La8rat wrote: ↑Fri Dec 25, 2020 1:17 pm
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I have nothing against vaccines in general, I get an annual flu jab even though its always a year behind the curve and I've never to my knowledge had flu ever.
I do have a problem with rushed through testing vaccines that are of a totally new to science type.. Is it Rna or something like that..
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The bold sentence is your issue. It's not totally new, Covid-19 is largely the same as SARS and MERS, the same working mechanisms, etc. The SARS and MERS were extensively researched about, up and (probably) including preliminary vaccines. As such, there was a huge amount of knowledge available to start with the Covid-19 vaccine. The SARS/MERS vaccine never did make it to the large scale production, because the potential pandemic was suppressed because SARS and MERS are far lest infectious as well government action to isolate the cases and avoid spreading out.
For vaccine approval, there are several steps to be done. These steps normally happen one after the other, with a lot of time in between. With the Covid-19 vaccine, this slack has been removed and these 3-phase testing steps have been laid out in overlap. During that overlap the results of the previous phase have been used for continuation of the next steps.
Be aware, the vaccines itself were already available some 6-7 months, maybe even 8 months ago. After that, no (significant) change (apart from things like the carrier and so). The only things that happened in that 6-8 months period was testing in 3 phases on an increasing sized herd and, especially in the third phase, determination of the vaccine effectivity "in the wild". For the latter, you simply need a sufficiently large herd, otherwise the numbers do not have a statistical meaning. The major "risk" is for people who joined the 3rd phase, when the results of the previous phase are still being evaluated.
And, even before the results of the 3rd phase do become available, manufacturers and governments can take the commercial risk to let production start, before the final approval is there. Normally the production facility is only build, once the approval is there. Now the production facilities were built and production started much earlier, because governments decided to invest in that risk and purchase the vaccines without final approval and only based on the results from phase 1&2.
And do not forget, some vaccines from 6-7-8 months ago simply didn't reach the finish, because of their side effects, insufficient effectivity, too expensive to make, etc. Though about those stopped vaccine developments, you don't hear in the press. With the consequence the anti-vaxxers do think the vaccines making it into the market are "rushed" and "dangerous".
All the phases required for formal vaccine approval have been applied, though just at overlapping time lines.
Or so to say, when you do want to approve something, you can wait with the approval actions until the product is available, or you can actively follow the product development/testing and obtain the info you need for your formal approval right at the moment it becomes available during development/testing. Not difficult, it just needs coordination. And more important, when this is done properly without the Trumpie amorality, there is nothing wrong with that.
Let us not forget, until now a couple of million vaccines have been jabbed and the only negative reports have been less than 10 allergic reactions. All items which are closely followed and immediately follow-ups have been published about.