Opinion: Vaccines are a tool, not a silver bullet | Hacker News Reader

Opinion: Vaccines are a tool, not a silver bullet

theglobeandmail.com

A question (and then I really need to stop talking about Covid):

Have we abandoned the idea of a covid vaccine, in the classical sense, ie one that renders the recipient immune to covid? We got mRNA vaccine, they didn't stop covid, and we started talking about preventing hospitalization and severe infection and everything else. Did we just give up one the idea that it's possible to make a better vaccine for it that stops it? The article is right that mRNA vaccines are not a "sliver bullet" but does that mean a silver bullet is impossible, or that we need to try something else?

Pharma companies are making billions selling vaccines that literally by their own admission don't stop people from getting infected, or from transmitting covid, and have horrific side effects, for a disease with something like a 99.99% recovery rate. It's not in their interests to provide a better vaccine even if they were able too, they're making bank.

Many vaccines are not sterlizing vaccines. That doesn't mean they don't work. I'm writing this comment from home, while covid-positive. I have no symptoms, thanks to the immunity I already acquired from vaccines.

But this response begs the question. You still have to stay home because you still got it and could spread it. I'm asking if we have to accept that we can't make a vaccine that does better, or if there is still room for a better one. I feel like the whole discussion gets sidetracked because so many people refuse to admit that the vaccines we have are anything but perfect. I think that's part of the articles point.

There is a lot of room to get better covid-19 vaccines, as good as you and everyone else would like. The problem is how long it will take to develop them? 1 year? 5 years? 20 years?

I hope that after this wave, we will manage covid-19 like the flu, i.e. a deadly illness for the very old and other risk groups, but most of the people have a general level of immunity to avoid a health system collapse. Perhaps add an anual shot for risk groups, for covid-19 and other similar virus, just like we have an annual shot for the flu.

About your first question, take a look at the history of the polio vaccine. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polio_vaccine#History Note that there are at least two versions. The first one does not cut the spread of the illness, but you avoid the bad cases. The second one cut the transmission, but it has a live attenuated virus that may escape. So ... there is a strange tradeoff, and each country uses a different combinación according to the general level of immunization and when was the last cases in the nearby countries.

Yes, of course we could get a better vaccine. But I feel like you're overlooking the fact that these vaccines are far more effective than most. The flu vaccine is one example of a vaccine that is not sterilizing, but IIRC a majority of vaccines do not prevent 100% of infections, despite reducing disease severity.

As far as having to stay home, I'd stay home if I had the flu too. It's just courtesy.

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