Patience needs to be exercised when it comes to a possible vaccine against the novel Coronavirus.
Reports from the United Kingdom indicate AstraZeneca is investigating whether a serious side effect developed by a patient is linked to the experimental attempt.
The company is working with Oxford University on the vaccine, which will be collaborating with Argentina based bio-pharmaceutical company mAdxience for further development.
“Vaccine technology is super complicated. Microbiology and immunology is super complicated, so you’re going to have starts and stops when it comes to vaccine development” Health Minister Patty Hajdu told Acadia Broadcasting’s John Ongaro.
Two other vaccines are in the final stages of testing in the United States. One is made by Moderna and the other a combined effort of Germany’s BioNTech and Pfizer.
Hajdu notes Canada wants to get this right.
“We don’t want a vaccine rushing to market where people have sort of said ‘oh okay, well, there were a few serious side effects here but such is life.’ Efforts to diminish any potential serious side effect would be a very bad move” adds Hajdu.
With the colder weather here, Hajdu says the intensity of a second wave rests entirely on people following health guidelines.
“People move increasingly indoors to hold their events. I think we’re going to see higher numbers; here’s the challenge we have to actually go back more or less to the way we were socializing in the winter which was in our smaller groups,” remarks Hajdu.
The message, COVID-19 doesn’t care if we are tired of it or don’t believe it.
