Yeah but for how long? Unless Australia is willing to keep screening all arrivals and containing outbreaks indefinitely, Covid is gonna start circulating there at some point.
Sure covid will probably continue to exist, just like H1N1 exists
Flu immunity only lasts 6 months.
COVID immunity seems to already be longer than Flu / H1N1 immunity.
Now if COVID immunity is only 1-year or 2-years, then yes, it will flare up over time. But if COVID immunity is like 5 years or 10 years, then we can pretty much forget-about-it after the vaccine.
No one knows how long the immunity is, aside from lasting longer than any test so far.
What do you mean?
> However, getting vaccinated early (for example, in July or August) is likely to be associated with reduced protection against flu infection later in the flu season, particularly among older adults
August / July is too early, people's flu immunity wears off before the end of the season. This is well known.
> Why do I need a flu vaccine every year? A flu vaccine is needed every season for two reasons. First, a person’s immune protection from vaccination declines over time, so an annual vaccine is needed for optimal protection. Second, because flu viruses are constantly changing, flu vaccines may be updated from one season to the next to protect against the viruses that research suggests may be most common during the upcoming flu season. For the best protection, everyone 6 months and older should get vaccinated annually.
A big worry about COVID19 was the length of immunity. As a novel disease, no one knew how long human immunity would last. Fortunately, it seems to be for a long time (more than 8 months, which is the length of time these studies have been going). As such, we know COVID19 immunity is "longer than the flu", already.
Australia is also not even letting citizens leave the country without special permission. I don't see them loosening up until there's actual herd immunity via vaccination in the country.
Those vaccinated, because they have less symptoms, less coughing basically, might not spread it around as much, but we don't know that yet. Remember asymptomatic spreading is a big concern for this virus.
> it protects you from the effects of Covid-19, the disease, caused by your body's reaction to the virus.
There isn't really evidence either way for this. To quote Nature[1]:
"Tests on more than 43,000 people have shown that the Pfizer vaccine is 95% effective at preventing disease"
> vaccination doesn't mean you cannot get the virus and spread it around.
This might be true:
"But none has demonstrated that it prevents infection altogether, or reduces the spread of the virus in a population. This leaves open the chance that those who are vaccinated could remain susceptible to asymptomatic infection — and could transmit that infection to others who remain vulnerable. “In the worst-case scenario, you have people walking around feeling fine, but shedding virus everywhere"
Here's a nice video on the immune system that might help you out. Their other videos on the immune system, the complement system, and viruses might also be helpful. Not the most technical deep dives, but good, abstracted explanations.
In short, I don't think the vaccine prevents entry of the virus into the cells. That still happens, as it's a mechanical protein interaction (as far as I know). However, the vaccine (mRNA ones at least) work by producing the protein on the outside of the virus and putting that in your system, so your immune system learns how to respond. At least that's my mile-high interpretation.
If I may pick another nit, it's not asymptomatic but presymptomatic that seem to be the major concern, from what I've heard: that is, people who spread the disease will eventually show symptoms (usually within a day or two). The balance of evidence seems to suggest that people with viral loads that never get high enough to cause illness are probably not enough to cause a significant number of transmissions, but we will have to wait for widespread vaccination to confirm it.
It's possible. There is no rabies in the UK, for exactly this reason.