Way out without vaccine

[Dolciedolly]

Just interested what people think would have been the exit strategy if we didn't get a vaccine ?

Mmm totalitarian state?

The mind boggles. I remember saying to someone just before the first lockdown that the scientists would find a solution to this. She was skeptical, but I was right ( for once)
It's a good job they did. Not sure what we would do otherwise really ? Just have to let it rip I suppose? I've no idea.

I'm not sure we have a vaccine yet... what I mean is, we don't know how long immunity will persist for after jab. There's talk of annual boosters, but can you imagine equal size vaccination campaigns happening for everyone each & every year? It would become its own huge exercise. It's only succeeding so well now because of enormous amounts of volunteering. Not sustainable long term.

Anyway, given the strong suppression (lockdown etc. measures) I guess we would have persisted with those same lockdown measures for 3-5 years rather than the likely actual 1.5-2 yrs -- before there was widespread circulation, immune systems being retriggered due to repeat exposures, lots of asymptomatic infection, a tiny minority still dying. The most common prediction of future seems to be 'it will become another version of common cold': that benign impact status quo could take 10 yrs to get to, though, when C19 is as harmless as common cold because everyone will have been exposed repeatedly & built up sufficient resistance to responding with severe illness.

What I'm curious about is - won't the first people to have the jab start losing immunity by the time the youngest/least vulnerable have the jab?

Will it have to be an ongoing rolling programming of renewing vaccines to work?

I guess we'd all have to accept we catch it, more die, more get long covid, and then possibly go around in circles again and again if antibodies wear off. We'd sure get the point where the government really couldn't give a toss everything everywhere would be a complete mess which would take decades to sort.

I'm just pleased it's not an antibiotic resistant disease of some kind. At least the scientists have bailed us out ( for now)

Many diseases don't have vaccines but over time we develop much better treatment options and they wane. Bubonic plague, leprosy.

It would have burned itself out like the Spanish Flu.

You don’t need to imagine a way out without a vaccine because we have more than one vaccine. There may be some tweaking required but the virus will be beaten eventually. Science wins.

@the80sweregreat

I'm just pleased it's not an antibiotic resistant disease of some kind. At least the scientists have bailed us out ( for now)

Yes! Watch out for the next antibiotic resistant super bug. Covid will be a kitten compared to a lion.

I don’t think lockdown for 3-5 years would have been a viable option.

Divert huge amounts of money in to the healthcare system, bring in the army where necessary.
It wouldn’t have been pretty.

Hopefully shit hot infection control for care homes and improve this area in hospitals. Special Covid hospitals? Better treatments.

Most pandemics in history have been ended in a few years in terms of huge death rates.

I'm worried about a bacterial pandemic. We have antibiotics , but would they work ?
Best not to dwell on it too much.
It

I think it would have faded away to become endemic like other coronaviruses. The more people who caught it, the more of a reservoir of immunity there would be.

People would have got wise to the fact that we can't live like this to try and outwit a virus which does not make the vast majority of people who catch it very ill.

Plus treatments would have improved. Hopefully people would have got the message that being fit and eating properly actually does your immune system the world of good.

So they use antibiotics to treat Covid?

I didn't think they did ...

@the80sweregreat

I'm just pleased it's not an antibiotic resistant disease of some kind. At least the scientists have bailed us out ( for now)

Hospitals and healthcare systems are really going to have to get back to the type of cleaning and hygiene regimes we saw before we relied on antibiotics to bail us out. And ventilation too of course.

@Dustyboots

So they use antibiotics to treat Covid?

I didn't think they did ...

A friend of mine has a partner who is on a ventilator , he had covid ( long story) and still in hospital. He has had antibiotics and steroids. He is currently covid free , but still very poorly. He nearly died , it's a miracle really that he is fighting on.

Most pandemics in history have been ended in a few years in terms of huge death rates.

But we didn't allow that to happen this time, the decision was made to no matter what not let huge death rates happen this time. So severe restrictive control measures would have had to continue. That was the policy decision: that the severe restrictions were the way to go. This means that 'burning out' would have taken much longer because herd immunity from wild infections could not be reached quickly. Such strong suppression of spread that is like nothing that ever happened in human history previously to stop a very contagious disease.

Antibiotics are used to prevent secondary bacteria infections that follow when Covid otherwise causes the lungs to shut down. Adam Rutherford on Twitter talked about the fun (not) of secondary pneumonia from covid. You read about huge cocktails of drugs given to covid patients in hospital, lots of antibiotics & anti-parasitic drugs. No one knows if they help, but the desire is desperate enough to try them anyway. Giving all the unproven drugs is also considered acceptable now.

Cleaning isn't seen as a priority ( according to a nurse that I was talking to a few years ago now)
Its been overlooked too much by governments wanting to save a few bob sadly enough .

There are people who think we should have ' let it rip'
Even our PM said no ( eventually) !
I don't know , what was the best options?
It's a big debate.

ps: and before you say 120k deaths in UK is "huge", recall that Spanish flu killed 228k people in Britain, when total British population was about 36-37 million, so we'd need about 500k deaths (today) from covid to exceed how huge Spanish flu was.

Note: Spanish flu mostly killed young people, so in terms of years of life lost, it was arguably hugely much worse than covid.

It would have spread until we reached herd immunity. A LOT more people would have died. Eventually it would mutate and people would probably catch it again. Until it either mutated into something so serious that it killed us all, or something so mild that we weren’t bothered about it. Some of the flu bugs floating around now are descendants of the Spanish Flu but they’re nowhere near as lethal.

Just interested what people think would have been the exit strategy if we didn't get a vaccine ?

Natural selection.
Most susceptible would have been infected at some point within the next 2-3 years. A substancial number would have died, with inevitable reduction in life expectancy (I think it has already reduced, btw). Decimated families. Masks, distancing and restrictions on personal contact for a few years, if not decades. It depends on how long the immunity would last for, and how many variants would appear in high transmission settings.
An even bigger economic crisis.

But this is just my point of view as a biologist.

Actually I am a bit more positive - I think one of these brilliant treatments they’re studying will come through, and massively reduce not only the death rate but also the recovery time of those very unwell. Not as good as a vaccine or course but would hopefully be enough to prevent the NHS being overwhelmed and the death rate being too dreadful.

One example is the one in Israel, albeit a small sample size.

It was the policy decision because we thought they’d be a vaccine. Without a vaccine you change strategy. But yes the lockdowns would have dragged this out longer.

@Lordamighty

You don’t need to imagine a way out without a vaccine because we have more than one vaccine. There may be some tweaking required but the virus will be beaten eventually. Science wins.

Agree .

I imagine there will be yearly booster vaccinations tweaked according to known mutations like the flu.

And once supply of vaccine is no longer a concern you will probably be able to pay to get it done at your local pharmacy, as younger people can now who don't meet NHS specs for flu jab .