The expert panel estimates that we are one-third of the way from the COVID-19 vaccine that will be available for all Americans. President Donald Trump also promised that a vaccine will be ready by the end of January 2021. Operation Warp Speed is a White House-led partnership for founding the Coronavirus vaccine. The government allocated almost $10 billion to the effort and as much as $1.2 billion has been promised on a single vaccine candidate.
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Experts Opinioned That We Are One-third Of The Way To COVID-19 Vaccine
The operation is under Trump’s administration and is taking every possible step to maximize the likelihood there will be a safe, effective vaccine against COVID-19 Anthony Fauci, the top infectious disease expert at the National Institutes of Health said, “I hope that a vaccine could be available by the end of 2020 or early 2021.” The program organized by Trump’s administration to pull together private pharmaceutical companies, government agencies, and the military to develop a vaccine for COVID-19. Around 140 vaccines are developing across the world by different researchers. Even though vaccines typically require years of research and testing, scientists and experts are racing to produce a safe and effective vaccine by next year. The experiments began in January with the succeeding of the SARS-CoV-2 genome.
Operation Warp speed and vaccine projects
The first vaccine trials in humans have already started in March. But some trials failed and others may end without a result. Even though some of them succeeded in stimulating the immune system to produce effective antibodies against the virus.
The time frame of vaccine preparation is shortened by overlapping several steps. The administration has no hope or guarantees to finish the process in January in the early stages of preparation and now they have reached almost one-third of the vaccine preparation. The steps included in the vaccine preparation are:
- Preclinical testing
This is the initial step in the process of vaccine preparation. In this step, scientists give the vaccine to animals such as mice or monkeys and watch whether it produces an immune response.
- Safety trials
This step is to test the safety of the vaccine. Scientists provide the vaccine to a small number of people. This step also decides the dosage that should be used to confirm to stimulate the immune system.
- Expanded trials
The vaccine will be given to more people to see how many become infected and determines if the vaccine protects against the Coronavirus.
- Approval
Regulators in each country review the results of each trial and decide whether to approve the vaccine or not.
- Warp speed
The program initiated by Trump’s administration is expected to name five or more vaccine projects to receive billions of dollars in federal funding before there is proof that the vaccine works.