COVID19 Update - Day 271

US Tests: 176,510,329*

US Cases: 14,524,035*

US Deaths: 273,374*

Worldwide Cases: 66,974,627*

Worldwide Deaths: 1,534,692*

* - Numbers are a lower bound.  True numbers are being suppressed by the Trump administration

Tonight, a few words about the AstraZeneca #TrumpVirus vaccine, the one for which my company is participating in Phase 3 trials:

Among the Covid-19 vaccines furthest along in development, the AstraZeneca-Oxford candidate is among the most likely to be affordable to low- and middle-income countries. And considering much of the world’s population currently lives in low- and middle-income settings, it’s the jab that — with a 90 percent efficacy result — could make a big dent in the pandemic worldwide.

It also uses a novel approach to inoculation, one that’s different from Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna — and from conventional vaccines.

Vaccine makers have typically used the virus itself or a fragment of the virus, often in a weakened or inactivated form, to inoculate recipients. But this new generation of vaccines uses genetic instructions for making parts of the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes Covid-19. All three candidates — Pfizer, Moderna, and AstraZeneca-Oxford — deliver the instructions for making the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein, or the part of the virus that lets it enter human cells. And it’s these instructions, which human cells then use to manufacture parts of the virus, that are injected into vaccine recipients, essentially coaching the immune system to fight off the invader should it arrive.

The Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines both use mRNA as their platform for delivering the genetic instructions. AstraZeneca-Oxford’s uses DNA instead, and the DNA is delivered to cells with the help of another virus known as an adenovirus. (Other Covid-19 vaccine developers, like CanSino Biologics and Johnson & Johnson, are also using adenovirus vectors.)

AstraZeneca, unlike Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech, has promised to sell its shot at cost — around $3 to $4 — and not to profit from the vaccine while the pandemic is ongoing (though public money has gone into funding its research effort). According to the FT, that price is “a fraction” of the expense of the other vaccine candidates, which are expected to cost between $15 and $25 per dose.