FYI—my impression is that pandemic preparedness is often defined broadly enough to include things like research into defensive technology (e.g. mRNA vaccines). It does seem like those investments were important for the response.
Hm, certainly the vaccine rollout was in hindsight the second most important thing after success or failure at initial lockdown and containment.
It does seem to have been neglected by preparation efforts and EA funding before the pandemic, but that’s understandable considering how much of a surprise this mRNA stuff was.
I think research into novel vaccine platforms like mRNA is a top priority. It’s neglected in the sense that way more resources should be going into it but also my impression[1] is that the USG does make up a decent proportion of funding for early stage research into that kind of thing. So that’s a sense in which the U.S.’s preparedness was prob good relative to other countries though not in an absolute sense.
In September 2017, CEPI requested proposals for vaccine platform technologies that enable rapid vaccine development, elicit rapid onset of immunity, and whose production can be scaled-up quickly to respond to outbreaks of Disease X. CEPI funded three platform technologies: a vaccine printer, molecular clamp platform, and a self-amplifying RNA vaccine platform.
I think it was a surprise that non-self-amplifying mRNA vaccines work as well as they do (mRNA is more immunogenic than predicted, I guess, at least for COVID?). 18 months ago, I don’t think I would have bet on mRNA platform vaccines as the future over DNA or adenovirus vaccines.
“effective pandemic response is not about preparation”
FYI—my impression is that pandemic preparedness is often defined broadly enough to include things like research into defensive technology (e.g. mRNA vaccines). It does seem like those investments were important for the response.
Hm, certainly the vaccine rollout was in hindsight the second most important thing after success or failure at initial lockdown and containment.
It does seem to have been neglected by preparation efforts and EA funding before the pandemic, but that’s understandable considering how much of a surprise this mRNA stuff was.
I think research into novel vaccine platforms like mRNA is a top priority. It’s neglected in the sense that way more resources should be going into it but also my impression[1] is that the USG does make up a decent proportion of funding for early stage research into that kind of thing. So that’s a sense in which the U.S.’s preparedness was prob good relative to other countries though not in an absolute sense.
Here’s an article I skimmed about the importance of govt (mostly NIH) funding for the development of mRNA vaccines. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/for-billion-dollar-covid-vaccines-basic-government-funded-science-laid-the-groundwork/
Fwiw, I think it’s prob not the case that the mRNA stuff was that much of a surprise. This 2018 CHS report had self-amplifying mRNA vaccines as one of ~15 technologies to address GCBRs. https://jhsphcenterforhealthsecurity.s3.amazonaws.com/181009-gcbr-tech-report.pdf
[1] Though I’m rusty since I haven’t worked directly on biorisk for five years and was never an expert.
I second the impression that it’s not that much of a surprise. For example, CEPI was founded with a goal of accelerating vaccine development against the WHO R&D Blueprint priority diseases and according to their R&D webpage:
I think it was a surprise that non-self-amplifying mRNA vaccines work as well as they do (mRNA is more immunogenic than predicted, I guess, at least for COVID?). 18 months ago, I don’t think I would have bet on mRNA platform vaccines as the future over DNA or adenovirus vaccines.