But what about the increasingly-likely scenario in which variants that can resist the vaccines spread so quickly and crowd out older versions, we’re permanently playing catch-up, and the pandemic just becomes the new normal, and having a vaccination just doesn’t make a ton of difference, both individually, and en masse?
Call me glass half empty on COVID. We’re not even going to hit herd immunity for the original version, at the rate we’re at — and I don’t actually care what a chart in The Times shows. If only 175 million Americans are willing to even be vaccinated, there’s a hard limit, no matter the supply.
I mean really, “we’re in the middle of a deadly pandemic so let’s leverage the power and influence, and deep pockets of the United States government to help accelerate research and development of a vaccine” is pretty much scraping the bottom of the barrel of the bare fucking minimum I’d expect of any president. But to hear Trump spin it, he was the one in the lab synthesizing the fucking vaccine himself.
It’s worth noting that the Pfizer vaccine which was the first to get approved didn’t even get any funding from Operation Warp Speed.
So, yeah, despite the constant self-sabotage and massive amount of continual not to mention completely preventable huge fuck-ups that led to the unnecessary deaths of hundreds of thousands of Americans and suffering of millions more, he managed to at least get one thing right. Stopped clock principle and all that.
All of the vaccines we have now are ~100% protective against hospitalization and death for all of the variants we have now. Some might work more or less well against symptoms, but they will all keep you out of the morgue.
Nobody knows what the actual limit for herd immunity is, and nobody knows how many people will refuse to be vaccinated when all is said and done. Vaccines will be authorized for children this summer, and some of the people who are currently reluctant will come around when all their neighbors are vaccinated. But we don’t need herd immunity to stop the development of new variants — getting 75% of adults vaccinated will reduce cases sharply, and fewer cases means fewer opportunities to mutate. We need to have better surveillance worldwide, and better vaccination programs, but right now nobody should be underselling any of the vaccines we have. The mRNA platform in particular is astonishing — Moderna has already submitted a phase I trial for a booster against one of the new variants.
I’ve been fighting with my mother to get the vaccine. She’s worried that her allergy booster would interfere. I’ve told her that an allergy booster, isn’t a vaccine. That the sooner she get the vaccine the better off she will be.
I don’t know why she didn’t call her allergist immediately and ask them.
Both mRNA vaccines were ready for testing last February. It just took about a year to prove that they worked, and were safe.
If needed a new mRNA vaccine can quickly be adapted cover any new variants.
I agree, a direct payment seems likely.
On the stick side, I expect that anyone who wants to travel Internationally will be required to vaccinate. This means trips to Mexico, possibly also Hawaii, and Alaska.
It could go as far as if you leave the country to get back in you are required to show you have been vaccinated.
Nope they didn’t do anything. Just made noise and took credit. They didn’t do any planning for how to distribute the vaccine!
Literally this post is about how the Biden Administration used the Defense Production Act to speed up production of vaccines. Reading between the lines, if the T*** Administration hadn’t been such a cluster fuck. We could have been ahead of this by an month or more.
And I will. Your posts about Covid have been consistently doom mongering. Even if you were completely right: people need hope, you know. And for the record, I see no indication that you are right.
Would love a reference for this if you wouldn’t mind sharing — I haven’t seen any reporting to this effect, and have seen reporting (mainstream sources) that indicates differently.
Johnson & Johnson marketing department thinks that they have some interesting advertising potential if they will be the first ones to make a vaccine certified for kids.
They’re going to return in both paper and digital format. I expect that a digital QR code will be available through an official state or federal app, and will also be linked to actual passports, driving licences, and other official IDs.
I’m hoping that the OECD countries (at the very least) will agree on some kind of international standard that allows for cross-border verification of vaccination status. If the travel and hospitality industries aren’t pushing for this they’re fools.
As to already-confirmed fools, get ready for a new wave of NWO conspiracy theories from right-wingers about how the QR codes are the mark of Satan and how the vaccine passports will represent acceptance of citizenship in a commie one-world government.
Heck, the vaccines were developed within about a day of the virus genome being made public. That raises a question: how much of that testing time can be shaved off for a new mRNA vaccine? But a major problem is that even if there’s no testing time required at all, it still needs to be manufactured and distributed. Given that Texas and Mississippi are now headed towards mass infections, it’s quite likely new variants will be cropping up faster than you can make and distribute the vaccines for the previous variants.
Boosters for variants are already in a much faster approval pipeline. Once the platform is judged safe and effective, minor tweaks don’t need as much evidence to show that they will be too. Moderna is testing a 1/4 dose booster, which, if it works, will effectively quadruple manufacturing. It’ll still need to be distributed (if necessary) but it should be able to be targeted to regions where the variant is prevalent.
Honestly, though, people worry too much about variants. If scientists start calling something COVID-21, start worrying; until then, the evidence says our current vaccination plan will do the job.
Will it, though? Covid requires high immunization numbers for herd immunity, and in between the effectiveness of the vaccines in general, the effectiveness vs. the variants, and the huge number of people refusing vaccines, we’re very, very far from the vaccination plan doing the job. (That last factor alone scuppers the plan.)
Plus, I know there’s a lot of worry about recombinations, which is already happening with new variants, no less.
Vaccine hesitancy has been dropping across the board and will continue to do so as people see their neighbors vaccinated with no ill effects and advocacy efforts roll out. 70% are already willing; that’ll probably go up to 75-80%. 30% of people already have some immunity from prior infection, We don’t need to reach 100% herd immunity for COVID to become the flu.
