COVID-19 vaccine developers have a problem – not enough sick people

As early as May 22, 2020 the lack of infectious cases of COVID-19 was identified by Adrien Hill from Oxford’s Jenner institute when he said to Science mag “…we’re beginning to run out of good trial sites to do vaccine efficacy studies—even the U.S. is plateauing,” …People are going to fight for that site to get the vaccine tested before it runs out.”  The disappearance of Ebola cases in November 2015 was a major problem for vaccine developers!

Then on June 10, 2020 the Washington Post reported that Oxford University officials who were rushing to “develop coronavirus vaccines are alerting governments, health officials and shareholders” that declining numbers of new infections may be getting too small to quickly determine whether vaccines work!

“Even as new cases are growing worldwide, transmission rates are falling in Britain, China and many of the hardest-hit regions in the United States — the three countries that have experimental vaccines ready to move into large-scale human testing in June, July and August.”

Volunteers need to be exposed to someone infected with the virus to determine if the vaccine works.