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Comment by georgeplusplus | Hacker News Reader

the narrative from every health body, CDC included, was take the vaccine to achieve heard immunity and we can get back to normal. Now normal is take the vaccine every year, possibly two to stay ahead of it.

These are also the same health bodies that said only two weeks to lock yourself in your home to eradicate the virus. Or that masks don’t work, then work.

So I understand if you’re confused and keeping up with the latest information is hard giving how much they flip flop.

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Given that herd immunity was not achieved before mutation occurred and spread — in no small part due to folks refusing to take the vaccine — it seems obvious that more vaccines would be required, as with the flu.

I’m curious as to your logic on why that should not be the case?

It’s unarguable that early communication on the virus varied wildly in terms of accuracy, which is also quite logical given an entirely new pathogen. But using that as an excuse to ignore the evidence-based information those authorities have since obtained seems short sighted at best.

Delta variant was identified in India in December 2020. India began administering vaccines in January 2021. Vaccine refusal could not have played a role.

With regard to the Delta variant, certainly. But it surely has played a role in the subsequent known variants that have appeared as recently as the Olympics.

All of which contribute to our lack of herd immunity, or am I incorrect?

The current vaccines were/are known to be non-sanitizing. The best vaccines are sanitizing, think measles vaccine. We never were going to reach herd immunity via natural infections and it appears with the current batch we're not going to with vaccines either. Natural infection and a now-canceled nasal vaccine did produce sanitizing effects albeit shortlived.

Towards your original point, only 15% of the world is vaccinated. Say even 5% extra could have been vaxed by now, a difference maybe but nowhere close to the order of magnitude difference required to drop mutation rate below multiple helpful ones per year

Thank you for taking the time to explain that — that is largely new information to me and I appreciate the succinct summary with clear starting points to learn more.

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