SINGAPORE: Over 70 teams worldwide are now in a collaborative race to test different vaccine candidates against Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) that causes COVID-19.

Although the pace of research efforts has been extraordinary, scientists still estimate that producing a vaccine, from innovation to access, will take at least 12 to 18 months. This timeline has the caveat “if all goes well”.

To the public, this seems like a long wait. But most vaccinologists who study and develop vaccines view this as very optimistic. It normally takes more than 10 years for a vaccine candidate to become an approved vaccine in a public immunisation programme.

Vaccine development is complex and financially risky. A vaccine candidate can fail at any point in development. Having a few candidates do well in clinical trials is considered a best-case scenario.

It is important to understand that all we have currently are experimental vaccine candidates not ready to be used soon. A vaccine candidate is not a confirmed human vaccine.  

It must undergo ethical reviews, be evaluated in animal studies, for safety and efficacy in clinical trials involving human volunteers, before receiving regulatory approval and licensing for marketing and widespread use.

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Vaccine manufacturing plants must be pre-inspected and approved for sterile manufacturing conditions, quality controls, and production ramped up to support potentially billions of vaccine doses. 

Public health policies and financing decisions for national public programmes need to be in place.  Follow-up studies must be set up to closely monitor the vaccine’s long-term safety and effectiveness with large-scale immunisation.

This is even more important for an accelerated vaccine using new technology against a new virus.

ACCELERATING IN PARALLEL

For the COVID-19 pandemic, scientists, regulators, government and industry leaders have been working closely to accelerate coordination of the different requirements to run at parallel speed with some vaccine candidates which have already entered clinical trials. 

INTERACTIVE: All the COVID-19 clusters at dorms and construction sites

In addition to the World Health Organisation’s guiding role, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations was established in 2017 by the Wellcome Trust, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and several governments, and has invested in several projects to help speed up the development of COVID-19 vaccines

Timelines for animal and human trial studies are being compressed, but always carefully weighing potential risks.

For vaccine candidates developed using more well-known and evaluated technologies, some clinical studies in human volunteers have started earlier and overlapped with animal studies usually carried out before human studies. However, some areas cannot be shortened or accelerated, such as collecting ongoing safety data on side effects.

READ: Commentary: Five considerations for a clear-minded coronavirus response

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Regulatory reviews are being sped up. Instead of requiring submission of all information from completed clinical trials, regulatory agencies are now open to receiving data on an ongoing rolling basis.  

To save on time needed for analysis and discussion, “chapters” of clinical trial data can be submitted for review in real-time, rather than wait until the end to submit the usual complete “book” of data when all trials are finished.

Each vaccine has its own benefits and risks profile. Regulators must be updated and agile to manage risk tolerance and potential benefits of these urgently needed new technologies.

Manufacturing plans are also being accelerated in some countries. Plans in the US are already underway to scale up manufacturing to produce massive amounts of certain vaccine candidates.

Bill Gates has publicly supported developing manufacturing capacity for some vaccine candidates just starting clinical trials, fully aware not all candidates will cross the finish line.

Such early production, with quality checks done in advance, can shave off weeks to months for manufacturing billions of vaccine doses needed to reduce the ongoing human and economic toll.

READ: Commentary: COVID-19 collapse exceeds any recession in the last 150 years

Several questions are emerging surrounding financing and equitable distribution of any vaccines that get developed. What will it cost? Will the vaccine be considered a common good for all people? Will the technology be shared? Which countries and which populations groups are prioritised to gain access first?

This last question is a concern if countries with ongoing spread are unable to afford a vaccination programme. Strong leadership, global governance and a collective commitment to social justice will be needed.

HOW VACCINES WORK

All vaccines work using the same principles. A healthy person (the vaccinee) is given a piece of the germ or the germ itself in order to give a “heads up” to his or her immune system, so that it can later recognise and tackle the virus appropriately.

If the person gets exposed to the real virus later, his or her immune memory will activate earlier to kill the virus and block its spread. The vaccinee stays healthy, often unaware of being exposed to the threat.

READ: Commentary: Maybe it’s time to pay more for grocery and food deliveries

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Choosing the best “picture” (antigens) of the SARS-CoV-2 virus to show to our immune systems, in order to stimulate the right immune memory and appropriate antibodies, is where the challenge really lies for scientists. 

A good, safe and effective SARS-CoV-2 vaccine must accurately capture the important features of this virus in order to generate the best immune memory. Ideally, a vaccine would show the immune system the entire process of SARS-CoV-2 infection so that it can develop ways to attack the virus at different fronts.

But it is challenging to genetically weaken SARS-CoV-2 such that it would cause infection but not the disease itself.

Most vaccine researchers have thus turned to technologies that can present different pictures, or pieces, of SARS-CoV-2 to our immune systems.

Much research has been focused on the spike proteins forming the “crown” or “corona” of SARS-CoV-2. This appears crucial in how the virus attaches to and infects human cells. 

We are beginning to learn that the spike protein is liberally “decorated” with sugars. Displaying the right sugars on vaccines appears important to show the immune system the correct “picture”.

Some vaccine candidates in the running present the genetic code (RNA or DNA) of the spike protein. Our cells then translate the genetic code to make the spike protein in the body. 

Another method is to insert SARS CoV-2 genes into a safe, licensed viral vaccine to deliver the piece of SARS CoV-2 using a well-known, harmless virus.

We might not be able to develop a vaccine that provides the perfect picture of the virus to vaccinees. But even a partially effective, safe vaccine could be very valuable. The vaccine may not stop all cases or symptoms but could prevent severe respiratory distress and deaths.

READ: Commentary: How to stay sane in a time of COVID-19 information overload

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When many people become immune – either through vaccination or surviving the infection – the virus cannot infect enough susceptible people to propagate. This population “herd immunity” is needed to end an epidemic or prevent one from gaining traction.

THE NEED FOR DIVERSITY AND SOME LUCK

While there are many ways to make vaccine candidates, we do not yet know how to pick winners. Furthermore, scientists still have much to learn about how this new virus behaves.

There remains an element of luck when looking for a good vaccine against a new virus we are only getting to know. But our chances have improved with the unprecedented number of vaccine candidates being developed and with the scientific world so focussed on COVID-19. 

The huge human, social and economic fallout from this pandemic means we should leave no stone unturned and invest heavily in a wide range of vaccine candidates to find good, safe and effective vaccines.

Many SARS-CoV-2 vaccine candidates are exploring using new technologies. To help shorten clinical trial duration and reduce the number of human volunteers, some research groups are studying the use of molecular technologies to complement clinical trials.

There is also hope that the similar explosion of studies for safe, effective medicines to treat COVID-19, including anti-viral medicines and potential antibody treatments, will yield positive results. These are likely to arrive much sooner than a vaccine.

The unfortunate surge of clinical experience in managing severe respiratory distress with COVID-19 could also lead to other best practices to improve patient outcomes where capacity is available.

MEANWHILE, CARRY ON

A COVID-19 vaccine will unfortunately not be available this year. If all goes well, a vaccine or even a few vaccines will be rolled out in 2021

For now, other public health measures are essential to save lives, including early case detection, contact tracing, isolation and quarantine. 

We must practise frequent hand washing, physical distancing, staying at home, avoiding crowded places, and wearing face masks if we really need to go out.

COVID-19 is testing our collective scientific ingenuity, our individual responsibilities and social compact at a national and global level. 

We must stay committed to our individual contributions and believe in our collaborative power in science to help develop and deliver long-term solutions.

BOOKMARK THIS: Our comprehensive coverage of the coronavirus outbreak and its developments

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Dr Tippi Mak is Academic Visiting Expert at the Centre of Regulatory Excellence, Duke-NUS Medical School, Consultant at the SingHealth Duke-NUS Global Health Institute, and Board Director of the Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization – International Vaccine Centre at the University of Saskatchewan, Canada.

Professor Ooi Eng Eong is Deputy Director at the Emerging Infectious Diseases Programme, Duke-NUS Medical School and Co-Director at the Viral Research and Experimental Medicine Centre@SingHealth Duke-NUS.

Professor John CW Lim is Executive Director at the Centre of Regulatory Excellence, Duke-NUS Medical School, Policy Core Lead at the SingHealth Duke-NUS Global Health Institute, and Chairman of the Singapore Clinical Research Institute & National Health Innovation Centre.

SINGAPORE: The “very high” commission fees charged by food delivery platforms are eating into the already-thin profits of food and beverage (F&B) businesses, said an industry group as it called for these fees to be cut during the COVID-19 pandemic and in the longer run.

The Restaurant Association of Singapore (RAS), which has over 450 members, said current commission charges range from 25 to 32 per cent for each order. 

“RAS hopes that the delivery platforms will lower their commission rates during the COVID-19 period and also in the longer run,”  a spokesperson told CNA.

“Whether it is the circuit breaker period or not, the rates are not sustainable for the businesses given F&B’s razor-thin margins.”

In recent years, willingness from consumers to pay for convenience has whetted a growing appetite for meal deliveries in Singapore, spurring the growth of platforms such as foodpanda and Deliveroo.

While there were concerns about the steep commission fees, which can go as high as 40 per cent an order according to F&B owners that CNA spoke with, they were largely overshadowed by the lure of capturing a slice of a growing market.

But as F&B owners grapple with a sharp fall in revenue amid the COVID-19 outbreak, especially with stricter rules banning dine-ins until at least May 4, these fees have become harder to stomach and calls for lower fees have grown.

At least two Members of Parliament (MPs) have spoken out on this recently.

West Coast GRC MP Foo Mee Har described the commission fees as “an exorbitant one-third of customer receipts” and, citing F&B owners she spoke with, only “barely tolerable during peace time”.

As businesses become increasingly reliant on meal delivery services amid the virus outbreak, “payment of such commissions renders the sustainability of food establishments untenable”.

Speaking on Apr 7 during the Budget debate, Ms Foo urged delivery platforms to do their part by reviewing commission models so as to “foster more equitable sharing of costs and benefits”.

READ: Events postponed, restaurants ‘near empty’: F&B industry on the chopping block as COVID-19 measures bite

Also urging food delivery platforms to lower their commissions “especially during such unprecedented times”, Tanjong Pagar GRC MP Melvin Yong said current charges are “too exorbitant” for hawkers.

“In some cases, the commission fees exceed the hawker’s profit margins!” he remarked in an entry on the labour movement’s blog on Apr 4, adding that a lower fee would nudge more hawkers to sign up.

DELIVERY APPS WAIVE SOME FEES

Asked if they would lower their commission rates, the three biggest food delivery players in Singapore – foodpanda, Deliveroo and GrabFood – would only say they have various measures to help F&B businesses cope with the COVID-19 fallout.

For instance, they have quickened the onboarding process for new sign-ups amid increased demand. Deliveroo said it has onboarded around 100 new restaurants since Apr 3 and aims to double this number in the next two weeks.

Some related fees have also been waived, according to replies from these delivery players.

foodpanda said its onboarding process has been shortened to within 3 days and new vendors will not have to pay registration fees. It is also waiving commission fees for the first month for those who sign up between Apr 9 and May 4 and have one or two outlets.

Deliveroo will waive up to S$360 of onboarding fees, said its spokesperson. Meanwhile, a new weekly payment service begins later this month so that cash-strapped restaurants can have faster access to their delivery revenue.

GrabFood is waiving commission fees for self pick-up orders during the circuit breaker period and its other measures include creating a “Local Heroes” icon on its homepage to help increase the visibility of single-outlet F&B places.

LOWER COMMISSION FEES TO 12-15%: RAS

Such measures do little to alleviate the woes of F&B operators, said restaurateur Loh Lik Peng who described them as “tactical promotions” to capture market share.

“Is this a fundamental change to the commission model? I would say no as it makes no difference in the long term,” he said, noting that rates of around 30 per cent “continue to be unsustainable” as they take a huge chunk out of F&B business earnings.

And amid the COVID-19 outbreak with a vast majority of F&B businesses already suffering “fairly steep losses”, many F&B operators are persisting with deliveries simply to “mitigate” further losses, he added.

Mr Loh noted how concerns about the steep commission fees charged by food delivery players have been raised in other countries. For instance, legislation has been introduced by the New York City Council last month to limit such fees at 10 per cent.

READ: Delivery fees, commissions cut as Americans stop dining out 

“We do hope more can be done for the long term,” said Mr Loh, who is one of the founders of an informal F&B grouping called the #savefnbsg.

The group, made up of over 500 restaurants here, issued a statement on Wednesday (Apr 15) calling for the Government to consider mandating these commission fees.

Citing how city officials in San Francisco have issued an emergency order for delivery platforms to cap commissions at 15 per cent, an open letter on the group’s website said: “If the Singapore government can do likewise and mandate that delivery platforms lower their commission by at least 15 per cent, it will play a huge part in our survival.” 

It has set up an online petition to rally for lower commissions, after watching “in frustration” as these rates “increased steadily from 20 per cent to 30 per cent”.

The strongly-worded statement also appealed to consumers to order directly from F&B operators instead.

“As restaurateurs, our appeal to you is: If you want your dollar to have the most impact in supporting the industry, stop ordering through these platforms.”

The RAS said a range of 12 to 15 per cent “would be more viable” for F&B operators here, in response to CNA’s question on how much commission rates should be reduced.

For the time being, it is encouraging restaurants to tap on a newly announced relief package from Enterprise Singapore which will fund 5 percentage points of the commissions charged by Deliveroo, GrabFood and foodpanda, with no cap on the food delivery transaction value, from Apr 7 to May 4.

READ: F&B businesses to receive support for food delivery orders with new Enterprise Singapore booster package

FINDING ALTERNATIVES

As the COVID-19 outbreak drags on, businesses are mulling alternatives.

Unlisted Collection, for instance, has tapped local technology start-up Oddle to build an online ordering system for its restaurants so that it can take orders directly via its websites. Oddle takes a 10 per cent cut from each order that is transacted on this system.

Mr Loh said his firm will “continue to look at Oddle as a preferred platform” given the lower costs.

Having a personalised ordering site also allows it to better engage customers, versus having to fight for attention with many other restaurants listed on the same marketplace, the entrepreneur added.

Mr Loh doesn’t seem to be alone as Oddle has seen 15 per cent more sign-ups since end-March, its chief financial officer Solomon Tan told CNA.

“In the past merchants will tell us ‘I’m already on food delivery marketplaces so that’s my online presence’. This changed after COVID-19.”

Oddle hopes to “empower” F&B operators with their own digital presence. More than just consolidating orders and payments, its system also provides analytics to help businesses determine the type of marketing needed. Oddle is also able to provide logistics support for meal deliveries.

“We want to help businesses to go online. This is something that I think has become a lot more important during COVID-19 when businesses realise they couldn’t address the market needs.

“To put it simply, they find themselves having to speak to a reseller in order to sell more, when they can just be trying to sell more themselves,” said Mr Tan.

Other F&B owners have turned to doing their own deliveries by tapping ad-hoc riders or drivers.

One of them is DOCO – an eatery selling Japanese rice bowls in Tanjong Pagar. Its owner Ken Tan took to Facebook last week to search for drivers looking to earn additional income. He has since assembled five drivers who take on an average of 20 to 25 deliveries a day.

Drivers get to keep the delivery fees, which range from S$3 to S$10 depending on the distance.

“I’ll like to do more orders islandwide … and these drivers also need to earn an income. So I thought why not let’s try this out.”

GROUND-UP EFFORT FOR HAWKERS

For hawkers, many of whom have been deterred by the commission fees of food delivery platforms, a ground-up initiative which started on Facebook earlier this month has been seen as timely help.

Called the Hawkers United – Dabao 2020, the Facebook group allows hawkers to promote their menus, takeaway and delivery services for free.

Its creator, Mr Melvin Chew who runs Jin Ji Teochew Braised Duck & Kway Chap at Chinatown Complex, said most hawkers do not have accounts on social media platforms and are used to relying on walk-in customers.

Knowing that many will be badly affected by the dine-in ban and other “circuit breaker” rules, he knew he had to act quickly to help.

“That’s why I created a space where it’s free for all hawkers and some F&B outlets, and also welcome consumers who are interested in ordering from these stalls.”

The group has attracted nearly 220,000 members as of Apr 15 – a surprise for Mr Chew.

While there has been some “unwelcome” attention such as the set-up of a fake Telegram group, Mr Chew said he and his team feel encouraged when they learnt that some hawkers have since received “overwhelming” orders through the Facebook group.

The second-generation hawker is hoping to help more and has gone on to set up two other groups on the social media platform. One is targeted at wet market vendors – Pasar United – Dabao 2020 – and the other called Delivery United aims to help F&B operators locate deliverymen.

Most hawkers told CNA that they remain hesitant in signing up with food delivery platforms as the commissions remain “too high” even with the one-month funding from Enterprise Singapore.

Delivery platforms will need to lower their rates “by a huge margin” or offer the hawker community “a proportionate commission rate to sales”, said Mr Chew.

“If my duck rice is S$3 a packet and 30 per cent is deducted by the mega ordering platforms with delivery services, you can quickly calculate how little we get back. I still have to pay rent, utilities, suppliers, packaging etc.”

READ: From hawker centre to home: Is delivering cheap, local food a recipe for business success?

To be sure, there are start-ups that have been trying to disrupt the space by delivering hawker food. 

WhyQ, which began operations in early 2017, does not charge commissions “considering the low cost of hawker fare”, said its co-founder Rishabh Singhvi.

Its revenue comes from the delivery fee of S$1.50 and a mark-up on food prices made in agreement with the hawkers.

However, Mr Chew said having reliable, islandwide delivery also matters for hawkers when it comes to deciding delivery partners.

“Because hawkers mostly work for and by themselves, we need to minimise risks and problems including delivery and avoid customers’ complaints,” he said.

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SINGAPORE: The police will be investigating cases of criminal force against safe distancing enforcement officers, said Minister for the Environment and Water Resources Masagos Zulkifli on Wednesday (Apr 15), as he condemned such acts as “unacceptable”.

Singapore has introduced elevated safe distancing measures as part of a month-long circuit breaker period to stem the spread of COVID-19.

Other measures as part of the circuit breaker, which began on Apr 7, include the closure of non-essential workplaces and schools and implementing physical distancing precautions.

On Tuesday, the authorities announced that it would be mandatory for most people to wear a mask when leaving the house. 

READ: COVID-19: Compulsory to wear mask when leaving the house, says Lawrence Wong

Many Singaporeans understand the importance of such measures, said Mr Masagos in a Facebook post.

“But there are some who are recalcitrant,” he added.

“I was upset to learn that criminal force has been used against quite a number of our officers on the frontline,” he said.

Earlier in the day, an enforcement officer was slapped by a man who did not comply with safe distancing measures, said the minister.

In another case, a safe distancing ambassador was punched by an “errant member of the public” when he was told to wear his mask correctly.

“Let me state categorically that such behaviour is unacceptable,” said Mr Masagos. 

“We will be taking action against these individuals, and will not hesitate to do the same should there be other similar incidents.”

The incidents are “but two of the cases” which the police will investigate, he said.

To facilitate the enforcement of safe distancing measures, members of the public will now be able to send feedback and flag instances of misbehaviour via the OneService app, said Mr Masagos.

Those who submit information should only send photos they took themselves, and should also provide as many details as possible to facilitate enforcement, said the minister.

From Thursday, safe distancing ambassadors and enforcement officers will also get passes to help people better identify them, the Ministry of the Environment and Water Resources (MEWR) said in a media release.

Enforcement officers may also wear a red armband.

“These new identifiers will help the public to better identify (enforcement officers) and ambassadors, and facilitate the work of the officers in enforcing safe distancing measures,” said the ministry.

Singapore on Wednesday saw a spike in COVID-19 cases, reporting a record 447 new infections.

So far 3,699 people have tested positive for the novel coronavirus, ten of whom have died from complications related to the disease.

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Download our app or subscribe to our Telegram channel for the latest updates on the coronavirus outbreak: https://cna.asia/telegram