How much trust should we place in a COVID vaccine?

probably a fair amount

I would tale it if a good number of trustworthy scientists and doctors say it is safe and effective.

If Trump jumps up and down to take whatever CRAP he is selling, I would not.

They are testing it on a good number of people which will be more useful than if they would have tested it on animals. I’m glad someone else was willing to take one for the team, but as long as the human trials are fine I will take it without any worries.

The ferrets got hepatitis. The mice had severe cases of pneumonia. They did not all drop dead. A lot was learned from SARS and MERS vaccine attempts as well as subsequent vaccine efforts for AIDS/HIV and Ebola. The vaccine world is in a totally different place than it was back in 2003-04.

The three phase trial system is the gold standard for vaccine safety. A vaccine that makes it through the third phase with minimal risk of adverse side effects will be safe and very much worth taking to get on track to ending the pandemic. Phase three trials are live trials in 30k+ human subjects who are tracked over time.

The bigger issue is efficacy. FDA has set the bar at 50% in prevention of the disease or reduction in severity of cases. That is relatively low. The big problem comes when there is diminished confidence in the vaccine due to political attacks on the vaccine or the process. This is a gun that kicks as much as it shoots. If Trump rushes a vaccine, many will stay away for fear that it is not safe. If a vaccine takes longer to make it through the trial process, but just meets the FDA standard, people may think that it isn't worth it. If only 50% of the population takes a vaccine that only offers 50% protection, you end up with only 25% of the population protected. That does little to end the pandemic.

It may be that it takes a second generation or even third generation of vaccines to get one that confers a high percentage of protection that is durable. That could also present a problem as the anti-vaxxers will claim that the vaccines will never work and are dangerous.

Unfortunately, what will emerge will be countries where the virus is all but eliminated and the pandemic is over due to a combination of vaccination campaigns and social distancing protocols and other countries where the virus is still very much present and causing harm. This is what happened with Polio. The US and Europe got rid of polio pretty quickly when the vaccine became widely available. But Polio persisted in African due to poverty and suspicion of vaccinations.

It is interesting to look at where we are today with vaccines compared to back in the 1940s when there was a smallpox outbreak in NYC after an infected traveler from Mexico died in a NYC hospital. The city worked quickly to deploy tracking and tracing and started a "ring" vaccination campaign. The city then urged anyone who had not been vaccinated or had not had the vaccine since childhood to get the vaccine. Everyone jumped into action and the problem was that supply could not keep up with demand and people who were waiting in line for hours got a bit rowdy when told there was no vaccine. There was never any doubt about the effort and public health officials were trusted. The vaccination effort was successful and stopped any significant small pox outbreak in NYC. Who know whether that would happen today.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3323221/

Here is what you are up against:

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0035421

"This effort was hampered by the occurrence in the initial preclinical trial of an immunopathogenic-type lung disease among ferrets and Cynomolgus monkeys given a whole virus vaccine adjuvanted with alum and challenged with infectious SARS-CoV [14]. That lung disease exhibited the characteristics of a Th2-type immunopathology with eosinophils in the lung sections suggesting hypersensitivity that was reminiscent of the descriptions of the Th2-type immunopathologic reaction in young children given an inactivated RSV vaccine and subsequently infected with naturally-occurring RSV [32]–[33]. Most of these children experienced severe disease with infection that led to a high frequency of hospitalizations; two children died from the infection"

What they found was the ferrets developed a good neutralizing antibody response, but the binding antibodies caused a hyper-sensitivity that caused a severe reaction when they encountered the wild virus.

Avoid the MF59. The virus will be by the time we have a vaccine, and the vaccine will be useless although it will make people feel safe enough to live again, so that is good.

ADE is a real concern. Its also a concern every vaccine maker is cognizant of and has studied backwards and forwards.

The lessons learned from SARS/MERS have been taken into account. If we had been insightful enough to continue those efforts, we might not be where we are today. And we should 100% finish those jobs now.

If the C-19 Phase 3 trials are allowed to finish without interference and if the govt sets a high enough bar, ADE should be evident, if it is occurring.

Well I heard that Trump and Trump alone reviews the clinical trial data, how can you trust him? ITS CRAZZZY.

All depends on the development of the vaccine and its research. There is no trust yet

If you really think they've learned a lot and trust the vaccines, you should sign up to be a human ferret (I mean human challenge candidate):

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/u-k-covid-19-trial-set-to-infect-people-with-virus-to-speed-up-vaccine-development-11600943806?mod=hp_minor_pos21

That way you can be one of the first with vaccine acquired immunity.

Well said.

High level people in government are intentionally undermining the integrity of government agencies and the press. These same people are constantly contradicting themselves on the record. Why would anyone trust anything they say? And by extension, why would they trust a vaccine that was rushed by those same people in government who have denied there is a problem?

Masks are proven more effective than 50% (vaccine low bar) and do not require an injection. But for political reasons people refuse. We are in for a long haul until people start believing science over politicians.