OT: COVID-19 thread #4

[Chi town]

What I don't get is why people want so badly for this vaccine to be a failure that they search out people like Mercola to reinforce their preconceived agenda.

It boggles the mind.

Not to mention most these guys are selling some supplement they claim is really what you need... against all the real experts advice.

Sent from my SM-G965U using RealGM mobile app

It points to the motivations IMO.
There are real issues (myocarditis/clots) but none are out of range with past vaccines. Reasonable people understand no vaccine is perfect and that there are always risks for side effects. Although I know no one who had anything serious at all. I had nothing at all from moderna--only minor arm pain.

It really is about muddying the waters--FUD (fear uncertainty and doubt)--for what gain? To get some website clicks, sell some magic beans--to gain a niche tribe/crowd built on shared lies? All of the above it seems. And there are cheap therapeutics that do work and the establishment regularly uses--yet the hucksters won't mention that--doesn't fit the narrative. There is also an underlying theme of attained secret knowledge--that is enticing to some people.

It's similar to the playbook for HIV--blame it on some government conspiracy.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4265931/
Sadly the same tropes are playing out just a change in players.

I just hope casual readers don't fall for any of it.

The anti vaxxers don’t have much to stand on. Don’t know how anyone can’t see the positive force the vaccine is for the most vulnerable.

Vaccine hesitant people that I’m talking to are healthy people that have already had COVID. Several have said they went to their doctor got tested for antibodies and their docs said no need for vacc because their antibodies were so high.

I’m also seeing friends that have been vacced stay at home from work w all the symptoms after someone tests positive… they have t even bothered to get tested because they know they have it. Minor cold symptoms.

So many variables and layers to so much of the data.

[micromonkey]

The anti vaxxers don’t have much to stand on. Don’t know how anyone can’t see the positive force the vaccine is for the most vulnerable.

Vaccine hesitant people that I’m talking to are healthy people that have already had COVID. Several have said they went to their doctor got tested for antibodies and their docs said no need for vacc because their antibodies were so high.

I’m also seeing friends that have been vacced stay at home from work w all the symptoms after someone tests positive… they have t even bothered to get tested because they know they have it. Minor cold symptoms.

So many variables and layers to so much of the data.

There is reasonable data to support that naturally immunity is good--durability is harder to determine--its likely to be better.

https://www.rockefeller.edu/news/30919-natural-infection-versus-vaccination-differences-in-covid-antibody-responses-emerge/

While vaccination gives rise to memory B cells that evolve over a few weeks, natural infection births memory B cells that continue to evolve over several months, producing highly potent antibodies adept at eliminating even viral variants.

The findings highlight an advantage bestowed by natural infection rather than vaccination, but the authors caution that the benefits of stronger memory B cells do not outweigh the risk of disability and death from COVID-19.

But this still holds true, especially for over 65

“While a natural infection may induce maturation of antibodies with broader activity than a vaccine does—a natural infection can also kill you,” says Michel C. Nussenzweig, the Zanvil A. Cohn and Ralph M. Steinman professor and head of Rockefeller’s Laboratory of Molecular Immunology. “A vaccine won’t do that and, in fact, protects against the risk of serious illness or death from infection.”

And of course the best dosing schedule was never 3-4 weeks apart--4-6 months would likely be better--which is why many will do boosters. And there is every reason to believe mixing doses will give a stronger T cell response.

They do know natural (Original SARS COV1 or SARS COV2) + mRNA vaccine actually creates "super-immunity".
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2108453

And as far as treatments--new ones are coming--Llama nanobodies look potentially very interesting.
https://www.ukri.org/news/llama-antibody-has-significant-potential-as-covid-19-treatment/
Its just hamster studies for now. (Just waiting for the tinfoil hats to say it will turn you into a camel---or maybe make you accumulate a hump like a camel-I"m not sure but it will be something interesting)

But this approach could be used for other diseases as well.
The pandemic has burst the dam on research so I think the upshot will be more and better treatments hopefully going forward.

[chifan1798]

If you are expecting a cure, you will be sorely disappointed. Viral illnesses don’t usually have cures. The best bet is to avoid having the viral illness, or to mitigate the symptoms when you get it. Why do you think that people with genital herpes are never cured, and they always have outbreaks? The antiviral medications that they take, are to help the symptoms of the outbreak. People with the Varicella (chicken pox) as children, can get Herpes Zoster later in life (shingles), because the virus is not killed or cured, it just remains dormant for a while, and not doing anything. Same with HIV….there’s no cure, but there are medications that can help with viral load, thus lessening the chance of transmission, or getting severe symptoms. There will likely never be a cure for COVID. The best bet is to limit your chance of catching the virus.

The measles vaccine has a 97% rate of preventing measles after both doses. That is effectively a cure. I'm not worried in interacting with anyone with measles and probably couldn't find someone if I tried.

A vaccine that requires the vaccinated be protected from the unvaccinated is not a real solution to Covid.

Thank you for bringing this up, because this just goes to show the concept of herd immunity. Are you really going to talk about the miniscule difference between something being 97% percent effective, vs something that is 94% effective? The true difference, and why the MMR (measles, mumps and rubella) vaccine isn’t necessarily a “cure”, but rather, its just exemplifies the concept of HERD IMMUNITY. What you fail to realize, is that if only 50% of the population was vaccinated against measles, since the vaccine was created, we would still have the disease proliferating throughout the community, and you would easily be able to find someone who had it, or possibly contract it yourself, even though you got the vaccine. What you’re neglecting is the fact that 90+ percent of infants every year have been getting the vaccine. Since 1994, there have only been 3 years where less than 90% were vaccinated (lowest percentage being 88.5% in 1997). I would guess that the numbers were high even before then as well (certainly higher than the 50%ish range for COVID vaccine). And those are only the numbers for infants, there are probably other older children, and young adults who get vaccinated eventually, because it’s required by many schools, to have up to date vaccination records in order to enroll. I would guess that Generation X and beyond have very high rates of immunity to measles, due to them receiving the vaccine over all these years. So the fact that you have 90% of the most vulnerable population, getting the vaccine, that is the reason why it appears as a “cure” to you. If 90% of the people in this country were vaccinated with the COVID vaccine, since it rolled out, I guarantee you, we would not be having this discussion right now.

This is not new science. Herd immunity has been around for a while, and is the reason why we don’t have tons of people getting, smallpox, measles, mumps, rubella, polio, etc, anymore. We’ll never attain that standard until people stop politicizing the vaccine, and trust the science and the doctors behind it. For now, we will likely be treating this like the Flu, where we have to get vaccinated every year.

[dougthonus]

Thank you for bringing this up, because this just goes to show the concept of herd immunity. Are you really going to talk about the miniscule difference between something being 97% percent effective, vs something that is 94% effective? The true difference, and why the MMR (measles, mumps and rubella) vaccine isn’t necessarily a “cure”, but rather, its just exemplifies the concept of HERD IMMUNITY. What you fail to realize, is that if only 50% of the population was vaccinated against measles, since the vaccine was created, we would still have the disease proliferating throughout the community, and you would easily be able to find someone who had it, or possibly contract it yourself, even though you got the vaccine. What you’re neglecting is the fact that 90+ percent of infants every year have been getting the vaccine. Since 1994, there have only been 3 years where less than 90% were vaccinated (lowest percentage being 88.5% in 1997). I would guess that the numbers were high even before then as well (certainly higher than the 50%ish range for COVID vaccine). And those are only the numbers for infants, there are probably other older children, and young adults who get vaccinated eventually, because it’s required by many schools, to have up to date vaccination records in order to enroll. I would guess that Generation X and beyond have very high rates of immunity to measles, due to them receiving the vaccine over all these years. So the fact that you have 90% of the most vulnerable population, getting the vaccine, that is the reason why it appears as a “cure” to you. If 90% of the people in this country were vaccinated with the COVID vaccine, since it rolled out, I guarantee you, we would not be having this discussion right now.

This is not new science. Herd immunity has been around for a while, and is the reason why we don’t have tons of people getting, smallpox, measles, mumps, rubella, polio, etc, anymore. We’ll never attain that standard until people stop politicizing the vaccine, and trust the science and the doctors behind it. For now, we will likely be treating this like the Flu, where we have to get vaccinated every year.

Well the couple other problems is that:
1: The vaccine doesn't appear to be 94% against the Delta variant and as new variants emerge that are likely derivatives of Delta, they may be less effective still without new boosters designed specifically to those variants.

2: It appears the vaccine efficacy goes down as time goes on to some degree.

Both of the above statements seem like we don't have precise measures and the combination of the two may also muddle things further as it's hard to determine if vaccine efficacy is waning or was just less towards Delta overall.

To your broader point it really means it will be significantly more difficult for the world to ever do anything other than get regular boosters or assume whatever risk you want. To get enough herd immunity in the world that it will die out completely seems like a tall order unless it just stops mutating all together which there isn't much reason to think will happen IMO.

[TheStig]

If you are expecting a cure, you will be sorely disappointed. Viral illnesses don’t usually have cures. The best bet is to avoid having the viral illness, or to mitigate the symptoms when you get it. Why do you think that people with genital herpes are never cured, and they always have outbreaks? The antiviral medications that they take, are to help the symptoms of the outbreak. People with the Varicella (chicken pox) as children, can get Herpes Zoster later in life (shingles), because the virus is not killed or cured, it just remains dormant for a while, and not doing anything. Same with HIV….there’s no cure, but there are medications that can help with viral load, thus lessening the chance of transmission, or getting severe symptoms. There will likely never be a cure for COVID. The best bet is to limit your chance of catching the virus.

The measles vaccine has a 97% rate of preventing measles after both doses. That is effectively a cure. I'm not worried in interacting with anyone with measles and probably couldn't find someone if I tried.

A vaccine that requires the vaccinated be protected from the unvaccinated is not a real solution to Covid.

Thank you for bringing this up, because this just goes to show the concept of herd immunity. Are you really going to talk about the miniscule difference between something being 97% percent effective, vs something that is 94% effective? The true difference, and why the MMR (measles, mumps and rubella) vaccine isn’t necessarily a “cure”, but rather, its just exemplifies the concept of HERD IMMUNITY. What you fail to realize, is that if only 50% of the population was vaccinated against measles, since the vaccine was created, we would still have the disease proliferating throughout the community, and you would easily be able to find someone who had it, or possibly contract it yourself, even though you got the vaccine. What you’re neglecting is the fact that 90+ percent of infants every year have been getting the vaccine. Since 1994, there have only been 3 years where less than 90% were vaccinated (lowest percentage being 88.5% in 1997). I would guess that the numbers were high even before then as well (certainly higher than the 50%ish range for COVID vaccine). And those are only the numbers for infants, there are probably other older children, and young adults who get vaccinated eventually, because it’s required by many schools, to have up to date vaccination records in order to enroll. I would guess that Generation X and beyond have very high rates of immunity to measles, due to them receiving the vaccine over all these years. So the fact that you have 90% of the most vulnerable population, getting the vaccine, that is the reason why it appears as a “cure” to you. If 90% of the people in this country were vaccinated with the COVID vaccine, since it rolled out, I guarantee you, we would not be having this discussion right now.

This is not new science. Herd immunity has been around for a while, and is the reason why we don’t have tons of people getting, smallpox, measles, mumps, rubella, polio, etc, anymore. We’ll never attain that standard until people stop politicizing the vaccine, and trust the science and the doctors behind it. For now, we will likely be treating this like the Flu, where we have to get vaccinated every year.

YOu're missing the big difference. The measles vaccine prevents you from getting it and makes it that the disease doesn't mutate to a stronger strain because it doesn't have hosts. This vaccine does not prevent you from getting it. In fact, you need to protect the vaccinated from the unvaccinated. When's the last time you had to be protected from someone with measles?

[Almost Retired]

DEEP DIVE
https://www.juliusruechel.com/2021/09/the-snake-oil-salesmen-and-covid-zero.html

[_txchilibowl_]

The measles vaccine has a 97% rate of preventing measles after both doses. That is effectively a cure. I'm not worried in interacting with anyone with measles and probably couldn't find someone if I tried.

A vaccine that requires the vaccinated be protected from the unvaccinated is not a real solution to Covid.

Thank you for bringing this up, because this just goes to show the concept of herd immunity. Are you really going to talk about the miniscule difference between something being 97% percent effective, vs something that is 94% effective? The true difference, and why the MMR (measles, mumps and rubella) vaccine isn’t necessarily a “cure”, but rather, its just exemplifies the concept of HERD IMMUNITY. What you fail to realize, is that if only 50% of the population was vaccinated against measles, since the vaccine was created, we would still have the disease proliferating throughout the community, and you would easily be able to find someone who had it, or possibly contract it yourself, even though you got the vaccine. What you’re neglecting is the fact that 90+ percent of infants every year have been getting the vaccine. Since 1994, there have only been 3 years where less than 90% were vaccinated (lowest percentage being 88.5% in 1997). I would guess that the numbers were high even before then as well (certainly higher than the 50%ish range for COVID vaccine). And those are only the numbers for infants, there are probably other older children, and young adults who get vaccinated eventually, because it’s required by many schools, to have up to date vaccination records in order to enroll. I would guess that Generation X and beyond have very high rates of immunity to measles, due to them receiving the vaccine over all these years. So the fact that you have 90% of the most vulnerable population, getting the vaccine, that is the reason why it appears as a “cure” to you. If 90% of the people in this country were vaccinated with the COVID vaccine, since it rolled out, I guarantee you, we would not be having this discussion right now.

This is not new science. Herd immunity has been around for a while, and is the reason why we don’t have tons of people getting, smallpox, measles, mumps, rubella, polio, etc, anymore. We’ll never attain that standard until people stop politicizing the vaccine, and trust the science and the doctors behind it. For now, we will likely be treating this like the Flu, where we have to get vaccinated every year.

YOu're missing the big difference. The measles vaccine prevents you from getting it and makes it that the disease doesn't mutate to a stronger strain because it doesn't have hosts. This vaccine does not prevent you from getting it. In fact, you need to protect the vaccinated from the unvaccinated. When's the last time you had to be protected from someone with measles?

You've buried your head in the sand....

Mutations are precisely the reason we need more people vaccinated. The vaccinations reduce transmissibility thus reducing the viruses ability to mutate. But you knew that...been common knowledge for a little while now.

And the vaccinated don't need to be protected from the unvaccinated. We'll be fine from COVID. But we could use your assistance making sure we can get hospital care for other medical procedures like cancer treatments, heart conditions, blood disorders, etc., etc., etc....

[chifan1798]

Thank you for bringing this up, because this just goes to show the concept of herd immunity. Are you really going to talk about the miniscule difference between something being 97% percent effective, vs something that is 94% effective? The true difference, and why the MMR (measles, mumps and rubella) vaccine isn’t necessarily a “cure”, but rather, its just exemplifies the concept of HERD IMMUNITY. What you fail to realize, is that if only 50% of the population was vaccinated against measles, since the vaccine was created, we would still have the disease proliferating throughout the community, and you would easily be able to find someone who had it, or possibly contract it yourself, even though you got the vaccine. What you’re neglecting is the fact that 90+ percent of infants every year have been getting the vaccine. Since 1994, there have only been 3 years where less than 90% were vaccinated (lowest percentage being 88.5% in 1997). I would guess that the numbers were high even before then as well (certainly higher than the 50%ish range for COVID vaccine). And those are only the numbers for infants, there are probably other older children, and young adults who get vaccinated eventually, because it’s required by many schools, to have up to date vaccination records in order to enroll. I would guess that Generation X and beyond have very high rates of immunity to measles, due to them receiving the vaccine over all these years. So the fact that you have 90% of the most vulnerable population, getting the vaccine, that is the reason why it appears as a “cure” to you. If 90% of the people in this country were vaccinated with the COVID vaccine, since it rolled out, I guarantee you, we would not be having this discussion right now.

This is not new science. Herd immunity has been around for a while, and is the reason why we don’t have tons of people getting, smallpox, measles, mumps, rubella, polio, etc, anymore. We’ll never attain that standard until people stop politicizing the vaccine, and trust the science and the doctors behind it. For now, we will likely be treating this like the Flu, where we have to get vaccinated every year.

Well the couple other problems is that:
1: The vaccine doesn't appear to be 94% against the Delta variant and as new variants emerge that are likely derivatives of Delta, they may be less effective still without new boosters designed specifically to those variants.

2: It appears the vaccine efficacy goes down as time goes on to some degree.

Both of the above statements seem like we don't have precise measures and the combination of the two may also muddle things further as it's hard to determine if vaccine efficacy is waning or was just less towards Delta overall.

To your broader point it really means it will be significantly more difficult for the world to ever do anything other than get regular boosters or assume whatever risk you want. To get enough herd immunity in the world that it will die out completely seems like a tall order unless it just stops mutating all together which there isn't much reason to think will happen IMO.

Yes, the vaccine isn’t going to be perfect, given how fast it had to be created and dispersed. It’s definitely going the way of the influenza vaccine, where you need one every year, because you have to deal with different strains. Even if you get the flu vaccine,you can still get the flu. It’s likely going to be the same for COVID, at least for now. But even if someone does get some of these variants, vaccinated people still fare a better chance with dealing with the symptoms.,

The original post I was responding to, was talking about how this vaccine isn’t the right one, because it isn’t a cure. No vaccine is a “cure”. There is still a chance to get the disease that someone is protected against. But having the vaccine + plus a large percentage of people getting the vaccine, in addition to other preventative measures, creates a system where we can get disease X, more under control. If we did it in the US, it would be great. You couldn’t trust it worldwide though, but that’s the same thing for many diseases that people don’t hear about, unless they have to get vaccinated for traveling to specific countries that may have a high rate of something like yellow fever or dengue fever for example.

[chifan1798]

Thank you for bringing this up, because this just goes to show the concept of herd immunity. Are you really going to talk about the miniscule difference between something being 97% percent effective, vs something that is 94% effective? The true difference, and why the MMR (measles, mumps and rubella) vaccine isn’t necessarily a “cure”, but rather, its just exemplifies the concept of HERD IMMUNITY. What you fail to realize, is that if only 50% of the population was vaccinated against measles, since the vaccine was created, we would still have the disease proliferating throughout the community, and you would easily be able to find someone who had it, or possibly contract it yourself, even though you got the vaccine. What you’re neglecting is the fact that 90+ percent of infants every year have been getting the vaccine. Since 1994, there have only been 3 years where less than 90% were vaccinated (lowest percentage being 88.5% in 1997). I would guess that the numbers were high even before then as well (certainly higher than the 50%ish range for COVID vaccine). And those are only the numbers for infants, there are probably other older children, and young adults who get vaccinated eventually, because it’s required by many schools, to have up to date vaccination records in order to enroll. I would guess that Generation X and beyond have very high rates of immunity to measles, due to them receiving the vaccine over all these years. So the fact that you have 90% of the most vulnerable population, getting the vaccine, that is the reason why it appears as a “cure” to you. If 90% of the people in this country were vaccinated with the COVID vaccine, since it rolled out, I guarantee you, we would not be having this discussion right now.

This is not new science. Herd immunity has been around for a while, and is the reason why we don’t have tons of people getting, smallpox, measles, mumps, rubella, polio, etc, anymore. We’ll never attain that standard until people stop politicizing the vaccine, and trust the science and the doctors behind it. For now, we will likely be treating this like the Flu, where we have to get vaccinated every year.

YOu're missing the big difference. The measles vaccine prevents you from getting it and makes it that the disease doesn't mutate to a stronger strain because it doesn't have hosts. This vaccine does not prevent you from getting it. In fact, you need to protect the vaccinated from the unvaccinated. When's the last time you had to be protected from someone with measles?

I’m not missing the point. You even gave the percentage yourself, that it’s 97% effective, which is not 100%. There is still a chance for you to get the disease. And I’m telling you, everyone is benefiting from the fact that 90% + are vaccinated over decades now. There was a measles outbreak that happened a couple of years ago. At that time, 11% of the people who got the disease were known to be vaccinated, and that number could be higher, because there was 18% of people where they didn’t know the vaccination status. So the vaccine still isn’t a cure, and you can still get the disease if you encounter someone else who is infected, and are around them long enough. So my point stands that the herd immunity is why you feels safe that you won’t go out and contract measles.

[waffle]

Thank you for bringing this up, because this just goes to show the concept of herd immunity. Are you really going to talk about the miniscule difference between something being 97% percent effective, vs something that is 94% effective? The true difference, and why the MMR (measles, mumps and rubella) vaccine isn’t necessarily a “cure”, but rather, its just exemplifies the concept of HERD IMMUNITY. What you fail to realize, is that if only 50% of the population was vaccinated against measles, since the vaccine was created, we would still have the disease proliferating throughout the community, and you would easily be able to find someone who had it, or possibly contract it yourself, even though you got the vaccine. What you’re neglecting is the fact that 90+ percent of infants every year have been getting the vaccine. Since 1994, there have only been 3 years where less than 90% were vaccinated (lowest percentage being 88.5% in 1997). I would guess that the numbers were high even before then as well (certainly higher than the 50%ish range for COVID vaccine). And those are only the numbers for infants, there are probably other older children, and young adults who get vaccinated eventually, because it’s required by many schools, to have up to date vaccination records in order to enroll. I would guess that Generation X and beyond have very high rates of immunity to measles, due to them receiving the vaccine over all these years. So the fact that you have 90% of the most vulnerable population, getting the vaccine, that is the reason why it appears as a “cure” to you. If 90% of the people in this country were vaccinated with the COVID vaccine, since it rolled out, I guarantee you, we would not be having this discussion right now.

This is not new science. Herd immunity has been around for a while, and is the reason why we don’t have tons of people getting, smallpox, measles, mumps, rubella, polio, etc, anymore. We’ll never attain that standard until people stop politicizing the vaccine, and trust the science and the doctors behind it. For now, we will likely be treating this like the Flu, where we have to get vaccinated every year.

YOu're missing the big difference. The measles vaccine prevents you from getting it and makes it that the disease doesn't mutate to a stronger strain because it doesn't have hosts. This vaccine does not prevent you from getting it. In fact, you need to protect the vaccinated from the unvaccinated. When's the last time you had to be protected from someone with measles?

You've buried your head in the sand....

Mutations are precisely the reason we need more people vaccinated. The vaccinations reduce transmissibility thus reducing the viruses ability to mutate. But you knew that...been common knowledge for a little while now.

And the vaccinated don't need to be protected from the unvaccinated. We'll be fine from COVID. But we could use your assistance making sure we can get hospital care for other medical procedures like cancer treatments, heart conditions, blood disorders, etc., etc., etc....

BING BING BING

The part of the discussion that gets ignored too often. IF we don't limit the transmission we greatly increase the likelihood of the NEXT variant popping up. It's like the old saying about giving enough monkeys keyboards you'll eventually get shakespeare. Well, give enough people Covid X you are going to end up with Covid Y, and we may NOT be able to develop an effective vaccine for that one as quickly or even ever.

[Dresden]

Thank you for bringing this up, because this just goes to show the concept of herd immunity. Are you really going to talk about the miniscule difference between something being 97% percent effective, vs something that is 94% effective? The true difference, and why the MMR (measles, mumps and rubella) vaccine isn’t necessarily a “cure”, but rather, its just exemplifies the concept of HERD IMMUNITY. What you fail to realize, is that if only 50% of the population was vaccinated against measles, since the vaccine was created, we would still have the disease proliferating throughout the community, and you would easily be able to find someone who had it, or possibly contract it yourself, even though you got the vaccine. What you’re neglecting is the fact that 90+ percent of infants every year have been getting the vaccine. Since 1994, there have only been 3 years where less than 90% were vaccinated (lowest percentage being 88.5% in 1997). I would guess that the numbers were high even before then as well (certainly higher than the 50%ish range for COVID vaccine). And those are only the numbers for infants, there are probably other older children, and young adults who get vaccinated eventually, because it’s required by many schools, to have up to date vaccination records in order to enroll. I would guess that Generation X and beyond have very high rates of immunity to measles, due to them receiving the vaccine over all these years. So the fact that you have 90% of the most vulnerable population, getting the vaccine, that is the reason why it appears as a “cure” to you. If 90% of the people in this country were vaccinated with the COVID vaccine, since it rolled out, I guarantee you, we would not be having this discussion right now.

This is not new science. Herd immunity has been around for a while, and is the reason why we don’t have tons of people getting, smallpox, measles, mumps, rubella, polio, etc, anymore. We’ll never attain that standard until people stop politicizing the vaccine, and trust the science and the doctors behind it. For now, we will likely be treating this like the Flu, where we have to get vaccinated every year.

Well the couple other problems is that:
1: The vaccine doesn't appear to be 94% against the Delta variant and as new variants emerge that are likely derivatives of Delta, they may be less effective still without new boosters designed specifically to those variants.

2: It appears the vaccine efficacy goes down as time goes on to some degree.

Both of the above statements seem like we don't have precise measures and the combination of the two may also muddle things further as it's hard to determine if vaccine efficacy is waning or was just less towards Delta overall.

To your broader point it really means it will be significantly more difficult for the world to ever do anything other than get regular boosters or assume whatever risk you want. To get enough herd immunity in the world that it will die out completely seems like a tall order unless it just stops mutating all together which there isn't much reason to think will happen IMO.

The head of Moderna was quoted a few days ago as saying he thinks by this time next year we will "be over" the Covid threat. I didn't read the article, but apparently he believes we can lick it once and for all if we get enough vaccines out there.

[TheStig]

Thank you for bringing this up, because this just goes to show the concept of herd immunity. Are you really going to talk about the miniscule difference between something being 97% percent effective, vs something that is 94% effective? The true difference, and why the MMR (measles, mumps and rubella) vaccine isn’t necessarily a “cure”, but rather, its just exemplifies the concept of HERD IMMUNITY. What you fail to realize, is that if only 50% of the population was vaccinated against measles, since the vaccine was created, we would still have the disease proliferating throughout the community, and you would easily be able to find someone who had it, or possibly contract it yourself, even though you got the vaccine. What you’re neglecting is the fact that 90+ percent of infants every year have been getting the vaccine. Since 1994, there have only been 3 years where less than 90% were vaccinated (lowest percentage being 88.5% in 1997). I would guess that the numbers were high even before then as well (certainly higher than the 50%ish range for COVID vaccine). And those are only the numbers for infants, there are probably other older children, and young adults who get vaccinated eventually, because it’s required by many schools, to have up to date vaccination records in order to enroll. I would guess that Generation X and beyond have very high rates of immunity to measles, due to them receiving the vaccine over all these years. So the fact that you have 90% of the most vulnerable population, getting the vaccine, that is the reason why it appears as a “cure” to you. If 90% of the people in this country were vaccinated with the COVID vaccine, since it rolled out, I guarantee you, we would not be having this discussion right now.

This is not new science. Herd immunity has been around for a while, and is the reason why we don’t have tons of people getting, smallpox, measles, mumps, rubella, polio, etc, anymore. We’ll never attain that standard until people stop politicizing the vaccine, and trust the science and the doctors behind it. For now, we will likely be treating this like the Flu, where we have to get vaccinated every year.

Well the couple other problems is that:
1: The vaccine doesn't appear to be 94% against the Delta variant and as new variants emerge that are likely derivatives of Delta, they may be less effective still without new boosters designed specifically to those variants.

2: It appears the vaccine efficacy goes down as time goes on to some degree.

Both of the above statements seem like we don't have precise measures and the combination of the two may also muddle things further as it's hard to determine if vaccine efficacy is waning or was just less towards Delta overall.

To your broader point it really means it will be significantly more difficult for the world to ever do anything other than get regular boosters or assume whatever risk you want. To get enough herd immunity in the world that it will die out completely seems like a tall order unless it just stops mutating all together which there isn't much reason to think will happen IMO.

The head of Moderna was quoted a few days ago as saying he thinks by this time next year we will "be over" the Covid threat. I didn't read the article, but apparently he believes we can lick it once and for all if we get enough vaccines out there.

Well I mean if the person who benefits the most from everyone getting the vaccine says so

[TheStig]

Thank you for bringing this up, because this just goes to show the concept of herd immunity. Are you really going to talk about the miniscule difference between something being 97% percent effective, vs something that is 94% effective? The true difference, and why the MMR (measles, mumps and rubella) vaccine isn’t necessarily a “cure”, but rather, its just exemplifies the concept of HERD IMMUNITY. What you fail to realize, is that if only 50% of the population was vaccinated against measles, since the vaccine was created, we would still have the disease proliferating throughout the community, and you would easily be able to find someone who had it, or possibly contract it yourself, even though you got the vaccine. What you’re neglecting is the fact that 90+ percent of infants every year have been getting the vaccine. Since 1994, there have only been 3 years where less than 90% were vaccinated (lowest percentage being 88.5% in 1997). I would guess that the numbers were high even before then as well (certainly higher than the 50%ish range for COVID vaccine). And those are only the numbers for infants, there are probably other older children, and young adults who get vaccinated eventually, because it’s required by many schools, to have up to date vaccination records in order to enroll. I would guess that Generation X and beyond have very high rates of immunity to measles, due to them receiving the vaccine over all these years. So the fact that you have 90% of the most vulnerable population, getting the vaccine, that is the reason why it appears as a “cure” to you. If 90% of the people in this country were vaccinated with the COVID vaccine, since it rolled out, I guarantee you, we would not be having this discussion right now.

This is not new science. Herd immunity has been around for a while, and is the reason why we don’t have tons of people getting, smallpox, measles, mumps, rubella, polio, etc, anymore. We’ll never attain that standard until people stop politicizing the vaccine, and trust the science and the doctors behind it. For now, we will likely be treating this like the Flu, where we have to get vaccinated every year.

YOu're missing the big difference. The measles vaccine prevents you from getting it and makes it that the disease doesn't mutate to a stronger strain because it doesn't have hosts. This vaccine does not prevent you from getting it. In fact, you need to protect the vaccinated from the unvaccinated. When's the last time you had to be protected from someone with measles?

You've buried your head in the sand....

Mutations are precisely the reason we need more people vaccinated. The vaccinations reduce transmissibility thus reducing the viruses ability to mutate. But you knew that...been common knowledge for a little while now.

And the vaccinated don't need to be protected from the unvaccinated. We'll be fine from COVID. But we could use your assistance making sure we can get hospital care for other medical procedures like cancer treatments, heart conditions, blood disorders, etc., etc., etc....

It's plenty transmissible. There are a lot of break through cases. The benefit of the vaccine is not preventing or killing the virus, it's preventing the worst case scenairo. If the vaccine worked like you said, we wouldn't have mask mandates and wouldn't need to protect the vaccinated from the unvaccinated.

[dice]

listen to the actual experts who have been studying this for decades, folks. and your doctors. not nearly retired internet warriors desperately sleuthing ANYTHING that seems to dovetail with their warped worldview. who stumble upon a kernel of truth and think they found a tub of popcorn. because anybody is prone to being misled by people smarter than them with an agenda. particularly when they are eager to be misled. misinformation is a very profitable industry

the right wing has been ALL over the place on the virus. because it's all about what will maximize political division in the moment. we have seen:

-the former president minimize the threat of the virus, refuse to wear a mask, contract it himself and be hospitalized
-the former president taking credit for the production of the vaccine while failing to give full throated support to getting vaccinated
-the former president having supposed immunity due to having been infected, yet still getting vaccinated...but not telling the public
-fox news staff being forced to be vaccinated while railing against vaccine mandates
-large numbers of individuals spouting that masks are a form of government mind control

now breitbart, that bastion of right wing intellectualism, is suggesting that progressives are advocating vaccination in order to kill off conservatives who will reflexively do the opposite:

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2021/09/18/nolte-anti-vaxxers-hype-benign-transmission-numbers-as-proof-vax-doesnt-work/

[dougthonus]

Well I mean if the person who benefits the most from everyone getting the vaccine says so

Moderna would benefit far more if this was an annual and COVID didn't die out than if it did die out.

[TheStig]

Well I mean if the person who benefits the most from everyone getting the vaccine says so

Moderna would benefit far more if this was an annual and COVID didn't die out than if it did die out.

How do you know it doesn't turn into an annual thing like the flu anyway. They're already administering boosters.

[dougthonus]

Well I mean if the person who benefits the most from everyone getting the vaccine says so

Moderna would benefit far more if this was an annual and COVID didn't die out than if it did die out.

How do you know it doesn't turn into an annual thing like the flu anyway. They're already administering boosters.

It absolutely might. I suspect it will. You implied Moderna's CEO's comments were self-serving, but the scenario he described wouldn't be, so his comments were not self-serving.

That's of course not necessarily what will actually happen, nor does Moderna's CEO control the outcome of what actually will happen (obviously).

[micromonkey]

Moderna would benefit far more if this was an annual and COVID didn't die out than if it did die out.

How do you know it doesn't turn into an annual thing like the flu anyway. They're already administering boosters.

It absolutely might. I suspect it will. You implied Moderna's CEO's comments were self-serving, but the scenario he described wouldn't be, so his comments were not self-serving.

That's of course not necessarily what will actually happen, nor does Moderna's CEO control the outcome of what actually will happen (obviously).

A likely scenario is

the vaccine helps prevent deaths--but not so much stop spread.
those who have got COVID and then been vaccinated have "super immunity"
https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2021/09/07/1033677208/new-studies-find-evidence-of-superhuman-immunity-to-covid-19-in-some-individuals
So its possible that many vaccinated may also get COVID and develop this same immunity

This might not end it--but it's possible natural "boosters" in the form of infections combined with other boosters--could end up being some kind of real herd immunity.

Also, the AZ camp doesn't think there are many mutations "left" for it to still be relevant to humans anyway.
https://www.livemint.com/science/health/not-many-places-left-for-covid-to-evade-immunity-oxford-astrazeneca-jab-creator-11632415321890.html

“The virus cannot completely mutate because its spike protein has to interact with the ACE2 receptor on the surface of the human cell, in order to get inside it,"
“If it changes its spike protein so much that it can’t interact with that receptor, then it’s not going to be able to get inside the cell. So, there aren’t many places for the virus to go to have something that will evade immunity but still remain infectious," she explained.

Comparing the SARS-CoV-2 with other flu viruses and the vaccine modifications made for them annually, she said: “What tends to happen over time is there’s just a slow drift, that’s what happens with flu viruses. You see small changes accumulating over a period of time and then we have the opportunity to react to that."

The expert said that such viruses, by their very nature tend to become less virulent over time, but there is no set timeframe for how long that would take. “We normally see that viruses become less virulent as they circulate more easily and there is no reason to think we will have a more virulent version of SARS-CoV-2," she noted.

Gilbert said the virus that causes Covid-19 will eventually become like the coronaviruses which circulate widely and cause the common cold.

“We tend to see a slow genetic drift of the virus and there will be gradual immunity developing in the population as there is to all the other seasonal coronaviruses. We already live with four different human coronaviruses that we don’t really ever think about very much and eventually SARS-CoV-2 will become one of them. The question is how long it’s going to take to get there and what measures we’re going to have to take to manage it in the meantime," she said.

As for if they sell boosters forever--at that point its possible it will be like the flu / pneumonia, etc vaccines--it will be completely up to you if you want to partake or not.

Also to note--these mRNA first generation vaccines were done in days/weeks and of course they didn't develop a perfect knock out punch--but given the timeline--still pretty impressive. I've seen some articles on universal vaccines being worked on.
https://www.unc.edu/posts/2021/07/07/new-universal-coronavirus-vaccine-could-prevent-future-pandemics/

So we just don't know.

I guess while these vaccines are not perfect--the alternative sucks much worse

[TheStig]

Moderna would benefit far more if this was an annual and COVID didn't die out than if it did die out.

How do you know it doesn't turn into an annual thing like the flu anyway. They're already administering boosters.

It absolutely might. I suspect it will. You implied Moderna's CEO's comments were self-serving, but the scenario he described wouldn't be, so his comments were not self-serving.

That's of course not necessarily what will actually happen, nor does Moderna's CEO control the outcome of what actually will happen (obviously).

It absolutely is. He's saying by getting the jab, you can defeat covid. Something that hasn't proven true so far. But he is trying to sell his vaccine to the unvaccinated under this premise. It is completely self serving.

What's he going to say? Go get the shot, covid will still be around forever..... hardly a great way to sell vaccines. He has to sell vaccines as the solution.

[waffle]

There are bzillions of viruses. A very few are deadly.

To think that it might run out of variants is wishful thinking. If enough people are infected/if the pool is big enough, which it sure as heck is, we can't truly predict the path it will take

Again many monkeys=shakespeare

Viruses succeed when they do something NEW, that causes a breakthrough. We increase those odds by giving it as many tests to run as possible. Which we are doing a great job of.

The new and novel = successful.

A scientist who thinks he can see the direction it is going is setting himself/herself up for a "well, I didn't see THAT coming" moment