At this point in the global pandemic, we’re all in the stage where we’re patiently waiting for a coronavirus vaccine to come about. As many states reopen—and then essentially close up again due to a spike in cases—it seems that nothing is going to truly solve the outbreak until we can develop some kind of immunity to the virus.
While a vaccine is still on the horizon, there does seem to be some headway being made by the University of Oxford.
Researchers at the university recently conducted a study of 1,077 people with their own vaccine they developed. The vaccine led to the participants creating antibodies and T-cells that have the ability to fight coronavirus.
While it’s still too early to 100% say there’s a COVID-19 vaccine, the researchers say the results are extremely promising, with 90% of people developing neutralizing antibodies after one dose. They’re so promising, in fact, that the UK has already ordered 100 million doses of the vaccine.
The vaccine, whose fancy name is ChAdOx1 nCoV-19, was created from a genetically engineered virus that causes colds in chimpanzees. Cool, right?
Don’t worry, even though the vaccine resembles coronavirus, it has been altered enough so that it would be nearly impossible to cause a human to actually get coronavirus from it and simply allows the immune system to learn how to attack it if you did come into contact with it.
“We’re really pleased with the results published today as we’re seeing both neutralizing antibodies and T-cells,” said Professor Andrew Pollard. “They’re extremely promising and we believe the type of response that may be associated with protection. But the key question everyone wants to know is does the vaccine work, does it offer protection… and we’re in a waiting game.”
If this became available, would you get this vaccine?