Bear in mind that the expectation is only about 1.9 billion doses total will be produced in 2021 - so we are talking about the difference between maybe 1/3 or 1/2 of the first world being immunized, and hitting herd immunity this year.
I'm not saying we should, the FDA is probably correct that we should follow the dosing schedule we know works rather than throwing away a whole year of vaccination efforts, but it's obviously desirable.
(it's unfair but I'm sure that most of the doses are going to end up in the US, Europe, and other western-aligned countries first, then China and Southeast Asia, and the developing world is going to get the shit end of the stick, the developed world is going to hit herd immunity long before let's say India or Africa.)
You may die from COVID.
Polio is very close to being eliminated, with only 125 known cases in 2019, which was a spike. Rubella dropped from 670 thousand in 2000 to under 15 thousand in 2018.
Ovine rinderpest elimination is considered a reasonable goal, but still 15+ years off.
Citation?
The best estimate we can make on the vaccine is. "From what we know of the duration thus far of immunity, I would be surprised if it turns out to be a 20-year duration, but I would also be surprised if it was less than a year,"
We don’t have the capacity to make enough vaccines for global herd immunity in under a year. Which is why reduced long term efficiency is a significant concern over a faster rollout schedule.
So you're making a super strong statement that's not very justifiable.
> but it’s closely related to other diseases where immunity from contacting the disease tapered over time.
I mean, maybe? Let me know when there's more then extremely minimal evidence of reinfection. We are at the point now where we are coming up on a year of significant spread and it's still missing. Additionally, have we ever seen an mRNA vaccine for a coronavirus? Nope. Evidence here is at best uncertain.
> We don’t have the capacity to make enough vaccines for global herd immunity in under a year. Which is why reduced long term efficiency is a significant concern over a faster rollout schedule.
Would we have enough if we split doses? Why does the US need global herd immunity?
We don’t think of each annual flu as it’s own disease, but they are caused by closely related strains not a single virus. Similarly, COVID-19 was originally named SARS-Cov-2 due to it’s close relationship with SARS-CoV also known as SARS. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/types.html
Which is why the vaccine could both be developed so quickly in the first place and we can make reasonable predictions about the vaccine. They didn’t create a successful vaccine in under a week from scratch without a lot of knowledge of closely related diseases. It’s that same knowledge which is behind the dosing schedule, and why it was tested like that.
> Why does the US need global herd immunity?
Ending the vast social and economic harm from social distancing efforts. With local herd immunity things go back to normal even if the rest of the world is dealing with the disease.
PS: The demographics of the developing world even support a staggered approach. First a focus on vaccinations for the elderly and medical workers globally then local herd immunity based on population demographics. Local herd immunity protects those who the vaccine can’t, but evenly spreading out vaccinations to the younger population accomplishes little.
Makes all you're saying have even less sense.
> They didn’t create a successful vaccine in under a week from scratch without a lot of knowledge of closely related diseases. It’s that same knowledge which is behind the dosing schedule, and why it was tested like that.
Was there a SARS vaccine? What same knowledge would give the current dosing schedule then? Why does it trump the new knowledge gained from an actual RCT of the vaccines?
> With local herd immunity things go back to normal even if the rest of the world is dealing with the disease.
Huh? So then the US doesn't need the global herd immunity like I was suggesting?
> PS: The demographics of the developing world even support a staggered approach. First a focus on vaccinations for the elderly and medical workers globally then local herd immunity based on population demographics. Local herd immunity protects those who the vaccine can’t, but evenly spreading out vaccinations to the younger population accomplishes little.
Okay, how is this relevant to whether or not there should be a longer time between initial dose and booster? It's totally irrelevant.
No, it wasn't. The disease and the virus that causes it were originally referred to as “the 2019 novel coronavirus” (or, 2019-nCoV for short.)
SARS-CoV-2 was announced as the name of the virus by the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses on 11 February 2020; COVID-19 was announced as the name of the disease by WHO also on 11 February 2020.
But yes, the disease was named COVID-19 thus the overlap, and current confusion over the viruses name.
COVID vaccines aren’t believed to be indefinitely effective, so it’s very possible that less effective large scale vaccination effort would cycle through and fail to stop the spread long term. However, a sufficient vaccination effort could completely eliminate the disease globally.