COVID-19 is a humanitarian disaster on a wider scale. It has exposed how fragile our social warfare system is and how weak we are despite having all the technological developments. There are things which we need to crave for and we need to search and know voraciously.
There are millions and millions of people who lost their jobs, millions faced mass poverty in war-stricken areas, and millions face the heart-wrenching effects of COVID-19.
How humanity came to the point of COVID-19? Is COVID-19 being the only outbreak in the recent decade or century or millennia?
Why CDC guidelines are enforcing isolation and to keep a distance of 2 meters? Why the whole world was put on lockdown?
Where COVID-19 was originated and why it spread too quickly in the whole world? Why China is so successful in containing the coronavirus while other developed countries are bearing the brunt of the COVID-19.
We know that you are anxious to know all these things. You have more reservations and wariness over the vaccine of the virus. In presence of lots of mysterious theories about the vaccines, your trust is not stable over the vaccine that how it will get us rid of the destructions of the COVID-19.
Can the vaccine will eradicate the coronavirus? Will people take the vaccine? Who will prepare and distribute the vaccines to kill the COVID-19 and to create the herd immunity to save the humanity from mass scale death toll?
Let’s find it why COVID-19 dominates upon us, becomes omnipotent, and slapped on the development of humanity.
Before getting into the topic of COVID-19 and the ceaseless and indefatigable endeavor to prepare and attain its vaccine we should get to have a know-how of how much plagues our ancestors have faced already.
Humanity has started to face epidemics from the earliest times of its inhabitation on earth. But the intelligence and consciousness of humanity made it always capable to figure out a way to confront and defeat the viruses and pathogens by hook or crook.
Though there are profound differences in the origins, causes, and deaths from different epidemics in recent history what is common in these plagues is the role of animals. The SARS was found to be caused by the animals, the MERS was spread from the camels, and above all COVID-19 was caused by the bats.
The zoonotic viruses in the history of humankind made profound and prominent changes in the working, living, and lifestyles of people.
The close congested space gives rise to tuberculosis. The more people will get to gather the more chances are there to spread the disease quickly.
There is always a possible way to prevent and avert cataclysmic situations but as humanity advanced in the direction of technology, they discover novel ways to tame the viruses as the novel viruses struck them.
At present we are all at the stake of lives. COVID-19 has created unimaginable rifts in the working condition and has shaped a new life within months.
How it’s impacting the life, humanity, and coming generations we have to know to make ourselves proactive and in a comfortable psychological condition.
We’ll take a brief look at the origin and its widespread presence in the world and how it would impact our future. The race for the vaccine will give it an extra twist and crunch. Let’s dive deep into the mysterious world of COVID-19.
The novel coronavirus was started in Wuhan, a city in China in December 2019. The origin of this virus is mysterious and the world health organization has started its investigation in the Wuhan to find the origin and root cause of the virus.
Most of the scientist believe that it’s a zoonotic virus which first transferred from a bat to the person in an unknown condition especially in the meat market of the Wuhan which was instantly sealed after knowing that virus has stricken the nation.
Like other viruses such as Severe acute respiratory syndrome SARS was caused by the raccoon dogs or civets, likewise, the middle eastern respiratory syndrome was caused by the pathogens of a camel and then spread to other people.
What is most alarming that these viruses affect drastically the breathing process and infect the lungs in most cases.
The lethal zoonotic COVID-19 virus is dangerously dangerous. Its effect on the adults as compared to the aged people is less and their chances of recovery are far more probable than the elder and aged people.
The doctors and scientists in labs and the CDC regularity authority have announced in its published guidelines that the patients with prior diseases and with the weak immune system are more likely to die from the virus as compared to healthy and fit people.
Then there are two types of victims in this novel COVID-19 virus. One victim is asymptomatic and the other victim is symptomatic. The asymptomatic person has no obvious symbols of the COVID-19 and will look like a healthy person. But the asymptomatic victim of the COVID-19 has the same potential to spread and transmit it as an asymptomatic person can.
Looking at this peculiar behavior of the COVID-19 virus the world health organization has announced to ban, restrict and limit all types of congregations and put the world on an indefinite time of lockdown until some cure in form of vaccines is devised.
The simple process of transmitting COVID-19 is that the COVID-19 virus coming out of the breath of the patient remains suspended in the air for two to three hours in a nearby sphere. Inhaling from that air likely to cause the COVID-19 to the inhaler.
Further, the patients of COVID-19 with symptomatic and asymptomatic have the potential to leave their pathogens and germs on surfaces they touch that’s the detergents and antibacterial soaps are strongly recommended by the world health organization.
The wearing of a facemask, usage of the soaps, and keeping a distance of 6 feet is to ensure the safety and containment of the disease at one place to prevent it from transmitting. According to the initial stats, the R-factor for the COVID-19 is 2.5. Its meaning is that the victim of the COVID-19 has the potential to spread it to two and a half people and then they have the potential to do so.
To limit the transfer rate the CDC and world health organization’s guidelines are crucial to follow and implement.
It’s gruesome, horrible, and harsh. The death from the COVID-19/novel coronavirus is painful. When the droplets of COVID-19 will enter someone’s lungs they affect everything. They cause damage to the lungs, brain, immune system, eyes, memory, and nose, and tear apart every part of human cells.
Let’s start with some famous search about the COVID-19 and how gradually and slowly it kills humanity.
The COVID-19 causes severe damage to the eyes, livers, intestines, kidneys, and immune systems. The complex behaviors of the COVID-19 virus making it difficult for the scientists and researchers to reach one concrete conclusion. However, studies are underway to recognize the pathogens and to kill them with an appropriate vaccine.
Whenever humanity had faced calamities, they accelerated their efforts to find a panacea to cure the diseases and to eradicate the upheavals of life which can potentially cause pain.
The pain of the COVID-19 is immense and there is tremendous reinforcement to manufacture it on the pharmacy and biotech companies.
How the vaccine can cure the patients, how much time and cost it can take, and who will get it first? These are all questions which everyone is asking. On the other side, there are no chances of normalcy until the provision of a successful vaccine.
Who will make the Vaccine to defeat the COVID-19 leviathan?
Whenever humanity had faced a disaster, calamity, and any misery they work together to defeat all the weaknesses. Generally, whenever there is some novel virus, disease, bacteria, and malnutritional problems the pharmaceutical, biotech companies, and public health and university labs used to work in tandem to devise the possible solutions.
For example, the vaccine for the Ebola virus was manufactured by the Merck pharmaceutical company with the collaboration of the government of Canada and U.S. public health institutions, U.S. defense department researchers, a tiny Iowa based biotech company, and the health specialists from the world health organizations.
Similarly, the players of the COVID-19 vaccine are myriads and they are spending millions of dollars to produce effective and workable vaccines to cure the maximum patient's in the least amount of time.
The public health organization always has played a major role in the manufacturing of vaccines. The administration of the United States has launched a project named operation Warp Speed which is aimed to develop a highly effective vaccine at the start of 2021 for its 300 million US citizens.
This operation is promising to spend billions of dollars and is gathering a community of researchers from the national institute of health (NIH), the food and drug administration (FDA), the department of health and human services (NHS), the department of defense, and world health organization.
On the same page, the Chinese government is funding and building infrastructure to provide as many facilities to study and manufacture the vaccine as possible. The European Commission is funding several candidates to find the vaccine in the shortest time possible. In a virtual summit attended by the world leaders, organizations, and European leaders, the banks show their commitment to spend at least $8 billion for the research on the vaccine.
The international institution is acting as a central role in the production of the COVID-19 vaccine, its fair and easy distribution to the billions of people across the globe, and its authentic trial testing to analyze its effectiveness before its usage.
The world health organization and other international platforms such as the world bank are providing financial support to continue the research on the COVID-19 vaccine.
The coalition for Epidemic preparedness innovations (CIPI) is a global alliance of India, Norway, the Bill and Melinda Gates foundations, the world economic forum, the UK based Wellcome Trust, the Gavi vaccine alliance also founded by the Gates foundation are harnessing their effort to manufacture, to destitute, and it’s manufacturing in the shortest time possible.
In June 2020 the CEPI, WHO, and Gavi launched COVAX, a global financial, intellectual, and deliberate effort to prepare, distribute, and make sure the availability of COVID-19 vaccine for every patient on the surface of the earth.
The global efforts COVAX to manufacture the vaccine has pledged to spend $18 billion to produce two billion doses of vaccine by the end of the next year, 2021.
By October 2020 about 170 countries had joined the COVAX with the absence of the United States and Russia.
The private sector is spending all available resources to prepare a great COVID-19 vaccine. The pharmaceutical companies, the biotech firms such as Sino pharm a China-based biotech company, and Johnson & Johnson are harnessing their research on the COVID-19 vaccine. Though there is funding from the government institutions also but the bulk financial support comes from the private institutes.
When we talk about the nonprofit organization the Malinda gates foundation is the flagbearer of the global effort against the COVID-19 and to prepare the vaccines by all means possible in this world.
The research institutes are mainly used for the pre-clinical trials to check the working efficiency of the vaccine. By fortune before the advent of the COVID-19, there were students at Cambridge University who were analyzing the possible vaccine which can prevent future outbreaks and can eradicate them.
There is a massive investment in the research and enthusiastic finding of the vaccine which can work to make the patients healthy and can save their lives.
In most cases, there are 6 fundamental stages for the vaccine from preparation to distribution such as;
The first and foremost important phase of vaccine production is the research phase. Major institutes such as Harvard, Cambridge, and MIT are forming a coalition to drive a collective research effort to find a perfect cure.
After initial daunting research of the vaccine, there are preclinical trials that ensure that the manufactured vaccine is working or not. If the trials go successful then there is the approval to manufacture the vaccine on a mass scale to help humanity out of this disaster. If people get sick and don’t show a possible betterment in their health the trials go fails and the research again gets started to find something effective.
The distribution phase is the distribution of the vaccine across the globe to all the infected people on the surface of the earth to cure them and to protect the healthy people against this virus.
Vaccines are the dead or weakened virus cells known as antigens. They when injected into the body trigger the defensive white blood cells in the immune system to create antibodies against the pathogens. These antibodies create massive action against the viruses and build a wall against them to neutralize them.
There are different types of vaccines which used to create antibodies in one way or the other. When most of the population will be vaccinated against a particular disease then most of the population will be protected against the disease, even at the stake of those who are not immune. This is known as herd immunity when large swamps of the population are safe from the disasters of the virus.
The United States of America in case of measles, polio, chickenpox, and mumps was able to achieve herd immunity.
In the case of the COVID-19 vaccine, scientists are working to find a vaccine, which can protect the majority of humanity to achieve herd immunity. The estimates are highlighting that to achieve herd immunity the eighty percent of the population of the world has been duly vaccinated.
There was lots of stress upon the world health organization, the leading Malinda Gates organization, and other international collateral COVAX for the manufacturing of the COVID-19 vaccine.
The feat of manufacturing the COVID-19 vaccine was achieved in November by the Pfizer/bioNtech company based in the United States.
There are more companies which are taking random trails of their samples such as;
The question to get a vaccine is intriguing, alarming, and concerning. But there’s no point to take any tension. Because it all depends upon the location and the readiness of financial resources of each nation on the surface of the earth.
The British nation gets the first vaccine manufactured from the Pfizer/bioNtech company. The UK after getting the vaccine from Pfizer has ordered the other round from the AstraZenexa pharmaceutical company.
After the UK the American nation, other European states, and China will be the ones to get the vaccine.
Whenever humanity had achieved a feat there were doubts and unmitigated speculations about the long-lasting effects. The COVID-19 is no exception. After when the Pfizer made the first vaccine to confront and eliminate the coronavirus there are now concerns that whether it has the potential to eradicate the virus or not?
After initial trials in the UK by the Pfizer vaccines and the trails by the Astrazenexa pharmaceutical company shows optimistic and encouraging results that had led to another concern that It's now sure that the vaccine has the potential to cure 90% of patients but will all the population will get the vaccination?
The group of 20 (G20) has pledged to remove this concern of masses. It has committed to distributing the vaccine across the globe at fair prices with widespread and easy accessibility. There are even now possible that the vaccine can ignite a new type of confrontation on the international forum over the vaccine bidding.
Due to stunning mysterious theories about the coronavirus, some people are even reluctant to get a coronavirus vaccine. A September poll by the pew research institute shows that half of the Americans surveyed said that they wouldn’t take the vaccine if it were present at that time. Though now people are understanding the severity of the situation.
The concerns about the effectiveness of the vaccine will remain until people get the vaccine. In that condition only is the possibility to cure all psychological concerns of the people.
The scientists are saying that uncovering facts about the virus and the effectiveness of the vaccine will further assist us to manufacture a more robust vaccine to eliminate the virus.
Once the world will attain the herd immunity as in the case of pervasive coronavirus it has achieved already then there will be no concern about the outbreak.
Until we achieve herd immunity, we have to take care of and follow the guidelines from the CDC and the world health organization diligently.