Pandemics and Epidemiology (COVID-19, monkeypox, etc.)

Actually , haven't they already had a great many good results so far? I haven't read about any serious side effects

Everything I've read indicates that the vaccines are good to go. No sign of side effects.

But you need to wait to see if any COULD appear first.

Edited by CharlesPhipps on Aug 2nd 2020 at 1:11:15 AM

I think that three different vaccines are in stage 3 testing, that’s where they’ve ruled out side-effects enough that they’re confident testing the vaccine on humans in the wild. So they’ve given the vaccine to a bunch of people (generally people who face a lot of risk of exposure) who then go about their life as normal, they’ll then check in with said people and see if they were infected but resisted the disease due to the vaccine.

I don't think you can tell if they've fended it off for any person specifically. I think you can only tell if it works if you have a significantly lower number of people get sick with COVID in your vaccine group vs. the general population (presumably same rate of exposure). Good news during a raging pandemic: lots of exposure means you can get a relatively quick result using that method.

Also remember that vaccines generally take 12-18 months to develop. Doing it before the end of the year would be a fantastic result. Doing it before summer 2021 lies within previous expectations.

Either way, eventually we would reach herd immunity, and infections would go down dramatically. So no, this is certainly not something that will be here the rest of our lives. But be prepared for maybe another year or two of low level alertness, occasionally interrupted by a spike in cases and increased measures.

Hasn't it been found that patients that have recovered from COVID don't remain immune over the long-term?

If that is the case we might not have herd immunity before a vaccine, and opening up the economy before then will always be inherently risky.

Edited by Mio on Aug 2nd 2020 at 7:17:37 AM

Our data indicate that antibodies may disappear after a relatively short time (months) but that T-cells remain for a much longer time. This allows the body to rapidly create antibodies to react to future infections and is good news for potential vaccines.

In addition, about half of people tested seem to have some level of natural immunity to SARS-CoV-2 without having been exposed. This is likely because their bodies created T-cells for other strains of coronavirus and those react to the very similar proteins on this one. Note that it doesn't mean you should run out and try to contract the common cold. For one thing, you could easily get something worse... like COVID-19. For another, coronaviruses make up only a small portion of the viruses that cause colds.

Edited by Fighteer on Aug 2nd 2020 at 7:23:40 AM

From the latest I remember reading: Circulating antibodies have been found to wane, I think, yes. But that's actually normal and even expected. There are memory immune cells, though, which is different but also offer protection.

EDIT: Ninjaed! But yeah, what he said.

Edited by PointMaid on Aug 2nd 2020 at 7:25:17 AM

Yes-no. What is lost in immediate antibody response (short term memory and production — quick on the draw) after a few months seems to be gained in T-cell recognition (T-cells are like long term memory and management, basically taking longer to kick production into gear)... in average immune system reactions.

The thing is, not everybody has an average immune system that responds "normally". So, for segments of the population, the T-cells will drop the ball or store not quite the right enough info by the time the virus shifts.

Edited by Euodiachloris on Aug 2nd 2020 at 12:28:45 PM

X5 Yeah it’s why we got lucky with the Oxford vaccine, Oxford were already working on a vaccine for something similar (I think a different strait of coronavirus) and a lot of the data could be crossed over. It’s why their timeline to possible production is down to months, they had a head start.

Nope.

There have been sporadic reports of reinfection but nothing significant. Which indicates that we’re either still in the window of immunity (and thus the window is large enough that you could get a booster every year and remain safe) or reinfection isn’t a serious risk.

Edited by Silasw on Aug 2nd 2020 at 11:30:34 AM

x4 And took expand on that a bit, if anyone's curious about why there isn't any other coronavirus vaccines in humans, it's less because we are unable to (since we do have them for other animals), and more because the math just doesn't add up.

The four most common coronaviruses cause about 20 percent of all colds, and since vaccines generally only target a specific strain of a virus (aka why we need new flu vaccines every year), each would have to be developed and tested separately, and only reduce your chance of getting a cold by about 5 percent. (presuming 100 effectiveness. A more realistic estimate would be about 75 percent.)

Since most people have about 2-4 colds per year on average, taken all together a vaccine that covered all of them with a 75 percent efficacy rate, would reduce your risk of getting a cold by 15 percent, which potentially amounts to less than one cold.

Edited by megaeliz on Aug 2nd 2020 at 12:07:34 PM

I'm with pretty much everyone else here - we don't need thinkpieces about "is this the end of human civilization?", because it's not, but we do need pieces that point out that 1500 Americans are dying every day and that that number is not the plateau yet. There are levels of bad news below apocalyptic doomsaying, and that's where the media needs to be. Even with this level of bad news, people are sticking their heads in the sand and saying "hey, it's been long enough, can we talk about something else now?" When that's really not how it works.

I wonder how those people would have reacted if they were in Europe in the 1300s.

"Black plague is fake news. The death toll is exaggerated. I don't care if it's super contagious and I might have contracted it, I'm gonna go visit my family in the next village over."

You joke, but there probably were a lot of people who did react like that back then.

Heck, I think something similar happened with the Spanish Flu, which also had incompetent leadership downplaying the problem.

The more things change...the main difference is that we've got social media spreading the stupid even faster.

Edited by M84 on Aug 3rd 2020 at 12:25:09 AM

Like, we're not in the safe zone or even the downward slope here. People can "go out and live their lives" only if they acknowledge that they're risking their lives to do so, and take the proper precautions, which they're not.

One of the many differences between back then and now is that those societies were far harsher when dealing with this stuff.

Remember that story from Mexico? About a guy who was killed for not wearing a mask? That would have been the norm of behavior back then.

X3 Hell the Spanish Flue started in the US and got called Spanish because the Spanish were the only Europeans not suppressing news about it. Fake news as very much a thing back then.

No new confirmed cases in Taiwan today.

475 total, 55 domestic, 36 from the fleet, 7 deceased, 441 released.

Indonesia update time. 113.134 confirmed (+1.679), 5.302 dead (+68), 70.237 recovered/discharged (+1.262)

Edited by Lazlo74 on Aug 3rd 2020 at 3:25:37 AM

BBC investigation reveals that Iran's fatality number is triple the official figure.

One wonders how much worse it might be in other countries.

Define "other countries".

x10 (Re: disease in the 1300's) Given that germ theory wasn't a thing back then, conspiracy theories would be orders of magnitude worse. A plague was happening and murdering like half the people you know, and for no apparent reason and with no apparent underling logic. Add in that widespread literacy and schooling wasn't a thing, and you basically have no factual underlying framework to argue with.

Edited by devak on Aug 3rd 2020 at 6:38:47 PM

I don't think that there would be many conspiracy theories without widespread literacy and other vehicles to spread disinformation, actually. More likely, the plague would be interpreted according to widespread religious beliefs and superstition.

Yeah, it's hard to call it a conspiracy theory when it's basically on the level of mythological or magical thinking. The level of knowledge of humanity wasn't at a level when anyone could be expected to know or understand what was going on.

Mind you, some early conspiracy theories did exist during the Great Plague. Namely, the theory that the Jews were poisoning wells and which led to antisemitic pogroms.