1918

I mentioned this a while back in a different thread but I found Adorno’s writing on irrationalism really instructive on how to think about this - the tl;dr; of it comes down to : “Many people want a clear guide on how to live their lives and realize that religion fails as an everyday practical guide. However, science has too many nuances to give the clear answers that people need, so they gravitate towards people and ideas that fill this void and gives them a ‘truth’ to center their daily lives around.”

1919

Is Chris Christie the only WH-related infected person (besides the big cheese himself) that was hospitalized so far?

1920

I don’t believe Javanka have made any public appearances. For all anyone knows they are both on ventilators.

1921

Unfortunately he was released over the weekend. I know it’s wrong, but I’d like all these rule breakers to sit on ventilators for 4-6 weeks.

1922

Is Donald Trump immune? Discussion on This Week in Virology. TLDR: Very likely his immunity wears off in 20 days. Also very likely his antibody treatment was incredibly helpful because he was able to get it before his own body had ANY natural antibody response, it hadn’t even started fighting off the virus.

1923

Is it safe to say that any normal plebe would not have been tested so often and therefore would likely never receive the benefit of the super-early antibody treatment?

1924

If you’re not a good friend of the president of the company and you’re not in the clinical trial, chances aren’t very good that you’re going to get that therapy until it’s approved by the FDA.

1925

If getting the disease does not make you immune long-term, how does a vaccine work? I take it they don’t work the same way?

1926

So, suggest you listen to the first part of the podcast for the full explanation, but here’s the Cliff’s notes:

If you’re in the beginning stages of viral infection and your body has not yet mounted an immune response, and you get this antibody cocktail, it binds up all the virus for you. Because of this, your body doesn’t have to mount its own immune response - this is a good think if you’re an old fat fuck with tons of preexisting conditions, as the virus isn’t what kills you, but your own body generating the wrong defense.

Trump dodged having to fight off the virus, just like he dodged the draft. The problem is that he’s got no combat experience, so if he’s exposed to the virus in the next few months, his immune system (much like his brain) is still naive.

The rest of us are forced to actually go fight in the war, so we gain that experience we need to fight back. This really has nothing to do with vaccines - getting these premade antibodies is like borrowing someone else’s for a brief period, but that protection decays over time.

1927

Thank you for the summary. I wasn’t sure I could listen to that long podcast this late on a Sunday night.

1928

Thank you for the explanation, that makes sense, but I keep hearing that people who beat it without experimental drugs, are also not immune. Normal people have got it twice. If they are not immune, why would a vaccine work?

I should probably listen tot he podcast. :-)

1929

Vaccines will work for a while, you’ll prob need yearly boosters. Vaccines also use the virus to generate a response, which is probably more effective than what they gave Trump.

1930

Vaccines will not be providing full immunity. What we’d hope to see in a vaccine is something like an 80% effectiveness, to establish herd immunity. A 50% effective vaccine would be useful. A >99% effective one is just a pipedream.

Reinfections appear to be very rare: we have 40M confirmed cases of Covid and a handful of confirmed reinfections. I.e. even given the reinfections, the efficiency of the immune system appears to be much, much better than what we can hope a vaccine to provide.

1931

If a vaccine does not mean the end of social distancing/masking within a few months/no one will risk it. I’m convinced Americans (and many Europeans) will not accept a long-term future where you have to mask up everytime you go outside. We’ll collectively just take our chances. If there’s no immediate benefit to how you live from the vaccine, folks will think it’s worthless.

I’d argue when you do have a vaccine out, to hope for the best, and try to get herd immunity through a combination of vaccine+ people getting it. The risk there is people with the vaccine will get it, which might scare folks off the vaccine. (Herd immunity without a vaccine is insane)

There’s also a hard limit on how long people will accept these restrictions, and we’ll have reached it by this point.

One thing I’m curious about- could taking two different vaccines provide a more effective protection? Won’t work for 2021 , but maybe by 2024 or so you could get a cocktail of vaccines and that might work 95%.

1932

So you know the flu vaccine is not expected to give you a year’s worth of protection right? So when you say yearly boost… what vaccine are you having in mind when you say that?

1933

Many other vaccines like MMR you have to take every 10 years.

Also you’re assuming rationality here. Folks are going to believe the COVID vaccine is dangerous, because it’s a new vaccine. Folks aren’t going to see the benefits as easily, especially if there are no societal benefits like ending masking/social distancing.

You might be able to get away with tying it to a very high level of vaccination rate, which would be the policy I’d pursue, I’d say restrictions stay in place until we’ve done say vaccinations=80% of the population.

Realistically, it’s worth it to vaccinate even if the vaccine is dangerous. Even a 60% lower shot of getting COVID is worth a .25% shot of dying, and those are extreme numbers on either end.

1934

I’m not assuming anything. I asked you a single question because I just wanted to know if you understood the annual flu shot is not a booster shot. I’m also making sure that’s the shot you’re trying to compare for since I am not aware of another annual one aside say maybe pneumonia.

1935

This is not a “risk”, it’s something that’s virtually guaranteed to happen. But people take flu shots even if they’re only about 40-60% effective depending on the year.

What I’d expect to happen is that schools, universities and workplaces will require a vaccination. That will let them ease up on restrictions on their premises, and start building up the herd immunity for society as a whole.

1936

Either way, COVID is an annual shot. What we’re uncertain of is whether COVID vaccine means if the vaccine does fail and you get COVID, whether you get a weaker case of COVID (given the evidence around masking causing a higher shot of asymptommatic, I’d expect it to be likely that vaccinated folks would get weaker COVID infections if they did get them, and even if this is untrue, I’d probably say it to encourage vaccination).

The thing is, you ease up the restrictions too fast/early, you get an outbreak, even among some vaccinated folks, and then you might get folks saying vaccination failed. That’s a fear of mine as well.

However, if you don’t improve things, people will think there’s no benefit to vaccination, or that it’s not worth the risk.

1937

Can we just agree there are a lot of things we don’t know, and will not know until the phase 3 trials have been running for a while re:

  1. Sterilizing immunity vs disease prevention

  2. Effectiveness of 1

  3. Need for additional “booster shots” at some unknown interval

  4. If herd immunity is even possible with a vaccine. Some vaccines don’t provide herd immunity. See 1 for details.

Until we have data it’s just speculation / masterbation.