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Vaccines should end the pandemic, despite the variants, say experts

news.harvard.edu

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Re: Vaccines should end the pandemic, despite the variants, say experts

#31

These kind of pandemic tend to end themselves after about 20-30 months. We’re about half way there anyway.

The last pandemic with a death toll anything like (actually much worse than) COVID-19 is the still-ongoing HIV pandemic. It's entering its 40th year .

1 million per year... endemic versus epidemic

Re: Vaccines should end the pandemic, despite the variants, say experts

#32
post #11

i'm very surprised to see remdesivir mentionned in this article at all... Isn't this drug officialy not working at all against covid-19 , and as such should be banned because of perfusion side-effects ? (in addition to the fact that it seems to be known to increase the amount of virus genetic mutations in people treated with it)

Here in the Czech Republic, doctors in Brno are trying a combination of remdesivir and convalescent plasma in oncological Covid patients. They say that the combo has, so far, worked much better than either of the components in isolation. Out of the small cohort, they lost no one so far. Source in Czech: https://ct24.ceskatelevize.cz/jihomoravskykraj/3278822-brnen...

One thing I've learnt from the whole C19 treatment debacle is to never ever trust any single study.

Unlike computer science where if you test something and it works once you and then you expect it to work for everyone, in medical research if you see an effect in one treatment study you probably won't see the same effect elsewhere.

For treatments (unlike controlled vaccine studies) the cohorts are too small and there are too many other variables.

Re: Vaccines should end the pandemic, despite the variants, say experts

#33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How?

If we're lucky the virus mutates into a very transmissible but not very symptomatic or damaging to humans variant. It's speculated that's how the 1918 flu pandemic eventually ended.

That’s true, but before that happened it appears to have mutated into a considerably more virulent and deadly form that dominated in the second wave. COVID probably would eventually burn itself out into a less lethal form, but there’s no telling how long or rocky the road to that could be.

Re: Vaccines should end the pandemic, despite the variants, say experts

#34
post #23

These kind of pandemic tend to end themselves after about 20-30 months. We’re about half way there anyway.

You are correct. The pandemic may end after about 20-30 months, but this novel coronavirus will stick around. It is going to be a community virus, such as the Spanish flu turned into seasonal influenza. People pushed back hard against the experts when they started talking about preparing for herd immunity and 70%+ infected. So, this messaging has become more careful. A few months later the debate will turn to this be…

I can't believe you are getting downvoted!

This is a real risk!

Relevant quote:

> Under normal conditions, highly virulent strains of the virus are not selected. A highly virulent strain would kill the host before the virus would have an opportunity to transmit to other potential hosts and replicate. Thus, less virulent strains are selected. These strains are virulent enough to induce symptoms but not enough to kill the host, allowing further transmission. However, the leaky vaccine changes this evolutionary pressure and permits the evolution of highly virulent strains.[12] The vaccine's inability to prevent infection and transmission allows the spread of highly virulent strains among vaccinated chickens. The fitness of the more virulent strains are increased by the vaccine.

(...)

> Highly virulent strains have been selected to the point that any chicken that is unvaccinated will die if infected. Other leaky vaccines are commonly used in agriculture. One vaccine in particular is the vaccine for avian influenza. Leaky vaccine use for avian influenza can select for virulent strains which could potentially be transmitted to humans.[13]

Re: Vaccines should end the pandemic, despite the variants, say experts

#35
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here in the Czech Republic, doctors in Brno are trying a combination of remdesivir and convalescent plasma in oncological Covid patients. They say that the combo has, so far, worked much better than either of the components in isolation. Out of the small cohort, they lost no one so far. Source in Czech: https://ct24.ceskatelevize.cz/jihomoravskykraj/3278822-brnen...

One thing I've learnt from the whole C19 treatment debacle is to never ever trust any single study. Unlike computer science where if you test something and it works once you and then you expect it to work for everyone, in medical research if you see an effect in one treatment study you probably won't see the same effect elsewhere. For treatments (unlike controlled vaccine studies) the cohorts are too small and there…

Absolutely. The study may even be valid in certain conditions, but still fail to replicate elsewhere.

People differ. Healthcare systems differ. Too many small details, too small to document, differ.

Re: Vaccines should end the pandemic, despite the variants, say experts

#36
post #7

These kind of pandemic tend to end themselves after about 20-30 months. We’re about half way there anyway.

Which other pandemic do you think is even remotely comparable to Covid-19? (All pandemics with a comparable transmission rate happened in times that simply aren't comparable to the modern world in terms of mobility, which obviously affects the way this goes.)

COVID is different because it is occurring against a backdrop of extremely aged and obese populations, in a year (2020) which followed a weak flu season (2019), and in an election year in the USA (2020) where all health decision were heavily politicised.

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.11.11.20229708v...

"In Sweden, the observed increase in all-cause mortality during Covid-19 was partly due to a lower than expected mortality preceding the epidemic and the observed excess mortality, was followed by a lower than expected mortality after the first Covid-19 wave. This may suggest mortality displacement."

Sweden had about the same mortality spike in 2009 from Swine flu: https://swprs.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/sweden-monthly-...

Re: Vaccines should end the pandemic, despite the variants, say experts

#37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The last pandemic with a death toll anything like (actually much worse than) COVID-19 is the still-ongoing HIV pandemic. It's entering its 40th year .

It's crazy to think about how HIV has killed some ~32 million people, and yet we rarely hear about it anymore. COVID probably won't even hit 4 million deaths (barring some much deadlier variant that we can't easily produce a new vaccine for).

Yeah, but that's > 3 million over 12 months vs 32 million over 40 years, the majority before 2010.

AIDS was a huge deal back when there was no treatment for it.

Re: Vaccines should end the pandemic, despite the variants, say experts

#38
post #11

i'm very surprised to see remdesivir mentionned in this article at all... Isn't this drug officialy not working at all against covid-19 , and as such should be banned because of perfusion side-effects ? (in addition to the fact that it seems to be known to increase the amount of virus genetic mutations in people treated with it)

Isn't remdesivir being used only in cases of viral pneumonia on ICU patients?

Re: Vaccines should end the pandemic, despite the variants, say experts

#39
post #34
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are correct. The pandemic may end after about 20-30 months, but this novel coronavirus will stick around. It is going to be a community virus, such as the Spanish flu turned into seasonal influenza. People pushed back hard against the experts when they started talking about preparing for herd immunity and 70%+ infected. So, this messaging has become more careful. A few months later the debate will turn to this be…

I can't believe you are getting downvoted! This is a real risk! Relevant quote: > Under normal conditions, highly virulent strains of the virus are not selected. A highly virulent strain would kill the host before the virus would have an opportunity to transmit to other potential hosts and replicate. Thus, less virulent strains are selected. These strains are virulent enough to induce symptoms but not enough to kill…

> This is a real risk!

I never heard this discussed as a big "risk". As far as I know this was always more or less known to be the endgame and not even a dangerous outcome but the "good" scenario.

Once it's an established coronavirus, it can be like the other known human coronaviruses we already have. The reason you don't die from OC43 at age 75 now is because you probably cought it a few times before that. It's not necessarily because OC43 doesn't have a high IFR at high ages. We don't know that because we don't have a large sample of it. For all we know, one or more of the existing HCOVs may have been quite a deadly disease back when it entered the population.

We aren't going to exterminate SARS-COV2. Especially obvious since it's not limited to humans (present in mink, cats, primates, ...). And that's not going to be a big problem.

Re: Vaccines should end the pandemic, despite the variants, say experts

#40
post #23

These kind of pandemic tend to end themselves after about 20-30 months. We’re about half way there anyway.

You are correct. The pandemic may end after about 20-30 months, but this novel coronavirus will stick around. It is going to be a community virus, such as the Spanish flu turned into seasonal influenza. People pushed back hard against the experts when they started talking about preparing for herd immunity and 70%+ infected. So, this messaging has become more careful. A few months later the debate will turn to this be…

> A few months later the debate will turn to this being leaky vaccines

Made a bit more complicated by the fact that not all vaccines have the same properties here...somehow seems the mRNA vaccines do better at preventing shedding than the adenovirus-based ones [0].

[0]: https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2024671

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