> A droplet of ACAM2000 is administered by the percutaneous route (scarification) using 15 jabs of a bifurcated needle. ACAM2000 should not be injected by the intradermal, subcutaneous, intramuscular, or intravenous route.
(emphasis mine)
At the time it was just a shading tattoo needle.
5 points, 3 jabs. It was nothing.
Also the vaccination leaves a small scar, so there's that too. Then again, if you don't get vaccinated, get smallpox, and survive? You may be full of lots of little scars.
There's also probably some societal/political/social problems (or some other better word to fit this) to starting up vaccinations: it would seem strange to do it if we didn't have specific knowledge of a threat. Look at COVID: we know it's a threat and people don't get vaccinated. So with smallpox vaccinations you'll get some people who panic thinking there must be a threat, others saying if there's no threat then it's pointless and won't do it.
Also as we see from COVID (and if you look at the history of the polio vaccine along with the massive industrial complex around annual flu vaccines) it's clear that such efforts are truly & enormously massive and expensive and difficult. We can't really go around doing that for every potential threat.
Notably, what was approved by the FDA does not appear to be a vaccine, and is instead an anti viral medication effective against smallpox. Also notably, we don't truly know it's safety profile: it would be tough (and unethical) to infect humans with smallpox to try out the drug, so it was tested on animals and approved on the basis of those results. I guess if you want to develop medications against potential-but-not-yet-realized threats, that's the best you can do.
Because vaccination isn’t 0% risk. Very few people are going to acquiesce to vaccination for a functionally extinct virus nor should they. Perhaps those who want to should be able to but that’s another discussion.
Well this would not treat the problem, because smallpox is not the problem here. The fact that we're squishy fragile hosts/food, and bioweapons are getting easier and easier to make, is the problem.
If there was a smallpox vaccination campaign, unless completely secret, the bad actors would simply move on to a different virus/variant/fungus/bacteria.
The only real protection against any of this is to make sure the world has a similar vaccination regime, to ensure mutual destruction.
If that describes you then you really need to be putting out some serious DPS, glass-cannon style. Otherwise you need bulk up on CON and figure out your dump stats so you can tank effectively for the damage dealers/buffers/de-buffers.
No matter how small x is, x is > 0, which is the current chance of being infected by smallpox.