It took two days to develop Moderna’s vaccine • Hacker News Board

Re: It took two days to develop Moderna’s vaccine

#261

Post by IanClarke » Sat, Dec 19, 2020, 4:23 AM UTC

flyingfsck wrote: post #200

jtwaleson wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the death rates in children vs. elderly were reversed with COVID, all hell would have broken loose. There is nothing people are more protective over than their kids. Behavior would have been completely different.

Agreed. Nothing is more important to most than the future (kids). The past seems to be a whatever. We don't learn from the past at all. Sadly.

> We don't learn from the past at all. Sadly.

History rhymes and we are doing our best. Please don't blame others ala "Those who ignore the past are doomed to repeat the mistakes"... We will have much more possibilities and views in the future though and are currently blind(er) compared to that.

Re: It took two days to develop Moderna’s vaccine

#262

Post by futevolei » Sat, Dec 19, 2020, 4:25 AM UTC

I think most importantly of all it seems that this wasn’t a very hard problem to solve, relatively speaking. Like we could throw all the scientists all over the world who worked on this at cancer and there won’t be a cure for cancer a year from now. At least I don’t think. Nonetheless I remain impressed and salute any and all scientists who either did the work or paved the way.

Re: It took two days to develop Moderna’s vaccine

#263

Post by minkzilla » Sat, Dec 19, 2020, 4:33 AM UTC

ThrustVectoring wrote: post #206

eli_gottlieb wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I got muscle aches, fatigue, and headaches, but my arm never felt more than a little hot. I still have no idea which branch I'm in.

you probably got the vaccine, saline injections don't do that

Many people get placebo effects

Re: It took two days to develop Moderna’s vaccine

#264

Post by gnusty_gnurc » Sat, Dec 19, 2020, 4:35 AM UTC

beamatronic wrote: post #254

jayrot wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah this pandemic has been described as the perfect middle ground for politicization, denialism, and just laissez-faire attitudes. Any more deadly (like Ebola) it becomes incredibly scary and people likely do whatever it takes when they see people around them dropping like flies (especially in horrific ways). Any less deadly (basically the yearly flu) and it becomes easy to ignore and just becomes part of the backgr…

Totally disagree about the last part. The more pain we suffer now, the longer the lesson will last.

> The more pain we suffer now, the longer the lesson will last.

More evidence of the pervasive political attitude that’s “science-based” but more like modern day fundamentalist fire-and-brimstone “anyone smiling wrought all the suffering in the world” Christianity.

Re: It took two days to develop Moderna’s vaccine

#265

Post by kirillzubovsky » Sat, Dec 19, 2020, 4:43 AM UTC

mrits wrote: post #71

JohnJamesRambo wrote: post #47

I’m glad to see this and we need to concentrate on speeding this process up. This isn’t the last pandemic and all things considered this one was a pretty benign one to have to fight. The next one might not just kill mainly the old and weak and might need much more than a mask (that we still can’t get people to wear!) to prevent its spread. Hopefully before then, we can work to get everyone more on the same page and h…

To get worse than COVID you'd need a virus that takes a long time to develop symptoms and then has a high death rate. In that scenario there would be a lot more public fear and we'd have an easier time keeping people at home. So I'm still of the opinion it's harder to have a worse situation than COVID.

Kind of related - most people probably don’t know, but the first studies around “zombie apocalypse” were just that, simulations of a bad virus outbreak.

Re: It took two days to develop Moderna’s vaccine

#266

Post by lostlogin » Sat, Dec 19, 2020, 4:51 AM UTC

maxerickson wrote: post #260

matz1 wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Low or high can be very subjective, at least I consider it very very low. I wouldn't ask my parent/grand parent to isolate, if they don't want it. >And 1 in 20 people over 70 obviously isn't low People in over 70 has already high chance of death regardless of covid or not. So given that they are infected with covid, 1 in 20 chance is not high.

So given that they are infected with covid That this is not some uncontrollable inevitability is the whole point. Places that were proactive have less economic harm and far less death and illness. I suppose people aren't going to change, so the ship has sailed for much of the world, but it wasn't inevitable for vast numbers of people to get infected. As far as 1/200 being subjectively low, if something had a 1/200 ch…

> As far as 1/200 being subjectively low, if something had a 1/200 chance in killing you, would you do it 5 times a day?

It would probably be considerably more fun to self isolate while taking up drinking, smoking, motor biking without a helmet and a variety of other risky activities. At least those are interesting, and they are probably less risky.

Re: It took two days to develop Moderna’s vaccine

#267

Post by raarts » Sat, Dec 19, 2020, 5:18 AM UTC

Does anybody think our grand kid's kids will get vaccinated with hundreds of vaccines when they're born?

The industry will make a lot of money out of that sure, but I have my doubts where this is going.

Re: It took two days to develop Moderna’s vaccine

#268

Post by CydeWeys » Sat, Dec 19, 2020, 5:20 AM UTC

raarts wrote: post #267

Does anybody think our grand kid's kids will get vaccinated with hundreds of vaccines when they're born? The industry will make a lot of money out of that sure, but I have my doubts where this is going.

Hundreds of vaccinations in infancy and then they never get sick for the rest of their lives? Hell yeah, that's the ultimate dream right there.

Re: It took two days to develop Moderna’s vaccine

#269

Post by kelnos » Sat, Dec 19, 2020, 5:27 AM UTC

pchristensen wrote: post #233

mrits wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To get worse than COVID you'd need a virus that takes a long time to develop symptoms and then has a high death rate. In that scenario there would be a lot more public fear and we'd have an easier time keeping people at home. So I'm still of the opinion it's harder to have a worse situation than COVID.

"we'd have an easier time keeping people at home" [citation needed]

Opinions don't require citations.

Re: It took two days to develop Moderna’s vaccine

#270

Post by woofie11 » Sat, Dec 19, 2020, 5:29 AM UTC

xxpor wrote: post #205

IfOnlyYouKnew wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, indeed. I believe there's been a misunderstanding where people think COVID is more dangerous to elderly people because they just tend to be generically vulnerable to a lot of disease. That's not the case, however. If you compare death rates within different age groups, the risk for elderly is dramatically higher, even in comparison to other diseases that tend to be worse in old age (yes, exactly, such as the flu…

Even though it's less dangerous for young people, there's still reports that it was the top cause of death for people in their 20s or 30s this summer. The absolute numbers aren't that high, but it turns out people in their 20s and 30s don't die randomly that often either.

It also depends on how one defines danger. Would you rather die a few years earlier in your old age? Or live with reduced lung capacity for many years? And how common is that with COVID19?

We're still waiting to see the fall-out of long COVID.