Buzzkill: Fauci and others no longer discuss herd immunity. "It's off the table" says one expert

boing
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You may be mistaking my cheerful cynicism of “we’ve all jumped off the sky scraper together and are shaking hands as we pass each floor saying “so far so good””, as a sign that I think it’ll all be ok. It’ll be, but we’re not close to mostly ok, it may not get there and for many, many, it hasn’t been ok, and for many many more it won’t be ok, ever. Even though I’ve been vaccinated, I may die from a version of covid-19. ¯_(ツ)_/¯

Epidemiology and public health is tracking folks on a continually trodden pathway full of landmines, old plagues, new plagues, old poisons, new hidden poisons, unexpected deficiencies, enthusiasm for stupid ideas (Tide pods? Vaping? Bleach? Hydroxychloroquine?) mitigated by a continually growing field of science with unexpected developments in drug, vaccine, disease detection, health interventions that will help to counteract many of the former list. Nobody on the pathway will get out alive. Politics is definitely a facet of epidemiology, one of the extreme examples being Russian trolls actively challenging vaccine safety among Americans, as well as encouraging complete lack of tolerance towards the anti vaccine crowd. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6137759/
Russian bots were used to sow divisions on vaccines, researchers say - STAT
The entire public health system had to be politically integrated into the government, and there is still pushback (do we really need meat inspectors? (yes!)), starting in the late 1800’s. The other huge example is the politics and health effects of climate change. Existential threats interact with politics, so not sure where the separation exists.
Pushing people is great, if it works, and isn’t counterproductive.
Society will survive this epidemic, by and large, with more killed than needed to be. If governors, congress, mayors were consistent, if we didn’t have Rand the Winy or Ted the Disengenous Whinge, more people would be alive and fewer would die in the next couple years. It’d be nice if the sugary drinks portion cap rule had been popular, and people were healthier and happier from it. Some good things people push back too much on, despite the science showing benefit. Politics, again.

I’m aware more needs to be done to stop later waves or newer strains from becoming prevalent and more lethal. I (and scientists) predict within a decade or two, we’ll be dealing with other epidemics that make us nostalgic for our then better understood and controlled Covid-19. At those points, we will again be dependent and hopefully grateful on our newer better sexier science that is ten-twenty years ahead of where we are now. How much it will help will be a case by case basis.

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But the question is (and this is why I mentioned the courts): “Do governors have the authority to tell employers that they must hire unvaccinated people?” Or, in other words, “Can unvaccinated people be classed as a protected group OR would religious protections apply to being antivax?” Once vaccines are widely available, having a vaccinated workforce is going to be better for bottom lines, even if workers can’t sue because they got COVID-19 on the job.

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It will be an interesting conflict, since most of these states are “employment at will” states, where you can be fired for any reason. If they are going to carve out a specific exemption for covid vaccine, that could open the door for lots of others, like, you know, being gay, trans or Black. They would not like those exceptions at all.

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It’s not easy being simultaneously pro and anti hiring discrimination, but the GOP always finds a way when it comes to cognitive dissonance. (The way is usually summed up by, “What the hell is copulative distance?”)

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Getting a jab to stick it to the Boomers? A good trend, no matter the reason:

“Yes I am PUMPED for the inevitable booking frenzy alongside fellow gen-Xers who spent 20 yrs booking U2 tickets online to train for this,” one Calgarian tweeted.

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Excuse Me Movie GIF by filmeditor

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Gads. Back in my day we wandered the parking lot, tripping brains out, holding a finger in the air mumbling “I need a miracle.”

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A lot of that’s already been hashed out in court fights over vaccine requirements for school attendance and government jobs.

There isn’t a legal theory that would make the unvaccinated a protected class. And what little attempts have been made to argue that haven’t made it far.

It’s been broadly found that the government and employers can do away with exceptions and require vaccinations in any context but religious refusals and medical necessity.

On the religious end of it, it’s been broadly accepted that you don’t to give religious exemptions. On grounds of public safety and protecting others right. Though doing away with religious exemptions entirely hasn’t faired well. You can make them pretty damn hard to get.

And that’s all Government entities. Plus i think it’s entirely legal to just straight up require vaccinations as public health policy. Though nobody has tried that lately, and it’d probably turn into a shit show.

But requirements for schools and jobs, restricted exceptions work too. It’s had meaningful impacts in vaccination rates even in close religious communities.

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But half the vaccines don’t use mRNA, correct? I would assume there was a lot more than just the development of mRNA tech that accelerated vaccine development in this case.

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Moderna and Pfizer are based on that technology, while J&J and Astrazenca are more traditional vaccines. Right now, Moderna and Pfizer are the only options in the US, as J&J is on hold and Astrazenca has not gone through for the emergency approval. If you get a vaccine now (at least here in the US), it will be one of the mRNA ones.

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Yes. I’ve already gotten my vaccination completed. I’m more up on some of this than I’d prefer, as a dear friend’s husband constantly sends her anti-COVID vax garbage and I have to talk her down from the ledge on a regular basis.

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Yes, but we were discussing that particular model. All methods are shorter as sequencing and structural analysis is much faster, and new methods of vaccine manufacture will likely show up.

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I helped pack their piles and piles of computer gear at the Iowa State football stadium once, does that count? It was their “we’re sell-outs now” tour.

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Johnson and Johnson and AstraZeneca are both viral vector DNA vaccines. It’s “more traditional” in that they’ve existed for a bit. But the way they work is pretty similar to the idea behind the mRNA vaccines.

They use a harmless carrier virus (in this case adeno virus) to inject viral DNA into a cell, causing that cell to produce viral proteins that will trigger an immune response.

RNA vaccines use mRNA in a non virus carrier to do basically the same thing.

They’re “more traditional” in that they been in the works longer. But there’s only been 6 ever approved, 4 of them for COVID. The first were for Ebola and only like 5 years ago. I think the first rolled out at any scale was Zika.

They’re not the traditional vaccines we think of with dead or live attenuated virus involved. And RNA vaccines are sort of the newer, potentially better outgrowth of the same string of research.

The whole promise of the approach is faster development and more targeted vaccines.

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