So what's the plan if we don't get a vaccine?

[zafferana]

All this 'Covid-safe' planning for reopening businesses, schools, etc presupposes that this is temporary and that we'll have a vaccine before long and can then go back to life as normal.

I bloody hope that's the case, but what happens if we never get one, as some scientists say is likely? When will we just accept the risk and get on with life again? And how many of us would say 'Right now', if asked that question. I think I would.

Ah, well I respect your desire to do that, fair enough. We have been shielding and we would prob need to build an extension into which I would retreat with my Kindle

@herecomesthsun

Ah, well I respect your desire to do that, fair enough. We have been shielding and we would prob need to build an extension into which I would retreat with my Kindle

😂 Love your reply! Can I come?

I’m still hopeful that scientists and doctors will save the day, it’s been 5/6 months of research, in 5/6 months things will look brighter.

I’m not throwing in the town and going down the karaoke bar just yet.

Society as a whole is going to have to decide how it looks after the 3% who are exceptionally clinIcally vulnerable

Including all those who get their new cancer diagnosis this year

I was reading a paper yesterday that says that it appears that a fair few people are catching it despite the new measures but as a result of the new measures (and especially masks) the dose people are being infected by is mush smaller and that seems to cause them to have fewer and often no symptoms.

In some ways we are slowly vaccinating our population with these measures. It is too slow to be ideal but it does give hope that we can gt through this without as many deaths and sequela as feared

Well, there are three groups really.

Those who are temporarily vulnerable. They just have to be careful.

Those who don't know they are vulnerable.

And those who will always be vulnerable.

The later two will always need to be careful. Even if a vaccine isn't a silver bullet, it may reduce symptoms.

Plus there are more treatments.

If all else fails, you have to die of something.

We learn to live with it as our forebears lived with tb, polio and other diseases that anti-biotics now prevent. Life cannot stay on hold.

That does not apply for the exceptionally clinically vulnerable though, does it?

About 10% of those in that group atrvthisebluvingveith blood cancer (remember that’s the commonest group of childhood cancers).

If we are hospitalalised, 36% of us die (source: The Lancet)

It simply isn’t safe to put us through the disease.

And it is heartless to just write us off as not ‘as many deaths and sequelae as we feared‘

Please remember that you’re saying these things in front of the very people who you’re happy to write off for the greater good.

(Not just Boris channelling the inner Farquad)

Me too!

I am absolutely all in favour of working towards a vaccine and I am celebrating the benefits it brings to everyone including the vulnerable from a population with increasing immunity - I am not writing anyone off or making any recommendations that would, just repeating what appear to be positive observations.

I wear my mask, I wash my hands often and well, I distance from others and I avoid indoor interaction as much as possible because I care about the very vulnerable, it isn't for my own sake that is for sure.

There will be a vaccine. In the meantime we have to keep transmission rates as low as possible to manage infections whilst trying to get on with life.

It will basically be survival of the fittest

We didnt really learn to live with tb/polio etc. We died of them. Or had long term disabilities as a result.

Personally I am mid twenties and healthy, the risk to me is low. I dont really feel its my place to say whether Im happy to accept the risk or not, because its not me whose at risk. Its asking a lot of someone who is vunerable to basically accept that they might die.

Oddboots can you post a link to that paper? I wondered if something like this would happen.... and it would be great to share.

I am in the clinically vulnerable group (shielding letter etc) and I don’t think there will be a vaccine. I have been wearing a mask and getting out and about and basically just crossing everything that I don’t get it. I’m not prepared to shut myself away potentially forever. It’s no life for anyone. I think we will just all have to stop going on about it and it will become like a bad version of the flu.

And by that I mean accept that some people will die of it.

There will be a vaccine. There will also be better therapeutics before that or along side that. We know FAR more about this disease than we did in March. This is an unprecedented global scientific effort.

@napody

Oddboots can you post a link to that paper? I wondered if something like this would happen.... and it would be great to share.

This one is the one I was thinking of. I do know it is far too early to be sure about anything yet of course, it is all so early. had some interesting related discussion too

There is going to be a vaccine.

The Government plan seems to be to trash our economy, education system and cultural life and watch suicides and deaths from other treatable illnesses go up and up - but hey, we should be grateful because we haven’t died of Covid.

@DishRanAwayWithTheSpoon

It will basically be survival of the fittest

We didnt really learn to live with tb/polio etc. We died of them. Or had long term disabilities as a result.

Personally I am mid twenties and healthy, the risk to me is low. I dont really feel its my place to say whether Im happy to accept the risk or not, because its not me whose at risk. Its asking a lot of someone who is vunerable to basically accept that they might die.

People didn’t necessarily learn to live with TB, certainly, though for the majority polio was neither disabling nor fatal. Even smallpox didn’t kill everyone. What people grew up living with was the risk of deadly disease, which is what we’ll have to learn to do if there isn’t a vaccine. I don’t think the whole world will stop/restrict living forever because of Covid. It’s human nature.

There will be a vaccine.

You don't know that and even if there is it could be years away. After all, there's still no vaccine for SARS and that appeared in 2002.

Yes @OddBoots I've read various bits recently that are saying that young people, in particular, who are the ones getting it most frequently now, are slowly but surely contributing to herd immunity. TBH, I think that's our best bet - let the young and healthy get it in order to provide a healthy buffer around the vulnerable. It's the ones who don't know they're vulnerable that are at most risk, not those that do.

I wouldn't go back to normal in the run up to traditional winter pressures season. If it goes badly, well, we'll find out quickly.

See how winter goes and reassess in March would be my bet.

I really think there will be a vaccine

I haven’t got to what if not yet

@iVampire

Society as a whole is going to have to decide how it looks after the 3% who are exceptionally clinIcally vulnerable

Including all those who get their new cancer diagnosis this year

This!

And I say that as someone with numerous health issues and a rare genetic condition that no-one can tell me if it makes me vulnerable. My mum died of sepsis, my brother died of pneumonia, and both were healthy and well only a couple of days before they died - that taught me that random illness can strike at any time, and I don’t intend to spend the rest of my life hiding away.

You can't really compare it to SARS, that was contained quickly with minimal disruption so there was no need to develop a vaccine.