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The default would be "therefore, we have to accept that very small numbers of people will be harmed for the benefit of the vastly greater number". Only the most diehard utilitarian would love that.
A better answer is "therefore, we need to radically alter the polio strategy, which will be expensive and difficult but would prevent those 15 cases, and maybe eventually eliminate it entirely. Oh, and we don't know how to do it". That makes the diehard utilitarians grumble, and everybody else cranky.
To the unvaccinated.
We recently had New York’s water tested for poliovirus. Turns out we’re lousy with it [1], most recently by an unvaccinated traveller to Europe bringing it to Long Island [2]. It’s not a problem for the vaccinated because the moment the virus hits the blood it gets zonked. Still it replicates in the gut, which is why it’s in our sewage. (IPV is not sterilising.)
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/12/nyregion/polio-nyc-sewage...
[2] https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/71/wr/pdfs/mm7133e2-H.pdf
* 72% of infections are asymptomatic
* 25% of infections are flu-like
* 3% of infections result in something serious (not just paralysis)
* Between 1 in 200 and 1 in 2000 infections (0.5% to 0.05%) result in paralytic polio (which includes weakness, not just fully paralyzed limbs)
Polio is scary because of the visibility of the survivors in that 0.5%, but as a proportion of the population the vast majority of the population won't get that (and polio infects by ingestion, so on top of all this making it less visible, clean food and good hygiene can also prevent infection).
If 5 people get iatrogenically infected but the infection has nowhere to spread, what do you think happens? Casualties: 5. Polio: gone.
(downvoters: I'm a biochemist)
They say very clearly it was the vaccine that was the problem.
Those oral vaccines are very quick to deploy, but still, your solution would require that EVERY PERSON ON EARTH takes the vaccine at the same time and then goes into isolation. And the problem does not stop there. Or how would it work your way? You realise that the virus from the vaccine goes into the sewer and god knows where else and stays contagious?
The only solution the researchers are saying is for everyone to get the expensive shot, which is not using a live virus.
Yes, and that high percentage of vaccinated people was achieved. But ... Polio is still back. So how would be your plan to get everyone not vulnerable with the cheap (and dangerous) vaccine?
(the vaccine does not give 100% protection btw.)
The percentage of people who need to be vaccinated is based on many factors, including the degree of protection the vaccine provides. There's no one number, it varies based on the totality of the circumstances. One valid interpretation of the setbacks we've encountered in eradicating polio is that number needs to be a bit higher.
As you can see in this chart the level of vaccination, while high in many countries, could be higher. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/polio-vaccine-coverage-of...
I am citing the researchers, about the significant problem that prevented eradication of Polio. None of them mentioned antivaxxers as the main reason(or any reason at all), only people here in this thread did, with the original comment implying it was only because of antivaxxers. Which is just not true here.
"One valid interpretation of the setbacks we've encountered in eradicating polio is that number needs to be a bit higher."
So I am not a virologist, but if you think your simple solution and intepretation is a valid one, then it should not be hard, to find an actual virologists who states the same.
And if you cannot, maybe accknowledge, that the problem is a bit more complex. If vaccine refusers would have significantly prevented the rollout of the vaccine to reach significant numbers, it would have been mentioned as a reason. But it wasn't. The campaign alltogether was still likely a huge success, but just not in its goal to eradicate polio.
And your failure to provide such a link and your fall back to "I provided you with all the breadcrumbs and the rest is up to you" reminds me actually very much of discussions with anti vaxx people I had, you seem to misstake me for. Lots of talk. But nothing solid to back things up. At least nothing, I debated.
So sure, higher vaccination rates might help. I did not debate that. But if it would be as simple as that, then there wouldn't be a problem. Only if the required numbers could not be reached because of anti vaxxers - then you would have an point - but again - I am not aware of an actual virologists making that point in this specific instance.
So you claim you are an biochemist? Great, but I hope you know, that doesn't make you an virologist. Because I am also not an IT security expert, because I studied IT. I think I have a vague understanding about both (virology and IT security). Enough to know, that both is freakingly complicated and in both sectors there is lots and lots of snake oil and self declared gurus who claim they have the solution.
I rather stick with the experts with some reputation.
And that’s just one small part of how the Covid vaccinations were abysmal in terms of trust building. Blaming the “vaccine hesitant” instead of the politicians and media who lied (directly and indirectly)…further strengthens vaccine hesitancy.
I'll agree he did a horrible job securing the public trust.
How you get there are just pure manipulated emotions of the worst kind, ie fear, and thats not a point any rational scientific argument can fight against and win. If you yourself cant conquer your basic fears, you will always be a puppet to anybody who can play with that, which in real world is tons of pretty bad actors. So there lies your way out, if you actually care about it.
I can tell you that with something where the opportunity cost is sterilization of the majority of the planet's population, perhaps you should be skeptical. You know, as the scientific method dictates? Perhaps you were too distracted by the fearmongering to notice the promises slip by your very eyes, as day by day the companies that forced this onto the planet changed the script. From 100% effective, and safe, to, what are we at now? I don't think you even know.
Sunken Cost Fallacy is real, and one way or another at least 50% of the planet have it right now regarding the orwell juice.
I wish you the best of luck with your 50th breakout case of, what are you calling it now, flu? (The same flu that was mysteriously extinct for 2 years)............................................................................................... Despite all the people pointing at AI and shouting, look over there be scurred, you will find that every person you demonized and belittled will be laughing when you come begging for unvaccinated blood.
And to clue you in, no, I don't care if you brigade me to hell.
"The U.S. case and most of the current outbreaks in Africa (which was declared a polio-free continent in 2020) are linked to vaccine-derived strains of the virus. These strains were originally part of oral polio vaccine"
"Last year there were only 30 cases of wild polio detected while there were nearly 800 cases of vaccine-derived polio. Of the 15 cases reported in the first quarter of 2023, 14 are from strains of the virus that mutated from the oral polio vaccine used in lower-income nations."
No, it's both factors together. Without skyrocketing anti-vaxx prevalence, even the vaccine defects would have been self-limiting collateral. Anti-vaxx is what turned a linear problem into an exponentially growing problem.
We are talking about large scale campaigns that were thought to be succesful as they were widely deployed. But the virus simply mutated back to dangerous.
solution: expensive and working vaccine
problem: cost
The only thing I can think of that would make what I said wrong would be if the mutation rate of the iatrogenic strain was many orders of magnitude higher than the wild strain, which does not appear to be the case. And even then, I’d say it would be a “maybe” at most.