Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

How will the world vaccinate seven billion?

bbc.co.uk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 78 posts

Re: How will the world vaccinate seven billion?

#31

Post by Nitrolo »

I'm a bit surprised to see so much opposition to vaccination here on HN, I would have thought that this would be a very pro-science and pro-vaccination crowd.

As far as my understanding goes, herd immunity is not a real alternative to vaccinations. Herd immunity means that a very large percentage of the population, spread evenly across every community, would have to be infected and recover, another commenter cited a source estimating between 50% and 80%[0].

This means getting basically everybody infected, the reason a vaccine would be necessary is that we don't want everybody to get infected because it carries significant risks to health and life with it.

Also the timeframe needed to reach such high percentages of immunity would be very long. Looking at the US, if you assume a continued infection rate of 50 000 new infections each day (much more would probably mean overwhelming hospital capacities) it would take 8 years just to reach the 50% threshold, 13 years to reach 80%. Lot of time and suffering saved by going the vaccine route.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herd_immunity#Mechanics

Re: How will the world vaccinate seven billion?

#32

Post by NoOneNew »

Nitrolo wrote: post #31

I'm a bit surprised to see so much opposition to vaccination here on HN, I would have thought that this would be a very pro-science and pro-vaccination crowd. As far as my understanding goes, herd immunity is not a real alternative to vaccinations. Herd immunity means that a very large percentage of the population, spread evenly across every community, would have to be infected and recover, another commenter cited a…

Not opposed to vaccines. Opposed to rushed, poorly tested, politicized pharmaceuticals. Poorly tested drugs have severe consequences. Just because you WANT a miracle, doesn't mean the first person offering one will actually help.

Re: How will the world vaccinate seven billion?

#33

Post by tralarpa »

Blahagun wrote: post #30
alias-dev wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mean consequences outside of drowning in their own fluids?

What are you talking about? What drowning? The clinical picture hasn't been that different compared to previous years with outbreaks of respiratory illnesses. In fact in some countries the death rates have actually been lower. The only reason this year we are talking about it is because for some reason it became a huge media thing. There was no reason previous years to not talk about respiratory illnesses. They have…

> The only reason this year we are talking about it is because for some reason it became a huge media thing

Well, something seems to be different this year:

https://www.euromomo.eu/graphs-and-maps/

Re: How will the world vaccinate seven billion?

#34

Post by dividedbyzero »

chrisco255 wrote: post #21
antioedipus wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of your reply isn’t really correct. > A vaccine is also an attenuated version of the virus so if becoming immune from the virus doesn't last long it won't last long from a vaccine. A vaccine can be an attenuated virus, or a piece of mRNA or DNA, or a distinctive viral protein. Which type of vaccine you use+the adjuvants that go with it can result in very different immune responses and efficacy over time. > This…

The only reason people are testing positive again after having Covid and healing from it is because the test is very poor at distinguishing between various coronaviruses, the vast majority of which are harmless and sometimes cause the common cold. There is a big false positive rate as a result.

Could you link to studies that support this point of view, if you have any? What are your sources?

Re: How will the world vaccinate seven billion?

#35

Post by dividedbyzero »

parasight wrote: post #28
goto11 wrote: post #10

Wouldn't it be sufficient to vaccinate people in the high-risk groups?

I think you should add people working in the health-care sector.

And all the other people with lots of in-person contact with others, like in retail, restaurants, taxis, etc.

And a lot of those who cram into public transportation during rush hour.

Otherwise you'll still overwhelm hospitals quickly in another runaway wave of infections.

Re: How will the world vaccinate seven billion?

#36

Post by NoOneNew »

noir_lord wrote: post #25
chrisco255 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look at the death rates for people under 45...it's like 1 in 10,000. In some cities and for certain age brackets, you're more likely to be murdered or commit suicide than to die from Covid. The car accident fatality rate is roughly 1 in 10,000.

It's not just the death rate. It's long term physical damage even if you survive.

Yea, sorry, but I have to call anecdotal bs on these claims. Every person in the news I've seen that claims long term problems are obese individuals looking to make excuses. Other "damages" are so random and all over the place, it smells like correlation rather than causation. You know when someone might say they have head lice and your head gets all itchy suddenly, then you think you might have lice too. Theres a whole lot of that going on when it comes to relating other health problems to Covid. Dont forget, it's super sexy right now to be a covid survivor. People get a whole lot of attention for it.

For a forum that loves to call out anecdotal bias all the time, when it comes to Covid, everyone here jumps on the fear bandwagon of the news and on really poorly done studies with only a few dozen participants or epidemiologies.

Re: How will the world vaccinate seven billion?

#37

Post by kwhitefoot »

zaro wrote: post #5

Why would we need that? I think a lot of people will get immunity the natural way, even now a lot of people are having covid w/o any symptoms at all, and they will have immunity.

It is not evident yet that a large proportion of the population will be immune. The virus has some similarities with the common cold and it is well known that immunity does not last for the common cold.

Having COVID without symptoms (asymptomatic) does not mean that you are immune and you are still infectious.

Edit:

> even now a lot of people are having covid w/o any symptoms at all

The last estimate I saw (last week I think) for Stockholm was that only roughly ten percent of the local population had COVID,

Re: How will the world vaccinate seven billion?

#38

Post by bmcn2020 »

bigbluedots wrote: post #27
chrisco255 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, sorry. My body. My choice.

Nope, not when your choice affects the rest of us.

I tend to agree with the "no mandataroy vaccination" thought.

I'm no anti-vaxxer, nor a believer in the "plandemic". But the vaccine should be voluntary and highly recommended for at risk groups. After all, they're the ones who would be impacted the most.

Re: How will the world vaccinate seven billion?

#40

Post by ajuc »

zaro wrote: post #5

Why would we need that? I think a lot of people will get immunity the natural way, even now a lot of people are having covid w/o any symptoms at all, and they will have immunity.

> Why would we need that?

Because best case 0.1% death rate times best case 50% required for herd immunity times 7.8 billion people is 3.9 million dead people. And that's pretty bad.

Post reply on HN