The lethality of corona is in the order of magnitude of that of a severe flu, so quite serious. Because there is no vaccine yet, the country is being shut down. If there is a corona vaccine in the flu cocktail, I wonder if we have made much progress. 82% of the population does not bother to get the flu shot, as has been the case for years.
Most The Dutch suffer every year of the flu shot. This includes half of the vulnerable (half!) whom we are now desperately protecting. So they don't think it's worth it to get the free shot.
Of course they can decide that for themselves, but it does give food for thought.
We expect miracles from a corona vaccine. Currently, the regular flu shot among the vaccinated offers about 40% protection against the deadly flu wave that plagues our country every year. It is entirely questionable whether a corona vaccine will score better than that 40% less chance of getting corona. Perhaps, because the virus mutates more slowly – but still. There are also signs that immunity disappears quickly. How many times a year are we going to get vaccinated?
A 100% effective shot has never been developed against other coronas, take SARS/MERS/colds. Started, research eventually stopped. SARS and MERS could be effectively combated [because they were too lethal to be successful]. So colds are not for some reason.
Especially for the seasonal illness there must be a market you would say. With nose drops or something, that would lower the threshold. In third world countries, vaccination is also often done with drops (there is no money for a vaccination fetish and well, a drop more or less...). Get three drops for a tenner and you are guaranteed not to get a cold in the coming months – everyone does that, doesn't it?
Make it mandatory then? That will be a problem in NL, that is not possible. The willingness to be vaccinated for a corona shot should therefore suddenly be much higher than for the flu shot. If it becomes clear that both mortality is not that different, I don't see that happening so the population will have to be misled. I therefore think the focus on the horizon "as long as there is no vaccine" is one of the many huge assumption errors that are being made. There are too many uncertainties to count on it so hard.
Should the well-being of the entire population be put at risk for such a shaky promise with snags? Surely that is a question that should be taken on board by those who deal with public health?
ADDITION 22 August 2020:
- People still think that it is a one-time injection, like BMR etc. However, these are annual or even semi-annual vaccination campaigns that everyone should take, not just the vulnerable
- A corona vaccine triggers a well-functioning immune system, so that it can prepare itself for a serious attack by the virus with a high lethality. A well-functioning immune system naturally has sufficient defense against flu and related diseases (the lethality of corona is in the order of a severe flu). However, it is precisely the poorly functioning immune systems, such as in the elderly, that matter.
- It is precisely the vulnerable group that needs to be protected that benefits from a vaccine at most indirectly. But maybe they should not even take the vaccinations. In the first trials, an adverse side effect was also observed: in vaccinated groups, the immune system runs wild more often after a real corona infection. To what extent this is related to other syndromes will still be investigated. That is normally a process of many years.
- It was also recently announced that obese patients can hardly benefit from a vaccine. A significant proportion of the assumed '50% effectiveness' already goes there here and there.
- If you have been vaccinated and you come into contact with the virus, you will become infected, otherwise your immune system will not get to work. Are you also contagious during that period, just as children who do not get sick themselves are also major spreaders? Some studies say that it is precisely then that the infectivity is highest. If so, the vaccine has almost no effect: Active immune systems would clear the virus anyway, dysfunctional ones do not respond well to the vaccine. And also no indirect effect because the contagiousness remains.
With all these uncertainties as potential showstoppers, it is inconceivable that billions are being put on a vaccine, while the HCQ+zinc protocol, with more quantified certainties and hardly any uncertainties, is banned.
We are far from sure if it will help at all. We know for sure that HCQ/zinc does not help in 1% of cases due to known contraindications. HCQ costs less than 0.1% of what vaccination costs.
50% uncertainty on 100% failure may apparently be 100x as expensive as 99% certainty on 1% failure. It's gambler's logic.
The vaccine must be 50% effective to be approved, according to Fauci. If half of the population gets the shot annually, you are at an effectiveness of 25%, and the obese and dysfunctional immune systems still have to get rid of that. Furthermore, vaccinated people are likely to be contagious after an infection and 99.8% of these would also recover spontaneously, assuming an IFR of 0.2%. If 20% make it, as is now the case with the flu shot, you are at an 'effectiveness' of 10%... Does that add anything? What do they actually think they will achieve?
