Re:No getting 'back to normal,' experts say. The sooner we a...
by xg15 on Thursday October 01, 2020 @04:14PM
(#24655694)
> The hopes for this kind of a vaccine aren’t very high.
Why actually? SARS2 is extremely contagious and it attaches to a receptor which is involved in various vital systems in the human body and can cause a wide range of life-threatening symptoms. This is what makes this virus so dangerous. However, apart from that, it's an "ordinary" coronavirus: It's not a retrovirus like AIDS and does not mutate as fast as rhinoviruses. I've not read any news about serious complications in vaccine development either. So what would make developing a vaccine so particular hard here?
> What you are referring to is sterilizing immunity.
Why would this be a requirement? The point of herd immunity is that it also works if less than 100% of the population is immune, as long as the probability of transmission is lowered enough to effectively stop the spread. A vaccine that would lower the probability of infection enough seems to be able to archive the same.
Why actually? SARS2 is extremely contagious and it attaches to a receptor which is involved in various vital systems in the human body and can cause a wide range of life-threatening symptoms. This is what makes this virus so dangerous. However, apart from that, it's an "ordinary" coronavirus: It's not a retrovirus like AIDS and does not mutate as fast as rhinoviruses. I've not read any news about serious complications in vaccine development either. So what would make developing a vaccine so particular hard here?
> What you are referring to is sterilizing immunity.
Why would this be a requirement? The point of herd immunity is that it also works if less than 100% of the population is immune, as long as the probability of transmission is lowered enough to effectively stop the spread. A vaccine that would lower the probability of infection enough seems to be able to archive the same.