What’s the point of vaccinations when still nothing is deemed ‘safe’?

[katieloves]

Just really struggling with this. We’re doing an amazing job and have so far vaccinated the people most likely to succumb to coronavirus and are cracking on with the people less vulnerable. But still it seems all news is bad and no end in sight. Looks likely that we’ll be lucky if only the youngest get back to school from the 8th and not much chance of secondary schools back until after Easter. It just doesn’t make sense to me at all. Most DC are struggling now - their lives are on hold (I appreciate some dc are thriving with home learning but this is not true for any of the dc I know). Motivation for is on a fine line and who can blame them? But apparently school’s not ‘safe’ even though the most vulnerable are vaccinated. People saying we’ll be back to where we were before lockdown if schools go back in full and hospitals will be overwhelmed. Why??? We’ve vaccinated the most vulnerable. I’m honestly loosing the will.

people on this thread have been arguing that we treat it as just another virus, after we have vaccinated everybody.

Some people are, including you, others are saying well we've done the vulnerable so fuck it let's rock.

I mean that's literally the op, isn't it?

Is Japan going to say, re Peru or re the UK, well it's not really their fault and I'm sure they're nice people so let's crack on and let them have a slice of what's going on here? Of course not.

No, they’re going to say “we’ve vaccinated everybody now so we don’t consider this anywhere near as serious a threat as we did a year ago, why would we wall ourselves off from the world forever?”

@horridhorrid

The most vulnerable have had their first dose. It will be a good few weeks yet before they have all had their second and their immune systems have properly kicked in.

There is a light at the end of the tunnel, but if we ease restrictions too soon, it might turn out to be the lights of an oncoming train.

I can cope with that, sounds very se Sible. But there seems to be an attitude that nothing with ease in the next few months at all. Which imo is madness.

Like I say, I guess it depends on how the mutations go and the interaction between them and vaccines.

Also, it's not walling yourself off from the world. Quite a lot of the world is doing ok now re covid. None of them English speaking I appreciate.

Would you like to see a world in which countries like Peru are cut off from most of the globe for the long term?

I'm not sure most would be bothered about Peru, GoldenOmber - many probably couldn't even find it on a map - but the position could be a bit different with countries where movement between theirs and ours is more politically sensitive

As we see on here, it's hard enough to discuss vaccine uptake among other nationalities in the UK, so what'll happen with whole nations is anyone's guess

I'm not sure most would be bothered about Peru, GoldenOmber - many probably couldn't even find it on a map

I think that’s probably true, yes. I am a bit worried to see many people pushing for what will in practice look like ‘rich countries with vaccines get to travel, developing world gets shut off from the lot of them.’

If you're including me in the 'people pushing' for this, please don't. I'm just observing. I think it's pretty terrible. But it's feasible. And I'm angry that our government is so shit that it's a consideration for us.

Not you as an individual - I doubt any of us as individuals have much say. But groups and particularly prominent individuals that are pushing for 'zero covid' as a long-term strategy rather than a short-term emergency measure until vaccines are rolled out.

I am also angry that our government are this shit, but I think they'd be only compounding the shitness if they decided to restrict international travel indefinitely and keep smaller lockdowns and legally required isolation in place forever even after vaccines have changed the game.

Sure. But it's an understandable policy. Having spent lots of time and money sorting it out, governments don't want their populations and economies put at risk which they will potentially be if they let in people from places where it spreads and mutates.

I'm not saying it's right or moral. It's just pragmatic.

And we need to be mindful of this. I'm pretty sure that's why even our slack arsed government put a lot of effort into containing the mutations here, because anywhere that's got them will continue to be country non grata.

Somewhere I don’t think your path is viable. Can you link to an article where say, Aus, is considering this?

I know the WHO talk about how they will need to reintegrate and deal with cross to non zero Covid.

To an extent I agree, though that extent is that all over 18 are offered the vaccine.
Thereafter, yes, we do all have to learn to live with it (variants that we cannot surprise - eg that affect young children - notwithstanding)
In the meantime. we do have to continue to be cautious or risk throwing our collective sacrifices away.

Suppress, not surprise

I think it will be cautiously easing for the next 3 months by which time the top 9 groups should have had the first vaccine and the top 4 both. Hopefully from then on we can get a bit more back to normal a bit faster

Sure. But it's an understandable policy.

I don't think it is, long term. It requires authoritarian public health measures (even if they're described as 'short, sharp, local lockdowns rather than long national lockdowns', they're still lockdowns) continued indefinitely, severe restrictions on international travel, a lot of money put into a continued mass testing system.

When we're dealing with a pandemic that we don't have vaccines for, I think all that is warranted, but when we're dealing with an endemic disease that we do have vaccines for, why would this be appropriate? We don't treat TB, measles, polio, HIV, anything else like this, even though we don't want any cases of those in the country either, and we don't have a massively effective vaccine for TB and we don't have any vaccine for HIV. Would the argument be that covid has a higher fatality rate than any of them? Surely not? Or that mutations are more worrying from covid than from the others, in a world where antibiotic-resistant TB is already a worry?

@chickadeeeeeeeee

In 2022! Not staying in until then are we?

Where did you get 2022 from? Every adult will be offered their first dose by autumn.

I am a bit worried to see many people pushing for what will in practice look like ‘rich countries with vaccines get to travel, developing world gets shut off from the lot of them'

So am I, and in light of MN's usual concern for developing countries and disadvantaged people I've asked about this kind of thing many times ... only strangely, there's rarely an answer

1– most people haven’t been vaccinated. They’ve been given one dose only

2- atm we know still very. Little on the impact of vaccination to the pandemic. How contagious people still are if they’ve had the vaccine or how much it protects you from all forms of the illness. Not just the mild form.

3- with the new variant you need to get more than 60% of the population vaccinated. Which we haven’t reached...

That’s why you can’t say that it’s ok to just stop being careful.
I think bigging up the vaccine wasn’t a good choice tbh.

@MarshaBradyo it's not my path. I live in the UK therefore would be adversely affected by any such policies. But given that high infection rates seem to lead to mutations, I think it's blinkered to not consider the potential international ramifications of easing restrictions too soon and thus allowing further mutations, especially at a time when we're increasingly isolated.

I mean, who are our friends? Obviously not Europe. The USA, which increasingly looks like the last century of the Roman Empire and becomes more of a basketcase daily. China? No. They'd fuck us over soon as look at us. The gulf states? Potentially would throw us crumbs but we need to sort ourselves the fuck out.

@ParadiseIsland

1– most people haven’t been vaccinated. They’ve been given one dose only

2- atm we know still very. Little on the impact of vaccination to the pandemic. How contagious people still are if they’ve had the vaccine or how much it protects you from all forms of the illness. Not just the mild form.

3- with the new variant you need to get more than 60% of the population vaccinated. Which we haven’t reached...

That’s why you can’t say that it’s ok to just stop being careful.
I think bigging up the vaccine wasn’t a good choice tbh.

One dose provides a lot of protection for both the AZ and Pfizer vaccines, and we do in fact know a lot about the impact of vaccinations on protecting from severe illness and even on how much they reduce transmission.

It's a good thing the government messaging around the polio vaccine wasn't this deliberately pessimistic, or we'd still have kids in iron lungs now because half the population would refuse to believe it was any use.

It doesn’t make any sense, they are full of shit. If the vaccine doesn’t get us back to normal without delay what’s the point.

Somewhere I’ve only heard you talk about a situation where we have a divided world for a much longer time. Ie even after vaccination programmes have occurred.

Can you cite anywhere / anyone who is proposing this?

I’m not even saying we should rush the next month. It will likely be a slow lifting of restrictions.

But I haven’t seen anywhere that talks about keeping borders closed long term, eg years. You say Aus will? But I can’t find any viewpoint from quoted government there that backs that up. Can you

I don't understand it either if restrictions staying why even bother vaccinations pointless

@minipie

the reason we need to be patient is because the time of highest risk for vaccine-evading variants is as you move towards high numbers of vaccinated people (we are not yet half way through)

interesting - why is that?

Also, doesn’t this mean vaccine evading variants remain a big risk throughout the vaccinat programme and even after everyone is vaccinated? (Seeing as there will always be some unvaccinated, in this country or elsewhere).

If not - how long until this particularly risky phase has passed?

Apparently the highest risk is as you move from some vaccinated people to most people vaccinated.

When the majority are not vaccinated variants can spread easily without needing to evade the vaccine.
When most people are vaccinated, spread is inhibited so mutation is less frequent.
In between these two points is a period where any vaccine-evading variants will have a natural advantage and there is still enough spread to get a lot of different mutations.

We are really on a good path now, we just need to not fuck up!