When do we get back concerts and full sports stadiums and real life?
In 6 months when a vaccine is out? But almost nobody will have it. In 12 months when a vaccine is out and 10% of the population has taken it? What about in 24 months when there will be enough for everyone in the USA but more than half the population won't take it?
What is the endgame here?
What will it take for the government to give me permission to hang out with 10 or more people sometime before 2023?
Very fair. We should just bite the bullet of Covid. The goal at the beginning was just to prevent overwhelming medical capacity. No one ever signed up to save everyone at the expense of everyone else!
> Very fair. We should just bite the bullet of Covid.
I'm sure you'll still feel that way when it's someone from your family "biting the bullet" of COVID.
The vaccines are coming. It will be months, not years, for them to be widely available to anyone who wants one. The fact that people simply cannot put their lives on hold for 6 months for the greater good here is just mindblowing to me.
When those in favor of the greatest restrictions lose their seats to those in favor of loosening restrictions. Regardless of which path is best for public health, it is obvious that public patience is wearing thin and will continue to do so. Eventually people will be willing to wait no longer and will replace those who are standing in the way of resuming their lives. Screams of "you're killing people" will increasingly fall upon deaf ears. Messages of "this is the new normal" and "we're never going back to the way things were" were terrible mistakes. Fear can only rule for so long before someone else offers hope and uses that to win.
Of course if people supporting either path decide to get violent and go some road other than democracy, all bets are off on how it will turn out. Doubt that happens though as much as some might fantasize about it. It's almost all downside for everyone involved.
Or Madagascar, or Iceland! Having the foresight to occupy an isolated location with a small population is really paying dividends. All those incompetent countries, with their highly interconnected economies and lack of natural barriers... Real 4d chess, keeping their GDPs low all these years - but they won, not just internet points - but maybe a monopoly on the world's supply of elderly!
I've always assumed that the real "end" of the covid era would come from testing, not from a vaccine. As testing gets faster, cheaper and more prevalent I would expect large gatherings to eventually become safe again.
The real dream would be a covid 19 breathalyzer test that you can make somebody blow on the way into an event or party, guaranteeing that everybody on the plane would be disease free
When a vaccine is available, the burden of prevention shifts from the collective to the individual. We don’t keep restrictions in place until Pelosi and Cuomo feel comfortable, we remove them as soon as we hit this standard.
Whether folks want it or not, public schools will probably require it of all students. That will at least help reduce the pool of asymptomatic carriers in that age group.
Note that not all vaccines prevent you from being infected. That's called "sterilizing" immunity. Many vaccines simply prevent you from getting sick, but you can still catch and spread the disease. Where COVID-19 vaccines will fall on that range (it's not a clear binary) isn't yet known, and will likely depend on the type of vaccine. This is why the relatively dangerous (https://www.who.int/csr/don/01-september-2020-polio-sudan/en...) live-Polio vaccine is still being used in some areas: the safer options protect you, but don't provide enough immunity to actually wipe out Polio entirely.
There's also the issue that the fatality rate for the <19 year age group is very low, about 0.003%(1), and even lower for the slightly older school aged crowd (approximately 0.001%(2), 1/10,080 of the 85+ demographic). It'll take time and large studies before we can actually prove that a vaccine is safer than COVID-19 for that age group. Note how a previous H1N1 vaccine turned out to cause serious narcolepsy in a minority of people: https://www.cdc.gov/vaccinesafety/concerns/history/narcoleps... There's also the problem that you need enough people in the test to be exposed to COVID-19 naturally: vaccines can in some circumstances make infections worse - an issue that has made developing the closely related SARS vaccine hard - and you need large studies to detect that in cases like young people where the disease isn't very deadly to begin with.
A safer option would be to provide vaccinations for adults working in schools, starting with those most at risk, and working down to least at risk as safety evidence builds up.
Not for at least a year they won't - there's just not enough supply for them to require that. And any available supply will go to elderly and essential workers first.
I'm not willing to be among the first to get vaccinated. Especially if they use an mRNA based vaccine - those have never been used in humans, and to use one here, on an accelerated schedule, seems the height of folly to me.
Maybe if it was a more conventional vaccine type (i.e. where the tech used to make the vaccine has been done before, just this times customized for COVID).
Seems sensible to me when there is still uncertainty as to the relative levels of political vs scientific criteria in vaccine approval.
I doubt a significant number of people will be comfortable util there is some history, whether scientifically developed or through a crap shoot by a portion of the general public.
What's frustrating is that the political involvement has and will continue to feel anti-vaxxer paranoia.
19 comments
[ 2.6 ms ] story [ 59.2 ms ] threadIn 6 months when a vaccine is out? But almost nobody will have it. In 12 months when a vaccine is out and 10% of the population has taken it? What about in 24 months when there will be enough for everyone in the USA but more than half the population won't take it?
What is the endgame here?
What will it take for the government to give me permission to hang out with 10 or more people sometime before 2023?
I'm sure you'll still feel that way when it's someone from your family "biting the bullet" of COVID.
The vaccines are coming. It will be months, not years, for them to be widely available to anyone who wants one. The fact that people simply cannot put their lives on hold for 6 months for the greater good here is just mindblowing to me.
Of course if people supporting either path decide to get violent and go some road other than democracy, all bets are off on how it will turn out. Doubt that happens though as much as some might fantasize about it. It's almost all downside for everyone involved.
The real dream would be a covid 19 breathalyzer test that you can make somebody blow on the way into an event or party, guaranteeing that everybody on the plane would be disease free
There's also the issue that the fatality rate for the <19 year age group is very low, about 0.003%(1), and even lower for the slightly older school aged crowd (approximately 0.001%(2), 1/10,080 of the 85+ demographic). It'll take time and large studies before we can actually prove that a vaccine is safer than COVID-19 for that age group. Note how a previous H1N1 vaccine turned out to cause serious narcolepsy in a minority of people: https://www.cdc.gov/vaccinesafety/concerns/history/narcoleps... There's also the problem that you need enough people in the test to be exposed to COVID-19 naturally: vaccines can in some circumstances make infections worse - an issue that has made developing the closely related SARS vaccine hard - and you need large studies to detect that in cases like young people where the disease isn't very deadly to begin with.
A safer option would be to provide vaccinations for adults working in schools, starting with those most at risk, and working down to least at risk as safety evidence builds up.
1) https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/hcp/planning-scena... 2) https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/covid-data/investi...
Unfortunately this will be quite some time away still. None of the vaccines currently in phase 3 trials are targeting approval for use in children.
Maybe if it was a more conventional vaccine type (i.e. where the tech used to make the vaccine has been done before, just this times customized for COVID).
I doubt a significant number of people will be comfortable util there is some history, whether scientifically developed or through a crap shoot by a portion of the general public.
What's frustrating is that the political involvement has and will continue to feel anti-vaxxer paranoia.