A second major vaccine trial has paused during phase 3 of testing.
Multinational corporation Johnson & Johnson says it was because one of its participants became sick with an unexplained illness.
North Dakota’s Chief Health Strategist Dr. Joshua Wynne says this is not unusual, and there’s no reason to worry yet that there won’t be a vaccine available in the future.
He says it was done out of an abundance of caution, and it was the right move.
It was 1 of 100 or so trials going on in the world.
Now, once a vaccine goes through the rigorous process of being approved, there’s another two-step process: making enough of it to distribute, and actually passing it out.
Dr. Wynne says pharmaceutical companies making the most promising vaccines are already starting to stockpile inventory, following direction from the White House.
“Now if it turns out that a vaccine was picked that doesn’t work out, what we’ve lost really is money, because all that’s happened is we’ve invested some money and it didn’t work out. But no one is harmed, no damage is done,” he added.
As far as when he expects enough people will have gotten a vaccine to achieve herd immunity, he says the best-case scenario is a year from now.
