AstraZeneca Scientist Says Delta Variant Makes Herd Immunity Impossible

Re:AstraZeneca Scientist Says Delta Variant Makes Herd Immun... by cjohnson318 on Thursday August 12, 2021 @10:51PM (#28164842)

I disagree that there was single possible outcome to all of this, and that there's nothing we can do to slow the spread of the Delta variant, or give people a better chance at surviving this. I didn't spell all that out.

To be clear, if I could have shipped all of the (idiotically) unused vaccine doses in the U.S. to India, Kenya, etc., then I would, but I can't. Would that stop the Delta variant? Apparently no, but it would save lives.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:AstraZeneca Scientist Says Delta Variant Makes Herd Immun... by nradov on Thursday August 12, 2021 @10:56PM (#28164877)

As of last week the US had already exported 110M vaccine doses.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-says-it-has-shared-110-mill...

Unfortunately most of those unused vaccines require careful low temperature refrigeration. The necessary cold chains don't exist in most parts of India or Kenya.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:AstraZeneca Scientist Says Delta Variant Makes Herd Immun... by cjohnson318 on Thursday August 12, 2021 @11:32PM (#28165078)

So what's your takeaway, then? Should we have hoarded vaccine that people are refusing to take? Maybe someone could have made a quick call to Mumbai to see who had the right kind of freezers, I don't know.

The fact that the U.S. has hospitals full of unvaccinated covid patients, when you can walk into any Walgreens and get a vaccine in 15 minutes makes me insane.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:AstraZeneca Scientist Says Delta Variant Makes Herd Immun... by nradov on Thursday August 12, 2021 @11:46PM (#28165185)

Your complaints are disconnected from reality. Vaccines aren't being hoarded. It takes time to set up export and delivery cold chains with all of the necessary quality and safety checks. Giving people spoiled vaccines would be worse than no vaccines.

[ Parent | on HN ]