Author Topic: Vaccine  (Read 34180 times)

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Offline EEVblog

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Re: Vaccine
« Reply #75 on: March 19, 2021, 01:17:09 am »
It would be great to get rid of it, but the consensus of opinion is it's not possible.

It's going to follow the usual phases:
1) Epidemic
2) Pandemic (if you are unlucky like with covid-19)
and then
3) Endemic

Just like the countless variations of flu and other diseases, it will be endenic, it will always be around.
Very few diseases have been completely eradiacted, the WHO only lists one human based one to be eradiacted, smallpox.
https://asm.org/Articles/2020/March/Disease-Eradication-What-Does-It-Take-to-Wipe-outhave
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eradication_of_infectious_diseases
Smallpox was able to be wiped out because of a very effective vaccine and it was easy to visually identify infected people and isolate them.

The same can't be said for the various coronaviruses, which is why we can't edcadicate the common cold and flu variations.
Covid has already mutated many times. It's here to stay.
Help protect the really vulnerable with vaccines, most likely with seasonal vaccine variations like with the flu, and the rest of the population will eventually get on with life.
Covid will eventually just be another a graph line on the yearly flu statistics:
 
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Offline gnuarm

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Re: Vaccine
« Reply #76 on: March 19, 2021, 05:44:09 am »
No one is talking about allowing the disease to roam freely. It's why so much time and money have been spent on developing vaccines.

It would be great to get rid of it, but the consensus of opinion is it's not possible.

There is no such consensus opinion.  When I talk of getting rid of it I mean getting rid of it roaming wild infecting and killing thousands a day.   Look at the numbers in Australia and other places.  The disease is rampaging because we won't do the simple measures that other places have done.  They've shown it is possible, but in the US and elsewhere there are too many who not only don't think of others, they simply don't think.  They believe in what they feel. 


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Put it into perspective.

How many children have died from COVID-19? Very few.

How many people have been reinfected and suffered from severe disease? For a start, reinfection is comparatively rare and most cases of reinfection are minimally symptomatic, with severe disease due to reinfection being extremely rare.

Once everyone has been vaccinated or infected, the pandemic will end, as has been the case with every other pandemic.

Simply not true.  Bubonic plague ravaged Europe many time over many years.  Many other diseases have continued to rise and fall killing millions.  If you look at the population of the world over time you will see a few downward spikes.  These are all diseases ravaging the human population. 

As to the idea that we can vaccinate out way out of this it entirely depends on controlling the ongoing rate of infection.  As I have already explained, quite clearly, it will take months for this disease to be impacted as we try to vaccinate the world.  No, that's wrong.  It will take years to protect the entire world.  If we continue to allow the disease to roam the world infecting large numbers it will continue to mutate at a high rate and almost certainly reduce the effectiveness of the current vaccines.

Yes, they can work, but they depend on the virus not changing and we are not doing what we should to minimize the chances of that happening... by not reducing the infection rate.  Too  many people literally make up their own facts and spread them around.


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A new pathogen emerges, causes widespread death and severe illness, then after herd immunity is reached, it continues to kill a small number of vulnerable people each year. The same happened with the 1918 influenza and it's possible the 1889 - 1890 pandemic was a coronavirus, which is now a common cold.

Anything is possible.  Why make up stuff rather than discuss facts?


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If we do get rid of it. It will be due to herd immunity, rather than border control, quarantine, social distancing and track and trace.

Nonsense.  Herd immunity will only protect from the virus that infected the population.  When the virus changes that immunity ends as is demonstrated every year with the flu.



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Now try to tell people they can't travel from South Dakota, to another state, with much lower infection figures? It's not possible to seal a US state off from the others, except for Hawaii and Alaska

What does that have to do with anything???  You aren't making sense.


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In Australia, they managed to cut-off western Australia, from the rest of the country, because there's nothing but desert separating it from the other states.

What does that have to do with anything???  More nonsense.  The island has ring of cities around the periphery.   How is that relevant?  What they have in common is a reasonable response to the disease taking action to quarantine anyone exposed to the disease, exactly as we would do if we had an Ebola plague.  But with this virus, "It's just a bad case of the flu" that is killing more people than 10 years of the flu and still killing more. 
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Offline gnuarm

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Re: Vaccine
« Reply #77 on: March 19, 2021, 05:51:35 am »
Newer equipment is likely refusing to support outdated and known insecure standards. WRT54Gs should be long recycled along with the rest of the equipment of the era.

What are you going on about?  My WRT54G works just fine.  Why would anyone care if new standards are developed?  I have distance security.  Two neighbors who are within range of my router and neither is technical enough to worry about.  Anyone else would need a 6 foot parabolic dish to pick up my signal. 

I don't need no stinkin' security!
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Offline Monkeh

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Re: Vaccine
« Reply #78 on: March 19, 2021, 05:59:00 am »
Newer equipment is likely refusing to support outdated and known insecure standards. WRT54Gs should be long recycled along with the rest of the equipment of the era.

What are you going on about?  My WRT54G works just fine.  Why would anyone care if new standards are developed?  I have distance security.  Two neighbors who are within range of my router and neither is technical enough to worry about.  Anyone else would need a 6 foot parabolic dish to pick up my signal. 

I don't need no stinkin' security!

Reality. You need not apply.
 

Offline gnuarm

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Re: Vaccine
« Reply #79 on: March 19, 2021, 06:07:54 am »
The same can't be said for the various coronaviruses, which is why we can't edcadicate the common cold and flu variations.
Covid has already mutated many times. It's here to stay.

It is very disingenuous to compare COVID to the flu and definitely misleading to talk about the mutations in this context.  COVID has mutated many times, just as humans mutate every day.  The vast majority of mutations are harmful and cause death of the individual.  COVID has had a few mutations, or more accurately, combinations of mutations that increase it's infectiousness and possibly it's lethality.  The jury is still out on this, but that is how the evidence looks so far.

None of the mutations we've found appear to dramatically impact the effectiveness of the vaccines.  But mostly that is being studied in regards to the mutations that appear to increase the infectiousness.  As there are many, many mutations circulating, it may be that some have more resistance to the vaccine.  Only time will tell us for sure as a larger percentage are vaccinated.


Quote
Help protect the really vulnerable with vaccines, most likely with seasonal vaccine variations like with the flu, and the rest of the population will eventually get on with life.
Covid will eventually just be another a graph line on the yearly flu statistics:


That is clearly not in evidence.  We can draw all the parallels we like, we can whistle in the dark, but unless we take effective measures to reduce the infection rate we are asking the virus to mutate and make this round of vaccines ineffective. 

One of the things about this disease that I find disturbing is that not only do people not care about themselves, they don't care about others.  My friend lives in a retirement community with nursing facilities.  In the support staff of the general community something like 70% have been vaccinated.  In the nursing facility only 50% of the staff have gotten the vaccine.  It's not because of lack of availability, it's a lack of thinking or caring, I'm not sure which bothers me the most. 
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Offline Zero999

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Re: Vaccine
« Reply #80 on: March 19, 2021, 09:35:24 am »
No one is talking about allowing the disease to roam freely. It's why so much time and money have been spent on developing vaccines.

It would be great to get rid of it, but the consensus of opinion is it's not possible.

There is no such consensus opinion.  When I talk of getting rid of it I mean getting rid of it roaming wild infecting and killing thousands a day.
Good, because that will happen, as we build up herd immunity, due to infection and vaccination.

Quote
Look at the numbers in Australia and other places.  The disease is rampaging because we won't do the simple measures that other places have done.  They've shown it is possible, but in the US and elsewhere there are too many who not only don't think of others, they simply don't think.  They believe in what they feel. 
And look at the costs. There will always be a country where the population haven't all been vaccinated against COVID-19. It keeps getting into Australia and they have to respond with draconian measures. Once they've vaccinated most of their population, they'll have to let it in and test the vaccines.
Quote
Put it into perspective.

How many children have died from COVID-19? Very few.

How many people have been reinfected and suffered from severe disease? For a start, reinfection is comparatively rare and most cases of reinfection are minimally symptomatic, with severe disease due to reinfection being extremely rare.

Once everyone has been vaccinated or infected, the pandemic will end, as has been the case with every other pandemic.

Quote
Simply not true.  Bubonic plague ravaged Europe many time over many years.  Many other diseases have continued to rise and fall killing millions.  If you look at the population of the world over time you will see a few downward spikes.  These are all diseases ravaging the human population. 
Bubonic plague is totally different. I relies on third parties to spread: rats and flees. The same is true of malaria. These diseases are controlled by removing the natural reservoirs and disease vectors, rather than quarantine.

COVID-19 will behave like any other respiratory virus which has caused a pandemic in the past. It is a viral respiratory disease, like influenza and other coronaviruses. The only way for it to spread is via person, to person.

Quote
As to the idea that we can vaccinate out way out of this it entirely depends on controlling the ongoing rate of infection.  As I have already explained, quite clearly, it will take months for this disease to be impacted as we try to vaccinate the world.  No, that's wrong.  It will take years to protect the entire world.  If we continue to allow the disease to roam the world infecting large numbers it will continue to mutate at a high rate and almost certainly reduce the effectiveness of the current vaccines.

Yes, they can work, but they depend on the virus not changing and we are not doing what we should to minimize the chances of that happening... by not reducing the infection rate.  Too  many people literally make up their own facts and spread them around.
Sorry, there's no way the enitre world will be vaccinated against this. We've only done that with smallpox and are still not quite there with polio.

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Quote
A new pathogen emerges, causes widespread death and severe illness, then after herd immunity is reached, it continues to kill a small number of vulnerable people each year. The same happened with the 1918 influenza and it's possible the 1889 - 1890 pandemic was a coronavirus, which is now a common cold.

Anything is possible.  Why make up stuff rather than discuss facts?

Quote
If we do get rid of it. It will be due to herd immunity, rather than border control, quarantine, social distancing and track and trace.

Nonsense.  Herd immunity will only protect from the virus that infected the population.  When the virus changes that immunity ends as is demonstrated every year with the flu.

Yes, let's discuss the facts, rather than making stuff up.

Immunity isn't binary. If someone has been previously infected with one variant and the virus mutates, they might catch it again, but it's highly unlikely it will be as bad as the previous time, because their immune system will be able to deal with it more effectively. There are a few instances of people getting it worse the second time, but they're the minority.

If we put the two facts together: reinfection with a different variant generally results in less severe disease and mortality is extremely low in children, the result will be declining COVID-19 mortality, as we build up herd immunity.

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In Australia, they managed to cut-off western Australia, from the rest of the country, because there's nothing but desert separating it from the other states.
Now try to tell people they can't travel from South Dakota, to another state, with much lower infection figures? It's not possible to seal a US state off from the others, except for Hawaii and Alaska

What does that have to do with anything???  You aren't making sense.

You've missed the point. Australia can quarantine states because they're geographically isolated from one another, whilst the contiguous US can't do the same.

Quote
What does that have to do with anything???  More nonsense.  The island has ring of cities around the periphery.   How is that relevant?  What they have in common is a reasonable response to the disease taking action to quarantine anyone exposed to the disease, exactly as we would do if we had an Ebola plague.  But with this virus, "It's just a bad case of the flu" that is killing more people than 10 years of the flu and still killing more.
This virus is more like the flu than Ebola, which doesn't spread via respiratory droplets. It's much more contagious and fortunately less deadly. Unlike Ebola, it spreads in asymptomatic people. One of the reasons we managed to contain the original SARS was because it was only spread by those who were already quite ill, making it easy to screen for with temperature checks. The very mild cases didn't spread to others.

It's only possible to do track, trace and quarantine, when cases in a country are very low. It also requires strict border controls, which are difficult to maintain. The US and Europe long ago reached the point where this isn't possible and China only managed to do it because it's a big brother communist state.

Just to be clear, I'm in no way trivialising COVID-19 by comparing it to influenza. At the moment, it's much more danagerous than the flu, because most people have little immunity. Influenza is also a very dangerous pathogen to those who've never been explosed to it. Together with polio, it killed more Native Americans than the Europeans did.
 
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Offline EEVblog

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Re: Vaccine
« Reply #81 on: March 19, 2021, 09:51:26 am »
The same can't be said for the various coronaviruses, which is why we can't edcadicate the common cold and flu variations.
Covid has already mutated many times. It's here to stay.

It is very disingenuous to compare COVID to the flu and definitely misleading to talk about the mutations in this context.  COVID has mutated many times, just as humans mutate every day.  The vast majority of mutations are harmful and cause death of the individual.  COVID has had a few mutations, or more accurately, combinations of mutations that increase it's infectiousness and possibly it's lethality.  The jury is still out on this, but that is how the evidence looks so far.

None of the mutations we've found appear to dramatically impact the effectiveness of the vaccines.  But mostly that is being studied in regards to the mutations that appear to increase the infectiousness.  As there are many, many mutations circulating, it may be that some have more resistance to the vaccine.  Only time will tell us for sure as a larger percentage are vaccinated.


Quote
Help protect the really vulnerable with vaccines, most likely with seasonal vaccine variations like with the flu, and the rest of the population will eventually get on with life.
Covid will eventually just be another a graph line on the yearly flu statistics:


That is clearly not in evidence.  We can draw all the parallels we like, we can whistle in the dark, but unless we take effective measures to reduce the infection rate we are asking the virus to mutate and make this round of vaccines ineffective. 

One of the things about this disease that I find disturbing is that not only do people not care about themselves, they don't care about others.  My friend lives in a retirement community with nursing facilities.  In the support staff of the general community something like 70% have been vaccinated.  In the nursing facility only 50% of the staff have gotten the vaccine.  It's not because of lack of availability, it's a lack of thinking or caring, I'm not sure which bothers me the most.

The entire point of my post is pointing out at covid is already endemic and it's not going away. We won't be able to eradicate it. It will very likely be a seasonal whack-a-mole thing forever. The vaccine isn't a magic bullet to eradicate it.
 
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Offline EEVblog

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Re: Vaccine
« Reply #82 on: March 19, 2021, 10:01:26 am »
Just to be clear, I'm in no way trivialising COVID-19 by comparing it to influenza. At the moment, it's much more danagerous than the flu, because most people have little immunity. Influenza is also a very dangerous pathogen to those who've never been explosed to it. Together with polio, it killed more Native Americans than the Europeans did.

Influenza kills up to half a dozen people in my mum's retirement village every year alone, it's serious stuff.
We used to have hugely popular TV ads telling us to "soldier on" when we have the flu. That didn't age that well I guess...

 

Offline gnuarm

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Re: Vaccine
« Reply #83 on: March 19, 2021, 11:14:05 am »
No one is talking about allowing the disease to roam freely. It's why so much time and money have been spent on developing vaccines.

It would be great to get rid of it, but the consensus of opinion is it's not possible.

There is no such consensus opinion.  When I talk of getting rid of it I mean getting rid of it roaming wild infecting and killing thousands a day.
Good, because that will happen, as we build up herd immunity, due to infection and vaccination.

I'm sorry that you can't understand what I'm saying.  I have already explained to you why the vaccines won't be an impenetrable barrier to this disease.  Rather than debate the facts you continue to make the same fallacious assertions.


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Look at the numbers in Australia and other places.  The disease is rampaging because we won't do the simple measures that other places have done.  They've shown it is possible, but in the US and elsewhere there are too many who not only don't think of others, they simply don't think.  They believe in what they feel. 
And look at the costs. There will always be a country where the population haven't all been vaccinated against COVID-19. It keeps getting into Australia and they have to respond with draconian measures. Once they've vaccinated most of their population, they'll have to let it in and test the vaccines.

Again, fallacious assertions.  Australia has the virus.  Some 10 to 20 people get infected each day.  When they relax too much and stop taking adequate precautions or don't conduct thorough track and trace the infection rate rapidly ramps up.  At that point they have had to step up efforts and return to more restrictions, but only twice.  Once at the initial outbreak and again in August.  At no time were they imposing "draconian" measures.  None of this has to do with travel restrictions which have been in place the entire time.

The comment about "testing" the vaccine isn't even worth replying to.


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Put it into perspective.

How many children have died from COVID-19? Very few.

How many people have been reinfected and suffered from severe disease? For a start, reinfection is comparatively rare and most cases of reinfection are minimally symptomatic, with severe disease due to reinfection being extremely rare.

Once everyone has been vaccinated or infected, the pandemic will end, as has been the case with every other pandemic.

Quote
Simply not true.  Bubonic plague ravaged Europe many time over many years.  Many other diseases have continued to rise and fall killing millions.  If you look at the population of the world over time you will see a few downward spikes.  These are all diseases ravaging the human population. 
Bubonic plague is totally different. I relies on third parties to spread: rats and flees. The same is true of malaria. These diseases are controlled by removing the natural reservoirs and disease vectors, rather than quarantine.

COVID-19 will behave like any other respiratory virus which has caused a pandemic in the past. It is a viral respiratory disease, like influenza and other coronaviruses. The only way for it to spread is via person, to person.

There is nothing in that statement that indicates we will have a permanent immunity to the disease and it will not mutate to get around that immunity. 

But it is very easy to prevent.  Just as dysentery and other diseases are prevented by washing hands, this pandemic is prevented by avoiding contact with others who may be infected.  Best practices are to trace contact and quarantine those who have had contact so that if they do become infected further transmission is prevented.  This brings the spreading rate below 1.0 and the disease dissipates and dies out.  That is a guarantee.  Vaccines are not guaranteed to continue to work as the virus mutates.


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As to the idea that we can vaccinate out way out of this it entirely depends on controlling the ongoing rate of infection.  As I have already explained, quite clearly, it will take months for this disease to be impacted as we try to vaccinate the world.  No, that's wrong.  It will take years to protect the entire world.  If we continue to allow the disease to roam the world infecting large numbers it will continue to mutate at a high rate and almost certainly reduce the effectiveness of the current vaccines.

Yes, they can work, but they depend on the virus not changing and we are not doing what we should to minimize the chances of that happening... by not reducing the infection rate.  Too  many people literally make up their own facts and spread them around.
Sorry, there's no way the enitre world will be vaccinated against this. We've only done that with smallpox and are still not quite there with polio.

So you are arguing with yourself about this?  Above you said the disease will end when we vaccinate everyone.  Or are you suggesting we just allow the world to be infected killing huge numbers?

There's no reason why we can't vaccinate everyone who wants to be vaccinated.  I can't imagine why you would even say that.  The only problem are those who don't want the vaccine. 


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A new pathogen emerges, causes widespread death and severe illness, then after herd immunity is reached, it continues to kill a small number of vulnerable people each year. The same happened with the 1918 influenza and it's possible the 1889 - 1890 pandemic was a coronavirus, which is now a common cold.

Anything is possible.  Why make up stuff rather than discuss facts?

Quote
If we do get rid of it. It will be due to herd immunity, rather than border control, quarantine, social distancing and track and trace.

Nonsense.  Herd immunity will only protect from the virus that infected the population.  When the virus changes that immunity ends as is demonstrated every year with the flu.

Yes, let's discuss the facts, rather than making stuff up.

Immunity isn't binary. If someone has been previously infected with one variant and the virus mutates, they might catch it again, but it's highly unlikely it will be as bad as the previous time, because their immune system will be able to deal with it more effectively. There are a few instances of people getting it worse the second time, but they're the minority.

No, immunity is not binary, but if the virus mutates in a way that eliminates the antigen the vaccine protects against it will no longer be impacted.  Being non-binary doesn't mean there is no zero.


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If we put the two facts together: reinfection with a different variant generally results in less severe disease and mortality is extremely low in children, the result will be declining COVID-19 mortality, as we build up herd immunity.

You are not thinking about it correctly.  Your conclusion is a possibility, but not a given.  I'm not sure what the mortality rate in children has to do with it.  As we build up immunity through infection we will see many, many more die.  The total number of deaths in the US more than doubled over the holiday season because people weren't willing to take precautions.  I am hoping people will see this and start taking the disease seriously.  But there are still many in denial. 


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In Australia, they managed to cut-off western Australia, from the rest of the country, because there's nothing but desert separating it from the other states.
Now try to tell people they can't travel from South Dakota, to another state, with much lower infection figures? It's not possible to seal a US state off from the others, except for Hawaii and Alaska

What does that have to do with anything???  You aren't making sense.

You've missed the point. Australia can quarantine states because they're geographically isolated from one another, whilst the contiguous US can't do the same.

First, that's wrong... Australian states are not isolated from each other.  They all have common borders with people freely crossing them all the time.  But even so, what does isolating states have to do with anything?  The states of Australia were never quarantined.  I'm not even sure what that means.  People are quarantined. 


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What does that have to do with anything???  More nonsense.  The island has ring of cities around the periphery.   How is that relevant?  What they have in common is a reasonable response to the disease taking action to quarantine anyone exposed to the disease, exactly as we would do if we had an Ebola plague.  But with this virus, "It's just a bad case of the flu" that is killing more people than 10 years of the flu and still killing more.
This virus is more like the flu than Ebola, which doesn't spread via respiratory droplets. It's much more contagious and fortunately less deadly. Unlike Ebola, it spreads in asymptomatic people. One of the reasons we managed to contain the original SARS was because it was only spread by those who were already quite ill, making it easy to screen for with temperature checks. The very mild cases didn't spread to others.

What is your point?  Of course the diseases are not identical.  The point is about the need for quarantine for those exposed to the infection.  I mention Ebola because it has a higher fatality rate, so people take it seriously unlike COVID.


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It's only possible to do track, trace and quarantine, when cases in a country are very low. It also requires strict border controls, which are difficult to maintain. The US and Europe long ago reached the point where this isn't possible and China only managed to do it because it's a big brother communist state.

No, it does not require "strict" border controls.  It simply requires that people with symptoms, or testing positive or being exposed to anyone with symptoms or testing positive be quarantined, including anyone traveling.  Where do you get your information?  You seem overly obsessed with border control.


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Just to be clear, I'm in no way trivialising COVID-19 by comparing it to influenza. At the moment, it's much more danagerous than the flu, because most people have little immunity. Influenza is also a very dangerous pathogen to those who've never been explosed to it. Together with polio, it killed more Native Americans than the Europeans did.

Several times you have talked about allowing infections to provide herd immunity and talked as if infections in children are not significant.  I don't know what to call that other than trivializing human deaths. 

No, we can't save everyone in the world.  In reality wearing masks, washing hands and getting vaccines are not about protecting any of us 100%.  The sad truth is that they are about reducing the spread of this disease and saving some lives.  But by not treating the disease seriously we are costing many more lives than necessary.  Very importantly, by allowing the infection rate to remain high (even if not as high as a few weeks ago), we are keeping the doors wide open to rapid mutations in the virus that put the effectiveness of the vaccines at risk.  Right now people want out from under this disease and many feel they will be able to open up again even before we are fully vaccinated.  Many US states are opening again so that instead of the infection rate dropping to near zero where we could effectively track and trace, the US continues to see thousands die each day and many more new infections with the numbers no longer effectively dropping.
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Offline Nominal Animal

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Re: Vaccine
« Reply #84 on: March 19, 2021, 01:09:26 pm »
The entire point of my post is pointing out at covid is already endemic and it's not going away. We won't be able to eradicate it. It will very likely be a seasonal whack-a-mole thing forever. The vaccine isn't a magic bullet to eradicate it.
I'm drawn back to my very first comments a year ago: that hopefully, this would be the thing to change human behaviour wrt. spreading respiratory viruses.

No dice, I'm afraid.

Some people sincirely believe a mask alone will fully protect them from the virus.  The most egregious example I've seen with my own eyes was a person lifting their mask to lick their fingers so they could better grasp a vegetable bag from a roll in a grocery shop in the fruits-n-veggies aisle. :palm:

Truth is, a very large fraction of all humans are utterly stupid.  I mean that in the clinical sense, as in they do not have the mental faculties to understand these things, complex mechanisms, interactions.  No matter how well anyone explains the situation, they just do not have the ability to integrate that knowledge, and have it affect their behaviour.  It's not a choice, it's a limitation they cannot help.

(Sometimes I wish we had religion strong enough to force a change in these peoples behaviour, but then I realize that sort of thing would be evil, even if the objective was to help people.  So, I know I'm not better than anyone else; my failures and weak points are just different.)

Because of this, Dave is absolutely right: we simply acquired another endemic virus.
 

Offline JohnnyMalaria

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Re: Vaccine
« Reply #85 on: March 19, 2021, 01:20:48 pm »
Many people aren't aware that the common cold is also a coronavirus. The coronavirus very successful lifeform (debates aside as to whether our definition of "life" is appropriate) that has been on this planet for billions of years longer than we have. Mammals are but a blip in that time. There's a very good reason that the common cold is, well, common.
 
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Offline Nominal Animal

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Re: Vaccine
« Reply #86 on: March 19, 2021, 01:52:19 pm »
Many people aren't aware that the common cold is also a coronavirus.
In about 15% of cases, yes.  Most cases of common cold are caused by rhinovirus variants.
 
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Offline G7PSK

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Re: Vaccine
« Reply #87 on: March 19, 2021, 03:41:36 pm »
For example, if we use antibacterial detergents everywhere, and antibiotics for every bacterial and/or viral infection, then we actually provide evolutionary pressure for bacteria and viruses to evolve protection against them.  Superbugs (antibiotic-resistant bacteria) didn't just appear out of nowhere; we forced bacteria to evolve that way.
I've heard some say that the above situation, rather than cause a new entity to evolve, instead wipes out all the weak versions and leaves the previously minority but very strong and therefore unaffected versions with the entire environment all to themselves so now they can multiply unchecked. Disclaimer - I have no particular understanding of these things.

There was something a while back about UCL (university college London) and Oxford university trialling Astra zenica and Pfizer vaccine as a mix in various ways.
 

Online themadhippy

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Re: Vaccine
« Reply #88 on: March 19, 2021, 03:53:44 pm »
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Astra zenica and Pfizer vaccine as a mix in various ways.
will that allow my body  to receive 5g from multiple network providers instead of  being locked into one?
 

Offline DrG

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Re: Vaccine
« Reply #89 on: March 19, 2021, 04:07:38 pm »
Many people aren't aware that the common cold is also a coronavirus.
In about 15% of cases, yes.  Most cases of common cold are caused by rhinovirus variants.

Although you have a good point with the numbers, this is typical GIS (Google-Induced Simplification) or, if you prefer, WIS (Wikipedia-induced simplification) and also FIS (Forum-Induced-Stupidity).

I am bringing it up because of your previous missive on what I would call "characteristic stupidity of humans" e.g., "Truth is, a very large fraction of all humans are utterly stupid." and "It's not a choice, it's a limitation they cannot help." I am one of those "stupid people" and so are you.

At one level, people learn about rhinovirus (oh yeah, that causes the common cold) and at one level people learn about some coronoviruses (some of them only cause the common cold) and draw a conclusion and spread it.....like a virus. He said "Many people aren't aware that the common cold is also a coronavirus." and you say "In about 15% of cases, yes.  Most cases of common cold are caused by rhinovirus variants.".

At yet another level, people learn even more...and go look for where people studied "people saying that they had a cold" and tried to figure out what the cause was, e.g., https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC104573/

Now, you can say, with evidence, that, yes, coronavirus causes the common cold and, narowly (52%), "most colds are caused by rhinovirus". But, if I were to say, the common cold can be caused by bacteria or the influenza viruses, folks would be all over my ass correcting me and so on and so forth...but I could cite the study as evidence supporting the statement.

Note also two previous studies (cited in the above study) found that rhinovirus was not the cause in over 50% of the cases (25% and 34%). I could also say that you can have a cold from multiple viruses at the same time including rhinovirus and coronavirus (Evidence of a double viral infection was found in 10 patients. Of these patients, three had both rhinovirus and coronavirus OC43...).


Indeed, the idea of a "common cold" as being some kind of a well-defined condition is a simplification. It is frequently a poorly defined collection of signs (observed by other) and symptoms (reported by the person) and usually an operational definition is invoked centering around upper respratory tract issues.

So, do you think that most people are too stupid to understand the concepts? I don't, but I am just happy if most people (99% or more) come to understand that 5G does not cause the common cold and I am not going to be the one to put a limit on what we can and can't understand as people (even if there are limits).
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Offline JohnnyMalaria

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Re: Vaccine
« Reply #90 on: March 19, 2021, 04:21:01 pm »
Just to clarify, the purpose of my comment was to address a misconception that coronaviruses are some new-fangled Frankenstein creation born of human stupidity and that we have been exposed to coronaviruses all our lives often in the form of what we colloquially term the common cold.
 

Offline Tomorokoshi

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Re: Vaccine
« Reply #91 on: March 19, 2021, 04:53:26 pm »
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Astra zenica and Pfizer vaccine as a mix in various ways.
will that allow my body  to receive 5g from multiple network providers instead of  being locked into one?

Yes, it will*.

* Roaming charges may apply. Quality of service not guaranteed.
 

Offline jonpaul

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Re: Vaccine
« Reply #92 on: March 19, 2021, 04:59:13 pm »
I Predict that vax will become obligatoire in EU, UK, this year, no options will be offered.

Since variants evolve and new viruses are continuously created and released, expect a  repeat yearly with a new vax required each time, like flu vaccinations.

In 2021  I predict a government requirement for a digital health app to track all of this, with total government rights to use and indefinitely store every movement.

Bon Courage,

Jon

An Internet Dinosaur...
 
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Offline Nominal Animal

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Re: Vaccine
« Reply #93 on: March 19, 2021, 05:16:20 pm »
Now, you can say, with evidence, that, yes, coronavirus causes the common cold and, narowly (52%), "most colds are caused by rhinovirus". But, if I were to say, the common cold can be caused by bacteria or the influenza viruses, folks would be all over my ass correcting me and so on and so forth...but I could cite the study as evidence supporting the statement.
Huh?  Yes, common cold can be caused by bacteria or viruses.  You're bashing me for what, my imaginary/invented/assumed opposition to a reasonable counterpoint?  Get real.

Indeed, the idea of a "common cold" as being some kind of a well-defined condition is a simplification. It is frequently a poorly defined collection of signs (observed by other) and symptoms (reported by the person) and usually an operational definition is invoked centering around upper respratory tract issues.
Fully agreed.  In my understanding, "common cold" ≃ "the symptoms of upper respiratory tract infection".

In many cases, the exact cause for the infection is not even that important: if the symptoms indicate the person ('s immune system) can cope with it with rest and fluids, there is no need to spend resources to find out whether the infection was due to a virus (or which virus) or bacteria.

So, do you think that most people are too stupid to understand the concepts?
That's a completely different question: I referred to the complex relationships between causes and actions, and you are limiting to the concepts.  You are twisting my claims into something you can attack.  Don't do that.  Undestanding a concept is not very important.  You can catch a ball without understanding anything about ballistics, aerodynamics, fluid dynamics, et cetera.  And vice versa: understanding and being able to describe exactly how a thrown ball behaves, does not mean you can catch a thrown ball.

The people I've observed – and I hoped including a particularly frustrating/funny one would make it clear I am talking about observations and not predictions or assertions – are grasping for the easiest solution they can, and are actively ignoring anything that says that their chosen solution is not sufficient, and they actually need to do something more difficult/annoying/restrictive.  A significant (but small, say 1 in 5 or fewer) do not even want to know anything about the causes, and are following directions blindly, based on respect for authority/celebrity.

They are not looking for understanding, but the easiest way to avoid dealing with the underlying problems – like humans spreading viruses so well – by modifying their own behaviour.

Perhaps the proper English term is "short-sightedness" or something else rather than "stupidity", but I described it as "stupid".

I am not going to be the one to put a limit on what we can and can't understand as people (even if there are limits).
Do you understand the difference between an observation and an assertion?  Because mine was the former, and you seem to be attempting to describe it as the latter.
« Last Edit: March 19, 2021, 05:23:10 pm by Nominal Animal »
 

Offline MadTux

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Re: Vaccine
« Reply #94 on: March 19, 2021, 07:18:00 pm »
I Predict that vax will become obligatoire in EU, UK, this year, no options will be offered.

Since variants evolve and new viruses are continuously created and released, expect a  repeat yearly with a new vax required each time, like flu vaccinations.

In 2021  I predict a government requirement for a digital health app to track all of this, with total government rights to use and indefinitely store every movement.

Bon Courage,

Jon

Nice new world of shit, I guess if EU becomes new China, we'll soon have next civil war, because of an overhyped flu....
I won't play along, they stick their Wuhan flu vaccine syringes up their arses, but not into my arm.

And I'm not anti-vaccine, if it's something really serious like rabit animal that bites me, I'd be at a doctor in no time, but playing along with plans for a new world order under the disguise of a pandemic, no thank you!
« Last Edit: March 19, 2021, 07:27:46 pm by MadTux »
 
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Offline EEVblog

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Re: Vaccine
« Reply #95 on: March 20, 2021, 08:05:15 am »
Again, fallacious assertions.  Australia has the virus.  Some 10 to 20 people get infected each day. 

If you are going to argue with numbers, at least get them right, we have ZERO local covid spread here.
Here is a the last 3 months for the entire country.
Practically all of our cases are people coming into the country and we catch them at the border.

 
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Offline Zero999

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Re: Vaccine
« Reply #96 on: March 20, 2021, 02:30:43 pm »
No one is talking about allowing the disease to roam freely. It's why so much time and money have been spent on developing vaccines.

It would be great to get rid of it, but the consensus of opinion is it's not possible.

There is no such consensus opinion.  When I talk of getting rid of it I mean getting rid of it roaming wild infecting and killing thousands a day.
Good, because that will happen, as we build up herd immunity, due to infection and vaccination.

I'm sorry that you can't understand what I'm saying.  I have already explained to you why the vaccines won't be an impenetrable barrier to this disease.  Rather than debate the facts you continue to make the same fallacious assertions.

What fallacious assertions? Reinfection is rare and generally milder than before.
https://www.bmj.com/content/372/bmj.n99
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.01.13.21249642v1

No one is saying people don't get reinfected, but the fact it's rare, even with the new variants and is generally milder, than the first time, as is the case with most viral infections, indicating it won't cause the same widespread level of severe disease and death, as we have now, throughout eternity.

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But it is very easy to prevent.  Just as dysentery and other diseases are prevented by washing hands, this pandemic is prevented by avoiding contact with others who may be infected.  Best practices are to trace contact and quarantine those who have had contact so that if they do become infected further transmission is prevented.  This brings the spreading rate below 1.0 and the disease dissipates and dies out.  That is a guarantee.  Vaccines are not guaranteed to continue to work as the virus mutates.
Contact tracing and testing are only any help, when the number of cases are low. It also relies on high levels of compliance.

I understand your high level of anxiety, continuously imagining the worst case scenario, but there's no evidence to suggest it will be killing millions of people a year forever. We've seen that vaccines designed for the variant a year ago are still effective against slowing the spread and preventing severe disease from the new ones. We can make new, effective vaccines every year to provide ongoing protection, in the same way we do for influenza.

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As to the idea that we can vaccinate out way out of this it entirely depends on controlling the ongoing rate of infection.  As I have already explained, quite clearly, it will take months for this disease to be impacted as we try to vaccinate the world.  No, that's wrong.  It will take years to protect the entire world.  If we continue to allow the disease to roam the world infecting large numbers it will continue to mutate at a high rate and almost certainly reduce the effectiveness of the current vaccines.

Yes, they can work, but they depend on the virus not changing and we are not doing what we should to minimize the chances of that happening... by not reducing the infection rate.  Too  many people literally make up their own facts and spread them around.

Sorry, there's no way the entire world will be vaccinated against this. We've only done that with smallpox and are still not quite there with polio.

So you are arguing with yourself about this?  Above you said the disease will end when we vaccinate everyone.  Or are you suggesting we just allow the world to be infected killing huge numbers?
No, I didn't say COVID-19 will end due to vaccination, just that it will no longer cause such widespread severe disease and death, once a certain level of herd immunity has been achieved, hopefully by vaccination, rather than infection.

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There's no reason why we can't vaccinate everyone who wants to be vaccinated.  I can't imagine why you would even say that.  The only problem are those who don't want the vaccine.
There will always be places in the world where the vaccine is unavailable.

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First, that's wrong... Australian states are not isolated from each other.  They all have common borders with people freely crossing them all the time.  But even so, what does isolating states have to do with anything?  The states of Australia were never quarantined.  I'm not even sure what that means.  People are quarantined. 
Isolating states prevents the disease from spreading from an area with a very high prevalence. Last year, Australia managed to cut New South Wales off from the rest of the country, when cases were high there, to prevent it from spreading to the rest of the country. Trump talked about doing the same to New York, when it ran rampant there, but soon realised it wasn't possible.

In other words: it isn't fair to say well Australia did it, so why can't we do the same in the US? The two countries are very different, both geographically and politically.

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What does that have to do with anything???  More nonsense.  The island has ring of cities around the periphery.   How is that relevant?  What they have in common is a reasonable response to the disease taking action to quarantine anyone exposed to the disease, exactly as we would do if we had an Ebola plague.  But with this virus, "It's just a bad case of the flu" that is killing more people than 10 years of the flu and still killing more.
This virus is more like the flu than Ebola, which doesn't spread via respiratory droplets. It's much more contagious and fortunately less deadly. Unlike Ebola, it spreads in asymptomatic people. One of the reasons we managed to contain the original SARS was because it was only spread by those who were already quite ill, making it easy to screen for with temperature checks. The very mild cases didn't spread to others.

What is your point?  Of course the diseases are not identical.  The point is about the need for quarantine for those exposed to the infection.  I mention Ebola because it has a higher fatality rate, so people take it seriously unlike COVID.
My point is that COVID-19 is much more contagious than Ebola and that it spreads in healthy people, so is vastly more difficult to contain. If it was only spread by people who feel unwell, then we would have contained it by now. This isn't a case of not taking it seriously because it has a much lower infection fatality ratio, than other diseases. It's a matter of it being more contagious and harder to contain.

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Several times you have talked about allowing infections to provide herd immunity and talked as if infections in children are not significant.  I don't know what to call that other than trivializing human deaths.
I'm not trivialising human deaths. My point is that COVID-19 doesn't pose a serious risk of mortality to children. It mostly kills older people.

We've only had 9 children, from 0 to 14 years old, die in the UK, with COVID-19 mentioned on the death certificate, from March to 1st January 2021. Now I know that's terrible, but we need to put it into perspective. Quite remarkably the excess deaths in the UK, in the 0 to 14 year old age groups, has actually been lower than expected, from March to the end of last year. Correlation doesn't mean causation, so perhaps it's because fewer children have being run over, going to school and being killed by accidents whilst playing.
https://fingertips.phe.org.uk/static-reports/mortality-surveillance/excess-mortality-in-england-week-ending-01-Jan-2021.html#section
https://fingertips.phe.org.uk/static-reports/mortality-surveillance/excess-mortality-in-england-week-ending-01-Jan-2021.html#section-7

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No, we can't save everyone in the world.  In reality wearing masks, washing hands and getting vaccines are not about protecting any of us 100%.  The sad truth is that they are about reducing the spread of this disease and saving some lives.  But by not treating the disease seriously we are costing many more lives than necessary.  Very importantly, by allowing the infection rate to remain high (even if not as high as a few weeks ago), we are keeping the doors wide open to rapid mutations in the virus that put the effectiveness of the vaccines at risk.  Right now people want out from under this disease and many feel they will be able to open up again even before we are fully vaccinated.  Many US states are opening again so that instead of the infection rate dropping to near zero where we could effectively track and trace, the US continues to see thousands die each day and many more new infections with the numbers no longer effectively dropping.
This is why the UK are being so tardy in relieving lockdown restrictions: to allow vaccines to protect the vulnerable and minimise mutations. Schools only reopened a couple of weeks ago, after being closed for nearly 10 weeks. Gyms, restaurants, most non-essential shops etc. are still closed at the moment. More is planned to reopen next month, but it will be slow.

Again, fallacious assertions.  Australia has the virus.  Some 10 to 20 people get infected each day. 

If you are going to argue with numbers, at least get them right, we have ZERO local covid spread here.
Here is a the last 3 months for the entire country.
Practically all of our cases are people coming into the country and we catch them at the border.
How long do you think you'll be able to keep it up for?

What about the costs: tourism, business lost, quarantine hotels, the occasional lockdown, when it does escape?

I don't see how it's sustainable.

At the moment I gather your government is prioritising vaccines for  your neighbours in Papua New Guinea, when it gets supplies. This is admirable, but I suppose there is some level of self-interest, as it will help keep Australia safe. Hopefully the vaccination in Australia will ramp up when domestic production starts.
« Last Edit: March 20, 2021, 02:32:16 pm by Zero999 »
 

Offline madires

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Re: Vaccine
« Reply #97 on: March 20, 2021, 03:17:42 pm »
I Predict that vax will become obligatoire in EU, UK, this year, no options will be offered.

For a few people a vaccination is quite risky because of their medical condition. So you can't enforce that.

Since variants evolve and new viruses are continuously created and released, expect a  repeat yearly with a new vax required each time, like flu vaccinations.

Hard to say, It depends on how much COVID-19 mutates.

In 2021  I predict a government requirement for a digital health app to track all of this, with total government rights to use and indefinitely store every movement.

Free smartphones for everyone? ;D
 

Offline Siwastaja

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Re: Vaccine
« Reply #98 on: March 20, 2021, 03:27:32 pm »
Do note that measuring the awfulness of this disease simply through number of deaths gives the wrong impression it's only dangerous to elderly and some specific risk groups.

Being dangerous doesn't require a death. Traffic accidents result in larger number of injured than deaths and nobody thinks it's all well as long as you don't die.

It's true younger population and those not in risk groups are extremely unlikely to die, but it seems much more common to have a near-death experience, being weeks to months in ICU, then leave severely injured for months to a year, possibly the rest of your life, nobody knows yet if they can ever work again due to symptoms such as extreme fatigue or paralysis so now you are in a wheelchair, in extreme pain, sleeping all day long and nobody counts you as a number anywhere because you are not dead.

This is now clearly visible even in Finland because we finally have managed to vaccinate the most obvious risk groups (but practically no one else yet), and you can already see the result of that: the ratio of deaths vs. cases has gone down significantly (by about 5x), but the ratio of hospitalized vs. cases, or even in ICU vs. cases have not gone down almost at all, suggesting that a significant part of those in really bad condition are not in the obvious risk groups.
« Last Edit: March 20, 2021, 03:29:49 pm by Siwastaja »
 
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Offline madires

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Re: Vaccine
« Reply #99 on: March 20, 2021, 04:06:04 pm »
There are also long-term sequelae, even suffered by young people. Yep, the numbers of infections, fatalities and ICU utilisation aren't sufficient to describe the whole situation.
 


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