On Saturday, July 25, Kohei Onozaki appeared live on "Nikkei Plus 10 Saturday News" (BS TV Tokyo).
On the topic of "The battle for corona vaccine development and competition...Japan's preparedness", he commented on the status of vaccine development and prospects.

He talked about the main idea of this.
- The situation is completely different from the 2009 H1N1 influenza outbreak, when both vaccines and medicines were available, and we need to be more vigilant.
- It's extremely difficult to produce a vaccine with proven efficacy and safety in a short period of time, so it's good to dream, but don't get your hopes up.
- (Isn't development in Japan too slow? Even if we were able to commercialize it in a year's time, next fall, it would still be a phenomenal speed.
- There is no medicine or vaccine without side effects. It is important to understand and control them in advance.

But still, expectation control is really important. There were reports of commercialization in the fall as well, so I think a lot of people think that commercialization = stable supply. However, even if they are able to commercialize the vaccine (although I think it is quite difficult to commercialize a truly effective vaccine), there are many hurdles to overcome before a stable supply can be achieved, such as securing manufacturing facilities, cold storage and distribution, and a medical system for vaccination, and even in developed countries like Japan, it is not that easy.

Incidentally, I think it is almost impossible at this point in time to provide a stable supply of the corona vaccine (a vaccine that does not cause symptoms of the disease through inoculation) that the general public expects at an early stage, within the year, or at the beginning of the year. With all this money and the world's brains coming together, I have high hopes for this, but don't get your hopes up too high. A treatment that includes a symptomatic drug might have some promise.

Incidentally, the flu vaccine was commercialized in the 1940s, but 80 years later, research and development is still ongoing. I think it's important to remember that it's only natural that we can't get a vaccine for the corona, and that we'll be lucky if we can.

Like in the movie "Contagion", a happy story where people can return to the world as before the moment the vaccine is supplied is a dream come true.

The most important thing is not to be overly fearful, not to expect too much from the vaccine, to practice thorough hand hygiene, which is the basis of infection control, and to continue with normal social activities as much as possible while living with the corona.

[This article is translated by DeepL]