This is a historic day. It's great achievement by scientists. But I just don't think a lot of people realize that we still have a very long way to go. We're seeing some of the worst levels of the pandemic so far, both nationally and in a lot of states. The vaccine isn't going to change that for a long time. Our behavior could make a difference, but sadly any hopes of that on a large scale by the people who haven't changed their behavior already isn't going to happen. We passed 300,000 Americans dead today. We may not be half way through the total number of deaths that we see from this in the U.S. before the vaccine is widely distributed. (For years to come there will be deaths from this, but hopefully with a lot of people being vaccinated routinely enough, however often that needs to be which we still need to determine, the death toll will be very considerably lower.)
As they say, vaccines don't save people, vaccinations do.
Perhaps everyone who wants to be vaccinated will be vaccinated by the end of the summer. With the news of the government not purchasing more vaccine when they had the chance, even by the end of the summer might not be realistic. I haven't seen numbers that make me think there is a chance we'll have everyone who wants to be vaccinated to be vaccinated in the timeframe they are talking about. But even after that happens, with the number of people who might not want the vaccine, herd immunity may not occur as fast as we would like. Sadly, the thing that might help with herd immunity is the fact that we are currently adding about a million cases every 4 days. Anything close to that kind of pace will mean tens of millions of people are going to be infected between now and when the vaccine will have been given to the people that want it. Getting to herd immunity in that way is not a good thing as it will mean many more deaths.
People need to continue with what they are doing, if they are being currently being careful. People will need to social distance and wear a mask until likely very late into next year. I will be wearing a mask into 2022 probably. We'll have to see how cases go down and how the cases are during the winter of 2021-2022. We still don't know how long antibodies will last. It's not going to be 95% protection forever. The antibodies will diminish. We don't know what level of protection you will have 6 months later, or a year. I also think we need to dramatically increase the amount of vaccine we produce. The rest of the world needs vaccine too. The U.S. is trying to be first line, but at some point, before we need to vaccinate people again in the U.S., other countries are going to need to vaccinate their people too. If we vaccinated everyone in the world, and they needed two doses, and we did it yearly, that would be 15 billion doses. Obviously not everyone will be vaccinated. The more that are, the better. No one is talking about anything close to the number of vaccinations that would be needed to achieve herd immunity on a global scale.
One issue we don't know is if you can still spread the virus if you are vaccinated and don't develop symptoms. They don't know and I'm kind of still confused about it anyway. Does the virus replicate below a level that can be detected? Is part of that 95% of people that didn't have the virus, that got vaccinated, include people that might be replicating it to some extent, not enough to test positive for it, but enough to spread it? Is that how that could work? I don't know. I would certainly believe you wouldn't spread it as much if you can still spread it, but it seems to be a point of uncertainty.
We still don't know how long the antibodies that most people develop will last. That's really important. For the flu vaccine, it doesn't last a year from what I've read previously, it's just that flu season doesn't usually last all year. You don't want to get a flu vaccine really early because you want it to still be effective by the end of the normal flu season. (everyone should get a flu shot by the way) But as we have seen from COVID-19, it goes on all year, but as has been expected, worse during the time the flu is usually worse. Thankfully, so far, the flu hasn't been as bad this year. This could change of course. If we were adding flu hospitalizations to the current numbers that we have now, a lot more of the ICUs would be completely full by now and people would by dying due to a lack of beds and staff to care for people.
I don't want to be extremely negative. Scientists did something here that hasn't been done before in this kind of time. They did it in a safe way. They have delivered a safe vaccine, with another one likely to be approved shortly. (Pregnant women and people who have previously had significant allergic reactions to a vaccination should consult with a doctor first.)
I'll get my two shots whenever I can, though I would be pretty much at the end of the line due to my age and health. But even after people get their shots, they need to social distance and wear a mask. 95% isn't 100%. We don't know if those people who don't develop symptoms after being vaccinated can spread it. We don't know how long the antibodies last. We don't know how long it will take for daily new cases to drop. I will not stop wearing a mask until virus levels are low, to practically non-existent. I don't want to be one of those people at the tail end of the pandemic, among the last to die because they didn't wait a little longer to take off their mask or a little longer before they started engaging in more social activities. I have people in my family that seem to go from taking it seriously, to not, to back to serious, to not. I see people in my neighborhood that wear masks infrequently. We're all ready for the pandemic to be over, but wishing it to be over on a massive scale doesn't make it so. |