Here in the UK the plan seems to be to provide a 3rd booster ina slightly tweaked form that better targets some of the new variants. I read that it could be available from as early as september.

Booster shots are already getting ordered.

https://investors.modernatx.com/news-releases/news-release-d...

It is currently not known if or when boosters may be needed.

what planet are you on? there have already been multiple studies that show the efficiacy of existing vaccines are not as effective against some of the variants. don't doubt that there will be bootsters for this

And we’ll probably have more mutants appear. We’re hitting all time records in new infections. The more infections, the more copies, the more risk of an imperfect replication (mutant) that’s worse.

I’m happy that pigs and birds don’t seem to get COVID-19 (and hoping that’s not a mutation away).

No variant has been shown to evade the leading vaccines to the point that they are not effective, and there has is no established timetable for when immunity form vaccines fades.

and a fourth booster... and a fifth... sixth, seventh, etc.

Which is going to be the future. The CEO of Moderna was talking about it. An annual shot that includes COVID, flu, cold and other vaccines. We'll get to a point in which we will look back at having a cold like you look at a Nokia 3310 now.

Edit: podcast link for who's curious https://ark-invest.com/podcast/understanding-mrna-conversati...

I liked my Nokia 3310. I never liked the cold.

This was funny! I should have found a better comparison...

The CEO of Moderna has a rather obvious conflict of interest. If he overestimates future vaccine need, he can't be blamed for being 'cautious', but enjoys a potential stock boost anyway.

This is a beautiful idea, basically eliminating the threat and inconvenience that most viruses cause. But it's a bit early to conclude that this is certainly the future.

Covid is by far the worst and deadliest pandemic since 1914, which both justifies and facilitates very fast testing and use of new vaccines.

But we haven't had the time to look for long-term effects yet. This is not an antivaxxer stance - it's basic epistemology. mRNA vaccines allow us to trigger and target the immune system to point it in arbitrary directions to a degree we haven't before. The immune system is a sensitive thing that can cause lots of damage if it gets confused.

I'd want a lot of high-quality data on long-term effects in terms of risk of autoimmune disease, Alzheimers, ME and so on a world where we deliberately provoke strong immune responses versus things that are mostly minor inconveniences - the common cold, the flu, herpes, etc.

I certainly hope this is the future, but I won't be the first in line to test it out.

Just want to clarify that that is the "future", not the present. And just because cold and flu are minor inconveniences to you, doesn't mean that they aren't very dangerous for people with weak immune systems. And on top of that mRNA is very targeted, it's not something that carpet bombs your body like radiotherapy.

You mean 1918, I think?

Well I'd urge you to not be so hastily. This could very well go very badly. There are a lot of unproven, hypothetical, assumptions being made, and a lot of people are completely ignoring any counter argument. Often valid issues simply get deleted, people just don't want to hear it, they don't want to see it, and it scares me to be honest. It's also getting completely impossible to argue against the commitment bias of vaccinated people. You really don't even considered once that injecting spike protein on a regular basis might not be the best thing for you body? This is a harmful protein after all.

I don't know, maybe its all fine and good, but if you ask me, I think a lot of people are way too excited to be part of this study. Especially since the risk/reward doesn't seems to be that great in the first place.

>You really don't even considered once that injecting spike protein on a regular basis might not be the best thing for you body? This is a harmful protein after all.

We're talking about small amounts here, that aren't replicating. If you have the virus coursing around you get a lot of contact with the real spike protein, which can replicate inside your body.

The body is used to fighting off a lot of viruses and bacteria at the same time. Why would this spike protein, without the attached virus, be different?

After all we can't compare the vaccine to a world without the virus, since we won't get that back. Instead we need to compare the vaccine to the world with the virus.

It's a good point. But delivery mechanism should probably be considered too. The virus has to go through the respiratory system, which is a first line of defense. Then it takes time to infect you, multiply, and get around. It also can only dock at ACE2 I think. The shot seems to be instant full body intracellular delivery.

Maybe it does not matter much, but the immune reaction can indeed be very strong. Just don't be completely naive when in comes to regular booster shots, there might be a fine line between benefits and negatives. Also other types of vaccines are on the way I heard, so we'll see, maybe that will open up alternative ways to combat the virus.

How is the spike protein on its own dangerous? You think it's gonna go around and poke cells?

It is not yet known if boosters will be necessary for COVID-19, let alone annual shots. There is however evidence that natural immunity lasts longer than 1 year.

yes but natural immunity =/= vaccine immunity (and please don't say bUt vAcCinE aNTIBoDiEs aRe bEtTeR tHaN ThoSe pRodUCed bY nATuRaL aNtIbODiEs)

Okay, but you did not need a vaccine cert for having received the flu shot.

I personally do not get those seasonal flu shots, and I had no issues for years. It was entirely voluntary, and no one gave a shit if you got it or not (it was not the first question that left people when they met you either), it was up to you entirely. We treat the COVID-19 shot very differently, I mean, after all, there actually is a vaccine cert you receive, and without it, you are pretty much doomed these days (it varies between countries, but here many employers made it a prerequisite). What about those who cannot receive the vaccine for health reasons?

Many people here got the vaccine only to get the vaccine cert, because that meant that they could go back to work (as it was a prerequisite). This artificial limitation or restriction goes to extremes somewhere. Here they talk about not being able to receive basic health care without it! Can you believe that? But of course you have to continue paying for social insurance (that covers it).

---

If I may, I would like to have those down-votes explained as I did not say anything that is false, and I did not express my opinion regarding the vaccine either. What exactly could have been down-voted? I believe everything I said is true. If it is not, can you point it out, please?

I believe comparing COVID to the flu is a pretty apples or oranges comparison, as is comparing vaccine benefits. COVID is much more contagious than the flu, hence why it's critical more people get vaccinated. Also, continuing to let COVID spread increases the chance of more mutation outside of the current variants that could circumvent both vaccine-induced immunity and natural immunity. Combined with the more contagious nature of the disease, this could essentially trigger a second pandemic. Vaccinating and bolstering immune response is critical to preventing such an outcome.

> What about those who cannot receive the vaccine for health reasons?

This is why herd immunity is so important. For those healthy adults that are able to get vaccinated, should get vaccinated. When herd immunity is reached, those who cannot be vaccinated for health reasons are protected by everyone else.

I am not speaking against vaccination though, nor am I comparing the two or at least that was not intended (see the following sentence in parentheses). I was talking about the vaccine cert specifically (which we have for COVID-19 only, so I could have replaced "flu shot" with anything else, really), and regarding that, what is it that is not true (as far as what I said) or worth down-voting? I do not understand. Is my comment being perceived as anti-vaxx for some reason and thus, gets down-voted?

I do not believe the vaccine cert being fair, I believe it is discriminatory. People who cannot receive the vaccine for health reasons may not have access to basic health care in my country (if they go with it), and they already cannot get a job in many places. How is this not discriminating? Heck, if people are so caring, then how come that I am being down-voted for expressing such a view, a view against discrimination? Actually, for the most part I was only talking about life around here (i.e. facts, that for some reason get down-voted, unless they read too much into my comment), and was not expressing such a view. In this comment, I specifically do. In any case, no worries, I do not expect you to actually give me a reasoning as you cannot possibly see inside their heads.

The infection rates for Covid and flu are in the same ballpark so the infection rate is basically irrelevant. So Covid to flu comparison is more like apples to apples. https://www.bmj.com/content/371/bmj.m3883/rr

Herd immunity doesn't mean zero cases. Covid-19 won't be eradicated. Believing some vaccination threshold exists that will prevent a future mutation seems foolish.

I caught the flu two years in a row, about 15 year ago. Just unlucky, I guess. Never had the flu before that. Each of those two times laid me out for two weeks straight, just completely miserable, couldn't even sleep lying down because it made me cough. After that I religiously got my flu shot every year.

There is lots of luck involved with the flu shot as well. They range from 1/3 to 2/3 effective, it depends on the year. In 2019, the vaccines were 37% effective against Influenza A and 50% against Influenza B, but the B variant was more prevalent that year so the overall effectiveness was 45%. (https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6907a1.htm?s_cid=mm...)

We are still trying to figure out how to make effective flu vaccines.

Yeah of course, my mom does the same. I stopped a few years ago and I was still alright, and I generally do not catch the common cold either, it has been years. In any case, I do not mind anyone getting the flu shot, of course.

I still have diseases, just other kinds. No vaccine or treatment for them.

Of course Big Pharma wants you locked-in on annual boosters. I'll take my chances with the virus with less than 1% mortality rate for people under 60.

Are we even remotely close to having a suitable vaccine for a common cold? What is the point of having a vaccine for a simple cold anyway...?

I want to say something sarcastic, but I am in genuine disbelief that this could be anyone's vision for the future of humanity. What an abhorrent nightmare.

Why? I honestly don't see what you're suggesting?

We're already half-human half-chemical half-cyborgs. We drink coffee which includes caffeine, we use alcohol and THC regularly to "socialize", we take ibuprofen et al when feel pain, we eat sugar because we're fucking addicted. We use internet almost all the time except when sleeping and taking a shower. We check reddit, twitter, HN, facebook, instagram as if our lives depend on it. We're on track to build virtual reality googles that'll entertain us in an entire different simulated reality that we can only experience via our eyes. Not to mention most people look at monitors most of their lives anyway.

We regularly vaccinate against tetanus, HPV, chicken pox, flu etc. Do you not get the flu shot every year? I vaccinate my cat against rabies and distemper every year. I take antidepressants (anxiety) and antihistemics (allergy) every day, because I kinda need them to live normally. My girlfriend has to take pain medicine once a month due to her basic biology.

And the problem is we'll add COVID and cold to our annual flu shots, and that somehow makes our world any more dystopic. Makes absolutely no fucking sense. There are trillions of shit to be outraged about, this ain't one of those. Just chill.

Who knows what motivated the grandparent post to say that [EDIT: OK, now he explained and I definitely don’t endorse that, geez], but I can see some grounds for unease at aledalgrande's vision of a specifically annual vaccination mentioned above. The COVID epidemic has been accompanied by border closures, followed now by a slow and chaotic reopening of them as different countries recognize different vaccines and different certificates proving vaccination. A future where everyone must get an annual jab to prevent even the common cold, and then have to prove recent vaccination to cross borders, would only continue indefinitely what many people hoped was just a one-off thing in their lifetimes.

Incidentally, only half of people or less even in affluent countries get the annual flu shot. It is frequently believed to be relevant only for the elderly and at-risk demographics.

You live already in that world. I have already lost track of the number of "jabs" I've needed to travel to several countries, and this was way before COVID.

No, the vaccinations required for travel were virtually never expected to be taken on an annual basis but rather were good for years. For example, not only was the UN yellow-fever vaccination certificate good for 10 years, but recently the WHO announced that the yellow-fever vaccine now appears to confer life-long immunity, so border officials should accept the certificate regardless of the date on it.

That's just the luck of the draw, though. Yellow Fever happens to be amenable to life-long immunity. COVID (may) not be.

Had the situation been reversed, you'd have had to get Yellow Fever vaccinations a lot more often if you were travelling into those regions, and the COVID situation would be one-and-done. It just happens that this is the way it worked out, instead. There's nothing dystopian about this.

You've lost track? The only 100% required vaccine for international travel I'm aware of is yellow fever, which poses an infection fatality risk hundreds or thousands of times higher than Covid.

Checked this - the yellow fever IFR only appears to be about 10× that of covid-19 overall.

The Wikipedia data for yellow fever IFR [0] claims that the data are based on "optimally treated patients". The problem in some of the countries where a vaccination certificate is mandatory to enter is that they do not have healthcare infrastructure to adequately treat patients. Somewhere in the past I have seen statistics that during some African yellow-fever outbreaks, 25–50% of those infected perished, which is why states were so insistent on this vaccination specifically.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_human_disease_case_fat...

That doesn't seem at odds with a single order-of-magnitude difference though. Covid IFR in the 0.5% range is also based on more or less optimally treated patients given a developed country's population demographics. There isn't really room for a fatality rate to be "hundreds or thousands of times higher", you run into the 100% fatal bound pretty quickly.

The Covid IFR is not in the 0.5% range, and a few exceptions notwithstanding, the fatality rate tends to be lower in developing countries than the developed world.

US covid deaths are 0.51% of the CDC’s estimated total number of covid cases. The highest (NPR) estimate of US covid deaths is 0.79% of the CDC’s estimated total number of covid cases (which is, itself, not the highest total case estimate). Many studies have estimates in the similar range.

I know the IFR is lower in developing countries, I never meant to imply otherwise.

> Incidentally, only half of people or less even in affluent countries get the annual flu shot. It is frequently believed to be relevant only for the elderly and at-risk demographics.

You are right as far as about half getting it, at least for the United States. Quite a few people who are not elderly or at risk get it. Here are the age breakdowns.

About 60% of the people under 18 get it [1]. Under 18 is about 25% of the population.

About 34% of 18-49 year olds get it. They make up about 42% of the population.

That makes under 18s who get flu vaccine about 15% of the population, and 18-49s who get flu vaccine about 14% of the population. If only 50% of the population get the flu vaccine, that would mean that 58% of the people getting flu vaccine are under 50.

[1] https://www.thenationshealth.org/content/47/9/E45

It might not even be a shot. Would it still be an issue if it was a nasal spray that you can buy at your pharmacy once a year?

The issue is really availability of the vaccine at all. It would suck if a person from country A traveling in developing country B needs to get vaccinated yet again in order to move on to country C, but developing country B has a poor healthcare system that travelers would reasonably want to avoid contract with. One would then be compelled to visit a private hospital for expats at great expense, but sometimes even that option is not available.

Even if nasal sprays bought from a corner pharmacy are on the horizon, they would probably only reach developing countries years from now – and merely buying a product from a pharmacy in most countries might not get you an internationally recognized certificate of vaccination.

The entire point of such vaccinations would be to prevent another major shutdown from a new coronavirus outbreak, and thus avoid a much larger issue when trying to cross borders. The expectation is nobody is going to care much if people get the next shot anymore than they do about the annual flu vaccine because significant herd immunity will be in play.

The only way that changes is if some new and extremely deadly variant is out there, but again past vaccinations are likely still helpful. Thus, regular vaccination deployment would be a pure win for travelers.

Availability and inequality is a fair concern, but why should we stop working on something that would improve everyone's lives? Nobody said it's going to be mandatory for travel.

> many people hoped was just a one-off thing.

This was never the case. If you didn't understand that COVID is here to stay indefinitely, like flu, after April 2020 I'm sorry but you aren't paying attention. Not to mention, if we follow perfect vaccination around the world, we can eradicate COVID like we eradicated smallpox etc, although this will be a lot harder.

So, I still don't see your point. Yes people need to take yearly vaccines not to die of horrible diseases. That has been the case for the last few hundred years.

As frequently reported in the last year, only a small niche of the scientific community is optimistic that COVID can be eradicated through vaccination. Smallpox had no animal reservoirs, while COVID does.

> Yes people need to take yearly vaccines not to die of horrible diseases. That has been the case for the last few hundred years.

No, it hasn’t. The only common annual vaccination is for influenza, it was introduced only in recent decades, and, as I mentioned, only half the population or less take it annually.

> No, it hasn’t. The only common annual vaccination is for influenza, it was introduced only in recent decades, and, as I mentioned, only half the population or less take it annually.

You only take flu annually but there are other vaccines you need to take periodically. E.g. tetanus booster every 10 years etc. For example, I'm supposed to take my last HPV vaccine this summer and this is the 3rd shot. I'm 25 and I took approx. one vaccine every year for the last few years. I'm not saying strictly one every 12 months, it's just that it doesn't make sense to be outraged about COVID vax since regular vax is already part of our lives.

Note that aledalgrande’s original post above was speaking specifically about annual vaccination. That is is a completely different league than the common vaccines that require a booster shot every decade or so, and are much easier for people moving around internationally to plan around.

All those vaccines were also tested much more extensively and use techniques which have been widely deployed for much longer than the Covid vaccines.

This is exactly the point. We have decades of evidence for most vaccines and you only need them infrequently. That's a world away from a 6m old vaccine that hasn't been through the normal approval process.

> Yes people need to take yearly vaccines not to die of horrible diseases. That has been the case for the last few hundred years.

This isn't even remotely true. There's a set of vaccines taken in childhood, a few later. And that's it generally.

> We drink coffee which includes caffeine, we use alcohol and THC regularly to "socialize", we take ibuprofen et al when feel pain, we eat sugar because we're fucking addicted.

Who is we? I don't consume caffeine or THC, don't eat much sugar or drink much alcohol, and don't remember taking painkillers at all in 2020 or 2021 so far. I don't use social media like FB or IG. I don't remember getting a flu shot ever, maybe in childhood and I forgot.

Despite telling the other commenter to chill, your comment is bafflingly aggressive. It's possible to live without drugs and social media and we should encourage that, not take for granted that everyone should be forced to use drugs just to socialize or eat sugar.

> Do you not get the flu shot every year?

I do not. I have never had a flu shot in my life.

I... I use the internet in my shower and I sleep with podcasts. Am I a full cyborg ? :D

You do not have to be as you have described yourself. You do not have to rely on caffeine, thc, or alcohol. This is the practice of sobriety, which is followed by many. You can learn to be at peace with your own mind. You do not have to have to follow any social media. Many do not and billions could not in the past. Of what you listed, I use only HN, and that only to distract me at work. You do not have to be connected to dopamine goggles from <company>, you can be entertained by your own imagination, by the allure of the world, by the beauty of the people around you.

You do not have to feel that you cannot live without pharmaceuticals. The value of a tetanus shot is obvious, but it can be something you choose, not something which you are burdened to bear as the price of birth. Depressive disorders are wholly a disease of our malignant society. I would encourage you to examine the work of Stephen Ildari, for it has helped me greatly. I encourage you to see what happens to you and your gf when you eat plants instead of processed <product>.

You can be more than a tax cattle, or someone else's paycheck, or the reflection of the vision and will of powerful strangers. You are still very young. Take control of who and what you are.

None of that is an argument against getting vaccinated against viruses that easily spread amongst the population with mild to horrific effect, mutating as it goes along.

We should be celebrating science, the discovery and advancement of vaccines, and their ability to give immunity or strong protection against diseases that have previously debilitated individuals or worse.

The fact that I have never known anyone with Polio is because of the strong global efforts to irradiate the disease from the face of the planet. Tragically the anti-science and anti-vaccine messaging has made that not possible for covid... something that's already resulted in near equal death of WWII in just over a year and will only continue.

I think that's a false dichotomy. You're saying the success of vaccine A implies success of vaccine B? That because some people wrongly argued against vaccine A, I can't argue against vaccine B (even at such an early point)?

And, by examination of evidence, everyone who has received a vaccine for covid is protected from it. Let them be free to make that choice.

"And, by examination of evidence, everyone who has received a vaccine for covid is protected from it."

Are you saying that every covid vaccine has 100 % efficacy? ("everyone", "a vaccine"). AFAIK this is not true for any extant vaccine.

That's all wonderful, but what does it have to do with taking an annual covid vaccine? Does contracting covid or the flu somehow make me more free? Based on my experience with fevers, the hallucinations can be fun, but overall I don't think it's worth it. Even salvia is better.

One specific thing I do find freeing about the vaccines is that I don't really need to worry about being asymptomatically infected and passing the disease onto others who are more vulnerable. I guess I could simply say "fuck those people", as many have done, but I guess for me, responsibility is a counterpart to freedom.

FWIW, Stephen Ilardi appears to support vaccination, so you may want to dig a little deeper into his thoughts around them.

Nobody's forcing you to take the flu vaccine or any theoretical future cold vaccine.

Meanwhile those who do choose to take it will hopefully be able to live a life largely free of these annoyances and dangers.

That would be amazing. A needle stick every year and significantly less (even mild) illnesses? Let's do it.

(I say this as someone who fortunately almost never gets sick. People who are often sick would relish this even more.)

I get sick every year for some reason, often gastro, and the bi-yearly AC switch off/on giving me a long cold because I grew up in a country without AC. A year out of two I have a bad flu, a year out of 5, a bad otitis so painful I can't eat for a while...

Well the ONLY year of my life (I'm 33) I wasn't sick was 2020-2021. I think... the mask helped a lot. I feel like I understand now all these people telling me getting so sick every year wasn't normal...

I didn’t get a cold for just over 14 months. It was glorious. Now that I’m vaccinated I’ve been out a bit more and have been dealing with a head cold all week. If there’s a shot to stop colds, sign me up.

I don't see why eliminating disease is an abhorrent nightmare to you. Is the fact that no one gets polio anymore also an abhorrent nightmare?

Polio was never eliminated. It still persists in poor countries and among abject poverty stricken communities.

Wild poliovirus has been eradicated in all continents except Asia, and as of 2020, Afghanistan and Pakistan are the only two countries where the disease is still classified as endemic.[5][6]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polio_eradication

Eliminated and eradicated are not the same thing.

Polio certainly has been eliminated from the United States. The point is, polio is no longer a significant problem here.

Sorry, maybe I should've specified _In the United States_

You've already benefited, either directly or indirectly, from the polio vaccine, the smallpox vaccine, antibiotics, etc. You might not even be alive if it weren't for those, because some of your direct ancestors would have been likely to die or be severely disabled.

So what is suddenly giving you pause here? Just the idea that these shots may be needed more regularly, rather than a few times during childhood?

Do you think we should return to a life in which we forage naked for berries in the forest?

Assuming the answer is no, where do you draw the line as to what technologies you're willing to accept, and which you aren't?

I genuinely have no idea why that would be abhorrent, except to anti-vaxxers. Can you explain?

Pugs cannot give birth naturally. The continued existence of pugs is completely dependent on medical intervention. In other words, pugs are not real. They exist only to the degree that a painting or building exists. They require constant upkeep by an advanced society, which has never existed beyond a few thousand years at a time.

Why would anyone's vision for the future of humanity be an animal that can only exist in the context of an advanced civilization? Why would anyone's vision of humanity be an animal that is dependent for survival on <product> from <company> as though they were cattle? To reduce a human being to a dependent component of a pharmaceutical production chain is an abhorrent moral hazard.

Smallpox was made extinct, and other diseases may be made greatly reduced because they are unique to humanity. But the many coronaviruses are shared between mammals, and are an eternal component of the environment. We have a moral obligation to evolve to suit the environment. That is what it means to be a successful animal.

> We have a moral obligation to evolve to suit the environment

And we've done that by evolving our mental capacities and developing a wide range of tools that have enabled us to survive and prosper. We are apex predators of apex predators, to the point that we kill other predators for sport rather than food.

Stick me naked and toolless in the wilds of Siberia and I'd estimate my survival time in hours rather than days. Without our tools we're a pretty useless species that hasn't even evolved far enough to be able to walk on two legs without developing back pain, unlike penguins.

Vaccines taken once in a lifetime, or taken annually, or taken daily are just another tool. Why is this any worse than brushing your teeth, showering, taking medication or even getting dressed. If a doctor told you to take heart medication on a daily basis to stay alive, would you refuse on the grounds that it's better for humans to evolve hearts that are less prone to heart disease?

> We have a moral obligation to evolve to suit the environment. That is what it means to be a successful animal.

So tools as a whole are just... sins? How far down this line do you want us to go? No plastics? No computers? No structures? No roads? No clothes?

>Why would anyone's vision for the future of humanity be an animal that can only exist in the context of an advanced civilization?

That is a textbook description of Homo Sapiens Sapiens, IMO. We are not very impressive without an advanced civilization.

Niches changing is pretty boringly normal.

Dolphins are evolutionarily unfit to occupy the niche they had back on land. The bacteria that precipitated the oxygen crisis were very successful until they weren't.

There are many reasons to care about environmental destruction, pollution, and the loss of biodiversity, but at the same time it's neither particularly rational nor natural to obsess about preserving exactly the niches which existed at a particular point in time, nor our fitness for them.

Evolution is not a moral obligation; it's just the best nature could manage without thinking.

If civilization crumbles, then natural selection will take the reins and a lot of people will die, but that's not a goal we should aim for.

Natural selection is still at the reins. It operates in an environment. One that we, fortunately, can shape.

> We have a moral obligation to evolve to suit the environment. That is what it means to be a successful animal.

I'm not sure how any of this related to morality. What is your moral framework here?

However, if we accept it, the unique success of humanity clearly does not stem from blindly accepting whatever nature throws our way. Humanity's success, and defining characteristic is that we're able to bend nature to our will, and when that isn't possible, consciously bend ourselves.

The vaccines are another example, and the mRNA vaccines are incredible example of this. We engineered a way to use our own body as a factory.

Humanity's progress doesn't depend on giving up on technology, it depends on increasing our abilities with it. Evolution is too slow and too random, humanity can do better altering our own genome. If we survive, humanity will eventually be able to manipulate entire solar systems or even galaxies. Possibly the whole universe. That's our destiny, not dying of smallpox on our home planet.

This is textbook appeal to nature.

I'm at a loss as to why reduction of suffering and death is abhorrent to you.

It's an artificial reduction in suffering and death. It's a genetic loan that will one day be repaid, with interest.

The best way to prepare for future evolutionary challenges is to stockpile genetic diversity. More genetic diversity means both less of a chance of the entire population being vulnerable in the same way to a new threat, and better chances to reach new local maximas that are two or three hops through rough terrain in the evolutionary search space.

Continually applying harsh selection criteria just homogenizes a population to a local maxima and leaves them vulnerable to future change.

Ok, well if you want to do your part to contribute to the genetic excellence of the human race, don't use medicine. If you get an infection, instead of using antibiotics, just let it kill you. Don't get glasses, just let your bad vision get you killed. How far do you want to take this? I'm sure you can increase the immunities of future humans by drinking out of puddles like dogs do. It doesn't seem to make dogs sick, presumably because all the dogs in the past with weaker immune systems died, probably with a lot of suffering.

I doubt you do any of these things, because you aren't willing to accept the low chance of survival-to-adulthood that typical wild animals have. It may keep their genetics in tip top shape, but is that really what you want?

How about... wearing clothes? Cooking food?

Not really. This is a naive interpretation of Darwinism. If anything, humans have become more genetically fit by mixing various formerly isolated populations together. Which is very much a consequence of global civilization.

By far the largest problem of any genetic pool (animals, plants, whatever) is not having enough genetic diversity in it. See: Cavendish bananas, the Tasmanian devil.

You’re aware that most people already have a bunch of vaccines, right?

with the current formulas this is true. https://www.forbes.com/sites/williamhaseltine/2021/03/25/mod...

seeing almost half the efficacy after 250 days.

Well, yes. What else? Getting rid of the novel coronavirus doesn't seem likely at this point. So, either we control it by vaccination or we go back to how it was before any vaccines.

Hopefully, eventually the virus evolves into a less deadly form and maybe our immune systems develop some more resistance. I don't know if the latter is actually reasonable to expect.

> eventually the virus evolves into a less deadly form and maybe our immune systems develop some more resistance. I don't know if the latter is actually reasonable to expect.

The more people who die, the more likely it is we evolve protection

Not at all, the vast majority of the people who die are past the age of reproduction.

you are confusing COVID with a general statement. Though COVID is killing enough young people to make a difference over many generations if we don't get it under control

The same can be said of driving. Should we remove airbags tomorrow?

If we do, over the next 10,000 years it will make a difference in human reaction times. Assuming of course that nothing else destroys us all first, or makes cars obsolete.

Since I don't have 10,000 years I prefer to make cars obsolete.

It has nothing to do with how long you personally have; this is about the species, remember? You could very well die from lack of airbags, and not because you had a slow reaction time but because your skull isn't optimized for surviving collisions. Further, there are a lot of stand-up people you currently like who would die. There are many reasons to protect the weak, even from an evolutionary standpoint.

I don't have 10,000 years, the species probably does.

Evolution doesn't care. There are also reasons to not protect the weak. Either way it changes the future of the species. On one hand we don't protect the weak, and thus the strong survive; on the other hand we protect the weak, the species doesn't get as strong, but we can encourage some other trait(s).

Note, strong species might be a stronger skull, better reactions, or something else that I can't even think of. I don't know how to force any choice.

The point though is that making ourselves dumber by making our skulls thicker so we can survive car crashes is a bad choice. We want to be getting smarter, not dumber, right now. Our instincts tend to align with that goal (including protecting the weak) when they are pro-social since that’s how we’ve been evolving lately.

And it misses the point: the evolutionary change that has already occured includes the ability to put in airbags and eventually self driving cars, not a change in reflexes. Though better intuition about risk might see the species live longer.

Not sure why you are being downvoted. You are correct, and this is LITERALLY the case with existing virus boosters like Tetanus (actually the combined Tetanus / Polio / Diptheria / Pertusis). Many booster vaccines are recommended at regular intervals (some 5 years, some 10 years, some somewhere within that range). You wouldn't see people downvoting advice to get your Tetanus booster every 10 years! Yet they'll downvote such a suggestion about COVID boosters? I just don't understand. Its biology folks.

Actually this _really_ pisses me off that you were downvoted. Everyone is treating this vaccine plan (and I mean speaking from the US point of view vaccine plan) like it is the end of the pandemic permanantly. I can assure everybody that it is NOT. Indeed, there has been talk of these universal flu & cold vaccines for decades, but they have yet to be produced - just look how long the COVID vaccines took to be released worldwide when the first one was produced in January of 2020 (not a typo). Meanwhile, multiple countries in Africa, as well as all of India are still being ravaged by this virus - where is thier vaccine help? There is such a western centric twist on HackerNews that it really makes me question just how intelligent our "best programmers in the world" really are. From my initial view point, it seems everyone here understands the entire situtation no better than any other anectdotal theory from the average lurker on 4chan or reddit.

There is a problem with programmers thinking/acting/talking like they know quite a lot more than they do. Any thread on HN not about programming is sure to be full of confident ignorance (and honestly the programming threads too).

People don’t have very broad knowledge or education, a few do, but it can be hard to pick out.

>It's biology folks? Read up about philosophy of science. Science has to be subjected to scrutiny and stand the test of time before we can be confident. Covid jab needs more time.

Yes. Like yearly vaccination campaigns.

Like the flu. Or even Tetanus requires boosters. I don't know why that makes it a dealbreaker.