No matter how hard you squint or what angle you look at, coronavirus vaccines are a triumph. They are saving lives today; they will help to end this pandemic eventually; and they will pay scientific dividends for generations.
The big picture: The pandemic is not over. There are still big threats ahead of us and big problems to solve. Despite all the things that went wrong last year, the vaccines themselves have destroyed even the most ambitious expectations.
Vaccines represent an “impressive scientific achievement for the world … unprecedented in the history of vaccinology,” said Dan Barouch, a Harvard virology and vaccine specialist who worked on the Johnson & Johnson vaccine.
Details: The development of a vaccine takes an average of 10 years – if it works. Despite years of well-funded research, there are still no vaccines for HIV or malaria, for example.
- We now have several COVID-19 vaccines, all developed in less than a year.
- The Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are the first successful mRNA vaccines in the world – which, to simplify too much, teach our bodies to generate an immune response without relying on weakened or inactivated viruses. It is a milestone that scientists have been working on for 30 years.
- Moderna’s vaccine is the company’s first licensed product of any kind.
More important, all major vaccines work extremely well.
- All four vaccines or vaccine candidates in the United States – from Pfizer, Moderna, AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson – appear to prevent coronavirus deaths and offer complete or near total protection against serious illnesses.
- Some of the vaccines are more effective than others at preventing mild or asymptomatic infections, but all of them significantly exceed the FDA limit to be considered effective.
The footprint: South Africa on Sunday suspended distribution of the AstraZeneca vaccine because it did not seem to work against the dangerous variant discovered there – which is spreading around the world.
- The other vaccine manufacturers also said that their products are not as effective against the South African variant.
But that’s a reason for the rest of the world to rely on existing vaccines, not to worry about them.
- Viruses can mutate when they spread widely. The best defense against generalized variants is to vaccinate as many people as possible and increase social distance to contain the virus.
- Pharmacists may need to develop booster doses or new prescriptions to deal with variants, but waiting for a vaccine that meets all variants will only leave the door open for more variants.
Our biggest problems they are not with the vaccines, but with the processes that surround them.
- Supplies need to increase; distribution needs to become much more efficient; we need to ensure that people have their second chance, when applicable; and people need to be willing to be vaccinated as soon as they are eligible.
- It is a long and difficult list to make, and making mistakes in these things can drag the pandemic on for years. But if we can get the process right, the vaccines themselves are powerful enough to do the job.
“As soon as the story of this is written, they will be referred to as some of the greatest achievements of science, ”Zeynep Tufekci, a sociologist at the University of North Carolina with a history of coronavirus foreknowledge, told The New York Times newspaper Ezra Klein.
- “It’s the kind of thing you would do with a national celebration and fireworks and church bells ringing and all that,” she said.
That was not a miracle, and it didn’t happen overnight. “What we saw last year is the result and the culmination of decades of scientific advances,” said Barouch.
- Researchers have been working with mRNA-based vaccines for about 30 years, fueled by broader advances in genetic science.
- These same advances also greatly accelerated genetic sequencing – which is why researchers were able to map the structure of COVID-19 weeks after the virus was discovered and then start working on potential vaccines.
What is the next: The vaccine race is one of the few areas in this entire pandemic where the United States and the world can learn from our successes, rather than our failures.
- The discovery of successful mRNA vaccines will, scientists hope, pave the way for a new generation of products that are more effective and easier to develop than previous vaccines.
- Distributing money to vaccine developers and establishing step-by-step communication with regulatory agencies has also helped to speed up this process and may help again in future pandemics.
The final result: “Good funding, great science and great collaboration with regulatory agencies – that’s how they were able to do something that I didn’t think could be done in a year,” said Mark Slifka, professor of immunology at Oregon Health & Science University.