Comment by bleepblorp | Hacker News Reader

Comment by bleepblorp | Hacker News Reader

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None of the vaccines currently on the table are even remotely good enough for 'back to normalish.' The attack rate for this virus is so high that a vaccine good enough (i.e. multiple 9s effectiveness) to allow 'back to normal' almost certainly isn't possible.

The most we're going to get out of a vaccine is a tool that can be used in conjunction with physical distancing, and masks, to keep the infection rate and hospitalization rate sustainable.

Even with a vaccine, COVID-19 will remain one of the leading causes of death among the sick and elderly. The percentage of chronically ill people who live, and the percentage of people who make it past age 65, will plummet.

Everyone who's alive now will almost certainly need to socially distance (and should wear an N95/KN95 mask in public indoor spaces) for the rest of their lives.

What's happening now is humanity's normal.

> None of the vaccines currently on the table are even remotely good enough for 'back to normalish.' The attack rate for this virus is so high that a vaccine good enough (i.e. multiple 9s effectiveness) to allow 'back to normal' almost certainly isn't possible.

Is it? Current studies, AFAIK, give very variable attack rates, from low zeros to around 30%. Only higher if due to close contacts for longer periods of time (carriers, fishing boats, meat packing plants). This preprint on trasmission dynamics and evidence from September[1] has lower figures.

> Everyone who's alive now will almost certainly need to socially distance (and should wear an N95/KN95 mask in public indoor spaces) for the rest of their lives.

I wonder how we're even supposed to build a society that can live without any or very reduced form of contact. I think it's socially unsustainable.

[1] https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3692807

No offense, but this is one of the worst comments I've ever read on hackernews. You have not a single piece of evidence for any of your claims, and they fly directly in the face of all reasoning about how a disease like this is most likely to work once it becomes long-term endemic.

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