OTTO...
It is very simple. The point I was making was:
1> Just because a CEO suggests their vaccine will be 90% effective because that is their goal, does not mean it will, especially when they haven’t even entered Phase 3 of their trials
2> The only viable short term vaccines marketed to work did not include elderly in their trials; therefore, the chances of them working for the elderly, as was the point of the original article I posted, makes it a very valid negative issue regarding vaccines being our “saviour.”
3> The 60% number is what “I” was stating as a best case scenario for the shorter term vaccines. Why? Because when you subtract those over 65 and those under 14, you end up with about 70% of the population the vaccines are targeting and being tested for. Then you have to include the inevitable 10-20% of the population that will have zero effect. That means any short term vaccine would be at best a 60% success provided EVERYONE took it.
4> The whole point was we cannot and should not be waiting for vaccines to be our saviour which seems to be a lot of what many are waiting for. We cannot, nor should we be relying on anyone that suggests otherwise.
The underlying point is when I suggested anything more than a 60% success rate for any Covid-19 vaccines would not be realistic, you suggested otherwise. You suggested you hadn’t read anything in that regard. So, I posted articles as reference that contained facts like the vaccines not being tested on the elderly so it not being likely they would work on them as well as children. I posted other articles that if you use any logic whatsoever clearly the numbers like 90% effective were not realistic. Instead, you chose to ignore what I was referencing in the articles and pointed to completely unrelated facts. For what reason? I have no idea.
Then someone posts an article with Dr Tam suggesting the exact same thing (don’t rely on vaccines) and all of a sudden it is now gospel? That is what I don’t understand.
Clearly, if we wait 5-10 years we will probably get viable vaccines that work with around 90% efficacy. It seems very likely the early vaccines won’t protect the most vulnerable because our most vulnerable are the ones with compromised immune systems. It will be way more difficult to develop a vaccine for people with compromised immune systems. That is just common sense. You don’t need to be a brain surgeon to understand that.
This brings us back to square one. Yes, we can continue to wear masks and social distance and wash our hands. That will help but it will not be effective enough. Not by a long shot. We will not get anywhere near enough adoption and anywhere near enough diligence with proper practise to eliminate the spread. That is simply death by a thousand cuts or pulling off a bandage a millimetre at a time.
We need a treatment that will allow us to take risks as we see fit and if we get sick, we follow the treatment plan to get better before we get deathly ill. This does not mean take no precautions. We can walk and chew gum at the same time. What it means is if people get sick, they get treatment. Once people get sick, it is likely they won’t get sick again with the same Virus. If the virus mutates, so be it. People will get sick again. They will get treatment again.
We need to find a way to live with this virus long term. By long term I mean 2-5 years. If we do get a vaccine that is 70+% effective, great. If we are able to manufacture it and distribute and inoculate people at high rates, even better. But until then, we need to learn how to live with it and Mask, Wash, Distance isn’t good enough to properly live with this long term if the goal is to also maintain some form of normalcy that doesn’t also cost in unintended consequence lives and financial ruin. The answer is treatment. Developing that treatment is key.
