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A 90 year old woman in a nursing home is not spreading COVID. Wouldn't it make more sense to give this to people who are most at risk of spreading it, not dying from it? Why wouldn't we go at the root cause of the pandemic; young healthy asymptomatic spreaders?
A 90 year old woman in a nursing home is not spreading COVID. Wouldn't it make more sense to give this to people who are most at risk of spreading it, not dying from it? Why wouldn't we go at the root cause of the pandemic; young healthy asymptomatic spreaders?
No, it makes sense to give this to people who are most at risk of spreading it to people who are most at risk of dying from it. Thus anyone in and around aged care.
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It's not yet known whether the Pfizer vaccine prevents an infected person from transmitting the infection to other people [1]. But there is robust evidence that is does prevent an immunised person from becoming ill. [1] https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-03441-8
Could someone please explain how this can be the case? I understand the vaccine works by stimulating antibody production, which prevent you from becoming ill by binding to the virus and disabling it should it enter your system. How then could the virus be spread further if it's already been disabled?
Indeed this paper found association between viral load and symptoms - hospitalized patients are shedding less virus
As this rolls out I thought Derek Lowe had a good point to make https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2020/12/04/ge... When you vaccinate this many people, you will have those people die, get heart attacks, strokes, cancer, etc. Why? Because that would have happened to them anyways, vaccine or not. So don’t freak out when “issues” start to crop up. Wait until someone has a done a proper analysis to see if th…
But when it comes to the vaccine it should be the other way around? So we have to apply common sense to the vaccine related deaths but not to the covid related deaths?
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Why is this comment getting downvoted? seems like a fair question. I've seen this now in several threads where even questioning side effects of the vaccine gets downvoted and looked down upon like they did something illegal. This is not HN I used to know.
There's a tendency to highlight risks and sideeffects of this vaccine that is without any basis. It's reasonable to ask what the risks are, but unspecific ramblings about risks aren't helpful and it's unreasonable to highlight very hypothetical risks compared to the very real risks of getting Covid-19. Right now the risk issue seems pretty clearcut: There were no serious sideeffects in the trials. What gave me additi…
If the OP were spreading unsubstantiated panic then I would take a different view of it, but to me it appears as an honest concern about a novel medical procedure.
A 90 year old woman in a nursing home is not spreading COVID. Wouldn't it make more sense to give this to people who are most at risk of spreading it, not dying from it? Why wouldn't we go at the root cause of the pandemic; young healthy asymptomatic spreaders?
2. The study of the vaccine thus far evaluated immunity, not transmission; not the same thing.
3. A 90 year old is far more likely to die of the virus regardless of whether she is infectious.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's not yet known whether the Pfizer vaccine prevents an infected person from transmitting the infection to other people [1]. But there is robust evidence that is does prevent an immunised person from becoming ill. [1] https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-03441-8
Could someone please explain how this can be the case? I understand the vaccine works by stimulating antibody production, which prevent you from becoming ill by binding to the virus and disabling it should it enter your system. How then could the virus be spread further if it's already been disabled?
However, the science is the easy part here. It gets complicated once politics comes into play. Pretty much all scientists I've spoken or listened to say that they assume that the spread will most likely be at least severely limited through the vaccines. That's because they don't have any other explanation than a reduced viral load that could explain how the vaccines actually work in preventing sickness, and a reduced viral load would also mean a reduced spreading capability. However, not knowing something does not mean it can't exist: it is not impossible for there to be some unknown way in which these vaccines may potentially prevent sickness without also limiting viral spread. And scientists usually want to be scientifically correct, so they don't go out and declare something as fact that they just carefully "assume" to be the case.
This "known unknown" of effectiveness in limiting viral spread is now actively being used by politics, especially those people coordinating protective measures in governments, as a convenient escape hatch out of a problematic situation. That situation is: how do you explain to someone who just got vaccinated that he/she should still adhere to all the protective measures like universal mask-wearing and limiting personal contacts? Because even though there are rational reasons for doing so (first, the vaccines need two shots and some weeks of time to actually build up protection, and second, if a significant portion of the populace is exempt from all the protective measures and their burdens, this incentivizes the remaining, non-vaccinated part to also "exempt themselves", because constraints enforced on all citizens are much easier to follow than constraints only enforced on half of all citizens) there will be a strong impetus within each individual to not follow protective measures and rules anymore, once vaccinated and thus "protected" from the virus. And besides that psychological effect there's the overarching problem of the constitutional impossibility of enforcing wide-ranging limitations on constitutional rights onto people that is not justifiable anymore, once an individual in question can provably no longer spread the virus. Because of all of this, politicians (rightfully) fear the situation that we're going to be in in a few months time, when a significant part of the populace, but not enough for herd immunity, is already vaccinated. An assumption of a possibility of transmission even with vaccination is a godsend in that situation.
Good luck to the average person getting it in the USA before March. Even with half the population refusing it because the anti-vax people might be even more crazy than the anti-maskers. Which makes you wonder which country will have covid longest.
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They could make proof of vaccination an entry requirement. Combine that with widespread domestic vaccination and you've got a very good chance of containing any infections that make it into the country.
vaccination doesn't mean you cannot get the virus and spread it around. it protects you from the effects of Covid-19, the disease, caused by your body's reaction to the virus. Those vaccinated, because they have less symptoms, less coughing basically, might not spread it around as much, but we don't know that yet. Remember asymptomatic spreading is a big concern for this virus.
If I may pick another nit, it's not asymptomatic but presymptomatic that seem to be the major concern, from what I've heard: that is, people who spread the disease will eventually show symptoms (usually within a day or two). The balance of evidence seems to suggest that people with viral loads that never get high enough to cause illness are probably not enough to cause a significant number of transmissions, but we will have to wait for widespread vaccination to confirm it.
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That seems bizarre — you’re much more likely to be able to get it privately in India or Thailand or any other country that has good healthcare for the rich and few qualms about allowing people to buy in private stock. Much easier to pay $500 to a private clinic in Mumbai than fly to the West and hope that you can convince the state to provide it
There's not even any plans to offer vaccines privately in the UK yet. The NHS isn't going to offer it to travellers.
I’d guess that wide spread availability privately will coincide with when the highest risk groups have been vaccinated and then the government will say it’s “only right and proper” that people who aren’t very much at risk, who “can pay, should pay” rather than “burdening” the NHS and timed that they won’t look too callous.