Here

Great news! Cautiously optimistic

omg omg omg! this must be what our little local paper was talking about! It said it could take over a year to have every person vaccinated but omg omg omg!

Well, in my opinion... it takes many years to develop a vaccine that is safe and effective. The amount of time it took to create this a little concerning. I don't know if I'll be jumping out there right away for this. I'll most likely be on stand by, watching the news once people start to be immunized.

What's everyone elses thoughts?

It's getting rushed.

I had it, I don't want a (dubiously) 10% chance of getting it again and potentially having Covid-19 worse than before. 99% isn't good for scientific things either, no such thing as 100% covered scientifically.

while I agree with you in general regarding new drugs, I disagree with respect to vaccines.

Vaccines are a very well understood part of the medical industry. All the covid vaccines started off with a safe and effective vaccine formula, that was then tweaked specifically for covid. That's the only way they could be made this quickly.

The biggest danger for this vaccine is that it turns out not to be as effective as they think, its effectiveness varies for different groups of people or its immunity runs out sooner than hoped/expected.

The chances of it causing unusual, deadly and/or widespread side effects is no larger than any other vaccine that's been in development for years. Vaccines are the safest drugs out there!

I would take the vaccine as soon as it became available to me to do so. I'm very high risk for a serious case of covid. I would also continue to use a mask and social distance after taking the vaccine because over-confidence is the major risk here.

We watched a pretty cool special on Netflix a few months ago that really explained how they are cutting time. I'm definitely still a little antsy about the rush but not as much as I would be had we not watched.

So if there are 4 phases (or are there 3?? 5?? haha I forget) - and each phase is 6+ months (I'm fudging the details bear with me..) then.. you would expect at least 2 years for a vaccine if all goes well. Given the urgency they are overlapping phases. So as long as all looks well they start phase 2 when phase 1 is only technically half complete. Phase 1 is still going and any issues would halt the entire process. So then mayhaps 3 months into phase 2 if all looks good they kick off phase 3 and so on. BOOM you've taken a year off the process, with minimal risk.

They are also building up some inventory on all the promising ones so it will be quicker to the shelves. The real problem with this is cost. Do all this and have it not work Cha ching.

Anyway, if I figure out what that special was I'll come back and link it here.

I think it was part 2 of 3 of this: Coronavirus, Explained Part 2: Race for the vaccine

https://www.netflix.com/title/81273378

I'm high risk as well. I have an autoimmune disease (psoriasis. I asked my derm if it was a skin condition and she said autoimmune because it's T cell related) as well as asthma and diabetes.

I'm really.. on the fence I guess. I mean, what happens if you get immunized and you get Covid really bad from the side effects? I know they've been testing human volunteers and some vaccines had to be scrapped.

If you end up getting the vaccine, please keep me updated on your progress/side effects ;-;

I hope that special is not a thing that's exclusive to the USA only. I'm Canadian and our Netflix kinda sucks lol. If you find it, please let me know what it's called and I'll see if we do have it.

Our risk factors are similar :). I have a couple of autoimmune diseases, asthma and diabetes. I don't expect the vaccine to be available anytime soon, but I'll try to remember to post about it when I get it.

I'm hopeful for it, but I'm not holding my breath. Besides anti-vaxxers existing, there's this new camp of people who believe that COVID is a hoax and any vaccine for it will be used to track or kill people or whatever. That population could negate any chance of herd immunity we have.

At the very least, I'd expect Biden's administration to handle it far better than Trump ever could. Here's hoping it's accessible and affordable for everyone. Even from a purely economic perspective, COVID has hit us hard, and the toll on human life is infinitely worse. Making the vaccine free for everyone, when it's tested and approved, would be a drop in the bucket and worth every penny.

I am not an anti-vaxx or anything but I sure as hell will not be first in line to get this. I'll just wait and see how it works on people first and if it's worth it. However, we might be all forced to get it somehow if we are to travel, etc ... I'm at risk because I'm obese but no other medical condition associated with being this way. I have an autoimmune disease as well but my body is never reacting happily to vaccines. When I get a flu shot, I end up more sick than if I had skipped getting it.

I'm on the fence haha.

There's still issues of how this vaccine is going to be distributed en masse because it needs to be stored at a minimum temperature of -70+ degrees celcius to stay stable enough to be administered. It also needs to be administered in 2 doses, not one.

That said, I'm cautiously optimistic about it because it's overall pretty good news.

Edit: oops, I probably shouldn't "get political" here. Anyway, good news. Cautiously optimistic here too.

While this is good news, my Doctors are hesitant about getting this vaccine to patients right away. My transplant team is recommending to wait about 6 to 8 months for wider results of the vaccine before even considering giving to their patients to rule out complications.

I'm an organ transplant recipient so not only do my life-saving drugs lower my immune system (that was already compromised because of it causing said organ failure) but they give me medicine induced diabetes type 2. This only further increases my risks of side effects of said vaccine/increased obstacles should I get Covid.

Are people aware of how selfish they sound when they say stuff like, "I won't get it first, I'll wait and see what it does to other people"? I mean, damn.

i'll take it soon as it rolls around idrc what happens to me and it feels like the right thing to do lmao

I will not in a million years accept the vaccine. Never.

I'm... Cautiously optimistic to say the least.

Can they really specify out this specific strain and make a true vaccine? It does come from the same family of viruses that cause common colds and flu after all. We have no cold vaccine, and we have flu vaccines but it changes each year. There's also really no meds that help get rid of the virus that causes the cold/flu, just ones to help us cope with symptoms when/if we get either of those illnesses. That said I'm going to wait on results to see if its a one and done for life like other vaccines are (like polio or smallpox) 1or if its going to be something yearly like the flu one.

I think it's interesting, but like other users have said it makes me nervous how quickly the vaccine has been made. My oldest sister is a huge risk factor but she still has a job cleaning buildings, and one of the buildings she cleans is a testing center (Where the test are sent off, not where they are taken.). The people that worked there and her doctors have recommended waiting on getting the vaccine just based on how vulnerable her health is.

I wouldn't mind getting it though. I am considered decently healthy, and if it helps others stay safe I am up for it.

From what I've heard, the COVID vaccine will probably work close to the flu vaccine in that people will need to get it every year, since it does mutate so rapidly--like the cold/flu.

However, much like the flu vaccine, the results of trials indicate that it prevents serious, life-threatening symptoms of COVID. Interestingly, the trials for the COVID vaccine seem way more effective than the flu vaccine, which typically hovers around 60% effectiveness iirc.

The bigger issue is whether it's also a sterilizing vaccine--as in, if someone gets vaccinated and then infected, are they still able to spread it to others? We don't have evidence either way on that yet. Right now, we just know that getting the vaccine will offer huge protection from an infection, and just about total protection from deadly or disabling symptoms.