Top Imperial College London scientist says Corona virus vaccine could be ready for human tests this summer “if enough funding is secured”-Sky News, 2/5/2020….(If we had known we could've given you $2 trillion and be sprung from our cages)

Professor Robin Shattock, head of mucosal infection and immunity at Imperial College London, said he is now at the stage to start testing the vaccine on animals as early as next week with human studies in the summer if enough funding is secured.” 

2/5/20, “Coronavirus: ‘Significant breakthrough’ in race for vaccine made by UK scientists,” Sky News, Ashish Joshi 

“A vaccine may be close to being tested on animals and then humans, depending on the level of funding researchers get.” 

“The scientist leading the UK’s research into a coronavirus vaccine says his team have made a significant breakthrough by reducing a part of the normal development time from “two to three years to just 14 days”. 

Professor Robin Shattock, head of mucosal infection and immunity at Imperial College London, said he is now at the stage to start testing the vaccine on animals as early as next week with human studies in the summer if enough funding is secured. 

He told Sky News: “Conventional approaches usually take at least two to three years before you even get to the clinic. And we’ve gone from that sequence to generating a candidate in the laboratory in 14 days. 

“And we will have it in animal models by the beginning of next week. We’ve short-tracked that part. The next phase will be to move that from early animal testing into the first human studies.
 
“And we think with adequate funding we could do that in a period of a few months.” 

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Professor Shattock is part of a global effort to develop a vaccine that could potentially save hundreds or thousands of lives if this coronavirus outbreak develops into a full blown pandemic. 

The vaccine will be too late for this current outbreak but it will be crucial if there is another one. 

He said: “It’s not going to be too late if this becomes a pandemic and if it circulates around the world. We still don’t know much about the epidemic itself so it may wane over the summer months if it is like influenza.
 
“We may see a second wave come through on a global basis and if it comes a vaccine will be really important and would be in place to tackle that.” 

Scientists from China, the United States, Australia and Europe are all racing to develop a vaccine and are collaborating with each other in an effort to speed up the process. 

Britain has pledged £20m to CEPI, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, an international agency set up in 2017 to deal with health crises exactly like this one. 

And a further £20m has been earmarked for rapid research into coronavirus here in the UK. The money is crucial but so too is knowledge. 

The 2003 SARS epidemic killed some 800 people. 

At the time China was severely criticised for withholding information. This time it has been praised for sharing crucial data with the international health community. 

The lessons learned after the SARS outbreak are proving crucial in helping scientists deal with this epidemic. But a SARS vaccine was never fully developed. When the virus died out the funding dried up. 

Dr David Heymann is one of the world’s leading experts on infectious diseases. He lead the international fight against SARS and told Sky News this time a vaccine must be developed. 

He said: “In the case of SARS there was lots of interest in developing a vaccine but that disappeared rapidly after the outbreak was contained and over. 

“Today we have a new coalition – the CEPI – which is based here in London and which is simulating development of vaccines. 

“And hopefully that will continue to stimulate development of corona vaccines after this outbreak is over. It may not be effective in getting a vaccine ready for this outbreak, a vaccine may not even be necessary. 

“But it would be nice to have a coronavirus vaccine somewhere on the shelf which could be rolled out during a future epidemic.”” 

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Added: UK health service workers to be tested 

3/27/20, “Coronavirus: NHS staff first to receive ‘antigen testing’ for COVID-19,” Sky News 

“Prime Minister Boris Johnson missed the latest daily coronavirus briefing after announcing he had tested positive for the disease.

“Hundreds of frontline NHS staff will be tested to find out if they have coronavirus by the end of the weekend, as the government moves to ramp up testing for the disease among healthcare workers. 

Michael Gove announced that increased “antigen testing“, developed in partnership between UK businesses, research institutes and universities, will be rolled out “immediately” to those working in hospitals and social care. 

Speaking at the government’s daily coronavirus briefing, cabinet minister Mr Gove said that the testing would “dramatically” scale up next week, allowing those working in health and social care to “have security in the knowledge that they can safely return to work if their test is negative”. 

“This is absolutely crucial to our response to – and fight against – coronavirus,” he added. 

What is antigen testing? 

Antigen testing detects whether there are antigens present in a person’s blood. 

Antigens are part of the body’s immune system – they are contained within a virus and are triggered to help the body fight off infection and develop antibodies. 

Antigens can be detected in blood before antibodies are made, meaning they are a much quicker way of identifying whether someone has an infection. 

These tests are used to detect other viruses such as malaria and flu. 

They are different from antibody tests, which can tell you whether you have already had the virus rather than if you are carrying it at the time. 

Appearing alongside Mr Gove in Downing Street on Friday were NHS England chief executive Sir Simon Stevens and the deputy chief medical officer Jenny Harries. 

Mr Stevens said 33,000 hospital beds across England had been made available to COVID-19 patients, with more to come as new makeshift hospitals are opened in major cities. 

Work is almost complete on transforming London’s enormous ExCel Centre into the NHS Nightingale Hospital, which will house thousands of beds for coronavirus patients. 

Sky News understands that Birmingham’s NEC and Manchester’s Central exhibition centres are also set to be converted into temporary hospitals by mid-April. 

Mr Stevens said the hospital plans were part of an “unprecedented response” to the pandemic. 

Regarding the increase in testing, he said: “We will be rolling out staff testing across the NHS, starting next week with the critical care nurses, other staff in intensive care, emergency departments, ambulance services, GPs. 

“As testing volumes continue to increase, we want to widen that to essential public service workers, as well as our social care workers, and continue with patient testing that is so vital.” 

Mr Gove led the news briefing for the first time in the absence of Boris Johnson, with the prime minister announcing earlier that he had tested positive for coronavirus and had gone into self-isolation. 

Health Secretary Matt Hancock has previously stood in for the PM but was also unavailable as he is also self-isolating after testing positive, having experienced “mild symptoms” of the disease. 

They both revealed that they had been diagnosed in video messages posted on Twitter on Friday morning. 

There was also no sign of the government’s chief medical adviser, Professor Chris Whitty, who revealed on Friday afternoon that he is self-isolating with symptoms of coronavirus. 

Chief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance was also not present despite being a regular fixture of the daily briefings; however, he confirmed on Twitter that he has not been experiencing symptoms and so has not been tested. 

Also on Friday afternoon, regional health bodies across the UK provided their latest figures on the number of people who had died after testing positive for coronavirus. 

The total death count in the UK now stands at 769 after another 185 fatalities were confirmed.”…

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Added: One third of UK farm harvest may be lost due to shortage of migrant labor this season: 

3/27/20, “Coronavirus: ‘Third of UK harvest may go to waste’ due to COVID-19 travel ban," Sky News, Paul Kelso 

“Fruit and vegetable crops need harvesting in weeks but travel restrictions mean there is likely to be a vast labour shortage.” 

“A third of this summer’s food harvest could go to waste on British farms because of a chronic shortage of migrant labour caused by the coronavirus outbreak, charities and farmers are warning UK farms and food producers rely on a migrant workforce of 60,000 to 70,000 seasonal labourers mainly drawn from eastern European countries including Romania, Bulgaria and Poland. 

Within weeks, fruit and vegetable crops will need harvesting but travel restrictions across Europe and the UK, imposed to slow the spread of COVID-19, mean it may prove impossible to recruit overseas staff. 

Farm labour charity Concordia, which sources seasonal labourers for British farms, says it is “desperately worried” about the impact on the UK harvest, and warned that UK workers will not fill the gap. 

Chief executive Stephanie Maurel told Sky News: “We are extremely worried about what that means for the whole system. 

“If there are 90,000 jobs in our sector, that’s usually 60,000 people that might do six weeks here and there, picking strawberries, asparagus, potatoes and so on. 

“That’s at least 60,000 jobs, 60,000 people that we desperately need that we won’t find in the UK.”  

Concordia is in negotiations with the Romanian and UK governments about providing dedicated flights for some seasonal workers, and is running a campaign called Feed The Nation, encouraging British workers to apply for vacancies. But Ms Maurel warned that was unlikely to fill the gap, in part because of the government measures announced to cushion the economic impact of the virus. 

She said: “One unintended consequence of the employee support scheme is that British workers will be paid 80% of their salaries during the shutdown and may not have the incentive to take other jobs.” 

Farmers in some parts of the country are understood to be taking measures to try and slow down crops, including Scottish strawberry growers removing fleeces from their plants. 

But that may only buy the industry days rather than the months it may take for the virus to pass. 

Stephen Taylor, managing director of Winterwood Farms, Europe’s largest soft-fruit packing company, said the labour shortages could have a devastating impact. 

“The pickers that normally come to harvest UK crops, that’s for crops of all sorts, vegetables of all sorts,” he told Sky News. 

“With travel restrictions, it may be that people can’t leave the country they’re coming from. Bulgaria, Romania, Poland, and maybe the UK borders are closed and they don’t allow people to come. 

“I think many British farmers may think that if you offered them 70% of their crop being taken in this summer they would take it.” 

Mr Taylor has instituted more than 50 measures, including thrice-daily temperature checks, to slow the spread of coronavirus among the 200 workers at the company’s Kent packing plant. 

The plant currently distributes soft berries from Iberia to all the UK’s major supermarkets. 

Mr Taylor is also having to manage fluctuating demand, which saw orders equivalent to Christmas when the outbreak began, but have now slowed down as lockdown measures and supermarket policies take effect. 

He said: “The usual rules of supply and demand have been altered. With lockdown and people seeing the queues at supermarkets, we are seeing orders actually starting to decline. 

“Supermarkets have withdrawn promotions which are designed to even out supply and demand, so we may actually see some fruit not sold.””




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