RUSSIAN VACCINE? REALLY? HOLD ON

There is no Russian vaccine as yet. The Gam-Covid-Vac Lyo vaccine being developed by Moscow's Gamaleya Research Institute  has completed only phase 1 trials.

The detailed report from WHO's 'draft landscape of covid-19 candidate vaccines clearly states - 'An open two stage non-randomized Phase 1 study with the participation of healthy volunteers. This clinical trial is an open study of safety, tolerability and immunogenicity of the drug "Gam-COVID-Vac ", ly solution for intramuscular administration, with the participation of healthy volunteers.'

And that is identical to the vaccine update by noted columnist Carl Zimmer in NYT.

Also, the completion dates are clearly written - 5th august and 15th august. (btw, there is a mention of phase 2 there, so its not impossible the 1st and 2nd phases will be combined....thatz ok. nothing unusual, in fact most vaccine porjects are fusing phases 1 and 2 today)

To conclude, a good part of the first phase of experiments have been completed. The next stages start sometime next month. 

How did this go viral? First, a too-brief-and-messy report in Sputnik News, then the picking and shitty exaggeration of it by several media portals and opps! there you have another example of the  Infodemic! Thanks to some news reports which, a day later, reported correctly.

https://www.who.int/publications/m/item/draft-landscape-of-covid-19-candidate-vaccines

https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/study/NCT04436471?term=vaccine&cond=covid-19&draw=4

https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/record/NCT04437875?term=vaccine&cond=covid-19&draw=4

https://sputniknews.com/russia/202007121079860277-russias-sechenov-university-successfully-completes-trials-of-worlds-1st-covid-19-vaccine/

https://www.theweek.in/news/world/2020/07/13/did-russian-covid-19-vaccine-complete-clinical-trials-or-phase-i-trials.html