COVID-19 needs a Manhattan Project

[John Clark]

A single vaccine factory can cost half a billion dollars and 44 vaccines are in early stage development, and even after you find one that works and is safe you're going to need billions of doses to vaccinate everybody. Because nobody else is doing anything Bill Gates picked 7 out of those 44 that he thought were most promising and decided to build factories right now for all 7 with full knowledge that he will end up wasting billions of dollars. Gates said:

"Even though we’ll end up picking at most two of them, we’re going to fund factories for all seven, just so that we don’t waste time in serially saying, ‘OK, which vaccine works?’ and then building the factory. We can start now by building the facilities where these vaccines will be made. Because many of the top candidates are made using unique equipment, we’ll have to build facilities for each of them, knowing that some won’t get used. Private companies can’t take that kind of risk, but the federal government can." 

Gates can take the risk but so can the federal government, and they can do things on an even larger scale than he can. And we're not going to get back to normal until a vaccine is found and we're mass producing it. The following is from an editorial in the March 27 2020 issue of the journal Science:

==

"There is an unprecedented race to develop a vaccine against severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). With at least 44 vaccines in early-stage development, what outcome can we expect? Will the first vaccine to cross the finish line be the safest and most effective? Or will it be the most well-funded vaccines that first become available, or perhaps those using vaccine technologies with the fewest regulatory hurdles? The answer could be a vaccine that ticks all these boxes. If we want to maximize the chances for success, however, and have enough doses to end the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, current piecemeal efforts won't be enough. If ever there was a case for a coordinated global vaccine development effort using a “big science” approach, it is now.


There is a strong track record for publicly funded, large-scale scientific endeavors that bring together global expertise and resources toward a common goal. The Manhattan Project brought about nuclear weapons quickly (although with terrible implications for humanity) through an approach that led to countless changes in how scientists from many countries work together. The Human Genome Project and CERN (the European Organization for Nuclear Research) engaged scientists from around the world to drive basic research from their home labs through local and virtual teamwork. Taking this big, coordinated approach to developing a SARS-CoV-2 vaccine will not only potentially save hundreds of thousands of lives, but will also help the world be better prepared for the next pandemic.


An initiative of this scale won't be easy. Extraordinary sharing of information and resources will be critical, including data on the virus, the various vaccine candidates, vaccine adjuvants, cell lines, and manufacturing advances. Allowing different efforts to follow their own leads during the early stages will take advantage of healthy competition that is vital to the scientific endeavor. We must then decide which vaccine candidates warrant further exploration purely on the basis of scientific merit. This will require drawing on work already supported by many government agencies, independent organizations like the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, and pharmaceutical and biotech companies to ensure that no potentially important candidate vaccines are missed. Only then can we start to narrow in on those candidates to be advanced through all clinical trial phases. This shortlist also needs to be based on which candidates can be developed, approved, and manufactured most efficiently.

Trials need to be carried out in parallel, not sequentially, using adaptive trial designs, optimized for speed and tested in different populations—rich and developing countries, from children to the elderly—so that we can ultimately protect everyone. Because the virus is spreading quickly, testing will be needed in communities where we can get answers fast—that means running trials anywhere in the world, not just in preset testing locations. Working with regulators early in the process will increase the likelihood of rapid approvals, and then once approved, a coordinated effort will ensure that sufficient quantities are available to all who need the vaccine, not just to the highest bidder.

All of this will require substantial funding, which is the big ask of big science. Late-stage clinical trials are not cheap, nor is vaccine manufacturing. Although new modular manufacturing methods may speed up the process and cut costs, a single vaccine facility can cost half a billion dollars. Distribution comes at a cost, too. So, to guarantee sufficient production of SARS-CoV-2 vaccines, incentives are needed to engage manufacturers for large-scale capacity. As for dissemination, those organizations with experience in global vaccine distribution, like Gavi, will be at the ready.

Ideally, this effort would be led by a team with a scientific advisory mechanism of the highest quality that could operate under the auspices of the World Health Organization (WHO), for example. But none of this will be possible without political will and a global commitment from leaders of the G7 and G20 countries and multilateral organizations, like the WHO and the World Bank. A pandemic of this magnitude, affecting so many lives, livelihoods, and economies, demands this.

In many ways, COVID-19 is more like the Manhattan Project than other big science efforts, not just because it involves the application of science and not just in terms of scale, but because it is a global security issue. In the race to develop a SARS-CoV-2 vaccine, everyone must win."

John K Clark

[Chris de Morsella]

This virus is, for some, very serious. I live in one of the first affected areas in King County, WA just miles from the epicenter.

My personal anecdotal experience:

My family contracted it, we are in isolation. For my wife and I, it was serious, especially for me as it progressed into my lungs. Last weekend was terrifying as my condition was rapidly deteriorating and I was struggling to breath. My blood oxygen levels -- we have a sensor unit at home -- dropped below 90 and my pulse rate, which for me, at rest, is normally around 60 went up to above 80. Pleuritis set in and breathing felt like broken glass shards were in the bottom of my lungs. At the covid emergency clinic I  went to that my provider has setup the doctors were worried and wanted me to go to the hospital. It looked like pneumonia might have set in, but x-rays, they took, thankfully ruled that out. 

I am slowly recovering and my blood oxygen levels have climbed up out of the real danger zone where sepsis can begin occurring. They fluctuate in a band between 92-95, and my resting pulse rate has come back down towards 60 again. Slowly but surely I am breathing easier and feel my health & life returning. The pain from the pleuritis has gone way down as well.

I am lucky to have very good health insurance and to be working for a large software company here that has been supportive as I've gone through this ordeal.... and to be in a role that is important especially now. The division I work for enables enterprises to operate in the cloud by providing a hybrid identity service that can protect access to all their on-premises applications/services by enabling authentication/authorization from remote users through our cloud.

My wife did not get as sick as I did, but we are both suffering fatigue; our 16 year old daughter probably got this, but hardly felt anything.

For many people this may not be that serious, but others are dying.

Please stay safe and do your part to help hold the transmission rate down in order to give our over-taxed medical systems the ability to handle the critical load.

Last weekend was terrifying for me at a personal level, as I -- like everyone else -- saw thise images of dead bodies piled up in make shift morgues.... thinkibg I could be one of them.

-Chris

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[Telmo Menezes]

Oh man... I am relived to read that you are recovering. Hope that you are 100% healthy soon!

Best wishes,

Telmo

On Wed, Apr 8, 2020, at 01:39, 'Chris de Morsella' via Everything List wrote:

This virus is, for some, very serious. I live in one of the first affected areas in King County, WA just miles from the epicenter.

My personal anecdotal experience:

My family contracted it, we are in isolation. For my wife and I, it was serious, especially for me as it progressed into my lungs. Last weekend was terrifying as my condition was rapidly deteriorating and I was struggling to breath. My blood oxygen levels -- we have a sensor unit at home -- dropped below 90 and my pulse rate, which for me, at rest, is normally around 60 went up to above 80. Pleuritis set in and breathing felt like broken glass shards were in the bottom of my lungs. At the covid emergency clinic I  went to that my provider has setup the doctors were worried and wanted me to go to the hospital. It looked like pneumonia might have set in, but x-rays, they took, thankfully ruled that out. 

I am slowly recovering and my blood oxygen levels have climbed up out of the real danger zone where sepsis can begin occurring. They fluctuate in a band between 92-95, and my resting pulse rate has come back down towards 60 again. Slowly but surely I am breathing easier and feel my health & life returning. The pain from the pleuritis has gone way down as well.

I am lucky to have very good health insurance and to be working for a large software company here that has been supportive as I've gone through this ordeal.... and to be in a role that is important especially now. The division I work for enables enterprises to operate in the cloud by providing a hybrid identity service that can protect access to all their on-premises applications/services by enabling authentication/authorization from remote users through our cloud.

My wife did not get as sick as I did, but we are both suffering fatigue; our 16 year old daughter probably got this, but hardly felt anything.

For many people this may not be that serious, but others are dying.

Please stay safe and do your part to help hold the transmission rate down in order to give our over-taxed medical systems the ability to handle the critical load.

Last weekend was terrifying for me at a personal level, as I -- like everyone else -- saw thise images of dead bodies piled up in make shift morgues.... thinkibg I could be one of them.

-Chris

A single vaccine factory can cost half a billion dollars and 44 vaccines are in early stage development, and even after you find one that works and is safe you're going to need billions of doses to vaccinate everybody. Because nobody else is doing anything Bill Gates picked 7 out of those 44 that he thought were most promising and decided to build factories right now for all 7 with full knowledge that he will end up wasting billions of dollars. Gates said:

"Even though we’ll end up picking at most two of them, we’re going to fund factories for all seven, just so that we don’t waste time in serially saying, ‘OK, which vaccine works?’ and then building the factory. We can start now by building the facilities where these vaccines will be made. Because many of the top candidates are made using unique equipment, we’ll have to build facilities for each of them, knowing that some won’t get used. Private companies can’t take that kind of risk, but the federal government can." 

Gates can take the risk but so can the federal government, and they can do things on an even larger scale than he can. And we're not going to get back to normal until a vaccine is found and we're mass producing it. The following is from an editorial in the March 27 2020 issue of the journal Science:

==

"There is an unprecedented race to develop a vaccine against severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). With at least 44 vaccines in early-stage development, what outcome can we expect? Will the first vaccine to cross the finish line be the safest and most effective? Or will it be the most well-funded vaccines that first become available, or perhaps those using vaccine technologies with the fewest regulatory hurdles? The answer could be a vaccine that ticks all these boxes. If we want to maximize the chances for success, however, and have enough doses to end the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, current piecemeal efforts won't be enough. If ever there was a case for a coordinated global vaccine development effort using a “big science” approach, it is now.


There is a strong track record for publicly funded, large-scale scientific endeavors that bring together global expertise and resources toward a common goal. The Manhattan Project brought about nuclear weapons quickly (although with terrible implications for humanity) through an approach that led to countless changes in how scientists from many countries work together. The Human Genome Project and CERN (the European Organization for Nuclear Research) engaged scientists from around the world to drive basic research from their home labs through local and virtual teamwork. Taking this big, coordinated approach to developing a SARS-CoV-2 vaccine will not only potentially save hundreds of thousands of lives, but will also help the world be better prepared for the next pandemic.


An initiative of this scale won't be easy. Extraordinary sharing of information and resources will be critical, including data on the virus, the various vaccine candidates, vaccine adjuvants, cell lines, and manufacturing advances. Allowing different efforts to follow their own leads during the early stages will take advantage of healthy competition that is vital to the scientific endeavor. We must then decide which vaccine candidates warrant further exploration purely on the basis of scientific merit. This will require drawing on work already supported by many government agencies, independent organizations like the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, and pharmaceutical and biotech companies to ensure that no potentially important candidate vaccines are missed. Only then can we start to narrow in on those candidates to be advanced through all clinical trial phases. This shortlist also needs to be based on which candidates can be developed, approved, and manufactured most efficiently.

Trials need to be carried out in parallel, not sequentially, using adaptive trial designs, optimized for speed and tested in different populations—rich and developing countries, from children to the elderly—so that we can ultimately protect everyone. Because the virus is spreading quickly, testing will be needed in communities where we can get answers fast—that means running trials anywhere in the world, not just in preset testing locations. Working with regulators early in the process will increase the likelihood of rapid approvals, and then once approved, a coordinated effort will ensure that sufficient quantities are available to all who need the vaccine, not just to the highest bidder.

All of this will require substantial funding, which is the big ask of big science. Late-stage clinical trials are not cheap, nor is vaccine manufacturing. Although new modular manufacturing methods may speed up the process and cut costs, a single vaccine facility can cost half a billion dollars. Distribution comes at a cost, too. So, to guarantee sufficient production of SARS-CoV-2 vaccines, incentives are needed to engage manufacturers for large-scale capacity. As for dissemination, those organizations with experience in global vaccine distribution, like Gavi, will be at the ready.

Ideally, this effort would be led by a team with a scientific advisory mechanism of the highest quality that could operate under the auspices of the World Health Organization (WHO), for example. But none of this will be possible without political will and a global commitment from leaders of the G7 and G20 countries and multilateral organizations, like the WHO and the World Bank. A pandemic of this magnitude, affecting so many lives, livelihoods, and economies, demands this.

In many ways, COVID-19 is more like the Manhattan Project than other big science efforts, not just because it involves the application of science and not just in terms of scale, but because it is a global security issue. In the race to develop a SARS-CoV-2 vaccine, everyone must win."

John K Clark

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[Bruno Marchal]

On 8 Apr 2020, at 03:39, 'Chris de Morsella' via Everything List <everyth...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

This virus is, for some, very serious. I live in one of the first affected areas in King County, WA just miles from the epicenter.

My personal anecdotal experience:

My family contracted it, we are in isolation. For my wife and I, it was serious, especially for me as it progressed into my lungs. Last weekend was terrifying as my condition was rapidly deteriorating and I was struggling to breath. My blood oxygen levels -- we have a sensor unit at home -- dropped below 90 and my pulse rate, which for me, at rest, is normally around 60 went up to above 80. Pleuritis set in and breathing felt like broken glass shards were in the bottom of my lungs. At the covid emergency clinic I  went to that my provider has setup the doctors were worried and wanted me to go to the hospital. It looked like pneumonia might have set in, but x-rays, they took, thankfully ruled that out. 

I am slowly recovering and my blood oxygen levels have climbed up out of the real danger zone where sepsis can begin occurring. They fluctuate in a band between 92-95, and my resting pulse rate has come back down towards 60 again. Slowly but surely I am breathing easier and feel my health & life returning. The pain from the pleuritis has gone way down as well.

I am lucky to have very good health insurance and to be working for a large software company here that has been supportive as I've gone through this ordeal.... and to be in a role that is important especially now. The division I work for enables enterprises to operate in the cloud by providing a hybrid identity service that can protect access to all their on-premises applications/services by enabling authentication/authorization from remote users through our cloud.

My wife did not get as sick as I did, but we are both suffering fatigue; our 16 year old daughter probably got this, but hardly felt anything.

For many people this may not be that serious, but others are dying.

Please stay safe and do your part to help hold the transmission rate down in order to give our over-taxed medical systems the ability to handle the critical load.

Last weekend was terrifying for me at a personal level, as I -- like everyone else -- saw thise images of dead bodies piled up in make shift morgues.... thinkibg I could be one of them.

Nice to hear that you are recovering health, you and the people you care about, Chris. That virus is something to take seriously, no doubt.

I am actually teaching at a distance, which gives much more work, but I am happy to be able to do that. 

I hope we will learn some lesson from this, and that we will manage the economic aftermath in some fair ways for everybody.

Best,

Bruno

-Chris

On Tue, Apr 7, 2020 at 3:37 PM, John Clark

<johnk...@gmail.com> wrote:

A single vaccine factory can cost half a billion dollars and 44 vaccines are in early stage development, and even after you find one that works and is safe you're going to need billions of doses to vaccinate everybody. Because nobody else is doing anything Bill Gates picked 7 out of those 44 that he thought were most promising and decided to build factories right now for all 7 with full knowledge that he will end up wasting billions of dollars. Gates said:

"Even though we’ll end up picking at most two of them, we’re going to fund factories for all seven, just so that we don’t waste time in serially saying, ‘OK, which vaccine works?’ and then building the factory. We can start now by building the facilities where these vaccines will be made. Because many of the top candidates are made using unique equipment, we’ll have to build facilities for each of them, knowing that some won’t get used. Private companies can’t take that kind of risk, but the federal government can." 

Gates can take the risk but so can the federal government, and they can do things on an even larger scale than he can. And we're not going to get back to normal until a vaccine is found and we're mass producing it. The following is from an editorial in the March 27 2020 issue of the journal Science:

==

"There is an unprecedented race to develop a vaccine against severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). With at least 44 vaccines in early-stage development, what outcome can we expect? Will the first vaccine to cross the finish line be the safest and most effective? Or will it be the most well-funded vaccines that first become available, or perhaps those using vaccine technologies with the fewest regulatory hurdles? The answer could be a vaccine that ticks all these boxes. If we want to maximize the chances for success, however, and have enough doses to end the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, current piecemeal efforts won't be enough. If ever there was a case for a coordinated global vaccine development effort using a “big science” approach, it is now.


There is a strong track record for publicly funded, large-scale scientific endeavors that bring together global expertise and resources toward a common goal. The Manhattan Project brought about nuclear weapons quickly (although with terrible implications for humanity) through an approach that led to countless changes in how scientists from many countries work together. The Human Genome Project and CERN (the European Organization for Nuclear Research) engaged scientists from around the world to drive basic research from their home labs through local and virtual teamwork. Taking this big, coordinated approach to developing a SARS-CoV-2 vaccine will not only potentially save hundreds of thousands of lives, but will also help the world be better prepared for the next pandemic.


An initiative of this scale won't be easy. Extraordinary sharing of information and resources will be critical, including data on the virus, the various vaccine candidates, vaccine adjuvants, cell lines, and manufacturing advances. Allowing different efforts to follow their own leads during the early stages will take advantage of healthy competition that is vital to the scientific endeavor. We must then decide which vaccine candidates warrant further exploration purely on the basis of scientific merit. This will require drawing on work already supported by many government agencies, independent organizations like the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, and pharmaceutical and biotech companies to ensure that no potentially important candidate vaccines are missed. Only then can we start to narrow in on those candidates to be advanced through all clinical trial phases. This shortlist also needs to be based on which candidates can be developed, approved, and manufactured most efficiently.

Trials need to be carried out in parallel, not sequentially, using adaptive trial designs, optimized for speed and tested in different populations—rich and developing countries, from children to the elderly—so that we can ultimately protect everyone. Because the virus is spreading quickly, testing will be needed in communities where we can get answers fast—that means running trials anywhere in the world, not just in preset testing locations. Working with regulators early in the process will increase the likelihood of rapid approvals, and then once approved, a coordinated effort will ensure that sufficient quantities are available to all who need the vaccine, not just to the highest bidder.

All of this will require substantial funding, which is the big ask of big science. Late-stage clinical trials are not cheap, nor is vaccine manufacturing. Although new modular manufacturing methods may speed up the process and cut costs, a single vaccine facility can cost half a billion dollars. Distribution comes at a cost, too. So, to guarantee sufficient production of SARS-CoV-2 vaccines, incentives are needed to engage manufacturers for large-scale capacity. As for dissemination, those organizations with experience in global vaccine distribution, like Gavi, will be at the ready.

Ideally, this effort would be led by a team with a scientific advisory mechanism of the highest quality that could operate under the auspices of the World Health Organization (WHO), for example. But none of this will be possible without political will and a global commitment from leaders of the G7 and G20 countries and multilateral organizations, like the WHO and the World Bank. A pandemic of this magnitude, affecting so many lives, livelihoods, and economies, demands this.

In many ways, COVID-19 is more like the Manhattan Project than other big science efforts, not just because it involves the application of science and not just in terms of scale, but because it is a global security issue. In the race to develop a SARS-CoV-2 vaccine, everyone must win."

John K Clark

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[Lawrence Crowell]

I have had symptoms of Covid-19, but they have been comparatively mild. They episodically return though, such as Monday I had the dry cough and tight chest feeling return. This is if anything somewhat persistent. It sounds though as if you are on the down-slope of this, which I will warn you is a long path, 

LC

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[Lawrence Crowell]

To take this more generally there is the global viral genome project

http://www.globalviromeproject.org/

that would in principle give us a better heads up on possible emergent infections. A global comprehensive understanding of what viruses exist and their genetic sequences, at least with some sampling, would give health care workers and social systems a better ability to predict and respond to such outbreaks.

LC

[Philip Thrift]

Two projects for programmers to get involved.

Folding@home
@foldingathome

COVID MoonShot
@covid_moonshot

@philipthrift

[Chris de Morsella]

This is week three for me on the Covid19 trajectory, and week 5 for my wife. No illusions here.

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[Chris de Morsella]

Thanks Telmo,

this thing is way worse than the flu!

Sent from Yahoo Mail on Android

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