COVID-19 Outbreak Information Updates (Reboot) [over 150.000,000 US cases (est.), 6,422,520 US hospitilizations, 1,148,691 US deaths.]

Interesting Vaccine news and observations.

There has been an overall decrease in the rates of infection in the last few weeks in the USA, the numbers are very hard to quantify in the extreme short term, but a general downward trend, which is "good" news. One of the impacts of this is that the vaccine study groups will now have people less likely to be exposed to the virus, so they will have to "wait" for some results (positive cases in the placebo group is the "expected" or "hoped for" result, but nobody wants anybody to actually get the virus) in some of the trials, especially in the Pfizer and Moderna trials which are centered in the USA. The trend down (I know it is a hoped for trend down and hard to quantify) may delay the efficacy numbers on the these earliest vaccine companies data.

Another early Phase 3 trial is now just underway in the UK and will start in the USA in October. This is the vaccine candidate from Novavax. It is just starting out in the UK with 10,000 participants and will have 30,000 in the USA. The recent "surge" in cases in the UK could lead to earlier than otherwise expected efficacy data on their vaccine. This is all very perverse when you think about it, the higher the infection rate, the earlier you would expect to get data from a vaccine trial. A lowering of the overall infection rate is good overall, but bad for vaccine data.

"Novavax Inc. said Thursday it has started a final-stage, 10,000-person study of its experimental Covid-19 vaccine in the U.K., where a recent surge in cases could hasten an answer about whether the inoculation safely protects people from the new coronavirus."

"Novavax still plans to test its vaccine in a Phase 3 trial in the U.S. with up to 30,000 subjects, which could start in October, said Gregory Glenn, Novavax’s president of research and development.

“The U.K. trial is a different shot on goal,” Dr. Glenn said in an interview. “They look like they are going to have a big surge in disease.”

https://www.wsj.com/articles/covid-19-vaccine-from-novavax-begins-phase-3-trial-in-u-k-11600980636