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How will the world vaccinate seven billion?

bbc.co.uk

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Re: How will the world vaccinate seven billion?

#51

Post by bkor »

chrisco255 wrote: post #26
noir_lord wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Vast majority of people who contract this illness don't even show symptoms at all. That's what's weird about this disease. It seems to affect the elderly disproportionately but for younger people and people with no risk factors, the risk is exceedingly low that one will experience SARS at all.

If you're not affected by covid-19 but something else you'll still have a problem if the hospital is overwhelmed due to covid-19. I've noticed various countries in Europe where they delayed various hospitalizations. Similarly, various people avoided going to a hospital while they usually would go.

How many people will have permanent problems (despite surviving) due to covid-19 is still unknown AFAIK.

Re: How will the world vaccinate seven billion?

#52

Post by bkor »

bmcn2020 wrote: post #38
bigbluedots wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> 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.

That would not work. The high risk group would then get infected by other people. A vaccine isn't perfect. Similarly for people affected where you did not know beforehand that they would have a bad effect.

Re: How will the world vaccinate seven billion?

#53

Post by bigbluedots »

bmcn2020 wrote: post #38
bigbluedots wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's not only the 'at risk' who would benefit from not getting the disease: many people who have been infected have not completely recovered, and it's not clear what the long term effects of the disease may be. Other than that, if we want to stop the spread then a high percentage of people will need to be vaccinated, which is difficult when personal freedom is put above all else.

Re: How will the world vaccinate seven billion?

#54

Post by bmcn2020 »

bkor wrote: post #52
bmcn2020 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> 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. That would not work. The high risk group would then get infected by other people. A vaccine isn't perfect. Similarly for people affected where you did not know beforehand that they would have a bad effect.

OK I see your point.

But then, if this is like the seasonal flu, then we'd have to be vaccinated regularly?

Re: How will the world vaccinate seven billion?

#55

Post by Nitrolo »

NoOneNew wrote: post #32
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.

Fair enough, of course any vaccine that does get distributed to billions of people should be tested very, very carefully. Chances are the first option might not be the best one (see the vaccine that's being rolled out in Russia).

But the article is talking about the logistics of distributing an effective vaccine, once it's found, not distributing the first best thing someone happens to come up with. It seems pretty likely that at some point a safe and effective vaccine will be found. Should that vaccine not be distributed widely?

Re: How will the world vaccinate seven billion?

#56

Post by xlm1717 »

kwhitefoot wrote: post #37
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…

Immunity doesn't last for the common cold because there's so many viruses that cause it.

Re: How will the world vaccinate seven billion?

#57

Post by xlm1717 »

Nitrolo wrote: post #18
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.

Because getting infected still carries a significant risk of illness, permanent health problems, or death with it, especially for at-risk groups. Getting vaccinated would sidestep that risk. And even if everybody did recover, there's the economic cost of an infection. Productivity missed because workers are sick at home, or worse in a hospital being cared for. I'm not sure what the dollar figures are, but I would not…

The ship has long since sailed for productivity missed.

Re: How will the world vaccinate seven billion?

#58

Post by xlm1717 »

bkor wrote: post #51
chrisco255 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vast majority of people who contract this illness don't even show symptoms at all. That's what's weird about this disease. It seems to affect the elderly disproportionately but for younger people and people with no risk factors, the risk is exceedingly low that one will experience SARS at all.

If you're not affected by covid-19 but something else you'll still have a problem if the hospital is overwhelmed due to covid-19. I've noticed various countries in Europe where they delayed various hospitalizations. Similarly, various people avoided going to a hospital while they usually would go. How many people will have permanent problems (despite surviving) due to covid-19 is still unknown AFAIK.

Did they delay or avoid hospitalization because the hospitals are overwhelmed, or because treatments/diagnostics to their conditions were deemed non-essential or elective?

Re: How will the world vaccinate seven billion?

#59

Post by goalieca »

kwhitefoot wrote: post #37
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…

The original herd immunity "estimates" of 60% were 1-1/Ro. This never considered heterogeneous spread and it assumed everyone was equally susceptible.

It's hard to estimate prevalance because PCR testing has a large false negative rate. It depends highly on which day of the infection you're tested and even then the peak rate is still quite miserable for trying to find it.

Serorevalence is also tricky as we trade off false positive for false negative and the antibodies decline after a few months. That's not to say that memory B cells can't spin up production on demand though. Then there's the whole t-cell response which may play a bigger role in asymptomatic cases. All in all, its understood that antibody testing is underestimating infection rates.

Regardless of what values we think herd immunity should have, it's pretty clear that places like Sweden have seen the death peak and then tail off without any major change in distancing policies. If anything, people are relaxing more with time.

edit: I should mention that since march, we do have better treatment options and we have stepped up our game protecting care homes all over the world including Sweden which saw a majority of deaths from those facilities. This is why it's important to look at trends in other countries as well.

Re: How will the world vaccinate seven billion?

#60

Post by NoOneNew »

Nitrolo wrote: post #55
NoOneNew wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Fair enough, of course any vaccine that does get distributed to billions of people should be tested very, very carefully. Chances are the first option might not be the best one (see the vaccine that's being rolled out in Russia). But the article is talking about the logistics of distributing an effective vaccine, once it's found, not distributing the first best thing someone happens to come up with. It seems pretty l…

Didn't reply to the article. I replied to a comment talking about why the comments are against a vaccine in the first place.
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