Hacker News Reader

Comment by b112 | Hacker News Reader

If there were enough vaccines for everyone around the world to get the protection equivalent of 3-shots, and people took them, the pandemic would be over now

This is a very bizarre assertion.

Given that, the vaccinated spread covid, even with no symptoms, vaccination status does not limit spread.

No amount of vaccinated people, will end the pandemic.

Note that, to spread covid, it must be replicating in the body. Therefore, as it is replicating in the vaccinated, it will continue to mutate and evolve.

There will never, ever be an end to the pandemic, due to existing vaccines.

Ever.

View on HN

I mean, I think it really all comes down to numbers, and also agreeing on reasonable definitions of what words like "over now" mean.

That being said, vaccines have stopped effectively ended viruses before, e.g. polio (again, for counter examples please refer to my comment about reasonable definitions). Therefore it's clear that vaccines can achieve this effect, and really what lies in question is how hard is it?

So, I think there are people who study this stuff, and I think it's also probably pretty complicated because there are a lot of variables as well as unknowns. E.g. how effective is the vaccine, how contagious is the virus, how does it spread, the incubation period, for how long is it contagious, etc..

Ok, bearing all that in mind saying

> No amount of vaccinated people, will end the pandemic.

Is itself a bizarre assertion. Maybe in your gut it seems that way, but that's not really how we know stuff in real life. The author even said

1.) if there were enough vaccines for everyone for

2.) 3-shots of protection and

3.) if people took them

Then the pandemic would be over... I think that more or less makes sense. I'm not saying it's realistic, because #3 seems to be the problem in countries that have enough vaccines for everyone (like the USA).

In any case, he's a doctor, I think he knows more than you do, I trust his reasoning is based off well-informed assumptions, and you're just convinced that it could never happen.

So do you care to elaborate how "No amount of vaccinated people, will end the pandemic."? If 100% of people were vaccinated, would that not end the pandemic? I think it comes down to the numbers, so how do the numbers support your argument?

Appealing to authority, is a logical fallacy. He's not right due to credentials.

You've glossed over very important parts of my post. I did edit it within 3 minutes of posting, so you may be responding to an alternate.

My point is:

- the current vaccines do not stop spread due to, and in the vaccinated

Everyone agrees on this.

- for spread to occur, the virus must replicate, therefore it can mutate even in the vaccinated

This is just viral 101.

- therefore, current vaccines cannot stop spread and mutation, therefore they cannot stop the pandemic

You should probably take Viral 101 over again. Vaccines definitely reduce transmission - current vaccines, however, are barely, if at all, effective against Omicron.

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3...

IF we had been able to vaccinate 90%+ of the world by the start of last summer, this pandemic had a good chance of ending. Delta made it much more difficult, and Omicron crushed that option.

"it's possible for a variant to come out that gets around all vaccinations every time, so therefore vaccines can't stop the pandemic" means that you definitely failed Viral 101.

You should probably take Viral 101 over again. Vaccines definitely reduce transmission

This is a third order effect, not first. They do not reduce transmission, instead they increase immune response, thus reducing replication, thus reducing transmission.

This is a vital point here.

Second, please take care. At no point did I ever say "vaccines don't reduce transmission". That is a general statement, mine was specific, about current covid vaccines only.

Covid is a unique beast, able to spread for weeks without creating a strong immune response, and therefore, symptoms. Other viruses seem to spread much later, and typically only when symptoms are shown.

This is what makes covid so spreadable, dangerous. It may also be why successful spread is difficult to stop even when vaccinated. After all, this happened with delta too.

EDIT: going to add here.

COVID is in mice, deer, dogs and cats as a minimum, and other mammals are strongly suspected.

A recent HN story cited a paper, where a researcher believes covid jumped from human to mouse, mutated to omicron, and jumped back to human.

So, regardless of the spread and mutation happening in the currently vaccinated, we have spread and mutation in other mammals. Including ones in our homes.

Think on that a bit, please people.

> This is a third order effect, not first. They do not reduce transmission, instead they increase immune response, thus reducing replication, thus reducing transmission.

That's literally what is meant by "vaccines reduce transmission". Vaccines are not some nanobots that form a forcefield around your body preventing viruses from getting to you.

You cite the effect, I cite the cause leading to effect.

The cause is vitally important, when you are abridging my statements, skipping cause, and attempting to make point by debating effect only.

Even with Omicron, if everybody were vaccinated, the pandemic would be over, and we could open up society with endemic Covid, with hospitalization for a fully vaccinated population being lower than seasonal flu.

What exactly is the point of an unattainable hypothetical like that? Its not falsifiable and therefore totally unscientific.

The numbers say that no amount of vaccinated people would end the pandemic. Vaccines reduce R0 and are worth it, but in isolation, don't reduce it below 1 for omicron. It's possible future vaccines will, and it's possible future omicrons will circumvent those vaccines.

I think universal N95/KN95/KF94 masks would bring R0 below 1 (even without vaccines), but with animal reservoirs, even that's no longer a long-term viable strategy.

The trillion dollar question is long COVID and impacts of COVID on the brain, both with and without vaccines.

With universal vaccination and boosting (possibly regular boosting), assuming Omicron stays dominant (which is a big assumption), then it would probably be reasonable to call the pandemic over; you could argue over definitions, but transmission would be significantly slowed, and due to the reduction in severity it probably would no longer be sufficiently serious to be a major concern; we'd go back to the main concern being influenza. Some people would continue to get very sick, but it would be a manageable number.

Even quite a small hole in vaccination may be a problem, though; very highly vaccinated countries like Ireland are seeing ICU pressure primarily from the 5% or so of unvaccinated adults.

Maybe if everyone got it all at once (and before omicron perhaps)? Idk tho these are all hypotheticals

Given that Omicron is assumed to have replicated in an animal population (mice) for a year, we should expect there to be other variants in animals. Even if we managed to vaccinate all humans at the same time, we'd likely see a new breakout a year or so down the line when immunity wanes in the human population.

Covd19 has been endemic for two years now. And it will be endemic until we find better vaccines. At that point, we'll probably be ready to wipe out the flu as well.

Maybe the author means covid becoming endemic instead of pandemic. See for example [1].

[1] https://www.bbc.com/news/health-59970281

No one gets a free pass, for sure, but he’s a pretty qualified thinker of things medical and health. So coming here and calling him out on it should probably warrant a bit more than a “uhn uhn”.

(Edited - asimpletune above said it more eloquently than I did!)

My comment, agree or not, stated precisely why his logic was flawed.

Further, appealing to authority is a logical fallacy. The facts count.

"pretty qualified thinkers" are putting out all sorts of thought provoking ideas with no intention of being right all the time.

Sure, perhaps I was inarticulate - he’s a world leading medical researcher who heads up a world leading medical research institution; he is one of the 10 most cited medical researchers in the world. Yadda yadda…

Reply on news.ycombinator.com