If they are saying there’s no guarantee of immunity from catching it then surely that means the chance of an effective vaccine is pretty slim so we all may as well go back to normal and this will be just one more thing like seasonal flu that we take for granted
Ummmm
If variolation doesn’t work then will vaccination?
Vaccination very often incurs different immunity/ strength/ longevity, Vacs, don’t just use the whole virus, often use a different “host” to introduce the key cell membrane binder that the immune system response is based on, so poor natural immunity does not necessarily mean vaccinated variety is a non-starter.
throw the kitchen sink at it and get it done quickly
1. explore as many drugs as possible that might do the job already
2. explore other things than ventilation (I read about a Chicago hospital that had a 90% success rate with something else
3. ramp up ventilator production
4. create a reserve army of ventilator nurses. No, not 3 year degree nurses, but people who have 4 weeks training in all the medicine they need to look after someone on a ventilator, with supervision.
Get every piece of red tape burned to do all of this. This isn’t the time for government CYA, it’s a time for taking some necessary risks, like maybe the odd person dies because of a crap nurse, but overall, more people live because of the extra capacity.
We can’t wait for a vaccine. The people doing this seem to be doing a grand job but it takes time and might not work. We need a contingency plan right now.
There’s no way of telling.
Classically vaccine trials don’t use eventual infection as an endpoint, but antibody titer. Not all patients develop antibodies, so you only really know that titer turns into effective immunity when uptake of the vaccine becomes widespread and the disease can’t take hold of the population.
It may not be possible to produce effective antibodies against covid, or the virus may mutate frequently enough to reduce the effectiveness of any vaccination. If so then we have no choice but to “take it for granted”. We will all get it, most probably more than once. And it will almost certainly kill a higher number of people on its first outing than later. We will probably see for the next several years strict quarantine rules for anyone with covid but eventually someone will question tithe wisdom of bothering to distinguish what is, by then, just another influenza-like illness.
The track record of the WHO over thus virus has been piss poor, no reason to believe them uncritically over this, and yes it will become endemic and will probably mutate frequently to make vaccines less effective (though not ineffective – flu mutates but vaccines still provide some protection at a population level).
What we cannot do is keep lockdowns up for much longer, or we won’t have an economy to pay for the NHS, let alone everything else.
I’m seeing some backpedaling on the reinfection idea. It was the Chinese who said it originally and it hasn’t, to my knowledge, been conclusively proven by us. It seems more likely to me that a recovered covid patient is too weak to fight off some other opotunistic infection.
I believe I saw a note on Al Jazeerah this morning saying something along the lines that the WHO have now changed their minds and having had Covid does confer immunity.
The only thing that kills this virus is the human immune system. The majority of those catching it recover.
Hence the human immune system developes to kill the virus.
And people’s immune system must be most developed to kill the virus just as they recover, i.e. they are immune at that point.
How long that immunity lasts is open to question, presumably it fades over time. How quickly it re-develops on a later infection is again open to question, but quicker than the first time is the way to bet.
So similar to other known viruses is the way to bet.
BoM4,
I see that they’ve already gone in to production of that Oxford vaccine that’s being trialled just in case it works. That seem like a smart move.
I’ve also seen a suggestion that a large fund is created as a reward for the company that develops a vaccine to incentivise the industry. I’m not sure that’s needed as everyone of note appears to be fired up anyway and that could have perverse effects on other developments, but probably worth a go in the short to medium term.
As to those reinfections, we know that early testing was crap with faulty kits and high false positives and negatives and possible lab contamination. Maybe they didn’t have C19 in the first place or even 2nd time round. Or if it was China could be someone lying or more likely scared to tell the whole truth. I’d want a lot more test results from a decent cross section of western values countries before I’d be confident either way.
I am not an anti-vaxxer. But anyone taking some chemi-crap cobbled up in a few weeks is a fear’s fool.
I’ll take my chances and I think millions of others also will. 18 months is the minimum for proper testing.
It is only in Hollywood that last minute salvation emerges just in time. The great Pasteur took a chance on Rabies treatment but that was with people facing a very nasty death anyway. Thanks to Dame May Whitty our medicos didn’t have the gumption to even try Chloroquine etc. On people like to die anyway.
But now they think some under-tested crap should be injected into what–billions of people? So we can get Gates stasi certificate and live again?
Gates need the first injection. In his dick with the biggest hypo-needle used.
History seems a fairly good guide that there will be sufficient immunity in people who have had the virus to kill it in 12-18 months, and there is no reason right now to assume this one (with or without a vaccine) will be any different, except we can massively reduce mortality through modern medicine if properly managed.
Unless, of course, we slow its progress to the point that people lose any acquired immunity before it burns out and reinfection becomes commonplace. Then we will have engineered systems that we can never remove, yet keep a disease in circulation forever at enormous human and economic cost.
This seems fairly obvious, so hopefully one of these scientists whose advice we are following will have proven this not to be the case.
BiND,
“I see that they’ve already gone in to production of that Oxford vaccine that’s being trialled just in case it works. That seem like a smart move.”
That is a smart move. It’s a cost if it doesn’t, but compared to paying a salary to millions of people, it’s a drop in the ocean.
NZ have just announced that they’ve pretty much eliminated the virus but now they face the prospect of opening up the country. They’ve had relatively few infections and very few deaths so presumably they don’t have much in the way of herd immunity.
Ten percent of their economy is tourism based so they’re going to have some pretty tough decisions to make over the next few months.
I suppose they can have mandatory tests at the airport and the tourists can wait for the results before entering the country but would you book a trip to NZ if you might spend the first fortnight or so of your trip in quarantine if you test positive for a virus that the rest of the world has developed immunity for?
The other option is mandatory vaccination for the locals and all visitors but that will take time to happen.
Mind you, I suspect tourism is going to take a massive hit all over so maybe they won’t be alone.
New Zealand now has two active options.
They firmly quarantine the rest of the world and accept the economic and social costs of their isolation until such time as a vaccine or treatment is available, returning to lockdown each time there is an outbreak.
They prepare for a planned introduction of the virus and then follow the Swedish model to achieve herd immunity, accepting the inevitable casualties.
Otherwise they’re on the route Singapore is enjoying: containment fails uncontrolled and they start from the beginning of the pandemic with chaotic loss of blood and treasure.
the original point was based on WHO reporting and the media fear mongering which jumps on anything negative. There is a point when all this gets so negative that people take the we’re doomed anyway so may as well make the best of it approach, in a sense the media reporting is backfiring.
If NZ can claim to have eliminated Covid then does that support immunity, otherwise wouldn’t groups have just passed it back and for amongst themselves
My latter day opinion is that lockdowns were counter productive and destructive.
The correct response – which, notably, doesn’t require government – is to handle the two main groups separately.
The elderly, and people with existing complicating conditions, should be isolated. They are at immediate risk of fatal consequences. Nursing homes, for example, should keep everyone not necessary for operation out. That includes family members. Employees should know that their exposure could risk their patients, so they should be careful about any outside contacts.
We have information now from NYC and Lombardy that patients leaving hospitals were returned to nursing homes. Killing thousands.
The young and middle aged with no complications should be left the hell alone. Let them mix and get the virus quickly. It is very unlikely to harm them. Once most have been exposed, you get the herd immunity. Once you have it, not only are they not going to get it, but they will no longer be able to transmit it.
Flattening the curve prolongs the existence of carriers in the population. For those not at risk, get them exposed quickly. Rather, leave them alone, and they will get themselves exposed quickly.
The only role I see for government is providing temporary shelter for those at risk who have no way to isolate. Granny living with her family might not have somewhere else she can go stay for a month.
The economic destruction was entirely unnecessary. The lockdown of everyone did way more harm than good.
This is my 20-20 hindsight. Could it have been done as I suggest? Did I get it wrong?
Outlandish IHME predictions and oddly motivated media prevented this path in the U.S.
Sweden may have gotten it right.
My Rx: guard your elderly, and let it go.
Ventilators dominatated the news for over a month. They are critical life savers!
That was the story. We now know that 80-90% of patients put on ventilators DIED. Yes, they saved some, so were good to have. But their public characterization is absolutely false.
“…anyone taking some chemi-crap cobbled up in a few weeks is a fear’s fool. I’ll take my chances and I think millions of others also will. 18 months is the minimum for proper testing.”
Quite so, Ecksy; though it depends on the level of risk the individual faces.
How many other coronaviruses have a vaccine? I read that it is none, there has never been a successful vaccine developed against a coronavirus. I don’t know whether that is because previous ones have burned out before a virus was developed or been mild enough that one was not needed. One might wonder why we don’t have a vaccine against everything if one can just be knocked out in a couple of months.
@BoM4 April 27, 2020 at 7:14 am
Yes, correct – ignore the @BiGs
@BiND
UK Labour a ‘complete disgrace’ , Sky News Australia
Female Oxford lecturer wants Oxford CV-19 vaccine to fail – It’s white supremacist patriarchy
https://youtu.be/vijoaT_kA2A?t=207
https://lockdownsceptics.org/2020/04/27/latest-news-13/ by Toby Young
H/T https://velvetgloveironfist.blogspot.com/2020/04/last-orders-lockdown-edition.html
GC
“This is my 20-20 hindsight.”
Good stuff, and in fairness, there were a number of (relatively well informed) people proposing exactly this strategy back in late Feb/early March – it’s not new. Boris looks to have screwed up royally, we’ll see….
So having contracted the virus does not confer future immunity. Congratulations to whoever said that. You have just debunked vaccination in its entirety. The anti-vaxxers are gonna love this.
If vaccine development takes 18 months or years minimum, as some people(probably anti-vaxxers) claim, how does society manage to get six to eight new flu vaccines on a six month development cycle every year for the seasonal flu from vaccine manufacturers?
Or do these people, anti-vaxxers, think that every year the vaccine developers are just selling vials of dihydrogen oxide, and every Western drug regulator is getting fooled every year year after year?
“So having contracted the virus does not confer future immunity.”
I don’t believe that for a nanosecond. Of course it provides immunity. It’s how our immune system works.