Short version: Any vaccine is better then no vaccine.
Maybe it's bad, maybe it's good and I suppose it's not that different than seasonal flu shots... but immunity by subscription still feels new to me.
If we take it to the logical limit, does that look like family subscriptions to McAfee mRNA edition? A flu is sequenced in London and x weeks later the vaccination is included in my quarterly update package?
EDIT: I'm getting downvoted a lot and I haven't even started on future doctor's office mRNA printers yet! Regulated to heck, partly for security reasons, vendor locked consumables and they use proprietary encryption. They have to jailbreak them in sanctioned countries and enterprising hackers work to decrypt the updates. You wouldn't pirate a vaccine! Would you?
Just like the recommended seasonal flu vaccine. Most folks won’t bother to get their seasonal covid vaccine. If you were in that group before. Your life hasn’t changed.
If covid is more severe than the flu yet requires a similar vaccination cycle (nobody knows yet!) that does seem like a major change to me.
Childhood and travel vaccinations are once-offs and seasonal flu vaccination is a good idea but not a big deal for most.
In my view that would be a very interesting development.
Here an image wearing masks from 1918: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.wthr.com/amp/article/sports...
And if you're living in the US, there should be some info from your the history lessons about deadly diseases killing most of the native population...
And a lot of people volunteer for flu shots, protecting those unwilling to do so.
Second, the yearly flu vaccine already does "updates" to your immune system. That is also not a new concept, and I see nothing ridiculous about it. From what I have read, the portion of the virus targeted by the mRNA vaccines does not mutate as easily as say the flu, which is why these vaccinations still work. You will probably need a booster just to keep your immune system "remembering" the virus, but it probably won't be shifting around as much as a flu shot would
By "constant vaccination" I didn't mean at a population level, I meant a personal need for regular boosters. I agree it's not that likely and I also hope they aren't required.
And in relation to parent comment, I haven't had a polio or smallpox booster in decades, nor do I expect to ever receive one again. I believe you have misunderstood parent comment.
Uh, mass vaccination is 100% a thing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MMR_vaccine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polio_vaccine#
I would say that we "Need" it. You could say that we don't, but it's vaccines or Polio outbreaks, so IMHO there's only one rational choice and it's not Polio.
Yes, there are "vaccinate everyone" vaccines cited above. There are also "seasonal" vaccines for the flu.
There has never been a need for a vaccine that is both of those. And once the disease is under control, it doesn't seem like covid-19 will be one.
This is a bald faced lie. As you say yourself, there's the flu shot. Kids need their shots for school. We need to get various vaccines before traveling between certain regions. There are all sorts of vaccine boosters and new vaccines they have been recommending to my elderly parents since they were late middle age.
Hell this isn't even the first (or second, or third) mass vaccination campaign - there was smallpox and polio and measels and chicken pox/shingles.
To say that the general population hasn't needed it is literally the exact opposite of anything resembling the truth: we've been constantly getting vaccines for longer than I've been alive.
If "it's much easier to control population flow into an island" then you still have to step up and control it. The UK government did not even show interest in doing that.
The UK government mismanaged their borders, and most other aspects of the pandemic; notable exception being vaccination.
Not really, Australia is an continent not an island.
And to be precise, only Europe and Asia are connected by land borders (suez canal, panama canal).
More, UK is an island, also Ireland, Japan... and they don't have much less cases then the rest of the world
The movement of people is a good thing. Hence stamping it out would have a huge cost, both emotionally and financially. The vaccines are comparatively cheap.
> The flu "epidemic" never ended. The common cold epidemic never ended.
It's almost like you didn't read the article because the point was made very clear that the "epidemic" does end when it transitions to something "endemic".
Most people wouldn't regard the common cold as an epidemic as you suggest it is. You're correct that we still live with it, but that doesn't make it an epidemic. As daily deaths continue falling at some point people will stop seeing COVID-19 as an epidemic but something that's endemic and treat it more like seasonal flu. It's not the eradication of the virus that marks the end of a epidemic, but it's declining severity and our changing approach to the virus.
It took Melbourne like 3 months to eliminate all cases. Far more than a "few weeks."
It would take the sort of effort (for the US or EU) only possible with total hindsight. But if Trump tried to seal our borders with force in Jan 2020, there is no way Democrats would have accepted it. They'd call it rationalization for an attack on immigration.
Much worse than that. Remember, Trump's (first) impeachment by the House had occurred in December 2019. He was not acquitted in the Senate until early February.
Patient Zero for the US is believed to have entered on January 15. Had Trump on January 14 announced a total and complete shutdown of the US border, Democrats and 95% of mass media would immediately have denounced it as Trump preparing a coup to seize total power, using the ridiculous pretext of a disease that had had zero impact on the US (and was racist to ascribe in any way to China).
And people seem to forget the other part: your death will come for you eventually so it's not as if by avoiding COVID you've avoided a car accident. Besides, the danger of COVID has been vastly exaggerated, but irrational and disproportionate fear has gripped the brains of a lot of people.
People (typically white collar) also forget the deaths and health effects of the lockdown itself.
My answer: to live life fully with what little time we have. Memento mori.