The 6 biggest roadblocks to a Covid-19 vaccine, according to Ezekiel Emanuel – The Daily Briefing

Ever since the new coronavirus emerged as a global threat, public health officials have repeated the same warning: Shutdowns, masks, and social distancing can help to contain the virusbut the pandemic won't truly end until we get a vaccine.

Moderna's coronavirus vaccine shows promise. Here's what happens next.

But what does it mean to "get a vaccine"?

It's not enough, after all, to devise a single dose of vaccine in a hermetically sealed laboratory. We must also conduct clinical trials to prove that vaccine is effective, manufacture it in mind-boggling quantities under impeccably sanitary conditions, dispense it into hundreds of millions of vials, ship it (perhaps under refrigeration) to every city and village in the country, and inject it into the arms of nearly every single American.

And if the vaccine requires multiple doses? Well, we'll have to do much of that work all over again.

A slip-up at any of these stages could delay the end of the epidemic, potentially costing tens of thousands of livesand further postponing the day when America returns to "normal."

So which obstacles are most likely to delay a Covid-19 vaccine, and how can we prepare to overcome them? That's the focus of an extensive new report authored by Ezekiel Emanuel, the prominent bioethicist and former adviser to President Barack Obama, and Topher Spiro of the left-leaning Center for American Progress.

It's a sobering read, one that makes clear just how daunting a task it will be to bring this epidemic to a close.

Emanuel and Spiro identified no fewer than 22 roadblocks to a vaccine, surfacing seemingly esoteric issues such as limits in "the capacity of manufacturers of brewing equipment" and "assess[ing] alternatives to glass vials."

But upon deeper review, six potential problems stand out to us as especially critical:

How Covid-19 is disrupting your supply chain (and what to do about it)

For those of us feeling encouraged by the recent progress of vaccine candidates, Emanuel and Spiro's report is a sobering read. It makes clear that vaccine approval is just the "tip of the iceberg," and that the real work will come next: manufacturing, distributing, publicizing, and monitoring the vaccinethat is, taking it from a few isolated laboratories into the arms of 330 million Americans.

And let's not forget, even a universally administered vaccine may not be universally effective. The FDA has said it will approve a vaccine that shows 50% efficacy relative to a placebo. While manufacturers and public health experts are aiming for higher effectiveness (Peter Marks of the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research has proposed 70% as a goal), it's clear that early vaccines may still leave some patients vulnerable.

And all of this is unfolding against a backdrop that has revealed just how poorly prepared the health care industry is to manufacture and distribute needed suppliesfrom tests to drugs to personal protective equipmentat a massive scale on short notice.

Let's hope that plans such as this one can galvanize enough investment, coordination, and planning to resolve these problems and smooth our path to the "new normal."

Read the rest here:

The 6 biggest roadblocks to a Covid-19 vaccine, according to Ezekiel Emanuel - The Daily Briefing