the doctor called Hong Kong flu, kitchen got quite messy apparently with kids making own meals, so lady’s M recently related

The Pennant Hills Rd bypass tunnel is opening tomorrow. Truck drivers will be fined if they don’t use the tunnel (and pay the toll) and instead continue using PH Road. It’ll be interesting to see how this changes the traffic situation.

mollwollfumble said:

Convince me that the delay of 10 months in vaccine release (first cluster recognised on 1 Jan 2020) is not caused by arse-covering, incompetence and competitor nobbling.

For the 1968 Hong Kong Flu epidemic, the vaccine was being delivered to the public in the USA three months after first detection in Hong Kong. Biotech has improved enormously since then.

To convince me, you need to specify actual durations and add them up to get at least 10 months. Durations such as the doubling time of the virus, the doubling time of the cell culture on which the virus feeds, etc.

In any large group of people, there are those who are enthusiastic, competent and honest. Those are the people who do all the work. Even in such fields as medical science, these are not necessarily the majority.

This isn’t a flu. There’s no impediment now to fast influenza vaccine development.

There are still no vaccines for any human-affecting coronaviruses . Not SARS classic, MERS, HKU1 … none of them, despite decades of research.

mollwollfumble said:

Convince me that the delay of 10 months in vaccine release (first cluster recognised on 1 Jan 2020) is not caused by arse-covering, incompetence and competitor nobbling.

You’re not the boss of us. We don’t need to convince anything of something that is patently untrue. The delay is caused by arse covering and we’re likely to be safer for it. The end. Of part 1.

mollwollfumble said:

In any large group of people, there are those who are enthusiastic, competent and honest. Those are the people who do all the work. Even in such fields as medical science, these are not necessarily the majority.

So?

dv said:

mollwollfumble said:

Convince me that the delay of 10 months in vaccine release (first cluster recognised on 1 Jan 2020) is not caused by arse-covering, incompetence and competitor nobbling.

For the 1968 Hong Kong Flu epidemic, the vaccine was being delivered to the public in the USA three months after first detection in Hong Kong. Biotech has improved enormously since then.

To convince me, you need to specify actual durations and add them up to get at least 10 months. Durations such as the doubling time of the virus, the doubling time of the cell culture on which the virus feeds, etc.

In any large group of people, there are those who are enthusiastic, competent and honest. Those are the people who do all the work. Even in such fields as medical science, these are not necessarily the majority.

This isn’t a flu. There’s no impediment now to fast influenza vaccine development.

There are still no vaccines for any human-affecting coronaviruses . Not SARS classic, MERS, HKU1 … none of them, despite decades of research.

> There are still no vaccines for any human-affecting coronaviruses . Not SARS classic, MERS, HKU1 … none of them, despite decades of research.

False. The Wuhan virus institute created a vaccine against classic SARS in 2019, well before Covid first appeared. There is also a vaccine against MERS, from earlier than that.

So, none of you have the foggiest idea what the bottleneck is holding up the vaccine.

Is it the availability of centrifuges? Or what?

mollwollfumble said:

dv said:

mollwollfumble said:

Convince me that the delay of 10 months in vaccine release (first cluster recognised on 1 Jan 2020) is not caused by arse-covering, incompetence and competitor nobbling.

For the 1968 Hong Kong Flu epidemic, the vaccine was being delivered to the public in the USA three months after first detection in Hong Kong. Biotech has improved enormously since then.

To convince me, you need to specify actual durations and add them up to get at least 10 months. Durations such as the doubling time of the virus, the doubling time of the cell culture on which the virus feeds, etc.

In any large group of people, there are those who are enthusiastic, competent and honest. Those are the people who do all the work. Even in such fields as medical science, these are not necessarily the majority.

This isn’t a flu. There’s no impediment now to fast influenza vaccine development.

There are still no vaccines for any human-affecting coronaviruses . Not SARS classic, MERS, HKU1 … none of them, despite decades of research.

> There are still no vaccines for any human-affecting coronaviruses . Not SARS classic, MERS, HKU1 … none of them, despite decades of research.

False. The Wuhan virus institute created a vaccine against classic SARS in 2019, well before Covid first appeared.

Provide a reference to support this assertion

dv said:

mollwollfumble said:

dv said:

This isn’t a flu. There’s no impediment now to fast influenza vaccine development.

There are still no vaccines for any human-affecting coronaviruses . Not SARS classic, MERS, HKU1 … none of them, despite decades of research.

> There are still no vaccines for any human-affecting coronaviruses . Not SARS classic, MERS, HKU1 … none of them, despite decades of research.

False. The Wuhan virus institute created a vaccine against classic SARS in 2019, well before Covid first appeared.

Provide a reference to support this assertion

I’ve already posted the news article on this forum. It was on the thread about what did China do right. The news article was in the Chinese official government newspaper. The Global Times, I think.

For the 1968 Hong Kong flu, the vaccine reached the USA in three months. Biotech has improved enormously since then.

Some quotes (paraphrased)
“We had a vaccine the day after we received the coronavirus from China”, CSIRO
“We vaccinated all our staff starting in April”, director of Gamaleya Institute, Russia
“Killed virus vaccines are safe”, several vaccine researchers

I’ve tried all the scenarios I can think of and still can’t explain a duration of 10 months. These are the scenarios I’ve tried. As you can see, because I’m ignorant I’ve had to consider quite a lot.

I can’t get any of these to account for a the present delay in COVID vaccine release.

• Delay in setting up a high biosecurity environment
• CRISPR delays
• Centrifuges of insufficient capacity
• A ban on using cell culture as the growth medium
• Difficuly of getting an uptake of coronavirus DNA into adenovius (or similar)
• Slow growth rate of live vaccine
• Extension of certification test duration 50% beyond necessary
• Increase in number of certification tests 50% beyond necessary
• Difficulty in creating transgenic animals
• Difficulty in breeding up transgenic anumals
• Shortage of animals for animal testing
• Delay due to the need for animal pregnancies to progress to completion
• Time spent in dissection of animals
• Insufficent supply of chicken eggs that are completely virus free
• Unavailability of robots for injecting chicken eggs
• A committee that can’t make a decision
• Time spent writing up research papers
• Time spent documenting everything
• Competitor nobbling using the peer review process
• An essential patent is held by a company that refuses to participate
• Can’t use any technique that can’t be patented
• Need to avoid patents held by other vaccine researchers
• Delay in patent approval
• Fear of success – of creating Frankenstein’s monster
• Banning all certification tests that have any associated danger
• Sheer laziness
• Delay in finding volunteers for large scale human testing
• Delay in processing volunteers for large scale human testing
• Creation of a Catch 22 situation by certification authorities

i’d expect it is that no vaccine presently has been proved consistently and universally positively effective enough across a wide-enough and diverse enough sample of humans, humans that volunteered, and of course there can be obvious negative effects, and there can be hard to detect negative effects, negative vaccine interference in immune function, the immune system, and possibly other things

steering the human immune system for targeting (of this coronavirus), a biologically diverse group (which involves immune system history also and more), a dynamic reactive system, may not be straightforward, so analyzing the results may not be straightforward

and it seems the dynamics of immune system response to coronavirus infection is highly varied across the population, not just during infection onset, but while infected some damage or changes seem to occur (in quite a few people) that contribute to a post viral syndrome, of the latter that seems prevalent enough to be a not insubstantial concern

mollwollfumble said:

dv said:

mollwollfumble said:

> There are still no vaccines for any human-affecting coronaviruses . Not SARS classic, MERS, HKU1 … none of them, despite decades of research.

False. The Wuhan virus institute created a vaccine against classic SARS in 2019, well before Covid first appeared.

Provide a reference to support this assertion

I’ve already posted the news article on this forum. It was on the thread about what did China do right. The news article was in the Chinese official government newspaper. The Global Times, I think.

For the 1968 Hong Kong flu, the vaccine reached the USA in three months. Biotech has improved enormously since then.

Some quotes (paraphrased)
“We had a vaccine the day after we received the coronavirus from China”, CSIRO
“We vaccinated all our staff starting in April”, director of Gamaleya Institute, Russia
“Killed virus vaccines are safe”, several vaccine researchers

I’ve tried all the scenarios I can think of and still can’t explain a duration of 10 months. These are the scenarios I’ve tried. As you can see, because I’m ignorant I’ve had to consider quite a lot.

I can’t get any of these to account for a the present delay in COVID vaccine release.

• Delay in setting up a high biosecurity environment
• CRISPR delays
• Centrifuges of insufficient capacity
• A ban on using cell culture as the growth medium
• Difficuly of getting an uptake of coronavirus DNA into adenovius (or similar)
• Slow growth rate of live vaccine
• Extension of certification test duration 50% beyond necessary
• Increase in number of certification tests 50% beyond necessary
• Difficulty in creating transgenic animals
• Difficulty in breeding up transgenic anumals
• Shortage of animals for animal testing
• Delay due to the need for animal pregnancies to progress to completion
• Time spent in dissection of animals
• Insufficent supply of chicken eggs that are completely virus free
• Unavailability of robots for injecting chicken eggs
• A committee that can’t make a decision
• Time spent writing up research papers
• Time spent documenting everything
• Competitor nobbling using the peer review process
• An essential patent is held by a company that refuses to participate
• Can’t use any technique that can’t be patented
• Need to avoid patents held by other vaccine researchers
• Delay in patent approval
• Fear of success – of creating Frankenstein’s monster
• Banning all certification tests that have any associated danger
• Sheer laziness
• Delay in finding volunteers for large scale human testing
• Delay in processing volunteers for large scale human testing
• Creation of a Catch 22 situation by certification authorities

Probably simpler if you just provide the doi or the title/authors of the journal article so I can read the details about this vaccine.

Antibody-dependent enhancement and SARS-CoV-2 vaccines and therapies
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41564-020-00789-5

Published 09 September 2020

Abstract

Antibody-based drugs and vaccines against severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) are being expedited through preclinical and clinical development. Data from the study of SARS-CoV and other respiratory viruses suggest that anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibodies could exacerbate COVID-19 through antibody-dependent enhancement (ADE). Previous respiratory syncytial virus and dengue virus vaccine studies revealed human clinical safety risks related to ADE, resulting in failed vaccine trials. Here, we describe key ADE mechanisms and discuss mitigation strategies for SARS-CoV-2 vaccines and therapies in development. We also outline recently published data to evaluate the risks and opportunities for antibody-based protection against SARS-CoV-2….

Risk of ERD for SARS-CoV-2 vaccines

Safety concerns for SARS-CoV-2 vaccines were initially fuelled by mouse studies that showed enhanced immunopathology, or ERD, in animals vaccinated with SARS-CoV following viral challenge55,56,57,58. The observed immunopathology was associated with Th2-cell-biased responses55 and was largely against the nucleocapsid protein56,58. Importantly, immunopathology was not observed in challenged mice following the passive transfer of nucleocapsid-specific immune serum56, confirming that the enhanced disease could not be replicated using the serum volumes transferred. Similar studies using inactivated whole-virus or viral-vector-based vaccines for SARS-CoV or MERS-CoV resulted in immunopathology following viral challenge59,60,61, which were linked to Th2-cytokine-biased responses55 and/or excessive lung eosinophilic infiltration57….

Risk of ADE for SARS-CoV-2 vaccines

Evidence for vaccine-induced ADE in animal models of SARS-CoV is conflicting, and raises potential safety concerns. Liu et al. found that while macaques immunized with a modified vaccinia Ankara viral vector expressing the SARS-CoV S protein had reduced viral replication after challenge, anti-S IgG also enhanced pulmonary infiltration of inflammatory macrophages and resulted in more severe lung injury compared to unvaccinated animals66. They further showed that the presence of anti-S IgG prior to viral clearance skewed the wound-healing response of macrophages into a pro-inflammatory response. In another study, Wang et al. immunized macaques with four B-cell peptide epitopes of the SARS-CoV S protein and demonstrated that while three peptides elicited antibodies that protected macaques from viral challenge, one of the peptide vaccines induced antibodies that enhanced infection in vitro and resulted in more severe lung pathology in vivo67….

Conclusion

ADE has been observed in SARS, MERS and other human respiratory virus infections including RSV and measles, which suggests a real risk of ADE for SARS-CoV-2 vaccines and antibody-based interventions. However, clinical data has not yet fully established a role for ADE in human COVID-19 pathology. Steps to reduce the risks of ADE from immunotherapies include the induction or delivery of high doses of potent neutralizing antibodies, rather than lower concentrations of non-neutralizing antibodies that would be more likely to cause ADE.

Going forwards, it will be crucial to evaluate animal and clinical datasets for signs of ADE, and to balance ADE-related safety risks against intervention efficacy if clinical ADE is observed. Ongoing animal and human clinical studies will provide important insights into the mechanisms of ADE in COVID-19. Such evidence is sorely needed to ensure product safety in the large-scale medical interventions that are likely required to reduce the global burden of COVID-19.

Perhaps a vaccine could be developed quicker but its not safe or reliable.

esselte said:

Antibody-dependent enhancement and SARS-CoV-2 vaccines and therapies
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41564-020-00789-5

Published 09 September 2020

Abstract

Antibody-based drugs and vaccines against severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) are being expedited through preclinical and clinical development. Data from the study of SARS-CoV and other respiratory viruses suggest that anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibodies could exacerbate COVID-19 through antibody-dependent enhancement (ADE). Previous respiratory syncytial virus and dengue virus vaccine studies revealed human clinical safety risks related to ADE, resulting in failed vaccine trials. Here, we describe key ADE mechanisms and discuss mitigation strategies for SARS-CoV-2 vaccines and therapies in development. We also outline recently published data to evaluate the risks and opportunities for antibody-based protection against SARS-CoV-2….

Risk of ERD for SARS-CoV-2 vaccines

Safety concerns for SARS-CoV-2 vaccines were initially fuelled by mouse studies that showed enhanced immunopathology, or ERD, in animals vaccinated with SARS-CoV following viral challenge55,56,57,58. The observed immunopathology was associated with Th2-cell-biased responses55 and was largely against the nucleocapsid protein56,58. Importantly, immunopathology was not observed in challenged mice following the passive transfer of nucleocapsid-specific immune serum56, confirming that the enhanced disease could not be replicated using the serum volumes transferred. Similar studies using inactivated whole-virus or viral-vector-based vaccines for SARS-CoV or MERS-CoV resulted in immunopathology following viral challenge59,60,61, which were linked to Th2-cytokine-biased responses55 and/or excessive lung eosinophilic infiltration57….

Risk of ADE for SARS-CoV-2 vaccines

Evidence for vaccine-induced ADE in animal models of SARS-CoV is conflicting, and raises potential safety concerns. Liu et al. found that while macaques immunized with a modified vaccinia Ankara viral vector expressing the SARS-CoV S protein had reduced viral replication after challenge, anti-S IgG also enhanced pulmonary infiltration of inflammatory macrophages and resulted in more severe lung injury compared to unvaccinated animals66. They further showed that the presence of anti-S IgG prior to viral clearance skewed the wound-healing response of macrophages into a pro-inflammatory response. In another study, Wang et al. immunized macaques with four B-cell peptide epitopes of the SARS-CoV S protein and demonstrated that while three peptides elicited antibodies that protected macaques from viral challenge, one of the peptide vaccines induced antibodies that enhanced infection in vitro and resulted in more severe lung pathology in vivo67….

Conclusion

ADE has been observed in SARS, MERS and other human respiratory virus infections including RSV and measles, which suggests a real risk of ADE for SARS-CoV-2 vaccines and antibody-based interventions. However, clinical data has not yet fully established a role for ADE in human COVID-19 pathology. Steps to reduce the risks of ADE from immunotherapies include the induction or delivery of high doses of potent neutralizing antibodies, rather than lower concentrations of non-neutralizing antibodies that would be more likely to cause ADE.

Going forwards, it will be crucial to evaluate animal and clinical datasets for signs of ADE, and to balance ADE-related safety risks against intervention efficacy if clinical ADE is observed. Ongoing animal and human clinical studies will provide important insights into the mechanisms of ADE in COVID-19. Such evidence is sorely needed to ensure product safety in the large-scale medical interventions that are likely required to reduce the global burden of COVID-19.

I am spiralling into depression.

The serial nature of the drug approval process is murdering people about as fast as the Nazis murdered Jews in concentration camps.
And nobody cares.

Now that the internet exists, there is nothing to stop Phase 3 testing from being concurrent and synonymous with general release. Track the complete medical history three times a week of everyone who receives the vaccine for the first 10,000 recipients. And more often if they visit a doctor for any reason.

10,000 is a doddle for database programs, which track millions of inventory items. The process of reporting via internet all medical concerns and issues could be done in 30 minutes initially, reducing to 20 and 15 minutes as the patient becomes more familiar with the process. The internet reporting would be modelled on visiting a GP, and be less onerous. Freeform input by the patient, searched for keywords (everything with a medical meaning).

The first 10,000 patients would have to apply online and agree to share all medical information with doctors (not with family or insurers of course). Health care personnel would be encouraged to apply first, then family, then the general public, but with no strict limitations.

Each of the first 10,000 vaccine recipients would be given a unique anonymous number and, at each visit to the doctor, the doctor would forward a copy of medical information to the vaccine testing centre. No more onerous than a referral letter.

The first 10,000 vaccine releases wouldn’t save many lives, perhaps 100 lives. But it would quickly pave the way for a million vaccine releases and more which would have multiple benefits. The first is the direct saving of tens of thousands of lives, the second is terminating the spread.

mollwollfumble said:

I’ve tried all the scenarios I can think of and still can’t explain a duration of 10 months. These are the scenarios I’ve tried. As you can see, because I’m ignorant I’ve had to consider quite a lot.

I can’t get any of these to account for a the present delay in COVID vaccine release.

• Delay in setting up a high biosecurity environment
• CRISPR delays
  …

I didn’t mention one possibility among my list above. I deliberately omitted it.

Are you familiar with the Harvard Law?

Harvard Law

• Under the most rigorously controlled conditions of pressure, temperature, volume, humidity, and other variables, the organism will do as it damn well pleases.

Trying to overcome the Harvard Law could take some serious time.

——-

I can see now how serious the issue of mutation can be.for vaccine production. Reproducing a virus for producing a vaccine can and almost certainly will create mutations. Mutations reduce the effectiveness of the vaccine, and can drop effectiveness to zero in individual dosages.

So manufacture as fast as possible. Greater than 15 days for virus growth. Greater than 3 days for purification. That’s still a lot less than the 4 months maximum allowed for producing the 150 million doses or so of quadrivalent flu vaccine.

So …

… how much can the manufacturing time be reduced for 1 million doses? 18 days (minimising mutation and so maximising purity) or closer to 3 months?

mollwollfumble said:

mollwollfumble said:

I’ve tried all the scenarios I can think of and still can’t explain a duration of 10 months. These are the scenarios I’ve tried. As you can see, because I’m ignorant I’ve had to consider quite a lot.

I can’t get any of these to account for a the present delay in COVID vaccine release.

• Delay in setting up a high biosecurity environment
• CRISPR delays
  …

I didn’t mention one possibility among my list above. I deliberately omitted it.

Are you familiar with the Harvard Law?

Harvard Law

• Under the most rigorously controlled conditions of pressure, temperature, volume, humidity, and other variables, the organism will do as it damn well pleases.

Trying to overcome the Harvard Law could take some serious time.

——-

I can see now how serious the issue of mutation can be.for vaccine production. Reproducing a virus for producing a vaccine can and almost certainly will create mutations. Mutations reduce the effectiveness of the vaccine, and can drop effectiveness to zero in individual dosages.

So manufacture as fast as possible. Greater than 15 days for virus growth. Greater than 3 days for purification. That’s still a lot less than the 4 months maximum allowed for producing the 150 million doses or so of quadrivalent flu vaccine.

So …

… how much can the manufacturing time be reduced for 1 million doses? 18 days (minimising mutation and so maximising purity) or closer to 3 months?

The virus has not mutated considerably in the time since it left Wuhan. Mutation is not a barrier to a successful vaccine. Finding a safe and efficacious vaccine is difficult because all viruses are different.

Witty Rejoinder said:

mollwollfumble said:

mollwollfumble said:

I’ve tried all the scenarios I can think of and still can’t explain a duration of 10 months. These are the scenarios I’ve tried. As you can see, because I’m ignorant I’ve had to consider quite a lot.

I can’t get any of these to account for a the present delay in COVID vaccine release.

• Delay in setting up a high biosecurity environment
• CRISPR delays
  …

I didn’t mention one possibility among my list above. I deliberately omitted it.

Are you familiar with the Harvard Law?

Harvard Law

• Under the most rigorously controlled conditions of pressure, temperature, volume, humidity, and other variables, the organism will do as it damn well pleases.

Trying to overcome the Harvard Law could take some serious time.

——-

I can see now how serious the issue of mutation can be.for vaccine production. Reproducing a virus for producing a vaccine can and almost certainly will create mutations. Mutations reduce the effectiveness of the vaccine, and can drop effectiveness to zero in individual dosages.

So manufacture as fast as possible. Greater than 15 days for virus growth. Greater than 3 days for purification. That’s still a lot less than the 4 months maximum allowed for producing the 150 million doses or so of quadrivalent flu vaccine.

So …

… how much can the manufacturing time be reduced for 1 million doses? 18 days (minimising mutation and so maximising purity) or closer to 3 months?

The virus has not mutated considerably in the time since it left Wuhan. Mutation is not a barrier to a successful vaccine. Finding a safe and efficacious vaccine is difficult because all viruses are different.

One post someone put on this forum said at least 3000 mutated strains since Wuhan.

> Mutation is not a barrier to a successful vaccine.

Tell that to the HIV vaccine researchers. That was the reason given for abandoning all attempts at an HIV vaccine.

Let’s suppose you’re right. Then we should ASAP restart HIV vaccine research. Hundreds of thousands of people are still dying from HIV in places like Botswana.

mollwollfumble said:

Witty Rejoinder said:

mollwollfumble said:

I didn’t mention one possibility among my list above. I deliberately omitted it.

Are you familiar with the Harvard Law?

Harvard Law

• Under the most rigorously controlled conditions of pressure, temperature, volume, humidity, and other variables, the organism will do as it damn well pleases.

Trying to overcome the Harvard Law could take some serious time.

——-

I can see now how serious the issue of mutation can be.for vaccine production. Reproducing a virus for producing a vaccine can and almost certainly will create mutations. Mutations reduce the effectiveness of the vaccine, and can drop effectiveness to zero in individual dosages.

So manufacture as fast as possible. Greater than 15 days for virus growth. Greater than 3 days for purification. That’s still a lot less than the 4 months maximum allowed for producing the 150 million doses or so of quadrivalent flu vaccine.

So …

… how much can the manufacturing time be reduced for 1 million doses? 18 days (minimising mutation and so maximising purity) or closer to 3 months?

The virus has not mutated considerably in the time since it left Wuhan. Mutation is not a barrier to a successful vaccine. Finding a safe and efficacious vaccine is difficult because all viruses are different.

One post someone put on this forum said at least 3000 mutated strains since Wuhan.

> Mutation is not a barrier to a successful vaccine.

Tell that to the HIV vaccine researchers. That was the reason given for abandoning all attempts at an HIV vaccine.

Let’s suppose you’re right. Then we should ASAP restart HIV vaccine research. Hundreds of thousands of people are still dying from HIV in places like Botswana.

“Seventy-six distinct genomic clusters were identified, including large clusters associated with social venues, healthcare and cruise ships. Sequencing sequential samples from 98 patients reveals minimal intra-patient SARS-CoV-2 genomic diversity.”

A total of 1242 samples from 1075 patients were sequenced during the study period, representing 80.7% of all cases (Fig. 2). There were no significant demographic differences between cases with and cases without included sequence data “

“As reported elsewhere11,12, we found relatively little genetic variation across the genomes, with a maximum of 15 single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) observed relative to the Wuhan-1 reference (median seven SNPs, IQR 6–9).”

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-18314-x