Professor Justin Stebbing On Vaccine Breakthroughs And Herd-Immunity By Summer

This episode is supported by private equity platform Moonfare. In this show, I talk with Professor Justin Stebbing. I had him as a guest in July when he argued that we could see a COVID vaccine around US election time. He was right and so I wanted to get his latest views. For background, Justin is a professor in the Faculty of Medicine at Imperial college London. He specializes in cancers and immunotherapies. He has an extensive research background having published over 550 peer-reviewed papers. Earlier this year, he published in the Lancet new research on using AI to find drugs to treat COVID-19 and recently published in Foreign Affairs China’s global role in vaccine distribution. In this podcast we discuss: The significance of Pfizer’s 90% efficacy rate Vaccines from other pharma companies including from Russia & China The science of vaccines – B-cell and T-cell responses Fast tracking of vaccine approval by FDA Managing public opinion and anti-vaxxers Logistics of vaccine distribution When will we get to herd-immunity Remaining uncertainties around vaccines Mink factories and mutations Long COVID and athletes Which countries have secured vaccine supplies