A survey of 28 vaccine experts, mostly from America and Canada, who individaully have experience of over 25 years, revealed that it is highly unlikely to get a vaccine for the coronavirus in early 2021.
The survey, which was carried out in late June this year, was published in the Journal of General Internal Medicine.
Senior author of the survey report Jonathan Kimmelman, a James McGill professor and director of the Biomedical Ethics Unit at McGill University, said in an official statement: “Experts in our survey offered forecasts on vaccine development that were generally less optimistic than the timeline of early 2021 offered by US public officials.”
He added: “In general, they seem to believe that a publicly-available vaccine next summer is the best-case scenario with the possibility that it may take until 2022.”
Lead author of the study Patrick Kane, a decision scientist and post-doctoral fellow at McGill, noted that many experts also believe that there may be some false starts before an effective vaccine is available.
The surveyed experts believe that there is a one in three chance that the vaccine will receive a safety warning label after approval, and a four in 10 chance that the first large field study will not report efficacy.
Most experts believe that the vaccine will be available for public consumption around September-October 2021. There could be a rush to release the vaccine for high-risk zones. For some zones, it could be made available in March 2021.
Stephen Broomell, an associate professor at the Dietrich College of Humanities and Social Sciences, Carnegie Mellon University, said in a statement: “Our study finds that experts are largely in agreement about the timeline for a SARS-CoV-2 vaccine.”
“While this does not track with many overly optimistic government projections, it reflects a belief that researchers are indeed on a faster pace to development compared to previous vaccines,” he added.