That said, I think the fears about many people refusing the vaccine are completely overblown. All of the folks who I've talked to who are concerned about the vaccine have expressed willingness to get it after it has been out for a few months without major side effects. They wont qualify to be first in line anyways, so they'll have to wait regardless.
So it's entirely reasonable to just study symptomatic cases in these trials.
The more of the population unvaccinated, the larger population available for new strains to generate in, the higher probability of multiple strains.
It's not guaranteed the current vaccines inoculate against new strains, so you could be right back at square one next winter, with a new virulent strain.
Doctors, the elderly and other more at risk groups will get it before that.
And depending on how many people actually want the vaccine and how many are approved it’s possible that healthy, under 65, non essential workers could start being offered the vaccine.
My fiancée's parent's can't get it until phase 3 in their state, but they could both get it in phase 1b in my parent's state.
No such thing, AFAIK
[0]for values of "forever" that don't go into the far future where viruses may have a cure or an effective form of erradication.
Sure covid will probably continue to exist, just like H1N1 exists
Flu immunity only lasts 6 months.
COVID immunity seems to already be longer than Flu / H1N1 immunity.
Now if COVID immunity is only 1-year or 2-years, then yes, it will flare up over time. But if COVID immunity is like 5 years or 10 years, then we can pretty much forget-about-it after the vaccine.
No one knows how long the immunity is, aside from lasting longer than any test so far.
What do you mean?
> However, getting vaccinated early (for example, in July or August) is likely to be associated with reduced protection against flu infection later in the flu season, particularly among older adults
August / July is too early, people's flu immunity wears off before the end of the season. This is well known.
> Why do I need a flu vaccine every year? A flu vaccine is needed every season for two reasons. First, a person’s immune protection from vaccination declines over time, so an annual vaccine is needed for optimal protection. Second, because flu viruses are constantly changing, flu vaccines may be updated from one season to the next to protect against the viruses that research suggests may be most common during the upcoming flu season. For the best protection, everyone 6 months and older should get vaccinated annually.
A big worry about COVID19 was the length of immunity. As a novel disease, no one knew how long human immunity would last. Fortunately, it seems to be for a long time (more than 8 months, which is the length of time these studies have been going). As such, we know COVID19 immunity is "longer than the flu", already.
Australia is also not even letting citizens leave the country without special permission. I don't see them loosening up until there's actual herd immunity via vaccination in the country.
Those vaccinated, because they have less symptoms, less coughing basically, might not spread it around as much, but we don't know that yet. Remember asymptomatic spreading is a big concern for this virus.
If I may pick another nit, it's not asymptomatic but presymptomatic that seem to be the major concern, from what I've heard: that is, people who spread the disease will eventually show symptoms (usually within a day or two). The balance of evidence seems to suggest that people with viral loads that never get high enough to cause illness are probably not enough to cause a significant number of transmissions, but we will have to wait for widespread vaccination to confirm it.
> it protects you from the effects of Covid-19, the disease, caused by your body's reaction to the virus.
There isn't really evidence either way for this. To quote Nature[1]:
"Tests on more than 43,000 people have shown that the Pfizer vaccine is 95% effective at preventing disease"
> vaccination doesn't mean you cannot get the virus and spread it around.
This might be true:
"But none has demonstrated that it prevents infection altogether, or reduces the spread of the virus in a population. This leaves open the chance that those who are vaccinated could remain susceptible to asymptomatic infection — and could transmit that infection to others who remain vulnerable. “In the worst-case scenario, you have people walking around feeling fine, but shedding virus everywhere"
Here's a nice video on the immune system that might help you out. Their other videos on the immune system, the complement system, and viruses might also be helpful. Not the most technical deep dives, but good, abstracted explanations.
In short, I don't think the vaccine prevents entry of the virus into the cells. That still happens, as it's a mechanical protein interaction (as far as I know). However, the vaccine (mRNA ones at least) work by producing the protein on the outside of the virus and putting that in your system, so your immune system learns how to respond. At least that's my mile-high interpretation.
It's possible. There is no rabies in the UK, for exactly this reason.
And i guarantee some people still have it. There's no way it's been eradicated completely. All it takes is for one infected person to visit 2 people, and those 2 people to visit 2 others.
Victoria was swamped yet has not had a case for 30 days now. Cross-border travel varies depending on the status of each state, but is tracked and quarantine enforced at various levels if it's available.
Testing is freely available and fairly fast.
Nationwide, there is currently one locally acquired case over the last 7 days, and 74 from overseas in the same period.
Presumably we'll bubble with NZ at some point and carefully go from there, plus see how the availability of vaccines starts to change the equation beyond that. In my circles, people are keen to travel again, but everyone is pretty matter of fact about the situation and curious about timings rather than desperate to open up.
Why has it worked so well here? I don't know the full answer, but by and large people have been very responsible. The last time I was at an airport, back in early February, every single person was wearing a mask, and in lots of public places the majority of people continue to do so. Mask wearing has not been politicised here. Also every shopping mall and most restaurants/public places scan you for temperature on entry and have a book where you can (optionally) write down your name or register with an app to be notified if it is later discovered an infected person has been there the same day you were.
But that's not feasible in most countries.
Austrailia and NZ don't rely on a just-in-time cross border economy like the US and Europe. Goods arrive after being on boats which have been off shore for days or weeks.
Compare with the US-Canada "border closure", where thousands of trucks, and their drivers, have crossed each way every day all year.
Or even trailer drop-off and pick-up for no-chance-of-personal-contact changes.
They just choose not to.
Canadian cross-border truckers arriving back from ??? USA are largely exempt from quarantine requirements upon return.
> Countries may gain time in the short-term as they limit travel to fight the new coronavirus pandemic, but the World Health Organization thinks overall that “it doesn't help to restrict movement," a top adviser to the U.N. health agency's chief said Thursday.
https://www.euronews.com/2020/03/13/world-health-organizatio...
Even with half the population refusing it because the anti-vax people might be even more crazy than the anti-maskers.
Which makes you wonder which country will have covid longest.