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Comment by refurb | Hacker News Reader

If Covid has taught me anything, it's to stop assuming a best case scenario.

Even if a vaccine is approved in Q'21, due to manufacturing, supply chain and just general operations issues, it's going to be a while before a large part of the population is vaccinated.

I assume they'll prioritize medical workers and the elderly, then start working through the rest of the population. It wouldn't surprise me if it takes another 6 months to vaccinate less than 50% of the population (which, to be fair, may be enough).

We're probably looking at end of 2021 for enough vaccinations to happen for things to go back to "normal".

That's another year.

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> We're probably looking at end of 2021 for enough vaccinations to happen for things to go back to "normal".

In my eyes, that is the best case scenario.

Yeah, you're most likely right. If we have a couple vaccines fail in phase 3, add another 6 months. And there is a chance it's another year before we have a somewhat effective vaccine.

That pushes out herd immunity to late 2022.

The positive thing is there a lot of vaccine in development. I feel confident we'll find one that's at least somewhat effective.

But vaccines don't just pass or fail: likely outcomes include a lot of middle ground with partial protection or side effects that are only prohibitive for some groups (mostly age groups). Stopping fractions of infections will make it possible to lift more and more social interventions while maintaining R <= 1 suppression.

I don't think anyone involved in COVID-19 vaccination work believes the first vaccines will be more than 50% effective and that only for a short period. I believe the Oxford vaccine project is expecting 6 months of resistance to infection. This isn't good enough for things to go back to the way the way things were.

We'll be dealing with this virus permanently and it will likely be years, or decades, until there's a good enough vaccine for it to be safe for to return to the way they were.

In the mean time, things will change enough that going back to the old normal won't be an option by the time it's eventually safe enough to do it.

It's unlikely that it will be politically feasible to stop vaccinated people from going back to normal, whether or not we think it's good enough in some abstract sense.

i am in the pessimists camp who believes there wont be a COVID vaccine for decades. SARS is a corona virus and no vaccine has been found in 13 years. the common cold is a corona virus and no vaccine has been found since vaccination was invented.

the new normal is going to be with us for a very long time, so adjust and plan accordingly.

The common cold is a multitude of corona viruses and a large number of other causes both viral and bacterial. There is zero business case for developing a vaccine for a single-digit percentage of common colds.

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