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Comment by jwieczorek | Hacker News Reader

Meanwhile, Russia just today announced it is starting the release of the first batch of its own vaccine to the public.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/08/sputnik-russia-corona...

Well. As of now the Russian vaccine doesn't look like a trustworthy solution. Recently Russians published article in The lancet [1], but scientists who read this have a lot of questions. Especially on data consistency. They even published open letter to head of vaccine research Denis Logunov with open questions [2].

According to first reaction by Denis Logunov (don't have a link on this) the open letter doesn't worth to answer. Unless The lancet asks to react.

imho: It actually shouldn't be a surprise that if the government is corrupted, the other governmental institutions most likely do not function well either. This research center is a governmental institution. And might be interested and involved in some political games as well.

[1]: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6...

[2]: https://cattiviscienziati.com/2020/09/07/note-of-concern/

upd: formatting

This is nonsense -- I'm at high risk, and I'd take a flight to Russia right now to get a dose of Sputnik V if I knew I wouldn't catch COVID-19 on the trip.

Those grandstanding against these vaccines in the name of safety should know that they're directly responsible for deaths, and what's about to happen is we will just end up with a candidate from the least scrupulous manufacturer, because data are easy to manipulate and there's a lot of money on the line. I'd almost guarantee that this announcement means we've just traded a stable delivery platform for one of the mRNA candidates with risks that may be unknowable potentially for decades.

I'm a progressive and I get it that everything Trump does is necessarily frustrating, but whoever politicized this in response to his November 1st deadline should be ashamed, including whoever started the pledge that some of these companies signed today.

And what will happen if you get the vaccine and it doesn't work, but you live your life assuming that it did. You'll stop being as cautious as you are today, and if by any chance you get infected you'll die. How on earth is that a better solution?

I assume nothing.

I've left home exactly once since the second week of April, the next time I leave will be to get vaccinated (whether next week or years from now), and the very next time I leave after that will be to get my antibody levels checked. If the level is satisfactory, I'll resume leaving with an N95 or KN95 mask at all times until more is known.

[Speaking as non-high-risk person,] I'd trust scientists to define when a vaccine is safe. The pledge is a politic action, but is explicitly against politic influence.

Not sure why this got downvoted, it's not like the person is endorsing Russia's decision. I'm highly skeptical a country that refused to go on lockdown and underreported cases would make a safe vaccine faster than the rest of the world.

> country that refused to go on lockdown

What? Moscow lockdowns were some of the harshest outside East Asia.

I think grandparent meant "refused to go on lockdown on time". I have contacts in khazan ( not sure if orthographied correctly), the harsh lockdowns were due to a miscomprehension of the word "exponential growth" and overused hospitals.

>refused to go on lockdown on time Not sure if there was a definitive understanding when it was on time. As far as I remember, lockdown in Moscow started on March 23.

Correct, and this announcement is, among other things, a response to that.

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