Quote:
Originally Posted by transplant99
That would be great and quite unprecedented. Just for argument sake, lets say they have a vaccine figured out by January 1.
Now, how long will it take to develop and produce billions of doses? 2 months? 3? 6?
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While normally you would be correct, we are in such a unique situation that
companies have already started mass producing the best candidates before the tests are finished. So unless the winner of the vaccine race is a surprise dark horse candidate, there's a good chance that by the time it gets approved, the product will be ready to shift basically the next day.
That's just one example, there are other companies doing the same with different vaccine candidates. Vaccines aren't ultimately THAT expensive to mass produce, so while the financial risk involved is not insignificant, it's not something that would seriously risk the bottom line of most medical companies (especially since government subsidies are often involved) if they happen to take a bet on a vaccine that doesn't end up getting approved.
Most likely countries will also fast track their own approval procedures, and since the approval of a vaccine will come with plenty of forewarning, well governed western countries, especially ones with a large public healthcare sector (that are easier for governments to order around), such as Canada and Finland will likely have a plan and logistics in place to get the vaccine to people at a pace never before seen in history.
Now, I'm saying that all with a bit of trepidation, because I think this situation has created a unique situation where things could also go horribly wrong in unprecedented ways.
The pressure to approve a vaccine will be enormous, so that's one thing.
Another is of course the issue of not-well-governed countries. Let's say the orange nutcase manages to cheat his way into another victory, all bets are off. He has already demonstrated multiple times that
he sees the covid-19 vaccine as a chance for unprecedented profits 