Framing #coronavirus vaccine research as a race, let alone an “Oxford v Imperial race” as this one does, is deeply unhelpful and misleading. Here’s why (short thread). #COVID19 #COVIDZero https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/04/22/inside-story-oxford-v-imperial-race-develop-worlds-first-coronavirus/

Vaccine research is not a race. Yes that can be a metaphor for “something that has to be done quickly”, which this does. But it implies one “team” or another will “win” and the other will lose. But that’s not so for several reasons.

1. we’ll need more than one vaccine. Different technologies may end up being more or less effective in different groups (eg healthcare workers, general population, people with specific health conditions). This isn’t zero sum. There doesn’t have to be a winner.

2. while speed matters, it’s worthless if a vaccine is safe or ineffective. Both the Oxford and Imperial teams would be the first to say that if the other vaccine (or different ones) turn out to be better vaccines, they are the ones in which the world should invest.

3. The race metaphor sets up an unhelpful notion of competition — between countries, as well as teams. Every nation will want a vaccine when it comes — we need a fair and equitable approach to access.

Vaccines should go first to those who need them most, all over the world — healthcare workers, vulnerable groups. Not those in a country that happens to “win a race” to develop one first. For as long as #COVID19 is out of control somewhere it’s a threat everywhere

4. It isn’t just Imperial and Oxford. These are excellent research groups — but these are two of more than 100 vaccine projects underway worldwide. It doesn’t matter which of these projects succeed, so long as some do.

5. We need lots of shots on goal (a much better metaphor) The world needs to back dozens of vaccine projects in the first instance, then take perhaps half a dozen on into full trials. We’ll need to build manufacturing facilities for these before we know whether or not they work.

Some will never be used because the vaccines they’re designed to make turn out not to work — but it’s a price we’ll have to pay if we want to be able to make billions of doses of the ones that do. It’s all about spreading bets, taking a portfolio approach.

That is going to be hard to communicate at the best of times. It’ll be so much harder if it’s all understood as a race with a winner. The only victory here comes if everyone wins.

So please, if you’re a reporter, an editor, a scientist, a communicator, don’t use this lazy metaphor. Vaccine development is hard enough already. (Ends)