WEBVTT - When Will We Have a Vaccine? 0:00:00.840 --> 0:00:04.040 Hi, it's your host Laura Carlson, and I've got a 0:00:04.120 --> 0:00:08.039 quick request for an upcoming episode. We want to hear 0:00:08.280 --> 0:00:12.000 your stories. Has the pandemic caused you to seek mental 0:00:12.000 --> 0:00:15.240 health care? If you're willing to talk about it, we'd 0:00:15.280 --> 0:00:18.120 like you to leave us a voicemail at one six 0:00:18.280 --> 0:00:23.080 or six three, two four three four nine zero. Tell 0:00:23.200 --> 0:00:25.760 us as much or as little as you want about 0:00:25.760 --> 0:00:28.720 your need to reach out for help, and then tell 0:00:28.800 --> 0:00:31.480 us whether you've been able to find it. That number 0:00:31.520 --> 0:00:36.160 again is one six four six three two four three 0:00:36.479 --> 0:00:40.040 nine zero. We may use your voice on an upcoming episode. 0:00:41.080 --> 0:00:53.120 Now onto the show. Welcome to Prognosis. It's day twenty 0:00:53.200 --> 0:00:58.440 two since coronavirus was declared a global pandemic. Today, how 0:00:58.480 --> 0:01:02.200 long will it take to develop up the vaccine? But first, 0:01:02.720 --> 0:01:17.120 today's news, a new intelligence report suggests China has concealed 0:01:17.360 --> 0:01:21.880 the extent of its coronavirus outbreak. Three US officials told 0:01:21.880 --> 0:01:25.840 Bloomberg about a classified report the intelligence community sent to 0:01:25.880 --> 0:01:30.200 the White House saying China underreported both its total cases 0:01:30.520 --> 0:01:35.399 and deaths. The officials asked not to be identified because 0:01:35.400 --> 0:01:38.200 the report is secret and did not describe its contents 0:01:38.200 --> 0:01:41.720 in detail. But they said the thrust of the report 0:01:41.840 --> 0:01:45.760 is that China's public reporting on cases and deaths is 0:01:45.840 --> 0:01:52.040 intentionally incomplete. In the US, which now has the largest 0:01:52.080 --> 0:01:55.760 public reported outbreak in the world, estimate show as many 0:01:55.800 --> 0:01:59.080 as two hundred and forty thousand Americans could die from 0:01:59.120 --> 0:02:05.520 COVID nineteen, and that's with mitigation efforts in place. Based 0:02:05.560 --> 0:02:09.520 on these projections, US President Donald Trump took a newly 0:02:09.680 --> 0:02:13.960 sober tone in a Tuesday briefing. I want every American 0:02:14.000 --> 0:02:16.760 to be prepared for the hard days that lie ahead. 0:02:17.040 --> 0:02:19.040 We're going to go through a very tough two weeks 0:02:20.560 --> 0:02:24.280 and then, hopefully, as the experts are predicting, as I 0:02:24.320 --> 0:02:26.680 think a lot of us are predicting, after having studied 0:02:26.720 --> 0:02:29.919 it so hard, you're gonna start seeing some real light 0:02:29.960 --> 0:02:31.440 at the end of the tunnel. But this is going 0:02:31.480 --> 0:02:35.400 to be a very painful, very very painful two weeks. 0:02:37.160 --> 0:02:40.240 For weeks, Trump had downplayed the threat of the virus, 0:02:40.639 --> 0:02:45.800 frequently telling reporters that it would simply go away. But 0:02:45.880 --> 0:02:48.639 at the Tuesday briefing, Deborah Burke's, the top public health 0:02:48.680 --> 0:02:52.680 official coordinating the Coronavirus Task Force, cited an estimate that 0:02:52.840 --> 0:02:56.120 US deaths would be between one and two hundred thousand, 0:02:56.680 --> 0:03:01.240 even with the most stringent mitigation measures in place. Mitigation 0:03:01.240 --> 0:03:04.640 measures like isolating people in their communities have started to 0:03:04.639 --> 0:03:07.960 show signs of working in some countries. Lockdown steps in 0:03:08.000 --> 0:03:11.560 the Netherlands seem to be having an effect. The number 0:03:11.680 --> 0:03:15.880 of fatalities and hospital admissions in the country is increasingly 0:03:15.960 --> 0:03:19.639 slower than would be expected without such measures at a 0:03:19.720 --> 0:03:25.720 Dutch research institute. Russian President Vladimir Putin has begun holding 0:03:25.760 --> 0:03:30.040 meetings remotely from his residence outside Moscow after being exposed 0:03:30.080 --> 0:03:33.560 to a doctor who is later diagnosed with coronavirus, said 0:03:33.560 --> 0:03:37.720 a Kremlin spokesman. The Kremlin says that Putin is regularly 0:03:37.760 --> 0:03:47.720 tested and is fine. Now for today's main story, why 0:03:47.800 --> 0:03:53.720 does a vaccine take so long? Scientists around the world 0:03:53.760 --> 0:03:57.560 are racing to develop a vaccine for COVID nineteen, but 0:03:57.720 --> 0:03:59.839 experts have said it could take a year to eight 0:04:00.240 --> 0:04:03.600 months for one to hit the market, and some think 0:04:03.960 --> 0:04:08.480 even eighteen months is conservative. The process for testing and 0:04:08.520 --> 0:04:12.200 approving of vaccine is long and complicated. That can be 0:04:12.240 --> 0:04:15.360 frustrating when the coronavirus is taking more and more lives 0:04:15.480 --> 0:04:19.880 every day. But cutting corners to push a vaccine through 0:04:19.920 --> 0:04:24.239 faster can lead to devastating consequences. We know that because 0:04:24.240 --> 0:04:27.839 it's happened before. Jason Gale has more on what it 0:04:27.880 --> 0:04:31.400 takes to develop a working vaccine and just how close 0:04:31.440 --> 0:04:38.440 we are to finding one for the virus. Today we 0:04:38.560 --> 0:04:42.960 met with the big great pharmaceutical companies and they're really 0:04:43.000 --> 0:04:46.680 working hard and they're working smart, and we had some 0:04:46.800 --> 0:04:48.880 We had a great meeting today with a lot of 0:04:48.880 --> 0:04:51.960 the great companies, and they can have vaccines, I think 0:04:52.040 --> 0:04:58.159 relatively soon, and they're gonna have something that makes you better, 0:04:58.440 --> 0:05:01.320 and that's gonna actually take place, we think even sooner. 0:05:01.680 --> 0:05:04.160 So it's a lot of good things are happening. But 0:05:04.320 --> 0:05:08.800 we have strong quarters. And you could be forgiven for 0:05:08.920 --> 0:05:12.560 thinking we already have a vaccine for the coronavirus, and 0:05:12.640 --> 0:05:16.080 actually that's sort of true. There are several, but there 0:05:16.120 --> 0:05:20.120 are only in the experimental stages. Healthy adults were immunized 0:05:20.200 --> 0:05:23.760 with an investigational vaccine in Seattle in mid March. These 0:05:23.839 --> 0:05:26.040 volunteers are due for a second shot in the upper 0:05:26.120 --> 0:05:28.680 arm in a week or so. It's part of clinical 0:05:28.720 --> 0:05:31.839 research funded by the National Institutes of Health that will 0:05:31.880 --> 0:05:35.520 continue for twelve months, which means it will take more 0:05:35.560 --> 0:05:38.359 than a year to fully evaluate the safety and efficacy 0:05:38.360 --> 0:05:41.240 of the vaccine candidate. And there's a good reason for 0:05:41.320 --> 0:05:45.120 not cutting any corners. No one knows exactly how serious 0:05:45.160 --> 0:05:49.680 this threat could be. Nevertheless, we cannot afford jadaka chance 0:05:49.760 --> 0:05:54.640 with the health of our nation. In nineteen seventy six, 0:05:54.760 --> 0:05:57.640 a late winter outbreak of swine flu at a military 0:05:57.640 --> 0:06:00.440 base in Fort Dix, New Jersey, led to fears of 0:06:00.480 --> 0:06:06.880 a devastating pandemic. President Gerald Ford announced him mass vaccination plan. First, 0:06:06.920 --> 0:06:10.240 I am asking the Congress to appropriate a hundred and 0:06:10.279 --> 0:06:14.240 thirty five million dollars for the production of sufficient vaccine 0:06:14.880 --> 0:06:19.039 to inoculate every man, woman, and child in the United States. 0:06:19.640 --> 0:06:23.799 Congress passed a liability act that basically indemnified the United 0:06:23.839 --> 0:06:27.160 States government for the safety of the vaccine. A first 0:06:27.160 --> 0:06:31.640 shot was withdrawn over safety concerns, leaving a second. By 0:06:31.680 --> 0:06:33.800 the end of the year, forty million out of some 0:06:33.920 --> 0:06:37.479 two hundred million Americans got the JAB. The problem was 0:06:37.839 --> 0:06:42.359 no pandemic appeared, but that second vaccine well. One of 0:06:42.360 --> 0:06:44.880 those who did roll up hers leave was Judy Roberts. 0:06:44.960 --> 0:06:48.240 She was perfectly healthy and active woman when in November 0:06:48.279 --> 0:06:52.280 of nineteen seventy six. She took her shot. Two weeks later, 0:06:52.320 --> 0:06:54.600 she says she began to feel a numbness starting up 0:06:54.600 --> 0:06:57.880 her legs. I talked about at that time. I said, 0:06:57.880 --> 0:07:00.360 I've been under the knees by Friday. Is it keeps 0:07:00.440 --> 0:07:04.360 up by the following week? How was totally fair aline. 0:07:05.320 --> 0:07:08.520 It was linked to an immune dysfunction, a disease called 0:07:08.560 --> 0:07:13.360 Giame Bret syndrome. He's Laurie Garrett pullit Surprisemann, science writer 0:07:13.480 --> 0:07:16.840 who covered the story. And so a fair percentage of 0:07:16.840 --> 0:07:20.480 the recipients I mean when I say a fair percentage, 0:07:20.960 --> 0:07:24.600 less than one, but more than the zero that would 0:07:24.600 --> 0:07:29.120 be the norm, came down with giambre, which causes paralysis. 0:07:29.640 --> 0:07:33.000 And you know, it kind of stunned the nation. And 0:07:33.040 --> 0:07:36.400 because there was this giant pot of gold, meaning the 0:07:36.480 --> 0:07:40.320 indemnification that Congress had done, lawyers came out of the 0:07:40.320 --> 0:07:44.960 woodwork from everywhere. And the lawsuits persisted in federal courts 0:07:45.000 --> 0:07:48.400 for well over a decade. And that was a real mess. 0:07:49.280 --> 0:07:52.640 Needless to say, governments and vaccine makers are a lot 0:07:52.680 --> 0:07:56.239 more cautious. In fact, it wasn't unusual for a vaccine 0:07:56.280 --> 0:07:59.840 to take ten years to develop newer technology has helped 0:08:00.000 --> 0:08:02.800 beat up the process, but the real breakthrough came in 0:08:02.880 --> 0:08:06.520 two thousand and fourteen. The World Health Organization was able 0:08:06.560 --> 0:08:09.720 to coordinate clinical trials to test the safety of an 0:08:09.720 --> 0:08:13.760 experimental vaccine for a bowler a parallel study gauge the 0:08:13.800 --> 0:08:17.600 optimal dose needed for immunity. It demonstrated a new way 0:08:17.640 --> 0:08:21.720 of truncating early clinical research into just a few months, 0:08:22.280 --> 0:08:24.760 and that meant doctors could begin testing the evowl of 0:08:24.840 --> 0:08:27.600 vaccine and large numbers of people in West Africa just 0:08:27.760 --> 0:08:30.280 six months after the first person was given the shot. 0:08:31.120 --> 0:08:34.560 The brains behind that expedited research and development plan is 0:08:34.640 --> 0:08:38.240 Dr Murray Paul Kenney. She's a veteran vaccinologist who was 0:08:38.240 --> 0:08:41.480 an Assistant Director General at the who. You don't want 0:08:41.480 --> 0:08:45.400 to to confront people with a preparation which is not 0:08:45.559 --> 0:08:48.880 protecting them against the disease. So at months six we 0:08:48.880 --> 0:08:52.920 were able to start the phase three clinical trials in 0:08:53.240 --> 0:08:58.480 several thousand people to test whether easifficacious and the face 0:08:59.360 --> 0:09:02.840 turned out was successful. So it took about a year 0:09:02.920 --> 0:09:05.599 for scientists to determine that the candidate a bowl of 0:09:05.679 --> 0:09:09.760 vaccine worked. The vaccine is made by Merken Company. It 0:09:09.880 --> 0:09:13.080 was subsequently registered and it's played a huge role in 0:09:13.160 --> 0:09:16.240 containing a more recent bowler outbreak in the Congo and 0:09:16.320 --> 0:09:20.640 Murray Paul's process for fast tracking research during outbreaks informed 0:09:20.640 --> 0:09:23.679 a blueprint that research teams around the world are using 0:09:23.679 --> 0:09:27.400 now for testing not just COVID nineteen vaccines, but also 0:09:27.480 --> 0:09:32.319 drug treatments and diagnostics. Already, two candidate vaccines for COVID 0:09:32.400 --> 0:09:35.480 nineteen are being studied in humans. Besides the one that 0:09:35.520 --> 0:09:39.200 the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and Maderna 0:09:39.240 --> 0:09:41.319 are developing, there's a trial and a way of a 0:09:41.400 --> 0:09:45.560 vaccine in China. In addition, the WHO accounts fifty two 0:09:45.640 --> 0:09:50.199 other experimental immunizations in preclinical study. Here's Murray Paul again, 0:09:51.000 --> 0:09:53.720 and when they start king to try, they will need 0:09:54.240 --> 0:09:57.920 most likely a year to be sure that this vaccine 0:09:57.960 --> 0:10:01.920 work and to be able to start choosing people. Murray 0:10:01.920 --> 0:10:04.319 Paul retired from the w h O in two thousand 0:10:04.320 --> 0:10:07.120 and seventeen, and it's back working as a director of 0:10:07.200 --> 0:10:11.600 research for in the French National Health Research Organization. She's 0:10:11.640 --> 0:10:15.880 also on a pandemic committee advising French President Emmanuel Macron. 0:10:16.520 --> 0:10:18.719 She says the time it will take to develop a 0:10:18.840 --> 0:10:21.959 vaccine for the coronavirus. Means we need to do as 0:10:22.040 --> 0:10:24.640 much as we can now to slow its spread and 0:10:24.679 --> 0:10:28.760 to find drug treatments. But what if there was already 0:10:28.800 --> 0:10:32.480 a safe and inexpensive vaccine on the market to blunt 0:10:32.520 --> 0:10:43.360 the pandemic. Well maybe there is. Vacillus kalmic gerin or 0:10:43.520 --> 0:10:47.319 BCG is the name of the tuberculosis vaccine that's been 0:10:47.320 --> 0:10:51.920 around for a century. It's safe, it's inexpensive, and we 0:10:51.960 --> 0:10:54.840 give it to one and thirty million newborns a year, 0:10:55.200 --> 0:10:58.000 mostly in countries with the lung diseases still a major 0:10:58.040 --> 0:11:00.600 health problem. But the shot isn't us to use to 0:11:00.600 --> 0:11:04.760 prevent TB. It has some off target benefits, and it's 0:11:04.800 --> 0:11:08.400 a common immunotherapy for early stage bladder cancer. It also 0:11:08.440 --> 0:11:11.600 seeks to train the body's first line immune defense to 0:11:11.640 --> 0:11:15.000 better fight infections. Scientists are seeing if it can be 0:11:15.080 --> 0:11:19.840 effectively repurposed to fight COVID nineteen, studying with healthcare workers. 0:11:21.200 --> 0:11:23.680 As you know, it's probably going to take many months 0:11:24.240 --> 0:11:28.200 before a specific vaccine for COVID nineteen is developed, and 0:11:28.240 --> 0:11:30.800 in the meantime, we need to think of every possible 0:11:30.840 --> 0:11:33.120 way that we can protect healthcare workers, who of course 0:11:33.400 --> 0:11:37.240 are very high risk and it's going to be particular 0:11:37.320 --> 0:11:40.079 need to reduce the amount of time that our healthcare 0:11:40.160 --> 0:11:44.920 workers are absent. This is Professor Nigel Curtis. He's had 0:11:44.920 --> 0:11:48.920 of infectious diseases research at the Murdoch Children's Research Institute 0:11:48.920 --> 0:11:52.280 in Melbourne. He's also head of the Infectious Diseases unit 0:11:52.520 --> 0:11:56.280 at the city's Royal Children's Hospital. Staff they're volunteered to 0:11:56.280 --> 0:11:59.720 get the BCG vaccine this week in a randomized controlled 0:11:59.760 --> 0:12:04.240 try involving four thousand healthcare workers. Even people who got 0:12:04.240 --> 0:12:07.720 the shot as an infant are eligible to participate. That's 0:12:07.760 --> 0:12:11.120 because any beneficial off target effects of the vaccine are 0:12:11.160 --> 0:12:16.000 probably lost with time. Miragel says, we will follow our 0:12:16.040 --> 0:12:19.400 participants for the following six months or how the long 0:12:19.480 --> 0:12:23.520 coronavirus lasts in Australia, and we will compare those who 0:12:23.600 --> 0:12:26.480 didn't didn't get the BCG vaccine to see where the 0:12:26.520 --> 0:12:29.800 first of all, they actually developed symptoms of COVID nineteen 0:12:30.080 --> 0:12:33.200 and if they do, how severe those symptoms are, and 0:12:33.200 --> 0:12:36.200 that will enable us to see whether the vaccine and 0:12:36.320 --> 0:12:38.960 both reduces the number of people who have become affected 0:12:38.960 --> 0:12:42.439 by the virus and whether it can reduce the impact 0:12:42.440 --> 0:12:44.920 of that so particularly not only how un well they are, 0:12:44.960 --> 0:12:46.800 but how long that means they have to be off work, 0:12:46.840 --> 0:12:51.520 which of course is the very important thing for healthcare workers. 0:12:51.520 --> 0:12:55.120 Similar researches underway in the Netherlands, and other testing sites 0:12:55.160 --> 0:12:58.679 are planned in Australia and possibly the US. The Studies 0:12:58.760 --> 0:13:02.160 Data Monitoring Committee will review the results after three months 0:13:02.200 --> 0:13:04.880 to look for any signs at the approach is working. 0:13:05.640 --> 0:13:09.880 Nigel says he's optimistic, but there are no guarantees. The 0:13:09.960 --> 0:13:13.000 only way to find out is by doing a clinical trial. 0:13:45.120 --> 0:13:48.160 That's it for the Prognosis Daily Edition. For more on 0:13:48.200 --> 0:13:52.800 the coronavirus crisis from one bureaus around the world, visit 0:13:52.840 --> 0:13:58.559 Bloomberg dot com slash coronavirus. If you appreciate the podcast, 0:13:58.760 --> 0:14:00.920 please take a moment to us and leave us a 0:14:00.960 --> 0:14:05.319 review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify to help more listeners 0:14:05.320 --> 0:14:10.080 find our global reporting. The Prognosis Daily Edition is hosted 0:14:10.080 --> 0:14:13.120 by me Laura Carlson. The show is produced by me 0:14:13.480 --> 0:14:19.600 tophor foreheas, Jordan Gaspoure, and Magnus Hendrickson. Reporting by Jason Gale. 0:14:20.520 --> 0:14:25.720 Original music by Leo Sidrin. Our editors are Francesca Levi 0:14:26.000 --> 0:14:30.640 and Rick Shine. Francesco Levi is Bloomberg's head of podcasts. 0:14:31.240 --> 0:14:32.080 Thanks for listening.