Toronto calls in the superheroes to help with vaccinating young children against COVID-19.
As the number of cases in the U.S. continues to climb, many have asked: Where is our “vaccine” for COVID-19?
One of the most commonly asked questions in the U.S. is whether there are any vaccines for COVID-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus, known as SARS-CoV-2. Here in the U.S., there have been some promising results using an experimental vaccine, and some pharmaceutical companies are looking at potential vaccines in trials. In fact, some pharmaceutical and vaccine manufacturers have already begun clinical trials. On the other hand, some scientists have been skeptical about an effective vaccine for this novel coronavirus. One of the most outspoken skeptics is Dr. Jerome Cummings, chairman of the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, whose own vaccine was rejected by the FDA earlier this year for being too dangerous to administer to healthy people. “There’s no evidence, no studies, showing that a vaccine will protect you from a serious disease like this,” he said in February.
But a new study published in the New England Journal of Medicine suggests that a promising vaccine may be available for people. Two independent groups in China and Italy published results back-to-back in a study of more than 2,000 people in Wuhan, the epicenter of the outbreak. The study concluded that the new vaccine gave people who got it some immunity by blocking the virus’s ability to infect people.
The study looked at the antibody levels in the blood, and antibodies are substances produced by the body’s immune system that bind to viruses. They are the reason that many people with HIV stay on their medication. Now, there is a good chance that this study could lead to a significant breakthrough in the fight against SARS-CoV-2 and the pandemic we call COVID-19