Research for a COVID-19 vaccine continues at the University of Minnesota, where 120 potential remedies are under review.
According to Dr. Michael Osterholm, director of the U’s Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy, the most serious reviews are being conducted on a few more than a dozen of them.
“I’m encouraged that the work that’s going on is going quickly and comprehensively as possible,” Osterholm told Dave Lee on the WCCO Morning News.
Just when a vaccine is ready for wide distribution remains anyone’s guess, for more reasons than for its effectiveness.
“We’re a long way from doing that,” said Osterholm.
“There are some real concerns over just how well we’re able to make a vaccine that will then protect us with some durability,” he said. “Also, we still have some safety issues that we want to be sure are addressed before this vaccine gets used widely in the population.”
Osterholm pointed out that a cure for HIV (human immunodeficiency virus) remains elusive, nearly 40 years after the first AIDS cases were diagnosed.
Another concern is making sure the public continues to practice social distancing, which many believe is starting to lapse with Minnesota and other states relaxing quarantine rules put into place to keep the coronavirus from rapidly spreading and overwhelming hospitals.
“I worry about that a lot that we’ve kind of gone from two miles an hour to 200 miles an hour in terms of our public activities, we took the switch from off to on,” Osterholm said.
There is concern that the reopening of the economy will lead to a major surge in the COVID-19 spread.
Osterholm points out that the past month has shown an uptick in cases in at least eight southern states. Florida, for example, had record-high coronavirus cases this past Thursday, Friday, and Saturday.
“If we see ourselves back where we were, you have to ask yourselves, what have we accomplished?”
