> Honestly we need operation warp speed again. It needs to just never stop, at least while we are in such a critical stage and massive amount of virus spread. We need the government and the billionaires/trillionaires to bankroll parallel development of all major variant boosters at once.

This makes sense defense-wise, as well, because the arms race in vaccine development is also an arms race in producing vaccines for diseases you intend to use as weapons. A disease a group has a vaccine or cure for, but no one else does, could be weaponized.

I agree. Someone please correct me if I’m wrong, but I imagine it’ll be a huge advantage to be able to produce new vaccines at the same rate that a weaponized virus can mutate.

It comes at the cost of reducing regulatory burden but also the oversight and safety rails required to make sure the "cure isn't worse than the disease".

For the initial wave of COVID-19, it was an absolute necessity, but unless our backs are pinned metaphorically to the wall, is it really worth taking a short cut? In the best case, COVID-19 will become endemic (prevalent every season, but not as harmful for the majority of the population)... so wiping it out by way of universal uptake of a given vaccine is not (and never was) on the tables.

A weaponized virus would inflict untold suffering, but there is nothing to stop another Operation Warpspeed. Having OW active all the time? I don't see that being a good thing.

IF I Understand Correctly; this could actually backfire on the entity using it as a weapon by constantly having new vaccines at the ready.

IIUC: This means that they would essentially be supplying the new pressure and stressors required for the virus to be forced into mutating more and more since its current environment is not suitable for its current arrangement. Every time it replicates there is a chance for mutation, but greater stressors increase that chance of mutation. Depending on the stressors, the mutation may or may not occur in tandem to that stressor. I.E. Vaccines increase immunity? Virus gains ability to breakthrough easier.

Now that may be a rather simplistic understanding of it, I admit; but this does seem to coincide with what is essentially happening so far this past couple years.

1. New variant emerges. 2. More people get vaccinated. 3. Old 'new' variant dies off 4. New 'new' variant picks up. 5. More people get vaccinated, or re-vaxxed. 6. Old 'new' variant dies off, again. 7. New variant emerges, or a subvariant, or double mutation. Repeat.

Eventually we will all be vaccinated 3 times or more, easily. Or at least a very large majority of us. What happens when some super variant emerges and has the capability to breakthrough all that resistance?

More vaccines?

You do see where this is going, right? Doctors and scientists were concerned about a very similar situation with anti-bacterial resistant bugs. Stuff like H.Pylori in hospitals if I remember correctly. Well, now we have the same situation potentially occurring on our hands.

We can only hope that the mRNA vaccines or something better is/are able to keep ahead of the game. The only way we are beating this thing out, is by completely snuffing it out. And that's going to require removing all its potential hosts.

That means we might have to vaccinate wild animals, because deer have been catching it for instance. And apparently spreading it in some cases. Once so far for sure is confirmed I believe. So yeah, Deer-vid is a thing now. Hooray?

It's going to be either a lot of animal vaccinations going on out there... or a huge culling. Of all sorts of animals. Or letting them catch it and suffer through it for better resistance for a time being; and then hoping to snuff out the virus finally at that point.

I'm sure you can see how hopeless this all is at this point. It's part of why the politicians are now saying "we need to learn to live with Covid."

And I agree, I guess. Not really much choice at this point. It's here to stay in its current forms, and further. For now at least.

So, huge advantage? Sure, maybe. Depends on your goals.

How about this : https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/niQ3heWwF6SydhS7R/making-vac....

> The large majority of the cost (about $850) was the peptides

If we could produce just the peptides at scale then everyone is free to produce local vaccines. Not sure if the peptides themselves have the same extreme storage requirements as the vaccines do. If we can give every country the techniques to build their own vaccines we wouldn't depend on mega-corps and some of the "anti-vax" arguments would become moot.

isn't omikron acting like a vaccine anyway ? with its astounding spread, everyone will have been contaminated anyway. And it seems that natural immunity is as good if not better than mrna induced immunity ( although i'm not sure if it's controversial or not).

Omikron is milder on average. I had it in February, was hit really hard for 4 days, and then I was more or less good again. But I still have lingering problems like short-breath and heart palpitations, which I am currently in the process of getting diagnosed. Could for example be a myocarditis, or just the typical unspecific "long covid" symptoms resulting from damage to nerves and tissue. Vaccines can have long-term side-effects, too, but in all likelihood at much lower levels.

And the hospitalisation rates for Omikron are still way too high compared to how fast it spreads, at least for most healthcare systems.

I got my result today morning +ve. Fever wasn’t breaking since last 3 days. It remained 102-103.5F. Today it came down to 99.5F. No other symptoms so far, except on and off body ache and headache.

I hope I get better without having to visit a hospital.

What should I get tested for after getting better?

Did you go for this as routine checkup or after some symptoms, or you wanted to see what damage was caused by COVID?

As is tradition, covid hit me at the absolute worst time, 2 weeks before the end of a project, so I was really stressed out while/after having it. At first I attributed the lingering symptoms like groggyness and irregular/loud heartbeat just to stress, but since it persisted now for 2+ weeks after the end of the most stressful time, I got a bit suspicious and contacted my GP.

I'm gonna do an electrocardiogram next week, and based on that the GP might do some other tests. So you should listen to your body and try to have little stress, no drinking, no hard sports for a few weeks, and contact your GP if you don't feel good.

My GP has already prescribed me a chest CT scan as my fever basically didn’t budge for 3.5 days with paracetamol and NISE as well. My CRP was elevated as well.

Now fever is down. My 5th day of symptoms today. I’m going to repeat CRP and then additionally do a chest CT scan today. She will see whether all is well or almost well with me or do I need specific care as of now or later as part of recovery. I think I technically I am still a covid patient.

And god, why is it difficult for every doctor out there to understand and accept that my “normal body temperature is below 98.6 F”!!

Even if surviving infection confers immunity similar to one vaccination dose, that's not enough. COVID is so virulent and severe that you want multiple vaccine doses.

1 covid + 1 vaccine seems to be the "best" exposure, since the vaccine only has spike, but the obvious downside is that you catch covid which you really should avoid if you can.

However, it does seem like it's not necessary to make people get 2-3 vaccines if they caught it.

"I don't have the study in front of me, so let me make some numbers up."

This is not even remotely true. If you'd like to read an actual study that shows the opposite, here you go from the CDC: https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/71/wr/mm7104e1.htm?s_cid=mm...

Studying infections as they occur is extremely difficult. People who get vaccinated take greater precautions than those who don't. People who get infected take greater risks, and those who are unvaccinated and have been infected are the greatest risk takers of all. Breakthrough infection rate has more to do with cohort behavior than efficacy of natural vs vaccine.

The biggest advantage a vaccine has is repeated exposure to viral material without illness and risk of death. But ultimately the vaccine is just trying to trick your body into creating natural immunity.

Note that this study uses data from May-November 2021, so it doesn't cover Omicron. Data on omicron is scarce still.

As an anecdotal data point - my kid had the Covid twice, not a year apart between the infections. Both times very mild, but still.

Source?

No, the problem has been that the variant vaccines have not shown superior responses to variants vs. the original spike isolate in preclinical and small trials.

Incorrect, the beta variant vaccine for example showed quite good strength at stopping the beta variant vs. the wild type vaccine (which beta much more easily evaded). The problem is beta variant grew for a bit last year but is entirely gone now.