[deleted]
Crazy self-spreading vaccine idea
11–15 of 15 posts
Re: Crazy self-spreading vaccine idea
#12This has been proposed here a few times, for example: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29368127 As NoPie comented there > Our science is not that good. > Basically you want a virus that really is a vaccine. The current vaccines are far from perfect because apparently we don't know how to make them better. Expressing such a vaccine as a contagious virus would not better but would only create more risks. And I repl…
Interesting points and resource. I guess we are far from getting there, but I'm not sure the current vaccination programs are the solution to pandemics.
Re: Crazy self-spreading vaccine idea
#13For the virus to be spreadable it has to create symptoms. With Covid for example you would have to make a virus that can compete and attach better to the ACE2 receptor. If it is better at attaching its more bio-competitive against normal use and more likely to make you sick. The key thing with covid is to prevent a cytokine storm, but the 'ideal' virus would still make you quite sick and some would die in the process…
Is that completely certain?
In the case of COVID-19, you can infect people before developing COVID-19 symptoms. Anecdotally, I believe that I contracted COVID-19 and infected some friends before I was even aware of the infection building up inside my body. You would only get symptoms when the body starts responding to the infection.
Now the question is: Can a virus exist that allows infection by close contact (e.g. talking to someone) but doesn't have severe symptoms? That is certainly the way I experienced COVID-19, but it is not a universal truth for the disease.
Re: Crazy self-spreading vaccine idea
#14It's not a new idea, but the implications if it goes wrong are severe. Imagine it mutates (it happens, especially if it's super infectious and thus being exposed to MANY environments and gets to live millions of years per day (time * infected humans)). Imagine it works differently in a small percentage of people, it's a lot harder to control when it's distributing itself.. With vaccines, at least, administration can…
Interesting points. I guess the fact that it couldn't be stopped is really the deal breaker, unless there was a kill switch in the design of the virus (maybe some kind of antidote you could take?). Regarding mutability, I am not an expert at all. However, some viruses mutate more than others, so I imagine there could be some way to control the mutability and maybe even prevent it from happening with self repair mecha…
Assuming it went out of control, it's not unreasonable to assume that the antidote can become ineffective, and even if it was effetive, it'd have the same problems as current vaccines (distribution chain, antivaxxers, testing and getting it approved for use in humans), but with even more difficult ethical implications.
I'm not sure if there is a widely used term is used for this (countervirus comes to mind, but that seems used for something else), since it is an unacceptable practice so far.
Re: Crazy self-spreading vaccine idea
#15How would you keep the virus from mutating into a deadly form? I don't think our medical expertise would allow that and it would be a pretty stupid idea. Covid is not a threat to overall health of humanity. Lab-grown super spreading viruses might become exactly that though.
I think any ethical debate would also be concluded very quickly.