In today’s Morning Jolt, while summarizing a list of bad news, I noted that “the Oxford vaccine effort is not as promising as initial reports indicated.”

A reader points out that the results of the trials in monkeys could still yield a treatment that would mitigate the effects of the virus, if not cure it: “On autopsy, the researchers found the virus in the vaccinated monkeys’ lungs. On the upside, none of the vaccinated monkeys displayed pneumonia which suggests that, while not stopping the virus, it may be partially protective.”

Pneumonia, or inflammation of the air sacs in the lungs in response to an infection, is one of the biggest ways the virus is killing people. Emergency room doctor Richard Levitan wrote in the New York Times last month:

You Might Like

Pneumonia caused by the coronavirus has had a stunning impact on the city’s hospital system. . . . During my recent time at Bellevue, though, almost all the E.R. patients had Covid pneumonia.

Pneumonia is an infection of the lungs in which the air sacs fill with fluid or pus. Normally, patients develop chest discomfort, pain with breathing and other breathing problems. But when Covid pneumonia first strikes, patients don’t feel short of breath, even as their oxygen levels fall. And by the time they do, they have alarmingly low oxygen levels and moderate-to-severe pneumonia (as seen on chest X-rays). Normal oxygen saturation for most persons at sea level is 94 to 100 percent; Covid pneumonia patients I saw had oxygen saturations as low as 50 percent.

If Oxford researchers can develop a way to prevent a coronavirus infection from turning into pneumonia, their efforts will save a lot of lives — even if they don’t develop the vaccine they hoped and initially thought they might have.