How soon for a Vaccine?

When will we have a Covid-19 vaccine? The UK’s chief scientific adviser, Sir Patrick Vallance, and his US counterpart, Dr. Anthony Fauci, keep repeating that it won’t be before 12 to 18 months. But other scientists, such as the University of Oxford have suggested that it could be as early as June. So, Who is right?

So first of all, this pandemic is forcing change at almost every step in the process by which a new vaccine is developed.

A few days ago, a scientist from the university of Oxford said said they would have a vaccine ready by the end of 2020, so what they were referring to was an experimental vaccine.

An experimental vaccine that is deemed safe and effective enough to be rolled out in a more limited way – to high-risk groups such as health workers, – that could be ready within weeks or months, under emergency rules developed by drug regulatory agencies and the World Health Organization in the context of the recent Ebola epidemics in Africa.

The Oxford university group, led by Sarah Gilbert, has since stated that a vaccine shown to be effective in phase-3 clinical trials that could be manufactured in large quantities won’t be ready before this autumn, even in a best-case scenario.