 Hello and let's talk about the vaccines for COVID-19. Recently news came of promising results in the test for a vaccine that's being developed by the University of Oxford. According to the BBC, trials involving 1077 people showed the injection led to them making antibodies and T-cells that can fight the coronavirus. In fact, in addition to the Oxford vaccines, four other vaccines are entering clinical trials already. This provides some hope in difficult times with cases showing no signs of decreasing, especially in countries such as USA, Brazil and India. So what are the implications of these trials and how long do we have to wait? News Clicks Prabir Pulkhaista and Dr. Satyajit Rath discussed some of these issues. Satyajit, it could welcome information. We now seem to have at least four vaccines which are going into four phase three trials. Oh, absolutely. It's welcome news. It's not surprising news at all. At this stage, any surprises would have been unpleasant surprises. So I'm glad that there are no surprises in this. All of these have been tested in at least two animal models. And what they did in those animal models, they seem to be doing in these small-scale human trials. So I think that we are on track. All of them have entered phase three clinical trials already. Except the model now, which has yet to start its clinical trials. Well, they're doing the paperwork and they're beginning to recruit. And clinical trials are starting in what? Five different locations across the world. In the UK, in China, in the US, in Brazil, in South Africa. Also in the United Arab Emirates. Oh, even they have a center where it is being tested. Chinese vaccines have been tested there. So I think that these are expected good results. But they are small steps. They are an initial, very small step. What do those, these four reports that everybody is talking about, which have come more or less coincidentally together? What do they tell us? They tell us some definitive evidence. And they tell us some indicative information. The definitive evidence is that all four of these vaccines are safe. Or let me be correct, all four of these vaccine candidates are safe over the short term. And on a small number? Small numbers. It's noteworthy that two of them are based on adenoviral vectors and two of them are based on RNA formulations. No, I think there's one virus which the Chinese are doing, which is actually inactivated virus. The current report that we are looking at is the Chinese adenovirus five vector based vaccine. The inactivated vaccine report has come early. Yes, but that's also entering. So in that sense, there are five candidates in play. How's it five? I'm just wondering. There is one. As to what are those RNA? There is BioNTech Pfizer's RNA. Okay, Pfizer's one also you were talking about. There is the chimpanzee adenovirus, there is the Chinese adenovirus, and there is the Chinese inactivated virus. In fact, what I'm trying to say is that we are going to see an accelerating large number of these reports coming out in the coming weeks. Because if you look at, for example, if you look at the WHO status update document on the WHO site about vaccines, the latest is I think dated the 20th of July. So it's not that out of date or anything. And in that tabulation, there's a fair number of vaccine candidates which are in phase one. Oh, that's very large. So those results are going to start coming up in the next few weeks. So we are going to have, it doesn't matter three, four, five candidates. We are going to see many more in the coming weeks. And I suspect that in all of them, the first result from the human trials are going to see exactly these two things. But let me interrupt you for a minute over here. While the Chinese two viruses and AstraZeneca, they seem to have done a sufficiently, for phase two, sufficiently large number, 600 to 1000 or so. But the modern is a small sample. It's really only about six. Yes, there are significant differences in the numbers. And one could always quibble about it all. Keep in mind that the Oxford chimpanzee adenoviral vaccine report that we have, the actual phase two level data are not from all samples. Okay, in fact, the paper actually specifies correctly that this is a preliminary analysis being reported because all tests have not been as yet complete. Okay, so this is why I'm saying that the current step has two components. The definitive component, as we said, is that these things seem to be safe when people get injections. Safe over the short term, safe in adults, safe in adults of European, healthy adults of European ancestry in the main, except for the Chinese trials. So there are caveats, but this is good that they are safe. The non-definitive indicative component of the evidence is that all of them seem to generate antibody responses in pretty much all vaccine in the candidate recipients. All of these antibody responses seem to show virus neutralization capacity. All of these vaccineease, these vaccine recipients also generate telemphysite responses against... Keep in mind that the antibody level can at least be analyzed for, as I said, virus neutralization capacity. The diesel responses at this point have not been and really, properly speaking, cannot be examined for their protective contribution. So we have definitive evidence about the immunity just to make it clearer to all viewers. The antibody response will also be protective. While the T cell at the moment, we cannot say what will be the protective response. How do you sort of elaborate a little on that? So you can measure the antibody response in ways that don't tell you whether that antibody response is likely to be protective or not. But you can also do so-called virus neutralization tests with the antibodies. And if they show the capacity for virus neutralization, then it's a reasonable piece of information that they may be protected. They're likely to be protected. It's not evidence of protection, but it says they're likely to be protected. Exactly similarly, you can test to see whether there are diesel responses and there are. But at this point, nobody's done even indicative tests to ask whether the diesel responses have any antiviral capacity or not. Okay. They get awake, but we don't know whether they can attack and destroy the virus. That's what it really means. To be fair, those are much harder tests to do. The virus neutralization tests for antibodies are hard enough to do, which is why the results between the four papers are for fine readers, the results are a mess. But broadly, they still say this. So we know now there is antibody response. We know now there is T-cell response. We know that the antibodies may be able to neutralize the virus in case of infection. But we do not know whether the T-cell response will be able to do so or not, at least definitely. So that's where we are at the moment. And that's why, of course, we need larger-scale trials to test it through the fire, so to say of the actual large-scale exposure to infection and as well to see whether there are any possible side effects which can also be harmful. Absolutely. So there are additional nuances to this, especially when you consider all four reports that are still not adding the fifth one, which is also entering clinical trials because we don't seem to have a report about it or at least not recently. So the interesting thing is that the adenoviral vaccines as well as the RNA vaccines, on the one hand, they are safe. On the other hand, they are pretty damned painful. They are pretty damned painful. If you look at the data, the amount of redness, swelling, local tenderness, a little bit of fever, all of this is quite notable. So for people of sufficiently advanced age such as you and me, it is reminiscent of the vaccines that we used to take when we were children where the arm would swell and you would feel horrible and miserable for a day or two and so on and so forth. Now, is this a huge problem for these vaccines? On the one hand, no, in the sense that these are transient effects, they'll pass and if the vaccines work, it's well worth it. But in this day and age of social media, mediated amplification of anti-science, irrational, anti-vaxxer movements, this is something to be considered about how successful implementation and acceptability of these vaccines will be. Well, that hopefully will be more in the United States but for some strange reason, there is a strong body of people who do not believe in science, believe even in flatters, by the way, their numbers are also growing and of course, the anti-vaxxer. But coming to the question of ill effects, possible ill effects, the Moderna report seems to indicate that a few more shall we say beyond paid effects have also been observed. Is that correct? Well, you know, they've reported one severe effect, I think. Frankly, I'm not inclined at this point to be judgmental about it. So it could be if we have a much larger sample, we find that this is a... I think that the data and safety management boards have all correctly, generally supported movement forward into phase three and in the phase three, we will see what the results look like. Keep in mind that the numbers in terms of the magnitude of immune responses of the Moderna vaccine seem to be larger than that, for example, of the Oxford vaccine. Now that brings up the second of my particular bees in the bonnet about nuances because I think that our listeners should be cautious of the interpretations of these numbers. These are not absolute numbers of universal meaningfulness. So in a sense, different tests with different levels of sensitivity would give different numbers and since these are very different centers doing their own tests, depending on the local configuration of the test, the numbers would look quite different. In fact, if you look at the Oxford vaccine reporting paper, they've done three different virus neutralization tests and the numbers in the three virus neutralization tests are completely different from each other. So I think that it's important to keep in mind that these absolute numbers may not mean anything other than technical differences. Yes, I guess also the ultimate test will be do they protect us or they don't. Absolutely. And the numbers are only very rough indicators and they don't really tell us where it will protect and where it will not. Plus what you're saying, the calibration of the numbers itself is a problematic issue because they're not calibrated to a common quote-unquote viral utilization standard. So these are the caveats we have to take into account but the bigger caveats, we don't know how long the if there is protection, how long the protection will last. Absolutely. That's other big iffy in this game that if some of the reports are true, it is possible that we might need to have vaccines every six months, every year, every two years if you're lucky. Our next story is about the tourism sector in Kashmir. Affected by multiple lockdowns and a brutal communication shutdown for almost a year, those employed in the sector are facing all kinds of issues which have been compounded by the uncertainty in government policy. As we approach the first anniversary abrogation of sections of article 370, we look at the impact on the sector. So what should be the guidelines? Our messages and our principal agents have reached out to us. We received some positive support from there as well. So how should we test the COVID-19 guidelines? We did what we had to do but unfortunately, the lockdown again spread throughout the nation. So these days, we can't invite anyone to come to this situation. I think this is a futile as of now. So until the whole ground level is right here, we should think about the log-round issues and the administration as well. How should we make this road map so that it's not easy to bring the tourists here or all the economic activities are covered up. So we should think about how should we go along the road map. We have to stay with COVID-19. I don't know if we have to stay for years or months. God knows better until there is any medicine or treatment. So until then, we have to cover up the entire map or cover up all the economic activities and all the activities related to the road map. So we should know how we should go along the road map. Otherwise, we have to think about how it will open up and close down. It's not easy. But the biggest problem is that since the new lockdown has been imposed on us, we have to save ourselves first. So what will we do for the tourists? So they don't know. The lockdown has been imposed for more than 20 days in Kashmir. So everyone will think that what should we do for the people who have the lockdown? We should do SOP. First, we should create facilities for them. Especially in Srinagar. The current and center is located in Srinagar. Whether it's a hotel or a guest house or a transport facility, they are taken from one place to another. So we should free them from the lockdown. One area is open, and the other is closed. Private vehicles run from one place to another. I don't know if the lockdown is closed or something else. We are confused. What should we do and what should the government do? It's not clear. The tourism department has also tried a lot on war footing and it will be a good solution. Because all the people who have come here today are suffering a lot. That's all we have for today. We will be back with more news from the country tomorrow. Until then, keep watching New Slick.