What will be the end result of our efforts against COVID-19

voted for option 3.

feels like it'll eventually evolve into a flu-type illness that we'll have to get inoculated against at least once per year

That was originally an option I feared, now i look at my state and say "ehh, what's another shot"

herd immunity acquired over several years, 5-6, maybe? no vaccine.

i'm not so pessimistic about the eventual creation of an effective vaccine. it's been a very long time since we've had this kind of coordinated international scientific effort towards solving a single problem.

the main obstacles will come from the logistics of a coordinated inoculation effort. can the drug manufacturers of the world produce enough of the raw materials necessary for the vaccine (glass, sera, etc.) without a shortage or severe supply chain hiccups? will we be able to convince the crazies of the world (well, mostly the u.s. tbh) to get this vaccine and get it immediately?

3 but maaaaaaaybe 2

My gut feeling is that a vaccine effort is eventually successful, because every government in the world (except for the lolUS probably) has every reason to throw as many resources as possible at it.

hopefully we'll have a new administration when it becomes time to actually execute the vaccination plan, but the problem is that we gotta start priming the supply chain far in advance, and idk if jared kushner is quite up to the task tbh

voted "we are all going to die", even though i know it's probably wishful thinking on my part

I mean that is the end result of anything

Where is option for 'rona survivors will slowly realize they've become immortal'

There's a missing option for 'We discover effective drugs, rona stops being that big a deal for countries with access' - which I suspect is the most likely option now. Til then voting for one of the vaccine options.

Other, something like we will develop immunity with many changesin how things are run, some for the better some for the worse with nothing in between.

This covers Europe, North America, East Asia and maybe Japan but not India, Brazil and parts of Latin America.

voted Other, a couple of hundred soi-disant intellectuals will write a sternly-worded letter to the newspapers about the rona and it will disappear in shame

Other. No vaccine but we won't all die, it'll come and go, treatment will become more effective, people shrug their shoulders and get used to it, things pretty much return to normal.

Is 'Other' not-so-secretly the province of UK ILXors?

Leaning towards the third option.

I'm going with 2 even though it seems wildly optimistic right now

a vaccine will take a long time to develop and
a vaccine will take a long time to go through responsible trials and
a vaccine will take a long time to produce and
a vaccine will take a long time to distribute and
there will be setbacks and missteps and
there will be side effects and
a lot of people won't take it and
a lot of people can't take it and
it won't work too well at first and
the disease will probably mutate during the development of the vaccine and
it will be initially available to the wealthy and powerful and
it will be rationed and unavailable to the poor and disenfranchised
there will be a black market and
there will be fraud and price gouging
there will be denialism and suspicion

Getting IA at ppl saying “option x” as tho after all these years they still don’t know that the options will be reordered once poll results are in and your posts will make no sense

optimistically voted "We will develop a vaccine, weakening it, but it still becomes endemic".

yeah. i also hate the 'lots of and research is aimed at this thing! hope is just around the corner!' thinking. no amount of money buys a vaccine faster than science and time can allow it. no amount of vaccine is going to be able to counter idiotic behavior. no vaccine is going to work well enough to do more than reduce the speed of its spread.

like... let's say a covid vaccine's initial efficacy is a super solid 80%, and it can administered to 50% of folks in a given area. that's give/take +40% effect in that area, which is well below the threshold for herd immunity. For comparison, the flu shot is 10-60% effective, and about 45% of the US population gets it annually, for an effect of +5% to +30%. (this is what my partner, who studies public health, explains to me). it's never going away.

Getting IA at ppl saying “option x” as tho after all these years they still don’t know that the options will be reordered once poll results are in and your posts will make no sense

― Rishi don’t lose my voucher (wins), Friday, July 10, 2020 1:53 PM (fifteen minutes ago)

^^

1. We get to herd immunity due to death, RONA GONE
2. We will successfully develop a vaccine, RONA EVENTUALLY GONE
3. We will develop a vaccine, weakening it, but it still becomes endemic.
4. We won't develop a vaccine, and it becomes endemic, with millions of deaths worldwide
5. The problem is solved in some countries, others (like the US) are permanently ruined
6. Life as we know it is forever changed - socializing a relic of the past.
7. We are all going to die.
8. We are all going to die except specific user such as imago
9. Other

I voted for #5, btw

yeah. i also hate the 'lots of and research is aimed at this thing! hope is just around the corner!' thinking. no amount of money buys a vaccine faster than science and time can allow it. no amount of vaccine is going to be able to counter idiotic behavior. no vaccine is going to work well enough to do more than reduce the speed of its spread.

like... let's say a covid vaccine's initial efficacy is a super solid 80%, and it can administered to 50% of folks in a given area. that's give/take +40% effect in that area, which is well below the threshold for herd immunity. For comparison, the flu shot is 10-60% effective, and about 45% of the US population gets it annually, for an effect of +5% to +30%. (this is what my partner, who studies public health, explains to me). it's never going away.

― rb (soda), Friday, July 10, 2020 9:08 AM (thirty-four minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

this sounds a lot like "We will develop a vaccine, weakening it, but it still becomes endemic." i don't really see anyone saying "hope is around the corner."

Tuberculosis, measles and polio have never gone away either but we don't worry about them either. My timeline is full of people going "don't you understand, we are NEVER going back to normal" and these people aren't really any more knowledgeable than the "coast is clear, all get down the pub" crew. It's all fronting, none of us know enough about this virus, but the guy giving it the full apocalyptic spiel gets to feel smarter.

Like nearly every disease except smallpox it will probably continue circulating indefinitely but as a species we will never be as susceptible to it as we were this year, and we will never know less about it than we did in the first few months of this year. Even comparing it to flu is misleading because flu mutates quickly and regularly, this specific virus appears to be mutating pretty slowly.

this specific virus appears to be mutating pretty slowly

…which increases the likelihood of developing an effective vaccine, does it not?

given that this is brutally wounding the economy it feels like we're gonna throw as much resources as it takes at it which is what gives me some hope

a lot of people seem to be pessimistic about the effectiveness and duration of covid antibodies, which is why i thought it would require more than one inoculation.

A jab every year is not much of an inconvenience compared to, say, the complete suspension of economic and social life for months on end.

There will eventually be a successful vaccine, a permanently ruined US sounds highly appealing, it's good that specific user imago will live long and prosper, but regardless we're all going to die.

A jab every year is not much of an inconvenience compared to, say, the complete suspension of economic and social life for months on end.

― Matt DC, Friday, July 10, 2020 9:57 AM (two minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

or is that what bill gates wants you to think?

Tuberculosis, measles and polio have never gone away either but we don't worry about them either. My timeline is full of people going "don't you understand, we are NEVER going back to normal" and these people aren't really any more knowledgeable than the "coast is clear, all get down the pub" crew. It's all fronting, none of us know enough about this virus, but the guy giving it the full apocalyptic spiel gets to feel smarter.

Like nearly every disease except smallpox it will probably continue circulating indefinitely but as a species we will never be as susceptible to it as we were this year, and we will never know less about it than we did in the first few months of this year. Even comparing it to flu is misleading because flu mutates quickly and regularly, this specific virus appears to be mutating pretty slowly.

― Matt DC, Friday, July 10, 2020 10:49 AM (sixteen minutes ago)

Yeah, but ... Matt, we don't worry about tuberculosis, measles and polio because of decades of robust vaccines and research, pro-vaccine public health campaigns, and the relative wealth in the West increasing the quality of therapies lowering the likelihood of infection – at least in US/Europe. But that's really head-in-the-sand thinking. All of these diseases are resurgent in poorer parts of the world, and they're likely to increase their toehold. Environmental changes and spillover due to habitat loss are only going to facilitate zoonotic transfer. Even if we get C19 under control, there's a lot more around the corner.

I'm not 'fronting' and nobody's giving 'a full apocolyptic spiel' in saying that the virus is here to stay, and others like it are coming afterward. Maybe that's happening on your timeline, but it's certainly not happening here. Wealthy westerners lived, until now, in a nice little glimmering castle where we didn't think about epidemiology until C19 lobbed an existential threat over the parapets like a diseased cow. Integrating this information is part new order of things, and holding out for a vaccine-as-salvation is going to lead to a lot of disappointment. To my mind, if people under/overreact, as long as they're not endangering other, it's no big deal. We're all traumatized by this, and processing it in our own ways.

* increasing the quality of therapies AND lowering and the likelihood of infection

Measles especially is coming back because of anti-Vanz dipshits pedalling dangerous anti science bullshit so that herd immunity is compromised. These lunatics are putting children at risk of painful disease, long term health issue and death.

Any vaccination campaign against the rona is already compromised by these evil arseholes.

Even if we had a highly effective vaccine The fact that a significant chunk of people wouldn’t get vaccinated would severely compromise its effectiveness

a significant chunk of people wouldn’t get vaccinated would severely compromise its effectiveness

If the vaccine is effective, at least it would be effective for anyone who is vaccinated. Of course, it would continue to circulate among the unvaccinated for the foreseeable future, and not all of the unvaccinated people would be anti-vaxxers.

I think there will definitely eventually be a vaccine, the question is will it be a yearly endemic thing or a once in a lifetime thing

If the vaccine is effective, at least it would be effective for anyone who is vaccinated.

c'mon, a vaccine is not an on-off switch for folks who receives it. many people, even if vaccinated, will not receive immunity from a vaccine. and if they do receive immunity, it might not be all that durable. plus, many people cannot receive a vaccine at all. the purpose of a vaccine is to protect a population, not an individual.

Agreed the reason the measles, polio and othe vaccines are effective is not because the vaccine confers total immunity on people but because most people are a lot more immune than they were and so there’s a lot less disease out there.

Plus there will be people who can’t be vaccinated due to allergies, immune system issues, side effects etc. Who are protected because the bulk of us are vaccinated. This is one of many reasons why anti-vaxxers are evil, Selfish mothefuckers.

Or if you wanted it on a selfish and personal level, just because you get vaccinated it doesn’t mean that some selfish arsehole who won’t take basic precautions won’t give you a dose of the rona.

the purpose of a vaccine is to protect a population, not an individual.

these are not separable. a population is protected by protecting many individuals. the individual protections given by a vaccine, when aggregated, extends to those without immunity, but imperfectly compared to those with immunity.

if they do receive immunity, it might not be all that durable. plus, many people cannot receive a vaccine at all.

immunity which is not durable is still immunity for a time, which I would consider a desirable effect. uh, those people who cannot be vaccinated don't fall under the category of "people who are vaccinated". I don't see where I tried to say anything different than you.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

hmm, i guess a possibility i didn't consider is that the administration would rush order a vaccine and promote it without FDA approval

https://www.mediaite.com/news/treasury-secretary-mnuchin-says-covid-vaccine-will-be-ready-for-emergency-use-by-end-of-2020/

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Who knew that a country founded on genocide, slavery, and unbridled human greed would end so horribly? Those purple mountains were nice, though.

— Dennis Perrin (@DennisThePerrin) July 24, 2020