Covid-19 will just end up causing a cold, says Oxford vaccine creator | Hacker News Reader

Covid-19 will just end up causing a cold, says Oxford vaccine creator

thetimes.co.uk

48 pointsmrfusion32 comments

Did anyone expect anything else? It was either extinction of the virus (which was unrealistic once it was out of China) or it evolving into a sort of cold with lots of casualties on the way there (the better adapted a disease is to their host, the better the survival rate of the host usually is).

Even Dr. Christian Drosten, one of Germany's top virologists [0], is now saying that he's planning to get the disease one day to develop additional immunity in the upper respiratory tract but ideally he would like to be able to receive a booster shot before that. He also wants that available doses go to countries with low vaccination rates first, though, so I guess that means he's not planning to get Covid anytime soon[1][2].

[0] If you want to get an idea what sort of 'top' we're talking about: he co-discovered SARS-Cov-1 and was part of the collaboration that developed the first Covid-19 test.

[1] (german) https://www.ndr.de/nachrichten/info/coronaskript324.pdf

[2] page 16ff. in [1]: "Mein Ziel als Virologe Drosten, wie ich jetzt gerne immun werden will, ist: Ich will eine Impfimmunität haben und darauf aufsattelnd will ich dann aber durchaus irgendwann meine erste allgemeine Infektion und die zweite und die dritte haben. Damit habe ich mich schon lange abgefunden. [...] Und ich muss zugeben, ich wäre gerne auch noch ein drittes Mal geimpft. Aber hier würde ich als Bürger dann auch sagen: Meine dritte Impfdosis geht erst mal nach Afrika."

> Did anyone expect anything else?

Probably - and probably many more who would be unsure what to think, if they were asked.

Perhaps (definitely) naively, I assumed at the beginning of the whole thing that we'd quickly kick out a vaccine and eradicate it like Polio. Maybe have some challenges at the tail end as we get the entire world vaccinated. I didn't expect the rollout to be intentionally tripped up.

We were only able to eradicate smallpox and (almost) polio because we had highly sterilizing vaccines and there were no animal reservoirs. That situation does not obtain with SARS-CoV-2. Even if we could somehow clear it from every human simultaneously (not possible), the bats that presumably transmitted it to us in the first place are still out there somewhere. So it will be the fifth endemic human coronavirus and will never be eradicated. Fortunately the vaccines are very effective at preventing deaths.

Bats might not be such a huge problem at being a reservoir as we hardly get in close contact with them. I would be more concerned about pets.

Most mammal species including dogs and cats are susceptible to SARS-CoV-2 infection.

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...

Someone in China apparently got in close contact with a bat at least once. All it takes is a single index case to start a pandemic.

> Did anyone expect anything else? It was either extinction of the virus (which was unrealistic once it was out of China) or it evolving into a sort of cold with lots of casualties on the way there (the better adapted a disease is to their host, the better the survival rate of the host usually is).

The "evolve into a cold" hypothesis was more wishful thinking than a sure thing (i.e., pretending the problem would magically go away), which thankly was made possible with the quick turnaround time of the current batch of vaccines.

However, not only are there serious long-lasting consequences from getting Covid but it is also possible to be reinfected with more serious consequences.

Finally, there was a third scenario which I feel people are glancing over: the inception of new strains that pose bigger health risks. The Delta variant popped up from nowhere, spread like wildfire, and is deadlier. In a scenario where vaccines do not ensure immunity and where restrictions are being lifted then this development needs to be on the table because arguably we are already living it.

There is no "evolve into a cold" hypothesis. SARS-CoV-2 already is a cold for the vast majority of youths that get infected, just like the other four endemic common cold coronaviruses. The only reason those other viruses don't kill as many people today is that most of us get infected as youths and then the resulting natural immunity gives us some protection later in life.

Symptomatic reinfection is possible but remains rare. The Delta variant is more contagious but there's no reliable evidence that it has a higher fatality rate. Vaccination cuts the fatality rate close to zero.

I didn't take any precautions, got covid (I guess, never had serious symptoms), probably have natural immunity now. For me, covid is over for a long time. I'm back to living life normally.

Never vaccinating because I don't think its healthy.

Get vaccinated and then you can be sure to have natural immunity.

Why is vaccinating not healthy? Do you have any evidence of a significant "unhealthiness"?

I'm pro-pragmatism, which means I don't think covid is a big deal for most people after they're vaxxed. So let's all get vaxxed and then go about our business.

You are wrong. Get vaccinated.

Source?

religious fervor

Contrarian fervor lol! You're neurotically against the "people in power" and if they say the grass is green, you'll say the grass is blue.

What an asinine question. Shame on you.

Here's a list of 14 horrible diseases that you won't get, because of vaccines. https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/parents/diseases/forgot-14-dise...

It's not up for debate. Get vaccinated.

why is it always presented as though all vaccines are equal? why is it not possible to be supportive of some vaccines and cautious about brand new ones?

this is like making the argument that all medicine is good for you because "medicine" works. some medicines turned out to be very bad for you in the long term.

And what evidence do you have that covid vax is bad for you in the long term? None lol.

there hasn't been a "long term" yet. it was made available to the general public less than 6 months ago

So if you don't get it, most likely you'll get a case of covid (70%+ chance most likely if you're participating in society). There is no "long term" knowledge of what covid does yet either? How do you know that even light covid doesn't stress the heart muscle, lungs, brain, etc years down the line? You don't.

So since the hesitancy is about "we don't know the long term impact"... then I guess these same people need to avoid covid for 10 years too if they're worried about "unknown long term effects"

I got vaccinated, but this is an incredibly poor argument. The other poster has just as much evidence that it’s bad for you long term as you do that it’s not.

But I have evidence that it's good in the short/medium term. So my decision has good short/medium and unknown long. His decision (assuming you will eventually get covid), has fairly negative short/medium and unknown long.

Weight those and run the math and then tell me what the optimal/logical decision is.

>Here's a list of 14 horrible diseases that you won't get, because of vaccines.

COVID is not on the list. Move on.

A small CDC study found that vaccination after recovery from infection cuts the risk of reinfection in half. However we don't know how long the additional protection lasts.

https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7032e1.htm

This is probably what happened with the last major coronavirus pandemic. Strong circumstantial evidence indicates that HCoV-OC43 caused a worldwide pandemic that killed a lot of people starting in 1889. Now most of us get infected as youths and experience common cold symptoms. That gives us some protective immunity as we age.

https://sfamjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/175...

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7252012/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC544107/

Absolutely true. This is how viral evolution works.

“We normally see that viruses become less virulent as they circulate more easily and there is no reason to think we will have a more virulent version of Sars-CoV-2,”

That's just not true. Viruses mutate randomly and various evolutionary pressures can make them go more or less virulent and deadly. https://apnews.com/article/fact-checking-011488089270

See e.g. myxoma virus

I would assume she was speaking specifically about coronaviruses. There are at least four other coronaviruses which have been endemic in the worldwide human population since at least 1889. So they've had plenty of time to evolve more deadly variants but haven't done so.

It's impossible to prove a negative and predict with 100% certainty that SARS-CoV-2 will never evolve to become more deadly. But we can infer from the natural history of those other viruses that it will probably follow the same pattern.

Note that those other "common cold" coronaviruses can still be quite deadly to immunocompromised or frail elderly patients. The only reason they aren't killing people on the same scale as COVID-19 is that most of us get infected as youths and build up some natural immunity that protects us as we age.

> Note that those other "common cold" coronaviruses can still be quite deadly to immunocompromised or frail elderly patients. The only reason they aren't killing people on the same scale as COVID-19 is that most of us get infected as youths and build up some natural immunity that protects us as we age.

Correct, IIRC the 4 circulating coronaviruses cause just 20% of respiratory infections, but 70% of deaths. The severe illness and death is almost all in the elderly and compromised.

It is true. If you replace "normally" with "always" then it arguably becomes false, as your link explains.

I guess I read "normally" as a bit of a weasel word that can easily be misconstrued. It would be better to say something quantifiable.

Obviously there's not enough data to make a meaningful quantitative prediction. But experts can certainly make pretty good qualitative predictions based on patterns observed in similar viruses.

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